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TV Talk: Barry Series Review Discussion · Dad Needs To Talk

• 0:03
  What's up, Y'all, And welcome back to Danny's Talk.
• 0:06
  I'm your host, Robert. And today, Today, we're going to
• 0:09
  be talking about the dark comedy drama called Barry.
• 0:15
  Now Barry is a show that is on HBO or Max.
• 0:26
  I'm just going to say HBO. It's on.
• 0:28
  It's. It's on HBO.
• 0:29
  Max ran for Four Seasons, 32 episodes total, 8 episodes
• 0:36
  apiece from 2018 until just a few months ago of May 2023.
• 0:44
  So this was a show kind of going in that I honestly knew little
• 0:53
  to nothing about it. I kind of heard it in passing on
• 0:57
  other podcasts and different stuff.
• 0:59
  You know, people just thought, oh, hey, what you been watching
• 1:01
  and doing lately? Whatever.
• 1:03
  And so I've heard. I've heard that come up a few
• 1:05
  times over the years, but I've never really looked into it or
• 1:08
  whatever. I knew nothing about it.
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  And so it honestly ended up being a solid surprise for me
• 1:20
  when I dove into it. Because basically the the, the
• 1:25
  setup and premise for Barry is that it follows this main
• 1:34
  character named Barry Berkman, who is a former soldier on a
• 1:38
  Marine who is best to try to figure out, find his wife of
• 1:48
  sorts, whatever. But he's pretty much been kind
• 1:51
  of like a contractor for hire hitman type of person since he
• 1:56
  left the Marines, since he left the the the army and stuff.
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  But he ends up finding his way into this acting class and
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  starts to try to pursue a career of acting while still dealing
• 2:15
  with his hitman stuff, whatever. So that is kind of like, like in
• 2:19
  a super basic nutshell, and it's pretty interesting concept to,
• 2:25
  you know, I said I like, like when when you really think about
• 2:28
  it, 'cause it's basically kind of like Agent 47 from the video
• 2:31
  games decides he wants to go Hollywood and be an actor.
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  And not not just not just to get to a target where it was.
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  Like, no, he legit wants to be a actor or whatever.
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  And so this show just kind of follows his journey through that
• 2:53
  kind of trying to have some type of self discovery.
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  The different people he come across, you know, a mixture of
• 3:01
  people he knew in his personal life, like family, friends and
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  stuff, former military people, people that he meets through
• 3:09
  this acting school and stuff, and everybody on the on the
• 3:14
  periphery of the hitman work he does.
• 3:19
  Yeah, I'll say overall Barry was a solid show.
• 3:24
  It was more good than bad. I'll say that.
• 3:30
  Probably season one and two or definitely by far the strongest
• 3:36
  part of the season. Most of season three, I feel
• 3:39
  like, at least I remember it's been a few weeks, but most of
• 3:44
  season three was solid. Then season four started OK, had
• 3:50
  a crazy dip in the middle, but somehow managed to pull some
• 3:56
  stuff together for a solid ending.
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  But there, there's definitely a stretch in the fourth season,
• 4:07
  which I'll talk about all if if you're new here.
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  I'll have time stamps for when I start getting into spoilers.
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  And I'll make it pretty clear, OK, hey, we're going to talk
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  about spoilers, so I'll do that in a few minutes.
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  But. But in general though, like I
• 4:21
  said, it was just like so fascinating just seeing him kind
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  of trying to figure out who he is and what he wants.
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  Because for the longest time from being a soldier to be in
• 4:36
  this contract for hire, hitman or whatever, he's always just
• 4:41
  basically been about following orders and doing what he's told
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  to do without thinking too much about the consequences of the
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  stuff he's doing as well as what does he personally want to do
• 4:52
  with his life. And so that part of it was
• 4:57
  fascinating. I feel like it was a pretty
• 5:00
  solid and fun surrounding cast of characters.
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  They did a really good job of walk in that tightrope of the
• 5:14
  comedy stuff and the dark stuff, cuz they they kind of, they kind
• 5:19
  of for the most part try to balance it out so that like OK,
• 5:23
  whenever those may look like a pretty heavy moment, you know,
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  OK soon we're going to have a somewhat of a light hearted,
• 5:31
  light hearted moment or somebody does something goofy to goof up
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  what should be this serious moment.
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  What's his name? Noho Hank was definitely a funny
• 5:50
  reoccurring character. He was kind of like like a mob
• 5:55
  mafia person from Chechnya. Yeah, Noho Hank from Chechnya
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  mafia. He was fine.
• 6:07
  What is the old man lowering my brain?
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  Henry Henry Winkler as Gene Cousineau.
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  The kind of like teacher of the acting class.
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  Whatever. He was such a dumb old self
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  important type of character. Barrado solid cast of characters
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  like I said I I feel like Like I said, I feel like they managed
• 6:41
  to salvage the ending and pull things together in a decent way.
• 6:48
  But some of the time that I feel like that they wasted certain
• 6:52
  parts they could have maybe gave more finality or more closure to
• 6:59
  some of these other characters and stuff.
• 7:00
  Cuz some characters just kind of just like disappearance of the
• 7:03
  wind and it's kind of OK, well I guess you know they're they're
• 7:06
  just out there somewhere. But you know like I said when
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  when when early on it pretty much sets the tone for like hey
• 7:18
  anybody can go in this show as far as like this the across this
• 7:23
  whole cast of characters nobody is truly safe.
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  Like you get attached to characters, whatever, those
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  characters that get killed off some of them in the long run,
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  some of them pretty quickly and sometimes you even wonder like
• 7:37
  man, you know how is Barry going to make it out of these crazy
• 7:40
  situations and stuff. But overall I I enjoyed it.
• 7:44
  Though it is definitely one I would recommend watching like I
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  said because it's not that big of a dedication.
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  Four Seasons, 32 episodes and and all the episodes are the
• 7:55
  average like 25 to 30 minutes or whatever.
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  So we're now talking about you know hour long episodes.
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  It's just like, Nope, pretty short, quick to the point
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  episodes. And plus when you and also when
• 8:08
  you add in the runtime for the recaps and the intros and then
• 8:14
  the the the credits and then the post credits stuff where they
• 8:18
  talk to the cast and all that stuff, which I didn't watch any
• 8:21
  of. I might come back and watch
• 8:22
  maybe because sometimes that stuff kind of gives some
• 8:24
  interesting insight. But I didn't watch any of that
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  stuff whatever. So that probably knocked a lot
• 8:29
  of episodes down from that 2530 minutes to probably like 15 you
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  know 1520 minutes in some cases for some of them.
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  But bam. So overall like I said, Barry,
• 8:43
  solid. OK recommendation.
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  Like I said, really strong first couple of seasons, solid third
• 8:50
  season and that fourth season is kind of, but we crossed the
• 8:55
  finish line. Now very briefly.
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  I'm going to touch on some more specific things and spoilers.
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  So if you haven't watched it yet, go watch it and come back
• 9:07
  and say I'm not, I'm not going to take him take up too much
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  longer on this, whatever. But spoilers starting now, so I
• 9:16
  got to jump to the ending real quick or to to like like that.
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  Like what else about this stuff I didn't like with the episode
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  or with that final season specifically like that stretch
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  episodes. First of all, we do this weird
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  time jump after this like crazy set of events happen.
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  Bury you know, get got captured at the end of the previous
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  season, does live in time in jail, manages to to escape
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  because people come into the prison and try to kill him.
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  And he managed to escape. And then boom, we cut eight-year
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  time skip. And now him and Sally Reed are
• 9:55
  married and they have a kid and they live out in the middle of
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  nowhere land. Like, like, we're freaking
• 10:02
  courage. The cowardly dog lives just out
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  in the middle of literal nowhere.
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  And those episodes were kind of boring, you know.
• 10:14
  And then things kind of picked up, you know, once stuff kind of
• 10:17
  got to a point to where Gene resurfaced after eight years as
• 10:21
  well because they're planning, because Hollywood or whoever is
• 10:25
  planning to make a movie about the Barry Berkman situation and
• 10:31
  stuff. And so he's seemingly he's
• 10:33
  supposedly coming to stop it but he isn't getting something to do
• 10:37
  in it and yadda, yadda, yadda. But the way all this stuff kind
• 10:44
  of wraps up at once again spoilers.
• 10:45
  I'll say it again, Jane ended up getting framed for all the stuff
• 10:52
  because he got too power hungry for one of the spotlight and
• 10:59
  stuff. Whatever.
• 11:00
  So he ended up getting framed for everything.
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  The the the death of his girlfriend, Detective and
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  quadruple mega spoilers. Bury dying which that part
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  wasn't super shocking just because of the of the way the
• 11:20
  show was going. I'm like I don't know where this
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  character is going to end up whatever.
• 11:26
  And I was honestly I was like I could see him going out which he
• 11:31
  did unfortunately. But you know it's it's just like
• 11:36
  it's just it was just crazy but you know him dying and I did
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  like how at the end their son what finally getting to watch
• 11:48
  the movie over at a friend's house.
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  He's doing a sleeper wreck cause for years his mom was just, I
• 11:53
  was like no don't watch that movie yada yada yada.
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  And him finally sitting down and watching it and then seeing how
• 12:00
  they portrayed Barry in the movie adaptation, whatever tour
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  basically made it seem like Gene was this big mastermind behind
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  everything and a the father figure that Barry needed and
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  yada yada yada. And he ended up killing Barry in
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  the end because Barry was odd to him and his evil schemes and
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  stuff. And so at least you know, it's a
• 12:29
  lie. But I guess in this situation
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  it's like, well, you know, the kid has some type of positive
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  final memory of his father and stuff.
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  Though. Though I wouldn't be surprised
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  if like someday in the future when he actually becomes an
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  adult, he learns the actual truth.
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  But at this point, and it's when he catches around, they could
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  tell him the actual truth or whatever, 'cause I feel like his
• 12:55
  mother is definitely never going to really speak about that stuff
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  again, which is why she was so adamant about him not watching
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  the movie. Gene's in prison.
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  They're probably never going to talk.
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  What's his name? Fuchs.
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  He's disappearance of the Wind. So who knows?
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  If he might he might circle back around, he might know what to
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  come back in the kids life at some point.
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  But, but otherwise most of the characters that was involved in
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  everything are dead. You know, So it's kind of tough
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  to see like how he might learn any type of concrete truth
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  behind his father and stuff, whatever.
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  So which sometimes some skeletons are kind of left best
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  left buried and left in the closet or whatever.
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  But on a more positive note, like I said, I just really enjoy
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  just like like Barry was so good at his job and just all the
• 14:00
  times where he had to either team up or got press situations
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  with goofballs or people who were just power hungry or
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  whatever and he had to just like save save everybody's butt or
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  whatever and stuff It it it it, it just did really good with
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  that mix of comedy and stuff. I feel like the the No Ho Hank
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  stuff, whatever. I still kind of enjoyed skip it
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  to the to the end, but not as much as like earlier on and
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  stuff. But All in all because I'm just
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  rambling now. I'm trying to think was there
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  anything else in the other big moments.
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  Sally, she kind of got on my nerves after a while.
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  Just because which fits that character, that whatever.
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  Like a character who is starving to get their big Hollywood break
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  and then trying everything, everything in their power to
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  sometimes pay the victim when clearly or not and different
• 15:02
  stuff like that, which is that her, her arc was kind of wild
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  too. Like after Barry went to prison,
• 15:09
  all of a sudden I guess she's like a showrunner or whatever.
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  She's big name, she's head director, all this stuff,
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  whatever. But then she kind of just loses
• 15:21
  it all and just, you know, it all just slips through her
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  fingers or whatever. When that video footage of her
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  lashing out at her assistant or whatever came out and stuff
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  that's pretty much like tanked her career for the most part.
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  I I guess until the end where it kind of came back full circle.
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  But but but yeah man like I'm just thinking cuz it's like that
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  there's other characters where I kind of wish you know we saw
• 15:51
  more of like whatever his name like like the the one the one
• 15:58
  army buddy they bury his saved back in the day they kind of
• 16:02
  popped up and he was seem seem like there was going to be
• 16:08
  something there with his character but then they they
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  just kind of he just disappeared or whatever which was weird.
• 16:18
  I enjoyed Detective Janice and her dad as well.
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  Just the fact that I hate man. He his his baby girl, his
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  precious daughter got taken from him and he is like a former
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  investigator or whatever. And him going above and beyond
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  interrogating people, getting getting into all these people's
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  minds and stuff, but like like the real mind games and stuff.
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  I I like this character and stuff.
• 16:53
  Well yeah. While I don't need to give you
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  all a recap of everything that happened, but overall Barry,
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  solid show. Like I said, saw some some
• 17:03
  fumblings towards the end but you know they they kind of like
• 17:08
  I said they they got across the finish line and in a somewhat
• 17:12
  decent manner. But let me know what y'all
• 17:17
  thought of Barry. Did y'all enjoy it and if so,
• 17:21
  why? If not, also let me know why.
• 17:25
  You can reach out to me whether it be on the video version of
• 17:27
  this on YouTube or if you listen to the audio version of this on
• 17:30
  the audio version of this on podcast feed.
• 17:34
  Feel free to hit me up, I'm everywhere at Dad Needs to Talk,
• 17:37
  where it's always conversations about fatherhood and family,
• 17:40
  manga, anime, TV, movies and video games.
• 17:44
  And I think with that I'm out. So y'all be easy and I'll catch
• 17:50
  y'all in the next either review or practice episode so y'all be
• 17:56
  easy. Peace.