The writer, director, and star maps out season threes journey to its final frame.
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This post was originally published on June 12, 2022.
With the release ofGood Onetoday, we have republished it to include the episode.
Inepisode one, Gene Cousineau would find himself in Barrys trunk.
In the finale,Cousineau would assist in Barrys arrest.
Without acting class, Barry finds his life without purpose and meaning.
Cousineau realizes the path to forgiveness demands sacrifice.
This darkness bleeds into each storyline, including NoHo Hanks forbidden love affair and Sallys fall from grace.
Sally narrowly escapes being strangled to death and brutally kills her attacker.
By comparison, Fuches gets off easy by landing in jail.
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Lets start with how it ends.
Did you start with his arrest and work backwards?
Did you build to episode eight without knowing where youd end?
Sallys going to have her own show and at some point its going to go away.
Cristobal and Hank are a couple.
Fuches is going to start a vengeance army.
And then last episode, Cousineau catches Barry and Barry goes to jail.
That was always where we were headed as we were writing.
But every step of the way, this just made more sense.
Why did it have to end in his arrest?
Theres only so long a guy can get away with this.
And so, I think he would get caught.
Hes not Jason Bourne or Walter White.
Hes not a genius.
Hes a very dumb guy.
The episode is titled Starting Now which is a callback to the first season.
It is also what Albert says to Barry.
Then he has a call with Sally where he expresses his love.
What is going through Barrys head in those three scenes?
And then Albert says, essentially, Youre forgiven and youre not evil.
But I cant have anything to do with you.
Get out of here.
Hes feeling like, What is happening?
All these people from acting class are turning violent.
Look at the mess hes made.
He goes there because he loves Cousineau.
I gotta go take care of this.
Everything hes just been given he completely throws out the door.
Which is what Fuches does, which is what Sally does.
And Joe Mantegna goes, I know exactly what youre talking about.
That feeling is very much in the whole show.
Can you talk about whats going on with Barry and Gene?
And then I like Jim Moss turning around and looking at him I called them the Jonathan Demme close-ups.
He sees that hes surrounded, hes in total shock, he doesnt fully understand it.
Our stunt coordinators playing the guy who yells Berkman!
He gets his attention and we push in on Barry.
Now he understands this is real.
I told Henry, You just have to look at him like, I got you.
Honestly, you dont have to do much.
Just stare at me.
And he did it.
And then I did my look and then we went to lunch.
The big theme of the season is forgiveness.
We have NoHo Hank say, Forgiveness has to be earned.
And he does earn it, but hes still doing it for himself.
He doesnt really care about her career.
And Jim Moss essentially brings him back to whats important: Why are you protecting Barry Berkman?
Do you love Janice?
And do you love Barry Berkman?
Because you cant have both.
And he makes the decision to risk his life and really do the best performance of his life.
Inepisode twowe have Barry saying, Youre a bad actor Mr. Cousineau, and then its paid off later.
He actually is going to fool you.
He does it flawlessly.
It was important to end it onamoment of someone having a real emotional, spiritual win.
Also in frame is the photo of his daughter.
You stay on this shot and then the season ends.
And theres onlookers and neighbors on the street.
It was a feeling.
And then I thought, They catch him and all the cop cars leave.
And then theres Jim Moss, but he still has to go inside that house.
And that house is empty because of Barry.
I was like, this feels right.
As a show, people go, Oh, its a comedy.
Its a comedy because its 30 minutes.
Everybodys trying to put it in this thing.
I just view it as a story.
The show, and this season very much, was about trauma and victims of trauma.
In a lot of these stories, Janice Moss wouldve been killed and then youre on to something else.
It hurts this guy.
It affects a lot of people.
And it doesnt just go away.
That was always an interesting notion I had with the show.
And thats funny, you said the tree that house just happened to have a tree there.
Sallys descent has a Lady Macbeth quality to it.
What were those conversations like?
We always said, What if…?
You go, Okay, Sally wants him to go after Natalie, what is that scene?
And then you go, God, what if that Taylor guy shows up?
What if he knocks out Barry?
And now its Sally and the Taylor guy.
Shes a fly to him.
He just wants to torture Barry.
Ali Greer, the editor, and I talked about when shes getting choked.
I want you to feel how fucking awful this is, and the lack of respect for human life.
And how she can give up and she doesnt.
He goes, Whyd you do that to me?
Why did you just put that thing in my eye?
What is wrong with you?
He feels like, We were playing a game and you hurt me.
That would inflame her.
Shes been triggered, and its a callback to Barry when Albert was shot.
He sees red and goes off and does a thing out of love.
I asked Sarah Goldberg about it.
I go, What do you think?
And shes like, Oh, Im killing that guy.
Theres no way Im not killing that guy.
The door closing and the silence is a feeling.
Shes being cut off.
A part of her has been silenced by murdering somebody.
Then theres the intense closeup on her as Barrys trying to explain, You didnt do this.
Say, Barry did it.
Its an intense moment.
Part of my job is going, This is a moment.
Whats the next one?
Focus dropped out for a second.
And I was really frustrated and Sarah was frustrated and he was frustrated.
We tried to do two more and it just wasnt happening.
I went over to the monitors to watch the original take and I cant see it.
I just dont have the eye for it.
I go, Wheres the drop in the light?
And other people go, Right there.
And Im like, I dont see it.
I was like, Fuck it.
Thats whats going in.
Its a transcendent moment.
And you just cant do that.
Its just getting punched in the face, one after another.
In editing, I said, Why dont we own it?
Want to try putting some dissolves in to make it feel like one piece?
Ali was able to time those perfectly.
You mentioned what people do out of love.
That comes up quite a bit this season, in different ways.
Obviously theres NoHo Hank and Cristobals relationship.
Sally is trying to protect the thing she loves, her career.
Gene is wrestling over what he thinks he loves.
What were you hoping to show about love?You see some awful shit happen because of love.
Love of your country, love of your religion, love of a lot of things turn into wars.
Love can be a scary emotion.
And people feel that about a lot of other things.
Then you go, Geez, thats scary.
Everybodys going through the same thing; now, lets try this.
If you saw the first drafts, the story is all over the place.
Its everybody having Barrys problem.
How we got there, I didnt really know until we started writing it.
The last two scripts were written in August 2020, so we were deep in the pandemic.
We had started writing season four as a Zoom room.
Then I was going back into season three and changing things.
Liz Sarnoff was the one who said Elena should be doing conversion therapy on Cristobal.
And its out of love.
Shes just trying to fix her husband.
Krizia, that actress, was amazing.
I was like, In your mind, youre not torturing him.
Its the same as when you train a dog and people spray them with water guns.
You dont see how horrible and disgusting it is.
Everybodys just having fun.
Hes not reacting to screaming or anything.
It was really great.
You often talk about how you try not to judge these characters.
What does it mean to you to punish these people without judgment?
How do you think about these characters now facing consequences?Youre not judging them along the way.
Theyre just being human.
But their actions have reactions and consequences.
She makes a choice to go to Barrys house and say, Hey, can you scare Natalie?
It was very important to us that Barry doesnt invite her over.
She has to go there and she has to be the one pushing that.
And she ends up killing a guy because she resorted to the vengeance everybody else is going through.
In this world with these people, its interesting to see the chain reaction.
Maybe it is a Catholic thing.
I mean, all those people on the beach, everybody was like, [sighs] Bill.
And I was like, Well, you got to be punished, right?
Dont you guys have guilt about anything?
My friend Duffy Boudreau writes on the show.
Hes like, Youre the most Catholic non-Catholic.
My dad was raised incredibly Catholic so I think it all came down to me by osmosis.
In interviews aroundepisode seven, youve given warnings about the finale.
The whole seasons been building to this.
It doesnt feel unearned.
The very first shot of the entire series is not funny.
Its a dead body and that was very much on purpose.
Youre just trying to do whats honest for the characters and the story.
When we got to those last two episodes, it felt like we were forcing things to be funny.
It undercut what you wanted the characters to go through.
If youre going to portray it honestly, the comedy comes from other moments, like in life.
Flannery OConnor is a perfect example.
Her work can be incredibly funny and incredibly grotesque.
It feels like the human experience.
That was the only joke in the whole episode.
Do you not want the audience to find relief?
Laughter can create a distance.
And he might be right.
Maybe its just an instinct because I am a very anxious person.
But it felt right.
Its a tough watch.
I was like, Were all fucked, right?
I always appreciate things that I would watch and feel, Oh, that feels honest.
I did another interview and someone said, Wow.
This is really bleak.
I said, Is it bleaker than anything you see on the news right now?
You have written season four.
Production manager Aida Rogers was like, Lets just read the tea leaves.
I think you oughta direct them all.
Because it is me in tone meetings with directors going, Its this shot.
Man, back off.
Let them have their thing!
That was the hardest day of shooting, not the freeway.
All that stuff on the beach, someone would go, Oh, howd you do that?
I was like, That was all done before lunch.
We all went home after that.
You just plan it and things tend to go smoother.
Sometimes that doesnt come at the script phase.
Its all you, so youre just fucking yourself over.
But youre Barry, so its fine.Everybody goes, How do you write and direct yourself?
Im like, He doesnt speak.
I dont think the whole of seven I say a word.
You dont want to hear Barry talk for that long.
