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Halt and Catch Fire: 4.10 Ten of Swords Fleabag: 2.06

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If it was ever possible to maintain the illusion that good work will attract an audience simply by virtue of its quality, it isn’t now. In 2017, there’s simply too much out there to guarantee that the best series will attract the biggest audiences. It’s a miracle, then, that Halt and Catch Fire, a show originally meant to fill the hole left by Mad Men, has managed to make it to the end of its fourth and final season, which concluded this weekend in the US.

A tech drama that takes place entirely between the first iteration of Microsoft Word in 1983 and Windows 95, Halt and Catch Fire kept its focus squarely on the haze of an emerging field, without any of the fist-pumping moments that might have come from a show focusing on the rise of Google or Facebook. The characters never achieved lasting success or transformation, perpetually stymied by the major players in a nascent and clunking industry. Instead, they faced an endless, thankless series of intractable workplace decisions about integrity, product quality and business logistics.

These seemingly pedestrian moments dominate the show’s central relationship between Donna Clark (Kerry Bishé) and Cameron Howe (Mackenzie Davis), two women who attempt to found a tech company and spend the next few years discovering what they’re willing to sacrifice in the effort. Eventually, it’s impossible for people this committed to their work to separate their personal values and their professional ones, and while that conflict might sound cliche, in the hands of Halt and Catch Fire’s cast, it’s enthralling.

Over the course of the series, the characters’ business interests range from building personal computers at Dell competitor Cardiff Electric to videogames, web-based chat, and e-commerce at Cameron and Donna’s startup Mutiny to antivirus software at MacMillan Utility to, finally, early search engines at Comet and Rover. (All of these companies are fictional and, with the exception of Cardiff, are founded by the characters themselves.) Halt and Catch Fire’s cast is full of classic Silicon Valley résumé – they’re perpetually successful enough to keep working, and to live more or less comfortably while pursuing other ventures, but they never quite strike it big, whether that’s because of conflicts between the partners, technological limitation, or, most often, the presence of an enormous corporation capable of choking the market.

Every major character on the series contains multitudes. Donna is a hard-assed businesswoman, but she’s also a practically minded, savvy person who wants to do her best to create a thriving company with an innovative product. Cameron’s myopia is frustrating, but it’s part of why she’s such a successful coder. Steve Jobs-style visionary Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace) is also, to varying degrees, a charlatan, and tinkering softie Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy) becomes irritable when he has to leave his comfort zone.

Those relationships contained a staggering number of stories. In just the fourth season alone, Halt and Catch Fire handled a teen coming-out story, the fallout from a divorce, a marriage, several mid-life crises, and a sudden, heart-rending death. But none of these stories are the defining features of the characters; they’re simply facets of their lives. Where another drama might end with the consummation of a romantic pairing, or the strengthening of a family, Halt and Catch Fire ends with Donna having an idea, and pitching it to Cameron. We don’t hear the idea, but that’s not important – the point is beginning the cycle anew.

In this respect, it’s similar to the Mad Men finale – but where Mad Men is ambivalent, at best, toward the bolt of inspiration that leads Don Draper to create the “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” ad, Halt and Catch Fire maintains a single commitment: ideas are what we have. That’s why the show could never have become a smash hit, why it got renewed by the skin of its teeth, and why it’s highly unlikely it will ever be brought back by an ambitious investor. With so many self-consciously explosive series vying for your attention, Halt and Catch Fire played a different game. It kept itself contained, forcing the audience to match its subdued, mesmerizing rhythm. Eventually, the audience and the characters learned the same lesson: sometimes, it’s worth putting in the work.

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So yeah, I am somebody’s mother. And you could use one right now because, frankly, you’re a mess.

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hey there!!! im @lost-inanotherlife , this is my main! saw you like "halt and catch fire"!! i've started it but, like, i've only seen 2 episodes so i'm def not an expert lol but i think i'll continye watching bc it's kinda cool? anyway, glad to find someone else who's watched it! it seems like the perfect tumblr show and yet there's not much on here abt it!

also: jack shephard forever! he never died in our hearts&minds!

hiiiii thanks for droppin the message ☺️

ooooooh, halt and catch fire is definitely amazing. you as the character analysis royalty will have a field day getting to know these characters i think ! although yea the fandom isn't really big so it's not that active on tumblr.

@haltandcatchfiretothemax should be s/o'd because it's still active and really delves into the canon and headcanon queerness of the whole show.

curious to get your takes as you go along, and happy to be able to put light on this wonderful show 💓

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Cam and Donna + wlwyearnbot tweets

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In which Cameron and Donna sit with things

After she saw off the last of their esteemed guests, Donna locked the front door, and she returned to the kitchen to begin cleaning up after her and Cameron’s annual after-pride pool party. Cameron, though, who had once confided to Donna that being in their kitchen together was her favorite part of any party they hosted, wasn’t there. Donna frowned, and then went into the dining room.

She looked out the floor-to-ceiling window, and saw Cameron, sitting on the edge of the pool. Her back to the house, she was sitting with her long legs crossed underneath her, seemingly gazing out onto the water. Donna thought that she could see Cameron’s shoulders sagging in the dark.

Taking a deep breath, Donna resolutely went toward the dining room door, pushed it open, and stepped outside, closing the door behind her. The motion sensor light Cameron had installed came on, and as Donna walked toward the pool, Cameron turned to look at her. She smiled glumly.

Donna slid her hands into the pockets of her denim shorts, and without preamble, asked, “You okay?”

Cameron sighed, and said, “No.” Voice barely above a whisper, she said, “I’m scared.”

Donna sat down next to Cameron, her knee brushing gently against Cameron’s as she crossed her legs. “Well, that makes sense, as we are living in scary times.”

It was quiet for a minute, and then Cameron said, “We’re lucky. Really lucky. I get that. We’re very fortunate. Our friends are mostly very fortunate. And that means that we’re not in, like, the most immediate danger.” She paused, and breathed out a huffy, agitated little sigh. “That doesn’t insulate you from everything, though. After a certain point, luck runs out.”

Donna looked over at Cameron, who was still staring out at the water, eye brows scrunched with distress, hands curled into fists in her lap, and wished that she could argue with her.

Before she could respond, Cameron quickly said, “Not that I didn’t have a great time at the party. I promise that I was having fun, while everyone was still here and I was distracted from my anxiety. You’re a great hostess, boss.”

Donna grinned at her, and leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Couldn’t have done it without you, kid.” Then, seriously, though they’d had this discussion before, Donna asked, “Do you wanna leave?”

Cameron scowled. “Are you kidding? Of course I wanna leave. Except that no, actually, I don’t want to leave, at all. I don’t wanna leave our home. I don’t think I could leave the girls.” Cameron uncrossed her legs, and folded them in toward her. Hugging her knees to her chest, she said, “They need us. A lot of people we don’t know need us, or people like us, to stick around.”

Donna looked at her. She had, somehow, simply stopped worrying about the future after Cameron had decided to stay in California so they could work together again, and worrying about it now felt unfamiliar, even though it was warranted. Wondering what, exactly, was on Cameron’s mind, she asked, “What are you scared of? Anything in particular?”

Cameron looked at her, opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it. She looked back out at the pool, and after a moment, said, “Honestly, nothing I wanna say out loud, now that I’m thinking about it.” Then, quietly, as if mildly embarrassed, she grumbled, “It’s like that scene in Taxi Driver, where he says he’s got some bad ideas in his head.”

Donna reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind Cameron’s ear. “The price of having a dynamic and well-conditioned imagination.” Then, she asked, “Do you maybe wanna do those calming breathing exercises that Wanda the somatic practitioner taught us at the Phoenix Wellness Retreat?”

Cameron, whose face had broken out into a broad grin at the mention of Wanda and Phoenix, began to laugh at the memory of the retreat. With a snort, Cameron said, “I still can’t believe what a disaster that weekend turned out to be….”

“Yeah. It was great, though,” Donna smiled. “And,” she added, in the same soothing, unhurried voice that Wanda always used, “we all came out of it more mindful, more resilient, and more grounded….”

Cameron laughed again, louder and longer this time. Then, she said, “Okay.” She crossed her legs again, shrugged and rolled her shoulders, and then relaxed them. She sat up, closed her eyes, and began to breathe in deeply through her nose, and exhaled through her mouth.

Donna gazed at her for a moment, and then she too straightened her spine, dropped her shoulders, and closed her eyes. Syncing her breathing to Cameron’s, she took a deep breath.

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Gentle reminder that

Cameron Howe and Donna Emerson are happily married, and have a multigenerational circle of cherished queer friends in addition to their kids and grandchildren, and that they celebrate pride (and other stuff) together every year

They are okay, and you will be too, someday

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A small random AU. What if they had met at a student party…

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As always

I hope that Lee Pace is having a great and safe/r pride weekend with his loved ones and that guy who outed him is miserable and wracked with guilt and steps on ten legos a day

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I just want what’s best for Haley.

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john bosworth threw the first brick at stonewall

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Mutiny!

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Headcanon that at some point, Donna and Cameron, who are very involved in their local community, are asked to be co-grand marshals of the local Mountain View pride parade

Naturally, Donna is extremely excited about this, while Cameron grudgingly agrees to participate even though she'd rather spend pride weekend visiting the redwoods at their nearby state park for the nth time

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ok so on monday night i got drunk and msged kerry bishe on instagram telling her how much donna and cam’s relationship meant to me as a home of sexual and i asked her if she thought there was anything more between the two of them and this was her response 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

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When Pride month is half-over and you haven’t even been able to locate a worthy crush, much less a gf

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Cameron deciding, after many years of not really relating to 'pride' (she's still too angry about a lifetime of being made fun of for being 'different'), to hang a pair of large bisexual pride flags on either side of her airstream

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Toby Huss talks about Cameron/Bosworth’s relationship: I think with Cameron, however, his relationship is different. He’s very paternal towards her because—let’s face it—he’s been neglecting his own family while he’s been at work these last twenty years. He hasn’t been there for his son, he hasn’t been there for his wife and Cameron is with him all the time. So he feels really close and really paternal towards her. […] He sees a lot of himself in Cameron. She’s smart, and she’s a little reckless and she’s really forward thinking. That reminds Bosworth of how he used to think, before he became the sort of conservative Texas, tired old businessman. He remembers those days when he used to walk into a meeting and kick ass like Cameron does and he was technically as bright as Cameron, so he can appreciate that.[x]