Barry Season 4 Episode 7: Who was the cop Sally saw?

In Barry Season 4 Episode 7, Sally walks up to a police officer to ask for his help, but blood starts to slowly trickle out of his eye – so, who was the cop?

In our review, we wrote: “Barry’s penultimate episode is a tremendous, edge-of-your-seat balancing act that evokes the gloomy inevitability of The Sopranos’ final stretch – oh yes, there will be blood.”

The episode picks up with Barry waking up in Jim Moss’ garage, while Gene gives into temptation when an agent tells him a legendary actor wishes to play him in the biopic he’s been trying to kill. Meanwhile, after their terrifying experience last week, Sally flies to LA to see Gene before Barry murders him.

When she arrives at Gene’s apartment, nobody is at home. She tells John everything will be fine, but in a moment of thank-f*ck clarity, she asks a cop for help… but things don’t go to plan – so, who is he?

Who was the cop in Barry Season 4 Episode 7?

The cop is played by Anthony Molinari, who also portrayed Shane, the hitman Sally killed in the Season 3 finale.

If you cast your mind back to that episode, Barry had been pursued by several killers on motorbikes earlier in the season. In the finale, after Barry arrives at Sally’s apartment to convince her not to get revenge on Natalie, Shane sneaks in behind him and knocks him out.

Shane then strangles Sally, but she stabs him in the neck before beating him to death with a baseball bat. In an earlier interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Bill Hader said it was “important to clue into Sally’s history with domestic violence and the cycle that violence sends her in” when directing the fight.

In the newest episode, Sally sees Shane after arriving at Gene’s house and battering his door to try and get in. John doesn’t understand what’s happening, and his questions clearly aggravate Sally. “Once they talk, we’ll all be together again as a family,” she says, and he asks: “Then what are we going to do?”

Sally replies: “We’re just gonna keep doing what we’re doing,” but the sound suddenly falls away. She stands on the pavement, engulfed in silent reflection – can she really go on like this? The single tear that drips from her cheek says no, and she walks over to a nearby police officer to ask for help.

She struggles to speak, but something is off about the cop – as he takes off his glasses, blood starts trickling out of his eye, before she realizes who she’s staring at: Shane. Her guilt and trauma over his death – which was now eight years ago at this point – has clearly festered in her in ways she hasn’t even realized.

Also, she’s not innocent: she ran away with a known fugitive and is directly responsible for the death of another person. She is, in a word, trapped.

Barry Season 4 Episodes 1-7 are streaming on HBO now. Check out the rest of our coverage below:

Barry Season 4 cast | Episodes 1 & 2 review | Episode 3 review | Episode 4 review | Episode 5 review | Episode 6 review | What time is Barry out on HBO? | Will there be a Barry Season 5? | How many episodes are there in Barry Season 4?