You know that old saying about how you cant judge a book by its cover? Halt and Catch Fire seems hellbent on puncturing the proverb; its a show thats always taken pride in how it communicates about its characters through their appearances. Tonights episode The Way In is a case in point: Success story Gordon Clark suits up and shaves to show hes enjoying his current victory-lap life. Former silicon-prairie gunslinger Joe MacMillan dresses casual in a plain white tee to signify his simple new outlook. And, more subtly and perhaps most importantly, punk coder extraordinaire Cameron Howe is letting her chopped-off, bleached-blonde hair grow long and dark. The founder of Mutiny is, literally and figuratively, putting down roots.
This latest rock-solid installment is striking for doubling down on the stability of its leading ladies. That may be an odd thing to say when Cameron threatens to fire her partner/resident voice of reason Donna after a company-wide meltdown and then has a panic attack that only the abrasive Tom Rendon can rescue her from. But think about it: The dynamic duo of Clark and Howe are building an pre-Internet powerhouse from the ground up, and all their arguments stem from how seriously theyre taking it. Its the men who find themselves locked out of where they want to go, forced to devise workarounds to get back in.
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Take Gordon, for example. Finally freed from the pressures of his Cardiff gig, hes becoming more geekily eccentric and endearing by the day. (Donna jokingly calls him the Code Warrior, and the name fits.) When he isnt puttering around the garage quoting Superman: The Movie to contextualize the user-mapping program hes developing for Mutiny on spec, hes channeling the Man of Steel to put the moves on his wife. Ill wear the cape! he tells her, promising to be the sexual Clark Kent to her Lois Lane. Glasses on! You like it with the glasses! Is it adorable? Is it kinky? Its both! And looks pretty damn handsome now, too.
But in romantic terms, its all for naught. The Clarks have a real connection to each other; look at the comfortably conspiratorial way they discuss their dinner date with Joe and his fiance, Sara, mutually freaking out over the invite and comparing notes about the new couple. But the two times we see Gordon attempt to initiate intimacy, his wife gently but firmly rebuffs him, since their schedules simply dont allow for it. Its no coincidence that after one such demurral, the harried househusband surreptitiously slips his floppy into Donnas disc drive, loading up the program that accidentally eats Mutiny alive. Hes having fun with his total financial and career freedom, but hes also floundering without some higher purpose. Sex and work are classic ways to try filling that void.
Surprisingly, its Gordon, not Joe, who devises a coping technique that winds up wreaking havoc. The once-mighty MacMillan has been toiling away in the data-entry department of Jacob Wheelers oil conglomerate, yet its not the drudgery that bothers him its all the cool shit he could be doing with the 411 instead. Every spreadsheet he sees is full of useful information that the companys failing to collect by merely plugging numbers into a database. Like Gordon and his attempt to track down all of Mutinys freeloading-and-otherwise users, Joe just wants to make use of whats out there already.
Jacob has other plans. When his son-in-law-to-be comes to him with the idea of merging departments, Wheeler greenlights it instantlybut insists that MacMillan himself run it, fire all his coworkers, and start from scratch. The Old Joe wouldnt have thought twice at offloading that out-of-touch crew, but the New Joe the guy trying to make a life with a woman who puts up with none of his self-mythologizing bullshit reacts as if struck in the face.
At first it seems like hell go through with the request anyway. But a brainstorm in the companys mainframe room, an oasis of clean blue and white colors contrasted against the grungy greens and browns of the basement, gives him a way out of returning to the egg-breaking omelet-making ways of his past a way in to something new. The computers, he realizes, run during office hours only. What could a guy like him do with a long, uninterrupted megacomputing? With any luck he wont need to fire anyone to find out.
But the real odd man out here is John Bosworth. No Cardiff, no prison, no Mutiny, no marriage hes truly footloose and fancy free now, yet all he wants is a way back in. His lovely flight-attendant wife booty-calls him at a motel then drops him the moment he indicates a desire for a more lasting reconnection. She even begs him not to attend the wedding of his son, from whom hes been estranged since at least the events of the shows first season.
Yet Bosworth cant resist, and fortunately for him, neither can his kid; the groom-to-be graciously buries the hatchet, though he cant quite convince the old man to show up. Instead, Boz gives him his beloved old car, saved from the repo men by Cardiffs corporate lawyer in an act that shows just how much people still like this guy. He ends the episode riding back home on a bus, an echo of the imagery surrounding a similarly adrift Don Draper in Mad Mens final episodes. Weve said for ages that Halt would be a better series if it treated John as a main character capable of driving his own storylines, and this seals the deal. But any one of the shows characters can keep our interest now, and really, thats the breakthrough weve been waiting for.
Previously: Play On