Sally's PTSD Follows Her To LA In Barry Season 4 Episode 7

The following article contains major spoilers for the penultimate episode of "Barry." 

Nobody's having a particularly good time in the penultimate episode of the HBO hitman series "Barry," but Sally (Sarah Goldberg) is really going through it. She's been having some pretty serious mental breaks due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) caused by her experience killing a man in self-defense years before. Sally has been running from trauma her entire life, moving from a home with an abusive mother to an even more abusive marriage before ending up in love with a killer-for-hire, Barry (Bill Hader). 

After a pretty major time jump in season 4, Sally is raising Barry's son, John, and has completely embraced their unconventional life on the lam. When Barry goes to take care of some old business and disappears, Sally follows him to Los Angeles and hits up their old acting teacher, Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler). Unfortunately for Sally, Gene tells her to just come by his house but leaves it locked, leaving her lost out on his lawn with nowhere to go and no friends in Los Angeles

Sally's sense of reality has been a bit broken for a while now, as evidenced by a terrifying moment in episode 6 where a pitch-black figure that couldn't possibly actually exist followed her around her home. In episode 7, she sees a police officer and goes to turn herself in, but another mental break prevents her from taking that massive step. What happened, and how could it shape the "Barry" finale?

In an interview with TV Insider, Goldberg explained the whole reasoning behind Sally's meltdown, in which she sees the police officer's eye begin to bleed and ends up turning around and going the other way:

"This is going to be some deep insider baseball, but it's because she's seeing the guy she killed. It's the same actor. It's Anthony Molinari. So she goes and sees the cop, and then when she realizes that it's the man, she's having a nervous breakdown essentially. And when she sees his face, I think she's so confused and fearful that she's halted in her tracks. I think if he had stayed that perhaps she would've come back, bounced back, and she would've turned herself in. But it's him. It's the fear of what she did."

In the season 3 finale, Sally killed Shane, a hitman who had been hired to kill Barry but accidentally caught her in his crosshairs. She ended up beating Shane to death with a baseball bat, unloading all of her rage at the various men who had abused her onto him. It was her worst moment, the culmination of her time with Barry, who led her toward violence. If there's anything Sally feels guilty about, it's taking a life — even if he probably would have taken hers instead. This isn't the first time she's hallucinated Shane, either, as she saw him on the plane ride back to Joplin at the beginning of season 4. He's a manifestation of all of her guilt, and not just the guilt she has over killing him. Sally has given up almost everything that ever mattered to her, and it's taking its toll.

Going to the police might have been the only way to ensure the safety of Sally and John, but her hesitation because of her hallucination allows some of NoHo Hank's (Anthony Carrigan) henchmen to grab John and take him to their vehicle. She's not able to keep John safe anymore, or herself for that matter. She chose a life of victimhood with Barry, knowing that he would abuse her the same way she had always been abused, abandoning both her sense of self and her morals in service of just surviving. Unfortunately, she's only able to push her trauma and guilt down so much before it starts to spill out via her hallucinations, and now that she and John are in Hank's hands, things are looking pretty grim. 

If the police officer had stayed for just a moment longer and Sally had realized that she was having a less-than-lucid moment, she may have been able to get herself and John to safety, Chechen henchmen or not. A split second can change everything, as "Barry" has shown us time and again, and unfortunately, Sally missed her moment. With Barry injured and potentially incapacitated and a pissed-off, post-Cristobal Hank in charge, it looks like the finale only has more trauma in store for Sally.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support on their website.