Barry finale ending explained: Who dies?

❘ Published: 2023-05-29T09:44:54

HBO

Barry Berkman’s twisted story has come to an end – here’s a breakdown of the show’s ending after the finale and everybody who dies.

In our review, we wrote: “The endgame has never been clear, but Barry’s finale pulls off an incredible trick: it gives us exactly what we want while leaving us to deal with the consequences, an echo of the show’s incisive torment.”

To think it all started with a hitman looking for some direction and finding sanctuary on the stage. Those were simpler, even happier times, but Bill Hader and Alec Berg had a darker odyssey in mind: this is not a happy story, nor is it a classic good vs. evil saga – everyone is a different shade of grey.

With the finale, Barry’s story reaches an emphatic, shocking conclusion – so, here’s what happens and who dies in the show’s ending.

Who dies in the Barry finale?

Two people die in the Barry finale: Barry and NoHo Hank.

NoHo Hank dies in a gunfight with Fuches’ men, while Barry is shot and killed by Gene at his house.

Barry ending explained

Hank’s men face off with Fuches, aka The Raven, after revealing they’ve kidnapped Sally and John in an effort to lure Barry to NohoBal. After Fuches confronts Hank over Cristobal’s death, they all end up shooting each other – one guy even throws a grenade.

Fuches takes John to Barry, and he shares one last smile with his nephew before disappearing into the darkness. Hank bleeds out at the feet of Cristobal’s golden statue, gripping his hand as he slips away.

Sally tells Barry he should turn himself in so Gene isn’t imprisoned for Janice’s murder, but he doesn’t think that’s “God’s plan” after he was willing to sacrifice himself and ended up being “spared.” The next morning, Sally escapes with John, leaving Barry alone. He checks Gene’s house, and just when Tom convinces him to give himself up, Gene shoots him in the head.

We jump even further into the future, where Sally is now a successful theater teacher and John is a teenager. She puts on a brave face, but she’s still consumed by guilt and paranoia behind her front-facing smile.

John goes to his friend’s house to sleep over, where they watch The Mask Collector, the Barry Berkman biopic his mum hasn’t allowed him to see. At the end, we find out what happened to their real-life counterparts: Gene is serving a life sentence for the murders of Janice and Barry, while Barry was laid to rest in a military cemetery with full honors.

Gene killed Barry just as he was ready to pay for his sins. In doing so, he not only lost his path to innocence but paved the way for the thing he dreaded most of all: A psychopath being glorified as a hero. John’s tearful admiration as the episode cuts to black is the ultimate chef’s kiss. Even in death, Barry won.

Barry cast reacts to finale’s ending

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Sarah Goldberg said she was still trying to get to the bottom of the finale, but believes there’s “there’s something in there around, ‘there’s no justice’.”

“I’ve only just seen the finale myself. I haven’t quite found the words to articulate how I feel. But I’m going to try for you. I love how sick and twisted and dark it is. There’s a commentary there on Hollywood, on morality, on truth and lies, on the version of things we present in the media versus the reality, and on the world we live in, where there’s so much on the internet that is false.

“I felt like it was a very dark commentary on humanity and what we choose to believe. And, you know, you could say the whole of Barry was a metaphor for America.”

Speaking to USA Today, Henry Winkler said the resulting biopic is “such a reality of fakeness… Gene called himself a mask collector because he carried all these characters inside and thought he was God’s gift to acting. Gene would have been crushed to see that portrayal.”

“He’ll eventually get some equilibrium. He’ll come back to Earth, look around and start a prison theater company. He’ll say, ‘I can be famous right here. If this is my audience, I’ll take it’,” he added.

Barry Seasons 1-4 are streaming on HBO now. Check out the rest of our coverage below: