AMC - Halt and Catch Fire

nobody expected me to be that useful at work so I watched 2.5 episodes while poking around on a project at work, tell no one

this seems kind of h&cf-ish since I’m totally on that kind of project

how did I not know Toby Huss is a fellow Iowa boy?!?

so great, love his king of the hill work

I was loving this until halfway through season 2. That any of the protagonists would seriously contemplate going back into business with the sociopath was too much disbelief to suspend.

his season one characterization was an incredible misstep in the show and retooling him was the best thing they did, but I feel that

another thing I will say here (trying to avoid reading spoilers while posting) is that whoever chose Cameron's music selections knew what was up with early-80's Texas punk rock (Big Boys!), Bobby Soxx "Learn To Hate In The 80's" was especially inspired.

Really Red as well.

Amazing music supervision and not just deep knowledge of Texas punk. Tiny meaningless spoiler but when Joe goes to the Stark Club they nailed the music.

yeah the music supervision stays good through the rest of the show

watching the final season a couple days after attending a funeral for a relative was emotionally wearying

his season one characterization was an incredible misstep in the show and retooling him was the best thing they did

Maybe the thing for the viewer to do is pretend it's a different character entirely. After season one, Pyro Joe died on the way back to his home planet, please welcome Believable Joe?

for some reason that i have not analyzed it gives me great pleasure to see the look on someone's face when they GET AN IDEA on this show. it happens about 5 times an episode. hey, that picture of a hacker on the magazine cover....THAT GIVES ME AN IDEA.

i just really love it.

i'm watching the whole first 3 seasons again with maria. she didn't watch them with me the first time around.

The one thing that this show did well that is seldom done in television is having characters decide to do things off camera and just kind of report later "oh I did that" or "I changed my mind". As if there are things going on in the world, some of them important to their lives, and we're not seeing all of it.

i love when episodes start and time has obviously passed but they don't really make a big deal about it.

i also don't think i remembered that when joe goes and gets his check at the start of season two that almost two years have gone by. 20 months i think it says at the beginning. that's a long time.

Some of it seems to come out of nowhere when the series gets toward the end, especially when (not really major spoilers here) starts speaking to others about how women were continually marginalized in the computer field and unfortunately ended up playing against each other. But when you look back at the series and realize all of the in-house drama with her and Cameron has this much larger context the little lightbulb comes on

whoops, when *Donna* starts speaking, that is

yeah i should probably stay away from this thread until i've seen season 4.

i wonder if i should just pay for the fourth season instead of waiting for netflix. PS4 will probably sell it to me.

I bought it via Amazon

It's on the AMC streaming app if you have any sort of cable, but it has commercials and is kind of glitchy

bummed at how normcore Cameron is, fashionwise, by the end of s2

she's going to switch it up

Just finished season four after a month's binge and feel bereft :(

man that wedding scene in S2 with Bosworth and his kid was really well done

"your mother would combust"

Yeah - every character gets amazing material but Bos especially. What a show, though. It's been a particularly rough month of my life and watching this got me through a really fucked up November. It's such a privilege when a piece of art reaches you at exactly the right time in your life - a few years ago or a few years from now I might have been less moved, or given up.

:/

https://soundcloud.com/user-193544149/halt-and-catch-fire-gordons-tape

season 4 is on netflix! woo hoo! i'll come back after watching that.

I just finished this and I am gutted. I'm going to miss the hell out of these characters

I am about halfway through s4 and am not loving it as much as prior seasons. Should I hope for a turnaround?

100% stick around. You've made it this far, so even if the ending weren't outstanding I'd say stick it out, but those final four episodes really are beautiful

Some minor, minimally spoiler-y thoughts:

1. No show that reboots its main character so many times had any right to be this good
2. They gave Bos so much amazing material in the final season
3. Haley was an incredible character who turned out to be as engaging as any of the series principals. I hope that actress lands a series of her own one day.
4. I need a hug

Otm re: Haley. And amazingly, that was her first acting job

Also Bos leaving the doctor to Fanfare for the Common Man <3 <3

didn't realize "Cardiff Giant" was a clever name for longest time.

All those little anxious tics that Haley did... I couldn't tell if that was a great character choice or if the actress just does those naturally. They really trusted her with some pretty demanding material. Both daughters were pretty remarkable, though... they did a great job making two characters who essentially didn't exist for the first three seasons feel like they were there from the beginning.

I still don't get "Cardiff Giant" but I do love how those final episodes paid homage to that whole storyline.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Giant

I think I'd probably put this show in the top 5 dramas of the last 10-15 years, behind the big four (Sopranos/Wire/Mad Men/Breaking Bad). It's not up there with those, but I think it comes as close as anything else I've seen.

i think it works better as a comedy (and it's frequently much funnier than silicon valley)

Just started this on y’alls recommendations... finished ep 2 of season 1 and lolled at the ending “handle! It needs a handle!” and the sales dude imagining the future of portable computing when the IBM dude who visited him to give him his back pay literally used the briefcase for its intended purpose (to hold the check) and not do any portable computing

yeah that first season really does start off as rocky as everybody warns you it is. Kinda amazing the show became such a great character drama, given that it doesn't begin with any great characters

bos is the only character on this show that I actually liked all the way through. the way they handled the clark family story arc in the final season was very touching. i don't want to spoil anything but the donna/gordon flashback killed me

yeah so far it's not as bad as I was expecting, will definitely stick with it. doesn't hurt at all that mackenzie davis is beaucoup jolie

Not sure I want to continue now after that mind numbing Texas county fair Japanese car bashing scene

We are two episodes from the end. Everyone's really sad. I'm really sad.

I don't know, I really liked the first season. I think watching it well after the fact of Mad Men or Breaking Bad or any of those other prestige-type shows gives it some breathing space. Plus, season one Joe McMillan is hilarious. And the husband and I are fairly nerdy about computer hardware, so we were actually both invested in the tech of it. I missed season one Joe when season two rolled around.

Still, though, the last two seasons are phenomenal television. I particularly love the scenes in season four where the men gradually figure out what Haley's deal is. Just two men, trying to do what's best for a teenage girl. And I always liked Cameron's relationship with Bos. Age-appropriate and non-creepy! And I always liked how they dressed her. Never "sexy" at all.

Man, this is making me sad and missing this show again.

The scene in the first season, where Gordon steals the Cabbage Patch doll and finds the corpse... at the time it felt too on-the-nose, like a lot of Season 1. But it's really stuck with me! This show will always haunt me in the nicest way.

We spent this morning watching the last two episodes. I cried most of the way through both of them because I am a sap, but also just because they are great. I haven't felt this satisfied with a television series since The Wire. The scope of it, the character work that went into it, and the fact that the programme makers understand that sometimes people want an actual proper satisfying ending goddammit.

I thought McMillan's progression as a character is actually really well done (and didn't strike me as unbelievable esp. since he's supposed to be late 20s in first season and nearing 40 at the end of the last). All the characters are amazingly human actually. One of the few shows I can remember watching where for all the character's flaws I really liked and rooted for everyone...

watched through this show over the past few weeks, really remarkable show. each season is a near-reinvention of the show - I thought it was so bold to make Cam and Donna essentially the central characters in S2, while Gordon and Joe take a backseat. the Mutiny storyline in particular that season was so fraught yet fun and nostalgic for me, I may go back and rewatch just S2.

but then S3 and S4 also take the show to very different places. loved how the tone of the show gradually becomes less dramatic, or at least the characters do less to contribute to the drama themselves and handle it in more mature ways. the development seemed very relatable. also, hard to think of another show where I loved and disliked every main character at various points in the show: that's a huge testament to the quality of the actors. it does get a little ridiculous how much these characters' lives intersect at times, but I don't have many complaints about this show

bos is the only character on this show that I actually liked all the way through

Oh right I take back what I said, I never disliked Bos except maybe in the very first episode

late on this, really liked it.

Pilgrim's character's gait/high shoulder movement nagged at me, until re-watching the pilot ep; it's a nice (if obv.) call-back.

I watched S1 and the opening third of S2 a couple years ago, but dipped out for some reason. Coming back to it this weekend and I'm super into it now. Just a little bit into S3 and, if it rains a lot tomorrow, I'll probably finish up then.