Halt and Catch Fire: SETI

June 1, 2015 6:30 AM - Season 2, Episode 1

Mutiny is suffering growing pains. Gordon and Joe face the consequences of the sale of Cardiff.
posted by drezdn (10 comments total)

Glad to see that Toby Huss is back.
posted by drezdn at 6:31 AM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

I hope we'll get more of the in-between-seasons time via flashback, because I didn't really get why, if Joe torching that truckful of computers didn't sink Cardiff, they seem to have been hostilely bought out by some other company after putting out the Pro and apparently having enough resources to run a national advertising campaign.
posted by Etrigan at 7:03 AM on June 1, 2015

Isn't Cardiff more responsible for Bosworth being in prison than Joe? IIRC, he cut off the money, which lead to Cameron's hacking.
posted by drezdn at 7:20 AM on June 1, 2015

Is Gordon a cokehead? That's my only explanation for his random nosebleed.

Joe and Cameron are about 100% better characters in this season than they were last year. It feels like the scriptwriters have been paying attention to what we liked, and improving their game. The line describing the Giant Pro as "a bag on the side of the Giant" is straight from The Soul Of A New Machine, which suggests someone's been doing research.

Donna's really a smarter, more experienced Cameron isn't she? Her escapades during this episode weren't played as "staid housewife finds her wild side" but as a person who's always been a daring punk hacker but who had to fake maturity to be a working mom, and who doesn't want to go back to playing that role.

I'm pretty sure Cardiff Electric sold out because Nathan is old and wants the $$$, not because Joe's arson stunt really crippled them financially.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 8:45 AM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

Is Gordon a cokehead?

I think so, iirc, he was fast talking at one point.
posted by drezdn at 8:53 AM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

Not to mention the small vial on his desk and the story about him climbing the fake ceiling. I want to see that.


A lot more Donna and Cameron and less Joe, man of mystery will do well for the show.
posted by lmfsilva at 3:27 PM on June 1, 2015 [4 favorites]

Harvey Kilobit: “ It feels like the scriptwriters have been paying attention to what we liked, and improving their game.”

My theory is that the space aliens that had been writing the show, who had never encountered a human being in real life, went back to their home planet. They hired some actual human writers and the show is markedly improved.

Which is to say that I enjoyed this episode more than I did the entire last season. Dad agrees.
posted by ob1quixote at 6:21 PM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]

Everything I love about this show is encapsulated by the sequence in which Cameron and Donna talk tech at a dive bar and confront the bad guy while Gordon glams up and takes the kids for ice cream. Every TV - and computer industry - cliche subverted in one swoop, and without the showboating any other property on TV today would go for.
posted by prismatic7 at 4:01 AM on June 3, 2015 [5 favorites]

It looks like this episode will be streaming on the AMC site, no cable login required, through September.
posted by Pronoiac at 5:51 PM on June 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

I am loving the new season. As a software manager with 20 years' experience I can really relate to Donna. The old spark for tearing things down and being innovative is still there, but having been through a lot I look at young coders and think "man these people have a lot to learn". Like, I never think of myself as The Grown-up, but if someone needs to be the grown-up I guess I have to do it.
posted by freecellwizard at 10:05 AM on August 30, 2016