Over its two seasons on HBO, Bill Hader’s (very) dark comedy Barry has established itself as some of the most ambitious television out there. (Who could forget, for instance, the episode featuring the almost feral little girl laying into our titular assassin?) What started as a comedy with a clever hook-a killer is hired to off an aspiring actor and is bitten with the showbiz bug himself-ended up being an exploration of whether a person can ever really shake their violent nature. And it turns out that no, a “violent piece of shit” will remain a “violent piece of shit.” Threading in a deft parody of acting school conventions with absurdism in the form of some delightful Chechen mobsters, Barry is truly special. But when will there be more?

Is Barry renewed for another season? 

With that cliffhanger? Hell yes it is. A third season was announced even before the second ended in May 2019. 

When will Season 3 of Barry actually air? 

That’s the million dollar question. The show was in pre-production when coronavirus hit, forcing everything to shut down. Henry Winkler told PeopleTV in April that the cast was all set to do their second table read when they were told about the delay, but that they were hoping to start up again in late summer 2020, which didn’t happen. Bill Hader told Seth Meyers in a January 2021 interview that, even though they hadn’t started filming, he had not only written Season 3, but Season 4 as well. “Season 3 is completely written and ready to go, and during this time we actually went and wrote Season 4, so we have both of those kind of done,” he said. “We’re just waiting until we can start shooting again.”

A bit of good news finally came in February 2021 when HBO chief Casey Bloys told Deadline that shooting had begun on Season 3, and a Season 4 renewal was also likely. 

What can we expect when it does come back? 

Chances are, it’s going to be depressing as hell. Barry Season 2, if you may recall, ended on a down note. There’s now no denying that the titular character is a capital-B bad guy. He is not a reformed killer; he’s a killer-killer, as evidenced by the monastery full of gangsters that he murdered in cold blood out of rage at his handler Fuches (Stephen Root). On top of that, he allows his acting mentor Gene Cousineau (Winkler) to get arrested for the murder of Cousineau’s girlfriend-a murder which Barry himself committed. In the last moments of the episode, Cousineau realizes that his student is indeed a cold-blooded killer, saying, “Oh my god,” before the credits roll. 

Hader and co-creator Alec Berg haven’t dropped many hints about where Season 3 is going, but we can guess it will be pretty dark. 

Will there be any new characters? 

Probably, but no additional casting has been announced yet. Expect familiar faces to return. Barry and Gene will face off, of course. Fuches and Noho Hank (Anthony Carrigan) both survived Barry’s rampage, so they are still in the mix, and Barry’s girlfriend Sally (Sarah Goldberg) had an unintentional triumph on stage.Need help finding something to watch? Sign up here for our weekly Streamail newsletter to get streaming recommendations delivered straight to your inbox.

Esther Zuckerman is a senior entertainment writer at Thrillist. Follow her on Twitter @ezwrites.