I just wrapped up my viewing of Barry season 4. This was the comedy on
HBO about a professional hit man played by Bill Hader. The show featured
a fine performance from Henry Winkler as Gene Cousineau, the disgraced
actor who became an acting teacher with massive ego. He won an Emmy for
season 1 and was nominated twice more.

I've almost forgiven The Fonz for Eddie R. Lawson on Royal Pains, but
not quite.

Hader created the show with Alec Berg. Both men wrote and directed.
Hader largely directed season 4, plus episodes in earlier seasons.

Season 3 ended with Cousineau and Jim Moss (Robert Wisdom), father of
Janet, Cousineau's girlfriend who was murdered by Barry in season 2,
setting up Barry for a felony so he could be arrested and sent to state
prison. I thought it was a strong ending for the season, and Cousineau
was key to the setup, using acting to manipulate Barry.

But season 4 opened with Barry in prison and they really didn't do much
with it except help to increase Barry's isolation. He and Fuches
(Stephen Root) sort of work out their differences.

Because the series has to end, NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan) is tricked
by Fuches into helping Barry escape from prison. He then goes into
hiding with his ex-girlfriend Sally Reed (Sarah Goldberg), who life
turned to shit in season 3 after she threatened someone on video and it
went viral. In kind of a stupid twist because PLOT, she ended up
murdering someone at the end of season 3.

For several episodes, there were scenes of two boys interacting in a
barely populated rural area. We're supposed to think it's some sort of
metaphor or possibly Barry himself in an imaginery backstory, but it
turns out to be the son of Barry and Sally in hiding after 8 years.

Terrified Cousineau, thinking Barry will come after him (Barry doesn't
intend to any more), shoots his own estranged son through the front door
thinking it's Barry. Couisineau goes into hiding; the son recovers.

It ends with a showbiz blowout. Fuches makes a deal with NoHo Hank, now
pretending to be a businessman, to kill his enemies; Fuches has left
prison, having recruiting a team of assasins. But drunken Fuches accuses
NoHo Hank of having murdered his lover Cristobal (Michael Irby playing a
rather different character than he plays on Mayans) who didn't go along
with Hank's mass slaughter of criminal rivals. They immediately fall out
but Hank can't actually kill Fuches.

Back at Warner Bros., Cousineau resurfaces to dissuade executives from
backing a movie about Barry because he doesn't want them to fictionalize
what happened to Janet. But Cousineau consulting with the studio makes
the news, which brings Barry back to Los Angeles now intending to kill
Cousineau.

Sally and his son remain in hiding but the fired short-order cook tries
to kill them. Of all people, she contacts Cousineau for help.

In the meantime, Barry is now being interrogated by Moss, who uses VR
and a drug cocktail, supposedly with CIA training. Barry is thinking
about his son and we see similar scenes from earlier in the season. I'm
still not sure if all of those scenes weren't drug induced.

Barry gets emotional but doesn't truly crack, but incidentally reveals
that he gave $250,000 to a then broke Cousineau.

Moss, a retired detective, instantly leaps to the conclusion that this
had to do with stuff that went on during first season and that Cousineau
was somehow storing drugs at the theater he taught from (he was
innocent) and that Janet was investigating HIM, and he had Barry kill
Janet.

I've forgotten what Janet had learned that actually led Barry to kill
her.

Cousineau had given his house to his son, but Moss turned the son
against Cousineau once he learned that the monies were proceeds of drug
trafficking.

Hank sent kidnappers to grab Cousineau to get Barry's attention, but
instead find Sally and their son. Instead of picking them up at the
airport, Cousineau told them to wait for him at is house because he took
a meeting. They trade them to end the war with Fuches.

Barry races to save his family but Fuches gets there first. There's
another massive shootout. Most of Hank's men and Fuches' men die or are
incapacitated. Hank gets to die on the statue of Cristobal he has in the
lobby of his corporate headquarters; the business ideas Hank exploited
were all Cristobal's.

Miraculously, Fuches isn't seriously injured and neither Sally nor their
son are shot. Fuches grabs Barry's son and brings him out of the bloody
scene to hand him over to Barry; the two men nod at each other and go
their separate ways.

Cousineau's meeting is with someone he is lead to believe is the agent
for Daniel Day Lewis, who wants to play him in the movie, and Mark
Wahlberg, who wants to play a completely re-written Barry as completely
sympathetic and not a cop killer.

This is Moss's trap. Moss and the D.A. no longer believe Cousineau, who
isn't guilty of most of what they believe but did tell major lies to
everybody mostly to protect his own ego. Moss has Cousineau's own son
confront him.

A broken Cousineau goes home. Sally tells Barry to confess in order to
be redeemed but Barry doesn't want to. Sally takes their son and
vanishes. The next day, Barry returns to Cousineau's house thinking
Sally went back for assistance but she's not there.

Barry realizes he can't go back into hiding with his family and tells
Cousineau's agent to call the police as he intends to confess.

Cousineau still have the same gun he shot his own son with. Knowing that
the police think he's responsible for Janet's murder (Barry acting on
his orders), he convinces himself that the only way to avenge Janet is
to shoot and kill Barry, which is what he does.

Another time jump: Sally is now a school drama teacher and got good
marks for Our Town. The son is shown the major motion picture that's
an entirely fictionalized version of events. Cousineau is the villain;
Barry is entirely innocent. Neither Daniel Day Lewis nor Mark Wahlberg
play them in the movie.

The movie ends with a caption that Cousineau got a life sentence for
killing both Barry and Sally. I'm confused on that bit.

I liked Barry getting killed by Cousineau but the Hollywood ending has
been done before. Also, I wasn't satisfied with Sally killing someone
and Cousineau mistakenly shooting his son, both of which were done to
force plot developments.

I'm glad I watched the series.