The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Barry’ Season 4, Episodes 6 and 7 With Bill Hader

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

Sean Fennessey is joined by ‘Barry’ co-creator, star, and director Bill Hader to break down the sixth and seventh episodes of the fourth season. Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Bill Hader Producers: Bobby Wagner and Stefan Anderson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome to a golf podcast unlike any other. This is Fairway Rowland on the Ringer podcast network. I am your starter. Joe House every week on Fairway Rowland. It is myself and our PGA tour correspondent on the ground, Nathan Hubbard, talking all things professional golf, amateur golf, amateur betting, professional betting, amateur drinking, professional drinking, my birdie buddies. If you want to hit them straight out there,

please check out Fairway Rowland every week. Available on Spotify. I'm Sean Fennessey and this is the Prestige TV podcast. A quick programming note before we begin. We pause our episodes with Bill Hader recapping his series Barry a few weeks back in light of the writer's strike. The Guild has since revised its guidelines and Bill contacted me about concluding our discussions

about the fourth and final season of Barry. So in this conversation, you will hear an extended discussion picking up where we left off covering episodes six and seven of season four of Barry. And then later this week, we'll talk about episode eight, a series finale. All right, we're talking about the final three episodes of the fourth and final season of Barry. We're doing so with the co-creator, star, writer, director, so many other things. Bill Hader, hi, Bill. Hi, how are you?

Oh, lovely to see you. We have a tall task in front of us today. we have to talk about the end of this magnificent thing that you built. How are you feeling? I'm feeling pretty good. I think I'm slowly coming back to normal. I think when we first started talking, you were still finishing. You had not finished when the show started airing, right?

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, when we started for episode one, I was still editing. So I think around the time that episode... five premiered was when we were mixing the finale. Does it feel like coming back from a long vacation in a foreign continent? Yeah, I mean, I can't really describe it to anything because the closest, I guess, would be Saturday Night Live because it was such a family atmosphere and you were such a, you know, such a part of my life, you know, 24-7 for eight years. And so Barry, you know, is basically the same thing, you know, since 2000. I mean, the pilot was officially ordered, I think, at the end of 2014, I think.

So almost a decade. I mean, eight plus years. Yeah, 2014 was when they, like around Thanksgiving, 2014 was when they said, yeah, we like, we like, let's do this. you can write a pilot and so yeah yeah so it's been a long time well let's

let's go back to episode six we left off talking about episode five and you were used you were very proud of that one you were excited to talk about it and that was that felt like a very standalone sort of experience relative to where the story now goes in six and this episode opens

with Barry and Sally well Barry teaching Sally how to build and disassemble a gun, which I feel like is a kind of an indicator of a theme that goes on through the final few episodes here, weaponry and tools of death. And the conversation between the two characters, I thought was really interesting revisiting it

and thinking about how much you actually know your parents and how much you know the people that are taking care of you. And I love that, you know, that he knows that the idea that John knows the real Sally and the real Barry, even though they're using false names and living in a strange place and not talking about their lives is so interesting to me. I'm kind of wondering where some of that came from,

some of the idea of how much we think about what we know of our parents. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't really thinking of it in terms of how much you know, like from John's point of view or anything like that. It was more of, when I was thinking of, you know, we were talking about that scene, you know, Duffy Boudreau wrote that episode. and yeah, I mean, it was kind of more about, you know, I think it was Barry being very concerned. Like, basically Sally calling out Barry about why he wants to kill Kusno, because she's kind of saying that won't stop a movie coming out, you know.

And but to Barry, you know, she kind of called. She's like, I just think you want to get back at him because he sold you out, you know. And Barry's concerned about I don't want Kusinau telling my story. I don't want my son to, you know, you've just seen all of episode five. And the purpose of the son for Barry is that he can be, you know, this kid can look at Barry the way that he wants to be seen, which is as a hero and as a good person. And so Barry can And show his son that version of himself

And And now something's threatening that Which is what Barry thinks is Kusinow telling this You know, the story of this movie And Barry knows on some level That Kusno has a lot of shit on him You know, so he doesn't want that out there But it was important, I think, just on a weird

you know, as you're just talking about this stuff, you know, you go, well, what is Barry going to do? Why is he going to kill Kusinau? Because if they're going to make the movie, they're going to make the movie regardless. But I think it buries mine. Well, Kusino knows everything. He can really, really fuck me over in my son's eyes.

So let me just get rid of him. Because I think in Barry's mind, the other people who know him, like Albert and the people in season three who tried to kill him, they all in some way are guilty of perpetrating some crime. You know, Albert let him go at the end of season three,

so Albert can't really come back. If he comes back and is Barry Bergman as a killer, it's like, how do you know that? Why don't you arrest him? I mean? I was going to ask you about Albert, actually, so it's interesting that you bring that up. Yeah, so Albert was kind of a thing

that you didn't, you know, we thought about that. or like, well, once you go down that road, someone's going to say, well, Albert, why didn't you arrest him? You know? And so, and then once you start bringing in those other people, it does kind of populate it in a way that isn't interesting to me anymore. I wanted to really focus on these characters.

But you go down those avenues and say, well, would these people come back and do anything? but it really did feel like, you know, Kusina was the only person who hadn't done anything wrong who could come back and say, Barry did do something bad, you know. So he wanted to kill him for that reason. And then to see him teaching Sally how to build a gun is him also pushing his disease and sickness onto her. You know, and the fact that later in the episode, she can't put the gun together and she can't use it is very, you know, that's that's a, that's on purpose, you know, like for her character. And so, and then I really, I really like the line where he says, if we don't do this, we drop him off at an orphanage and kill ourselves. So it's really funny, but it's also, you know, show her his heads at.

Well, it works too, right? It convinces Sally. Yeah, she can't. And he's like, she knows, well, yeah, now he knows the real you. I mean, does he have a point or not? Is that the real Sally, you know? Literally the question I wrote next to that. I wrote, but he knows the real you. And all I wrote is, does he? Does he? Because maybe he does. Maybe that's the real her. And I think that's what she's wrestling with in this episode. Like, who am I an alcoholic? Am I a bad mother? Am I, you know, can I just, you know, be alone with this kid for forever, you know,

this is probably the first time she's ever had to be alone with him. Yeah, you can tell based on how she rears him during this period of time and some of the decision she makes. Yeah, she's completely out of her depth of how to handle. him, you know. Well, I do want to talk a lot about Sally, but maybe we can save her for the end because her journey in this episode

is quite fascinating to me. I was curious why Barry told John he was going to L.A. I do think that he wanted his son. I think there's a part of Barry. We talked about this that doesn't like in his mind, he doesn't want to fully lie

to his son. So he wants to be up front with him, but he also doesn't want to tell him the truth. So it's this weird like when you're acting the scene and because there was a thing we talked about it's like, I'm going to Kentucky to see my uncles and stuff

but Barry be like, that's not right, you know? But again, it's more of his psychology of and then it helped us story wise of like, well, John knows he's going to L.A. when they go to L.A., John isn't slipping out. Yeah, that makes sense.

He's like, oh, okay, we're going to L.A. Because dad said he was going to L.A. Instead of, didn't dad say he was going to Kentucky? Why are we going to L. It just kind of helped the John character, kind of, the character of John, you want him to be kind of unraveling. Like, he's already, he already fully knows there's something wrong with his family. He knows his mom wears a wig, you know, he knows they act strange. He knows his dad doesn't have a job, you know, like there's enough there that's making him kind of, you know,

suspicious. I'd like to speak to you about podcasts, perhaps for the final time on this podcast. So in my experience as a podcaster, a lot of people who listen to shows listen to validate their own feelings. And if a show, a talk show, a discussion show flies in the face of their sentiment

about something that they care about, they become very angry. And I've never seen that relationship manifest quite so clearly as Barry's relationship to three different biblical talk shows that he listens to on his journey back to California. I was wondering, obviously, pods have come up a lot in this season of the show.

Like, where did this come from specifically for him? Was it just a good tool to show him bargaining his way to the conclusion? You know, this is a good example where Barry initially as outlined and everything just went to L.A. and you know you just saw him go to L.A., get a gun, stand outside of Leo's house, and wait. And there was a draft written like that.

And then, you know, I think it was a thing of once you'd get into the religious thing and how funny it was to me, it was this thing of, you know what? it really came from Sally saying her line of, I don't think this is what God wants for you to try to, you know. And I was thinking after, it was after a rehearsal of the episode. And Sarah and I rehearsed that scene. And when she said that, it was just really struck with me. And I remember driving home and I was like, oh, you know what?

He should have an internal struggle in this episode of, yeah, I have had this thing. But can I do? this, you know, within my faith, you know, can I still murder somebody? And then I think because Barry is going to murder someone anyway, he has to be able to just, it's more a comment on just kind of, I've gone through that just with the internet where you feel as, you know, you will find what you want to find, whether it's negative or positive. Yeah. You can, there's so much now that you can dig through it and get your feelings validated. And then you can find a little community over that validation.

And sometimes it's positive. And as we've seen, sometimes it's really, really negative, you know? So it was just kind of from my own experiences of, you know, either film stuff, or books or, you know, even health stuff, you know, you go down a rabbit hole and then suddenly you're in with a community or something and you don't know who any of these people are, but man, I feel so much better about myself. Yeah.

It's scary and I've pulled away from a lot of that because it's, you don't, it's a little, it really hits this dopamine thing in your mind of, being included. And that's, and that's, again, it could be nice, but it's a little scary, you know, if it gets too big. Yeah, I can relate. There's an entire world of parenting that exists like this, too.

You can slide into that and it's very strange. Anyway, I thought it was very effective. And then, you know, he listened to these first two shows and he is slowly arriving at this conclusion that he is justified in his pursuit of killing Kusinau. And then he finds this third show, which is voiced quite, magnificently by Bill Burr, and one of the funniest things that's ever happened on this show, in which he tells a story about his days as a hockey enforcer and a murder he has committed on the ice, apparently.

I killed Billy Zorillo and, yeah. How did it, how did Bill come to voice that character? Well, the first pastor is voiced by Dave Wingo, our composer, who's great, amazing guy. And then the second is James Austin Johnson from S&L. Oh, of course. And that one's good because he does say that there are killings justified in the eyes of God. But if you murder something, that's still, you're going to hell, you know. So that's what freezes Barry.

So Barry kind of goes off the beaten path and finds, yeah, an ex-hockey player, play by Bill Burr who murdered someone on the ice and just, yeah, It means anybody can have a podcast. Anybody can start a website. Anybody can start a few things and just have whatever opinion you want. You're telling me, Bill. You will find somebody else who will connect to this. Your podcast is way different than Nick.

I forgot what we called him, Nick St. Angela or something. But, you know, it's, and so I, when we were in, So we didn't have that when we were shooting that podcast. And then we were in the edit. And I just kind of improvised that thing. But I did it in Bill Burr's voice, you know, and Frankie Gutman and Ali Greer, the editors were both like, oh, it sounds like Bill Burr.

And so I could probably call him because I'm friends with him. And I called him. I said, do you want to do this? And he was like, yeah, sure. And he came in and did it and had a great time. and yeah, he just, he was great. It's magnificently funny. I love it. Let's pivot to Fuchs a bit because this episode is called The Wizard and Fuchs. I don't know if I've ever heard Black Sabbaths the wizard used in a film or TV show before.

Has it been used? I don't really know. This is one of those instances where I, had on my Spotify just like I went on one of those you know it's like

you're listening to 70s music and it like recommends like a 70s playlist and I put it on and then the wizard was on it and it came on in my car and I it is one of those things where there was the song first and then that was like

oh this could be Fuchs coming out of prison oh when Fuchs gets come out of prison he should be all hardcore Like it all came from hearing that song, just like the thing you saw, I had that montage in my head, but before I heard the song, I think Fuchs was gonna come out of prison being Fuchs.

When I heard that, I was like, oh, he should be the Raven. So. I felt like it operated as simultaneously like an authentic, cinematic moment of like transition of someone becoming like a Dark Overlord, but also kind of a parody. of a sequence like that.

I think by the time to go to the coffee shop, you're not supposed to take it that seriously. Right. Even just the soft top coming down and the convertible

is pretty lame and pretty lame. And Stephen had his fingernails painted like that and that extra who played a security guard was fantastic and he rolled with it

or they did that their hands. That was all improvised and just great. We see that Noho Hank in the years that have transpired has built up this incredible corporate structure around him in Cristobal's memory and that he has become, I don't know, what is his business? Is he a tech magnet? Is he? Well, it's basically what they pitch at Dave and Busters. That's what he's doing now. So they're in construction. That's what when you're panning across the one man's vision and everything. It's construction sites and the sand business. And you see him with,

you know, now he's like the philanthropist. But it really was like the idea was he had, you know, he's responsible for Christobal dying. So in order to deal with his guilt, he does the sand business, which in itself is kind of tragic, because if he had just, in abduct, doing it anyway. But with all the Chechens, he wanted to just get rid of all the other guys, you know, the Koreans and the, yeah, he just wanted, in the Guatemalans, he just want to get rid of all of them and just make it all Chechens. It's amazing how he's transitioned, though, into what I, what seemed to me like a very familiar Hollywood archetype, you know, of the like overselling and overly excited about things

that are fairly mundane, you know, when he's showing the Ravens gang, the new home that they're going to be living in. And he's like, let's go, you know, this like exertion of excitement. It probably is an archetype, but it comes from life. It comes from hanging out with, you know,

you meet people like that in your life, you know. And a lot of them, you know, they do work in real estate and they do, you know, or builders or especially in L.A., that's a very L.A. type of person, you know, and, and, uh, but I think it is a thing that they're all playing a character, you know, and I think the character he's playing is businessman, you know, um, like I'm, he, he, you know, to me it always connects to that line that when, when, when, when Christabal

and force says, we're going to be legitimate and he says, you know, when you say that, you sound naive. Well, now he's acting legitimate. He's being naive. Do you know what I mean? Like, that it was very much he is a vision of what he was saying Christobal was being now he is that thing. Do you believe that? That you believe what?

That like if you are less cynical and make attempts to be more I guess ethical for lack of a better term that you are naive to how the world works? No, I don't think you, I see a lot of people who are very ethical and can also be real, you know. And you see a lot of people who do amazing work,

who, you know, aren't, I think, I think what Noah Hank sees in Christobal is, is, I think Christobal's plan with what he wanted to do was kind of naive, because I do think, and I think that's the best, that's when we're in the best zone, and it takes a while to get there, is when Noah, Noho Hank has a valid point and Cristobal has a valid point.

You know? And Noah's Hank's point is valid where all those guys are probably going to start fighting over stuff, you know, and it's better if it's all the Chechens. And it's just one gang doing all this. But me personally, no, I don't think I could operate, you know, if I did that. But I do think when I'm writing or working on this,

the story, you are just trying to get to the truth of it, you know, and how you feel like, I'm constantly questioning, I'm constantly, you know, most of my time in the room is, is that a thing, or does that make sense, or is that really what it would be? You know, that scene in season three about the algorithm that was like, well, how would Sally's show, go away, you know, and everybody had a story about, an algorithm or eight years from now. I know I'm jumping ahead, but, um, or no, it's in this episode when he goes and picks up his guns and there's that thing that says is what guns do to you.

It's like we had, we, I went around and around and had this full thing of he goes to this like under, you know, underground guy who's going to sell him guns with no serial numbers on it and the whole thing. And then it was like, well, he could just go and buy them. Mm-hmm. And what if it's like they did the thing with, like the compromise is like what they do with cigarettes.

Remember when they would show you the picture of your lungs and everything? And then they go, okay, just so you know, this is what guns do to you. You know? And it was like, okay, yeah, that's good. You know, like you, it just each problem you would hit, you would say, well, what would

the thing be? And how can you pull it from the real world? It's an amazing trick of the show to consistently be providing plausible explanations in a universe, in a storytelling mode that is not realistic. And in fact, this season has become increasingly disorienting, I think, in certain sequences. That might be, well, I'll just, one, I just want to cite that Fuchs and his, his new wife and his new, his new daughter is like, is also an incredibly funny aspect of this episode.

Yeah, and his daughter is played by our PA, Autumn. She's the PA on the show, and she was so funny. And we cast the wonderful actress who plays his wife, and I saw Autumn and her standing next to each other. And I said, oh, my gosh, she's daughter, and it should be Autumn. And Autumn is a film student, and she did such a great job. I thought she was so, she really got thrown into it. And we shot her scene at the dinner table.

And then I walk, you know, go back downstairs to set up another shot. out in there she is with her walking on and she was back in PA mode and everybody was, you know, it was really sweet. People were bringing her coffee and she was like, oh stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, sorry. It was really sweet. Her comic timing was impeccable, I thought.

Oh, she was great. Yeah, especially in episode seven too. I mean, she was really good. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity, or some adults with overweight

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So this spring, get a leg up on gift-giving with Uber Eats. Last-minute gifts that land every time. Must be 21 or older to purchase alcohol. Product availability varies per regency app for details. Let's talk about Sally because, you know, as you mentioned, Sally is maybe not not well suited to solo parenting. She burned some grilled cheese. She doesn't quite know how to pull John out of his funk.

She's struggling. You know, she eventually makes a pretty drastic decision to effectively drug him. Yeah, she gives him out vodka. And there was one take where Sarah Goldberg really poured a lot in. And you could hear all the parents who went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I would say this is a tough one for the parents that I know, that we had a hard time watching this sequence. That was a little chilling. Oh, okay, yeah. I get it why she does it. I mean, she doesn't know what to do. She's out of her depth, you know? She's just like, what do I do?

You know, and it works for me, so maybe it'll work for him. But she does in a way where she feels guilty about it. She hides it from him, you know? She didn't know it was bad. She wouldn't hide it from him. So again, it's, you got, she's doing a thing that is building up. the guilt and self-hatred in her, which then leads to what happens next in the episode.

You know, I think that's all a manifestation of a lot of this stuff. Let's talk about that because this is one of the, it was, you know, the tricky timing of even when we broke, this was the sequence that I think I most wanted to talk to you about as I watched the first seven episodes before I saw the finale, was this moment where Sally goes into their room to take a nap, and she's awoken by something, an intruder of some kind. And then this sequence transpires in which a figure in all black enters the home,

and then eventually the house is sort of lifted off of its axis by what seems to be a truck. Now, many people after they saw this, I think were sort of thrilled and confused, and also the thing that I saw on the internet quite a bit was when is Bill Hader making his horror movie? That was the note that I saw most people saying. Maybe you can just walk us through this sequence and kind of how you conceived in and ultimately what you feel it represents. Well, initially this scene was Sally having a,

I won't walk you through the whole thing, but it was basically where she has a daydream of her going to L.A. with John and her auditioning to play herself. in the movie and they say we can't give it to because we already give it to Jennifer Lawrence

and it goes to a party and it's a big Hollywood party and all the acting classes there and they're all so excited to see her and Natalie sees her and apologizes for everything she did to her and then Jennifer Lawrence is there and Jennifer Lawrence says you know you should play yourself and then it it was going to be done in a way where you think this is actually

happening and then you cut back to her in the house and you realized, oh, she's been daydreaming this. And then she turns to Johnny and says, we're going to LA. So her reasoning for go to LA was to try to audition to play herself. And that was what it was for a while. And then this whole idea of being, we had shot the first four episodes and seeing how Sarah was playing it and the scene with Sarah and I in the jail when we talked to, you know, she says, you make me feel safe.

It seemed like her issue, I think it was Liz Sarnoff who said, it feels like her issue isn't about, I want to be a star or anything, it's about feeling safe for Barry. And I think, she's like, and her and Duffy, we were all talking and we all kind of were like, I think her thing needs to be less about careerism and more about feeling safe.

Mm-hmm. Feeling with Barry, that should be what takes her to LA. And so, I said, okay, and then I wrote the sequence that you see. And to me, the sequence is, you know, yeah, it's, it's, it's just someone having a, you know, a breakdown. You know what I mean? It's, I don't think, um, I, yeah, it's just, it's kind of like the feeling of, of, of being out of

control and a feeling of being unsafe in your own home and the worst fear, you know, when the door closes, the voice and the other side saying, out my eye and everything, that's the guy from that she stabbed. That's the actual audio of when she stabbed the guy at the end of season three. And then that comes back later in episode seven, because that's the cop that says hide to her. That's the actor who played the guy that she killed and his eyes bleeding. So it's all kind of this the idea is like it's all kind of her guilt you know and and and um feelings of uh yeah just being out of control so you know i to me it was it was always about it was that that was the feeling that was going on of of um she can't trust her own she can't trust herself so she's

trying to call barry to be like you got to come back here like she's really out of control. When I think about that sequence, I flashed on a couple of kind of critical or memorable moments of this throughout the series. You know, I think of Noho Hank and the Panther. I think of certain parts of Ronnie Lilly, some of the more kind of signature filmmaking,

like audacious filmmaking moments. And in each one of those cases, I found myself asking, in the sequence of the story, is this really happening? because there is some sort of formal shift in the way that you're making, you're kind of filming or telling the story.

And then also there's this, the show has kind of over time evolved into something that is exploring even more of the psychology of the characters and less of necessarily them beat-to-beat happenings in their days. Yeah. This felt like kind of the ultimate summation of that in some ways.

It's sort of like we are diving headlong into someone's mind as we're watching the scene, but I didn't want to overread that either. Like if you had said to me, Actually, this is exactly what happened to Sally in her home. I wouldn't have said, oh, wow, how stupid, you know? No, no, I don't, yeah, I mean, because I've had people say, like, why didn't we ever find out who that guy was in the house?

And, you know, you just say, oh, okay. You know. But, you know, I know, I know what I believe, but, you know, it's hard sometimes doing these interviews because there's a part of you that says, no, you take it and you decide what you think it is, you know? But for me, you know, it was,

how do you write sequences that give you a feeling, you know, what it feels like? And if you feel terror and confusion, that's good, you know, that that's the, that was the idea, you know. Is there any part of you that wants us questioning

whether other things have happened previous to this? Meaning, uh, well, I thought it maybe Sally in the bathroom with having that encounter. Oh, no. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's real, you know, but you can also not think, you know what I mean? It's like, I know it's like so coy or whatever, but that's kind of why I like, I mean, those are some of my favorite films, you know, do those things, you know?

And so there is a part of me I wish I could be cool, like, I don't know, David Lynch and refused to say anything. but, you know, or some of these other filmmakers, you know, the Collins, like these people I really revere, but, I don't know, I don't mind talking about it. I always feel like it's good to give like 35% of what you intended and then let everybody fill the gaps. Yeah, that's true. There's a lot that I'm not saying, too, I guess I should say, yeah.

There's a lot of other things there may be. But, yeah, I mean, it is a, and it's interesting to try to do that. How do you show a breakdown that's not, you know, we did this in season one where you would have those daydreams of barry and sally in the grocery store i remember jeff buchanan our editor kind of instinctively made it echoey and put this kind of filter on it and everything and i said no no no no it's you know i said remember the daydreams in the king of comedy you know they're just they're real because when you're having a daydream it feels incredibly real you're living it you know so i think it it should be

like that. It should be, it should just feel like a scene, you know. And when you're, you know, having a breakdown, it's, yeah, it feels real, you know, it just, and you can't really just understand what's happening, you know. Yeah, I think the, maybe just a little bit you can talk about how you decide to kind of move the camera around or block a scene like that in particular, because it does feel that, that sequence with Sally in particular, it feels like you are, you are, in Sally's real world does not feel like you're necessarily inside of her head for the most part, but there is this

kind of looming sense of not just danger, but disorientation that I'm talking about and it feels like maybe you're getting it by just shooting everything a little differently. It feels like the camera is very slowly moving in and out and backwards and forwards and is that something that you're designing

to say we want to push the viewer a little bit off of comfort? No, that's interesting. To me, it was trying to just play it as weirdly subjective as possible. You know, even the shot where you reveal the guy standing behind her, it's like, how do you do this in a way where you get the feeling that's someone standing behind you? You know, and not do it in kind of a traditional horror way, which would be her close up and then you see someone out of focus come behind her.

if you cut to the side, it makes you go, shit, there's someone in the house with her. Well, that's how you feel when you feel like someone's behind you. Like it's happening. You know, so it was trying to do it that way, you know. So we're looking more subjective.

Yeah, it just was trying to be more subjective, more from her point of view. But shooting things in a way that, yeah, you give it a feel. like what would make you feel like someone's behind you? What would make you feel like you're at a loss in a room and the truck hitting it? I don't even know what the truck is about.

I don't know who's... I don't know what any of that is, but it was just like that's the feeling that you want to feel, yeah, completely disoriented. You know? We didn't talk too much about Gene and Leo and Tom in this episode. But I think it's notable that it seems like

Sally is about to be apprehended, but in fact, it's Barry who's apprehended at the end of this episode and kind of black-bagged by Jim Moss, which I know is a nice little turn on what we thought was going to happen versus what actually happened. Gene has one of my

favorite lines of the entire season, which is when he's says to Leo, first things he says to him is, I'm sorry, I shot you. I thought you were someone else. Also, the scene with the executive talking to Gene and Tom, where she pitches the movie, which is essentially the movie

that you see at the very end of the series, that was the very last thing we shot. That scene was, was Gene coming back in the movie and everything was very clunky. And Emma Barry, who's one of our writers in Alecberg, too, when they watched the cuts where like, this doesn't work. And I initially got defensive and I was like, it does work. And then when I sat and I talked to Emma about it.

And then, you know, it's a thing that I can do where I just made it too, storywise, too complicated. And, you know, so she said, what's Jean's plan? What happened? Why is he back? You know? And as I explained to her, it was like going A, B, B, B, F, H, N. You know what I mean? It was just kind of all over the place.

And she's like, it needs to be A, B, C, D, E, F, G, you know, I need to be able to follow it. And so I went back and rewrote that scene. So you understood exactly, here's what everybody knows. Here's what the studio wants the movie to be. and Gene saying I came back here to see what you guys are planning because Tom told me

and it's what I fear that you guys are going to make a big stupid movie about something very important and about the death of my girlfriend, you know? And... Do you feel that he 100% believes that?

And obviously he changed his course when he's tempted in this next episode we'll discuss, but he does? I think he does. Yeah, and I think I think he believes it, you know? I think he believes that. I think he believes like, I'm going to come back

and I'm going to get justice for Janice and all that. That said, he's a narcissist, so he's going to get attention for saying, don't do this. So he makes a website, he makes this, you know what I mean? So he's still saying, look at me, look at what I'm doing, but he is doing it for a noble reason, you know, because there's another version of it

where he just stays on the kibbutz and is like, this is terrible. I can't believe they're doing that and just, you know, gets on with his life,

you know? That's another parallel I really like in this episode and the end of the series is Barry using his faith to justify his feelings and Gene doing the same in some ways,

you know, and saying, I have learned selflessness and so I've pursued this, but then by coming back to Los Angeles, he reverts. Yeah,

it's this idea of L.A. being the place where, you know, whatever dreams are made. But, you know, it's like, no, don't, they should, if they both just stayed away, they would have been fun.

You know, but something a magnetic force brings them back, you know. I'm not done discussing that, but let's transition formally to episode seven. You want to do that? Sure. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking,

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So episode seven is called A Nice Meal. It's written by Liz Sarna off directed by you. And I got to say, what transpires in this torture sequence after Barry is apprehended by Jim Moss is in the news, Bill, because VR goggles and the Apple,

whatever that thing is called, is so hot right now. And, you know, you've once again, like, got us inside of a character's mind. And so Jim's torture methodology, what is it? What is he doing?

He's basically making Barry's, you know, he's an interrogator. He's an interrogator. He's not a murderer. So he's basically made, you know, I think the line that's important in that is, the opening is important for two reasons. One, it's, it's showing his methodology, which is like when Barry says, why are you showing me these things? He's not showing you anything.

Like, this is what's in your mind, you know? And what's in Barry's mind is, I want to go to heaven or, but I'm afraid I'm going to go to hell and I'm not going to be able to see my son, you know. and those are the three images, you know. And I think what he's doing is making Barry's mind basically, and what he does to everybody is he gets your brain to eat itself. He gets in your head in a way and with your own thoughts, he makes you hurt yourself so then he can extract information. So I think what he has important,

he wants to know why, you know, he did it. And he wants to know, did anybody help him? You know, and he's trying to get information from him. But I think what we're seeing in the opening is him also being like, you know, for a guy who's so calm and cool, this guy took the thing he cared about the most from him. So he also wants to hurt him. And he's a little, you know, he's been. waiting for this.

He also wants to, he wants him to experience what he's been feeling. So this is the last time you're going to see your son. You know, this is the last time you're going to see Gene Kusano.

You know, this is like what, he wants to give Barry that feeling kind of like, it's like almost like some sort of, yeah, just like that torture where you think you're going to die

and then they bring you back, they restitate you or something, you know. Is John and David Lynch's the Red Room in this vision? No, no. He's actually, that is the theater where we shot the ending, where Sally and her theater class,

and it was like we were just sitting there, setting up, and I said, could we just get John and just put him right there? Because I have a theater that's put him in a image in the, you know, VR thing. And why is Kusanel later in that sequence in a restaurant? I don't know. These are the hard-hitting questions, Bill. Yeah, you know, we shot that when we shot the scene with the wedding where Barry has that image, that vision of him and they're dancing.

And I just had, I was like, oh, can we have Henry there and just do a scene, a shot of him and do a shot of Robert just so it's like they're at some wedding. But again, it's like some of these things just, they just make this, you go, I just want it to be here. It just seems right, you know. it's somewhere in Barry's mind where he goes to Kusna's Kusno eating you know

and I just I don't know I think it's pretty funny that he he sees him in this thing instead of him being in this like kind of stoic position staring at him it's him eating and then offering him food but you know we did have a version of this where Barry was going to get caught

by by moss and it was was going to be like an interrogate him to get information of like why did you kill my daughter how did it happen walk me through what happened what what her last moments were like it's it was more of that and then Barry somehow using his acting ability what he learned in kusno's class to best him and then it became and that was it for a while and then again me and lives sarnoff and Duffy Boudra, we're like, there's no way he's too dumb to be Moss, you know? Like, I just don't see him doing that.

And I just feel like, I don't know, this isn't MacGyver. You know what I mean? I don't know. It's just, I wanted something different that was more kind of like what you were saying, more about the psychology of the characters as opposed to something I feel like we've done before, you know? I was like, what is it? You know, you try to write the thing.

It seems like a good idea. And then you start writing it. And you're like, well, this feels just like, the scene with him in Kusinau kind of from the end of season three. So you go, well, what else could it be? And then you, yeah, we got to this thing of the VR stuff and just him kind of getting into his head. And then Barry talking about giving information

to Moss that he wasn't expecting. and which is about the $250,000. So that kind of verifies something Kusno said. So then Moss. And he discovers that in the VF journalist notebook, right? Is that where he finds that? Yeah, he finds it in. That's a Lon's notebook that Lonnie.

So when he finds it, he's like, oh, okay, how would Barry know about that? Because Kusonov said the exact same figure. so then it's like he's got to go pursue that. His goal is pursuing the truth about what happened to his daughter, you know. Because we toyed with ideas of like, so he would just kill Barry right now. Like he's not Barry, you know, he's not, I can even see myself pitching that to Robert Wisdom and he'd be like, no, that's not who I am. Yeah, he's more moral authority than that.

moral authority than that. And so then it was like, you know, Barry's on a bunch of drugs, he's knocked out, you know, so he knocks him out to go pursue this other thing. And then he will come back with that information

and deal with Barry after that and then leaves him there alone. So it's interesting you say that because my read on that sequence was that he just got distracted because he felt like he had unlocked the case fully. He essentially was like,

it's Gene, it's been Gene all along. We need to ensnare Gene. If he closes Gene all along, or there's something here and Barry's out of his mind, he wants to go pursue Gene, like, right now. And it's very similar to when,

at the end of season three, when he has Gene, and it's like, oh, it's Barry, I'm going to set a trap right this second, you know. because I need to get to the bottom of this now. You know, so he's, he's just a dog, like, you know, he's just, he's just moving, not even a dog, like a shark, just moving towards a truth about what happened to his,

his, his, his, his daughter. And so the idea that, like, because we did have that, we went back and forth of, like, could bury best him know, And then it was like, well, could, would he then just like kill Barry if he thought Barry killed his daughter? And it's like, well, no. It's not really, like you said, he has a higher moral authority than that. When you wrote the $250,000 that Barry gives to Gene, did you know that that would be Gene's undoing ultimately?

Yeah. So when we were writing season four in the summer 2020, we were like, something has to be said to this vanity fair writer that kind of blows that comes back to haunt him and we said well what if Barry gave him money in season 3 and so we went back

and wrote that scene where Barry brings him money and that created that whole thing about Barry doing a hit for an O'Hank and blowing up a house everything. The whole storyline came so he could give that money to Gene and then in season

four. That scene where he's like, here's all the money, where I was shooting that fully knowing this is going to be Fusina's undoing is this money. I mean, it's such a critical part of the story and I don't want to jump too far ahead, but obviously,

I don't know if it justifies, but it kind of confirms Gene's fate in a way that I think it's easier to accept as a viewer. It makes him not an innocent. No, it does make him innocent because he should have said no. Yeah. And he took it,

and he took Chechen, drug money and bought his son of house, you know, he took it as a reward, you know. And so it, it was interesting to be able to plant that in there, you know, but, you know, and then it was fun coming up with like, I just like, it was interesting. It was like, usually when we started out writing, it was really, you know, you kind of, on season one especially, it was this thing of like, You're trying to make this perfect kind of mouse trap that you see, like from Billy Wilder to Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale scripts and these things. And then as the season, as the show went along, you kind of become less interested in that and more about what's the emotion that you want, you know? What, how do you make it to feel what the characters are feeling, you know, and that and try to push it in that direction.

direction, you know? And I think the scene and him with him and being caught in a garage was a big one because that was one we went back and forth with a lot of like, you know, are they going to fight? Is he going to like, you know, how does he get out of the chair? Is it going to be like this thing? And every time we do it, we'd be like, well, this feels like, and I'm not saying this in a bad way because this show is awesome, like a like a breaking bad type of thing. And it's like, I've seen that, you know? I've seen that time. And I love it, but how do we do this in a way that's like just interesting for us, you know? I'm glad you brought that up because a sensation that I've had over the last couple of seasons is that I felt as though you became increasingly disinterested in like the mechanics of a plot, which is not to say that the show doesn't have a logic to it and doesn't conclude in a way that is like, it makes sense. But it just seemed like the way that so much serious television is so reliant on, this has to tie up neatly.

Even if it ties up neatly at the end of nine seasons, it still has to tie up neatly for us to be satisfied. And it seems like you got less interested in that. Yeah, I didn't. Yeah. I don't, to me, it's like what, to me, there has to be some sort of storytelling ability. It can't be a thing where you go way over, you know,

It's not like what you would see and something that feels really archaic and suddenly becomes this other thing. It has to have some sort of emotional logic to it. We're able to watch it and go, I feel the emotion of everything happening. But I do think with long-form TV, because it is such an investment, it can become like a puzzle where people get really excited when they start a game, where people get really excited if they can solve it. you know what I mean? Or they knew it was going to go there and you know what I mean? Because they're so invested with the characters.

And so I get that and I've been like that, you know. But I think making this show became less interested in that and more kind of like, what's the truth about these people? You know what I mean? And trying to get to that feeling as opposed to something, and sometimes by going for the truth of those people, you go into a thing that's messy. Well, I think that you do that with Gene's character

in this episode in particular by showing his weakness for a kind of vanity and desperation for fame when he gets this call from this alleged agent. And that this person who, since we've seen him since the time jump, has been steadfast in his rejection of the making of this movie. All of a sudden, Daniel DeLewis is interested. And he has to have a meet now

with an agent, which again is a very funny series of exchanges in the middle of this incredibly tense plot. And everything that's happening with Barry and Sally is very complicated and emotionally taxing. But, you know, Gene being lured in by the appeal of

DDL and Mark Wahlberg teaming up to tell his story is such wonderful stuff. Yeah, he couldn't resist that and I had an agent say that to me. I said something about my left foot and he went, whoa, deep cut. And you worked for Dan O'Day-Lewis's agency. Okay.

I think you want an Oscar for that movie. Do you have contempt for the industry of Hollywood? I feel like sometimes you do, Bill. No, I don't have it. I mean, not much as much as anybody. else. You're very good at satirizing it, though. Yeah, I mean, you can't satirize

a thing if you don't have some sort of appreciation for it. If you just hated it, you couldn't. You couldn't hang out in that space if you really disliked people. Well, if you peel back the layer of that joke, too, it's wonderful because it's an actor playing an agent improvising that my left foot is a deep cut. So it's really...

It really has like three different layers of him trying to seem real. But yeah, I mean, that's definitely, you know, it is true that you want to keep the tension building and you want to make sure that the moves and the emotional moves of all the characters are true to them, you know. And so when you get to this, It's like Cousineau, even though he's done all this and he's feeling very, you know,

righteous and doing the right thing, it's like what would be the thing that would lure him back in? And it's like, Dan O'Day-Lewis is going to play you. It's like, that's a tough one for him to say no to, you know. And that's Henry Winkler's very, very last shot as Cousanow. That was a reshoot. Oh. So he did that and he did the shot where Sally Gingler, calls and he has a choice between helping his student or going to Tuscana or not Tuscana,

going to have the secret meeting with an agent. He chooses the agent and that should show you like, okay, this is where. And that's the best thing when you can come up with a thing that him not going is like a character thing, but it's also causal because it then makes her go to his house and wait, you know, and then that ends up getting her caught. So that, that, it takes a while to figure something like that out. And then you feel very good when it's like, oh, that works as a character moment. And it's one move as opposed to like three moves. It's wonderful how even when you cut to Sally in that phone conversation,

we still feel like we're in this kind of chaotic and a little upsetting Sally experience where the way that she shot outside the airport, you can almost see her wig blowing in the wind. The wind is swirling. It was when, I don't know if you remember when we had the, I mean, the massive rainstorms here. Yeah, in like January? And that was in late February, and it was the windiest days, I think, in L.A. ever. And we came out by the airport, and it was, we didn't know if we could shoot. It was so windy.

And I felt really terrified because we had this kid out there, and the wind was really knocking him. I mean, it was crazy. So we shot, the one shot with the kid, and I said, send him back. Get him back in the car. you know, sending him back to the studio because I was so worried that something was going to happen like he was going to get hurt because it was really, really crazy. But it worked for the scene.

I remember Allie Greer calling me and going, you know, this wind works so well for the scene because it really does feel like, you know, like a harbinger of doom, you know. Totally. That's exactly what it felt like, yeah. You know, it almost feels like that's what's happening in her mind or something, you know, that... Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it could be.

I mean, yeah, it's just that they should not, be there, you know? And hopefully if you're caught up and when you see that she's like, we're in L.A., you're like, oh, no. You know. I also, I quite like the sequence where, you know, Sally arrives at Jean's

house and she again starts to, she almost, she has this moment where a daze comes over her outside of the home. I was wondering if you could talk about that a little bit. Yeah, that was during the reshoot and yeah, it was when the boy says, what are we going to do after dad comes back?

And she, you know, she says, and, you know, her thing is, you know, Mr. Kuzman will show up, your dad will show up. Your dad's going to kill Mr. Kuzno. And then we'll just keep doing what we're doing. And when she says that, you know, it hits her, like, that's just going to be awful. And what we did was Sarah played it incredibly well

where it almost feels like she's, for a moment, is just like discombobulated. We just had a take where she really like, the feeling you could see it just hit her like a wave. And in the mix, I said, can we just take out all the sound except for her breathing? So if you watch it, all the ambient sound goes away except for her breathing and then it comes right back up.

But again, it's how I feel when you have like a wave of anxiety hit you. It kind of like everything goes away for a second and all it is, like you're in your head and then you come back. And then she hears a dog and sees the cop and she has an opportunity to go do that. And then this, you'll appreciate this, Sean. So you and Adam Chitwood both saw the first seven along with a lot of journal. but I know you guys and I think I texted, was there anything? What did you think?

And you said, I didn't understand the moment with the cop and her because I didn't know, because she saw the cop. And I said, oh, that's the actor who played the Sean Taylor, the guy that she killed. And you went, oh. And Adam went, oh. Yeah, we didn't. We couldn't tell, you know, because we haven't seen that guy in forever.

So because your guy's reaction, I went to call the VE effect. I'm like, can we make the guys eye bleed? I picked up on this one. I re-watched it, Bill. Can we make the guys eye bleed? So, you know, it's, it's, he might not be there, you know. That might be a vision. It could, or if she's talking to a cop and he's a different guy, we don't know.

But again, you're, you're subjective. You're in her head, and that's kind of the feeling. But that came from, that was the last, or second to last piece of VFX that we ever did on Barry was the eye, his eye bleeding. Just revisiting it last night to prepare for this conversation, I looked at it and I was like, that is

definitely not there the first time I watched this. That was from you and Adam both going, yeah, I couldn't tell that was a guy and I called Duffy Boudreau and Iita Rogers and I said, yeah, they couldn't tell that it was a, and they went, yeah, I think we just, because we know it's Anthony Mollinari, who's the nicest guy in the world. You might have also seen him. He's in Ronnie Lilly. He's the guy who's stocking stuff and Ronnie Lilly.

And then he is in everything everywhere all at once. He gets kicked in the head and his head turns into confetti. That's Anton Molinari stuntman, great actor, and one of the most wonderful guy on the planet. So, yeah, so we all know Anthony, but no one else knows Anthony. So it was like, okay, we got to do something to him. Well, it really, it kind of ties the bow on that line of dialogue from the sixth episode, too, about something in my eye and this sense of like what Sally has done and her coping with that. Like, it really effectively communicated it.

That all came together, I would say, right before we mixed it. Because before what she was hearing on the other end was other voices, it was, we were going to have voices of like Henry recorded something and then, me and then the actor who played her father and then actor who played Sam, her ex-husband. You were going to hear all these voices of the men in her life behind the door. And we did a temp of it with other people and it just was kind of corny. And then Duffy Boudreau said, I think it should just be Sean. It should be the guy saying, because that's what she's feeling guilty about is that guy.

So I was like, you're right. And then we had him record stuff and it was okay. put the audio in of just from him going out of my eye and that really worked you know and then and then put the blood in the eye I think the next week

so that we did that that mix of him of hearing that was I think I don't think that was in the first version you saw I don't think it was either I think I mean it ties neatly into even with the vision that she sees at the beginning of the season in the when she's flying

and she sees the hands come over this eyes come up. Yeah. That was the idea that. But again, you don't want to do it in a way where it's flashes to a flashback of him going, ah, you know, and everything. That's just to kind of, you know,

it's more about, that's kind of like telling the audience. Like, remember, don't forget this, remember this, you know, instead of trying to go like, what's the way they would remember it? I'll tell you what I thought was going on when I first saw this and I still think as a plausible interpretation, even if it wasn't your intention, was that she has this moment of days that you described that, you know, she's had

this anxiety attack or whatever it is. She comes out of it and then she approaches a police officer who we think is just regarding her as if she's a crazy person. And then we never really go into the psychology, the kind of psychological state of Sally for the rest of the series. We see, we spend a lot of time with her, but most of the things that we see her doing, are these very sincere emotional moments, particularly in the next episode with John that is very powerful. But then even when we see it really at the end

of the series, we don't go back to that moment where she is hallucinating or remembering something. So it felt like to me when I first watched it like a break. Like she had said, I'm in a reality now. She's about to be kidnapped and so was her son. And so she almost can't get

stuck in what she's imagining is around the corner because it arrives. Like her worst fears have been realized. Yeah, to me, the wig is taken off of her head, you know, and it's like no more, this is now real. Right. You know, so that that was also a very important kind of moment of the wig being taken off her head or the end of six. I, you know, I don't have my glasses on anymore and it's the undershirt and everything. So it's like they start out in five in these costumes and then slowly come back to who they actually.

actually are. They're trying to play these other people and then coming back and kind of dealing with the past and L.A. and everything kind of brings it back to who they actually are. We should probably speak a bit about Hank and Fuchs and the plan to take out the Ravens gang, which goes terribly awry. Yeah, the Fubox. Where did the Fubox come from? I don't remember. You know what? I think. We had written or at least outlined a thing where Barry was going to get, he was going to come back to L.A., and then he was immediately going to get caught by Hank. And then Fuchs was going to catch Sally and John,

and that there was going to be this giant shootout. Like in seven, there was going to be a giant, like shootout at that house where Fuchs is at. and that Barry was trying to find John and them, and then he doesn't get them. And, you know, it was very kind of traditional action-y thing. And then it became less interested in that and kind of more of, and kind of rearranging it and kind of simplify

and just making it less kind of like, it just felt like a kind of very standard action thing. And then actually, became, Aida was like we can't shoot, we can't shoot guns and explosions at that house. That's like an insanely expensive estate in Malibu. Like we can't, you know, the, the shot we did up there with the rocket and everything, that's all, you know, we did one shot of the rocket where it goes like 20 feet in front of us, you know, the effects takes it over and then all the squibs and the muzzle, that's all the effects. So, um, so because of that,

that I kind of, I just, yeah, Roe sat down. Usually what happened is we have this big outline, a bunch of notes and everything, and then I eat it, Rogers, like, I need the scripts for seven and eight. I need them. Like, we have to start prepping them like Monday. And I go, all right. And then just go through. And I wrote the food box thing and the thing with the heads and that whole, you know,

the scene next, you know, with Fuchs and his guys about talking about the nice meal and all that stuff. I don't really know I don't really know what any of it means can I give you my interpretation of it? Yeah, sure. Not that you give a shit, but like it felt like a very funny parody to me, you know, the expendables and Commando and Cobra,

you know, all those kinds of things, obviously, but that it felt like, I may be overreating, but it felt like a commentary on the fact that the most effective killers in the world are actually not these action heroes we imagine. but they're actually weird sociopaths like Barry. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting to me that the killing is kind of secondary to like, it's not about the killing. It's kind of, at least for Raven and his guys, it's like, oh, shit, I can't have this. I can't have both things. It's like Barry's issue, like the Raven. You know, the reason he gets a family to me was every time you see a guy get out of prison in a movie, they always cut to him having sex with some.

And it's like, we're going to get you a little. late or whatever. And I was like, what if he gets out? And what he wants is like a family. So he immediately falls on love and has a family. And then the next day, they see him and his gang cut these guys' heads off. And they're like, yeah, we can't handle this. And he's heartbroken. And that's that scene of him looking out the window, looking at them, is like he can't have both things, you know? And that his guys are trying to make it easier for him. Like, well, how do we work this out in a very you know

pragmatic way you know like they want to help because they want to see them together you know you had a couple of them hilarious cultural convergences with this when this episode aired too because I think when this episode aired the new Fast and the Furious film was released like that weekend and so you've got this really funny fast and furious noise canceling headphones gag between

the Ravens gang and you know we didn't even mention that Daniel DeLuis sort of resurfaced in the public eye right around the time when this episode aired and he hadn't been seen in years. Oh, really? Yeah, he was like in page six being photographed wearing a strange looking outfit

and he literally hadn't been photographed like five years. Oh, wow. I don't know that. Yeah, I didn't know any of that stuff. I mean, I knew about Fast and Furious because I see the posters and everything, but I should say those actors in that scene, too, did a great job of we did a rehearsal and we let

them kind of improvise stuff and they, came up with the Fast and the Furious thing was kind of you know Andre and Toby those two guys just started doing that stuff and I was like that's a whole bit you know and then um I love and the guy says soundbar I know soundbar it's still loud like that's a lot they're all they're all they were just improvising and making me laugh and it was like dictation and then editing those down and and then uh I think the only thing that written was the the guy's saying after all was done, him going, I still think I can time it, you know.

It's a very effective setup for what becomes like a looney-tune-style sequence, too. Like that action sequence of shooting the missile and missing. The camera, like, no cutting to Hank pulling away is like, it feels like a

roadrunner cartoon. Yeah, I think. Well, that came from going and seeing that location, we're on a location scout, and where we parked, I got out of the van, and that was the exact vantage point I saw that house at, and I took a picture of it, where

they set up the rocket and everything. I was standing right there, and I took a picture of it, and then I looked to my left, and I saw that other parking area down there, and I just saw right then, I was like, oh, you know what could happen as they shoot a rocket at the house, and then I kind

just set it to Carl and Gavin and they were like, oh, yeah. And we just took a bunch of pictures. And then we did two takes of that, and that's the second take. It went great. And the other actor is an actual stunt driver. So they run over to the car. He actually gets in the car, but Anthony runs out of frame, and Anthony's stunt double is in the car already.

And then they drive around. So then when you see the guy get out of the car running, that's not Anthony, that's a stunt double. And Gavin Clintop, the AD did such an amazing job of queuing the background in that scene. I mean, it's really, if you watch it again, it is amazing that he's queuing everybody, and they're all arriving at the exact perfect time, you know.

And, but it is kind of like, yeah, it was. kind of like, well, this is more fun than like an actual action sequence because we've done that a lot. So what's something unexpected? You feel really confident doing that kind of thing now? Even watching that scene, I was sort of like, oh, yeah, of course, you did one of these.

This is sick. Like, it didn't seem like even something you had to beat your chest about. No, no. I mean, you just try to go like, oh, this could be fun. Let's try to do it. And sometimes you do those things and they don't work. I mean, there's a couple of things I've tried making the show that did not work. and we thankfully cut them, you know.

But that was one I felt pretty confident. I'm like, I think this is going to work, you know. And everybody did such a great job on it. I mean, and Don, our camera operator, I mean, that was phenomenal what he did. I mean, it was perfect. You know, the episode ends with Barry essentially escaping. At a certain point, it seems like he collapses from being drugged and falls asleep in Moss's kitchen,

but then eventually does awake. And I guess Moss just left his phone on his fireplace sledge there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was kind of a dumb move on Jim's part, I got to say, because then Barry calls Sally, only to find that, in fact, Sally has been kidnapped by Hank.

And then not the last chilling shot of you from behind quivering. We've seen this a few times this season. We have? When we see it in episode eight, not quite quivering, but that kind of from behind shot of you put something strapped to your body. Oh, right, right, right. It's almost like you've entered like Terminator mode when this happens. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it was, I think the reason we were like, oh, he would leave the phone up there was kind of like, he doesn't think Barry's going to be able to get out because he's under so much drugs and stuff. And I think the idea, at least, was that if someone's calling Barry, Moss must be able to see who's calling and be able to get the information. And he wanted access to his phone. But he couldn't have it inside the garage.

That was a fun thing, too, figuring out how he got out of the garage, with the camera going past him and going to the, you know, because it was a feeling of kind of like, okay, we could do a big thing of him getting out. But we've seen Barry like scale buildings like in season two and he kind of can kind of appear and

reappear in places. This guy broke out of prison. Yeah. He broke out of prison. So it was kind of like to me that's like his weird little you know, it's a thing that's pretty established that he can get out of a situation. Like that's his it's like what he's good at. It's like what the whole shows about that he has this natural

ability. He is born. If he had just not questioned himself, he would just be an amazing assassin. He has the ability, like him being in a chair and locked in a garage, drugged up on ketamine or whatever the fuck it is that he's on.

It's like, that's nothing. You know? That's nothing. He's like, I know how to get out of this. You know? But, you know, having to like memorize lines or having a real connection with somebody

or telling the truth, that's really important. taking responsibility. That's really difficult for him. But so yeah, you know, and that was Dave Wingo had the idea that, oh, his ringtone should be like a Christian song.

I thought it was really funny. And then that was the very last thing I shot for the whole series was that shot from behind. I put my head down and I shook. And then we were like, is that it? I was like, that's it. And they were like, all right, you're done. No more Barry.

That's a strange way to go out. Yeah, his last thing I shot is Barry. And then, yeah, it was wild. Well, it's not the last time we see Barry. So let's get prepared to talk about episode eight. But let's take a quick break before we do that. Thanks to Bill Hater and thanks to Stefan Anderson and Bobby Wagner, our producers on this episode.

We hope you'll stick around for the final discussion, episode eight of Barry, the series finale coming up later this week. We'll see you then. You know,