Henry Winkler Talks ‘Barry’s’ Terrifying Penultimate Episode: ‘I Had to Change My Underwear’
Selome Hailu It’s clear by this point in the run of “Barry” that the show is no longer about whether or not its title character (series co-creator Bill Hader) is a redeemable human being; as Hader puts it, despite all of his lying and killing, “he doesn’t understand what he did wrong.” Instead, as the fourth and final season comes to a close, the more morally gray supporting characters are beginning to see the consequences of their own failings — ones they can’t blame Barry for. Played by Henry Winkler, Gene Cousineau emerges from Episode 5’s time jump with a mission to do the right thing. He comes out of hiding (which was, for him, a kibbutz in Israel) after hearing that Warner Bros. is working on a movie about Barry’s murder of Cousineau’s girlfriend, detective Janice Moss (Paula Newsome). Enraged by the exploitation of Janice’s death, Cousineau begins to protest the film, but the attention it could bring him is tantalizing, and he slips up. When a Hollywood agent comes calling to let Cousineau know that Daniel Day-Lewis is interested in playing him, he agrees to a meeting. And when the agent says that Mark Wahlberg could star as Barry but needs to be convinced of why he should play a cop killer, Cousineau prepares to make Barry’s case, calling him “a sympathetic soul.”