Amy Richau reviews the fourth episode of Halt and Catch Fire season 2…
The main characters in Halt and Catch Fire made a big step towards the same storyline in the entertaining (and at times frustrating – Cameron stop being so annoying!) fourth episode “Play with Friends”.
Joe and Gordon are polar opposites personality wise, but they each have one important thing in common. They can’t back down from a great idea. Even if this great idea has them working together again under pretty sketchy circumstances. Joe knows that leasing out his father-in-law’s company main frame computers can lead to a financial killing, but in typical Joe fashion when he runs into an initial roadblock he ignores his superiors and decides to just go ahead and reconfigure the mainframe without permission. Not surprisingly there is no Sara in “Play with Friends”. I will be very surprised if the Sara-Joe relationship survives season two.
In typical Gordon fashion Gordon immediately rejects Joe’s offer to get in on the ground floor of his new venture only to then jump in with both feet when he realizes the positive implications Joe’s plan could have on his wife Donna’s struggling game company Mutiny. Gordon’s character has a scary health moment in “Play with Friends” and it seems like it’s only a matter of time before his cocaine habit truly catches up to him.
Things at Mutiny are looking bleaker than ever despite Bosworth returning to the company frat house to help repair the damage done by malicious software in the previous episode. A surprising amount of employees decide to stick with the company even after being told they would not be getting paid beyond stock shares. However Cameron and Donna’s working relationship remained quite strained.
Cameron is eager to dump Donna’s growing Community program despite the fact she has never even used it. Donna rightfully calls out Cameron for coming to this decision in part because Community was Donna’s baby and not hers. Overall Cameron appears much more fun to work with than to work for. Cameron at least starts to realize that she isn’t any good at managing people this episode as her character was becoming more and more unlikeable. A unlikeable Cameron would have been a shame as her character is one the most interesting and complex in the show.
As the episode comes to its end Cameron has a light bulb idea that is in line with the original thinking computer-community Cameron from season one. Not only in Cameron’s idea a great one, but it will also play into merging Donna and Joe’s new projects all into one big storyline. Gordon’s future remains the most concerning, but Halt and Catch Fire has succeeded in a big way giving viewers a variety of characters to cheer for this season.
Amy Richau is a freelance entertainment and sports writer. Follow her on Twitter.
https://youtu.be/CkZX95HzVyg?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published June 23, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
