Spoiler Warning: Barry Season 3

While audiences love Barry and stand by the titular character in an inexplicable, inexcusable sort of way, it's about time he had to face the music, the cries, and pleas of his victims. The season 3 finale wrapped up as if it were the end of Barry and co.'s story. Gene finally has closure, Sally has returned to her hometown after making a mess of her career in LA, and Barry can't kill anyone anymore or wrestle with his newfound identity as an actor. However, the fact is that the show is slicker and more brilliant than ever.

Series creator, director, and star Bill Hader has an unparalleled deliberate over-usage of different cinematic devices that result in absolutely stunning finished products. The second to last episode of season 3 beat wide shots to a pulp and culminated in one of the more visually alluring and sensually pleasing California freeway chase scenes in recent memory. In the finale itself, his clever use of ominous sound design with little visual accompaniment actually scared the bejesus out of us.

So, where does the show go from here? Here's everything we know about the forthcoming Barry season 4 and why we are actually salivating to see it.

Where Barry Season 3 Left Off

Bill Hader calming down Sarah Goldberg in Barry
HBO

In Barry season three, the titular character had a quick brush with the afterlife wherein he encountered hell, or a representation of that fiery place. He was poisoned by the sweet, grieving widow of one of his friend-turned-victims, but the time has not yet come for Barry. He has only been sent to jail, where he will await trial for his heinous crimes. The end of season 3 saw Barry's former acting coach Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler) teaming up with his murdered girlfriend's father to put Barry behind bars, presumably once and for all. Now in the hands of the authorities, along with his ruthless former handler, The Raven, Barry must face the ultimate consequences and public airing of his crimes. No more auditions for him.

Related: Barry: Why Season 3 is the Series' Best and Most Versatile

Barry's use of sound design is enough to make cinephiles' heads start rotating around. The now-trademark sequences begin in the Barry penultimate finale, where Barry stands on a shoreline in a state between consciousness and death, gazing up at an unseen crack or opening in the sky. Hellish cries, screams, wails, and metals and machinery clanking, churning, and bashing rain down on the character. This place in the sky above the sea is hell or something like it, and we know it just by hearing it -- no effects, CGI, or tricks.

NoHo Hank, meanwhile, breaks free from his chains in a murky cell and shoots dead a tiger that has just obliterated his cellmate on the other side of the wall. The gory sounds of the tiger growling, stalking, and pouncing before chewing, tearing, and munching gave Barry fans nightmares. The terror ever apparent on the actor Anthony Carrigan's face, never once did we see tiger stripes, teeth, or claws. The sound is enough.

The most important tidbit of information about the next season's plot is that the visionary Bill Hader will direct all eight episodes of season 4. While audiences are reeling after season 3, Bill Hader is only minimally concerned about where the story goes from here, but knows there is just so much more to it. These characters are nowhere near done picking up and reassembling the carnage that is their lives.

Barry is just a strange, groundbreaking, weird, beautiful show. It seems that Hader is only just finding his grove. While he only just turned the first two scripts over to HBO for review and certainly can't talk about what will be happening in the next season just yet, fans are ridiculously stoked to see what fresh surprises are in store and how these characters deal with their lives after these fallouts that can't be mended.

Related: HBO's Barry: What We Hope to See in Season 4

We can't imagine how Barry will go forth from here, but under co-creator, star, and director Hader, we know we will find out exactly how the story progresses. Hader loves true crime and all the gory details of life. Otherwise, Barry wouldn't work as a concept at all, so we know that the next season will be just as sweepingly awesome.

Barry Season 3: The Cast

Barry Bloody
HBO

We expect to see the same main cast of Barry return in season 4. This includes Bill Hader as Barry Berkman, Henry Winkler as Gene Cousineau, Stephen Root as Monroe Fuches, Sarah Goldberg as Sally Reed, and Anthony Carrigan as NoHo Hank. There have been no announcements for season 4's new faces.

Release Date

Barry season 4 is currently in the works and is expected to premiere on HBO in spring 2023.