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The Man in the High Castle: podcast review of extraordinary final Season 4

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 119, in which I review The Man in the High Castle - final Season 4. I thought it was the best season so far, which is high praise indeed, since I thought the first three seasons were outstanding.
You can find my written reviews of all four seasons here - The Man in the High Castle on Amazon (pilot)... The Man in the High Castle 1.2-1.10: Timely Alternate Reality Par Excellence ... The Man in the High Castle in Reality -- Well, on NYC Subway Cars ... The Man in the High Castle 2.1-2.3: My Heimisch Town ... The Man in the High Castle 2.4-2.6: Rails and Realities ... The Man in the High Castle 2.7-2.10: Alternate Reality to the Rescue, Literally... The Man in the High Castle 3.1: Real People in Alternate History ... The Man in the High Castle 3.2-3: Alternate Realities, Frederic Brown, and Rockwells ...  The Man in the High Castle 3.4-6: "Tis Death that's Dead" ... The Man in the High Castle 3.7-10: The Metaphysics of Alternate Realities ... The Man in the High Castle season 4: Alternate Realities and Alternate Fulfillment

My podcast review of Season 3 is here and Season 2 is here and the Season 1 pilot is here.
And here are my books and my videos.

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The Man in the High Castle season 4: Alternate Realities and Alternate Fulfillment

I've been saying ever since Trump began running for President with his anti-immigration policies that The Man in the High Castle and its alternate reality of literally Nazi America had special relevance to the reality in which we now all reside, in which the Allies not the Axis won the Second World War.  In the final season of this extraordinary adaptation of Philip K. Dick's extraordinary 1962 novel, immigration plays a major role in the story, especially in the very last scene of the series.

[some spoilers below]

But although that story and that image are crucial to we the people on the both sides of the screen - the characters and their stories, which we are watching - there were parts of this final season that I liked even more.  The details, as always in this series, were provocative pleasures to behold.  Abendsen presents an alternate-history Twilight Zone on American Reich TV, intoning in Rod Serling style "The High Castle" at the beginning of every episode.  Japanese and Nazis in America exchange bows and Sieg Heils, just as we saw in prior seasons, but Kido and Smith shake hands, as the Japanese and the German Nazis later recede from America - a striking evolution of symbolic gestures.  Years earlier, as the American military struggles with whether to continue fighting the Nazis after they nuke Washington, DC, one officer notes that "Paton shook hands with Goering"; another counters that "Ike is gathering men" for the resistance; in this reality, the reality that is the home reality of The Man in the High Castle, the Paton quote wins.

In this season, much more attention is given to exactly how this alternate America came to be.  And the vehicle is full-fledged access to our reality in which we won the war, an access much more satisfying in the narrative than the I-Ching glimpses and snippets of movies we were provided in earlier seasons.  John Smith from the American Reich visits our reality.  His wife Helen in our reality finds Nazi John more sexually robust than her husband who, unbeknownst to her, has been killed by another American Reich operative who crossed realities into our reality (superb performances throughout by Rufus Sewell and Chelah Horsdal).  John is overjoyed that Thomas is alive and healthy in our reality, but heart-broken and furious when Thomas walks off with Marines to fight in Vietnam, echoing when Thomas walked off in the American Reich to be put to death because of his illness.  These parallels, palpable echoes of one reality into the other, provide a haunting foundation for everything that happens in this final season.

In the Japanese American West, Kido (fine acting by Joel de la Fuente) has his own life-rending difficulties with his son.  There's no interplay of alternate realities in the Japanese part of this season - mainly, I guess, because Tagomi and his I-Ching play almost no active role, given that Tagomi is killed in the opening Western scene in the first episode (which I regretted). Julianna picks up the I-Ching torch on the East coast, in contrast to the Nazis who travel to alternate realities via technology.  The protagonist in the West is now 100% Kido, who struggles against all odds to become a better person, and succeeds. The Black Communist Rebellion along with Childan's capacity to survive also play a major role out West.

But the locus of the story and action remains in New York City and its environs.  Smith always manages to outwit the German Nazis, now led by Himmler and Eichmann.   In the end ... well, I won't reveal exactly what happens to you, in case you've only seen part of the final season when you're reading this.  But I will say that I didn't think what Smith tried to do, the order that he gave, was entirely or even well motivated.  (He was free of German Nazi control, so whose demon was he following, his own?  Why?) The overall series, and this last season in particular, could be seen as Smith struggling to find his better self, the American that he was before the Germans dropped the bomb.  There was ample reason to think that maybe he had.

But this disappointment, though it pertains to the central, pivotal character, did not mar the impact of this powerful, brilliant, and so very timely series for me.  Too bad Philip K. Dick wasn't alive to see it.  But I did, and I will always be profoundly glad for that.

See also The Man in the High Castle 3.1: Real People in Alternate History ... The Man in the High Castle 3.2-3: Alternate Realities, Frederic Brown, and Rockwells ... The Man in the High Castle 3.4-6: "Tis Death that's Dead" ... The Man in the High Cast 3.7-10: The Metaphysics of Alternate Realities
And see also The Man in the High Castle 2.1-2.3: My Heimisch Town ... The Man in the High Castle 2.4-2.6: Rails and Realities ... The Man in the High Castle 2.7-2.10: Alternate Reality to the Rescue, Literally

And see also The Man in the High Castle on Amazon ... The Man in the High Castle 2-10: Timely Alternate Reality Par Excellence ... The Man in the High Castle in Reality - Well, on NYC Subway Cars





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Paul Levinson vs. Bill O'Reilly about whistleblower and Trump

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Prodigal Son 1.8: The Mentee

Prodigal Son 1.8 brought us the story, in Ainsley's apt words, "the mentee" - of the Surgeon, that is, and not just another apprentice.  Paul is the most developed psycho we've seen so far, and holds at least some of the keys to Bright's past.

Paul confirms what Bright dimly remembers about the last girl his father killed. Gil now acknowledges her likely existence, and admits that he may have wrong to dismiss her as just a Bright nightmare.   Paul gives Bright that elusive bracelet.  And, as a demonstration of his power, escapes the police and Bright, and ends the episode fully at large.

Before we go any further, I have a feeling - not yet quite a theory - about that girl.  I'm wondering if she may be yet alive.  And someone that we already know.  A really wild possibility would be Eve.  No evidence at all about this - as yet.

Back to the mentee.  A big question is whether he's working, has been working all this time, with the Surgeon, or is doing all of this on his own?  As I mentioned in my review of last week's episode, a similar issue arose in The Following.  When you get to such high levels of murderous psychosis, it's not always clear who is calling the shots.

It's also not impossible that Paul drew Martin into the serial killer game.  An important question is exactly when in Martin's life did he start his killing?  Before or after he became a surgeon, or maybe during his training.  Before or after he married Jessica?

We're getting some answers, but each time we get one some more questions arise.  A good place to be in series about serial killers.

See also: Prodigal Son: A New Serial Killer ... Prodigal Son 1.2: Dreams or Memories? ... Prodigal Son 1.3: LSD and Chloroform ... Prodigal Son 1.4: Ainsley ... Prodigal Son 1.6: Bad Boy ... Prodigal Son 1.7: Apprentices

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Prodigal Son 1.7: Apprentices

An outstanding, even pivotal episode 1.7 of Pivotal Son last week, in which all kinds of alliances are revealed and created.

The big one features Bright handing over a scalpel - aka knife, weapon - to his father, the Surgeon, unshackled in his prison cell.  He does this at the insistence of his sister, Ainsley, who has come with her cameraman to interview her father.  The cameraman gets stabbed by a psycho on the loose in the prison.  It's a serious wound, and only Dr. Whitly's expertise can save him.

Which he does, and then returns the weapon to Bright, which instantly turns Ainsley from a staunch critic to a devoted fan.  It was no surprise that the Surgeon somehow set all of this up.  The fun was seeing it unfold and learning how that happened.

The key is that the Surgeon has apprentices, students, in and out of prison.  This has suddenly thrown Prodigal Son into The Following territory, and that's exciting and desperate terrain.  A group of psychos following a sinister master can do a lot more damage than the master himself, especially when he's locked up for life in prison.

One question, though, is the how the prison stabber could have had precisely enough prowess with the scalpel to wound the cameraman exactly the way the Surgeon wanted it.   But that's a small quibble to a generally eye-opening episode that really moved the series along,

Tonight's episode will be on in less than an hour, and I'll be back with a more timely review.

See also: Prodigal Son: A New Serial Killer ... Prodigal Son 1.2: Dreams or Memories? ... Prodigal Son 1.3: LSD and Chloroform ... Prodigal Son 1.4: Ainsley ... Prodigal Son 1.6: Bad Boy

 
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Watchmen 1.4: What We Learned

Here's what we learned in the continuingly gonzo, bordering on insane episode 1.4 of Watchmen tonight - that is, a little more than everything you could want in an alternate reality or alternate history story:
Henry Louis Gates is Treasury Secretary.  In case you don't recall who he was/is in our reality, he is the African-American Harvard professor arrested by a white racist Boston police sergeant in his (Gates's) own home, because the sergeant thought Gates had broken into it.  As compensation for this wrongful arrest, Gates had to have a beer with the sergeant at the White House at President Obama's invitation.  Gates apparently did better in Watchmen.This alternate reality is well ahead of ours in genetics, gene-splicing, DNA manipulation and the like.  And a Vietnamese women owns some kind of huge biological facility in Tulsa.Adrian Veidt is in prison - that's what his gorgeous estate really is - and he is permitted to keep ordering up babies who, placed in a bizarre, almost-Frankenstein-like piece of equipment, quickly mature into the man and woman who are his servants.  And who, we also learn, Veidt kills about as quickly as they are created and mature.  Like I said, this is world of advanced biology - and psychos.At this point, I'd say Watchmen is more comprehensible than Twin Peaks, but a less endearing (nothing, quite yet, like that cherry pie).  But Watchmen does have going for it an intriguing science fiction, nibbling around the edges.
See you next time.
See also Watchmen 1.1: Promising Alternate History ... [Watchmen 1.2: don't look for my review, I didn't feel like reviewing it] ... Watchmen 1.3: The Falling Car



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Emergence 1.6: The People Who Are Kindred

Emergence checked in with another strong episode - 1.6 - this week, and brought us to two surprising revelations.  Both concern Kindred.

One is that Kindred didn't invent or create the android that is Piper.  It turns out that the well-named Alan Wilkis did - well-named because he has the same first name, spelled the same way, as Alan Turing.  He was the genius who in real history broke the German Enigma Code (which in many ways was responsible for our winning the Second World War), perfected the basis for the digital computer, and left us with the iconic Turing test: if an AI is indistinguishable in its intelligence from human intelligence, then by what logic can we say that the AI lacks human intelligence?

But Alan Wilkis not Kindred as the creator of Piper was not as surprising as what hits us at the end of this episode.  That Second Life-like virtual apparition or avatar of Kindred that keeps drawing Piper into his conversation and into his world turns out to be none other than Emily - or at least, her apparition or avatar.  And this twist of Emily from the hunted to the hunter changes everything, or would seem to, because we still don't know what's really going on.

But I like Emily as a Keyser Soze character, who starts as a vulnerable victim and turns out to be the one who, at least at this point, is pulling the strings.  What it strongly suggests is Emergence has all kinds of tricks up its sleeve.  It's rare that I literally have no idea where a series is heading, certainly rare after the sixth episode.   But Emergence has managed to do that, in an intriguing way, and keeps making me want to watch it more and more.

See also: Emergence: May Just Make It ... Emergence 1.2: Cleaning Up ... Emergence 1.3: Robots and Androids ... Emergence 1.4: Android Child ... Emergence 1.5: Supergirl





The androids are coming out into the open, for the first time in centuries ....


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Terminator: Dark Fate: Bright Future

So here we go again.  The critics panned it.  The box-office in the first few days is not impressive.  All manner of self-appointed prognosticators pronounce the franchise deader than an outmoded Terminator model, because that's what it is.

But my son Simon and I saw it tonight.  In the Magic Johnson theater in Harlem, in Dolby, in seats more comfortable than a Lazy Boy, which rumbled when the action on the screen called for it, which it often did.  And ... we enjoyed it immensely.

[some spoilers follow]

This Terminator movie was made by James Cameron, his first since the iconic and brilliant Terminators 1 and 2, lo those many years ago.  It tells a story that take a different path, and obviates, the non-Cameron sequels that followed Terminator 2.  I enjoyed those, too.  But not as much as this new movie.

Skynet is indeed destroyed.  But young John Connor is killed by an Arnold Terminator anyway, sent back before Skynet was destroyed.  This killer Terminator took some time finding John Connor, but he did.  All of that, in effect, is prelude to the story in Dark Fate, where we see another newer Terminator model - that dwarfs T-800/Arnold's powers - hunting a young woman which another monstrous digitized war-system, Legion, has unleashed on its past and her/our present.  This new model, a REV-9 that goes by the name of Gabriel, is so potent a machine that no one human or lesser model like a T-800 can destroy it.

I'd say that's the makings of an excellent movie, and Dark Fate was.  Linda Hamilton is back as a much older Sarah Connor, with a hatred of the T-800 who killed her son,  She gave an effective performance.   Arnold is no great actor, but he put in an outstanding performance as the T-800, showing a combination of humor, sensitivity, and ferocity as called for.  Mackenzie Davis was good as an augmented human Grace from the future, Gabriel Luna was effective as Gabriel, and Natalia Reyes was appealing as Dani, the woman Gabriel is after, first thought by Sarah to be another mother-of-the-savior version of her , but who turned out to be someone different (that was pretty easy to figure out, but that didn't put too much of a dent in the fast action and suspenseful pleasures of the movie).

Like many time travel movies, Dark Fate suffered from the problem of, once we find out that Dani in the future sent Grace back to save her, we know that Grace had to succeed, otherwise there would have been no Dani in the future to send Grace back.   There are ways of handling this - like the multiple worlds scenario - but the Terminator movies, especially the first two, were never about working all those metaphysical out paradoxes of time travel.  There were about the human/machine interface, and, even though I love those paradoxes, the two movies succeeded grandly.

As did Dark Fate.  So, I predict that some year before too long, we'll indeed see another Terminator movie, contrary to all the current doomsayers.   I'll look forward when that happens to reviewing that movie, and putting in a link to this one.



The androids are coming out into the open, for the first time in centuries ....

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His Dark Materials 1.1: Radiation Punk

His Dark Materials debuted on HBO tonight.  It was good to see - especially Ruth Wilson as the mysterious and alluring Marisa, the very night after The Affair concluded, splendidly, on Showtime, where Wilson played the alluring Alison, of which I'll say no more in case you haven't seen it.

But about His Dark Materials, to begin with, a proviso about me.  Although the trilogy by Philip Pullman came out around the same time as I first started getting my science fiction stories and novels published in major places - the mid-late 1990s - I never read them.  I should have, and it's even more surprising that I didn't, since alternate realities are one my favorite science fiction/fantasy genres (the other being time travel).  But, in a way, I'm now glad that I didn't read the trilogy, because it allows me to approach the HBO series as a first encounter, unencumbered by comparisons to the appearance of the narrative in an earlier medium.

The ambience of the TV series including the set-up is a pleasure for the eyes and brain.  It's a kind of steampunk, except there are helicopters and all sorts of other present or close-to-present trappings, so maybe radiation punk would be a better label (there's also talk about some kind of dangerous "dust").  Animals talk and are bonded - in a "sacred" way - to humans.  That is, each person has her or his own sentient animal, known as a "daemon".  The academic town of Oxford is in this alternate world, as is London, much more than academic, which we haven't seen as yet.

It's too soon for a Dark Materials novice to get what's really going on, but we've seen enough to know there are no shortage of heroes and villains, and lots of compelling people in between.   Marisa, for example, seems to be such a mix, but Lyra seems as pure as the snow.  James McAvoy as Lord Asriel is looking to be entirely good, but Clarke Peters (Treme and The Wire!) as the powerful Master not quite so.  These subtleties make for good story telling.

Which I'll be watching and reporting about back here, on likely a weekly basis.



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Watchmen 1.3: The Falling Car

Watchmen checked in with a clarifying, excellent episode 1.3 tonight, introducing Jean Smart as FBI honcho and super good-guy killer Laurie Blake, and giving us a nice extended rendition of Desmond Dekker's "Israelites," one of my many all-time favorite songs (in fact, I'm listening to it on YouTube right now).

Blake is a sarcastic, effective, very necessary character.  The episode went by quickly, and I wasn't paying one-hundred percent attention - I never can, in a story like this - so I may have some of this a little wrong, and I don't like watching a scene twice to check, but I think Blake is Dr. Manhattan's former wife or ex-girlfriend, and he's currently on Mars.  Even if he's not on Mars, I'm certain that humans are on Mars in this alternate reality, and that's another nifty departure of Watchmen's reality from ours.

Blake also calls Manhattan (the man on Mars, not the borough) via a phone in a blue phone booth that connects her to Mars, and tells him a variety of lamely sage jokes, the best of which being about what a girl does with an extra brick - I used to tell a two-part version of this two-part joke when I was a kid (I heard it from someone else) - but in Blake's version the punchline is the brick comes down on God's head.  This is picked up nicely in what almost happens to Blake at the end of this episode.

But first, I also much like the tension between Blake and Sister Night - they make a good pair of adversaries, who may well come together in the end, even though Blake eats good guys for breakfast, or something like that, as she makes clear to everyone.  But Sister Night's her match, and I liked her response to Blake's attempt at intimidation.

But back to the end, a car falls out of the sky and almost on Blake's head, almost fulfilling the brick in her joke.  Maybe that was the car we saw lifted off the ground either in this or a previous episode?  It's hard to tell in this gonzo narrative, but I can at least tell that it's appealing, and I'll continue to watch.

See also Watchmen 1.1: Promising Alternate History ... [Watchmen 1.2: don't look for my review, I didn't feel like reviewing it]



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