![]() It’s something that Halt and Catch Fire has always excelled in, not just because of its performances, but because of its writing. The worry of clunky practicalities is nudged along the workbench to be replaced by emotional problem-solving. We move from disenchantment to inspiration – something that’s easier to watch and far more consistent in tone. There’s a Jobs-versus-Wozniak feel to the partnership Gordon has left behind – and our progression from that arena is a joy to behold, not just as the women fight their own way through a male-dominated sector but as they break down technological barriers too: after Season 1’s determined push and ultimate bust, the awkward clash of ego and pride, Season 2 captures the joy of natural evolution. McNairy is scarily earnest as the desperate engineer, who’s happier piecing bits together in his garage than negotiating company politics. Gordon, on the other hand, can’t quite compute the idea that he’s no longer the main character – a fact that is almost literally causing his hardware to short-circuit. “You strike me as the kind of person who isn’t ever hungry,” declares Jacob. James Cromwell’s guest turn as Sara’s father-in-law, Jacob, who offers him a lowly basement job at his oil company, is a reminder of just how well-cast the whole series is: Cromwell oozes corporate slime as he looks down on Pace’s Joe, who glares back with equal threat. He finds himself dating Sara Wheeler (Aleksa Palladino), a relaxed hippy who couldn’t care about chips or money, but he’s inevitably drawn back to the world of boardrooms and backstabbing he’s a shark, only capable of living when moving forwards. Pace is as absorbing as Cameron’s polar opposite, his eyebrows and slicked hair screaming Top Dog, even as he finds himself scrabbling at the bottom of the ladder. The men, meanwhile, are trying to find their place – and themselves – post-Cardiff. They’re a perfect double-act, one edgy, one calm, both delighted to be doing their own thing. Kerry Bishé is just as gripping as the one who drags her into the reality of the industry, dressing up for business meetings and trying to plan budgets and infrastructure. She switches from wounded animal to intimidating alpha in the blink of an eye. She’s magnetic to watch as Cameron Howe, a rebel-turned-leader of her own company where coders sit around eating pizza all day and coming up with cool ideas for games. Mackenzie Davis, after a scene-stealing turn in The Martian and reported screen tests for Star Wars, is surely one click away from stardom. The new leads slot into their sockets with all the precision of an iMac. If Season 1 was the elegant tale of failure, Season 2 buzzes with potential. That slight shift gives the entire operating system a sudden burst of power: we’ve moved from aching anti-climax to exciting talent. In its place? The story of Mutiny, the tech start-up created by their partners, Cameron (Mackenzie Davis) and Donna (Kerry Bishé). Gone is the downbeat story of Joe and Gordon. Rogers – taking over showrunner duties from Jonathan Lisco – react accordingly, recalibrating the show’s core code and shifting its central commands. While Season 1 proved the perfect prologue to Danny Boyle’s biopic of the Apple icon, taking us right up to the launch of the first Mac, Season 2 of Halt and Catch Fire sits in Steve’s wake, as the PC world enters a period of flux and rapid advances.Ĭhristopher Cantwell and Christopher C. ![]() It arrived this year just as Steve Jobs’ story was making its way to the screen – a timing that is rather fortuitous. The show’s fate was, rather poetically, sealed.Ĭommissioning a second season, though, turns out to be the smartest move AMC has made since it first gave the world Don Draper. Meanwhile, as 1984 ushered in a new era of computing on-screen, Apple’s Macintosh became the Mozart Joe (Lee Pace) and Gordon were hoping to build with “The Giant” at Cardiff Electric. In a crowded sea of TV competitors, Halt and Catch Fire failed to find a sizeable audience in the wake AMC’s Mad Men. It’s a position the programme has sadly occupied both on and off-screen. That brief joke tells you all you need to know about AMC’s computing drama: Season 1 was the story of Salieri, the artist nobody appreciated, stuck in the shadow of the flashier, cooler alternative. “I don’t know know who Salieri is,” someone tells Gordon (Scott McNairy) at the beginning of Halt and Catch Fire’s second season. ![]()
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