In my recap of the last episode, I wrote of how The Man in the High Castle often sagged most damagingly in the Juliana and Joe subplot and how that arc needed something drastic to happen to inject some life into it. Well, this episode finally came through, as The Man in the High Castle reached the midway point of the season with the brutal death of Joe Blake. The man who was torn between the Resistance and the Nazis chose the wrong side, trying to violently convince Juliana to join the Reich. Not only was she not about to lead him to Tagomi, but she finally knew that Joe Blake had to go. With his hands around his bleeding throat, Juliana watched the life leave Joe’s eyes. What does this mean for the endgame of this season? (Other then we won’t have to suffer through a love triangle with Wyatt, Juliana, and Joe. Thank God.) It will be interesting to find out.
“The New Colossus†was stronger than an average episode of High Castle before its momentous ending. It had themes! (It helps to have a writer like Wesley Strick helming the script.) This episode was about atonement and liability. For the former, both Frank and Joe sought atonement for their past sins and crimes. Frank is doing so within his Jewish community in the Neutral Zone, preparing for his Bar Mitzvah. Joe thought he could power his way to atonement, serving as the Reich’s assassin and forcefully bring Juliana back into his life as a way to repair his broken existence. And almost every arc featured liabilities in this episode. Frank is one for his community; Juliana was one for Joe, and vice versa; Helen is one for John Smith; Nicole and Thelma’s sexuality will be one for them; and George Lincoln Rockwell learned that trusting J. Edgar Hoover was his biggest liability, but too late to do anything about it.
Let’s start there as a subplot that felt like it could stretch all season had some notable developments. George Lincoln Rockwell and J. Edgar Hoover moved into their end game and accused John Smith of treason. After Edgar burst into the Smith home and matched a missing button found at Alice Adler’s home to Helen Smith’s jacket, they felt like they had all the evidence, also throwing forward the revelation that John Smith planned to spirit his son away to another country instead of having him killed for illness. Rockwell laid it all out in front of Himmler and Smith, only for Hoover to stab him in the back. A quick flashback revealed that John Smith dropped a file on Hoover’s desk just before the meeting. Two can play at that game, and it’s easy to imagine what John Smith may have been able to dig up on J. Edgar Hoover. Whatever he found, Hoover sold out Rockwell, who ended up nearly having what the Yale kids call a Devil’s Triangle in Havana before getting a knife through his rib cage. Now, John Smith has a loyal servant in Hoover, but Himmler still makes clear that Helen Smith is a liability that needs to be managed.
As if that isn’t stressful enough for John Smith, he also attends the strangest presentation imaginable, one in which Nicole Dormer and her crew of Nazi Mad Men propose destroying the Statue of Liberty and replacing it with something called “The New Colossus,†a massive monument to Thomas Smith in New York Harbor. It looks horrifying, but The Man in the High Castle is often at its most interesting when it’s this ambitious, suggesting a world that is so drastically different that the Reich wants to blow up one of America’s most enduring symbols. It’s worth noting that Nicole seems to be on top of the world right now, getting positive responses from Himmler and company on her film work and starting a relationship with Thelma Harris. There’s no way that ends well.
Meanwhile, Ed and Robert are still stranded in the middle of nowhere after marauders stole their truck last episode. Ed convinces Robert to come back to Denver with him, showing him that he held on to the John Wayne belt buckle that they bought last episode. It will be interesting to see how they incorporate these two back into the narrative if they never leave the Neutral Zone.
Same goes for Frank Frink, who almost looks like he’s going to leave his community and return to the Japanese Pacific States, but he’s convinced to stay by his buddy Sampson and a vote from his neighbors that makes it clear they’re willing to protect him.
Finally, there’s the scene. After spending all of last season apart, Juliana Crain and Joe Blake were reunited this year but too much had happened to both of them for it to work. Sure, there was more intense sexual chemistry than ever, but Juliana likely heard Tagomi’s voice in her head, encouraging her to distrust the Nazi who came out of the cold. Joe wasn’t very good at hiding his violent, ulterior motives from Juliana, even allowing her to find his secret files while he “took a shower.†Just as she put them away, he emerged from the bathroom, gun in his hand, aggressively pointing it at her head. Did he think he could use violence to keep Juliana in his life? Perhaps he didn’t realize how independent she had become since he left her. He orders her to take him to Tagomi and then to the High Castle, and she responds by going into the bathroom and finding something with which to cut Joe Blake’s throat. Goodbye Joe.
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• What dirt could John Smith have on J. Edgar Hoover? Here’s a good place to start.
• It’s interesting that the writers chose Havana as the place for George Lincoln Rockwell to be executed. It brought to mind this revelation from earlier this decade. While we’re on the subject, Rockwell gets dragged out of Himmler’s office and makes it all the way to Cuba before John Smith gets home that night to see the story on the news. That was some hinky editing in an otherwise strong episode.
• It was nice to hear Sampson discuss the etymology of the word “Sabra,†which is the current word for an Israeli-born Jew, but, of course, likely has very different meaning in a reality in which the Germans won World War II. On the show, the Jews of the Neutral Zone have kind of created their own Israel, a place for them to be safe and continue their traditions.
• Speaking of Sampson, allow a moment to praise the consistent character work of the actor who plays him, Michael Gaston, a veteran who often plays authority figures and always delivers. He was also a regular on Unforgettable, Jericho, and The Leftovers. You can also currently see him in one of Netflix’s most recent films, The Land of Steady Habits, and on Amazon’s Jack Ryan. He’s kind of everywhere lately and that’s a good thing.