This week’s episode of Halt and Catch Fire was certainly a game-changer for the series, which has all of three episodes (next week’s standard one-hour show and then a two-hour finale) left to go. Halt is a series that has always been about connections on multiple levels: the connections in the characters’ lives and the kinds of connections they create through the work that they do. The events of this episode, however, will almost certainly bring that theme into even sharper focus in the next few hours, as the characters respond to what’s taken place by relying on each other, seeking comfort in each other, or perhaps isolating themselves from each other. In this podcast, Anita and I try to work through our still-raw feelings about it all.
https://soundcloud.com/user-274688400/halt-5
The title of this episode is “Who Needs a Guy,” and of course it’s an episode about how we need each other. How Bos asks Cam for a favor in the episode’s beginning. How Cam and Joe continue to negotiate the complexities of what it means to be in a relationship with each other. How Joe helps to reconnect Gordon with Haley so that he can be there for his daughter as she goes through a difficult time. How Gordon and Joe collaborate on a vision for the future of Comet. How Donna’s life is less meaningful and more difficult because she’s wound up isolated and alone.
I’m reminded of this Judith Butler quote: “Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something.”