Halt and Catch Fire 3.10

NeXT

Donna, Cameron, Gordon, Joe, and Tom get together to talk about Joe's big idea, which is of course the World Wide Web. Things don't start off well, although the productions values wouldn't lead you to believe that. Things get better, in the sense that they stop talking at one another and start talking to one another, over the course of a couple days. Cameron visits briefly with Boz. Joe hints at what happened between he and Cameron to Tom. Tom reads Cameron's e-mails. Joe and Tom get into a fist fight. Donna and Gordon share a moment and it looks like they are about to get back together but then don't.

The weirdest moment was Cameron doing a 180 and telling Donna at the the end that she didn't want to work with her anymore. This is of course after doing a 180 in the last episode where she initially told her that she didn't want to have anything to do with her. Donna responds in the most rational way possible and plans a trip to Switzerland.

My favorite moment was Joe talking about building the door. There is something about the imagery of a door that seems like magic to me.

Didn't love it, didn't hate it. It felt like a big tease for what comes next. Since watching the last episode I learned that there is just one more 10-episode season. It has yet to drop on Netflix. I might just watch it when it does even though I previously said this was going to be it.

Halt and Catch Fire 3.09

NIM

Four years have passed since the last episode. It is 1990. Gordon and Donna are divorced. She is now a partner in the same firm as Diane. Gordon is dating one of his employees but he still works for Donna. Cameron comes back to the States (from Japan where she and Tom live) for an appearance at COMDEX.

Donna encourages Joe to go to the show to see Cameron. She wants him to take her a message. He goes to the show but he doesn't read the message or take it with him. Cameron and Joe hang. Everything is cool between them until Donna shows up. Cameron doesn't want to see or talk to her and walks out. She ends up spending the night with Joe.

Gordon tries to entertain Michelle, the woman he's dating, but Joanie, one of his daughters, gets in the way. She wants to go to a party but Gordon says no when he finds out that there won't be any adults present. The situation gets very awkward when Joanie starts doing what she can to disrupt Gordon and Michelle's dinner.

I want to like this show. It has moments I like. I like some of the moments that Joe and Cameron share. I wish that this show was about the characters and not the computer industry. That's my read of course but in my opinion if it the characters were the focus of the show then the show would be more slowly paced and there wouldn't be as much fast forwarding as there is.

I think it is time for me to move on, after I watch the season finale.

Halt and Catch Fire 3.08

You Are Not Safe

Cameron has left Mutiny. Ryan is on the run from the FBI. Gordon and Joe are working together again but their business plans are put on hold because of the investigation into Ryan. Donna is getting ready for the initial public offering (IPO) of stock of Mutiny.

Nothing really goes as planned. I enjoy seeing where this show goes but unfortunately I grow a little weary of the surplus of dramatic moments. The show does have the occasional quiet moment but there just aren't enough of them for me. The one that did do it for me this time around was the scene at the supermarket.

Halt and Catch Fire 3.07

The Threshold

Everyone finds out that Cameron and Tom got married. Different people react differently. Donna and Cameron make an attempt to reconcile but Donna still wants to push forward with an Initial Public Offering (IPO). Cameron seems to have softened on the idea of taking the public but before the company does so she wants to make some improvements. She anticipates that it will take about 2 years to make the improvements. Donna wants the IPO to happen in about 3 months.

Joe is still out at his company. His confession that he stole the company from Gordon turns things around. Gordon gets control of the company. He visits Joe and sees his board. There are no labels to explain what it is but it doesn't take Gordon long to figure it out. At first he lords it over Joe that he will be taking over the company. He changes his tune in the end and offers Joe 49% of the acquired company.

Things come to a head at Mutiny. Donna wants to go ahead with the IPO despite Cameron's opposition to doing withing 3 months. She tries to gather votes from the other shareholders in Mutiny, behind Cameron's back, but Gordon feels some shred of loyalty to Cameron and tells her. The board (Cameron, Donna, Gordon, Boz, Dianne) meets to air things out but things get contentious between Donna and Cameron. Boz tries to get them to take some time but Cameron insists on taking a vote immediately. Everyone votes for going public, except Cameron.

The episode ends with Ray revealing to Joe that he has taken the code for the security software and put it out there for free. I guess this would have been on a BBS or some such service. He also aired plenty of secrets that the company was harboring. Ray didn't know that Joe was talking to Gordon or that he cut a deal with Gordon. It's a little unclear on where Ray's story goes from here. I'm pretty sure that he just on the show for this season.

Not bad. This episode kept my attention. Not every moment was praise-worthy but there were enough good character moments to keep me excited. I'm still uncertain I will watch beyond the end of this season despite my general happiness with this one episode.

Halt and Catch Fire 3.06

And She Does

Things seem to come to a head between Cameron and Donna. Cameron uses what she learned from her phone conversation with Diane in the last episode and fires Doug and Ian. Diane senses trouble between Donna and Cameron and encourages them to leave for a weekend and go stay at her home up in the California wine country. They have a buyout offer on the table from CompuServe, an IPO to consider, and they need to be on better than just speaking terms in order to make a rational decision about how to proceed. Donna takes Diane's advice and goes to Diane's home.

Cam does not go. Instead she spends most of the weekend playing Super Mario Bros. with Gordon. They beat the game but Gordon collapses at one point, knocking over the TV and breaking it. He tells Cameron about his medical problems. They go out and buy a new TV in order to continue playing. They get a much bigger set, a projection television. They talk about Joe. Gordon is the one who brings up his name. He still can't get over the fact that Joe stole the code that he developed.

Donna spends the weekend at Diane's place. The only people she sees are Diane's daughter, who is a senior at Berkley, and a couple of her friends who stop by to hang out. Cameron never shows up except in a hallucination that Donna has after she smokes some weed.

Cameron has a secret. She got married to Tom while she was back in Texas. She communicates with him through Mutiny in this episode. She tells Gordon about it near the end of the episode. Joe, in the one scene he has with Cameron, sees the ring at is able to put two and two together fairly quickly. It isn't until after that scene that Cameron tells Gordon about it. The episode ends with Gordon and Donna discovering that Cameron has secretly moved out of their house.

Joe and Ray are making big plans. Everything is flying high. They are looking to the future of what will one day be the internet. Ken doesn't trust Joe. He tells him to slow down. Joe doesn't listen and agrees to a deal with another company. When Ken finds out about it he goes to the board and gets Joe stripped of his decision making powers. The night before, Joe got a visit from Cameron who asked him to own up to the fact that he stole the code from Gordon. At the next deposition for the case between himself and Gordon, fresh off of learning that he was just a figure head and couldn't make anymore decisions, Joe owns up to the fact that he stole the code.

For the most part Joe and Ray's part of the story is leaving me a bit cold. It doesn't feel like there is much at stake for them. They seem a bit too robotic and inhuman for me to care about them. Another thing that bothers me about this show is the attention that is put into making some scenes look good. I would rather they invest more in the development of the characters. On the whole I liked this episode better than the last one but I'm still thinking about letting go of this show at the end of this season.

Halt and Catch Fire 3.05

Yerba Buena

It is the 4th of July. Joe and Ray continue to look for the next thing. Ray gets frustrated with Joe. In looks like, but isn't clearly stated, that Joe gets some bad news from a friend. The friend is someone who doesn't look familiar and probably hasn't been seen before. It's a guy. Based on the call Joe gets later in the episode my read of the situation is that Joe's friend recently found out he has contracted HIV. Joe gets tested but his test turns up negative. Prior to receiving the test results he was pretty broken up. He tried to hide it from Ray but he wasn't entirely successful.

Boz and Cameron go back to Texas for a spell. He is there to see his son, daughter-in-law, and recently born grandson. Everything does not go according to plan. His attempts to help out end up angering his son who seems to feel that his father is just trying to make up for the lousy job he did parenting a couple decades ago.

Cameron is there to follow up on a call she got from her stepfather. Her mother is getting ready to move and sell Cameron's biological father's belongings, including his motorcycle. She can't bear the thought of confronting her mother and watches as someone rides away on her father's motorcycle. Cameron and Boz get into a fight and he ends up leaving her behind when he returns to California. She spends a little bit of time visiting with Tom prior to the fight and goes to see him after Boz abandons her.

Donna and Gordon enjoy a vacation at home. They have the house to themselves. It is fairly blissful for about 24 hours. After that Gordon wants to get back to work on his HAM radio. Donna has to deal with Cameron's vanishing act and decides to make some solo command decisions. Cameron is not pleased when she finally returns to the office, 5 days late. Donna and Cameron have it out. This part was a little too melodramatic for me. I had a hard time taking it seriously. Cameron is obviously a genius but she lacks in empathy.

The episode ends with Cameron calling Diane to apologize. Diane inadvertently lets drop that she didn't have a problem firing Doug and Ian. Last episode Donna told Cameron that Diane said no to that move. The chickens are coming home to roost. The immediate fallout seems to be a breakdown in the trust between Cameron and Donna but I'm pretty sure there will be more damage.

So far so-so. I'm not crazy about this season. I think I will stick with it for the remaining 5 episodes but it has yet to impress me consistently.

Halt and Catch Fire 3.04

Rules of Honorable Play

Cameron can't seem to get along with Doug and Craig, the former owners of SwapMeet. The problem is the code. Cameron doesn't want to change the code that Mutiny currently uses but the code that SwapMeet is written in is not compatible with Mutiny's code. Cameron wants Doug and Craig to rewrite the SwapMeet code, even though it doesn't seem to make sense to do that. Cameron wrote the base code the Mutiny is based on. She doesn't want to lose that.

Donna doesn't completely understand the problem. She arranges a dinner meeting with Doug, Craig, and Diane. Cameron, by this point, wants to fire Doug and Craig. It would be a costly move because Mutiny would have to buy out their contracts. Donna doesn't bring it up at the dinner meeting until after Craig and Doug have left. Diane isn't happy about it but says okay. Donna changes the message and tells Cameron that Diane said no, told her that they have to keep them. Cameron goes along with it. I've got a feeling that eventually she will find out what Dianne actually said and that it will sour her relationship with Donna.

Gordon is also experiencing some of the growing pains associated with the acquisition of SwapMeet. The coders from the two companies are butting heads just like Cameron and Doug. Gordon takes an off the cuff suggestion from Cameron and turns it into an after hours, team-building exercise: laser tag. It seems to work in more ways that one. In addition to building group cohesion, Gordon also experiences an improvement in his physical well being.

Diane takes Boz to a party. She seems to be interested in him for personal reasons. They run into Joe at the party. Diane gets to meet him for the first time. Joe has some problems of his own but he doesn't turn to either of them for help. He loses one client that accounts for a sizable portion of his company's business but somehow picks up a contract for ARPANET, the predecessor to the internet.

The episode ends with a weird encounter between Donna and Cameron, which leaves Cameron wondering if Donna wants to get rid of her. That's my read of the situation. The only outward or explicit sign that she feels like something is wrong is the question she asks Gordon just before the credits start to roll, "when did you know you had lost Cardiff Electronics?"

This was a much better episode than the last one. It was considerably less melodramatic. I like the plot developments and the way the relationships seem to be evolving. Things are in a state of flux but at the same time it is clear that decisions are being made that will have repercussions.

Halt and Catch Fire 3.03

Flipping the Switch

Donna and Cameron put Boz in charge of delivering the offer letter to SwapMeet. Diane decides to join John for the trip to SwapMeet. She more or less concurs with his approach, which is to lower the offer price once he sees the slipshod sort of operation SwapMeet is running. I thought Donna and Cameron would flip out when they heard what happened but there's no evidence that they did. Maybe that's because they were a little too busy dealing with problems of their own.

Donna and Gordon are still having problems finding work life balance. Their relationship on the job seems to be overflowing into their marriage. It doesn't help that Cameron is living with them. Gordon spends part of the episode playing with his old Ham radio. He tries and eventually finds one of his old friends using the radio. My read of it is that he really needs another outlet for his frustrations. The radio seems to help.

Cameron is put in charge of finding a replacement for Ryan. She gives a talk to a class at San Francisco City College. She doesn't have much luck in the recruiting department but she does run into Joe. He is there taking a class in BASIC. It is not a friendly encounter but it also doesn't get vicious. It is just very uncomfortable.

Ryan goes to work for Joe. It is very different work environment for Ryan from the one he left behind at Mutiny. Joe is a very unconventional sort of person. Ryan doesn't know how to deal with or interact with him. By the end of the episode it seems that Joe has decided to pull Ryan into his inner circle. What does that mean down the road? Will he be any nicer or less nebulous? I have my doubts. My guess is that there will be times he will be nice and times that he will not but it is hard to say either way what is the most likely course of action.

On the whole I found this to be an unsatisfying episode. It felt like there was a lot of overacting, a lot of payoff moments without any buildup to them. It felt a bit like the director might be trying to communicate information through the way the episode was shot rather than have the actors communicate it themselves. The only scene that really felt right to me was Boz and Diane's visit to SwapMeet. I don't know what to make of Joe or the way Lee Pace is playing the role. He is so mysterious that I can't tell what if anything is going through his head most of the time.

Halt and Catch Fire 3.02

One Way or Another

Cameron and Donna shop around trying to find more venture capital funding. They are looking to make a move, add what would later be called e-commerce to Mutiny. They don't have any luck. The one bite they get turns out to be sexist BS. Nothing seems to be going their way until they meet with Diane. She is the mother of the girl that Joanie, Donna's daughter, beat up last episode. At first Diane's firm isn't interested, because they've already invested in another firm that is doing something similar and has a head start on Mutiny. After Donna and Cameron change their approach, and ask for money to buy the other company, they get the answer they are looking for.

Ryan continues to try and impress Joe. He is also courted by Gordon, who wants to work with him. Ultimately Joe offers Ryan a job, that he decides to take. Where this is all going I don't know. It feels like the tug of war for Ryan's loyalty and attention might not be over just yet. At one point I wondered if Joe was going to ask Ryan to stay at Mutiny and keep him informed on what's happening there. In a way that doesn't make sense because Ryan is a techie and wants to build something, a product, but it didn't seem outside the realm of possibilities until the end of the episode that he might betray Mutiny.

Gordon is still suing Joe for stealing his idea. He has to give a deposition. Joe isn't at the deposition but then he shows up unexpectedly. He offers Gordon a controlling interest in his company if he will drop the suit and come work with him. Gordon doesn't bite. He doesn't trust Joe. Considering his past history that seems like a wise choice.

Joe has changed his look. He seems to emanate a vibe that seems similar to that of Steve Jobs. I'm sure that is an intentional choice by the producers of the show. He's not a clone of Jobs but both in the way he dresses and acts he seems like the co-founder of Apple.

This episode was a lot more interesting and fun to watch than the last one. I'm not sure why. It might be because it felt like more happened this time around.

Halt and Catch Fire 3.01

Valley of the Heart's Delight

It is 1986 and Mutiny has moved to San Francisco. They are getting ready to launch a new product. They just barely get it up and running in time for a reporter, who joins them for the launch party, to see it.

Donna and Cameron are still thick as thieves and running Mutiny. Cameron is living with Donna, Gordon, Joanie, and Hayley. Gordon feels underappreciated by his wife. He doesn't say that but that's the impression I get. I might be wrong. It might be that he just wants to do more than he currently does for Mutiny, which is maintain the mainframe.

The coders still work in one big room and spend a lot of time goofing off. I don't think I could work in an environment like that. It seems that some of the guys, and they are all guys, don't do anything other than goof off. On one level it seems like fun but it also feels kind of pointless and very chaotic. Ryan, a new addition to the team has some ideas about tightening up security on the network. He tries to explain them to Donna and Cameron. They brush him off and tell Boz to give him a raise, but that's not what he wants. He doesn't goof off with the others. He seems a little more serious minded.

It isn't until later in the episode that Cameron starts to rethink the security issue. By then it is a little too late. By then Ryan seems to have fallen under the thrall of Joe McMillen whose line of business is security. He took an idea that Gordon developed and told it for millions at the end of the previous season. Gordon hasn't forgotten that.

There is some family drama for Gordon and Donna. They have to go meet with the principal after Joanie gets into a fight with another girl. This leads to an interesting meeting with the other girl's mother. She is in the midst of divorce proceedings and seems very no nonsense. Based on what I'm seeing on IMBD it looks like she will be a recurring character throughout the season. It is unclear what role she will play.

There is also a minor earthquake. No serious damage occurs. I looked and there were no serious earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay area in 1986 but that doesn't mean there can't be one on the show.

Things are developing slowly. This isn't an episode that I love. If this was my first exposure to the show then I might not come back for more. I'm not sure if I will stick with this season to the bitter end, which is 9 more episodes, but I'm in for now for at least a couple more.

Halt and Catch Fire 2.10

Heaven Is a Place

Joe and Sarah are over and done. He signs the divorce papers. Sarah's father is out at West Group. The virus that disrupted the demonstration in episode 9 spread throughout the  network. Gordon feels bad, feels guilty so he gives Joe the antidote to the virus he created back in episode 3 which Cameron used in the last episode on West Group's network of computers.

Everything is not good for Gordon. Donna finds out about some of the shenanigans that happened when he took their daughters to see his brother's family in California back in episode 6. She also catches him not taking his therapy sessions seriously. Then their oldest daughter runs away. They find her hiding in the backyard but Gordon was unable to manage that task himself. By this time Donna has already formulated a plan to try and make things better for their marriage and for Mutiny.

Cameron wants to buy a big mainframe setup. The most reasonably priced one she can find is in California. At first she suggests they could buy it and get it shipped to Dallas but then Donna suggests that they move the company to California. She talks Gordon into paying for it, with what is left from the money he got from the dissolution of Cardiff, and coming to work for Mutiny. He doesn't like it but he probably doesn't feel like he has a choice.

Boz left Mutiny last episode. In this episode he quits his new job to return to Mutiny, near the end of the episode. Boz is one of the lead characters on this show. They really need to do a better job of integrating his character moments into stories that involve other lead characters. Of all the lead characters he is the one that has felt the most detached from the rest of the gang.

Joe takes the antidote provided by Gordon and comes up with the idea of selling protection against attacks on computers and networks to a venture capital firm. He tries to get Gordon to join him but by then Gordon has agreed to Donna's plan and the wheels are in motion to move Mutiny to the west coast.

The episode ends with Donna, Gordon, Cameron, Boz and the rest of the gang from Mutiny boarding an airplane to San Francisco. Cameron asked Tom to come with them, even bought him a ticket but when the door to the plane is shut Tom is not on board. Gordon is reading a magazine as the plane is getting ready to take off and spots an article about Joe selling the antivirus idea for $10 million. Donna is in the airplane's bathroom crying after Gordon suggested that maybe they could have another kid once they get settled in California. He doesn't know about her abortion. She never told him even though she gave him a hard time for withholding information about his health and what happened on the trip to California in episode 6.

Probably not my favorite episode. There's a fair amount of setup for the next season. I will probably stick with this show whenever the third season drops on Netflix.

Halt and Catch Fire 2.09

Kali

Donna and Cameron try to pick up the pieces after West Group stole their idea. Donna tries playing hardball with Jessie, Joe's replacement at West Group, but doesn't get very far with that tactic. About the only thing she walks away with is the notion that maybe Joe didn't have anything to do with the theft.

Gordon spends most of the episode, after getting out of jail, looking for his car in a parking garage. He wanders the floors several times without any success. Things turn from bad to worse when he falls down a flight of stairs and breaks his foot. He yells for help but no one is around. Eventually he finds someone and is taken to the hospital. As he is being driven out of the garage he spots his vehicle.

Joe is pissed at Jacob, his father-in-law and the owner of West Group, for stealing Mutiny's idea and messaging platform. He lets Jacob know how he feels, but Jacob doesn't seem to care. He even encourages Joe to come to the upcoming shareholders meeting where they will be demonstrating the new software.

Cameron, Donna, and Boz do what they can to try and sell their only real asset, Extract and Defend, Mutiny's latest game. Things aren't going well until Boz picks up on something and manages to work some magic. He a company, which might be a subsidiary of Nintendo, into buying their game for $50,000. The sale gives Mutiny some breathing room and new hope.

The whole process, not just the sale but also the experience with West Group, has a real impact on Cameron. She really seems to have changed. She isn't just happy to program. She also seems to be looking at things from the mind of a business person. Things are start to deteriorate between Cameron and Tom. It turns out he was the one that convinced the Nintendo subsidiary to meet with them but he can't deal with the changes in Cameron. He loved who she was but not who she is becoming.

Joe decides to go to the shareholders meeting. Before the meeting he gets a visit from Cameron. She is there for something but what she says she is there for and what she is actually there for are not one and the same. She distracts Joe enough by bringing up their past that he doesn't catch on to what she is really up to until it is too late. Joe does his presentation for the shareholders and press but something snaps within him and goes off script and credits Cameron for West Group's new platform before walking off stage. Minutes later, the computer demonstration crashes, apparently due Cameron's action when she saw Joe before the big meeting.

Joe's marriage falls apart, or at least looks like it does. Sarah is convinced that Joe still loves Cameron more than he loves her and storms out.

It is a bit ironic that Joe credits Cameron and she alone for West Group's new platform considering that Donna is the one who developed and championed the message board long before Cameron saw any utility in it.

The parallel of Cameron losing Tom at the same time that Joe was losing Sarah was interesting. Joe and Sarah's breakup was much more fiery and spontaneous than Cameron's and Tom's was. Similar to Sarah, Tom questions whether Cameron is truly over Joe.

Overall a great episode. Lots going on. Fascinating to watch all the interactions. It wasn't hard to foresee how somethings would wind up but the exact path to those points wasn't always apparent.

Halt and Catch Fire 2.08

Limbo

Just as everything is starting to look up for everyone (Joe, Cameron, Donna, Gordon) things come apart.

Mutiny throws a party for their customers/users. Cameron is reticent to come out and mingle but when she finally does she starts to see that it was the community and not the games that mean the most.

Joe and Sarah got married between the end of the last episode and the beginning of this one. They go on a honeymoon, which transpires off camera. Joe's father-in-law hires someone to take Joe's place. Joe tries to be helpful, he seems reluctant to leave. He and Sarah have plans to move to California. After a night of partying which ends with them having sex in the server room at Westgroup, Joe discovers what his replacement is up to, stealing Mutiny.

Gordon has problems of his own that for the most part don't involve the others. The guys working for him quit. Gordon starts to suspect that an former colleague from their days at Cardiff has stolen his idea about building his own computer. He breaks into the guy's garage. It turns out the guy didn't steal his idea, Joe is just a bit paranoid and gets arrested for breaking and entering.

Donna, Cameron, and the rest of the crew at Mutiny are devastated by the theft of their network by Westgroup. Joe tries to apologize and explain that it isn't his fault, but they don't want to hear it and kick him out of the house.

This was a riveting episode. I can't wait to see where the show goes from here

Halt and Catch Fire 2.07

Working for the Clampdown

Joe makes Mutiny an offer on behalf of his employer, his future father-in-law, who wants to buy Mutiny. Cameron isn't receptive to the offer even though Boz and Donna both want to hear Joe out. The past isn't just the past for Cameron, it shaped her and she still lives with it. She still bears a fair amount of acrimony towards Joe for the way things ended between them.

It is more complicated than that. Cameron built Mutiny from the ground up. It is her's. She isn't ready to and may never be ready to give it up. Joe tries to apply pressure by meeting with first Boz and then Tom separately. He gets to them. They are loyal to Cameron but when asked by her they can't repress their feelings completely. Even though they ultimately side with Cameron, it is clear from their words and facial expressions that they might have taken up Joe on his office if they were in charge.

Gordon starts a new project on a new product. He gets some former coworkers to pitch in  and they build a machine much faster than they ever did before. This is after he finally levels with Donna and tells her about his health problem. She does not reciprocate, she does not tell him about her abortion. She begins to worry about Gordon and there is evidence that there is good reason to worry.

Joe's relationship with Sarah looks like it is ready to crash on the rocks. She wants him to leave her father's company and start his own. He is reluctant at first but after seeing how serious she is and how Mr. Wheeler plans to go back on some of the promises to Mutiny once they have signed he changes his mind. He levels with Cameron who at this point is wondering if she made the wrong call when she initially rejected the offer to buy Mutiny. It was a very emotional decision for her at that point. Joe gives her some very rational reasons why selling Mutiny to Wheeler is not a good idea.

Malcolm has a romantic interest in a guy who with whom he is chatting online. Malcolm believes the other guy is similarly interested in him. Things turn out badly when he goes to meet the guy. It was a trap. The guy on the other end was baiting him and when he shows up he gets beat up pretty badly by a bunch of guys and winds up in the hospital. The meetup and the beating happen off camera. This incident is part of what sways Cameron to consider selling Mutiny before Joe pushes her back to her original position.

Joe tries to patch up things with Sarah. He tells her that he wants them to get married. She insists that it be right away. She wants him to run away with her and start his own company. He agrees to it but I've got a feeling that this relationship isn't going to last, primarily based on the fact that the actress who plays Sarah isn't part of the regular cast anymore following this season.

The juxtaposition of Joe and Sarah's relationship with that of Donna and Gordon was an interesting one. Both relationships are going through some turmoil but for different reasons.

A very good episode which shows things bursting at the seams for most of the main characters. Somethings have gotta give and I'm pretty sure that they will in more than one case before the end of the season.

Halt and Catch Fire 2.06

10Broad36

- Mr. Wheeler, Joe's father-in-law to be, backs him into a corner and forces him to increase the rate that Mutiny is getting; although he seems opposed to it at first he applies the thumbscrews and gets Donna to agree to a reduced rate only if Mutiny can meet certain benchmarks; Donna, Cameron, and the mutiny crew balk at one of the benchmarks and attempt to fake it; Joe proves to be smarter than they gave him credit for and finds their deception; instead of being disappointed he is impressed but he doesn't tell them that
- Gordon takes his kids and goes to California to visit his brother's family; things are not good for his brother; Gordon is still agonizing over his diagnosis which he had yet to tell Donna about; it is eating away at him so much that he cheats on Donna with his brother's high school girlfriend
- Donna has yet to tell Gordon about being pregnant but she does tell her mother about it although she lies and tells her that she had a miscarriage; Donna also shares her news with Cameron just before going to a Planned Parenthood office, presumably for an abortion
- loved the tension in this one, especially in the negotiations between Joe and Donna; the production team did a good job of bait and switch, making it look like it was going to go one way and then having it go another way
- I am still very eager to see where this season winds up and how they get there

Halt and Catch Fire 2.05

Extract and Defend

- Donna and Gordon have secrets that they haven't revealed to one another; he learns from his doctor that he has brain damage which will likely get worse; she is pregnant; he has yet to tell anyone; she ends up telling Boz after he finds a home pregnancy test kit and confides in her that he thinks Cameron is pregnant; this situation is a time bomb; it is just a matter of when it will explode; it is kind of sad watching Gordon go through his day after he learns what is wrong with him as he tries to connect with others (Donna, their daughters, his mother-in-law) but can't seem to find the wherewithal to tell anyone
- Gordon reveals to Donna who then shares with Cameron that Joe is the one helping them with bandwidth; this does not go over well with Cameron, who then has to meet with Joe and his future father-in-law; the meeting goes reasonably well but it does not heal the schism between Joe and Cameron
- Boz seems a bit like a fish out of water; his credit card is declined while he is on a date and he has to turn to Cameron for help; he tries to get Mutiny running more efficiently but ends up pissing off Cameron
- it is starting to look like I was way off base when I wondered if Tom was gay as he and Cameron are shown in bed together in this episode; I do wonder about the longevity of their relationship, especially after seeing on imdb how many total episodes his character is around for; one of the other employees of Mutiny is accidentally outed as being gay which leads to a very awkward moment where nobody knows what to say; it definitely could have gone worse than it did
- things are not good between Joe and his fiancee; Sara is concerned about Joe becoming too close to her father; her father wants him to sign a pre-nuptial agreement
- I'm still very engaged by this show; I really enjoy seeing how the different relationships are playing out

Halt and Catch Fire 2.04

Play with Friends

- Joe tries to lure Gordon into working with him on a project at his future father-in-law's company; Gordon goes along with Joe's idea but only after some negotiations about how the work will proceed; Gordon is hoping that his efforts will help raise mutiny after he almost destroyed their network in the previous episode.
- Donna and Cameron continue to squabble over the Community application after the network crashed; the usage of the Community application continues to outpace the growth or recovery of users on the game platform which Donna heralds as a reason to keep it but Cameron fails to see the value of Community until she finally gives it a try and then inadvertently posts something snarky about Donna for everyone to see
- Boz starts working for Mutiny; his first job is (in the wake of the network's meltdown) reaching out to some of their most active users but soon thereafter Cameron enlists him to try and get the company into better shape since they are so cash poor that they can't afford to pay their employees
- Gordon collapses while working on the mainframe for Joe; he shrugs it off but I'm starting to wonder if it isn't connected to the nose bleed from the first episode of the season
- Tom and Cameron kiss; I was starting to wonder if he was gay; at first I thought I saw a spark between the two of them but then there was nothing and I started to read him as possibly being gay; now I'm a bit disappointed that he isn't but maybe he is and this is just a phase; I hate it when people assume that somebody is gay just because they don't date or show interest in members of the opposite sex frequently; there was more to my assumption of his sexual preference than the fact that he didn't seem to be interested in Cameron after they first met; it had a lot to do with the way he acted, dressed, and didn't seem to want to be one of the guys at Mutiny, until towards the end of this episode
- at the very end of the episode Donna is locked in the bathroom with what I'm guessing is a 1980s style home pregnancy test; this of course comes after Cameron's snarky message board comment about her getting saddled with two kids; if she is pregnant, whether she chooses to keep the baby or not, whether she is able to keep it or has a miscarriage, there is lots of fodder for future episodes in this development
- another great episode; I keep getting sucked in; I don't love everything about it; there is a scene where the gang at mutiny are playing a game in the house that is similar to the game that she wants to create for the network; the way that it is shot just didn't speak to me, although it was pretty clear what they were doing
- you couldn't pay me enough to stop watching this show

Halt and Catch Fire 2.03

The Way In

- there's a whole going on in this episode
- Joe goes to his fiancee's father to complain about the inefficiencies in the department he works in; Mr. Wheeler gives him the department and permission to restructure it as he sees fit; that is such a simplistic explanation of what happens, it is really how this comes to pass and how it is portrayed that make it so good to watch
- Joe and Sara invite Gordon and Donna over for dinner; things go well enough but while they are having fun a computer virus hits Mutiny; Cameron is forced to shut everything down; she tried calling Donna but when she heard Joe's voice on the line she froze
- Boz sees his ex-wife, who doesn't want him to show up at their son's wedding or the rehearsal dinner; Boz manages to get his son's attention and get a moment alone with him but it is a bit bittersweet; I love the way this part of the episode unfolds; it isn't clear what is happening until it happens
- Cameron's new hire, Tom, isn't playing ball; he seems to have nothing but negative things to say about Cameron's new chapter to Mutiny's big game, Parallax; but he is there for Cameron when she has a meltdown moment near the end of the episode
- Gordon is bored; his boredom leads him to do something destructive in the name of innovation; his act is not well received by others once they learn what he did; honest mistake? no it seems more like carelessness on Gordon's part

- this feels like an inbetweener but it has so many great moments in it, lots of which occur without dialogue or at least with moments that unfold in part or in whole visually; I don't feel short changed at all; things are definitely in flux; I definitely want to stay on this ride

Halt and Catch Fire 2.02

New Coke

- Joe takes a job working for Sara's father; Joe's expectation is that he will be starting at the top but Mr. Wheeler (James Cromwell) has other plans for him; he winds up in the basement working on a project to digitize the company's records; his new coworkers have no idea who his girlfriend is and he does nothing to illuminate them
- Gordon grows bored at home; goes to see the doctor and learns that the nose bleed may be due his cocaine habit that he developed when he was still working at Cardiff; he claims that he doesn't have a habit; he also starts playing some of Mutiny's games, discovers some bugs, and starts proposing solutions
- Boz winds up being the butt of a number of practical jokes; he doesn't feel at home at Mutiny and lets Cameron know that he is going to need some time
- Cameron and Donna try to secure some VC capital and track down a hacker who has broken into their mainframe and found ways to do things that they didn't even know were possible; they don't make any  progress on the VC funding front but after a couple confrontations with the hacker they wind up hiring the him; Donna and Cameron's working relationship seems to backslide a little bit as they don't do a very good job of communicating with one another but in the end they still seem to be on speaking terms

- still loving it, this show that is; I was never into computers the way that the people on this show are but the fact that I was using some of these machines and learning about them at the same time that the show takes places gives it some special meaning to me
- it doesn't hurt that I am impressed with all the main characters and enjoy seeing their stories unfold

Halt and Catch Fire 2.01

SETI

- a couple years have passed in the show since season 1 ended
- Cameron and Donna are still in business but it looks like something is getting ready to give; Mutiny, their company, is skating on thin ice; Cameron doesn't want to take charge; Donna is getting tired of cleaning up after other employees; things get a little contentious between the two of them until they bond over getting back at someone who scams them
- Gordon gets a big payout after Cardiff shuts down for good; later he gets a nosebleed which he shrugs off; I've got a feeling it is going to turn out to be something more serious than just a nosebleed
- Joe has moved on and moved to Austin; he isn't with Cameron anymore; he has met another woman, a reporter named Sara; he is expecting to get a similar payout to Gordon but doesn't because he pissed off the owner of Cardiff Electric one too many times; he was counting on that money to start a new company; I've got a feeling he's going to go back to Gordon and try and get him to invest in his idea for his new company
- John who went to jail at the end of season 1 gets out at the end of this episode; as I recall he took the fall for something that Cameron did; she's the one who meets him when he gets released

- it started a little slow but by the end of the episode I was eager to see more; it has been about 10-11 months since I watched season 1; I didn't remember all the details or all the names; there was no recap at the beginning of the episode but it didn't take me long to pick up the pieces