Barry (2018-): Season 2

Title: Barry

Year: 2019

Genre:  Action  | Comedy | Crime  |

Seasons: 1 | 2 | 3 |

Runtime:  30 min

Creator: Alex Berg & Bill Hader

Starring: Bill Hader, Herny Winkler, Sarah Goldberg

8.4/10

Barry follows Barry Berkman, a U.S. Marine and Afghanistan veteran from Cleveland, who works as a hitman. Lonely and dissatisfied with life, he travels to Los Angeles to kill a target and finds a new sense of purpose when he joins a class full of aspiring actors. Despite his efforts to leave behind his criminal history and become an actor himself, he struggles to escape his dark past.

A SURPRISINGLY GOOD FOLLOW-UP

Season 2 of Barry follows a similar pattern but, in this season, it’s only bigger and everyone goes on their own path. Barry has taken a step forward away from Monroe Fuches, whom he believes is the main reason why people still get killed on his hand. Sally gets a new push in her career and it’s not always good in her and Barry’s unstable relationship. Sally’s past comes up to the surface, revealing her abusive husband that she wants to reveal in a play. Barry still tries to live a double life. There’s a lot of stuff happening with Noho Hanks who teams up with a Bolivian gangster to take down another boss. There’s far more development in this series. A lot of side characters and some weird stuff that happens in this black comedy essence.

As predicted, Barry does now try to emulate acting teacher Gene’s role when he’s gone from class. Ironically, at first, Barry didn’t want to become an actor and now he does everything to keep it as it once was. It’s called character development.  The writer always tries here to come up with lame excuses to keep him to kill people who don’t deserve it and staying in an acting class that he doesn’t care about. This assessment of writing comes to fruition later. Barry seems often does not to have an end goal, mostly criticising and satire everything that’s near him. The acting class scenes take a bigger part in this series and the clues and questions from last season get answered in this one.

What I love about this season is that it goes on deeper into the absurd and complex world of Barry in Los Angeles blending both comedy and drama. Many interesting things happen in this season. Few series have reminded me of Dexter in his attempts to hide his true self. The comedy is still good in this season even into the end. With this series, more tolerance of the story is created. This season does in the end becomes more explored, with more stories for the side characters and Monroe Fuches seems to never be able to leave Los Angeles.  Still fun and thrilling with a few surprises along the way.