A man in his fifties walks into his hotel room. A slice of sunshine breaks through the gap between the curtains, the carpet rustles lulling under your feet, and the dim lights create a cozy atmosphere. After calling his wife, accompanied by sweet tenderness and laughter, the guest lies down on the bed and opens the sports newspaper.
While reading, he doesn't notice how the bathroom door opens. First, a gun with a silencer peeks out of the darkness: after freezing for a moment, it seems to be looking around, after which he invites a gentleman with an unimaginably tense face into the room. The pistol tamer approaches the bed, raises his hand confidently and shoots.
The first bullet digs into the chest and, leaving an opening in the heart unforeseen by nature, settles in the mattress. The second one goes through the flesh and makes it to the wooden headboard. When the killer prepares to fire a control shot, fireworks clap outside: a hand twitches, and the bullet breaks an artery. Blood spreads throughout the room, irrigating the snow-white ceiling, curtains and a tense face.
The hapless hero drops his gun to wipe his eyes, but when he fails, he begins to swear and beat the bed, causing the dead man to sway unnaturally, and the fountain gushing from his neck covers the room more and more with blood. Meanwhile, a guest upstairs decides to respond to the noise by knocking on the battery and swearing loudly. Silent killing doesn't turn out to be so silent.
A couple of years ago, Barry wouldn't have broken out in a situation like this, but lately he's been finding it harder to stay calm. He used to genuinely believe that he only kills bad people who can't get the punishment they deserve. Now he has doubts, and sheer loneliness and playing the console while waiting for a new order clearly do not contribute to peace of mind.
By the beginning of the series “Barry” its main character comes in complete annoyance — a little more and he'll either shoot himself in the head or screw up so much during the next order that he won't be hit by a gnashing battery, but by a police squad. But the owner of a tense face is surprisingly lucky, and his next target is an actor from Los Angeles.
Thanks to this, Barry enters a new world where art rules, and everyone involved, even those completely devoid of talent, has a tangible goal — to become a true paid artist. At this point, the highly effective killer realizes that only the stage can save him. He once had a similar insight when he killed the first Iraqi in the war.
Barry's current life is a cycle of loneliness and violence that has no easy way out. This is exactly what the drama “Master Gardener” is about (read our text) — about accepting and forgiving oneself by a person who has destroyed many destinies. But if Paul Schrader is looking for light at the end of the tunnel, the creators of Barry are turning everything upside down.
After Hamlet tries to change his own life — forgetting about the murders, making friends, and perhaps even getting rid of PTSD — he is surrounded by new acquaintances. And each of these characters, who directly influence the story, is remarkable for its charm.
Moreover, it is as if they have conspired to live through turbulent times when familiar paradigms have ceased to work and new ones will never take shape. So they're driven by good intentions and a desire for personal happiness. The catch is that deep down they are ruthless and paradoxically selfish — just like Barry himself.
At first, the victim of a useless war arouses sympathy. However, it soon becomes obvious that the tension on his face is caused not so much by inner feelings as by a complete lack of moral guidance. In a sense, Barry is more like a maniac who has found a new mania than a suffering victim of circumstances.
If he used to kill selflessly because he saw it as his purpose, now he has set his sights on a peaceful life, but he hasn't changed his methods for achieving harmony. Barry's main tool is former brutality. This detail turns a seemingly broken hero who is drawn to the light into absolute evil.
But Barry is not alone in his uncompromising approach. Every character close to him, however less so, still deserves the pain and disappointment that surround them. That's what makes Barry a special show. After all, even Tony Soprano had more humanity and compassion than the assassin who changed extremes and his embittered comrades.
On the one hand, Barry is about people who are looking for happiness and mutual understanding with the outside world, on the other hand, about those who do not feel the boundaries of what is permitted and put their own comfort above someone else's life. This contrast turns an often amusing and awkward story into a monumental tapestry that depicts the rise of evil on an almost biblical scale. An evil that can only count on oblivion.
