She’s on autopilot 24 hours a day she can’t even bear to listen to Barry tell her about his latest lesson plan, setting the phone down to drink while he drones on.
Every morning, she puts on a brown wig, dons a Southern accent, and waitresses at a local restaurant until the evening, when she chugs some vodka and heats up some crappy frozen food. Sally, on the other hand, seems to have no interest in a relationship with her son. He won’t even let him have a comforter for his cold bedroom, citing the Feeding of the 5,000 to assure John he has everything he needs.Īt least John has a connection with his dad, no matter how little he knows about the man.
After John starts playing catch with Travis, Barry shows him traumatizing videos of kids getting severely injured playing baseball, turning him off of the sport immediately. But while John seems like a regular kid, Barry doesn’t seem to realize that this type of isolated, repressive lifestyle could leave him a decidedly unregular adult.
Barry and Sally have raised him in a very strict Catholic household, presumably in the hopes that he’ll learn compassion early on, stay out of the spotlight, and avoid anything that could harm him - or, more accurately, lead him to one day harm other people.Įarly in the episode, Barry uses John’s fight with his (only) friend, Travis, to teach him about moving past his insecurities, controlling his feelings, and taking responsibility - all things Barry himself has failed to do. John is homeschooled, which mostly means he spends his days watching educational videos that his dad queues up. Now they go by the names of Clark and Emily, and they have an 8-year-old son named John. It’s been eight years since Barry and Sally left Los Angeles. What’s going on with Hank? Is Fuches still in prison? Is Leo okay? Those questions will have to wait. Most of the episode is spent catching us up on Barry and Sally’s new life, denying us much of the resolution we might’ve hoped for. What keeps us watching this show isn’t the hope that this will work out but the curiosity to see exactly how it won’t work out.Įxcept for one scene near the end, “Tricky Legacies” takes place entirely outside of Los Angeles, immersing us in a world that looks and sounds different from what we’re used to on Barry. That became impossible a long time ago, and even Barry himself spat at the idea by provoking the prison guard who tried to offer those false reassurances. Barry is not a man who can be redeemed, and this is not a final season about redemption and the necessity of forgiving yourself. We know the answer, of course: It won’t work out. Here’s an opportunity to test him once last time - to give him much more than he deserves and see what he does with it. Up to this point in the series, Barry has been through almost every form of ego death except that of a parent. following in his footsteps was the last thing Tony wanted, but as his boy grew into a man, he saw more and more of the traits he passed down - perhaps none more terrifying than his struggles with depression and panic attacks.įor Barry Berkman, having a son offers an opportunity for a do-over: a chance to prove to himself that he can be a good father who raises a good boy totally unlike his former self. Just think back to the way Tony Soprano looked at his son: A.J. In your darkest moments, you worry if the ugliness you sometimes hear in your own voice is also there in someone else. You see what they passed down, so you worry about what you passed down, about what you unleashed unto the world by producing a human being with half your DNA. And no matter how much you strive to do better, you still catch bits of them in yourself, perhaps long after your child has arrived. You tally up your parents’ positive and negative qualities and fantasize about what you’d do differently in their position. When having kids, it’s common to think back to your own childhood - to the privileges you had but also what you lacked.
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