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I didn't love it. Three thoughts 1. I'm not a fan of this idea that Sally's a murderer, given that she killed that dude in self-defence and then basically fell back into mental illness prompted by years of spousal abuse in order to compensate. I'd get it more if it was only so obvious that she thought that, but given that she said as much in a thematic monologue to a child, and how didactic the finale is elsewhere, I get the feeling that's the finale's final statement on her and that's kind of bullshit. It's both too simple and kind of incorrect. 2. The season was far too invested in correcting this idea about how sympathetic any members of the audience could possibly find Barry (and it's something that obviously concerns Hader given the interviews I've read). That whole final movie was pretty funny, but I can help but read it as also just this extended final moment of anxiety from Hader, wherein he's so concerned about his show's legacy and how it's going to be interpreted. The series was always going to have to wrap back around to Hollywood satire, but it's disappointing that it couldn't find something new to say here. I did laugh really hard at some of the newspaper headlines though, hard not to read "Warner Brothers will never work with a murderer" in light of Miller and The Flash. 3. Jim Cummings is perfect casting as fake Barry. Absolutely seems like the kind of film maker Hader would be interested in too.
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May 29, 2023 10:12
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re Sally I think it’s more that she believes herself to be a murderer, not that the show does. I saw it as a depiction of her guilt rather than judgement.
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May 29, 2023 10:19
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Dick Jones posted:I'm pretty sure that was a knitted decorative blanket or something draped on the chair. It's hard to see but you catch a glimpse of it behind Barry when he first sits down and looks at his wound. Going back to that scene, I think you're right. You just see something a different color under his arm as he sits down. Still reminds me of JFK autopsy photos, but probably just a coincidence.
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May 29, 2023 10:22
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Escobarbarian posted:re Sally I think it’s more that she believes herself to be a murderer, not that the show does. I saw it as a depiction of her guilt rather than judgement. Yeah that was my take too. Sally is dealing with a shitload of trauma and guilt and equating what she did to what Barry did, but I don't think the show was trying to do the same.
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May 29, 2023 10:31
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I loved that they actually held a combat oner with a grenade exploding and causing people to go flying. Even though the cut was obvious, it was still a beautifully choreographed scene and I loved it. I loved that they used actual squibs at the end when showing fake Barry getting shot by Gene. CG blood and gunshot wounds are the bane of current television and film, it always looks awful. Those squibs were gorgeous. Barry getting into his car with guns on his back and the racket it makes was hilarious. Nothing else was good about that finale. Sad. Succession spoilers definitely don't click if you haven't watched it because it felt almost mean having Succession's phenomenal finale on the same night as this. Barry's finale felt like CW dogwater compared to Succession and I watched Barry first. Fuckin wild dichotomy of dramedy shows pulling it off and not pulling it off. Edit: To elaborate a bit more, I was fine with the results of the story, it just felt like it wrapped with a sigh instead of a bang... and in an episode where a freakin' grenade blew up and lots of gunfire happened, it seems weird that's how it felt! The "Barry at the shore of the dead" stuff seemed to just... disappear. The arcs of all the main characters ended fine but it didn't feel like any of it got there on a necessarily entertaining path. The only real pathos and catharsis (something finales need to load up on) seemed to be the conversation between Fuches and Hank. Honestly, it felt like they needed another 2 hours to figure this out and didn't get it. DaveKap fucked around with this message at 11:21 on May 29, 2023 |
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May 29, 2023 10:36
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I liked the ending quite a bit. It wasn't 100% perfect but VERY few finales are. My take on Sally is that since no one really knew what she got mixed up in, she took the easy route and regressed to being a pretty selfish and narcissistic person who's glad that the whole Barry mess is behind her and she gets to live a normal life now. Both her shutting down the date invitation and her not saying I love you back to John and basically blowing him off, while asking for reassurance that her play was good make me think that she regressed a lot from where she was before [/spoiler]the time jump in the finale[/spoiler]. I think there's plenty of interesting thinking you can do about where all the characters ended up and how much self-reflection they were willing to do. It's also fun to wonder about how much Gene knew about what the ramifications of killing Barry would be, and whether he had heard that Barry said he was going to turn himself in. I tend to come down more on the "decision made in passion in the heat of the moment and which given his personality he might well end up regretting" side of things. It's definitely a finale that gave me a satisfying ending that fits the overall tone of the show, so it gets a solid A from me! Jerusalem posted:Absolutely into whatever Bill Hader decides to do next though. Absolutely loved this series. Yeah I'm firmly on board with that. I hope he comes up with or is part of a pitch for another show pretty soon. I want to see what Hader can pull off now that he has experience with a full four season run on a show that involved lots of acting, writing, and directing on his part. It also makes me wish more people were out there full-on starring in, writing, and even directing projects.
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May 29, 2023 10:48
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Open Source Idiom posted:2. The season was far too invested in correcting this idea about how sympathetic any members of the audience could possibly find Barry (and it's something that obviously concerns Hader given the interviews I've read). That whole final movie was pretty funny, but I can help but read it as also just this extended final moment of anxiety from Hader, wherein he's so concerned about his show's legacy and how it's going to be interpreted. The series was always going to have to wrap back around to Hollywood satire, but it's disappointing that it couldn't find something new to say here. I did think the scene was doing a little more than that, in fairness. If it's "about" any one thing, the show has always been about the inevitability that we will always end up falling back into the simplifications, glosses, and self-mythologising of storytelling when we attempt to make sense of what we've done and what's happened to us - because none of us can stand to stare at reality head-on for too long, and because real life offers no closure and resolution. So for me there was definitely something poignant by ending it with John saying goodbye to his mother - and Sally, despite clearly being in a better place, is and will always be that messy, self-absorbed person who ignores her son's "I love you" and then requests validation about her creative work instead - and visibly being troubled by the interaction. Then he goes and watches a ludicrous movie about his dad (which his friend suggests is basically his birthright, a form of closure, that he "deserves" to see it) - and despite the fact that he must know this isn't how it really happened, he must remember that his dad didn't lead them out of a jail block under automatic gunfire, it makes John smile, and it moves him. The lie gives him closure and satisfaction in the way that real life never could.
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May 29, 2023 11:07
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It may have been mentioned because I haven't caught up with the thread but ending the whole thing with a film about the show is so on point with Hader's love of true crime entertainment. It didn't really do much for me but I did grin that Hader got to do what he wanted.
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May 29, 2023 11:23
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I absolutely loved the finale. Stayed true to the themes right to the end, and the way it ended was just fantastic. I can see why it's a bit polarizing, but that's part of why I love this show.
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May 29, 2023 11:30
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Pirate Jet posted:Ending was perfect. I felt that way too, hell of an episode! Really strong ending. Just terrific cinematic stuff, it's tough to think of an episode in this style of drama with grim satire as starkly striking and glorious since Sopranos went off the air. I love Saul as much as the next guy, but this ep really reminded me of Sopranos in the way it delivers. While being its own thing of course. What made it feel different and bold as a choice was how the episode almost had no jokes or gags, until the simultaneously funny and poignant (and other things) movie viewing. Just a pleasure to watch. And I love a lot of the little unexpected choices that felt earned. The way it ended with Fuches was so drat classy. It did not indulge in much of any cliche. I love Gene, and how things went with him felt earned, etc. And how things went for the family, Hank too, just pure class. In general the episode may be among the classiest finales ever. Heavy Metal fucked around with this message at 12:08 on May 29, 2023 |
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May 29, 2023 12:02
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grobbo posted:I did think the scene was doing a little more than that, in fairness. That's an interesting read, and it's something I'll think about. That said, I don't have my own read on Jaeden Martell's scenes because the finale leaves it so ambiguous that my initial reaction didn't encourage me to read it one way or the other. Could be that he's inherited his parent's worst traits and it feeds his narcissism to see his family represented like that, to know that his parents got away with the big lie and that he can get away with his own, smaller, lies (e.g. to his mother). Could be that the film backs up a lie his mother told him, and he's actually got very little awareness of that period, or he recognizes that some truth was compromised by the need to tell a certain kind of story, but fails to realise exactly how much, and so his smile represents some form of closure. Perhaps, like Mona Lisa, he's trying to suppress a fart. I don't think there's enough there to conclusively judge one way or the other. But I do think that for all that final sequence engages in ambiguity, there's one or two very clear, strident points that it wants to make. That whole video is the show engaging in self-parody, mocking the idea of what a heroic Barry show would look like (and basically arguing that it would be worthless poo poo, which is Hader putting his thumb on the scales a tad). That Barry definitely wasn't a good guy, that attempting to say so is ludicrous, is to me that's by far the clearest, least ambiguous, takeaway from that final passage, and that's just not very interesting to me given how many times the show's gone to that well since at least the end of the second season. Open Source Idiom fucked around with this message at 12:20 on May 29, 2023 |
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May 29, 2023 12:12
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One question, is the title The Mask Collector a reference or anything? I wonder why it's called that, just a funny generic title like The Bone Collector and whatnot? Did Gene collect masks in the movie version we imagine? Or are they the metaphorical masks of acting?
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May 29, 2023 12:33
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Heavy Metal posted:One question, is the title The Mask Collector a reference or anything? I wonder why it's called that, just a funny generic title like The Bone Collector and whatnot? Did Gene collect masks in the movie version we imagine? Or are they the metaphorical masks of acting? I assumed it was a reference to those comedy/tragedy masks, and the general idea of putting on a kind of "mask" when performing by hiding your true self and becoming someone else. Most of all though I felt like it was the show's writers interpreting what surface level dumb title a TV movie like this would have and I think they nailed it.
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May 29, 2023 12:38
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Heavy Metal posted:One question, is the title The Mask Collector a reference or anything? I wonder why it's called that, just a funny generic title like The Bone Collector and whatnot? Did Gene collect masks in the movie version we imagine? Or are they the metaphorical masks of acting?
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May 29, 2023 12:38
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Moss shouldn't be dumb enough to think Cosineau was responsible for anything. He broke his mind in his garage.
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May 29, 2023 12:42
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In-context I think it's meant to be a goofily pretentious title with little relevance to what's going on in the film, but of course it's also an apt title for a tragic protagonist who keeps trying on different personas but can never find one that fits. A few other details I really enjoyed: - Poor Gene's actor not knowing what to do with the character, and playing him as a literally stiff martinet instead of a charismatic manipulator - The classic movie shorthand of Barry still carrying his haversack on his way to nowhere in particular as he spots the giant ACTING CLASS sign and immediately goes to check it out - The Macbeth speech no longer making sense as it cuts out all of the extraneous lines - The Russian henchmen getting shot from completely the wrong angle, concealed by the camera turning - "Get behind me" as Barry immediately leads his partner and son out into a firefight with no cover - "You ruffled a lot of feathers"
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May 29, 2023 12:56
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Martman posted:I think Gene talked about using dramatic masks in his "masterclass" show and maybe even in his normal teaching, but it's also just a general play on him being a drama teacher and using his performers to do his dirty work. Yeah, he used that term to describe himself in that pretentious coaching video he made. I'll assume that the makers of the video talked to some people from that class, since there were some direct quotes in there. Maybe Natalie gave some juicy details.
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May 29, 2023 13:01
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I liked the poetic (depressing) irony that Gene hosed himself over, finally doing the type of thing he was previously accused of. Especially since it looked like Barry was about to turn himself in. What I find weird is that we're supposed to care about John's opinion of his dad when John didn't even exist 4 episodes ago.
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May 29, 2023 13:34
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The moral I'm taking from this is if the dude who played Milton Waddims when I was 9 can get prison jacked, there's really no excuse to not hit the gym.
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May 29, 2023 13:52
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I really liked the finale and this season overall, though I understand why people didn't. One thing I don't see people talking about much is how anti-Hollywood this show ended up being. Even in the first season there were jokes about Barry getting roles despite being a horrible actor, while Gene and Sally struggled to be recognized for their talents. In later seasons you the streaming service stuff with Sally's show and the Cupcake show, the super hero movie set with Not Chloe Zhao, the jokes about "Phone Movies", one of the actors on the billboard being recognized by his @username, and finally Hader ends with the made for TV quality movie that gets nothing right and paints Barry as a hero. Just a completely cynical ending and I think by finishing the series with that shot, it really shows that Hader has a bone to pick with Hollywood. I can't wait to see what he does going forward.
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May 29, 2023 14:20
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Gene did the absolutely right thing by blasting Barry away. Like, the people in this show are so indecisive that a stray phone call during the trip to the police station could have turned Barry around into "must kill Gene" mode again. Gene must have the absoulutely worst lawyer ever, because shooting a known fugitive killer that's in your own home is one of the clearest cases of self defense ever.
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May 29, 2023 14:24
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I hope one day Bill talks about how concrete the original ideas for the third/fourth seasons were and what it would have looked like without the pandemic taking the writing to a darker place the one storyline I thought held its strength through the time skip, mostly, was Sally's. she's able to find a little joy but she's still unhappy, she's raising a kid she does not want but she made the choice to do so, she's still in desperate need of validation, can't even tell John she loves him, but Sally grew and the growth was there for us to see and it was cool. I would have liked another couple scenes with her mostly because Sarah Goldberg was incredible and she did a couple of really great interviews about the finale and Sally's ending, I basically just threw Barry finale [actor name] finale into google and consumed everything I could find, you can tell everyone got to help develop where their characters went in some way (Sarah especially so) and there's a lot of good insights. Anthony Carrigan's acting in Hank's final scene was amazing, also thought that was the perfect ending for Hank, refusing to admit what he did and still reaching for Cristobal's hand as everything hit him was great. Stephen Root also killed it in his monologue there and his actions in the shootout, but this storyline is what I felt needed some extra time and extra scenes the most. ymgve posted:Gene did the absolutely right thing by blasting Barry away. Like, the people in this show are so indecisive that a stray phone call during the trip to the police station could have turned Barry around into "must kill Gene" mode again. this is something I've been wondering about too, how sincere Barry actually is in that scene. I think it fits very well whether Barry is actually ready to take responsibility for his actions or not - all that matters to the story of the world is that he said it and Tom Posorro was there to hear it, right before Barry died. Tom doesn't know that Barry's been telling people he's ready to change and be a better person for a decade at that point, all he knows is that he said it. but the moment for Barry to actually change and be different was laying in bed with Sally and John, and he declined. Hank also had a similar choice and made the same decision. basically I liked everyone's ending taken on its own, just wish there were maybe 30-40 minutes more runtime in the season to show us how they all got there. anti-timeskip until the day I die
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May 29, 2023 14:36
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ymgve posted:Gene did the absolutely right thing by blasting Barry away. Like, the people in this show are so indecisive that a stray phone call during the trip to the police station could have turned Barry around into "must kill Gene" mode again. Gene must have the absoulutely worst lawyer ever, because shooting a known fugitive killer that's in your own home is one of the clearest cases of self defense ever.
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May 29, 2023 14:43
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I really liked the dichotomy with the Fuches/Hank conversation and the Barry/Tom conversation. Both had the opportunity to redeem themselves and you can see the exact moment when they're considering doing the right thing but then decide to double down on the delusion. I enjoyed the finale quite a bit. The movie ending was the perfect analogy for the show itself.
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May 29, 2023 14:43
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I'm legit sad we didn't get a straight ending and a feature length "Mask Collector."
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May 29, 2023 14:46
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Rupert Buttermilk posted:What I find weird is that we're supposed to care about John's opinion of his dad when John didn't even exist 4 episodes ago. The kid's partially a stand-in for us. He didn't enter this world of theirs until 4 episodes ago, we didn't enter this world of theirs until 4 seasons ago (the show's birth). We've each seen things the audience around him haven't, we know things the actors playing those characters couldn't have. They don't know, and they're better off not knowing ymgve posted:Gene must have the absoulutely worst lawyer ever, because shooting a known fugitive killer that's in your own home is one of the clearest cases of self defense ever. He did it in front of a guy Barry had just told to call the cops and confessed he'd turn himself in to, at a close enough range there's no way he didn't also hear that, with multiple bullets, after having moments ago read articles about him already being suspected of another separate murder (and already being known for having shot his own kid). Gene Cousineau was the easiest life sentence a court was ever going to get to hand out
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May 29, 2023 14:46
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I was never sure how they were possibly going to end this, and all the pieces fell in pretty much satisfying places. I loved the movie at the end, hilarious and mean. A little moment I didn't appreciate enough as it was happening (because Sally was crying out in the background and I didn't realise until the scene after that Barry rescued her offscreen there and her "John! Barry!" was relief rather than dying panic) was Hank holding the hand of the Cristobal statue. There was no real tension with Fuches because as soon as he saw Barry had a son i thought "oh ok he's just going to forgive everything again" but then I don't watch this show for tension. Also did Hank ever actually meet Sally before? I was kind of weirded out that he immediately recognised her. What a hosed up and weird season! Heavy Metal posted:One question, is the title The Mask Collector a reference or anything? I wonder why it's called that, just a funny generic title like The Bone Collector and whatnot? Did Gene collect masks in the movie version we imagine? Or are they the metaphorical masks of acting? Rupert Buttermilk posted:I liked the poetic (depressing) irony that Gene hosed himself over, finally doing the type of thing he was previously accused of. Especially since it looked like Barry was about to turn himself in.
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May 29, 2023 14:49
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2house2fly posted:Also did Hank ever actually meet Sally before? I was kind of weirded out that he immediately recognised her. Presumably people noticed when she vanished around the same time as her ex and it was big news for a while.
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May 29, 2023 15:02
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Hank would've seen Sally in season 2 when he coerces Barry into doing work for him again outside the acting school and not long after that when he tries to assassinate Barry while he's dating Sally. She goes on to get some fame. So he'd know her by name.
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May 29, 2023 15:13
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unorganized rambling thoughts after having just watched it, but very surprised to see people be down about the ending. this show has always been against hollywood in many forms, and one of those forms is it being against conventional storytelling, and what our consumption of that storytelling does to our ability to understand our lives and the events around us. we see this repeatedly, like the way so many people came back around on gene, the cop that was ready to be cool to barry just because he was on tv, fuches seeing himself and barry in rainman, these are just examples from this season because its freshest to me. this is a criticism that is being extended out to you, the watcher as well. anyone saying it "needed more impact" or it "wasnt big enough" or whatever are completely missing the contention by hader and berg that no story really NEEDS more of anything. a story is a series of events being told to you in a particular way, and that particular way can be whatever makes it have the secret sauce that turns it from raw information to entertainment. and, to storytellings detriment, any craft or care in that particular way has been replaced with "more impact" or "bigger". sometimes the pieces dont all fit together, sometimes people miss things that help explain it all. and, most importantly, sometimes people are trained by poor narratives into thinking about their lives as though they are the stories they see on tv, so you end up with people that should know better like moss leaping to stupid conclusions, or to the cyclical nature of the ending where this story where everyone bungles everything due to this poor ability to narrativize their lives then gets filtered back through the machine of lovely hollywood writing and spit back out to them. this is a show about hollywood, and all the humanity and nuance of our characters was reduced down to nothing. barrys most traumatic moment through a funhouse mirror where afghanistan is a deciduous forest, gene as a cynical mastermind and not the oblivious narcissist. there can be no justice in a world where the people are incapable of understanding the facts presented to them, or where presenting those facts wouldnt be entertaining enough so they must be altered from the get go. its bleak. and all i can do is laugh at it.
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May 29, 2023 15:23
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ymgve posted:Gene must have the absoulutely worst lawyer ever, He's got the worst loving attorneys! Winkler played an incompetent lawyer in Arrested Development, about whom this ^^^ line was spoken, and—I don't know if it was just a coincidence or what—his name on the show was Barry Zuckercorn. It's been a long time since that show, but it was weird seeing him go from playing a character named Barry to mentoring a character named Barry, all while maintaining more or less the same personality across both roles
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May 29, 2023 15:32
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Paper Lion posted:unorganized rambling thoughts after having just watched it, but very surprised to see people be down about the ending. this show has always been against hollywood in many forms, and one of those forms is it being against conventional storytelling, and what our consumption of that storytelling does to our ability to understand our lives and the events around us. we see this repeatedly, like the way so many people came back around on gene, the cop that was ready to be cool to barry just because he was on tv, fuches seeing himself and barry in rainman, these are just examples from this season because its freshest to me. this is a criticism that is being extended out to you, the watcher as well. anyone saying it "needed more impact" or it "wasnt big enough" or whatever are completely missing the contention by hader and berg that no story really NEEDS more of anything. a story is a series of events being told to you in a particular way, and that particular way can be whatever makes it have the secret sauce that turns it from raw information to entertainment. and, to storytellings detriment, any craft or care in that particular way has been replaced with "more impact" or "bigger". sometimes the pieces dont all fit together, sometimes people miss things that help explain it all. and, most importantly, sometimes people are trained by poor narratives into thinking about their lives as though they are the stories they see on tv, so you end up with people that should know better like moss leaping to stupid conclusions, or to the cyclical nature of the ending where this story where everyone bungles everything due to this poor ability to narrativize their lives then gets filtered back through the machine of lovely hollywood writing and spit back out to them. this is a show about hollywood, and all the humanity and nuance of our characters was reduced down to nothing. barrys most traumatic moment through a funhouse mirror where afghanistan is a deciduous forest, gene as a cynical mastermind and not the oblivious narcissist. there can be no justice in a world where the people are incapable of understanding the facts presented to them, or where presenting those facts wouldnt be entertaining enough so they must be altered from the get go. its bleak. and all i can do is laugh at it. 
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May 29, 2023 15:33
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Alan Smithee posted:Lmao that they built up Moss as this unstoppable omniscient force of nature and he turned out to be the bastardiest of ACABs 100%, the second he found something that fit the narrative he’d originally thought was the case he gunned for it (I believe he suspected Coseanu from the start.) Even he isn’t immune to personal bias.
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May 29, 2023 15:35
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Just phone posting my real time joy at how incredible Stephen Root is in this. Regardless of anything else, hell of a send-off for Fuches.
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May 29, 2023 15:40
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Twerk from Home posted:Just phone posting my real time joy at how incredible Stephen Root is in this. Regardless of anything else, hell of a send-off for Fuches. hoping his career takes the Bob Odenkirk route from here and his next major film is Stephen Root, Bad rear end Old Man Action Hero
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May 29, 2023 15:50
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My one takeaway from the finale is that Anthony Carrigan (noho hank) better win a goddammy Emmy. Masterful acting in the final scene with Fuchs
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May 29, 2023 15:51
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They should’ve had John binge watch the lawyer show Barry was on.
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May 29, 2023 16:09
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How could Bill Harder be so anti-Hollywood when he is Hollywood  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjpDFZ9uYVs
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May 29, 2023 16:15
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Detective No. 27 posted:Fuches's revenge is going to end up being like the Gungrave finale. His whole schtick has been being wishy washy whenever he wants Barry dead. He's going to get his opportunity and something is going to come over him. I bet he's going to inadvertently rescue him in tonight's episode. Ok, so I was pretty close with this one.
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May 29, 2023 16:21
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thought the ending was fantastic and weird in all the right ways as this show has been it's entire run Everyone on the cast was great but Hader, Root, Winkler and Carrigan were next level throughout the entire series
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May 29, 2023 16:32
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