Margaux and I get the band back together to talk about the best show no one watches, Halt and Catch Fire.
Trevor: First things first: thanks for filling in last week. You did a great job covering a great pair of episodes. That said, I am so excited to bet talking about Halt and Catch Fire with you again. It’s bittersweet any time we have to say goodbye to a show, but at least HaCF gets to go out on its own terms, and it’s doing so with what seems to be a solid closing season. In case I was being too subtle, I liked “Miscellaneous” quite a bit. How did it work for you?
Margaux: Before I go on one of my patented, praised-fill rants, I want to thank YOU for coming back. Please know I spent more time than I should have agonizing over that double review without you to keep me distracted. It is way more fun to talk about prestige drama(s) when you’re here. In short, don’t you dare leave me again.
Now that that’s out of the way, usually it takes most shows a couple episodes to settle in and more or less definitively choose the clearest direction they want to go for the season. But not season 4 of Halt and Catch Fire. The amount of confidence shown in these three episodes alone make me outraged that AMC is pulling the dick move of relegating this wonderful show to the TV desert that is Saturday night at 9PM.
Trevor: Totally agree. It would definitely be the nail in the coffin, so I’m glad that the two Christophers who run the show, Cantwell and Rogers, aren’t letting that shit time slot get the best of them, and are continuing to indulge in the same bold storytelling we’ve seen over the last two seasons of this show (season one was good but more conventional). Speaking of the last two seasons, when the show started to get really good, I think the secret ingredient is making Joe more of an ensemble player. In season one he was this monolithic Don Draper figure, and he works so much better as part of the cast, instead of being treated like the reason for the cast.
Lastly, our HaCF reviews kind of crack me up, because for a while we just talk in general terms about how good the show is. We can’t help it, readers!
Margaux: You mean people don’t want to read reviews written in vague, effusive terms? Huh, weird. But really, we don’t need to talk specific plot points because if you’ve seen the episode, what good is it to just regurgitate them? Although next time a problematic couple in my life that breaks up as much as they get back together commit the inevitable, I will one hundred borrow Gordon’s train analogy. “You both think because you’re both trains that it should work!”
Trevor: And what works so well about HaCF is that it’s never been a particularly plot-driven show. Look at last week’s “Signal to Noise,” where Joe and Cameron spent almost the entire episode on the phone. And I think the show is incredibly aware of that, and shows it through the character of Gordon, who is now unemployed and cash rich and looking to go spelunking or fly fishing. This isn’t a show that’s afraid to meander, and it feels improvisatory and surprising. Look no further than the discovery of Hayley’s website; it feels like the show discovered it simultaneously with Joe and Gordon. HaCF seems to exist on the same level as its characters, and part of its charm is that it doesn’t always seem like it knows what those characters are about to do (contrast that with, say, Better Call Saul, which is great precisely because it knows what everyone is going to do).
Margaux: The living room scene with Joe and Hayley working on the indexing website, and restless Gordon and Joanie trying to find a way to be apart their excitement somehow, felt incredibly naturalistic, right down to the surprise of the first nudie website. I really appreciate how unsentimental (which I suppose in a way fits, it being a show about computers and the internet and all) it can be, just as quickly as Boz and Diane were speculating on Gordon’s wealth and CalNect’s worth, no sooner was it sold to the highest bidder. It shows how much Halt and Catch Fire trust that you’re in it for the characters and that their job or what they create, whether be over an episode or a season, doesn’t necessarily define them.
Trevor: And that’s one of the central conflicts, it seems, that the show will explore this season, which was articulated in that incredibly uncomfortable confrontation between Donna and Cameron at MISC. Donna definitely feels like she’s in a new world, one where she doesn’t create anything; listen to her wistfully remember working at Radio Shack so she could get a discount on parts, or bark at the Rover team, “I used to be an engineer!” And Cameron is in one of the worst positions a creative person can be: working your ass off on something you really believe in, in her case Pilgrim, only to have it rejected by the general public. It’s more of an existential conflict, but I’d be surprised if these two didn’t end up working together again. It was a brilliant move to bring Cameron back from Japan, if for no other reason than she’s already thrown everyone in the main cast for a loop.
Margaux: To reiterate what I said in the previous review, I want Donna and Cameron to get back together so badly. They are my Jack and Diane, my Buffy and Angel, my Billy Eichner and John Cho. Did I roll my eyes at the revelation of Cameron living with Joe over her flashback of telling Tom that Joe is unlovable? You betcha. I don’t care about her and Joe, much like Gordon, I’ve set my clock to see how long this round lasts, and if I were comfortable with boxing jokes, I’d make a hella timely one about the McGregor/Mayweather fight. Donna getting in a last minute question-slash-jab at Cameron during Cameron’s panel was a masterclass in petty that Taylor Swift should take notes on. I think the bigger surprise was that Trip is actually perceptive and sent Donna the advance copy of Cameron’s unfavorable review. I don’t think Donna likes to see Cameron fail, but I wonder how she’s going to leverage it to her advantage to sway Cameron back into her corner.
Trevor: Donna does seem particularly cutthroat this season, which led to the adorable/excruciating scene of the dinner party. It’s fun, and humanizing, to show us just how bad she is at small talk (and letting people keep secrets). But she really saved it with that lovely toast. Ultimately, I think the most important Donna scene in “Miscellaneous” was her last one with Gordon (and how good are Kerry Bishe and Scoot McNairy together?). She seems weirdly okay with competing against her ex-husband and daughter. It could make her seem heartless, but we’ve known Donna for four seasons now, so it’s depressing in a weird way.
Margaux: Joanie and I shared the same misty-eyed expression at Donna’s toast to the expecting parents which leads me to believe it’s going to be less about competing with Gordon and Hayley, and more about adding more tension and conflict to her work life. Between Trip horning in her territory, Boz (or somebody, Boz ain’t no snitch, but their quick chat before the engineers came over makes Donna out to think so) leaking info to Diane about Donna’s handling of Rover, and discovering who is really behind her biggest competition – Comet – will set Donna on a cross roads to choose between corporate power or being true to herself, which is being an engineer and builder.
Trevor: Which is another thing the show had done consistently right since season two, making Donna a bigger focus. She and Cameron play off of each other way better than Joe and Cameron (not to say that those two are bad, strictly speaking, but it’s a very obvious pairing). In fact, I just like Cameron with either of the Clarks; I really enjoy that Cameron and Gordon are video game buddies.
Margaux: Yeah, it’s nice to see how Cameron, similar to Joe, touches the Clarks lives in various positive and negative ways that tend to have lasting effects. It’s sweet how much big sister-like pride Cameron has for what Hayley has started, and Gordon does interact with Cameron in a paternal way. She’s basically like another Clark daughter in a sense. By the end though, I was starting to feel like Brad Pitt in Seven, WHAT’S IN THE BOX???!!! Why wouldn’t Cameron unpack? What did Tom ship over from Japan?
Trevor: The show is usually so subtle that when it plays with blunt imagery like that – Cameron’s old life literally blown to pieces – it makes for a nice sight gag. I almost hope we don’t find out what was in the box. Is there anything else you wanted to touch on, or would you like to talk stars?
Margaux: It’s strange that the accompanying image with the review of Pilgrim was of Cameron, right? I mean, when was the last time you saw a book jacket photo of who created Call of Duty? I don’t know, obviously not a major plot point, just something that gave me a chuckle.
Trevor: That’s funny, the same thing stuck out to me too. Nice character beat though; even in a publicity still you can see on Cameron’s face that she has very little patience for any dog and pony show.
Margaux: We’ll see if Cameron gets to make another game or she’ll get suckered into another venture by either Donna or Joe, I think after three episode of subtly setting up what’s to come for the rest of its final season, it’s going to take off once it returns from the two week break.
4/5
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