Margaux and I are happy that Joe’s storyline is going somewhere in this week’s Halt and Catch Fire.
Trevor: So I know in the past you’ve been pretty lukewarm on Joe’s role this season – did “And She Was” work any better for you? I mean, the guy went through a lot in a single episode, and his storyline is finally starting to dovetail with all the others. That was a pretty big bombshell he dropped at the end of the episode.
Margaux: Before the reveal at the end of “And She Was” (one my favorite Talking Heads songs that ALWAYS reminds of Look Who’s Talking – but I digress) I wrote in my notes, “all of Joe and Ryan’s interactions should be in montage form”, and I still stand by that. But I am starting to warm up to the idea that Joe might’ve finally gotten a little interesting. It’s most likely fleeting, but his Cameron read was probably the first time all season I didn’t have to fight the urge to shut my eyes during a Joe scene, so there’s that!
Trevor: That was a really interesting scene with Cameron. I like how Halt and Catch Fire has taken the considerable sexual chemistry between Lee Pace and Mackenzie Davis and turned it adversarial. One thing I noted while I was watching “And She Was,” and this isn’t a new observation, is how seamlessly HaCF shifted gears. Remember back in season one, when Gordon and Cameron were building the Goliath, and Joe was a warmed-over Don Draper? Sorry, that’s not very insightful, but sometimes I find myself thinking about it.
Oh, and side note about Joe: this is why you never take your company public. I find it funny that Ken told Joe about the “Joe MacMillan Clause,” which stipulates that he’d lose all equity if he did anything destructive to company property – what a weird reputation to have following you around! But Joe did Ken one better: he destroyed the company’s intellectual property, by admitting that he stole MacMillan Utilities’ trademark software from Gordon. I guess the moral of the story is: never challenge Joe to a fucking shit up contest.
Margaux: Haha, Joe is the Guinness Book of World Records holder for imploding his own life. But it’s kind of smart how they began the episode with Diane approaching the idea of taking Mutiny public, after a very sizable acquisition offer from Comp-u-serve (of all places), and even if Cameron’s preciousness about Mutiny came across as juvenile and shortsighted, what happens between Joe and Ken serves effectively as a cautionary tale because Joe and Cameron have more in common, personality wise, than they don’t. They’re both petulant children in charge of more than they’re capable of and have a huge penchant for leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Joe summed up her marriage, and their approach to life in general well, “you were happy for a moment and you thought the person standing closest to you was the source.”
Trevor: Lines like that work so well because of Lee Pace’s dead, almost monotone delivery.
Since you brought up Cameron, I feel like that’s as good a segue as any to talk about her and Donna. I like that their friendship is on the mend, but it’s not quite there yet. Donna backing up Cameron, when telling Diane that they fired Doug and Craig, was a really nice moment, especially because we didn’t see them talk about it beforehand – if they even did. Their friendship was probably the best part of Halt’s second season, and while it frayed believably, there’s a big part of me that wants them back on the same side. But I will say this: Cameron really needs to stop calling Mutiny “my company.”
Margaux: You really think their friendship is on the mend? I have to respectfully disagree, if anything, I think it’s close to dissolving. Although I do agree Cameron should stop calling Mutiny her company, it’s an asshole thing to do, but she is an asshole…I’m sorry, I mean, “eccentric.” Not only did Cameron fire Doug and Craig (boy did that plot go absolutely fucking nowhere quick) behind Donna’s back as some sort of power move, she invites Diane to come by the office, effectively springing it on Donna to elicit some sort of negative response out of her that would/could possibly get Donna to embarrass herself in front of Diane. Cameron then proceeds to spend the rest of the episode freezing out Donna; she bails on the baller ass Sonoma retreat at Diane’s vineyard, she moves out in the middle of the night and tells no one (real nice, don’t say thank you, what a twat), takes a day off work and doesn’t tell anyone again (because that’s how she runs her Mutiny), oh and she tells Gordon – not Donna (that was deliberately hurtful cause Cameron is a child mentally) – that she got married to Tom. I would not classify ANY of this behavior as “on the mend” in the slightest.
Trevor: Excuse me, “vineyard”? According to Cameron, the proper term is “wine farm.”
Margaux: I will strike you through this computer screen if you say “wine farm” one more time.
Trevor: You raise some interesting points, so I guess I have to reassess what I said earlier. Maybe their relationship isn’t mending, maybe Donna just wants it to. She gets Cameron’s back as a show of good faith; she hallucinates Cameron forgiving her, but it doesn’t actually happen. Maybe Donna’s in denial. Okay, I’m swayed, I don’t think their relationship is necessarily on the mend, but I think that’s what Donna wants. But moving out, getting married, and confiding in Gordon show that Cameron isn’t all that interested in maintaining any relationship besides a professional one. Damn, and I was rooting for these two.
Margaux: Me too, but I think where you get it wrong again, as evidenced by Donna’s mushroom trip is that she wants their relationship, professional and personal, to work. Cameron does not. All Cameron does for the 99% of “And She Was” is demonstrate that, since she’s not so good with talky-talky. And poor Donna, she’s not the Mom, and if she is, she’s the cool Mom! And not in an Amy Poehler in Mean Girls way.
Trevor: Oh, yeah, I knew that; I should have been clearer. It is definitely one-sided.
Speaking of people I was rooting for: Damn, Bos and Diane, what happened? I love Toby Huss and Annabeth Gish in these roles so much I’d no-bullshit watch a whole show about them. I didn’t expect (or want) their night to end the way it did, though. What did you think?
Margaux: I am utterly perplexed by Bos and Diane’s interactions. Just when they seem to be fueling my fanfiction fantasy, they suddenly become at odds over the most innocuous shit. I mean, quickie in the car – FUCK YEAH YOU GUYS. But then it turns on a dime and I have to rewind what just happened, but a second viewing didn’t clarify anything. *Kanye shrug*.
Trevor: I had no idea what to make of that either, so it was a baffling end to what was so far a charming date. I mean, running into each other at the opera (Turandot, which Bos pronounces with a hard T because he gets all the best lines), how romantic is that? And then following it up with a stop at a drag bar? I loved the way it was shot, and how intimate even the larger spaces looked, thanks to director Michael Morris’s elegant use of framing. But yeah, no idea what to make of that ending. It reminded me of an equally uncomfortable scene in Louie, only Bos didn’t call Diane a whore and then get slapped. So I guess it could have been worse?
Margaux: Haha that would be a very Louie ending for them, so I guess it’s supposed to fill us with hope that they might have another miscommunication filed date? I really cannot make heads or tails of their relationship, which feels like how dating IRL usually goes.
But since you mentioned cinematography, this was definitely a stand out during “And She Was,” and that’s really saying something because almost every show in this golden age of television has lots of standout photography (HaCF included), but the task of making Cameron’s computer chat with Tom visually compelling is not an easy feat. As a whole, there were lots of interesting and eyeball appealing compositions; Gordon and Cameron sort of blocked by the TV antenna while they try to beat Super Mario Bros, everything they shoot in Gordon’s HAM closet, all of it was, as the youths say, a hundred.
Trevor: So many great shots. “All She Was” seemed to be shot with a photographer’s eye, with an emphasis on telling still images: Donna, peacefully tripping out on the grass; Cameron, alone with her CB radio in an empty, anonymous house. Just a really gorgeous episode. Would you like to talk stars, or do you want to talk about Ryan’s adorable Joe-style beard he’s growing? I like that it was never mentioned.
Margaux: Ugh, even their facial hair is not a compelling talking point (and I fucking love joking about character facial hair), if I never saw Ryan again, it’d be too soon. He’s no Gordon, and I understand his non-personality is supposed to be engineer accurate, but when you work with Ryan’s you don’t want to see them on your TV – why couldn’t he be a Bachmann type? Wah, send Ryan back, he’s broken AND boring.
But I did like that Matthew Lillard read Joe like a phony wannabe guru he is when he unceremoniously ousted him from his position for the NSFNET deal with this sick ass burn, “like Buddha on the goddamn mountain, dispensing pearls of nonsense to the tech press.” I mean that quote was so accurate not only about Joe, but the tech industry in general. The writers must be watching RuPaul’s Drag Race the amount of shade that tossed around. READ, HUNTIES, THE LIBRARY IS OPEN.
Trevor: I too am hoping to get some more interiority from Ryan; he’s a bit of a cipher still, and we don’t need to watch Joe ruin another person’s life. We’ve seen it already.
Margaux: Yup, exactly, don’t want to or need to see a rehash with a less interesting character.
Trevor: So what do you think in terms of stars?
Margaux: Even though I might’ve seemed overly critical, I thought this episode is the strongest so far and did a really great job not giving in to what was expected, it zigged when you thought it would have zagged; like Bos and Diane, that could have been a full blown romance, and even though we don’t quite get what went wrong, I like that they didn’t give us what we (the audience) wanted. “And She Was” is 4.5 stars for me. And I’ll totally fight you about it.
4.5/5
‘Great’
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