HBO’s award-winning series Barry is a comedy-of-errors for the 21st century. Bill Hader stars as the eponymous character, a hitman trying to give up his blood-soaked past to focus on a new passion: acting. It’s all over for Barry after he stumbles upon Gene Cousineau’s on-going actor’s workshop, but those around him aren’t willing to let him move on so easily.
Barry brings the dark side of Los Angeles to life, including the gangs vying for power and the aspiring actors vying for fame. As the consequences of their choices reign down upon them, the resilience and aptitude of each character is put to the test. Here’s how they fair, ranked from least to most intelligent.
Goran Pazar
This Chechen mob boss is the reason Barry stumbles upon Gene Cousineau’s acting class. Barry is hired by him to assassinate a young actor named Ryan who is having an affair with Pazar’s wife. Despite being the most important Chechen gangster in Los Angeles, Pazar is not the sharpest crayon in the box.
Pazar has a hard time keeping his associates organized and unified underneath his command, and his men are pretty incapable fighters, especially against someone as trained as Barry. Eventually, Pazar and most of his men are killed by Barry.
Detective John Loach
Detective John Loach, an LAPD officer investigating the death of Ryan, the actor killed at the beginning of the show, is an inefficient cop who is often saved by his partner, Detective Janice Moss. However, when she’s killed, Loach is on his own to figure out what’s going on.
When Loach finally gets a confession from Barry, his number one suspect in the death of Moss, instead of turning him in, Loach blackmails the hitman. A heartbroken Loach wants Barry to kill his ex-wife’s new lover, who is a Taekwondo master. Barry, who has been out of the game for some time, struggles to take out the martial arts champ, Ronny, and things go terribly wrong. Loach gets involved and shoots Ronny, but Ronny is able to get Loach with a deadly karate chop, causing both men to perish.
Cristobal Sifuentes
Bolivian drug cartel leader Cristobal enters the series as an enemy of the Chechens, who believe he is a threat to their Southern California empire. Cristobal, however, is a bit of a diplomat, perhaps to a fault. He tells the Chechens he’d love to share the wealth with them but declares war after some of them attack his men.
After Pazar dies, Cristobal creates a partnership with NoHo Hank, the new Chechen head honcho, but Cristobal welcomes a Burmese gang into the mix, adding confusion and jealousy to the delicate truce that exists between Cristobal’s Bolivians and Hank’s Chechens. Cristobal’s enthusiasm and egalitarian ethos don’t always work out well in the world of criminal activity.
NoHo Hank
A young, aspirational Chechen criminal, NoHo Hank is a positive, friendly gangster who just wants everyone to get along. He really likes Barry, and even though he’s tasked with killing him in the second season after Barry takes out Pazar, Hank would rather have him around.
Hank forces Barry into a friendship by making him train his Chechen men to become competent fighters. Well-dressed and obsessed with American culture, NoHo Hank possesses a child-like curiosity and attitude that sometimes gets him in trouble.
Sally Reed
Barry’s love interest, who he meets in Gene’s acting class, is ambitious and driven, but she’s also conflicted about what she wants: an authentic, hard-won career or an easy, false path to acting success. By the end of the second season, it seems she chooses the latter.
Sally has a difficult, traumatic past, one she’s wrapped up in and consumed by, to the point where none of the red flags about her new boyfriend Barry are noticeable to her. While she’s a sweet and caring girlfriend, Sally’s self-absorption often gets the best of her, causing her to make poor choices.
Gene Cousineau
Gene Cousineau is a mediocre actor whose ego far surpasses his own personal abilities. However, he’s a perceptive and capable teacher who is able to guide his students into genuine performances, even if it’s just to make himself look good. Cousineau is completely in the dark about Barry, and he gets a lot of satisfaction from mentoring the new actor. With his own children, though, Cousineau is a neglectful father.
Cousineau becomes involved with Detective Janice Moss, who is killed by Barry when he finds out she knows he’s involved in Ryan’s death. A distraught, yet completely aloof, Cousineau is dragged through the mud by Barry in the second season, even being framed for Moss’s death at one point.
Monroe Fuches
Barry’s opportunistic and morally corrupt mentor is a self-serving businessman. After the traumatized Barry returned from a tour of duty as a Marine, Fuches groomed the young man, turning him into an efficient, loyal assassin who would do whatever Fuches told him.
After Barry finds Cousineau’s class and decides to give up his job as a hitman, Fuches refuses to let his best employee loose, doing whatever it takes to thwart Barry’s plans. While a fumbling jerk, Fuches always manages to evade total defeat.
Barry Berkman
Barry is a smart, decisive killing machine taught to compartmentalize his feelings from a young age. This all unravels once he enters Cousineau’s acting class, and his entire sense-of-self is turned inside out. While intelligent, Barry chooses the protect his new way of life by killing Detective Janice Moss at the end of the first season, which corrupts and undermines his choices in the second season.
Barry convinces himself that all he wants is a simple life with Sally, but there is no way to escape the past.
Detective Janice Moss
Detective Janice Moss seems to be the only character in the show who is actually connected to reality. Every other main character is too wrapped up in their own desires and impulses to effectively tap into what is actually happening around them.
An accomplished and experienced detective, Moss is the first character to realize Barry’s true identity, and she dies because of it. Her love affair with Cousineau, though ill-fated, gives her depth and feeling beyond her professional persona.
