Reaction Review: Barry Season 4 Episode 7: a nice meal
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
EPISODE SUMMARY
Warning: major spoilers for Barry season 4 episode 7, “a nice meal”, are throughout the entire review. Reader discretion is strongly advised.
Barry Berkman kicks off this penultimate episode with a prayer for God to take care of his family. Jim Moss has captured him and is likely going to kill him soon. The images we see and the sounds we hear (ocean landscapes) are apparently all in Barry’s head during a sensory deprivation experiment.. He begins hallucinating his son John. We cut to Gene Cousineau and his agent, Tom Posorro, discussing the movie being made about Barry and the murder of Janice Moss. Quickly afterward, we find NoHo Hank looking at the golden statue of the late Cristobal as he stews about the claims Monroe Fuches made in the previous episode. A team has been assembled to kill Fuches and his men.
While Barry trips out, Jim goes through his various tools of torture to decide what weapon he will use on the former first. While Barry panics and imagines Gene and apologizes for the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars he wanted to give him (amongst other things), Jim stops and asks for clarification. Gene is mid meditation when his phone goes off: from an agent that wants to play him in the movie (apparently, it’s Daniel Day-Lewis). Gene wasn’t interested until he heard this news. His phone goes off again: this time it’s Sally. Sally has arrived in Los Angeles with her and Barry’s son and needs to be picked up (she has clearly gone through her entire contacts list out of desperation). He instructs her to go to his house and he will meet her later.
Hank has lost communication with the team he sent to kill Fuches, although the latter has sent four bloody boxes to Hank’s office: these are the heads of his team. He then agrees that he should do this deed himself with his own men. Fuches has to apologize to his new family about the beheadings that took place. Outside near a river, Gene meets with the agent, Matt. The agent claims that Daniel Day-Lewis isn’t a big enough name to attract attention for this movie: he suggests Mark Wahlberg for the role of Barry. In order to get Mark on board, they may have to write out the killing of Janice Moss since the actor doesn’t want to play a cop killer. Mark also wants to come onto the project as a producer, and Matt wants to set up a meeting between him and Gene in the future.
Fuches watches his new wife and daughter-in-law leave his mansion right after everything was going so well. As they leave, Hank shows up with a rocket launcher and fires at the property: he misses the only rocket that he has. Fuches’ men start shooting at Hank, but they manage to flee the scene (only so far). Fuches calls Hank and asks why the attack took place: Hank’s driver was killed, so he has to escape on foot now, throwing himself down a hill successfully. Back to Barry, who is now conscious, awake, and without goggles; he is still strapped to the chair, however. Moss has clearly left to take matters into his own hands. Barry will do the same: he carries the chair over to Moss’s desk, picks up a knife from Moss’ torture collection with his mouth, and frees himself. Barry tends to a wound he received while freeing himself before almost passing out.
Hank is discovered by Val, who was hiding in a random person’s house. He agrees to do whatever “the fuck Fuches wants” to protect himself, which means finding Barry. Sally arrives at Gene’s house, but no one is home. She sees a police car from afar, so she instructs John to wait at Gene’s so she can approach the officer. She wants to turn herself in. The officer removes his sunglasses to reveal that one of his eyes is bleeding: it’s pretty clear that Sally is hallucinating between the last episode and this one. AS she turns around, John has been received by Hank’s men who start darting towards her. Gene winds up at the Four Seasons for this meeting: it was a set up. It was actually Jim Moss and the rest of his CIA men (Gene’s son, Leo, is there too). They think that Gene is guilty, especially after telling the “agent” that Barry was misunderstood. They also think, now, that Gene tried to shoot and kill Leo on purpose. Because he is a renowned actor, no one believes him.
Hank approaches Sally and rips off her wig to confirm that she was the person that was found. John is furious, learning that his life is a lie. Barry is still asleep at Jim’s but eventually wakes up during the wee hours of the morning. He picks up his phone to talk to Sally who is apparently calling, but it’s actually Hank using her phone. He is using Barry’s family to lure him towards death.
FIRST REACTION
Now this is what I was hoping for. I was a little apprehensive with last week’s episode, “the wizard”, because I was confused with what direction the series was heading towards with its final episodes. Was the leap ahead in time too far? Did the series lose sight of the characters it was building so nicely? “a nice meal” confirms that I was wrong with worrying. As a result, I’d bump my rating of that episode from a 3.5 to a 4; maybe even higher once we see how Barry resolves. It works much better in hindsight. Let’s cut back to “a nice meal”, which continues to wrap up the series effectively while making sense of the time jump episodes that came before it. Maybe these final episodes feel wonkier on a week-by-week basis, but when smushed together, they work as a fascinating, unexpected final act.
I may say this alot, but I have no idea — more than ever — how Barry is going to conclude now with just one episode left. Hank is luring Barry. Jim is trying to nail Gene, who is being wrongfully accused. Sally is a mess. Fuches is actually terrifying (far from the smarmy worm we once knew). This doesn’t feel like the second last episode of Barry. This feels like one of the many twisty-turny cuts of the series. How will the series resolve? It almost makes zero sense, and yet this buildup to what will surely be an insane finale is exciting.
I’ve seen some complain that the final season of Barry is too grim, but that’s what we all signed up for: a character study unlike any other. These time-jump episodes are a risky deconstruction of who we once knew. Barry tries to cleanse his life with religion. Sally no longer gives a shit and is wasting herself despite many years of work to get somewhere. Gene continues to betray himself and is starting to lead a life of infamy as opposed to acclamation. Hank is becoming more ruthless than ever, but maybe not quite on Fuches’ insane level. No one is betraying their true selves, but this flash forward is presenting us with new versions of familiar faces. I was apprehensive last week, but I have to hand it to Barry: this experiment’s being treated really nicely. A solid Barry episode through and through, and I cannot wait to see the final episode of this singular series.
Final Grade: 4/5
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.