Barry Season 4 Episode 6 Offers Pitch Perfect Gun Control Satire
Season 4 of "Barry" surprised everyone by jumping ahead eight years in the future. So much time has passed, in fact, that Warner Bros. is planning a movie about the missing Barry Berkman (Bill Hader). Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler), Barry's former acting teacher, comes out of hiding to stop the movie from being made. Having suffered at Barry's hands and lived in fear of him for eight years, Gene doesn't want him "immortalized." Barry doesn't want the attention either, but he assumes Gene is working as a consultant on the movie. So, he has to die.
With only four half-hour episodes to show this time jump, "Barry" is staying focused on how its main characters have changed. However, the latest episode, "the wizard," gave a grim peak at the state of the U.S. circa 2031. Barry has been trying to live nonviolently and so doesn't have any weapons. To kill Gene, he needs a new gun.
Where does he go to get one? An illegal arms dealer? A gun show? Nope — once he gets to Los Angeles, he goes to a local big box store. Behind Barry, there are normal-looking store aisles, with plush teddy bears, wine glasses, and plastic chairs for sale. Behind the clerk, there's a whole wall of assault rifles on display.
A gun off the rack
Barry is able to buy a handgun like you would any innocuous items at Walmart or Target. There's no background check, either to assess either his intent or mental fitness to own a weapon. I wouldn't be surprised if this is how the joke came about. Since Barry has been in hiding and needs the gun immediately, he can't wait for or pass a background check. So, the writers took advantage of the time jump to bypass that barrier entirely.
There is one test Barry has to pass though. "By law, I'm supposed to show you these pictures," the clerk says, as she shows him a collage of bloody violence with the caption, "This is what guns can do." Barry, who knows full well already, smiles and nods. There's a new mass shooting practically every day in the U.S. Despite cries from the public, no new gun control regulation has been passed. In the near future of "Barry," it seems lawmakers finally took action — to deregulate guns further and make them even more accessible than they are today.
The picture test further implies that gun violence hasn't stopped. And why would it? No real problems ever get fixed in this country — the status quo is too profitable for the most powerful (and evil) people alive. Everything just gets slowly worse as band-aids are taped over bullet wounds. Showing future murderers pictures of the violence they want to inflict in the hopes it will shame them? That's exactly the sort of policy that U.S. politicians — and no one else — would describe as a "reasonable compromise."
The gun violence epidemic in America has become truly, tragically absurd. "Barry" understands that satire is taking absurdity to the next logical step.
"Barry" airs on HBO and streams on HBO Max on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.