Review: Barry, "it takes a psycho" | Season 4, Episode 4
Gene hides in the darkness, while Sally and Hank find different ways to say goodbye
Well, looks like I spoke too soon about NoHo Hank being a moral voice on Barry. But it makes sense that Hank’s decency was at the forefront of my mind last week: the show was clearly building toward something with him, and that something (that horrible, horrible something) hits so much harder when you think of Hank as “one of the good ones.” “it takes a psycho” helped me to clarify what I was struggling with during “you’re charming,” and a big part of it was watching Hank decide to betray his current co-workers and fall back in with Chechen mob. As with seemingly every episode this season, there were a lot of big swings in “psycho,” and this one worked the best, which is to say it came to a conclusion that was absolutely devastating. Barry is a very funny show, but for me it’s at its most effective when it balances that humor with a sense of real people suffering real consequences. At times this season, it’s seemed to struggle with the second half of that equation, and it wa…