Daily Archives: October 1, 2017

Halt and Catch Fire S4E07

Who Needs a Guy

I planned on waiting for the series finale to write about Halt again but episode 7 knocked me for a loop.

Something tragic happens and I’m going to try to dance around it to avoid spoilers. You can find it elsewhere in about 4 seconds but I think it’s always best to go into a story blind so you can experience the original intent of the show creators.

I’ve been a fan of Halt from the very beginning and I didn’t realize how attached to the characters until last night. The arc of the show spans a long time, it’s a large chunk of these people’s lives. Cam, Joe, Gordon, and Donna are deeply intertwined. Gordon and Donna are family so their history goes years longer than the rest but they all go through some life changing events together. They clash just as much as they get along.

Knowing that this is the final season, I’m in the headspace that there is an end in sight. I’m going to be left behind at a point where the show ends and the characters live on without me watching. This season is very dense with growth. Haley and Joanie are teenagers and are much more than window dressing around the adults. Gordon and Donna are divorced but with their kids, they’re tied together for life and while they do still fight, they keep coming back together. Cameron and Joe keep finding themselves on islands, from their own doing or otherwise. Wrapping them together in the tech industry is a fascinating backdrop, something that’s unique to the show. Watching Cam get disinterested in her passion was terrible but someone new is now engaging her and more than that, pushing her out of her comfort zone. Cam is an intense person and seeing her potentially on a new track is very exciting.

There are two more weeks left, the finale is going to be 2 hours. After Who Needs a Guy, I have no idea what’s going to happen. It feels like I’ve watched the end, a major, emotional, world-changing shock that’s left me dazed along with the characters in the fallout and there is more to come. It’s an achievement that I’m so invested in fictional people.