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 0.221 million household viewers and gained a 0.04 ratings share among adults aged 18–49.
The episode received universal acclaim from critics, who praised its writing, directing, performances (particularly Carrigan, Goldberg, Hader, Liao, Root, Wisdom, and Winkler), lack of humor, sound mixing, horror elements, and set-up for the next season.
Barry (Bill Hader) hallucinates himself on a beach populated by people he killed, seeing Gene (Henry Winkler) and Sally (Sarah Goldberg) before waking up in the hospital.
[a] Dunn (Sarah Burns) questions Fuches (Stephen Root), claiming the pin belongs to him and they linked him to Goran Pazar's murder.
Fuches is then sent to prison, where he now claims to be "The Raven", although Dunn remains suspicious about him and what he said to Albert (James Hiroyuki Liao).
Jim (Robert Ray Wisdom) makes Gene come to his house and drives him to tears interrogating him about Janice and Barry.
In Bolivia, a captured Hank (Anthony Carrigan) listens in horror as the Bolivians unleash a panther on Akhmal (Troy Caylak) and Yandar (Nick Gracer) in the neighboring cell, killing them.
He discovers Elena (Krizia Bajos) subjecting Cristobal (Michael Irby) to electroshock conversion therapy using a male dancer.
Barry enters the house and aims the gun at Jim, only to be ambushed by a police squad led by Dunn.
[1] Bill Hader claimed that some people familiar with him expressed anxiety during the episode, a feeling he shared, deeming it "a tough watch".
Hader questioned if it the content was any bleaker than the real-life news, saying, "Living in the pandemic and where the world's at and mass shootings and all these things — it's all in there emotionally.
[3] Hader felt that audiences expected Barry to not get caught until the final episode of the series, so he decided to do it earlier.
"[5] Hader said of the final scene, "it's just [Jim Moss] alone with the memory of his daughter — and he doesn't want to go inside that house.
Hader wanted the scene to feel believable while avoiding becoming an action sequence, explaining "what you're watching is trauma.
"[3] Anthony Carrigan commented on the lack of comedy during the sequence: "it's pure survival from that point on, which is why it was very intentional that there were no gags, there were no bits.
"[10] Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone wrote, "After the extraordinary season Barry just completed, though, I have learned to stop betting against Bill Hader.
And if Barry's arrest really is the end of wacky Chechen mob hijinks, Sally obsessing over Rotten Tomatoes scores, Fuches falling in love in exile, etc., then maybe that's OK, too.
Hader, Winkler, Goldberg, and everyone else have long since proved their dramatic bona fides, and Barry would be far from the first crime-adjacent show to gradually shift from a light-dark balance to something entirely focused on the latter.
"[11] Ben Rosenstock of Vulture gave the episode a perfect 5 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "That's just another example of this show's versatility.
At every point, these eight episodes spotlight the webs of collateral damage that branch out from every act of violence, whether a shot to the head, a slap to the face, or a belittling scream.