Collateral attractions: Halt and Catch Fire, episode 3

I honestly thought I had nothing much to say about this episode until the last ten minutes — in which three bombs drop. That happened last week, as well — it seems like the writing really prefers the repeatedly surprising ending.

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Lee Pace as Joe MacMillan in Halt and Catch Fire. Source: amctv

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Up until the very end, I’d have simply confined my remarks to what a pleasure it continues to be to watch Lee Pace on screen. He’s seriously charismatic and so convincingly physical. The episode opens with shots of him topless, listening to music in his apartment — and the contrast of his stance with the scarred torso we saw last time is really edgy and interesting. (Sorry, didn’t find a cap.) My favorite moment was a brief glimpse that I also couldn’t find on the available footage — where he’s talking with his boss about the deal, and towering him over him even as his boss holds all the cards. This is a view from just before that, from a perpendicular perspective to the shot I’m thinking of.

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Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace) argues with his boss over taking the financial deal they need to stay afloat, in episode 3 of Halt and Catch Fire. My cap from vid at amctv.com

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At some point, in the commentary vid, one of the show’s creators says, “Joe MacMillan is like a machine that any software program will run on,” and we really get that feeling in this episode. He will do anything to get ahead — even as he has very little space to maneuver in. Probably the most shocking moment (although it very much operates on unquestioned cultural stereotypes and prejudices about male sexuality that I hope are eroding) is the point at which he seduces his potential funder, Lulu’s husband — in order to mess up the deal. The physicality in this seen is really convincing, from the brushing of Joe’s hand over his target, to his aggressive grasping at the man’s face — to the final shot, where he’s shown, taking off his jacket, growing in energy and power somehow in a position where many men first begin to make themselves vulnerable.

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Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace) seduces Lulu’s husband in episode 3 of Halt and Catch Fire. Source: amctv.com

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The way that Joe ends this scene — the way that he indicates to the woman with a shake of his head and a single line that he needed twenty seconds to seduce her husband — is really stunning. Wish I could give you a cap. Watch the whole “inside the episode” vid here.

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The script also gets points for the 80s music playlist it gives Cameron, and for its solid awareness of the unconscious arrogance of Texans. I loved how Lulu thought she’d one-up everyone with her knowledge of opera and got challenged by Joe. This is frighteningly spot on — I moved to Texas for the first time in 1987 and it hit me hard, as well. It’s still there, but not in quite the same way — this is the end of the oil elites and the way they played their games, as the Texas economy started to change. I also think we’re going to see some interesting gender commentary, as Gordon’s wife essentially comes up with the solution to their biggest engineering problem. Geek points to anyone who, like dad and me, were amused by the ongoing discussion of the heat sink problem, and who recognizes the keyboard that Cameron types on.

~ by Servetus on June 16, 2014.