Summary
- Barry's fourth season took an unexpected eight-year time jump, which helped set the stage for the characters' endings by the finale.
- The decision to make an eight-year time jump came from the writers' room, where they felt that continuing the story linearly would be boring.
- While the time jump wasn't fully fleshed out in the four episodes it had, the creator, Bill Hader, believed that four seasons were enough for the show and made the decision accordingly.
Arguably the biggest twist in Barry's fourth season was that the show took an eight-year time jump mid-season, which proved to be an unforeseen twist. Bill Hader, who created, directed, wrote, and starred in the show as Barry Berkman, explained why they opted to jump eight years into the future.
Hader said that in the Barry writers' room, he and the other writers for the HBO hit show had decided to have him escape prison but weren't sure where to go from there. However, when the idea of a time jump was floated, Hader revealed that everyone was on board with the idea and why.
Hader explained to The Hollywood Reporter what went down in the Barry writers' room when they came up with the idea for the time jump. "It kind of presented itself [in the writers' room]: He’s going to get out of prison, he escapes, takes Sally with him. What happens next?" Hader said. "When we started breaking down, 'whatever’s next' felt really boring. So, why don’t we just jump ahead eight years, and they have a kid? And then everybody went, 'Oh yeah, that’s interesting!' You just kind of know when you’ve struck on the thing."
The eight-year jump helped set the stage for every character's ending by the finale. Barry and Sarah Goldberg's Sally were on the run and had a son named John. No-Ho Hank became a successful businessman while remaining in the Chechen gangster life. Fuches became a respected gang leader who did his time in prison before returning to the crime life. Gene Cousineau still feared Barry would try to kill him after escaping prison. Re-establishing all of their lives made it so that no one truly knew how Barry would end.
While Berkman managing to escape prison wasn't something viewers were necessarily surprised to see, seeing the show go eight years into the future was something they wouldn't have predicted. While it was becoming increasingly evident that Barry would never get to live the life he wanted without any hangups, no one thought that would mean he would take Sally with him to start a new life while avoiding law enforcement. Of course, it wouldn't stay that way, knowing the demons Barry had back in Hollywood, but Barry had grown comfortable living a lie.
Sadly, the problem with the show's time jump was that viewers only got four episodes to digest the brand-new setting. There was only so much time for the audience to get acquainted with everyone's new predicament, which made it not feel fleshed out. For the record, it wasn't a bad idea. If anything, the time jump should have been the season 4 finale twist, while the latter final four episodes of Barry should have been stretched out in season 5. Alas, Hader believed Barry was good for four seasons, and if that's how he felt, he's entitled to make the show's decisions.
Barry can be streamed on Max.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter