Everybody needs a little catharsis, especially during a pandemic. Unfortunately, for those whose catharsis includes a dark comedy about a bounty hunter, HBO's Barry hasn't seen any new episodes since May 2019. But luckily, it looks like star Bill Hader has some encouraging news for fans.
According to Hader, season 3 of Barry was already set to begin shooting just as the pandemic hit full swing in March 2020. Naturally, their filming schedule was scrapped and they went into lockdown, like so many other productions throughout the year. However, it seems like the crew didn't take their quarantine lying down, as they're apparently all set to shoot not only season 3 but now season 4 as well as soon as it's deemed safe to do so.
In an interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Hader spoke about Barry and how the unfortunate postponement of season 3 led to the show's staff writing season 4 in its entirety. "During this time, we wrote all of Season 4, so we have all of those done," he said, before reiterating what fans surely already know, "we're waiting to start shooting again." So anyone speculating about season 3 of Barry now has a rationale to extend that pondering even further.
This news complements a previous story from Collider where they interviewed Barry co-star Stephen Root about the show's 3rd season. He expressed a desire for HBO to allow them back-to-back filming of seasons 3 and 4, saying "hopefully HBO is going to let the powers that be write Season 4, and maybe we can do those real quick together." In their respective interviews, both Hader and Root mentioned that they had done the first table read for season 3's premiere mere days before shutting down production. So it wouldn't be surprising to hear they're as anxious as fans to see what happens next.
The news from Hader about season 4 may or may not confirm Root's wish that HBO would give the green light to Barry's writers on the matter. While it's entirely possible that the staff just went ahead on their own without clearance, the fact that Barry remains one of the network's most well-received series (at least in a post-Game of Thrones world) suggests that even if that were the case, they would likely end up getting retroactive permission.
So while there's still unfortunately no word on when fans can expect to see season 2's nail-biting cliffhanger resolved, they can at least rest easy knowing Barry will be back. Not only will it be back, but it will now very likely have more than 1 season in store upon its brutally hilarious return.
Source: Collider