Barry

There’s good TV, there’s great TV, and then there’s the new Barry, a magnificent season of television that will unquestionably find its way onto your own personal best of the year list.

His quest for forgiveness begets ever more violence, pulling the story in masterfully funny, tense and disturbing directions, and proving that this half-hour comedy is still one of television’s best suspense-filled thrillers.

The "Barry" streak of greatness continues unabated through the six new episodes made available for review.

Exceptional. ... It’s so good this season that I not only want to recommend it to Vulture readers, I want to hand out flyers to random people on the street, imploring them to watch.

It’s this effortless juggling of tones and stories that keep “Barry” from wearing out its high-concept premise this far into its run.

A richer and deeper character study than “Barry” has previously been. ... “Barry,” then, is as juicily tense as it’s ever been. And it sets a new high for itself. ... The question the first six episodes of this fantastic season of television ask is put plainly, but might take the rest of the show to answer.

The third season take a little while to build momentum but that’s intentional. These characters are lost emotionally and disconnected physically for a few episodes, trying to figure out for themselves what the next chapter looks like. It makes sense that the storytelling drifts a bit, but it really locks in around episode 4 and the next two are among the best in the history of the series. ... It’s also just still so funny and smart.

Barry Season 3 is all about second chances. There are various seeds of revenge being planted, but also the powerful idea that forgiveness must be earned. Where Barry or Barry goes next is an exciting, if trepidatious mystery. But both the man and the show are earning every step.

Barry has never been scarier, and Hader has never been better. ... There's nothing on TV quite like Barry. The laughter is loud, but that makes the terrified silence more deafening.

There is a whole new level of danger in the air, but yet some of the show’s darkest moments happen while no one’s holding a gun. The fact that Barry makes a point of this is why it’s one of the smartest shows on TV right now.

In Season 3, the show has fully outgrown its cutesy premise to become one of TV's best thrill rides.

Attention to detail — the performances, the direction, the awareness, the comedy, the sense of purpose — all come together to make “Barry” great. Dramas pretending to be comedies can be exhausting, and we’re finally starting to move past the age of antiheroes, but Hader and Berg’s series distinguishes itself from such comparisons by refusing to fall neatly into either category; it’s trajectory is dictated by Barry and the extremity of his situation.

Barreling forward without much apparent thought to its own longevity, “Barry” returns without missing a beat, fearlessly racing through story with a mix of darkly comic violence and drop-dead-funny visual gags. Delving deeper into Hollywood’s quirks and its title character’s double life, the crackling third season continues to operate like a high-wire act without a net.

A series with such a precarious high-concept as Barry should have no business being better in its third season than it was in its first. Yet it is.

The third season, thus far, is even more confident in its ability to be zany one moment, scary the next, silly for a little bit after that, and unexpectedly emotional throughout. It’s held together by Hader’s Emmy-winning performance, which continues to exhibit some of the widest range of any acting on television. ... Every performance is a treasure, nearly every piece of comic business is a delight and every undercurrent of sadness and remorse is earned.

As Barry fearlessly digs into the depravity of its combustible characters, including Anthony Carrigan’s unfailingly polite but incompetent NoHo Hank, it only becomes more confident in its nervy, high-tension mix of showbiz satire and absorbing dramatic stakes.

Barry’s runtime always whizzes by like a hitman’s bullet, the laughs constantly killing and the tone hitting an elusive bullseye. Aside from these richly layered plot developments, the characterization and performances of Barry, Gene, Hank, and, above all Sally, help this hilarious and occasionally heart wrenching dramedy once again — just like its title character — hit the mark.