[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Barry Season 4 Episode 5, “Tricky Legacies.”]
With the latest episode, Barry has officially jumped forward eight years. “Tricky Legacies” shows what life is like for Barry (Bill Hader), Sally (Sarah Goldberg), and their son. To put it simply: Things aren’t great.
But, as the end shows, Barry hasn’t changed. When he hears that there might be a biopic about him and Gene (Henry Winkler) might consult, his plan is to kill his former acting teacher. That is, in part, Barry defaulting to what he knows, Hader tells TV Insider.
“I think that moment is a big signal into what we’ve just watched is what he would like to be, but that we show that he hasn’t changed at all. He’s just in there telling his son that he was a medic, and then you see that, yeah, he hasn’t changed at all,” he says. “And not to give too much away, but Sally says at the top of the next episode, ‘Why? That’s not going to do anything.’ I think Barry, what he is trying to protect, is this image of himself that he really wants to portray to his son. He wants his son to think that he was a hero and a good person, and a movie will destroy that.”
Sally’s not doing well in her life (as someone else) after choosing to leave with Barry when he showed up at her door at the end of Episode 4. She’s drinking, then she hooks up with a diner coworker and chokes him until he pulls her wig off. She knows he won’t tell anyone. “There’s a mix of things going on. Performance-wise, I always begged Bill to go full Gena Rowlands’ Woman Under the Influence or Opening Night. So I got my wish, I got what I asked for,” Goldberg shares.
Sally is “trapped, and she’s resorted to alcoholism as an exit, a mental exit. And I think she is someone who, even at this stage, can’t resist a little bit of performance of her own life. So the wig and the accent is less about being undercover and more about if she’s going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere living this miserable life, she’s going to give the performance of her goddamn career as Emily, the waitress,” she continues.
“She’s really invested in that character, but ultimately I think that she’s in a kind of haze, an alcohol-induced haze, and there is a desire to exercise control, but there is equally a resignation that this is her lot,” Goldberg explains. “I think she is not enthralled with motherhood in any way and hasn’t been able to find any joy in this strange, hidden life they’re living.”
Well, it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to stay in that life for much longer.
Barry, Sundays, 10/9c, HBO
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
