[yasr_overall_rating]
Set in the early 1980s, this series dramatizes the personal computing boom through the eyes of a visionary, an engineer, and a prodigy whose innovations directly confront the corporate behemoths of the time. Their personal and professional partnership will be challenged by greed and ego while charting the changing culture in Texas’ Silicon Prairie.
In its first season, the Dallas-set “Halt And Catch Fire” went for the “‘Mad Men’ set in the 1980s pre-digital era” vibe, and while succeeding intermittently, the struggle was evident. Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace), a conceited ex-IBM employee with an ambiguous sexuality and a penchant for lashing out in the most extraordinary ways (e.g. smashing his own apartment windows, fighting off storms with flashlights and burning down trucks), was basically Don Draper on speed, smart and unstable. He single-handedly fooled and collapsed a small computer empire, Cardiff Electric, in Dallas and then rebuilt it from scratch, with the help of his chosen partners: the weaselly Gordon (Scoot McNairy, extraordinarily good at playing “weaselly”) and the rebellious Cameron (Mackenzie Davis), a punk-ish computer geek.
Yet, “HACF” was no “Mad Men,” missing the latter’s assured pacing, impeccable class (in every aspect) and top-notching ensemble cast (the “ad execs bickering” show received – get this – 355 different award nominations throughout its seven-season run). Nor did it come close to matching another AMC series it sort of resembles in its rags-to-riches “power” trajectory: “Breaking Bad,” whose style and shock value it just couldn’t match. “Halt and Catch Fire”’s creators’ – newcomers Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers – lack of experience surfaced often and glaringly. Imagine a serious “Silicon Valley,” and you’ll have an idea of what the series was like: full of tech speak, tech drama and tech relationships.
What they lacked in experience however, the creators made up in ambition. The show held promise, mostly due to its protagonists who, while flawed, each had their own secret and, most importantly, chemistry. Despite the borderline-irredeemable shit their unethical characters did, the lead acting trio are pros, and kept our attention hooked – as did the show’s themes, touching upon consumerism, leadership, power-play, feminism/sexism and, of course, the Dawn of The New Era in Technology. Sure, the series had its share of silly exchanges, peaking when Joe ripped his shirt right off, revealing a body covered in scars, to consequently (tearfully) share a sad/inspirational childhood tale. But even in that overblown moment of eccentricity, his manipulative nature kept us guessing whether any of it was actually true (it wasn’t; the moment he revealed the real reason behind his scars was actually quite poignant).
The show also contained sharp snippets of dialogue and nuanced scenes, counterbalancing the silly bits. The season ended with the success of Cardiff Electric and the portable computer (ironically titled “The Giant”) at a Las Vegas expo, a great review of “The Giant” in the press, and Cameron forming her own renegade company, aptly named Mutiny, with internet’s birth looming heavily in the horizon. (Fun fact: While its initial ideas were indeed conceived in the early 1980s, with the adoption of TCP/IP by ARPANET (which “HACF mirrors), the actual World Wide Web was invented by computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1990. I know, I’m smart enough to be a part of Mutiny. Or I’m good at Googling).
Season Two of “Halt and Catch Fire” matures significantly. It wisely spends more time on Gordon’s wife Donna (a tricky role, impeccably played by Kerry Bishé), an intelligent, strong woman who broke through bureaucratic barriers in the first season with enviable resilience and patience, and earned a place in Mutiny. The trio has become the Fearless Foursome and then reassembled, Avengers-style, only Tony Stark (a.k.a. Joe) is now exiled to Siberia (it’s a metaphor; you’ll see what I mean).
Mutiny is the “original Google,” its home offices resembling the colorful/anarchy/hipster/geek open work environments of the corporation that owns us all (Cameron even discovers someone’s glasses molten into stale pizza). We meet the characters 20 months after the events of the first season. Donna (the sensible one) and Cameron (still the outlaw who doesn’t give a damn about rules), are now running their online (on-phone?) gaming office out of the house, blowing the power surge in the entire neighborhood – a definite premonition of things to come.
In the meantime, Gordon (torn and addicted to cocaine – about time someone touched upon THAT staple of the 1980s) and Joe (back from “Shangri-La”) reconnect at Cardiff Electric to collect their checks. Only Joe’s check gets shredded by Cardiff’s bitter owner and, unhireable due to his past shenanigans, he’s left with no choice but to take the job filing docs in the basement for his fiancee Sara’s (Aleksa Palladino) father, oil tycoon Jacob (played by a stoic James Cromwell).
Of course, things don’t stay stagnant for any of these characters. Joe hatches up a brilliant scheme in the pits of Jacob’s firm. Cameron’s entire enterprise almost crashes due to Gordon’s unintentional error. Cameron and machiavellian Joe’s relationship, fueled by their flare for drama, takes a new spin when they finally reconnect halfway through the season. When Mutiny tries to dupe Joe during a gaming demonstration, what potentially could have led to disaster ended up a revelation: Mutiny are IP geniuses (read: early internet inventors).
A company called WestNet steals all their tech innovations, and whether it was Joe’s intention (directly or indirectly) is one of the titillating aspects of this season. There are small moments peppered through the story that stick out: Gordon’s reunion with an old flame and his debilitating sickness; the casual invention of online dating (and “catfishing”), based on a homosexual chat; a Molly trip in a neon-lit nightclub, where Joe waxes prophetic; and my favorite: Donna singing to her daughter over the phone to soothe her after a series of highly traumatic events. Best of all, “HACF” substitutes the claustrophobic, grey setting of season one with golden hues and a generally more expansive palette.
The actors feel more comfortable in their roles: McNairy cuts back on the sleaze, in a nuanced turn (his trajectory from “coked-out-of-his-mind Gordon trying to impress Joe” to “gradual deterioration in his basement” is a sight to behold); Lee Pace is more humble and toned-down – yet still keeps us guessing what the character’s real intentions are; Mackenzie Davis is more fleshed out and less irritating, her anarchic vibe a much-needed jolt to the show (take “the creation of a shooter” sequence), and special kudos to the aforementioned Kerry Bishé for not merely playing a conflicted character but subtly embodying oppressed women, and John Bosworth (aka “Boz,” poignantly played by veteran actor Toby Huss), a tragic figure, a requiem of a man lost in a new world who gradually finds his way back.
Hefty themes of pride, redemption, finding oneself, alienation, “free-wheelin’ it” vs corporatization, “focusing on numbers” vs “bringing people together” (and how the two aren’t mutually exclusive), the rise of the internet and start-up companies are all incisively explored… Cantwell and Rogers toned down on the melodrama, replacing it with subtler moments, such as Joe’s very real confession to Gordon over dinner and Cameron’s panic attack after a blow-out leaves them with zero users… In season two, past clashes with the future more evidently: Joy Division “Clash”es (see what I did there?) with Bonobo on the soundtrack; characters’ demons resurface and clash with their ambitions; complicated algorithms clash with abacuses…
The creators learned from past mistakes and don’t let all the nerdy tech jargon get in the way of deep characterization, intricate plot strands and, let’s face it, a bit off scandalous drama thrown in. The dialogue has become even sharper, the characterizations deeper, the fluidity of the filmmaking gives off more of a purpose, and the stakes are infinitely higher. Most importantly, it’s addictive, my wife as hooked as I was while I was marathoning through both seasons. It’s not revolutionary or groundbreaking; while it still can’t hold an LED light to “Mad Men,” the punk-rock, nerdy, thought-provoking and engrossing “Halt And Catch Fire”’s quality is steadily rising, the buzz around it spreading, like a virus.
Available on DVD August 9th
