Candy asses
Barry experiences a poisoned dream while Sally faces a career crisis.
"candy asses" is the seventh episode of the third season of the American crime tragicomedy television series Barry, and the 23rd overall episode. It was written by executive producer Liz Sarnoff and directed by series co-creator and main actor Bill Hader, first broadcast on HBO in the United States on June 5, 2022. The episode is notable for featuring Barry in a dream-like state after being poisoned, with no dialogue from the title character.
Quick Facts
- Series
- Barry
- Director
- Bill Hader
- Writer
- Liz Sarnoff
- Photographer
- Carl Herse
- Editor
- Franky Guttman
- Airdate
- 5 June 2022
- Length
- 33 minutes
Facts from the source article.
Plot
George Krempf, Ryan Madison's father, is the only one standing during a church service. Barry, poisoned by Sharon, begins convulsing; she covers him with a blanket and leaves. The next morning, he hallucinates walking out of the suburbs onto a beach, approaching a still crowd staring at the sea. Sally impresses the writers of The New Medusas by challenging the showrunner about its over-sexualized content, but becomes furious upon learning Natalie has landed her own series similar to Joplin, tailored to BanShe's algorithm. Sally screams obscenities at Natalie during a confrontation. Lindsay later tells Sally that Natalie leaked a recording of the fight, leading to Sally's firing from BanShe. Gene launches a MasterClass acting course, directed by Annie, who is returning after years away from the industry. In Bolivia, Hank searches for Cristobal but is captured by Elena's men; he finds Akhmal and Yandar in a nearby cell plotting an escape. Sally releases a statement that Lindsay considers a backhanded apology, and after Sally lashes out, Lindsay quits as her agent. Fuches visits Jim, Moss's father and a Vietnam veteran and former SERE instructor, to discuss Barry's role in Moss's death. Jim takes Fuches to the police, where Dunn identifies him as "The Raven." Jim grows suspicious after learning Gene also blamed Barry, and questions Gene at the MasterClass wrap party. Still hallucinating from the poison, Barry is driven by George to a hospital parking lot. George, a gun beside him, mourns his son's death. Barry imagines reaching the beach crowd, which includes people he killed, like Chris and Goran Pazar. He wakes up as he is rushed to the emergency room and sees that George has fatally shot himself.
Production
The episode's title was revealed in April 2022, with Liz Sarnoff writing and Bill Hader directing. This was Sarnoff's third writing credit and Hader's ninth directing credit. The opening church scene was originally longer, including a sequence where Ryan's mother claims her son was influenced by the Devil while George kept looking at Fuches' PI card, leading to a match cut to the house events. Hader cut it because he felt match cuts were over-used at that point. The episode omitted music when the series' title card appears, as Hader felt "Now it officially gets dark." Annie's lack of practice in directing came from on-set discussions between Hader and Laura San Giacomo, who felt it would be realistic and that Annie would desperately hide it from Gene, highlighting Gene's new role: Hader views him as very happy and feeling great about himself but still doing it for himself. Regarding the dream sequences, Hader viewed the ocean as a representation of freedom and the desert as a representation of death. He struggled to identify the meaning behind the beach and the people, saying "they're all waiting to be either taken some place or denounced, or... I don't really know what's happening." The sequence originally involved Barry hanging out with victims and faces in the clouds, deemed "very David Lynch." During post-production, Hader noticed only the scene with Chris staring at Barry had an impact, so he scrapped the original plan, stating "it doesn't want to work. This isn't leading with emotion, this is leading with a big idea. The emotion of the scene is about Chris, so let's just make it about Chris." Hader interprets the scene as Chris not recognizing Barry.
Reception
The episode was watched by 0.261 million viewers, earning a 0.05 in the 18-49 rating demographics on the Nielsen ratings scale, a 24% increase from the previous episode. "candy asses" received critical acclaim. David Cote of The A.V. Club gave the episode an "A" and wrote that in lieu of grisly violence, the episode continues super-stuffed, kudzu-fast plotting with crazy reversals, a Terrence Malick-y fever dream, and big narrative ironies. Ben Rosenstock of Vulture gave the episode a perfect 5 star rating, noting that Bill Hader does not speak a single full word in the episode, and for Barry this is an episode of introspection where his voice is taken from him with no opportunity to rationalize or seek redemption. Nick Harley of Den of Geek wrote that Barry has been moving at a break-neck pace while taking characters to darker, stranger territory, and that with an impressive history for shocking finales, next week's episode has a high bar to clear.
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