To my best knowledge, Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) hasn’t assassinated an undisclosed number of people—although we can’t rule out a final act twist. Nevertheless, he shares more with contract killer Barry Berkman (Bill Hader) beyond the simple fact that these characters are played (and co-created) by former Saturday Night Live castmates.
Barry doesn’t quote Walt Whitman in an upbeat Midwestern folksy demeanor, but the assassin-turned-thespian and the AFC Richmond coach strive toward the same goal. Well, maybe not the exact same goal. On the surface, the tone couldn’t be more disparate; but hope and self-improvement are fundamental to the foundation of both stories. That’s brought into sharp, surprising focus as the TV season winds down and the two series—and their lead characters—get ready to face off against each other at this year’s Emmy Awards.
During Barry’s long three-year absence, the comedy winners at the Emmy Awards have been dominated by feel-good shows that have doubled as a warm blanket during the pandemic.
There was Schitt’s Creek’s clean sweep in 2020 and Ted Lasso’s impressive seven-trophy haul last year—including Jason Sudeikis for Best Actor. The return of the reluctant hitman means this year’s Best Actor in a Comedy Series is gearing up to be a tight race. Sudeikis has continued to rack up award wins for Ted Lasso Season 2, but Bill Hader did win two years in a row for playing the titular wannabe actor, and his Season 3 performance is already making a solid case to snatch an Emmy hattrick.
Voters can quickly forget what came out last summer and recency bias could come into play, giving Hader an additional edge. (Warning: spoilers for Season 3 of Barry and Season 2 of Ted Lasso are ahead.)
Along with the former SNL co-worker dynamic, the whole earnest soccer coach versus anti-hero assassin framing presents quite the Emmy narrative that could be read as a meditation on shifting audience tastes. However, reducing these characters and performances down to nice versus nasty misses the point of both shows, and you don’t have to look too hard to spot similarities.
Unlike Ted Lasso, which experienced some backlash toward its darker second season, Barry’s return has been heralded as a masterpiece. Viewers expect Barry to be pushed to the brink of despair, and co-creators Hader and Alec Berg walk a razor-thin line between absurdity and torment. Behind the scenes, Hader is instrumental in a writing and directing capacity, and his experience informs the TV production story running parallel with the hitman elements. Still, this complex character also requires a nuanced performance that keeps us on his side no matter how far he pushes us to the brink of empathizing.
Sally (Sarah Goldberg, who is also making a strong case for an Emmy) wouldn’t give their former acting teacher Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler) a part in her new show, and Barry’s manic energy flips into a full-blown meltdown when she says no. Seeing him scream directly in her face because she wouldn’t bend to his demands is an act of betrayal that he cannot grasp, and this scene is a necessary reminder that Barry is not a good boyfriend. Pushing the audience to the point of revulsion is a tricky path to navigate, and this scene tests the unbridled loyalty of Team Barry. Hader’s delivery in this scene is a marvel, underscoring how on-the-edge this character is.
Everyone keeps excusing Barry's actions as a side effect of having a “bad day” (cue the Daniel Powter song stuck in my head for days). Whether it is NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan) giving him a pass for the monastery massacre or Natalie (D’Arcy Carden) telling Joplin’s teen actor Katie (Elsie Fisher) that Barry is “totally harmless” and “I’m sure he was having a bad day.” Natalie then goes on to call him a “good guy” with a caveat that he yelled at them in acting class and told stories about killing people in “some war.” PTSD and depression certainly contribute to Barry’s troubling behavior, yet barely anyone is piecing the clues together.
In “all the sauces” (Barry episode titles are written in all-lowercase letters), Barry is incredulous when Sally cites this incident as a basis for breaking up with him. “I had a bad day. What? I can’t have a bad day?” is his dumbfounded response. Once again, he misses the point.
Hader’s everyman looks are part of this, but it also helps that Barry surrounds himself with narcissists fixated on their own success. Jittery energy is also a Barry signature when he has stepped out of his assassin comfort zone, so nothing is out of the ordinary except for newcomer Katie, who notices that his behavior isn’t as excusable as everyone seems to think. Similarly, Ted’s mask is fixed in place. While there are characters during the recent Ted Lasso season who register something is awry, it takes an outsider to peel back his defenses.
Barry and Ted are pressure cookers of anxiety ready to boil over while trying to get results in their careers, and obstacles keep presenting themselves.
Barry wants to be his best self, and in some respects, Gene is his Ted Lasso. This man is his coach and gives him a second chance and the instruments to be a better person. Sure, there is coercion and threats of violence, but the sentiment is there. Barry’s inability to escape his past is part of the comedy of errors structure, and regardless of what he does, it still ends up with him taking another killing job.
When Hank tasks him with blowing up Fernando and the other Bolivian gang members, the universe temporarily conspires against him. The bomb app (his user name is “BerkmanGoesBoom”) isn’t working, so he has to call tech support.
This is Barry serving absurdity for the ages. Barry’s quick hitman job turns into an odyssey of sorts, which sees him witness tenderness between Hank and Cristobal (Michael Irby). This image causes him to visit Gene to tell him the threats are over, and he “never has to see him again.” At this moment, he intuitively gets what he has to do, yet he cannot fathom why Sally wants to end their relationship in the final scene.
Barry’s spent the first four episodes consumed with earning Gene’s forgiveness, and everything else has been inconsequential. Little does he know that his former mentor and architect of Barry’s career as a killer, Fuches (Stephen Root), has tipped off other bereaved family members to Barry’s location in the vain hope that one of them will pull the trigger.
His violent past cannot stay buried, and Hader’s world-weary posture is about to take another hit.
It’s not a far cry from what was happening on Ted Lasso. Ted is at war with himself, and his resistance to Richmond’s new sports psychologist Dr. Sharon Fieldstone (Sarah Niles), is rooted in a “modest Midwestern skepticism,” he claims. Instead, as the second season progresses, more of Ted’s past is revealed, and his father’s suicide when he was a teen has shaped his avoidance of mental health professionals. Repressing his feelings can only protect him for so long, and panic attacks are a direct consequence.
It all comes to a head in “Funeral,” and it wouldn’t be a surprise if Sudeikis chooses this emotional episode as his Emmy submission. It is steeped in heaviness but speaks to Sudeikis’ range and gets to the heart of Ted Lasso’s dark streak. It is unclear what Hader will choose yet to submit from this season of Barry (only the first six episodes are available to critics at the time of writing), but no doubt it will capture the wild swing between desperation, despair, and renewed purpose.
Barry’s misguided sense of how to earn forgiveness encapsulates humanity that avoids caricature, and Hader's performance somehow gets funnier and more soul-crushing. The cosmic joke that saw Barry kill to protect his big hitman secret in Season 1 evolved into trying not to kill in the sophomore outing—which ended with a bloodbath. Now, consequences are the most significant source of harm, and so far, Barry is looking for salvation in all the wrong places.
Forgiveness has to be earned, and Barry thinks his solution lies in scoring Gene an acting role. Gene has burned every bridge in Tinseltown, and everyone Barry encounters has a story revealing the depths of his acting teacher’s asshole status. Sincerity is not something Barry lacks, and he can sell the story that Gene saved his life through acting because he believes it. The hitman genuinely loves his mentor, and the father/son dynamic is not one Barry is faking. Despite his abhorrent behavior toward Sally and the threats he has made toward Gene’s family, it is still impossible to turn our backs on Barry. This has everything to do with Hader’s often wide-eyed performance that captures the extreme mood shifts.
At the end of the second episode, Barry threatens Gene’s son and grandson as a way to silence his acting teacher. He follows this with an unexpected declaration, “I love you, Mr. Cousineau. Do you love me?” Shot in a tight closeup gives the audience nowhere to look but deep into Barry’s teary eyes. If it weren’t so chilling, it would be a touching exchange between two lost men who have improved with the help of the other. Instead, it captures one scared narcissist and another man looking for validation.
Even with the darker Ted Lasso season, Sudeikis is still the favorite (as per Goldderby) to take the statue for a repeat victory. Don’t rule out Hader’s turn as Barry just yet, as this long-awaited return has received the kind of reception the characters in this series would kill for—well, maybe not literally—and Emmy nominations are the next logical step. After all, there is nothing Hollywood loves more than crowning a series depicting showbiz intricacies—hitman or no hitman.
