Toby Huss

This is getting to be a frustrating pattern. Each time Halt and Catch Fire seems like it’s getting on the right track it airs an episode like ‘The 214s”, illuminating everything that’s ludicrous and boring and stupid about the show. The “Cameron and Bosworth hack a bank” plot is terrible for many reasons. First of all, none of it is shown onscreen. Maybe the writers think the surprise of watching the police raid Cardiff distracts viewers from questioning if any of it makes sense. Because it’s one thing for a cocky young hacker to want to impress her boss by doing something dumb. But it takes an incredible suspension of disbelief to buy that a businessman like John Bosworth, who has been shown as professional, relatively risk-averse, and not even really on board with the whole PC project, would jeopardize his entire career and company – not to mention his personal freedom – by robbing a bank.

Joe MacMillan has lots of secrets. Last week it was revealed that he disappeared after quitting IBM and wasn’t seen for over a year. This week scars are revealed, literal scars all over his torso, which are uncovered after Gordon tears off his shirt in the middle of a fistfight. While this revelation primarily calls into question Gordon’s unorthodox fighting technique, it also prompts Joe to improvise a story about how, as a nine-year-old, he was mercilessly bullied for being way too excited about Sputnik and was pushed/fell off a roof. Which gave him these scars. And made him miss the greatest football game of all time.