[This story contains spoilers for the May 15 episode of HBO’s Barry, “all the sauces.”]
When, three years ago this week, we left Stephen Root‘s Monroe Fuches at the end of season two of HBO’s Vantablack comedy Barry, he’d recently delivered a self-reflective monologue that prevented a gang war between the Bolivians, the Burmese and the Chechens, a high point for a character whose gift of gab has rescued him from near-certain death at least once before.
But then hitman turned hitman/actor Barry (Emmy winner Bill Hader), furious at Fuches for framing his acting teacher, Gene Cousineau (Emmy winner Henry Winkler), for Det. Janice Moss’ murder, shows up to the Burmese monastery where the former mafia rivals are celebrating and just…starts killing everyone. Fuches, Barry’s sole actual target, manages to escape in a car.
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In last month’s season three premiere, we discover his fate: He’s been shipped off to a Chechen goat farm by Noho Hank (Anthony Carrigan) until things cool down in L.A. But when the police drag Hank in for questioning about the monastery massacre, he IDs Fuches as the culprit — only Fuches is not Monroe Fuches, sad-sack hitman contractor; per Hank, he’s a lethal Chechen assassin known as “the Raven,” and he’s also responsible for Moss’ murder. (If you’re keeping track, he’s now the third person to be framed for the crime that Barry committed at the end of season one.)
Last week, after Hank tries to lure him back to L.A., presumably so “the Raven” can be handed over to the LAPD, Fuches refuses, having determined that the bucolic life of a goat farmer is his idyll. But that resolve is quickly shattered after a conversation with Barry where he discovers that (1) His attempt to blow up Barry and Cousineau’s relationship may have failed and (2) Barry is not sorry for trying to kill him.
And so, his thirst for revenge unslaked again, Fuches accepts Hank’s plane ticket, and finally, halfway through season three, he is back in Los Angeles to make Barry regret not needing or missing him.
Before the season three premiere (but held due to unavoidable spoilers about Fuches’ eventual re-entry as a thorn in Barry’s side), Root sat down with THR to discuss his character’s fatal character flaws, the only benefit of the long delay between seasons two and three, and his newly minted Wookieepedia page.
In the first few episodes, Fuches’ plotline doesn’t really get going.
I’m on a different planet, yeah.
So I was hoping to have a few more episode-specific questions, but I guess I’ll just start with: At the beginning of season three, what does Fuches want?
I think more than anything, this season is about revenge for him — because he’s not emotionally capable of doing anything else. I mean, he doesn’t have an arc. It’s just [a straight line]. I think he’s come to the point where now that Barry, in the cliff-hanger at the end of [season] two, has tried to murder him — he’s got to get out of [L.A.]. He got out of there. He’s in a place [the aforementioned Chechen goat farm] where he should be able to have a life. He finds a couple of people [with whom] that would be a good life to have, but he still can’t do it. There’s no chance in hell that this guy can understand that [reconciliation] is not going to happen between them. [Being] the good uncle and sending [Barry] out [on jobs], that’s not going to happen anymore. But he can’t take it. He can’t. If he were on a yacht with seven beautiful women, he would still be thinking, “What is Barry doing? He’s got to do what I want to do.” So, I think most of this season is about very cruel ways that he can think of to take revenge on Barry. And the brilliance of the season is the writing ties it to season one in ways to think up to hurt Barry.
Does Fuches have a plan? One theme on the show is how a lot of characters are only planning for the next desperate move to save themselves. They’re not long-term thinkers.
And Fuches is not a long-term thinker. I don’t think he’s planned shit. He thinks on his feet — and he’s not dumb. I mean, he’s managed to manipulate the police through seasons one and two. He’s managed to stay out of jail. He’s not a dumb person. What he is is completely stubborn in terms of what he wants. He wants what he wants, so he’s going to go get what he wants, come hell or high water. But I don’t think he plans specifically for stuff in the long-range, He’ll think of something and go, “Yeah, that’s good. Let’s do that.”
Even though in the first couple scenes, Fuches seems extremely focused on Barry’s betrayal, there’s still this unresolved competition between Fuchs and Cousineau as Barry’s two father figures. Presumably his grudge hasn’t disappeared?
[Fuches has] been replaced. He’s been replaced as a father figure, as an employer, as everything. Even though [Barry] has a very love-hate relationship with Cousineau, as well [as Fuches], Fuches has been replaced, and he’s incensed by it, and he can’t take it anymore. So I think a lot of this season is based on that. I think you’re exactly right about that.
In season two, Fuches’ initial plan was to frame Cousineau for his girlfriend Janice’s murder and then kill Cousineau to make it look like a suicide, but he can’t go through with it. This season, is Cousineau out of the line of fire?
Yeah, it’s all Barry-centric. He’s done with Cousineau. It’s all about revenge [on Barry] and how to do it.
It’s very common on TV shows for a character’s arc to get to the point where they’re irredeemable, and the viewer understands things are going to have to unwind in a bad way. But usually, it takes the bulk of a series for things to get to that point. With Barry, it’s like he was irredeemable after episode one — certainly by the end of the first season.
(Laughs.) Absolutely. I mean, as he gets more ill because of the PTSD, I don’t think there’s a good way out for Barry. It’s odd that here’s a comedy where you’ve been rooting for the character, you want to find empathy with the main character, and now you’re getting into a season where you can’t find empathy for him. You can’t find empathy for this guy who’s screaming at his girlfriend in an office, you know, and that’s unusual in a series to go there.
You said you don’t think there’s a way out for Barry. Now that Fuches has made the choice to return to L.A., do you think there’s a way out for him at this point?
Nope. (Laughs.) I don’t think so. I think he’s going deeper and deeper into revenge mode, and it’s only going to get him deeper into debt, as it were. But yeah, this is going to end somewhere where either one or both of them are going to go, and it’s like two bombs ticking right now.
So clearly there’s been a long delay between season two and three due to the pandemic. Were you shooting season three already when things shut down?
We had just done the first table read. I think we read two [episodes] and then the next day was lockdown. And Bill said, “You know, we might have to push eight weeks,” and we went “Ohhh, that’s a long time!” (Laughs.) And then it becomes three years. So, they had lots of time to rewrite, and they wrote a better season three and they have a full handle on season four. So that’s the only good thing to happen with COVID, as far as I’m concerned.
Wanted to ask real quick about your appearance on The Book of Boba Fett and say congratulations because you now have a Wookieepedia page.
Oh, I do? (Laughs.)
Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau seem to love putting recognizable character actors into the Star Wars universe.
Yeah. I was thrilled to get the call from Jon because, you know, my goal was to be in the Star Trek universe — which I got in the ’90s — but to be in the Star Wars was huge for my kid because Boba Fett was his favorite character, and huge for me as well. You know, to be on that iconic set, the Jabba the Hutt set, and being able to shoot there was like, “This is the best ever!” I’m hoping that they’ll continue that character. I have positive reinforcement that it will happen. (Laughs.)
Interview edited for length and clarity.
Barry airs Sunday nights on HBO.
