Why Cristobal Needed to Die on Barry—and NoHo Hank Couldn’t Cease It

The next story contains spoilers for Barry Season 4, Episode 4.

In case you would possibly perchance presumably be staring at you would possibly perchance presumably be staring at HBO’s Barry, things in total exact feel loads of from exact about any loads of expose on TV. The expose is a depressing comedy within the truest and most crude sense of the time frame; you would possibly perchance laugh exact thru every episode, but you would possibly perchance be tense and on-edge on your entire damn thing. Co-creator, star, and director Bill Hader has created a expose with a tone that’s unlike anything; Barry, on the identical time, can most steadily be every the wonderful comedy and absolute best thriller on TV.

And as with essentially the most thrilling shows in TV history—remark Game of Thrones, Breaking Adverse, The Sopranos, and so forth.—you forever must query the surprising. And in thrillers, that can in total be a pleasant, surprising demise. “It’s comical, attributable to when the expose got right here out, other folks had been love Wow, right here is most steadily dark, after which it exact got darker,” Hader said in an interview with Men’s Neatly being. “After which I remark now… other folks would possibly perchance presumably remark, love, What the hell is that this? However I repeatedly truly loved that.”

The main surprising demise of Barry‘s final season comes on the cease of Episode 4, “it takes a psycho.” And it’s an especially cruel trick by Hader and company, for the reason that personality we lose is any individual who we nearly lost earlier within the episode, exact for them to be saved. We let our guard down, and by the cease of the episode, save we by no procedure will need to fill even regarded because it.

Why and how did Cristobal die in Barry?

Barry is a depressing expose that, over the course of its dash, has gotten considerably darker than even the put it began. However one in every of the few incandescent spots in a season that began with its titular personality imprisoned for assassinate has been the connection between NoHo Hank (Anthony Carrigan) and Cristobal (Michael Irby). The two began as de facto competitors, with Hank representing the Chechens and Cristobal representing the Bolivians in their respective crime worlds; but walls fell and the two at final grew shut and even entered a romantic relationship. This cultivated on the cease of Season 3, when Hank saved Cristobal from his estranged wife, who was once attempting to kind some extra or less electroshock torture/conversion remedy on him.

Saving Cristobal and killing his wife showed viewers that Hank would enact anything for Cristobal, but it moreover showed that Hank was once now at final willing to head the put he had no longer long previous sooner than within the series—to cancel any individual.

And so whereas Season 4 opened with Hank and Cristobal living a contented and delighted lifestyles together, Hank had now long previous to a put the put he hadn’t long previous sooner than, and the put his contented-trot-fortunate personality would seem inconceivable to head. And so after we apply Hank and Cristobal’s thought to import sand to invent money from construction companies—after convincing a pair of rival gangs to assist them—we fully specialize in they’re in it for real.

Episode 4 proves that wasn’t the case, and that your entire thing was once an clarify long con to catch the total members of the rival gangs within the identical put—a sand mill—and cancel them; Hank had the Chechens down his throat and this was once his technique to consolidate vitality. There was once one main declare, though: he didn’t portray Cristobal, and when he performed the concept, Cristobal on the subject of suffocated.

Upon realizing that NoHo Hank was once phase of the put-up, Cristobal was once heartbroken exact now. While the two repeatedly wanted to push to be big crime lords, Cristobal had moved away from this idea, seriously attempting to head reliable, whereas Hank has long previous the loads of procedure; since we saw him cancel Cristobal’s wife, we moreover saw him rob a (failed) hit out on his “absolute best friend” Barry.

Cristobal can no longer stand the root of what Hank has turn out to be, and, after he believes the Chechens fill left, he needs to leave. Hank pleads with him to preserve, and Anthony Carrigan does a honest exact job hanging the desperation in Hank’s eyes; he is conscious of what will happen if Cristobal refuses to preserve. However at a clear point there’s nothing Hank can enact—and he turns around, heartbroken, shimmering what’s coming subsequent.

Hank breaks down, but he goes reduction to the door. Cristobal tried to leave, and as soon as he did, Chechens—Hank’s henchmen, who, we learn, he suggested what they would must enact if it got right here down to it—exact now shot him, killing him exact now. Hank suggested him to his face that he knew too critical, and, as a seasoned crime lord, he needed to dangle what that intended. However it with no doubt didn’t replace his tips.

And real love that, Barry‘s absolute best couple isn’t very any extra.