Halt and Catch Fire Season 2 Premiere: Mutiny on the Bounty

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http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/PnN06bq.AqMDjUz.XTXuwg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTg2O3E9NzU7dz0xMzA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/homerun/cbstv.cbs.com/e214b0a164f42b58c1f94a4a3ef2a700 (http://news.yahoo.com/halt-catch-fire-season-2-160500257.html)Halt and Catch Fire S02E01: "SETI" Welcome, welkommen, bienvenue! It's time for another season of watching pretty nerds self-flagellate to a bitchin' '80s soundtrack! I'm excited and you should be, too. I had my reservations about a second season of Halt and Catch Fire; Season 1 was far from perfect, but it got its act together in time for the finale. And that finale was as close to perfection as the Mad Men-wannabe was going to get after a season that alternated between awesome and being so boring it hurt. Cameron and Donna struck out on their own, Joe wandered off into the wilderness to find himself, and Gordon achieved everything he wanted at the cost of his family and his soul. It was tough to imagine a satisfying place for a new season of HCF to pick up, which could be why "SETI" took us 20 months into the future. It's 1985, and Joe is shacked up with a nice woman, but going crazy in his mediocre middle-class life. Gordon became a bajillionare with the sale of Cardiff and yet his marriage to Donna is still rocky, they're both still unsatisfied, and he's still kind of painful to watch in any sort of interaction with anybody. That's not a knock against Scoot McNairy—quite the opposite, actually. Gordon is such a miserable, awkward, tiny little man, and from everything I've seen of the actor behind his dorky '80s glasses, McNairy is the antithesis of that. So good job, pretty man, of reminding me of all the sad neckbeards I avoided dating in college. And of course, Cameron was still at the helm of Mutiny, her online gaming company, and while it's apparently a pretty popular community, the pirates were in serious danger of landing in the brig because Cameron's free spirited self couldn't be bothered to pay the electric bill. Donna's been picking up the slack, but she's sick of being everyone's mom, even to her children. There were times when the first season of Halt and Catch Fire felt like endless set-up. The finish line seemed to move as soon as it appeared, which is pretty symbolic of the tech industry itself if you think about it. There's always more that can be done. There's always something to build on, innovate, improve, or create. Knowing the backgrounds of Halt and Catch Fire's characters is essential to understanding their current predicaments and future actions and we need to know their history in order to understand their present. In that sense, Halt and Catch Fire Season 1 was absolutely a giant set-up for the current season. That's how TV seasons typically work, of course, but seasons don't always feel like a different series from one to the next. By already having establish characters established, HCF is now free to dive right into the mess of Season 2... and what a mess it is. We have the benefit of living in 2015 and knowing what a huge deal online gaming will eventually become, so we know that Cameron and Donna are on to something with Mutiny. We know that if they do it right, stay on top of things, and keep the ship afloat, then they will be headed for a successful experience in a fresh field. Cameron and Donna, however, don't have that same luxury and their conflicting personalities and goals make turning Mutiny into a success even more of a challenge than starting a new company in a new market already is. Neither one wanted to man the helm, yet they still wanted to maintain control of the little world they created in Cameron's living room. By the end of "SETI," it appeared that Donna and Cameron had discovered a way to make their clashing personalities complement one another and avert disaster for the time being. They are, certainly, the greatest partnership to come out of Season 1 and it's hard not to empathize with Donna's situation when we immediately went from jacking stolen computers from the local fence and getting wasted at a punk show to nursing Gordon's nosebleed and trying to earn her children's love with as little interaction as possible. Even I don't want to watch those painfully uncomfortable scenes and yet they're perfect in their flaws. We have to give Gordon and Donna credit for trying over and over again to make their union work, but it's becoming more and more obvious that the ship has sunk. Or, to look at it another way: Gordon could defy social norms of the time and be a stay at home dad, which I think would actually make both him and Donna very happy. He just wants to tinker in his garage and she just wants to prove herself. Thirty years later and technology is still a male-dominated field, so in 1985 Donna is a freaking unicorn. And she knows it. And then there's Joe. Ugh, Joe. It pains me to say this because Lee Pace is everything and I fell for Joe's mysterious, tortured genius bullshit with the rest of Cardiff Electric last season. I was even appropriately miffed when Mr. Cardiff himself tore up Joe's dividends check and denied him any sort of compensation for his time with Cardiff. The man is a bullshitter and a con artist and his actions last season cost people their livelihoods. Any motivation for his actions had nothing to do with the people whose jobs he held in his hand, but everything to do with showing his daddy up and making a name for himself as this brilliant computer wizard who mostly just had other people do the work. A man went to prison so Joe could realize his dream... and it wasn't even a worthwhile dream. When Joe is broken down to the bare bones like that, it's hard to feel anything more than contempt for the man. And yet I think Joe feels remorse. Maybe. The gift of this season premiere is that we already know Donna, Cameron, and Gordon and that knowledge has allowed the series to jump right into the action by placing them in unfortunate situations to see how they'll react. But we still don't really know Joe. We know how he'd like to be seen and we know, partially, that he's more of a fraud than anything else. The sad-little-boy-with-the-tragic-background can only take him so far, and this will be the season we finally meet the real Joe MacMillan. The missing leadership role at Mutiny could be the perfect role for Joe to slip into. His passion in the first season was always geared more toward wordplay and big inspirational speeches and being the person who got everyone to work together. There's a place for that at Mutiny. I think for now though, that Cameron has given that spot to the newly freed Bosworth, and I'm also okay with that. THE ANDROID SORCERER IS BRILLIANT AND KIND – The cheesy Giant commercial was amazing. – Joe and Cameron are gonna end up being besties through the wonders of online anonymity. *gag* –That tracking shot following Donna through the mayhem of Mutiny HQ was something of beauty. How do we feel about this trend of shows constantly trying to one-up each other in the tracking shot department? – Every time Toby Huss is on screen, someone in my household bursts into an Artie monologue—the strongest man in the world. – Can we talk about how Pete & Pete has aged surprisingly well? – Honestly, we could just throw everything out and turn this into a show about Donna and Cameron and I'd be content. – What did you think of the premiere? Did it live up to you expectations?



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