"wow" is the series finale of the American crime tragicomedy television series Barry. It is the eighth episode of the fourth season and the 32nd overall episode of the series. The episode was written and directed by series creator Bill Hader, who also serves as lead actor. It was first broadcast on HBO in the United States on May 28, 2023, and also was available on Max on the same date.
The series follows Barry Berkman, a hitman from Cleveland who travels to Los Angeles to kill someone but finds himself joining an acting class taught by Gene Cousineau, where he meets aspiring actress Sally Reed and begins to question his path in life as he deals with his criminal associates such as Monroe Fuches and NoHo Hank. The previous seasons saw Barry try to decide between both lives, which culminated in his arrest, while the final season followed his character's escape from prison, runaway life with Sally and eventual return to LA to tie up loose ends and gain control over his legacy. In the finale, Barry sets out to save Sally and their son John, while the conflict between Hank and Fuches reaches its end. Later, when Barry is confronted with a choice as he learns Gene is being blamed for Janice Moss's murder, Gene's impulsivity leads to severe consequences.
According to Nielsen Media Research, the episode was seen by an estimated 0.234 million household viewers and gained a 0.05 ratings share among adults aged 18–49. The final episode received acclaim from critics, who expressed praise for the directing, performances, cinematography and closure. The final scene, however, polarized critics; while most viewed it as a fitting examination of its series-long themes, some questioned the logic and characterization. For the episode, Bill Hader received nominations for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards.
Plot Hank (Anthony Carrigan) calls Fuches (Stephen Root) to make peace by giving him Barry (Bill Hader), but Fuches is not interested until Hank shows him Sally (Sarah Goldberg) and John (Zachary Golinger).
Buckner (Charles Parnell) and Jim (Robert Wisdom) announce that Janice Moss's murder case has been re-opened with Gene (Henry Winkler) as a suspect. Sally confesses to John that they are fugitives: Barry is an escaped killer, and she killed a man. Hank's henchmen then take Sally to meet Fuches.
Fuches arrives at Nohobal with his gang, demanding to see John, then offers to disappear if Hank takes responsibility for Cristobal's death. Hank tearfully admits his regrets with Cristobal. As John is brought out, Hank angrily changes his mind and reaches for his gun. Fuches shoots Hank and shields John as a shootout erupts, leaving Fuches as the last gangster standing. He escorts John outside, past a dazed Sally. Barry heavily arms himself with guns and prays for redemption through sacrificing himself to save John, but when he arrives at Nohobal, John runs into his arms. Barry exchanges a look with Fuches, who walks away. Hank dies grasping the hand of Cristobal's statue.
At a motel, Sally, concerned that Gene might go to prison, urges Barry to turn himself in, but Barry claims that their survival means God has redeemed him. The next morning, Barry discovers that Sally and John have left. At Gene's home, Gene reads negative articles about him and contemplates suicide, and Tom (Fred Melamed) secretly plans to leave him for good when Barry arrives looking for his family. When Tom assures him he has not seen them and confirms that Gene is being framed for Janice's death, a convinced Barry asks Tom to call the police so he can turn himself in. Before Tom can do so, Barry is suddenly shot in the shoulder. A vengeful Gene enters the living room and shoots Barry dead, then silently awaits his arrest.
Years later, Sally is a respected high school theater teacher. After an Our Town performance, she declines to go on a date with Robert (Ross Partridge), a history teacher. With Sally's permission, a well-adjusted teenage John (Jaeden Martell) visits his friend Eric (Julian Zane Chowdhury), who shows him The Mask Collector, the biopic about Barry that John has waited several years to see, implying that Sally forbade it. Barry (Jim Cummings) is portrayed as a traumatized Marine with no criminal history who moves to Los Angeles and joins Gene's acting class to cope. He becomes suspicious of Gene (Michael Cumpsty), depicted as British, when he finds him and Ryan Madison talking to two Chechens. Gene, an undercover Chechen mafia leader, murders Janice (Kimberly Hébert Gregory) while she is investigating Ryan's death and implicates Barry when he refuses to dispose of the body. Barry escapes from prison and eventually returns to LA, where he rescues Sally (Louisa Krause) and John (Finn Sweeney) from the Chechens before Gene repeatedly shoots him. The film's epilogue states that Gene was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of Janice and Barry, while Barry was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full honors. John becomes emotional and cracks a faint smile.
Production Development
In March 2023, it was announced that the fourth season of the series would be the last. Bill Hader explained, "What happens in Season 4 is structurally radical in some ways, but it made sense for what I think the characters needed to go through, and what I think the whole show is always kind of headed towards. You realize, well, we could pad a lot of stuff, and just make story. But if we're going forward, it ends in Season 4."
In May 2023, the finale's title was revealed as "wow" and it was announced that series creator and lead actor Bill Hader had written and directed it. This was Hader's twelfth writing credit, and his eighteenth directing credit.
Writing Bill Hader came up with the concept of Gene killing Barry while developing the second season, where the writers introduced Rip Torn's gun. As such, part of the season was built towards the moment. Hader informed Henry Winkler halfway through the season that Gene would shoot Barry in the end. Winkler expressed surprise at the reveal, although he considered that his character, who has no dialogue in the finale, would eventually succumb after the events of the previous episode. Winkler did not believe the character would think of the consequences, feeling "If this is the ruse that they put me under, it must have been him. And there's no more winning. This is the end of the game." He believed that his character was "close to insanity" and speculated that he would still try to find another chance at fame even after being sentenced to life in prison, potentially by forming an acting company with the inmates. Barry's death was filmed twice. A slight difference is that Barry's last words were going to be "You don't have to do this, Mr. Cousineau", before being changed to simply "Oh, wow." Winkler never considered that Gene would kill himself, saying "I'm too valuable. Gene and his own mind were just too valuable to kill himself. There's always another student to Barnum and Bailey." Originally, Gene would not only kill Barry, but Jim Moss as well, as he was manipulated into believing Barry's innocence. Hader viewed it similarly to the assassination of Harvey Milk and George Moscone, but chose to not depict it as the writers felt it was "needless bloodshed."
Anthony Carrigan called Hank's death "poetic", explaining, "Ironically, he wanted to play gangster, and when you're a gangster you tend to die a gangster's death." Regarding Fuches asking Hank to make a "confession", he said, "When Hank is faced with that decision, he's being flooded with guilt and sadness, but there's that danger there as well. I think that's why he couldn't quite fully commit." He noted that the shootout was not planned by Hader to glorify violence but to present a realistic outcome of an intense gunfight. He further added, "it was surreal seeing this character who I love so much die, but as an actor, I was also letting go of the show as well so there were a lot of things happening all at once." On Hank dying while holding the hand of Cristobal's statue, he said, "it's him seeing very clearly what he has lost in this life based on those choices. There's something beautiful about him ending it holding Cristobal's cold, metal hand — but there's something really terrifying about it."
Commenting on Sally's final scene, Sarah Goldberg said, "She had these huge ambitions and, and what's lovely is, you know, she's sitting there in the car with this bouquet of supermarket flowers next to her. And it could be an Oscar. What it represents to her is a tiny, micro version of that recognition, the contentment that she had been searching for on a massive scale." She viewed the ending as a "happy ending" for Sally, feeling it worked better than having Sally become an actress. She also affirmed that while she grew as a character, she would remain narcissistic, saying "when we leave her, she's still Sally. It's not like she’s completely evolved, but she's in a much better place than when we started. I just thought it was beautiful, poetic, and very, very simple." She also commented on Barry's death, "If this is a morality tale, then there's the question of consequences or repercussions. It's brave storytelling to kill your lead. There's a fun finality to it. It's really over."
Reception Ratings The episode was watched by 0.234 million viewers, earning a 0.05 in the 18-49 rating demographics on the Nielson ratings scale. This means that 0.05 percent of all households with televisions watched the episode. This was a slight decrease from the previous episode, which was watched by 0.237 million viewers with a 0.07 in the 18-49 demographics.
Critical reception "wow" received acclaim from critics, however some were left underwhelmed by the final scene. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an 86% approval rating for the episode, with an average rating of 9.4/10 and based on 14 critic's reviews. The site's consensus states: "Clever and tidy, Barrys finale lacks a certain "Wow" factor but serves as a fitting coda to a series that always defied audience expectations."
Ben Rosenstock of Vulture gave the finale a perfect 5 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "It isn't a huge surprise that the show does grant Sally and John some way out in the end. Barry is a dark show but rarely a completely hopeless one. There's a consistency to the moral universe of this series, and in this finale, one pattern holds true: Those who deny their true selves will be punished, while those who endure the pain of seeing themselves with clear eyes will be shown mercy." Stuart Heritage of The Guardian also gave the finale a perfect 5 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "Barry has concluded with 'wow', an episode of television that pulled off the remarkable job of creating a definitive ending and leaping forward a decade (for the second time in a month), while still managing to be the bitter Hollywood satire it always was."
Matt Schimkowitz of The A.V. Club gave the episode a "B+" and wrote, "Over its short run, Barry became a show about the ways we perceive, mythologize, and try to shed ourselves of the responsibility of the violence around us. The ways we turn our heads from it and try to process it. Barry treated its characters as bad guys in a society that celebrates them." Brian Lowry of CNN wrote, "In metaphorical terms the Barry finale, similarly, couldn't entirely redeem the season's shortcomings. But in the moments when it was good the episode captured what had made the series so distinctive and did, indeed, have a 'Wow' factor." Josh Spiegel of /Film wrote, "I'll be honest: while I thought most of 'wow' did an excellent job of wrapping up the stories of these characters, the epilogue — as well as the throughline of what happens to our version of Gene, not the movie version — rings somewhat false."