Review of Man in the High Castle Finale Season 3
The season two finale of The Man in the High Castle doesn't brainstorm the style you might think information technology would. Rather than picking up with the immediate aftermath of the flop Frank set off in the Japanese headquarters, "Fallout" begins with a flashback. It's December 11, 1945, and John and Helen Smith accept arrived at what seems to exist a cabin, or maybe their first apartment. They come up into the small room, and John, outfitted in his original American war machine garb, rubs his wife's belly, significant with their son, Thomas. Then, a huge explosion shakes the room. They look outside and see a gigantic mushroom deject. Helen wonders aloud what's happened. John knows: The Nazis have just bombed Washington.
That's where the scene ends. It's merely a small peek into how this world, where John Smith is a Nazi official, and where the Nazis and Japanese occupy what nosotros'd refer to as America, came to be formed. It's an interesting choice, as The Human being in the Loftier Castle has always called to focus on the futurity, using its time travel conceit to vaguely explain the "propaganda" films. Here, the show looks backward, and it'due south a brief moment that works to add together some context to everything nosotros've seen this flavor.
After that scene, we're back to the aftermath of the bombing at the Japanese headquarters. Kido takes in the devastation around him. He'south hurt, bleeding desperately from the leg, but he'due south fine. More than that, he's now the highest-ranking official following the death of the General. The future of the Japanese is in his hands.
Meanwhile, the Nazis are preparing their assail on the Japanese, a retaliation for the "human activity of war" that was the poisoning of Hitler. Chancellor Heusmann has sent more than high-ranking forces to New York in order to assistance with the Resistance, and ane of them recommends a drastic plan: make a statement by destroying a whole city where the uprising is particularly stiff. He recommends Savannah, Georgia, which would amount to 86,000 deaths. As nosotros learn later, that'due south actually merely the showtime.
In a meeting in Berlin, Chancellor Heusmann takes a hard opinion. He wants total global domination. He wants Tokyo destroyed in the showtime phase of bombing. He's not interested in negotiated peace. Rather, he's planning to conquer by forcefulness, assuring that the merely race left on earth is the "master race." His advisors approximate it will take them a mere 2 weeks to execute the full devastating programme, which would consequence in more than 20 million deaths worldwide.
Joe, the most ridiculous and boring character yet again this season, all of a sudden has a moral crisis when he hears his father's program. He tries to talk some sense into him, simply the Chancellor is hearing none of it. What follows is some of the flimsiest, well-nigh inconsequential graphic symbol work and then far this season. Joe goes to Nicole with his dilemma. He just wants to do something so badly, merely he doesn't know what. All he knows is that it's urgent. Then urgent in fact that there's fourth dimension for an overdramatic sexual practice scene followed past… Joe doing nothing.
Joe's so-called moral crisis will be important to recollect afterwards when the prove once again tries to hit an emotional note that it doesn't earn, but for now let's go along with an unlikely pair: John Smith and Inspector Kido.
The two men have always seemed to accept some sort of grudging respect for one some other, and that becomes important here. When Kido manages to secure a meeting with Smith, he shows him the film Tagomi brought from futurity San Francisco. It seems Smith also understands the strange nature of these films and is invested in keeping their time-traveling origins a secret. Still, he needs that film. Information technology'due south the only way to avoid total war, to keep his wife and kids prophylactic.
Again, this is a fleck of an unearned character turn. Smith has been a pretty ruthless Nazi for almost of the show's run, only at present nosotros're supposed to see the good in him considering he loves his son and because nosotros got a ii-infinitesimal flashback to when he was part of the American military? That's inappreciably plenty, considering the atrocities he'due south responsible for. In fact, one of the more troubling aspects of the manner the finale plays out is the villainization of the Resistance.
The "twist" of the finale is that Kido and Smith are working to prevent total war, while the Resistance are stubbornly charging ahead with murderous plots. Suddenly we're supposed to see the humanity in the Nazis and Kempeitai and come across the monstrousness of the Resistance. The Man in the High Castle is trying to add some moral wrinkles here, only they don't really work. It reads as a simplistic, and rather out of bear on, way of conveying dubious morals, rather than a twist that's actually earned and in-line with the plot. And so when Thomas sacrifices himself for the Reich, it ends up falling flat, rather than feeling like a true destruction to the Smith family unit. Information technology's only difficult to sympathise with Nazis, you know?
To the episode's credit, "Fallout" does build to a rather thrilling final few scenes. There'southward Smith covertly getting to Berlin and going to Joe with the motion-picture show. That secures him an audience in Chancellor Heusmann and his military advisors, where Smith shows them the footage, that the Japanese have a new form of weaponry called the Hydrogen Bomb. Of course, Nihon only has that power in the alternate future timeline, only that's something Smith keeps hidden. His goal here is to avoid nuclear devastation.
What'south frustrating about this climax, though, which sees Smith have Heusmann arrested for treason after proving that he and Heydrich were responsible for poisoning Hitler in order to secure their own agree on the Reich, is that it's filled with shoddy character motivations and rushed plot points. Joe, in particular, is a mess here. Starting time, he complains that he tin can't stop his father from killing millions of people, then when Smith presents him with an opportunity to do so he refuses until he learns that Juliana is nonetheless alive. And then he won't salve millions of people like he stated, but he volition try to salve Juliana? Merely so when Smith has Heusmann arrested, Joe reacts equally if he really cares that the monstrous father he just met is being arrested.
These gaps in grapheme motivation keep the finale from truly making an impact. Add together in the last-2nd twist, where information technology's revealed that the Human being in the Loftier Castle was betting on Juliana empathizing with the Nazis and shooting George, that her decision was the only thing that could end the state of war, and that Trudy is seemingly however live, and you lot have a finale that'southward packed with twists just for the sake of existence packed with twists. They don't do much to enhance the plot or themes and instead experience similar cheap, ineffective shocks.
Again, peradventure the evidence does see a style forward in flavor 3, as this season ends with Lem showing upwards at Tagomi'due south door with a box of films. So again, The Human in the High Castle hasn't exactly proven it can be trusted to follow through with its mysteries and storytelling. That said, season 2 was much more activeness-packed, and managed to latch on to a timely relevance every now then. Here'south hoping it can harness that momentum heading into next season.
The Man in the High Castle
Amazon adapts Philip K. Dick'south 1962 novel about an alternate universe where the Centrality powers won Globe War II.
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Source: https://ew.com/recap/the-man-in-the-high-castle-season-2-finale/
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