Hader doesn't Hate

But I’m mostly thinking about what this line means for Barry and Gene specifically and in the light of the final episode. I’m thinking about the parallels that this line established between them until the very end. 

They went on a reversed journey. After the time jump, Gene had changed and Barry hadn’t. Gene came back to LA to stop the movie because he no longer cared about fame and wanted to protect Janice’s memory. Barry lived a fake life as a midwestern christian far away from everything while being the same man he always was. But then, just for a few minutes at the very end, it reversed and it doomed them.

Gene had changed until he hadn’t. He was coming back with a real desire to be different and to stop the movie, but for just a few hours he was tempted by the spotlight once more and went back to his old ways and it doomed him. It doesn’t matter how honest and true his change of nature had been in the past 8 years because he slipped back for a bit and it was enough to ruin him.

Barry had not changed until he had. Barry spent the entire show incapable of changing. We saw him trying times and times again, sometimes with good intentions and he came pretty close a few times, but he never truly did. He always slipped back into his violent ways easily. When his back was against the wall he was always deeply selfish. And yet in the end, in the last few minutes of the show and the last few minutes of his life, he DID change. For the very first time in his life, he was ready to be selfless and to take a step in the right direction. To help Gene he was ready to turn himself, which is something that he never ever considered doing at any point in the entire show. In fact, it was the initial incident that ruined him because he could have let Janice arrest him back in season 1. He could have taken responsibility do his time and start over. But he was never willing to do that UNTIL THAT FINAL MOMENT. 

But it was too late. His one moment of actual growth in the entire show got him killed.

Barry is a show asking if people can change their nature or not and I find it fascinating that Gene was doomed by the one moment when he couldn’t change and Barry was doomed by the one moment when he could.