As Barry, the titular hit man turned actor turned killer once more of his HBO series, Bill Hader has killed more than a few people. Now, he’s pulling the trigger on the show itself, revealing that Barry will end with season four. The eight-episode season premieres on April 16, and a new teaser trailer has a few hints about Barry’s fate. The season picks up after Barry was arrested at the end of season three during a setup in which his former acting teacher, Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler), played the key role. In the teaser, Barry appears to have a tense phone conversation in prison with Cousineau, who ominously replies, “I gotcha.” He also hallucinates seeing Cousineau, his ex-girlfriend Sally, and his former acting classmates in the prison yard before a reunion with Fuches, his former boss who is even more tied up with the Chechen mob than he is. The clip cleverly teases an “arresting final act” with a montage that includes, among other things, NoHo Hank nervously gulping whiskey and Cousineau holding a gun. One thing Hader hasn’t killed yet: our wild speculation as to what could happen to Barry next.
Hader wrote the fourth season during a pandemic hold on filming season three. In a new interview, he told Variety that, after “a very clear ending presented itself” in season four, he and co-creator Alec Berg reworked season three before filming. Hader, who directed the entire season, said he wanted to tie up some of the other characters’ loose ends without dragging out the show. “What happens in Season 4 is structurally radical in some ways, but it made sense for what I think the characters needed to go through, and what I think the whole show is always kind of headed towards,” he said. He also teased a plot point in the new season “that is kind of strange, though thematically it makes a lot of sense.” Yet another thing to hold our breath for as we watch.
