Margaux and I bid discuss a devastating episode of Halt and Catch Fire.
Trevor: This was a rough one – and I mean that in a good way. “Goodwill” was such a stark, forthright look at grief and loss that it was hard to watch (again, in a good way). This reminded me of last season’s brilliant finale “NeXT”; this too was just a riveting hour of people talking to each other. I’m pretty sure I know the answer to this, but how did it work for you?
Margaux: Even though it was unintentional, I’m glad we had an extra day before we reviewed “Goodwill” because I still felt emotionally raw from watching it yesterday. I’m not saying anything new here, but this was the most realistic depiction of life after the sudden death of a love I’ve seen since that episode of Buffy where her mom dies unexpectedly. Probably not a coincidence that both episodes were written by a Whedon (Joss and Zack, respectively). In TV and movies, so often is the funeral itself an end, it was refreshing that this episode ignored doing that altogether because when someone dies, the funeral isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning.
Trevor: That’s an excellent point, and that’s what “Goodwill” did so expertly: skipped the mawkish speeches and obligatory crying shots and go right to the nitty-gritty, the part about death that you really never plan for, when a person’s life is summed up in either red or green tape. Plus, from a viewer’s perspective, it got this amazing cast together and turned them loose. This will never get the Emmy recognition it deserves, but my God, there is no one I wouldn’t nominate in this cast. It’s a pleasure to watch them work, and the stately direction from co-showrunner Christopher Cantwell gave them ample room in which to do so.
Margaux: It also captured this feeling of audacity that world really does keep on spinning, and you’re left alone with all your pain. How when someone dies, and maybe this connects to the larger theme of the season as well, you’re really boiled to a box. Or a collect or boxes, or trash bags donated to the Goodwill. No matter how much you rally against it while you’re alive, it comes for everyone, eventually. Honestly, no one ever talks about the minutiae of dealing of death and grief, and Halt and Catch Fire did so very elegantly. Probably why this episode felt so emotionally devastating.
Trevor: But it wasn’t without its moments of levity, courtesy, strangely enough, of Joe. I liked him backtracking after he asked Donna how she was doing: “What a stupid question, we’re all terrible. Everything is terrible.” And I got a genuine belly laugh when he told Haley she could play her music in the car, and his face falls when she starts blasting “Fish Heads.” The characters, and the viewers, need those little moments of release (I also liked Bos’s little joke about the cinnamon). Like, the very in-character detail of Gordon’s fridge being stocked with seemingly only capers.
Margaux: The “Fish Heads” song moment reminded of me of Arrested Development when George Michael is driving Rita (Charlize Theron) in the stair car and she says she wants to put on “young people music” and she plays “Hot Potato.” Joe’s look was akin to that.
But it’s weird that you say the moments of levity came from Joe, and I might just be stuck on the latter half of the episode, because I thought Joe looked the most distraught of them all, especially after he felt like he’d failed Haley over the sweater thing. Cameron was the family MVP, from accidentally anointing herself “queen big dick” or talking Donna off the guilt ledge by assuring her Gordon “did a ton wrong”. Cameron put out fires, Joe was tricked into feeling useful in order to get him to eat by Bos making him the chili taste tester.
Trevor: That’s true, Joe looked like he was about to break sitting at that dinner table, and it had to have hurt even worse because he and Haley had such a great time stealing that bag from the Goodwill. I like that that led to Bos having to play the parent and basically trick Joe into eating.
And hell yes to Cameron. Mackenzie Davis was brilliant in “Goodwill.” That bonding moment she had with Joanie did the most character work for Joanie that we’ve seen all season.
Margaux: Obviously I’m glad to see Cameron and Donna have mended fences. I don’t expect them to get bestie tattoos or anything, but I thought both their exchanges were positive signs that they were on their way back to rebuilding their friendship. When Donna tells Cameron she finished Pilgrim, Cameron is genuinely pleasantly surprised. Later, Cameron repeats a similar sentiment as she did when Donna tells her about the game, there aren’t many people in the world like them. That seemed to be reason enough to put aside their grievances, at least start to entertain the idea of doing that.
Trevor: I love the unanswered questions posed by this episode. What is the future of Comet? Of Rover? Will Joanie get her own trailer on Cameron’s land (probably not)?
Margaux: I don’t think so either, especially in light of Joanie’s later conversation with Haley, it sounded like Joanie wanted to stay home to be there for her sister. It was sweet moment till you noticed they still talk about Gordon in the present tense.
Trevor: And speaking of questions, one of our biggest this season has been about Katie and her purpose. It was nice seeing her in “Goodwill,” and Anna Chlumsky and Kerry Bishe had a nice, wary rapport. I appreciated them talking about Gordon’s lousy decorating sense (although to be fair, Gordon’s office looked pretty good). Katie broke down in her car, and Gordon’s death shook her so badly that she moved to Seattle. I think she tells us that it doesn’t matter how long you’re in someone’s life, it matters how much you’re in someone’s life. Loss is loss is loss. There’s no seniority, no hierarchy.
Margaux: Yeah, I feel no closer to understanding the point of Anna Chlumsky’s Katie. This is less to do with Chlumsky’s acting as much I found the character arc to be…middling. She came in with a bang and then just fizzled out. When she told Cameron she’s moving to Seattle, I was like, “later, girl.” I didn’t care because I never got to know her beyond her admittedly awesome introductory monologue. She was Gordon’s sorta girlfriend, for what? Six months? I understand your point, but she lost any of my goodwill when she made it weird for Donna with her strange jealousy sidebar. Sometimes less is more, ya know? But I gotta respect her last line, “that’s where I found him.” That shit be haunted as fuck.
Trevor: We’ve talked about nearly all the performances in this episode except for one, Scoot McNairy. I’m glad Gordon came back in a flashback, and we got one more Gordon/Donna scene. McNairy and Bishe have wonderful chemistry, even in an argument scene which unfolded like a little playlet, or a short story by Anton Chekhov. I absolutely adored the ending of this episode, with Gordon stripping and jumping into a lake.
Margaux: It was a quiet callback to Donna’s story from a few episodes ago, when she told Joanie about a time when she was fearless. Donna surprised herself and just jumped off of cliff into a lake while on a camping trip with Gordon, and Gordon wouldn’t jump after her. Seems like, eventually, he did; proved it to himself, so to speak. But what I appreciated the most about the flashback, not only did we get to hang out with Donna and Gordon one last time, but they made effort to make Gordon some saint. They showed a particularly trying time in their lives as newlyweds and new parents, finally ridding themselves of pesky in-laws. After an argument, Gordon leaves his infant daughter and wife, and doesn’t return for conservatively six hours – in a time when cellphones did not exist. There is this impulse to commit revisionist history when someone dies, Halt and Catch Fire chose to not show a perfect person, but someone who fucked up, but always came back, tried his best to be a good and happy person. Also, wasn’t this scene the last thing Gordon saw in “Who Needs a Guy”?
Trevor: I believe it was, good catch. I don’t have anything to add to your terrifically-written paragraph, so do you want to talk stars?
Margaux: “Goodwill” was a beautiful eulogy to a beloved character, not only did the episode make me cry several time, reading other people’s thoughts on the episode and talking about it to other fans made me tear up all over again. It truly felt like a goodbye, not only to Gordon, but pre-goodbye to Halt and Catch Fire, and honestly, I’m already crying. Actually, I’m probably still crying.
5/5
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