Margaux and I say goodbye to a surprisingly excellent season of Halt and Catch Fire.
Trevor: Who expected Halt and Catch Fire to be so good this season? I remember we liked but didn’t love the first season, and were on the fence about even covering season two. I’m very glad we did. “Heaven Is a Place” was a hell of an episode.
Margaux: All the California talk finally paid off, and after all the work HaCF put in (since season one, really) it felt like a really natural place for all the characters to conclude, even Bosworth.
Trevor: You mean Bosworth in a cowboy hat? That’s everything my eyeballs have ever wanted to look at. Season two ended so strongly that the prospect of AMC canceling HaCF has become deeply depressing.
Margaux: Seriously. If they don’t get renewed, the finale will feel a hell of a lot less satisfying because this new beginning in the Bay Area definitely poses more conflict than resolution, to my eyes. And I really want to see it all play out, especially the part where Joe is a douchey millionaire, just like he’s always wanted. Talk about full circle on Joe’s character.
Trevor: Joe seems ready to become the cutthroat asshole people have already decided that he is. Gordon even goes so far as to tell him that he’s a good person, but the damage been done and the die cast. Joe is no saint, but he made a lot of steps in the right direction this season. But you can only be told you’re toxic so many times before you start to believe it.
Margaux: I guess Joe got sick of being the “nice guy” who continued to finish last. Joe doesn’t like that feeling unless he’s conscientiously blowing up his own life. Or truck full of computers. Or whatever.
Trevor: The guy from Stokes Capital called him a “legitimate psychopath.” That’s not something that’s easy to get over. And it definitely adds to the whole Patrick Bateman by way of Don Draper persona he tried to cultivate in season one.
Margaux: All he’s missing are the embossed cards, which I’m sure are in the mail. Cause it’s the 80s.
Anyway, just like Joanie Clark, I hate to see Mom and Dad fight, too. But that explosion of their dirty laundry was long overdue, but I’m still curious as to why Donna kept her abortion from Gordon. Maybe that precise moment wasn’t the time, but I can’t believe they got on a plane – a month later – to start their new life without talking about it.
Trevor: That scene…it was like Scoot McNairy and Kerry Bishe showed up and said “Hey motherfuckers, this what acting looks like.” And it should have fallen flat on its face, because the things they were arguing about were soap opera plot points. Fatal illness! Extramarital affair! But they did such a good job navigating that emotional minefield that it was riveting. Bravo.
Margaux: “I looked around for my marriage, and it wasn’t there” was the realest thing I’ve ever heard a character on TV say about relationships. There’s just something about their on-screen chemistry that really sells them, even when they’re making up inside a fuckin’ childs playhouse.
Trevor: And it’s what saves one of HaCF’s most consistent storylines, the exploratin of Joe and Donna’s marriage. Do you know how goddamn boring that could be? But against all odds, it works. Donna’s plaintive admittance to Cameron – “I don’t know if Gordon and I love each other anymore” – was the perfect amount of sad that never sounded pathetic. She even got Cameron to stop acting like a 15 year old at her first NOFX concert and actually show empathy for once.
Margaux: Whether intentional or not, Joe and Cameron were the ones – for better or worse – who had the most amount of growth this season. Cameron, against all odds, finally took her head out of her own ass and took control of her own company, and managed to find empathy within herself. And Joe has pretty much gone full Patrick Bateman, like he’s always wanted.
Trevor: A change of scenery could be good for HaCF. It’s really made its home in Texas, but season two got so much more insular. The spaces were tighter and more claustrophobic – Mutiny’s tiny office, Joe’s basement mainframe kingdom. The intimacy really worked, so going the opposite route next season might be a good thing. Plus, we could get a bunch of stunt casting – maybe Ashton Kutcher could reprise his career-defining role as Steve Jobs!
Margaux: Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.
Trevor: Way too late for that. Give me a buddy comedy with Gordon and Steve Wozniak, or get the fuck off my TV!
Margaux: So, do you want to talk stars? It sounds like you have a very aggressive pitch to send AMC execs.
Trevor: Season and episode, I’d go 4.5 stars. Maybe even 4.75 for the season. This show came strong out of the gate, and proved that it was so much more than just “summer TV.” At the very least, it’s the year’s most improved show.
Margaux: Jeez, don’t call it that, that sounds just as sad as “Participation Award.” I think Halt and Catch Fire finally hit its stride with this season, choosing to focus on Mutiny, and Cameron and Donna, paid off in emotional ways I didn’t think a show like this could. I do think it’s a good fit for summer, it’s smart middle ground of soap opera-ish storylines with a real knowledge of this era in tech without getting on its high horse about it. I agree with your 4.5 stars for the season, and I’d give “Heaven is a Place” 4.75, I ended up getting way more invested in Tom getting on the plane than I thought.
“Heaven Is a Place” score: 4.75/5
Halt and Catch Fire season 2 score: 4.5/5
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