the wizard (Barry)
"the wizard" is the sixth episode of the fourth 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.
Sally has a bad experience at home, while Fuches is released from prison and forges an alliance with Hank, hoping to get his help in killing Barry.
According to Nielsen Media Research, the episode was seen by an estimated 0.232 million household viewers and gained a 0.05 ratings share among adults aged 18–49.
The episode received positive reviews from critics, who praised Hader's directing, performances, character development, sound mixing and suspense.
Before leaving for Los Angeles, Barry (Bill Hader) has Sally (Sarah Goldberg) learn how to use a gun to protect John (Zachary Golinger).
After picking up his new girlfriend (Carrie Gibson), he meets with Hank (Anthony Carrigan) at his latest front for the Chechen mob: "Nohobal", a successful company specializing in sand importation, with a golden statue of Cristobal in the lobby.
On his trip to Los Angeles, Barry buys a gun and listens to megachurch podcasts until he finds one that he believes justifies killing.
Gene claims that his time spent at a kibbutz in Israel made him change his perception of life, and deems their attempt at a biopic as exploitation.
The studio states they will proceed with the biopic with or without him, just as an officer takes Gene to meet with District Attorney Buckner (Charles Parnell).
Barry stakes out the house and prepares to enter, but stops himself when he sees Gene's grandson Gordon (Charlie Korman), now a teenager, arrive home from school.
As Barry approaches Gene's house, he is kidnapped and wakes up tied to a chair facing Jim Moss (Robert Wisdom).
"[2] Fuches' story and transformation into "The Raven" was conceived since the third season, with Hader suggesting turning the name from becoming a laughingstock into a real criminal mind.
Hader felt that it hurt the story, so he changed it to a new version where there were no plans to film the biopic, but Gene's attempts to shut it down prompt the studio to go forward.
Sally and John then would fly to Los Angeles and visit the Warner Bros. studio, where she would also meet Natalie and Jennifer Lawrence, the actress interested in playing her.
"[9] Ben Rosenstock of Vulture gave the episode a 4 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "One of the most bone-chilling sequences in the entire run of Barry begins 20 minutes through tonight's episode: an attack on Barry and Sally's remote home that leaves the latter calling her husband in a panic, pleading with him to come home.
"[11] Josh Spiegel of /Film wrote, "'The wizard' does spend some of its runtime establishing the new normal for the other remaining characters, as we saw so little of anyone aside from Barry and Sally last week, but it does so in a way that suggests a final sense of propulsion.
