Barry's Penultimate Episode Is, Surprisingly, One Of Its Funniest

This post contains spoilers for the latest episode of "Barry."

For years now, the narrative around "Barry" has been clear; the show is getting darker by the episode. Bill Hader and Alec Berg's HBO series has always pushed the limits of viewers' tolerance for grim twists of fate, and it bulldozed over those limits with the fantastic, endlessly bleak third season. If this trajectory held, it would mean that with just one episode to go, the final season of "Barry" should be at near-unbearable levels of tension. Instead, the penultimate episode delivered a surprise that, unlike most of the twists in the show, won't leave us with a massive sense of existential dread: it was very, very funny.

Don't get me wrong: "Barry" has been funny even in its darkest hours. Last season punctuated its most hopeless moments with clever bits about lesbians with too many dogs, and a wise beignet seller who doles out advice along with trendy pastries. This season has been funny, too, but its time jump left viewers destabilized, uncertain if we should laugh at weird details like Barry's obsession with Abe Lincoln or Sally (Sarah Goldberg) calling alcohol John's "juice." Luckily, this isn't a problem the penultimate episode has. "a nice meal" brings comedy back to "Barry" in a major way, and we're delighted about it.

If I asked around about the funniest part of tonight's episode of "Barry," I have a feeling I'd get varying answers. There's NoHo Hank's (Anthony Carrigan) supportive and lightly objectifying hype for his new team of assassins ("Yes, add to cart!" he says after all four are presented), a fun moment for a character whose humanity has been ground down throughout this season. Then there's the grisly follow-up to that bit, when Hank can't find his team of killers but does receive four bloody, head-sized packages in the mail. Even funnier is Fuches' (Stephen Root) deconstruction of those same killings, which is framed like a spitballing session in which his henchmen figure out how not to traumatize his new family — and end up arguing about the "Fast & Furious" movies.

Hader himself even gets to play up his comedy chops a bit, as Barry is convinced Jim (Robert Wisdom) did something to his extremities — but it turns out he just has a VR mask on. No cast member gets to show off their comedic talent here quite like Henry Winkler, though, and this episode feels like a fitting near-conclusion for the narcissistic character that won him an Emmy. Throughout the episode, Gene falls for an elaborate ruse to get him face-to-face with Jim, his own son, and team of investigators who seem to believe he's the mastermind behind nearly everything Barry has done throughout the series.

Gene's plot ends on an ironic note, with Jim calling him "a great actor" — but not in a context the acting teacher would ever want to hear it in. Before that, though, the show milks his naive starf***er attitude one last time with a ridiculous plot involving the promise of Daniel Day-Lewis coming out of retirement and Mark Wahlberg playing Barry in a biopic. The entire hair-brained scheme is hilarious as the moral high ground Gene tries to stand on immediately crumbles in the face of big-name celebrities. Personally, though, I don't think "Barry" gets much funnier than the fake agent's explanation that Wahlberg won't be able to make it to their meeting because "he's very frightened of the woods."

Almost every major character in "Barry" gets a big laugh in episode 7. It's as if Hader, an erstwhile comedy superstar himself, wants to give his cast the opportunity to hit one more brilliantly funny high note before the show ends with what will likely be a bloody, pitch-black finale. Hader has talked before about the idea that horror and comedy are two sides of the same coin, and just as a scary movie ramps up to major scares before its climax, "Barry" delivers a whole bunch of laughs as it enters the home stretch.

It's easy to look at these jokes and feel fear in place of enjoyment, given that "Barry" has basically conditioned us to expect the worst at any given moment. But that's actually not what I see here. There's a sense of generosity to this episode's script, a spreading-around of punchlines that allow pretty much every actor to capitalize on a singularly great comedic moment. As Twitter user Rolo Tony recently pointed out, Hader regularly defaults to crediting others on the show's cast and crew in a way that most series creators don't.

Sure, it's probably an ingrained tendency towards self-deprecation or a leftover habit from his "Saturday Night Live" ensemble days, but Hader's rejection of the idea of himself as an auteur has made the show better again and again, whether he's incorporating a bit pitched by Paul Rudd or ditching something because "Barry" writer and co-executive producer Duffy Boudreau (also Hader's high school friend) said it sucked. "Barry" has been walking the thinnest tonal tightrope on TV for years now, and it has never so much as lost its balance because tons of funny, talented people have worked to keep it steady. The show's penultimate episode, a chance for belly laughs in a sea of violence, is a testament to the collaborative strengths — on screen and off — that make it the funny, scary, bleak small-screen masterpiece it is.

"Barry" airs on HBO and Max on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.