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| Photo: HBO |
Heading into the final stretch of its third season, Barry begins putting the pieces in place for what could be an explosive finale with "The Truth Has a Ring to It."
After the absurdist head trip of last week's "ronny/lily" the show comes back down to reality to deal with the aftermath. LAPD concludes Detective Loach's demise was related to a domestic dispute--in this case, confronting Ronnie Proxin, the man sleeping with his ex-wife Diana, and getting a fatal roundhouse kick to the dome. Barry steals and presumably disposes of his remaining case files, and that appears to be that.
Except it isn't, at least when it comes to Barry and Fuches. After realizing the devil has been staring him in the face the entire time courtesy of stab wound-induced hallucinations, Barry again cuts ties with Fuches, arguing he's only out for himself and has no idea who the man he condescendingly calls buddy truly is. Barry's not wrong on either point, but Fuches also raises a valid one when he counters Gene may accept Barry even after learning he "killed someone and got away it," but wouldn't if he knew about Janice. The second killing didn't take place in "the fog of war" as Fuches calls it, and thus can be blamed on misplaced rage; killing Janice was an act motivated by pure self-interest. It was the act of a violent man, one who gives much lip service to wanting to leave the violent world he inhabits behind but always falls back on his murderous instincts when his back is against the wall.
Regardless, Barry snaps at Fuches that he has no business without him and takes off to essentially say goodbye to Noho Hank. Esther and her men are moving back into the monastery to prepare for an incoming shipment of heroin, and with his men trained as well as they could be, Hank plans to use the small window of opportunity to take out her and the rest of the Burmese gang at the stash house. Barry backs out of teaming up on that potential blood bath/suicide mission, and with a musical serenade, he drives away. Hank's attempted coup gets short-circuited, however, when Khazam, the accordion player he berated for interrupting his goodbye speech to Barry, sells him out to Esther and Cristobal. Damn.
Sally confesses to Barry she went to meet Sam at his hotel, berating herself for not standing up to him. Barry of course, already knows this, as he nearly killed Sam (and possibly Sally) when he followed her. Sally is understandably nervous about doing her scene about the night she left in front of the class; however, unlike an earlier conversation, Barry encourages her to tell the truth about what happened. Unfortunately, her scene garners stunned silence instead of applause, and she walks off the stage. Barry, perhaps bolstered by cutting Fuches off and his deepened relationship with Gene, asks his teacher to help him channel his energy into playing Sam in order to help Sally. Gene attempts to calm Barry's fear of being unable to control his rage by drawing a hard line between him Sam. Sam is a violent and terrible man. Barry is not. It's both true and untrue because while Barry would not verbally or physically abuse Sally the way Sam did, his reliance on violence does cause him to commit terrible acts in the name of self-preservation.
In the end, Barry actually absorbs Gene's advice, utilizing the method acting he accidentally tapped into in last year's "Loud, Fast and Keep Going," funneling the rage of Korengal and the reptilian logic of murdering Janice into a superb performance as Sam. "Really well done," Gene, his newly minted surrogate father figure, tells him. Sally rises to the occasion as well, passionately delivering her monologue to applause from the class; even better, her agent Lindsay, who she blew off earlier in order to do the scene, also enjoyed the performance and wants to arrange a sit down with her and "the Mikes."
Honesty (or in Barry's case, semi-honesty if we're being honest) appears to be paying off for Barry and those close to him. Though lingerg in the background is Fuches, unwilling to let go of his golden goose without a fight. He spends most of the episode searching the area around Gene's cabin for something to ensnare Barry with, and eventually finds it when he stumbles upon Janice's car, stashed deep in the woods. "I'll have what he's having," he drawls to the waiter as he watches Gene from afar at the restaurant where he and Janice's unlikely romance first began.
So much for having nothing.
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