Barry, Ending Explained: Each Character’s Final Legacy

Barry’s harrowing final season was a bleak genre-defying story that was ultimately about how the stories we tell ourselves matter. Slick Hollywood formulaic fantasies may not be as harmless as we assume; the lies we feed ourselves to survive may lead us down darker paths than we thought possible; and when it seems like we’re trapped without hope, the truth really can set us free. Here’s our take on how Barry’s shocking final moments add up to a profound moral code surrounding the simultaneous danger and importance of stories and legacies; the destructive desire for revenge, and the only path to redemption available to us.

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CHAPTERS
00:00 What happened in the Barry series finale?
02:01 The importance of a good legacy
10:07 Factor
11:31 Redemption or revenge
15:09 Why Sally got a happy ending
19:25 Barry's biggest takeaways

CREDITS
Executive Producers: Debra Minoff & Susannah McCullough
Chief Creative Director: Susannah McCullough
Associate Producer: Tyler Browner
Writer: Faith Terrill
Narrator: Jessica Babineaux
Video Editor: Dan Wolff

[t.o.p]

The show started with Barry wanting to become an actor and ended with Gene becoming a killer.

[robchuk]

Sally not being able to tell her son she loves him, not allowing herself to find happiness with another suitor, and still obsessing over whether people like her work, shows that there's still something deeply broken about her.

[lkf]

This show is so surprising. It is unafraid. It takes tons of risks and highlights the darkness and the absurdies of life. The fact that you are so invested in so many unlikeable characters is a testament to its quality. Love this show.

[pestobitch]

i love how, by the end of the story, the actors (sally and gene) become murderers, and the murderers (barry, hank, and fuches) become actors, with story arcs, and capable of giving full-on monologues.

[shanebattistv]

The finale is judgment day for characters wrapped up in denial.

Fuches accepts that he was always a heartless manipulator and is the only gang member to survive the shootout. Giving John back to Barry is an apology of sorts and he’s able to walk away as Barry wordlessly understands the regret and feels that’s enough to settle their conflict. Fuches’ life won’t be happy but he achieved some peace with his self awareness.

Sally releases the burden of killing a man and admits to John that she’s a bad mother. She also survives the shootout and has the happiest outcome but it’s still not great. She still prizes validation from others above all else and the flowers in the passenger seat show us fame is still where her heart lies. We see her struggle with being a mom as she doesn’t say I love you back to John but she’s achieved enough self awareness to say no to the date. She understands more healing is needed before she can open herself up to intimacy again and hopefully she can be with someone good when she’s ready. However, that may be a long road. John asks if she’ll be ok alone when he goes to spend time with a friend implying Sally leans on her son as a comfort rather than the other way around as she’s likely still struggling with the trauma of the killing.

Hank refuses his chance to confess his role in Cristobol’s death and is immediately killed. Fuches symbolically extends a hand to give him space to confess and be accepted and after his refusal Hank is surrounded by nothing but and the cold, hollow hand of Cristobol’s statue. You see his eyes widen before his death and I think that’s him finally being consumed by his sins in his final moments. It’s dark.


Barry agreed to confess at the very end and it’s juuuust enough. That baby step at the very end is what paves the way for his heroic portrayal in the movie and gives John an idol to look up to. All he wanted was for John to see him as a good man, so in a way he did achieve the happiest ending he could have hoped for after everything.

Gene never learns to accept himself as a small time actor. His craving for fame dug him into a deeper and deeper hole until he couldn’t escape. He can try to set the record straight but by now his words are meaningless. His ending is by far the most tragic as although he could be an ass he didn’t deserve a life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

The whole show feels like a Greek tragedy 😢

[SAIDS]

One thing that does seem to get glossed over in this analysis of the show is that his son, John, was literally there when he got rescued from NoHo Hank. So as he is watching the bio on Barry's life, he had to realize that if that part was B.S., how much of the rest of the story was as well.

[filmreviewer]

Barry was satire on the film industry and a character study of a man trying to connect and that played both sides so well. After this last season I'm down for anything Hader goes to do.

[trojanhorse]

Did anyone else notice "wow" is what Gene says to Barry the first time he acts?

[Bjhorn]

My favorite arc on the show has to be Fuches. I love that he has so many chances to let Barry go and live a simple life, he continually tries to save/kill Barry.

We see Sally and Barry consumed by the darkness, but Fuches in the end chooses to run back into the darkness. He knows that’s where he thrives and and he can only be The Raven.

[Eph_Wilson]

Sally was such a perplexing character, because she was SO frustrating at times, but when you find out about her past, everything about her makes sense.

Because of her awful narcissistic mom, she's never had a loved one who REALLY knows her and really LIKES her, and so she's been constantly self-destructing with unreliable sources of validation (steady boyfriends and acting). It was great to see her gain enough self-awareness where she could find a simpler job that was less frustrating, and not be drawn into the easy escape of dating a man who would provide short-term relief, but probably not long-term gains.

She's still not perfect, but at least she's still around, and has a chance to keep on developing.

[bui]

I still think its crazy that the guy that talks Barry into confessing is Gene's agent on his way out.

[agill]

Sally's tinge of self-centeredness is still there in the end. Rather than telling her son she loves him back, she's aks for the gratification of making sure she did good.

[kush]

The last episode was completely opposite of what I was speculating and guessing! Just in awe!

[zachmiller]

The weird thing I kept coming back to watching this show was, while Barry's sins were undoubtedly worse, I was always so much more irritated with the flaws of characters like Sally and Gene, even though their transgressions were significantly lighter. And I think the reason why Barry somehow ends up more sympathetic is that even though he's a literal killer, is that he was at least TRYING to become a better person while the other characters were sort of willingly absorbed in their own pettiness.

[alisterfolson]

I'm so glad we were all around for Barry and Succession; great shows.

[amityislandchum]

I spent several years in an abusive relationship, and I've always told people that the abuse literally becomes an addiction, with complete dependency on your abuser and even a craving for the "normalcy" of the cycles of abuse and love-bombing. Barry was the first show I've seen actually describe that accurately, and it was so cathartic to hear (and also darkly hilarious in the way Sally ultimately has to change her story into the Hollywood cliche).

[Okkotsu]

This show was fearless, I love how it portrayed its characters has damaged people, we’re they are all kind of shitty. Some just less then others. Great series finale.

[elikerr]

Fuches is slept on, his character arc is so great!

[kiratherenegade]

Gene failed his redemption & gave into his worst traits.

Barry - in his final moments - sought forgiveness without condition.

That's why Gene ultimately gets a darker fate.

[wisdomsnap]

Something i have not seen talked about at all is the shot of Hank walking John out of the massacre room, its as heroic a shot as this show gives you but Sally is blind and rattled from 3 grenades shouting for John. Fuches literally ignores her panicked pleas for her son to pass off John to Barry strapped with rifles 20 feet away. For people saying Sally got off easy or only mentioning her murder in self defense as her biggest trauma in the show, you are also pushing her into the background just like Fuches.