#if you are a fuches sympathizer that is fine

[ohwolfling]

The thing about the horrible knife twist of made-for-tv movie Barry Berkman's legacy is that like... yeah, yeah he WAS manipulated.

It wasn't by Cousineau, some intellectual, non-military outsider, and a gang of foreigners.

It was by Monroe Fuches. Fuches, a cook in the army, always on the fringes of violence, employed by it, benefitting by it, I'd argue charmed by it, who seized the broken vessel meets human gun that THE U.S. MILITARY CREATED for that purpose. Fuchs, who I personally think might've been doing this same thing to Barry's father. Fuches, who thrived in prison and became an even worse, more power hungry, more delusional beast, because the U.S. military taught him how to lie, how to romanticize his manipulations, how to dress himself in the accomplishments and symbols of worse systems and more violent men.

A heartbreaking piece of the show for me is that Barry is redeemed in American consciousness, not because anyone in the in-world audience of Barry saw what we saw in season one and even two - essentially some kid in the body of a man who had never been handed anything other than a gun thinking that abuse for the sake of art could mean those people love him, at least love him better than abuse for the sake of keeping him stunted, self-conscious, and read to kill...

And how many times was he pulled back in BY Fuches? Because he feared for Fuches life? because Fuches convinced him it would be the last time every single time?

Fuches escapes into the darkness, frightening because he might do this to John one day, frustrating because he was the one good kill Barry could've made and in the end he just didn't, but ultimately in the show's world... he's just that. Gone. Darkness. Nothing. He escapes even scrutiny in the end.