We're Getting Season 4 of 'Barry,' Despite That Explosive Ending

The following story contains spoilers for the Season 3 finale of HBO's Barry.

The first time you heard the premise for HBO's Barry—a hitman, played by Saturday Night Live star Bill Hader— decides that he wants to shift careers and pursue acting, you probably chuckled a bit. Speaking pretty objectively, that's a funny premise with plenty of fish-out-of-water-potential. But it didn't take long to realize that Barry was going to be different. Hader, not only starring but also writing, producing, and directing, was going to make this show unlike anything else on TV. And now through three full seasons, Barry is a show that can be as tension-filled, as chilling, as expertly-made, and, yes, as funny as anything else you've ever been on TV.

It's also a show that, at 30 minutes per episode, spares little time. With eight episodes in each season, Hader has said that he looks at each season as a four-hour movie, and with the amount of control HBO gives him, he can build his characters out while also pushing a unique plot forward and making Barry unlike anything else.

By Season 3, Barry (Hader) is no longer in Gene Cousineau's (Henry Winkler) acting class; no one's in Gene's acting class anymore, for that matter, because the class has ended—directly due to Barry's actions in the first two seasons. Meanwhile, Sally (Sarah Goldberg) has achieved her own dream of writing and starring in her own show—only to eventually lose it due to forces outside of her control.

NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan) has found the healthiest relationship in the entire show with fellow crime lord Cristobal (Michael Irby), but the show wouldn't let that be so easy either. Monroe Fuches (Stephen Root), the person most responsible for turning Barry into the monstrous killing machine he is at present, is split between dastardly scheming and living serene lives on the lamb. Clearly, these were characters with arcs that weren't just sketched out, but expertly illustrated.

By the end of the Season, we've reached a head. Albert (James Hiroyuki Liao), a former Marines friend of Barry's, is now investigating Janice Moss' murder with the FBI—and he figures out Barry's involvement. But he owes Barry his life. He knows he's a good person, and he lets him go—starting now. That last part, of course, in reference to Barry's own failure to stop making the same mistakes in his own life. And that cycle ends up costing him, as the season concludes with Gene setting Barry up, and Barry getting caught by a SWAT team in the house of Jim Moss—father of Janice—just before pulling a lethal trigger once again.

The show could've ended right there—but Barry is smarter than that. And Bill Hader still has some tricks up his sleeve.

Will Barry return for Season 4?

It will! In a shrewd move, HBO announced back. in May that the show would be returning for a fourth go-around. If not for that announcement, it would be reasonable to think that the Season 3 finale may just be the end. With Barry in custody, and both Gene and Janice Moss' father getting justice for her murder, it would be a reasonable place to end the show.

We also see NoHo Hank preserving his relationship with Cristobal by finally committing his first act of violence, Sally's descent continuing by killing the attacker who only moments before nearly killed her, and Fuches, for all his scheming and soul-searching, get off comparitively easy by getting locked up in prison and embracing his "Raven" nickname.

But Bill Hader has insisted he has more story to tell. In an interview with Vulture, he details why he kept the titular killer alive at the end of the season:

He is, indeed, a very dumb guy. As viewers, we sometimes forget when watching well-written TV that the people we're watching are not necessarily people we should be rooting for. Was Barry failed by everything in his life? Yes. Did a broken system lead to him becoming what he is? Yes. But he's not blameless. We'll see if Hader can find him any level of redemption in Season 4—which may just be the end end.

What will Season 4 of Barry be about?

Well, that's a good question. Barry has now been arrested and will presumably be charged with Janice's murder, the attempted murder of Jim, her father, and possibly several more crimes. Maybe we find Barry seeking legal help and—presumably—looking for some sort of insanity defense.

But he also seems like the type of character who wouldn't have much to say for himself at this point; as we saw in his desert showdown with Albert, he is thoroughly broken. He knows what he's done, and what he's become.

NoHo Hank and Cristobal will likely be working through what went down at the end of the season, and Fuches is in jail—but with presumably little evidence against him. Sally has returned to Joplin, MO after her own public meltdown and first killing.

One person who is finally doing well? Gene, who has gotten the justice he's been looking for all along after Janice was killed. In looking inward and realizing how much of an asshole he's been for so many years, he's sought to make things right with his family, and past connections from a director whose career he ruined to Joe Mantegna. Things are going well for Gene, and in Barry, that seems like something destined to end poorly.

Who will be in the Barry Season 4 cast?

The story will of course follow Barry following his incarceration, and we'll likely see some sort of major actor cast in the show as a Better Call Saul-type of low-rent public defender/defense attorney, since we know Barry won't be able to afford much better.

That main storyline will almost certainly involve Gene, which means Henry Winkler will of course return to the role that's won him his first enemy. This is also Barry, which means there's no chance that the show is leaving fan-favorite NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan) in the dust. Sally's (Sarah Goldberg) story is a little tougher to predict, but she and Barry are pretty tightly linked, so we'll certainly see where it goes. Fuches (Stephen Root) is also always going to be part of the show—well, until he inevitably finally bites it.

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