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| Photo: HBO |
After a seven episodes chronicling his fits and starts toward becoming a better man, Barry doubles down on the worst version of himself in the season's finale "Berkman/Block."
Part of what makes the episode--in particular it's final scene--so hard to watch is because, like other instances this season, events have conspired in a way that allows Barry to get off Scott free. He doesn't have to go on a killing spree that leaves a gang leader (bye bye Esther) and scores of her, Cristobal's and Noho Hank's men (damn Mayrbek) dead.
Also, it's not as if Fuches doesn't deserve every inch of the vengeance Barry attempts to rain down on him. After stopping short of murder, Fuches flees the scene as the police begin to arrive, leaving a shell-shocked Gene to take the wrap for Janice's murder.
"Not so altruistic now are you motherfucker," Fuches gloats over the phone, acidly pointing out all Barry has to do is tell the truth and he saves Gene. Though that would also mean condemning himself.
It turns out Barry didn't even have to do that. Gene is released after police find a Chechen pin with a saying that translates to "the debt has been paid." Things appear to be settled, until he gets a text from Hank saying Fuches is at the monastery. In that moment Barry has a choice, hard as it may be: let Fuches live, charge his treachery to the hitman game, and move on. Instead, Barry gives in completely to his rage, embracing the inherent darkness he's tried to fight all season. In the end Fuches, like any good villain, lives to fight another day. Meanwhile, the final shot of Barry finds him stalking off into the darkness, literally and figuratively. Can he ever come out? We'll have to wait till next year to find out.
Though the consequences aren't deadly, Sally reverts to type as well. It's the night of her and the rest the acting class's big performance, and she's nervous about acting out her scene in front of a packed house filled with industry professionals. Barry, in a fugue state due to his guilt over Gene, begins the performance as they rehearsed it. However Sally changes things midway through, flipping over the table and telling Barry/am off, acting out of the fictional version of how she left her marriage.
Afterwards, she tells Lindsay she was scared of revealing the truth. However her lie is a hit with the Mikes and the rest of the audience. As they begin to surround her, offering up praise, the look on Sally's face isn't one of triumph, but one of ambivalence and regret. She's gotten the attention she's wanted for so long, but the recognition is coming from a tweaking of her truth, one that, while miles away from the hackneyed trash of Payback Ladies, is a version that seizes on commercial appeal at the expense of her artistic integrity.
After his son Leo helps him into bed, Gene begins reminiscing about Janice, until happy images are replaced by the one of her body lying in a trunk. It's then that the words Fuches whispered in his ear become clear.
"Barry Berkman did this."
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