Barry: "ben mendelson"

It was only a matter of time before Barry returned to killing. "ben mendelson" is a necessary slow down from the intensity of the previous two episodes, focusing mainly on Barry's self-delusion and the reality of the situation around him.

Barry thinks that things between him and Gene are good now that he got Gene a part on Laws and Humanity. He genuinely believes that him and Gene can have the same relationship that they had before Gene discovered that he killed Janice. The scene where Gene asks him if Janice suffered and Barry's attempts to deflect show just how self-deluded he is. Janice's murder will forever drive a wedge between them, yet Barry's too egotistical to accept this. It takes Gene punching him during the shoot and telling him to stay away from him and his family for Barry's rose-tinted glasses to fall off and for him to realize that his connection with Gene is severed. He accepts Hank's offer because he truly has nowhere else to go, so why not embrace the worst aspects of himself?

The episode checks back in with Fuches as he is adapting to life in Chechnya. Like Barry, he initially rejects Hank's offer of returning to LA until the latter tells him that Barry no longer wants to kill him. The phone call Fuches has with Barry shows that he is just as self-deluded and egotistical as Barry, if not more so, in that he believes Barry owes him an apology for trying to kill him. His caretaker (and lover?) Anna attempts to console him by telling him a sixteenth-century parable about choosing between vengeance and forgiveness. Sociopath that he is, Fuches can only focus on the vengeance aspect of the story. The ominous music that plays over the end credits promises that this already dark season will be even darker.

Notes:

* Elsie Fisher's Katie is easily the best new addition on this season of Barry. Her facial expressions during her talk with Natalie as the latter defends Barry and her interview is an excellent bit of silent acting speaks volumes about how she's the only person on this show who can see Barry for who he truly.

* Henry Winkler gives perhaps his best performance yet in this episode. His thousand-yard stare during the episode's cold open and incredulous glare as Barry attempts to console him about Janice's death

* Some nice continuity from the previous episode where the showrunner of Laws and Humanity remembers Gene as having thrown hot tea in his face back when he was a PA. Gene having to be reminded of this specific incident speaks volumes about how tumultuous his past must've been and leads into the moment where Barry compares his sins to his own.