"candy asses" is the seventh episode of the third season of the American dark comedy crime drama television series Barry.
The series follows Barry Berkman, a hitman from Cleveland who travels to Los Angeles to kill someone but finds himself joining an acting class taught by Gene Cousineau, where he meets aspiring actress Sally Reed and begins to question his path in life as he deals with his criminal associates such as Monroe Fuches and NoHo Hank.
According to Nielsen Media Research, the episode was seen by an estimated 0.261 million household viewers and gained a 0.05 ratings share among adults aged 18–49.
Barry (Bill Hader) starts convulsing after being poisoned by Sharon (Karen David), who puts a blanket on him and leaves.
Sally (Sarah Goldberg) wins over the writers' room of The New Medusas by questioning the showrunner on the show's over-sexualized content.
However, she is livid when she discovers that Natalie (D'Arcy Carden) managed to get her own series that is similar to Joplin, but has been tailored to BanShe's algorithm.
Later, Lindsay (Jessy Hodges) informs Sally that she was fired from BanShe after Natalie leaked a recording of the altercation to media.
Meanwhile, Gene (Henry Winkler) has started his MasterClass acting course, with Annie (Laura San Giacomo) directing despite her inexperience in the role.
Albert (James Hiroyuki Liao), who has also grown suspicious about Barry, questions Fuches with the cameras in the interrogation room off.
[1] Originally, the opening scene at the church was longer and involved a sequence where Ryan's mother claims her son was influenced by the Devil, while George would keep looking at Fuches' PI card, which would then have a match cut to the events at the house.
"[2] The sequence would have involved Barry hanging out with some of his victims and some faces popping up in the clouds, deeming it "very David Lynch".
During post-production, Hader noticed that the only scene that he felt had an impact on him was when Chris stares at Barry, so he decided to scrap the original plan, "it doesn't want to work.
[2] Stephen Root commented on the last scene of the episode, "Even though James is there, and has lines, it's kind of a monologue from me, trying to figure out from the middle of this conversation, how can I take this over, and make him go do what I want to do?
Club gave the episode an "A" and wrote, "In lieu of grisly, graphic violence (Sharon torturing Barry in her basement?)
we get an episode that continues the super-stuffed, kudzu-fast plotting we have come to expect all season, as well as a couple of crazy reversals, a Terrence Malick-y fever dream, and one of those big narrative ironies that make the series such a feat of engineering.
"[7] Nick Harley of Den of Geek wrote, "Barry has been moving at a break-neck pace while taking all its characters to darker, slightly stranger territory.