I have no idea how Hader and co-creator Alec Berg came up with the concept or how the hell they managed to make it work, but boy, did they!

Deadpan, disturbing, morally grounded and morbidly hilarious, Barry has proven to be a standout new series, even by HBO's high standards.

The writing is very canny in initially leaving avenues open for us to not view Barry as exactly a hit man, exactly a killer, and then gradually closing them off.

Barry isn't really about post-traumatic stress disorder and the ways the country fails its veterans when it comes to giving them the psychiatric care they need - but it's also not not about that.

It's part drama, part satire and part dark comedy. And it juggles genres just as deftly as it switches tones - Barry goes from being a hitman comedy to a farce and from farce to love story, often in the same scene.

The series uses their vanity to hold up a mirror and let the audience reckon with an uncomfortable truth: that we all put on performances in our own lives, some more convincingly than others.

[Bill] Hader and the rest of the cast are excellent, but it's a particular joy to watch [Henry] Winkler, who brings expertly honed comic timing to the party and seemingly channels every pretentious acting coach he ever met.

Barry takes risks, asking us to take seriously for a moment the sombre weight of killing someone; and presenting Chechen gangsters as goofballs gives the comedy an unnerving edge.

It's mostly just funny, but it takes its character's predicament seriously, and there's a sinister aspect to his profession that somehow gives it dramatic weight yet doesn't become too ghastly or nasty.

It's not a bad twist on the old usual Hollywood self-indulgence, and Barry has pathos to go with its cynicism. Much of this is down to Bill Hader.

It works because of that fabulous juxtaposition, a perfect storm of horror and hilarity.

Barry works because the tone is perfect. Hader shines in a rather heavy role.

Hader's rubbery mien summons memories of the dolts, doofuses, and oddballs he played on Saturday Night Live, but here he upends expectations, draining some of the warmth and playfulness from his usual manner.

Barry shows tremendous promise as a coming-out party for Hader's hidden talents as an actor, writer, and director.

Once you get the style - Hader as director achieves a delicate counterpoint between the ironic and the gruesome, no easy task for a first-timer - it is really very funny.