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Halloween is the season for horror, of course. But October also means fall TV is in full swing, so it’s also the season for comedy, animation, drama, and more. TV shows of all kinds honor this spooky time of year, be it through explicit celebrations of the season or more abstract explorations of dark themes like existential dread, societal corruption, and the hubris of humanity.

Instead of just binging television horror this season — “Yellowjackets” is for winter! — why not truly frighten yourself with scary episodes of (generally) non-scary shows? “Black Mirror” regularly borders on nightmarish, but falls squarely into the sci-fi category, and still one episode haunts us like the scariest movies do. “Chernobyl” recounts real-world horror, which makes it a historical drama, but we’d argue that Episode 4 is a haunting on par with Mike Flanagan’s “Hill House.” Even comedies like “Boy Meets World” and “American Vandal...

With four Emmy nominations for his work on Barry this year—comedy series, acting, writing and directing—Season 2 of the HBO series really allowed Bill Hader to show his riveting helming finesse across two episodes: “ronny/lily” and the finale “berkman/block”. In the nominated “ronny/lily”, Hader’s hitman Barry is trying to take out martial arts maven Ronny Proxin, only to be ambushed by the guy’s daughter, Lily, an 11-year-old karate dynamo. It’s a great chase sequence that begins in a smoky, blasé, suburban home, and continues onto the street and into a grocery store. It’s just one example of Hader’s many achievements.

What was the genesis for your Emmy-nominated episode “ronny/lily”? I hear a stunt coordinator recommended child actress Jessie Giacomazzi who knows plenty of karate.

Going into Season 2, we knew that we wanted Loach [John Pirruccello] to work with Fuches [Stephen Root] and corner Barry.

This story about Bill Hader and “Barry” first appeared in the Down to the Wire issue of TheWrap’s Emmy magazine.

After a strong debut season, one that ended with a pair of Emmy wins for star Bill Hader and supporting actor Henry Winkler, HBO’s “Barry” comfortably avoided any sophomore slump, as it allowed Hader’s title character to fully go into the darkness. The season ended with Hader’s hitman-turned-actor, Barry, on an all-out killing spree, and with Barry’s acting teacher Gene Cousineau (Winkler) having the jaw-dropping realization that Barry might have been the one who killed his girlfriend, Detective Janice Moss, at the end of Season 1.

Prior to that chaotic finale, one of the standout moments from “Barry’s” second season was the “Ronny/Lily” episode, which saw Barry and Monroe Fuches (Stephen Root) encounter Lily (Jessie Giacomazzi), the world’s most terrifying 11 -year-old girl. “There’s something up with her.

We’ve always known that when it comes to impressions, Bill Hader can do anyone.

But for those who don’t know, what he wonderfully flaunts in season 2 of HBO’s Barry is his riveting finesse for directing action scenes across two episodes, “ronny/lily” and the finale “berkman>block”, literally reminiscent of James Mangold’s work on Logan and Michael Mann’s cinematic crime oeuvre.

It’s a wonderful evolution for Hader who started off as a Pa on such action pics as Dwayne Johnson’s Scorpion King and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Collateral Damage, and is now the guy who gets to call “action”.

Hader’s Emmy-nominated directed and written episode “ronny/lily” follows the actor’s hitman Barry, who after being blackmailed by Detective John Loach (John Pirruccello), is forced to take Ronny Proxin (Daniel Bernhardt), the guy who is having an affair with Loach’s wife. Barry breaks into Ronny’s house,...

There were many standout moments during “Barry’s” second season, which received 17 Emmy nominations on Tuesday. But one of the most talked-about all season was the “Ronny/Lily” episode, which sees Barry (Bill Hader) and Fuches (Stephen Root) deal with Lily (Jessie Giacomazzi), the world’s most terrifying 11-year-old girl.

“There’s something up with her. We still don’t know what it is,” Hader told TheWrap on Tuesday. He said filming that extended fight sequence, was just as terrifying.

“When she had to run up the tree, that was terrifying. I just had a heart attack every time she would go up,” he continued. “Because it really is an 11-year-old girl. She’s on wires and all that. And the tree is not there, we digitally [added] that in. It’s like a rock-climbing wall she was going up. It was terrifying because in my head I’m going, ‘Oh please don’t hurt yourself.

Variety selects memorable, Emmy eligible moments from the 2019-20 television season.

The Act (Hulu)

“Teeth”

Season 1, Episode 2

Gypsy (Joey King), a Munchausen by proxy victim, knows on some level that she doesn’t need all the medical assistance she’s been getting. But to live without it is a betrayal of her mother, and a step into the scary unknown. Her doctor (Poorna Jagannathan) offers Gypsy a soda to test her “sugar allergy” and, after agonizing thought, Gypsy refuses even to try it, saying in a strangled whisper, “My mom needs me.” It’s a choice that cements both her and her mother’s tragic fates.

Barry (HBO)

“ronny/lily”

Season 2, Episode 5

No moment in this perpetually strange series has so far been quite as startling as Barry’s (Bill Hader) confrontation with little Lily (Jessie Giacomazzi), a karate star whose focus, and whose ability to match Barry blow for blow,...

Bill Hader hasn’t been shy about his dream of becoming a film director. One of his motivations in creating HBO’s “Barry” with Alec Berg was to leverage his value as performer in order to get an opportunity to direct a couple of episodes while guiding the visual language of the show. Yet in looking back at Season 1, Hader feels like he was far too timid in the first two episodes he directed.

“I felt like on Season 1 I didn’t do a good job of some things,” said Hader when he was a guest on IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit. “When I’d look back I went, ‘Oh man, I wish I’d stuck to my guns. I saw that in a specific way and I kind of chickened out.’ Or if someone said, “Oh, don’t you want to do it this way?’ And I went, ‘Ok,’ and...

In all the commotion of last week’s giant “Game of Thrones” battle, some viewers may have missed some exciting theatrics on another HBO episode that aired last Sunday night. “Barry” broke away from the show’s familiar rhythms and delivered one of the wildest half hours of TV of the year so far.

At an Emmys event this weekend in Los Angeles, Bill Hader talked about one of the centerpiece moments of the episode. In pursuit of one last job that will clear him of his past misdeeds, Hader’s hitman character stumbles across a young girl with otherworldly martial arts skills. When Barry’s handler Fuches (Stephen Root) tries to coax the girl into their car, the audience sees her run over to a tree, climb it, and hop onto the roof of quiet neighborhood house in broad daylight.

According to Hader, not only did actress Jessie Giacomazzi do the stunt herself,...