S04.E03: you're charming

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Quote

What's wrong with you?

Original air date 2023.04.23

[Galileo908]

So "Toro" was Guillermo del Toro! What a fantastic reveal.

Love that the biggest question the FBI had for Barry...was about NoHo Hank and Cristobal being an item. And HOLY SHIT that scene with Fred Armisen...damn. I love that he's so ubiquitous that he stuck out like a sore thumb in this episode. 

Spoiler

and he was the only one in that scene left alive.

Ha, called it that Sally was gonna teach the acting class. Liked that everyone was on her side about the video. And everyone called her out on being an abusive teacher. "If you can't do, teach," indeed.

Man, Tom & Gene were hilarious. Tom just casually crashes their car, and then chucks something through Lon's window, not even checking to see if the door was unlocked. And then he chucks the computer monitor in the pool. Yeah, that'll fix everything.

Oh, thank god, I thought Lon was killed. He was just traumatized into speaking German. And instead of eating Skittles, he eats gummy bears.

God, loved Hank setting that boundary on Barry. 

Edited April 24, 2023 by Galileo908

[shapeshifter]

Barry thinking Sally would go into WitSec with him is just a delusion, right? 

[Galileo908]

34 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Barry thinking Sally would go into WitSec with him is just a delusion, right? 

Most likely, but I'm sure something's gonna hit with Sally and she's gonna be desperate to be anywhere else.

EDIT: I say that before realizing that everyone involved with that were all killed and Barry disappeared.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Galileo908

[cpcathy]

I howled with laughter when Armisen showed up onscreen, then gasped when everything went down. Good on you, Bill Hader. What a great episode.

[Starchild]

49 minutes ago, Galileo908 said:

Man, Tom & Gene were hilarious. Tom just casually crashes their car, and then chucks something through Lon's window, not even checking to see if the door was unlocked. And then he chucks the computer monitor in the pool. Yeah, that'll fix everything.

Clouds are just things in the sky.

 

49 minutes ago, Galileo908 said:

Oh, thank god, I thought Lon was killed. He was just traumatized into speaking German. And instead of eating Skittles, he eats gummy bears.

I imagine we'll never find out exactly how that happened.

 

36 minutes ago, Galileo908 said:

Barry thinking Sally would go into WitSec with him is just a delusion, right? 

Most likely, but I'm sure something's gonna hit with Sally and she's gonna be desperate to be anywhere else.

And of course, she'll want it 5 minutes too late.

 

33 minutes ago, cpcathy said:

I howled with laughter when Armisen showed up onscreen, then gasped when everything went down. Good on you, Bill Hader. What a great episode.

That finger getting blown off was really well done.

[nilyank]

1 minute ago, Starchild said:

That finger getting blown off was really well done.

And it was hinted at with both assasins having a podcast about gadgets that ended up not working.

[thuganomics85]

Should have known Bill Hader would find a role for Fred Armisen before this all ends.  Podcaster turned hitman certainly is in his wheelhouse.  Fun appearance.  But what was even a bigger surprise was getting freaking Guillermo Del Toro himself to play "Toro"!  Loved it!

Barry continues to be finding himself loss in his delusions of having a happy life (with Sally) and proving himself to be a "good" person.  I agree with what I read elsewhere that he basically wants redemption, but doesn't want to work for it.  So, instead, he is doing things that are just making everyone even more angry at him and I don't see him coming back from that.  Really don't see any redemption tour for him.

Sally's foray into heading her own acting class is off to a rocky start.  Interesting that her students (who seem to be more of this current generation) were actually more forgiving over his video outburst; probably because they could see it was a real angry moment for her and understandable since most everyone has probably at that moment when they're temper got the better of them; but turned on her after her attempt at being like Gene because that was more abusive and self-serving.  But since that one student liked it and wanted to continue, I wonder if Sally is actually going to learn anything from that.

Gene and Tom/Fred Melamed made for one fun duo as always!

Never get on the bad side of Jim Moss!

NoHo running into issues with his former Chechen bosses not liking his new gang and possibly going to war with them is an interesting development.

Loved the Barry/NoHo scene.  It's always great when they briefly drop the hilarious antics of NoHo and we see why he has survived as long as he has in this dangerous world.  Anthony Carrigan continues to be revelation here.

Edited April 24, 2023 by thuganomics85

[PinkRibbons]

I know I shouldn't like this so much because the show goes so out of its way not to glamorize violence, but I really enjoyed being reminded that Barry actually has skills. Not even so much his taking out the sniper, but him reading the other guy's expression straight into a calm declaration that that guy was there to kill him. Funny how the sanest Barry has seemed in a while was when he was spotting an essentially out-of-nowhere (for him) assassination attempt.

[arc]

I'm glad they explicitly called out that the "Cousineau Method" (which is exactly what Gene did to Sally in the pilot!) is abusive. I guess Sally's now very explicitly on a similar track as Gene and Hank and Fuches: they all had a way out and instead dove right back into toxic paths. (Is that true of Barry himself though? I guess that little couples vacation with Gene and Janice was his moment where he got out, but when Janice confronted him about being the killer she'd been looking for, his escape from his old life was blown up one way or another. Everyone else had to choose it, but Barry Block's vacation from Barry Berkman's life was over that night.)

7 hours ago, Galileo908 said:

And instead of eating Skittles, he eats gummy bears.

I was dying. Lon went 100% German! I wonder what Jim Moss is gonna do to Gene.

Last week I was thinking Albert might not come back, but now that four FBI agents are dead and Barry has fled, the FBI might assign him to the case, right?

I'm surprised Hank was so unforgiving. I mean, he has every right to be, but I assumed because Batir from the Chechens showed up earlier and threatened him, I figured he'd latch on to Barry as a lifeline and call off the hit/arrange to spring Barry as their ace in the hole vs the Chechens.

Edited April 24, 2023 by arc

[MrWhyt]

 Guillermo Del Toro!!

that first scene with Gene had some killer lines

do you own a weapon?

He has a prop gun that Rip Torn gave him

Well if Rip Torn gave it to him it probably shoots real bullets.

 

I have many stories like that but I can't talk about them

Because they're classified?

No they're really disturbing and I don't like to think about them

 

[tennisgurl]

I didn't at all expect Toro to be Guillermo Del Toro himself, that was amazing! Also amazing was Fred Armisen showing up out of nowhere as the attempted assassin, that scene took such a wild turn. This show tends to spend so many long stretches being a quirky dramady that when the violence happens it always hits hard. Barry really got his game face on when he realized that someone was there to kill him, its the most stable we've seen him all season so far, his training really took over, even overriding his current delusions. 

Tom and Gene were an amazing double act, everything from Tom crashing the car when Gene told him what he did to their sorry break in to Tom in the background tossing Lon's computer into the pool, it was absolute gold. Oh yeah guys, that's going to fix everything. 

I love everyone's incredulous reactions to finding out that Gene told his whole story to a journalist via one man show. Gene better be scared, pissing Jim Moss off might be even worse than pissing Barry off. 

Sally's first acting class if off to a rough start. Gene's class was, at best, not exactly a pipeline to Hollywood success, and at worst was actively abusive, but Gene had a certain amount of charisma and a reputation in the industry (even if its a bad one) that could allow him to still attract people that Sally lacks. I would like to think that Barry thinking Sally going into witness protection with him is another delusion, but if things take another bad turn in Sally's life, I could see her wanting to start again. 

Always enjoy those moments when Hank turns off the wackiness and gets serious, Hank's a fun guy but you don't want to push him too far. Shit is really going down. 

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

Tom and Gene were an amazing double act, everything from Tom crashing the car when Gene told him what he did to their sorry break in to Tom in the background tossing Lon's computer into the pool, it was absolute gold. Oh yeah guys, that's going to fix everything. 

 

That car crashing scene was so fantastic. I remember watching it thinking that of course, this being Barry, we'd watch them just drive away normally for juuuuuust long enough to make Tom's crash the funniest it could be. The standard beat would be to have him crash it sooner, like Gene just said it, but making it just that much more realistic/random was so Barry.

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, MrWhyt said:

that first scene with Gene had some killer lines

do you own a weapon?

He has a prop gun that Rip Torn gave him

Well if Rip Torn gave it to him it probably shoots real bullets.

Maybe because Alec Baldwin and the unfortunate 2021 shooting death on the set of Rust was back in the news this week, I keep wondering if these lines were a reference to that incident:

• He has a prop gun that Rip Torn gave him
• Well if Rip Torn gave it to him it probably shoots real bullets.

[aghst]

I don't know, Hank becoming heavy is quite a turn from what his character has been most of the season.

But he has to protect his sand empire so Barry's got to be got?

And he brushes off his fellow Chenchens?

I can see Hank getting serious when he had to save Cristobal and himself at the end of last season but has he lost his happy-go-lucky personality?

 

So Barry gets out of prison rather easily and he has many potential targets, Hank, Cousineau, maybe Fuches again.

Sally better be careful too when he shows up. 

[heatherchandler]

I really want to hear the podcast about gadgets that usually don’t work.

 

[Starchild]

2 hours ago, aghst said:

So Barry gets out of prison rather easily and he has many potential targets, Hank, Cousineau, maybe Fuches again.

Wouldn't he have to break back in to get Fuchs?

[Galileo908]

8 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Maybe because Alec Baldwin and the unfortunate 2021 shooting death on the set of Rust was back in the news this week, I keep wondering if these lines were a reference to that incident:

• He has a prop gun that Rip Torn gave him
• Well if Rip Torn gave it to him it probably shoots real bullets.

It was a callback to the prop gun Rip Torn gave Gene last season. Which, if you remember, fell apart the moment Gene tried to fire it.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Galileo908

[Ottis]

On 4/24/2023 at 4:34 PM, heatherchandler said:

I really want to hear the podcast about gadgets that usually don’t work.

 

Just watch infomercials on late night TV. My MIL gives everyone at Christmas those goofy infomercial gadgets that never work, sadly earnestly and not as a joke.

I had no idea Toro was del Toro, and I watched the scene.

I lost track of who should ally with who to stop whom in this ep. Seems like the lines are constantly shifting, even for people who would prefer they didn’t.

[Joimiaroxeu]

Lon O'Neill should've known better than to go visit Moss. Didn't Gene tell Lon about the brainwashing and intimidating stuff Moss does?

But at least Lon's not dead, lol. When we saw Moss washing out his car trunk I figured he had used it to transport Lon's body somewhere to bury it.

In a Rain Man scenario, which one does Fuches think is Dustin Hoffman's character, Barry or himself?

That was an interesting hit. The assassins apparently knew the WITSEC people wouldn't be armed inside the prison. Good thing Barry figured out what was happening but will he be able to escape out of the prison during the ensuing chaos? (I guess some viewers are assuming he does escape but it didn't seem certain to me.)

[shapeshifter]

13 minutes ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

When we saw Moss washing out his car trunk I figured he had used it to transport Lon's body somewhere to bury it.

It sure looked that way! 
Why else do scary dudes hose out their car trunks, if not to get rid of bloody evidence? 
But maybe Lon just lost control of his bladder and bowels in the trunk because he was so terrified.

[Starchild]

18 hours ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

In a Rain Man scenario, which one does Fuches think is Dustin Hoffman's character, Barry or himself?

I was wondering the same thing, it's an obscure comparison for sure.

Maybe it depends on his level of self-awareness. If he's clueless, he might think he's Tom Cruise and Barry follows him around like a stupid puppy.

Or maybe he realizes that even if that used to be true, their roles have now reversed and he's the one that needs Barry to take care of him.

But who knows for sure?

[Ottis]

On 4/24/2023 at 3:44 AM, PinkRibbons said:

I know I shouldn't like this so much because the show goes so out of its way not to glamorize violence, but I really enjoyed being reminded that Barry actually has skills. Not even so much his taking out the sniper, but him reading the other guy's expression straight into a calm declaration that that guy was there to kill him. Funny how the sanest Barry has seemed in a while was when he was spotting an essentially out-of-nowhere (for him) assassination attempt.

I think that is the whole point of the series, really. They created an excellent killer in Barry (let's leave aside the fact he has at times not been excellent) and that is what he does well. When he tries to be something else, things go sideways. And he wants to be something else. But armed firefights? Barry is right at home!

I really hope the series doesn't end with some sort of lament about Barry never having a chance, he was molded, etc. It isn't wrong. It's just cliche. 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Ottis

[paramitch]

That entire prison sniper scene was absolutely incredible. Just beautifully written, acted, directed. Violent and disturbing but also incredibly funny -- Hader is a rock star.

This show always does the pop culture references so well -- loved the inclusion of Rain Man and what it meant to Fuches, and especially the use of the gorgeous soundtrack. I sat through the entire end credits just to listen again.

I loved the acting class scene with Sally -- as always, I think she's an absolutely terrible, tone-deaf person and yet I still care the tiniest bit about her.

[Tachi Rocinante]

Fred Armisen can't act.  Jeez.