Editor's Note: The following article contains full spoilers for Barry Seasons 1-3With the upcoming release of the highly anticipated Barry Season 4, HBO is breaking many hearts in 2023. Not only were fans of the network shocked to hear that the hit drama Succession would be ending with its fourth season, it was recently announced that Barry would be sharing the same fate and conclude with Season 4. Both critics and audiences alike praised Barry as one of the best dark comedies ever to release on television, perfectly balancing laugh-out-loud moments with heart-breaking pitfalls.
Comedy fans were already more than familiar with the work of Bill Hader, having been a stand-out star following his tenure on Saturday Night Live. Still, Hader proved his ability as a dramatic actor, a screenwriter, and a director for his Emmy-winning work on Barry. In what could essentially be called a cross between Dexter and Get Shorty, Barry centers on a skilled hitman who finds himself falling in love with the world of acting, deciding he wants to leave his life of murder behind to pursue a career in the arts. That proves easier said than done, as Barry can't seem to escape his checkered past and just can't help himself from killing when the opportunity arises.
Barry Season 3 concluded shockingly with Barry getting betrayed and sent to prison, and the final act will no doubt show the anti-hero at his lowest point yet. The complicated relationship between Barry and his colleagues will also likely reach its breaking point in the upcoming conclusion. If you need a reminder of where all the characters stand, here is a complete cast and character guide for Barry Season 4.
Bill Hader as Barry Berkman
Series creator Bill Hader, best known for his outstanding work in Saturday Night Live, Documentary Now!, Inside Out, and more, stars in the series as Barry Berkman, who also goes by the stage name of Barry Block. Barry Berkman's complicated history began when he joined the military and was deployed to the Middle East. When Barry's friend Albert (James Hiroyuki Liao) is shot while patrolling a village, Barry wrongfully shoots an innocent bystander he believes to be responsible. Barry was discharged for the war crime and picked up at the airport by Monroe Fuches (Stephen Root) - a family friend who introduces Barry to the time-old assassination profession. From then on, Barry and Fuches formed a lucrative partnership, where Fuches would set up jobs, and Barry would fulfill them.
Barry's life changed when the Chechen mob in Los Angeles hired him to assassinate an acting student (Tyler Jacob Moore). Barry tracks the student down to his acting school, where he meets a voracious student named Sally Reed (Sarah Goldberg) and a charismatic teacher named Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler). He quickly becomes very interested in acting, and while he does manage to piss off both the Chechens and Fuches, Barry enrolls in the class and even starts a relationship with Sally.
Barry initially struggles with acting but finds that he can deliver powerful performances when he draws from his own experiences, especially soon after he murders another individual. Barry has killed many people throughout the show to protect his secret life, such as his old marine friend Chris (Chris Marquette), and has even tried to kill Fuches on more than one occasion. The most significant of these deaths was Janice Moss (Paula Newsome) - an LAPD detective and Gene's girlfriend, whom Barry killed when she learned he was a prolific hitman. Gene discovers Barry killed Janice at the end of Season 2 and conspires with Janice's father, Jim Moss (Robert Wisdom), to pull off a sting and put Barry in prison for good. Little do they know that Barry isn't going to take this sitting down and may even try to exact revenge on his former teacher.
Henry Winkler as Gene Cousineau
Those who can't do, teach, and that's precisely the case for former actor turned acting instructor Gene Cousineau, played by the Fonz himself, Henry Winkler. Gene Cousineau is infamous in Hollywood, being blacklisted by nearly every significant player following his history of rude and abrasive behavior to cast and crew on multiple productions. This infamy has also negatively affected his relationship with his own son and grandson, and he now skates by teaching an acting class. That's not to say he doesn't love teaching, as he's extremely passionate about acting and consistently pushes his students to be the best they can be.
Shortly after being introduced to Barry, Gene is introduced to Detective Moss. The two hit it off rather quickly and start a relationship while Moss investigates the recent killing of one of Gene's students. Gene and Janice even go on a cabin in the woods vacation with Gene's two favorite students, Barry and Sally, but it's there that Janice discovers Barry's double life. Following Janice's disappearance and realization that she was murdered, Gene falls into a deep depression for most of Season 2. However, the sophomore season ends with Gene realizing that Barry killed Janice.
Motivated by a desire for vengeance, Gene confronts Barry in Season 3 but proves to be no match for a professional assassin. Barry doesn't kill Gene. All Barry really wants for his former acting teacher is for him to love and support him. In an attempt to make amends, Barry does give Gene a significant amount of money and even gets him a career-changing acting opportunity. This comes at the price of forgiving Barry, with the hitman actor even going as far as to threaten Gene's family if he reveals his crimes. Gene is eventually sought out by Janice's father, Jim, who is trying to figure out who killed his daughter. He gets Gene to admit that Barry was the one who killed Janice, and then Jim convinces Gene to set up Barry and get him thrown in prison. Ultimately a win-win scenario for Gene, as he gets the money, the fame, and the satisfaction of putting Barry behind bars.
Sarah Goldberg as Sally Reed
Arguably one of the best performances in a show filled with great performances is Sarah Goldberg (The Report), who brings the complicated character of Sally Reed to life in spectacular fashion. When Barry meets Sally, she immediately brushes off the stranger as she's hard at work studying her various lines. Once she gets to know Barry, she tries to help him become a better actor, eventually starting a relationship with him. However, while Sally may appear to have good intentions, she's ultimately mainly focused on her career, willing to help her classmates as long as they don't intrude on her aspirations.
This mindset serves Sally well, even getting her own show on a major streaming platform. This is around the time Barry is reeling from his own shortcomings, and he lashes out at Sally one day when he visits her office and asks her to help Gene get a job. This causes Sally to break up with Barry, but that ends up being the least of her problems when Sally's show gets canceled despite rave reviews, with the executive of the streaming platform citing the site's algorithm being the reason. Things get worse when she learns her former assistant and classmate, Natalie (D'Arcy Carden), has stolen an idea for another show from her, and Sally confronts Natalie in an elevator and screams in her face. Little did Sally know that Natalie recorded the encounter and ultimately got Sally canceled.
In a last-ditch effort to gain Sally's affection again, Barry offers the idea of breaking into Natalie's house and intimidating her. Sally rejects the offer but returns to see Barry to bring it up. Feeling remorseful, Barry tries to talk Sally out of it until an assassin breaks in and attacks Sally. Overcome with rage, Sally beats the killer to death before Barry returns and says he'll take care of it. When we last saw Sally, she was on a flight out of town, likely wanting to leave Barry behind forever.
Stephen Root as Monroe Fuches
Stephen Root is an accomplished character actor who has played everything from comedic roles like in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story all the way to villain roles like in Get Out. He gets a real opportunity to shine as Monroe Fuches in Barry - a character who typically causes more problems for Barry than solutions.
Fuches got wind that Barry became a skilled killer while serving in the military, and he saw a real opportunity to make some illegal money. He very much became Barry's handler, and he supposedly never had a problem with his young protégé until his deal with the Chechens. From then on, Fuches had to constantly try to steer Barry back to contract killing, quickly dismissing his new interest in acting as a passing phase.
Fuches soon realizes that Barry's new obsession is much deeper than he initially realized. While he really does consider Barry to be a close friend, he also realizes that Barry has all the dirt on their work and could incriminate him. Thus, Fuches began a long campaign to create a wide variety of enemies for Barry, contacting nearly every person who was connected to a victim of Barry. One of those people was Jim Moss, and while he certainly pointed the vengeful father in the right direction, Moss is more interested in doing things by the book and gets Fuches arrested just like he did with Barry. Now it appears that Barry and Fuches are serving their prison sentences together.
Anthony Carrigan as NoHo Hank
Easily the fan-favorite character of the series is NoHo Hank, mainly because of the delightful performance of Anthony Carrigan (Gotham).
NoHo Hank was once the second in command to Goran (Glenn Fleshler) - the leader of the Chechen Mafia in LA. He was more of an annoyance to Barry than a real enemy, with Hank even considering him as something of a friend, but that dynamic changes a bit when Barry kills Goran and Hank is placed in charge. Hank looks at his career as a mob boss almost like a Disney Channel original movie, treating it like a barrel of laughs and ensuring that Barry understands that there's a new boss in town.
Thanks to Hank, the Chechen mob allied with the Bolivian Mob, and that's how Hank met his boyfriend and leader of the LA Bolivians, Cristobal (Michael Irby). Cristobal proves to be a perfect partner for Hank, but there is a problem - Cristobal has a wife and a terrifying one. Eventually, Cristobal's family catches wind of his infidelity and takes him back to Bolivia, leading Hank to travel to the country and save his soul mate.
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