I sometimes feels I’m drowning in video-on-demand subscription programs. I have had Netflix for quite a while now and, the instant it hit the Philippines, I immediately subscribed to Disney+. I also had Discovery+ as well because I got it at a very steep discount but they discontinued the service in the Philippines. As consolation for being a loyal subscriber (it was only for a year but I’ll take the compliment) and since they were cutting the service, Discovery+ offered me a promotion code for HBO Go. Now, I never really considered getting HBO Go as it doesn’t really have the same stuff as MAX does, I never really considered it. But, as this was a pretty sweet deal, as it was like getting an entire year’s subscription for the price of one month, I decided to go try it out.

Now, I’ve had the HBO Go service for quite a while but I haven’t really used it besides seeing that one really boring movie starring Chris Pine. Other than that, it’s been rather dormant. Until now, that is. Like with everything in life, you can find the most interesting things when you’re not expecting it. One day, a video on YouTube popped on my feed of a hitman killing both his target as well as the person who hired him after the hirer decided to forgive the person he wanted to assassinate. The scene was so deliciously dark and I wanted to see more.

That scene was the opening scene of the third season of Barry. And I just finished the entire series.

So, Barry has just concluded this year in May. However, as several months have just passed, I’m not exactly comfortable giving any specific plot points for the series. So, this review of Barry will be a generally SPOILER FREE review.

Barry focuses on the misadventures of Barry Berkman, a disconnected US Marine who has taken up being a professional hitman for a man named Fuches, a coward who isn’t violent but is good at manipulating people. When the head of the LA Chechen Mafia hire Barry to kill an actor who is sleeping with his wife, Barry makes friends with him and falls in love with Sally Reed, a skilled actress trying to make it big. Barry then decided to stop being a hitman for hire and be an actor, taking acting classes with Sally under Gene Cousineau, an actor way past his prime but still thinks he’s a bigshot.

Right off the start, I will say I really liked Barry. Not at first, though. I will say the first season was a little bit slow and it does take a while to get used to this style of dark humor. Bill Hader, who both stars and produces Barry, does show quite a range here when it comes to the jokes. If you’re mostly used to his stuff from Saturday Night Live, it can take some time to adjust to. However, you can still see his own personal touch in it, especially with the wide variety of eccentric characters and very surreal and unrealistic situations they get into.

First and foremost, I do have to commend all the actors in Barry as they do a wonderful job of bringing their characters to life. Bill Hader brings a quiet sadness to Barry as, even though he’s a hitman, you do have to empathize with him and his lot in life. Stephen Root does a wonderful job as Fuches, Barry’s handler. He may be a sniveling coward but he is smart as he does manage to talk himself out of a lot of situations. Henry Winkler’s Gene Cousineau gives a masterful performance as well. I will say it took me a while to really like Sarah Goldberg’s Sally Reed but that’s mostly because she starts out rather uninteresting when compared to the other characters in the series but she does improve greatly over time.

Of course, the best character in Barry is, hands down, NoHo Hank, played by Anthony Carrigan. NoHo Hank is a eccentric Chechen mobster who develops a shining with Barry. He tries to be mean but he’s more of a gentle soul and a flair for the dramatic, making him very out of place in this violent world. He’s very funny and one of the major reasons why I became so enamored with Barry in the first place.

While I loved the characters and was the primary reason why I kind of binged watched all of Barry’s four seasons in record time, it did take me a while to really like the story. The first season especially wasn’t all that enthralling and it’s almost like Bill Hader and the other writers on the staff were trying to piece together an actual overarching story. Season 1 ultimately did give a fulfilling and complete arc but there were too many instances of convenient writing where one gaffe would lead to another gaffe and so on. It all worked out in the end but it didn’t come off like it was held together well.

The same can be said about Season 2 but it did feel like Barry had more direction here. It didn’t really flit away aimlessly early on like the first season did as there were story arcs that tied together with other story arcs much better. This is also when I think I actually started to like Sally Reed. In the first season, she came off as this know-it-all who thought she was better than everyone else. Granted, she was the best actress in the acting class but she had a huge chip on her shoulder that I found annoying. In retrospect, I guess that was intentional as she does have her own story arc sort of explaining why she behaves that way.

Seasons 3 and 4 get progressively better as the show plays around with the characters and, well, each and every single main character grows, leading to them being a different person from when the series started and when it ended. Their motivations change but, since they’re still basically the same characters, we still understand the choices they make.

I will also say that Barry is funny but it does get some taking used to as you will have to really suspend your belief at times. There are so many silly and unrealistic moments that happen in Barry and, because of that, there were times when I would think that this was just something Barry dreamed up in his head. But, no. There are some really whacked out moments where it does seem like it actually happened to these characters. At least it’s never mentioned it was all imaginary. Then again, it’s a dark comedy, and the dark comedy is really good, so I can give the surrealistic situations a pass. At least they were entertaining.

I also have to mention that, as Barry progresses, the show does slowly drop the comedic undertones and focus more of the drama between the characters. This is definitely true for the last season of Barry. Normally, I would say this would be a negative but, since I grew to love the characters more and more as Barry progressed, I actually appreciated the more serious tone. I wanted to see what happened to Barry, Sally, Fuches, Cousineau and NoHo Hank without the silly trappings of comedic bits and I needed to see how it all ended.

Barry did make me appreciate that I did take advantage of that discount and got an HBO Go subscription. I was fine with just letting the year pass and cancel it once it was up for renewal. But, if HBO Go has a gem like Barry, I might be convinced to have it stick around.

Have you seen Barry? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments section below!