Season one of Barry introduces us to the titular Barry Berkman,
a marine turned hitman under the guidance of his handler Fuches.
Fuches assigns Barry a new target in LA, an aspiring actor named Ryan Madison who
was having an affair with the wife of Chechen crime boss Goran, the man who ordered the hit.
Barry breaks hitman rule number 1 by making contact with Ryan who asks him to perform
a scene with him in his acting class. Barry, feeling depressed and disillusioned by the hitman
lifestyle, feels accepted by the acting class and becomes smitten with aspiring actress Sally.
The only problem is that Barry is a horrible actor. Many of the qualities of being a hitman,
being closed off and emotionless, hugely contradict the qualities required of actors.
After breaking down and venting to acting teacher
Gene Cousineau that he is in fact a hitman looking for a different life,
Gene takes it as an impressive improvised monologue and accepts Barry into his acting class.
By the time Barry gets around to killing Ryan, the Chechens have already sent a new hitman to
kill him and Barry to tie up any loose ends. Barry guns them down and escapes the scene. In order to
make things up to the Chechens, Fuches arranges for Barry to pull off several jobs for them,
all the while Barry continues to attend acting classes and pursues a relationship with Sally.
When Barry reconnects with an old Marine friend Chris, Chris's friend Taylor discovers Barry's
ties with the Chechens and insists on tagging along on his next job of raiding a rival Bolivian
stash house. The job is pulled off with little hiccups but Barry ignores Fuches’ orders to kill
Taylor upon the job's completion. Barry wants Taylor to take his place and work for Fuches
so that he can leave behind the hitman life for good and pursue his acting career. Taylor counters
that Barry should just kill Fuches himself and even hides some money he stole from the stash
house in Barry's bag. Barry, realizing his plan for Taylor to seamlessly take his place
was an unrealistic dream, decides to do the next Chechen job alone, taking out a Bolivian drug
lord upon his arrival at a private airfield. Unfortunately, Taylor shows up with his friend
Vaughn and Barry's friend Chris. Going against Barry's planned stealth attack, Taylor drives
the group head-on into enemy fire. Taylor and Vaughn are killed in the gunfire, but Barry
and Chris managed to escape. Due to the botched attack, the Bolivians declare war on the Chechens.
Goran is understandably furious and, believing Barry to have died in the attack,
orders his right-hand man NoHo Hank to kill Fuches. Emotionally distressed from
the horrific turn of events at the airfield, a guilt ridden Chris tells Barry he wants to turn
himself in to the authorities. Given no other choice, Barry is forced to kill his friend,
a decision that emotionally devastates him. He then goes to give a performance with
Sally in front of his acting class, and the emotions Barry felt from killing Chris lead
to a genuinely captivating performance. Sally insists that whatever process Barry used to tap
into those emotions is the process he should use before every performance moving forward.
Upon learning of Barry’s survival, Fuches tries to save himself by going to Goran
with information on where to find him. Goran instead plans to kill both Barry and Fuches.
NoHo Hank, who has taken a liking to Barry, warns the assassin and tells him to run.
Barry instead decides to head to Goran's house, killing the mob boss and his entire gang,
although he spares Hank who takes over the Chechens and makes peace with the Bolivians.
Barry also runs Fuches out of LA, finally putting his hitman past behind him.
Barry and Sally then accompany Gene to get away at his country home. Gene is also accompanied by
his girlfriend, Janice Moss, a detective who all season has been trying to uncover Ryan Madison's
killer and their involvement with the Chechen mob. Barry is finally at peace and it's a perfect happy
ending until Moss discovers Barry's true identity. Barry privately begs her not to pursue this,
but when she refuses Barry is forced to shoot her before returning to his room and joining
a sleeping Sally in bed, once again restating his resolve to put criminal life behind him.
In season two of Barry, the titular assassin is struggling to keep his double life together.
When a grief-stricken Gene wants to close down his acting school,
Barry convinces him to keep going. Gene then tasks the acting class with writing
and performing a scene that encapsulates their own personal truth, which forces Sally
to confront her relationship with her abusive ex-husband. In Sally’s written version of events,
she confidently stands up against her husband’s abuse and her performance receives rave reviews
and attention from agents. Although Sally does feel guilty knowing that the performance was a
lie, as she had actually quietly fled from her husband without ever confronting him.
Outside of acting class, tensions are escalating even further for Barry. NoHo Hank begs Barry for
help in dealing with a Burmese gang that the Bolivian’s leader Cristobal prefers
over the Chechens. Hank wants Barry to kill the Burmese gang’s leader, Esther, but Barry refuses,
not wanting to be a killer anymore. Instead, Barry trains the Chechens so that they could
take out the Burmese gang themselves. One of the Chechens, Mayrbeck, proves to be an
excellent student and soon wins the respect of the rest of the Chechens, pushing Hank to the side.
Meanwhile, Fuches is arrested due to his connections with Goran and the Chechens,
and Detective Moss’ partner Loach turns him into an informant to bring down
Barry. When Fuches records Barry’s confession on tape, Loach doesn’t arrest the assassin,
but instead blackmails him into killing his ex-wife’s new lover,
Ronny. It turns out, Ronny and his young daughter Lily were masters of Taekwondo and prove
themselves very formidable targets for Barry. Eventually, Loach arrives to kill Ronny himself,
but the Taekwondo master kills Loach before the police arrive and kill Ronny. With Loach
dead and the investigation into him seemingly over, a furious Barry parts ways with Fuches.
To get revenge on Barry, a bitter Fuches tracks down Detective Moss’ body and poses as a private
detective to lead Gene to it. Before Barry can race to the crime scene to stop him,
Fuches frames Gene for Moss’ murder, alerts the police, and holds Gene at gunpoint. Fuches can’t
bring himself to kill Gene, but does tell him that Barry was Moss’ true killer. Fuches then
runs away as Barry arrives, followed closely by the police. Barry and Gene are arrested, but Barry
manages to plant evidence that exonerated Gene and shifted the attention toward the Chechens.
And speaking of the Chechens, Fuches brokers a peace deal between Hank, Cristobal, and Esther,
bringing the three gangs together in an attempt to protect himself from a vengeful Barry. Hank alerts
Barry to Fuches’ location, and Barry storms the gang hideout, slaughtering gang members,
including Esther and Mayrbeck, in his search for Fuches. Unfortunately for Barry, Fuches escapes.
When the Chechens send a successor, Batir, to replace Hank, Batir assumes
Hank slaughtered Esther and all of the other Chechen rivals and commends him for his work.
Barry had come a long way in distancing himself from his past as an assassin, and had even scored
an audition for a lead role in a major movie. But could the past stay the past when Fuches was still
around to cause trouble and his innocent teacher Gene was now secretly aware of his darkest secret?