The following contains spoilers for the series finale ofBarryHBO’sBarryjust ended, leaving viewers with an ending that is sure to be divisive among those who’ve been sticking around since the show’s 2018 premiere. But while the fans may have lively debates regarding the finale, what about those involved with the show, like Sarah Goldberg?
Goldberg, who played one ofBarry’s leads, Sally Reed, has been around since the beginning. Season 4 drove home the actress' already apparent acting chops and range and demonstrated her ability to elevate them to incredible levels. So if anyone has a nuanced view of the finale, it’s her.Goldberg recently gave her prediction forBarry’s ending. But have her thoughts changed now that theHBOseries is officially over and there are no more spoilers to protect?
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In an interview withDeadline, Goldberg shared her ultimate thoughts on theBarryseries finale. Despite, admittedly, only having just experienced it herself, she did have some points to discuss. “I mean, I thought it was brilliant in that it just feels like such a bleak but humorous commentary on where we are, really, as a society,” Goldberg shared. “I feel like there’s the version of events, and then there’s the version that we want to believe, and I just felt like there’s something really twisted about that.”
She’s certainly not wrong.Barry’s finale saw ashocking ultimate fate for Henry Winkler’s Gene Cousineauas he shoots Bill Hader’s Barry Berkman in the head. This was the culmination of Gene’s frustration after being framed for Barry’s murder of Gene’s girlfriend, Detective Janice Moss. This also ultimately results in Gene going to prison for the murder, since Barry would have been the only person who could have possibly cleared his name. It even leads to the movie being made about Barry taking a drastic shift, now heralding Barry as a tragic hero who tried to stop the evil Gene.
As for Sally herself, she ended up with a quiet life as a drama teacher raising her son, knowing full well that the world believes a complete lie aboutthe possiblyBreaking Bad-influenced character of Barry. “It’s not a happy ending,” Goldberg went on. “I know that Sally has something adjacent to a happy ending, but I think that there is a bleakness to the ending, and that is sadly a little bit of a match for some things that are happening in our world. I thought it was pretty moving while being very funny.”
“I feel like we’re in a world where show business is changing, and what is presented as fact isn’t always the case,” Goldberg said ofthe real-world influencesbehindBarry. “And we have leaders that lie. At least, thank God, [Donald Trump] is not in power anymore. But the world has changed in such an extreme way since we startedBarry. We started in 2016, before Trump was elected. The world has changed [with] the pandemic, all of these things. And I feel like satirizing that, but also showing the bleakness of that, I thought it was pretty powerful.”
