Last year, AMC’s “Halt and Catch Fire,” an ’80s-set drama about a ragtag team of Texas computer programmers trying to go toe-to-toe with Silicon Valley, went from a fine if unspectacular show to one of TV’s most stellar offerings. Though critical adulation wasn’t enough to get the scrappy series better than abysmal ratings (Season 2 averaged a paltry 530,000 viewers per episode, according to The A.V. Club), AMC believed in it enough to renew it for another run, which premieres Tuesday at 8 p.m. Considering the five episodes I’ve seen of the new season, thank God the network gave it another chance, because these episodes are some of the most confident, elegantly shot offerings of the entire series.
Warning: Some spoilers for Seasons 1 and 2 ahead.
When “Halt and Catch Fire” made its leap in quality last season, it did so by completely flipping its script. Season 1, while mostly engaging, lacked enough forward motion as the series focused on Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace), a Don Draper-esque salesman with as much faux-charisma as he has secrets, and Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy), a brilliant but nebbish and heavy-drinking engineer. It sometimes stalled as the two men tried to compete with IBM and Apple with “the Giant,” a clunky PC they built for their Texas-based firm, Cardiff Electric, because it relegated to supporting roles the show’s best two characters: Cameron Howe (an electric and scene-stealing Mackenzie Davis), a punk-minded and talented coder, and Donna Clark (Kerry Bishé), Gordon’s wife.
On the other hand, Season 2 found the show’s heart. After Cardiff Electric was sold, the narrative jumped more than a year into the future to focus on Mutiny, a video games-turned-chatroom startup run by Cameron and Donna. Focusing on the chemistry between those two incredible characters—instead of Gordon (who in the first season was much more compelling as a stay-at-home dad dealing with his sense of worth after taking the buyout), or Joe (whose early series blowhard monologues sometimes sucked the air out of an episode and was better on the periphery trying to work his way up at an oil company)—the show was electric. By subverting the blustery and overdone trope of mysterious and difficult men striving to make something great, “Halt and Catch Fire” positioned itself as something better than just its elevator pitch: “Like ‘Mad Men’ but in the ’80s and about computers!”
Like the reboot that made Season 2, the latest 10-episode order upgrades the show’s formula. For one, the show moves from Texas to the Bay Area in 1986, where Mutiny lands to expand (and Donna and Gordon attempt to fix their rattled marriage). A newly bearded Joe is also in Silicon Valley, this time as a Steve Jobs-type founder of an anti-virus company (based off software he unethically used from Gordon) complete with zen koans and a turtleneck. Even Gordon has more to do as he attempts to make himself useful working with Donna and Cameron at Mutiny’s swanky Silicon Valley headquarters. Because the show’s emotional core is still there, including a new Mutiny hire, the socially awkward but brilliant coder Ryan Ray (Manish Dayal), the new season is less of a reboot and more of a spark plug.
Part of the reason “Halt and Catch Fire” works is that its attention to detail is impeccable. Besides “The Americans” or “Masters of Sex,” their commitment to capturing a decade is pretty much unmatched, with everything from the set props and costume design to the decade-appropriate music (David Bowie’s “Absolute Beginners,” Elvis Costello’s “Beyond Belief” and Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House,” for example) and the impeccably framed cinematography. Plus, the ’86 Bay Area setting allows for the show to explore more territory than its former Texas locale allowed, such as workplace sexism, the AIDS crisis (something only hinted at in Season 1) and the cutthroat and toxic Silicon Valley culture.
But the real joy of “Halt and Catch Fire” is watching the characters create and solve problems—especially Cameron and Donna as they navigate the misogynistic web of Silicon Valley culture as they try to secure venture capital funding for Mutiny. More so than that plot, especially resonant considering the ever-pervasive sexism in tech culture today, is how Donna’s pragmatism meshes with Cameron’s manic, and sometimes destructive, brilliance. There’s hardly a more electrifying pairing on television than Bishé and Davis. McNairy’s subtly rendered Gordon also shines when he’s trying to balance finding his place at Mutiny while attempting to fix his marriage (Bishé and McNairy also have an undeniable rapport).
Sure, “Halt and Catch Fire” won’t be for everyone. Besides its wonky name, there’s mile-a-minute PC talk that’ll sound like complete gibberish to people who don’t code or know how PCs are built (guilty!), and yes, Joe can be a little heavy on the gasbag smarminess and Gordon can be incredibly frustrating. However, in the void left from AMC’s best shows like “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad,” there’s not a doubt that “Halt and Catch Fire,” a show that has progressively gotten better with every episode, is filling it.
4 stars (out of four)
@joshhterry | jterry@redeyechicago.com
