Review: Barry, "a nice meal" | Season 4, Episode 7
The old gang's getting back together; what could possibly go wrong?
Turns out, all Barry needed to get back into focus was for the characters to re-enter one another’s orbit. We’re still waiting on a few (likely explosive) reunions, but tonight’s episode had all the major players back in L.A., with predictably catastrophic results. At this point, Barry, Sally, Gene, Fuches, and NoHo Hank are all well-drawn enough that they can support storylines on their own, but this can be a trap; just because a character can work in isolation doesn’t mean that they should. It can be easy to forget, but TV shows—the really good TV shows—are always more than the sum of their parts. There’s an alchemy to them that gets established in the first season or two, an understanding that this particular group of weirdos are going to be the main focus going forward, which means we want to see those weirdos bouncing off each other. You isolate everyone, and it’s not really a TV show anymore, just a collection of scenes with a title sequence.
To that end, “a nice meal” …