Barry Season 2 premiere recap: A not-so new life

In the Barry Season 2 premiere, despite his attempt to live a normal life, Barry Block cannot escape his past and will be forced to make a major kill for NoHo Hank.

They say that it’s hard to escape your past. In HBO’s Barry Season 2 premiere, it’s clear that Barry will not live the normal life he so desperately seeks. Despite Barry’s attempts to put the murder of Detective Janice Moss behind him, the rest of Barry’s acting class, especially Gene Cousineau, does not hold that same sentiment.

While Barry deals with the aftermath of Janice’s murder, NoHo Hank is happily building a successful drug empire with his enemy-turned-friend, Cristobal. However, Hank is jealous of Cristobal’s relationship with Esther (Patricia Fa’asua), the head of the Burmese crime family. When Barry refuses to kill Esther, Hank is forced to turn up the pressure on Barry. Here is the recap for the Barry Season 2 premiere, titled “The Show Must Go On, Probably?”

Barry’s willingness to move on causes tension within his group

Barry is a hitman so he has a sense as to how to get over death. However, his acting class does not have the same ability. Barry and his class are preparing to run a production of The Front Page, but the class wants to cancel the show because of Gene’s absence due to his depression over Janice’s disappearance. Barry decides that he will direct the show instead of Gene, but the class is not thrilled over this decision. Barry’s girlfriend, Sally, attempts to discuss what happened to Janice, but Barry puts up an emotional wall and refuses to talk about it, much to the dismay of Sally.

In order to win the support of his class, Barry heads to Gene’s house to convince him to come back to the class. It is there where Barry learns from Detective Loach and his partner, May, that the LAPD will not be furthering their investigation into Janice’s death because they believe it is a clear retaliation murder from the Chechen mob. To make matters worse, Gene refuses to teach again.

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That being said, Gene shows up to the performance but cancels the show. When Gene threatens to cancel the acting class, Barry is forced to open up about his past and recounts the story of his first murder. On his first tour, Barry snipes and kills three suspicious sheepherders in Afghanistan.

While Barry tells his story, Nick and Sasha are forced to act out the exchange of Barry’s first kill with his platoon leader, Albert. Barry pauses when Nick, who is playing Barry, pretends to feel remorse over the kill. Instead of feeling sad, Barry’s platoon champions the shots and celebrate Barry’s murders, which explains why Barry can kill without feeling remorse.

However, Barry lies and says he only killed one man and felt remorseful in the moment. Moved by Barry’s so-called honesty, Gene decides to continue the class.

NoHo Hank has a jealously problem

Now that Goran is dead, NoHo Hank is in charge of the Chechen mob in Los Angeles. Hank forms an alliance and friendship with Cristobal, the leader of the Bolivian mob. Hank is ecstatic to form a friendship with Cristobal, but Hank is very upset and jealous to learn that Cristobal wants to bring in Esther, the head of the Burmese crime family, into the alliance. When Goran’s family presses Hank on Goran’s murder and decides to kill him, Hank uses this as an opportunity to pin the murder on Esther in order to save his own life and Barry’s life.

Needing to alleviate the situation, Hank visits Barry at his retail job at Lululemon while wearing a Hawaiian shirt and wig. Since Hank tipped Barry off about Goran’s plans to kill him and Fuches, Hank uses this as a way to convince Barry to help him kill Esther in order to save both of their lives. However, Barry is furious that Hank showed up at his job and calls Hank a “f****** idiot” after turning down his murder request.

Upset, Hank turns up the pressure on Barry and waits for Barry outside of his acting class. Hank demands that Barry carry out his murder request of Esther or he will tell Goran’s family the truth about Goran’s murder. Hank threatens Barry and forces him to accept the job because if he does not, Barry and his friends will pay. With no other choice, Barry agrees to help out Hank.

Detective Loach makes a discovery

At the beginning of the episode, Monroe Fuches is caught by the Cleveland police for his role in a murder with a replacement hitman, who terribly messes up the kill. The Cleveland police get a DNA sample from Fuches and it matches up the tooth the LAPD found at the scene of Goran’s death. Because of this, Detective Loach is able to put some of the pieces of the puzzles together.

Loach makes the connection between Fuches and Barry because of their ties to Cleveland. Loach also connects Barry’s physique to the blurry dashboard camera image from a previous murder. Moss’s death will not go unanswered. Loach is set to continue the investigation against Barry.

What did you think of the Barry Season 2 premiere? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Barry Season 2 airs on Sunday nights on HBO at 10 p.m. EST.