Reaction Review: Barry Season 4 Episode 6: the wizard
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
EPISODE SUMMARY
Warning: major spoilers for Barry season 4 episode 6, “the wizard”, are throughout the entire review. Reader discretion is strongly advised.
Barry Berkman tries to teach Sally how to assemble and disassemble a gun, but she would rather move than to kill Gene Cousineau (the latter, in case you forgot, is releasing a film about Barry and his killing escapades, only proving his point). Barry claims that the only other alternative is that they drop their son, John, off at an orphanage and they both commit suicide. So Barry continues his trek to Los Angeles to kill Gene. John isn’t happy, and he expresses concerns about having to move again (it’s clear that they have had to live on the run quite a bit after Barry’s prison escape).
Monroe Fuches is released from prison to the non-diegetic anthem of “The Wizard” by Black Sabbath (hence the episode title). He is clad in tattoos and has the respect of everyone in the prison. He is not the Fuches we once knew. He picks up a barista to be his girl and proceeds to enter the Nohobal building with her and his entourage: this is the company that NoHo Hank and Cristobal worked on together before the latter’s passing.. They are presented with a golden statue of Cristobal, but they proceed upstairs to find Hank. Fuches wants Barry and property to live at; Hank guarantees the latter, but states that Barry is old news and has been on the lam for nearly a decade. It isn’t enough: Fuches wants Barry. He may get what he wants, as Barry awaits his plane at the airport.
Gene is finally home (he was in hiding in Israel this whole time) and he doesn’t like what Tom Posorro, his agent, has done with the place. Nonetheless, they go back to the studio to discuss the upcoming Barry film. Gene actually tells the executive that they cannot make this Barry movie: he views this as the exploitation of his lover, Janice Moss, and her death whilst glorifying a psychopath. Before we continue that thought, he is approached by a member of the DA and is forced to leave for a chat. Once he has arrived, Barry picks up the guns he needs for the job from a nearby shop. Gene is at the DA’s office, and it happens to be Jim Moss (Janice’s dad). Back at the Berkman household, Sally begins drinking when her son is asleep; she puts vodka into John’s juice and wakes him up.
Hank gives Fuches a tour of his and his entourage’s new home. Everyone is happy, but Fuches wants Barry. Hank has news of Gene appearing, so maybe there will be a connection after all should Barry want to reunite (and, as we know, he does). Gene finds his son, Leo, who he shot eight years prior (an accident, because he was trying to defend himself). Barry is stalking Gene and prepares his gun. Gene wants to apologize to Leo for what had happened and tell him about the movie he plans on putting a stop to. Barry starts pacing towards the Cousineau house until he sees a young boy get dropped off: It’s Leo’s son, Gordon. He isn’t too thrilled to see grandpa Gene there, but Leo tells him to hug him anyway. Barry heads back to his car and can’t find the strength to continue the hit for the time being.
John has passed out from the alcohol Sally gave him (a reminder that he’s around ten years old). Sally passes out on her own bed after failed attempts to wake him up. Before she’s out for long, she awakens to some threats directed towards her and her son. In a daze, she surveys the house to confirm what she heard. She eventually locks the door and closes the windows. While she does so, there is a stranger clad in all black (head included) following her. She tries to leave the bedroom once the figure closes the door behind her but it is jammed. She begins trying to assemble the gun but is too drunk to remember how. Suddenly, her house starts tipping over: there’s a truck that rammed into it before it takes off. John is safe, but their place has been flipped upside down (figuratively, but almost literally).
Fuches proposes a toast to his new life, including the new lover he has and her daughter, who he only just met. He thanks Hank and starts championing his accomplishments, including killing Cristobal. Hank dismisses what Fuches said by saying that his rivals killed him, not Hank and his own men. Fuches begins questioning this. Hank says the deal is done and Fuches and his men have to leave the property by the next day. John wakes up to his mom calling Barry: she leaves a voice message to discuss the event that just took place, and she worries about his whereabouts. Barry is still in LA, standing outside of Gene’s house and unable to pull through his hit. The door is left open, and Barry begins to rethink his mission as he has been blessed with a sign from God: maybe he’s meant to do this. Before he can finish his hit, he gets a bag over his head. Barry wakes up in front of Jim Moss, and the episode abruptly ends.
FIRST REACTION
While I was all in favour of last week’s episode, “tricky legacies”, because of the leap in time to see how Barry and Sally’s lives have changed (for better or for worse), “the wizard” is a little more peculiar. Elements, like when Sally was attacked and the house was literally being shaken up, felt almost surreal, but not necessarily in the same way that fan favourite episodes like “ronny/lily” or “710N” are. I think I need to see the final two episodes of Barry before I can ascertain how I really feel about “the wizard”, because this episode is full of stunning moments and yet I feel a little puzzled by it. Did we jump ahead too far and too quickly? Have we lost a few of the steps necessary to make the upcoming finale make coherent sense? I know that Barry takes bold risks, and I’m not discrediting the series for doing so, but I also am not quite sure about these latest moves; considering they are meant to prepare us for the final episode, I can’t comfortably analyze them just yet. Right now, a lot of things feel a little more odd than I was expecting. Barry and Sally are apparently quite religious now (I thought maybe it was just a false identity to fully hide their true selves), and yet Barry is insistent on killing Gene no questions asked? You can argue that his reservations come from his new self combatting his inner instincts of old, but it still feels a little strange. Sally giving her son alcohol also feels a little questionably implemented. As much as I was enthralled by the intruder scene, it also feels so out-of-left-field, like it was a hallucination Sally had while drunk (maybe it was and we don’t know it yet). There are a lot of questions surrounding Barry and Sally’s storylines, and I wish we had a bit more time with them to develop them further; it’s the one time I feel like Barry’s half-hour timeframe maybe wasn’t quite enough time.
At the same time, “the wizard” is full of interesting tidbits, like NoHo Hank’s empire (and how he still loves and misses Cristobal), Fuches’ backbone (which gets him into trouble yet again, but at least he has had some significant character growth in such an interesting way), and Gene’s personal life (Leo survived!). Fuches’ shotgun relationship is a bit strange, but the guy just got out of prison after nearly ten years confinement, so I won’t judge his hasty decision making too much. Even though I really liked the Barry/Sally storyline last episode, I feel like it’s a bit up in the air right now. What I loved instead was the similar treatment that these other Barry characters received: we play catch up and see how life is treating these other souls many years later. If Barry was like Breaking Bad before, these final episodes feel more like Better Call Saul and Jimmy McGill’s Gene Takovic years, but I may be feeling like the latter pulled this “new identity” time jump a little more cleanly. Then again, people were quick to jump on the episode “Nippy” when that was necessary to build up this “second life” of McGill’s. To me, that episode of Better Call Saul is more akin to “tricky legacies” in Barry because they’re both establishing episodes. “the wizard” is part two of the new Barry and Sally story, so we should be well underway in a way that works. I’m sure Barry will tie up nicely in the end as the series usually never fumbles its storylines, but I will definitely be awaiting next weeks episode with both anticipation and “the wizard” in the back of my mind. Where is this all leading? Did Barry bite off more than it could chew for the very first time? Let’s see.
Final Grade: 3.5/5
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.