S03.E08: You Are Not Safe

[Tara Ariano]

Quote

Donna, Boz and Diane go on the road to build support for Mutiny. Meanwhile, everyone else anxiously awaits the big day; and Joe asks Cam for a favor.

[ketose]

Wow, that Donna story line really set the show on fire. It's a good thing Cameron is right yet again, even though none of her actions would actually indicate she knew anything. It's too bad Cam isn't going to Japan. You know this season ends with Tom all alone and her on another walkabout to nowhere.

Joe as a human being. I'm scared.

Ah, Ryan, we hardly noticed you. I hope he didn't break anyone's valuable stuff on the way down.

[minamurray78]

Well, that was a bit... much.

I never really got Ryan, the character didn't feel rounded to me, so the suicide looks more like plot contrivance.

Didn't get to see any scenes from next week, but it's a double ep season finale, which is good if Ryan's death is meant to play a part in whatever outcome. Any residual shock would be dilluted by two weeks time.

[SonofaBiscuit]

Oh man, poor Tom.  I like the guy, but I just know that Cameron's going to destroy him next week by 1.) refusing to go to Tokyo with him and/or leaving him OR 2.) cheating on him with Joe.  I swear, each Cameron/Joe scene is so tense, and every time they speak, I expect one of them to pounce on the other.  Joe, in particular, doesn't seem to be over Cameron, based on the way he's always creeping up into her personal space.

Gordon has been pretty great this season...I'm afraid he's going to die.  I haven't always enjoyed him, but this season he's been a good dad to his girls and a good friend to Cameron.  I hope they aren't redeeming the character before killing him off :(  

I wonder if Cameron is going to go and work with Gordon (or Gordon/Joe) on this NSFNET business.  It would be kind of neat to circle around to that season 1 trio again, but only if we would continue to see Donna and Bos every week as well.    

[dubbel zout]

51 minutes ago, SonofaBiscuit said:

I wonder if Cameron is going to go and work with Gordon (or Gordon/Joe) on this NSFNET business.

I wondered this, too. I think it will happen, as I can't imagine they'll send Cam off the Japan. Or if they do, it won't be for long. 

I loved Joe trying to force Gordon to spell out exactly what he was he was asking about him and Ryan, i.e., if they'd slept together. Gordon's waggling eyebrows were hilarious.

Not that it really matters, but where was the fancy hotel Donna and Diane were in when Mutiny went public?

Ryan ended up being a big waste of time. Thanks, Show.

[AllyB]

I half thought Cameron was going to go to the store for peanut butter and Oreos and that Tom would be lucky if she called him to say sorry but she's not going to Japan. Ryan's end was boring and predictable and the whole story felt pointless. The only part I enjoyed was Joe and Gordon's discussion about whether or not Joe and Ryan were ever... you know. I enjoyed how Joe handled it. At the end I couldn't help thinking how amazing it was that Ryan managed to say so much in just two short paragraphs.

But most annoyingly, why was the IPO such a bust and how come Diane and Bos never saw it coming? It just felt like plot contrivance to prove Cameron right and Donna (and everyone else) wrong when in the real world the opposite would be more likely true. I'd really enjoyed this season far more than season 2 but this week's episode was such a bust and it's leaving me to feel that instead of any real growth from Cameron where she realises that her way of doing business is pathetic despite of her genius. She will just be justified in her immature behaviour. So disappointing. 

[dubbel zout]

4 minutes ago, AllyB said:

why was the IPO such a bust

I wondered if the emphasis on the company being run by women was part of it. The TV interviewer completely belittled Donna—Donna was going too deep into the technology for the spot, but still—and made Mutiny sound like some fluffy shoe-shopping portal. And maybe they're trying to show that what Mutiny wants to do is a little too ahead of its time?

[mjc570]

Very disappointing.  I hope they explore why the IPO was such a  bust, whether it was due to sexism or some kind of technology concern.   Come on, Diane, you should be able to help here.

I have to admit that I was relieved that we don't have to spend any more time on that walking plot device, Ryan.  Actually, rather than a plot device, I just saw him as a symbol of the writers' laziness.  It really wouldn't have taken much effort to have made him a real, actual character.  Speaking of Ryan - to me the best part of the show was Joe forcing Gordon to be more explicit about asking about the Joe/Ryan relationship.  I wish they had had a physical relationship, it would have made things much more interesting, and could  possibly have led to some sweet Lee Pace nudity.  He is such a handsome man - practically the only one on the show.

So, Saint Gordon is really becoming perfect.  I guess impending death (although apparently sympton-less in this episode) has been good for him.

Much as I've liked this show from the beginning, I am starting to lose interest.  There better be some major action, both plot and character-wise (I'm looking at you, Cameron!) next week.

[orza]

5 hours ago, AllyB said:

But most annoyingly, why was the IPO such a bust and how come Diane and Bos never saw it coming?

I think it was partly because in 1986 a female-led company was not so accepted. Donna was trying too hard to compensate for that and ended up being off-putting. Diane was trying to coach her but Donna seemed not very receptive. Her look was also a bit off for what she was representing. It said more cosmetics rep than technology manager, what with the big hair and makeup.

Mutiny only supported the Commodore 64 platform. Without at least basic support for the PC platform, or at least emphasizing in their prospectus that this was the highest priority next step for them, the company looked like it was just occupying a market niche and thus was not so interesting for a lot of investors. Donna was pretty adamant about not wanting to embark on a major change in direction at that time. Boz and Diane seemed worn out from arguing with Donna.

Edited October 5, 2016 by orza

[mjc570]

Orza:  You make very good points about the IPO.  I thought Donna's look was very Texas, not Silicon Valley.

[orza]

25 minutes ago, mjc570 said:

Orza:  You make very good points about the IPO.  I thought Donna's look was very Texas, not Silicon Valley.

Yes, Texas big hair!

[AllyB]

Quote

The TV interviewer completely belittled Donna—Donna was going too deep into the technology for the spot, but still—and made Mutiny sound like some fluffy shoe-shopping portal. 

I'm have some questions about this part. In order for the interview to have effected the IPO, presumably Donna was on a business spot on a news programme/channel. Back in the 80s would a news programme have been so dumbed down? Donna didn't get especially technical, she just mentioned a modem and would likely have gone on to say that connects to your phone line and allows computers to 'talk' to each other. That's not especially technical or boring. I remember first seeing this done (on the movie War Games) and I found it intriguing and exciting.

And we're still a few months off the start on Married With Children. Selling women's shoes doesn't have quite the taint just yet. :)

Actually I forgot one other thing I did quite enjoy about this episode. The dates coming up on screen meant that during some of the scenes I could remember exactly what I was doing at that exact point in time! I was also a witch that year but my costume was about on a par with the ALF kid's. And in Ireland trick or treaters only ever got fruit and nuts back then, maybe some cash from houses that had run out of fruit if you were lucky, and we never went out in the day light.

[ketose]

8 minutes ago, AllyB said:

I'm have some questions about this part. In order for the interview to have effected the IPO, presumably Donna was on a business spot on a news programme/channel. Back in the 80s would a news programme have been so dumbed down? Donna didn't get especially technical, she just mentioned a modem and would likely have gone on to say that connects to your phone line and allows computers to 'talk' to each other. That's not especially technical or boring. I remember first seeing this done (on the movie War Games) and I found it intriguing and exciting.

And we're still a few months off the start on Married With Children. Selling women's shoes doesn't have quite the taint just yet. :)

Actually I forgot one other thing I did quite enjoy about this episode. The dates coming up on screen meant that during some of the scenes I could remember exactly what I was doing at that exact point in time! I was also a witch that year but my costume was about on a par with the ALF kid's. And in Ireland trick or treaters only ever got fruit and nuts back then, maybe some cash from houses that had run out of fruit if you were lucky, and we never went out in the day light.

Daylight Trick or Treating seems a little off. That kind of coddling is more of a 90's thing.

[scowl]

5 hours ago, mjc570 said:

I have to admit that I was relieved that we don't have to spend any more time on that walking plot device, Ryan.  Actually, rather than a plot device, I just saw him as a symbol of the writers' laziness.  It really wouldn't have taken much effort to have made him a real, actual character. 

I could see they were going to do something terrible with the character from his first scene. Hey, why not suicide? We already have two characters dying from diseases. 

[tennisgurl]

Well Ryan, you...existed. I have no idea why you were here, or why everyone talked about you all the time, but at least you had a decent voice over before you went bye bye. 

So the IPO was a bust? This show is starting to remind me a bit of Silicon Valley played for drama, where the characters work like crazy to get their programs moving and picked up, only to see it crash and burn because no one understands how great the program is. I mean, I think thats whats supposed to be going on here, maybe its something else. Sexism? Donna not being able to sell the business as well as she could? I have no clue. 

So does this mean...Cameron was right? Or would this have happened no matter what? And poor Tom is going to end up standing alone in front of an airport, waiting for Cam. Cam is way too flaky to run off to another country with her husband, especially a country where she might not be the best programmer in the room. 

I have liked this season, but I am still not sure where its all going. 

[ketose]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

Well Ryan, you...existed. I have no idea why you were here, or why everyone talked about you all the time, but at least you had a decent voice over before you went bye bye. 

Apparently, he picked up Joe's gift for prognostication because Ryan's speech was basically about social media and cyber-bullying more than a decade before it existed.

[MissScarlett]

I really hope that the fact that the stock opened at 6 and then continued to fall isn't going to turn into a situation where Donna is wrong and Cameron was right. I think Cameron is very short-sighted and her "genius" will fade if she doesn't open herself up to change, innovation and ideas from other talent. She lacks maturity and insight. 

I also think that while Donna made the most sense with her case in wanting to go public, neither Donna or Cam really looked at the big picture. It was 1986 and though the market had started to awaken to the idea of being online with video games -- it was still very much in an embryonic stage. Still too young to have something like the idea of online shopping take off in a serious way. Donna's interview definitely didn't help as that stupid reporter managed to trivialize the whole thing.

I liked Ryan initially. He reminded me of a Joe, Gordon and Cam hybrid. I had hoped that he would be the catalyst to bring them all back together as the newest genius. Though, i'm not surprised that his storyline ended the way it did. I felt like they had been teasing a "jump from the balcony" moment all season anyway.

This is the first season that I actually like Gordon.  Bos' talents are being wasted.

[scrb]

Reason why the IPO was a bust is that if they got rich, that would mean Mutiny is AOL, eBay, Amazon and the whole WWW about 10 years before these things hit big.  Plus if they got rich, some of the characters probably would have cashed out so it would no longer be a show about striving to "change the world" with technology.

Yes a total contrivance.

So was Ryan, a ridiculous character.  Sure there were people with messianic complexes in tech but they didn't act so irrationally and impulsively.  Well they did but there were enough sane people around them or they regained their senses and walked off the metaphorical ledge.

His suicide note/manifesto said security is a myth yet he was a true believer about what would become the Internet, the main conveyance for assaulting computer security.  He couldn't stand the prospect of 10 years in jail or 5 years without computers so he offed himself?  They never showed him with his family or show why he'd be so emotionally rigid.  He wasn't in the plans for season 4 ...

[brilliantbreakfast]

On 10/5/2016 at 0:48 AM, minamurray78 said:

Well, that was a bit... much.

I never really got Ryan, the character didn't feel rounded to me, so the suicide looks more like plot contrivance.

Didn't get to see any scenes from next week, but it's a double ep season finale, which is good if Ryan's death is meant to play a part in whatever outcome. Any residual shock would be dilluted by two weeks time.

Did anyone else get a bit of an Edward Snowden vibe from the whole Ryan thing?  I saw "Snowden" last week, and I could swear I heard Joseph Gordon-Levitt's impersonation of Snowden's speech patterns in Ryan's speech.  Of course Ryan didn't reveal government secrets, but it seems that his character is heavily based on Ed Snowden.

[qtpye]

I really hope this show get a fourth season, particularly now that they are utilizing Lee Pace and not just writing him like a cartoon.

I think Donna is just gorgeous, but it was so cool how she did not look great in her t.v. interview.  They plastered on the eighties make up and big hair, which we all know Donna does not need to look beautiful.  This was a really nice subtle touch that was quite effective way for the audience to start thinking things just did not feel right with the IPO.

People have talked about how Donna to Cameron was like Joe to Gordon.  The visionary creating a structured world for the genius.  The one thing that Joe has that Donna lacks, is that he is a natural salesman.  I just realized Dona really does not know how to sell her company.  Boz even said that Donna's performance to a room full of small investors was "underwhelming".

Do you guys remember when Cam decorated their booth for Comdex?  She splattered paint and then put chains on a brief case and wrote come to the suite if you want to know what is inside.  At the time, I just rolled my eyes at Cam's punk rockness, but lord Donna really could have used some of that edge to make her company sound more exciting.

Also, don't underwriters and the company agree to a set price when the stock first appears on the market?  Why the heck did Diane and Boz think it was going to open at 15?

Edited October 7, 2016 by qtpye

[dmc]

I totally see Cameron as a sort of Steve Jobs character and Donna is being portrayed as a sort of Skully character (the one that fired Jobs from his own company).  Theoretically a business needs both people: both the creative and business end to make a company work.  But frequently the business side sees themselves as more of asset than the idea side.  The thing is the world is full of Donnas.  Her job is a job that a lot people can do.  Camerons are more rare.  The way Cameron is described is the way most people with that kind of genius are described: self centered, egotistical, etc.  Cameron is going to build something else that will be just as or more successful than this project.  

[AllyB]

But Donna isn't just a business person. Donna is a genius hardware engineer, just like Gordon. Many of the innovations they used to create the Giant came from Donna. She also recovered all of Cameron's code when Joe let everyone think she destroyed it. She kept Mutiny working all through series two, not just with her money and business acumen but by literally keeping their machines functioning. She brought Gordon in to do one of her jobs at Mutiny so she could focus on the business side as the company expanded. She also has a background in coding but she recognised early that her talents are in hardware. Donna is every bit the genius that Cameron is, she just isn't nearly as full of her own self-importance.

I'm not even that convinced of Cameron's genius. Obviously she writes amazing code. But none of her ideas are that great. The user interface she created for the giant was terrible. She essentially improved the interface that was already starting to evolve on kid's toy computers, like the Discovery System. She needs someone else to come up with the ideas and her to write the code that makes it happen.

[qtpye]

5 hours ago, dmc said:

I totally see Cameron as a sort of Steve Jobs character and Donna is being portrayed as a sort of Skully character (the one that fired Jobs from his own company).  Theoretically a business needs both people: both the creative and business end to make a company work.  But frequently the business side sees themselves as more of asset than the idea side.  The thing is the world is full of Donnas.  Her job is a job that a lot people can do.  Camerons are more rare.  The way Cameron is described is the way most people with that kind of genius are described: self centered, egotistical, etc.  Cameron is going to build something else that will be just as or more successful than this project.  

 

2 hours ago, AllyB said:

But Donna isn't just a business person. Donna is a genius hardware engineer, just like Gordon. Many of the innovations they used to create the Giant came from Donna. She also recovered all of Cameron's code when Joe let everyone think she destroyed it. She kept Mutiny working all through series two, not just with her money and business acumen but by literally keeping their machines functioning. She brought Gordon in to do one of her jobs at Mutiny so she could focus on the business side as the company expanded. She also has a background in coding but she recognised early that her talents are in hardware. Donna is every bit the genius that Cameron is, she just isn't nearly as full of her own self-importance.

I'm not even that convinced of Cameron's genius. Obviously she writes amazing code. But none of her ideas are that great. The user interface she created for the giant was terrible. She essentially improved the interface that was already starting to evolve on kid's toy computers, like the Discovery System. She needs someone else to come up with the ideas and her to write the code that makes it happen.

I don't know if anyone here marathoned through the first two seasons, but it is totally worth it to see how the series has evolved.

In the first season Cam is the genius punk ingenue, plucked right out of her college classes by Joe.  Donna is seen to be every bit as fantastic at hardware as her husband.  You certainly get the sense that Donna is much smarter then her boss, Hunt.

However, Donna does not rise in her company because she is kept down as a woman and by the fact that Gordon is useless at home.  Before Joe, Gordon is a drunk that keeps getting arrested.  After Joe, Gordon is so caught up in his process that he injures himself and literally digs a hole in the back yard, when he is supposed to be taking care of the girls.  Of course, later we can attribute these problems to his neurological disorder.

However, we all know Donna is a very good engineer.

In the second season, Donna is the only thing that is keeping Mutiny on track.  For all her genius coding, Cam has not put out very good games.  Mutiny's one good game, Parralax, is a total bore by chapter 13.  The rest of the games are a joke and not worth Mutiny's subscription fee.  It is Donna who sees the real potential is community and this ultimately saves the company.

In the third season, Cam is handling the coding for community and Gordon is handling the hardware.  Donna now seems like a very capable office manager.  It is easy to forget that Donna contributed to the tech of the Giant and Mutiny in a very meaningful way.

[Hanahope]

I think Donna forgot all the problems she and Cameron encountered when they were looking for venture funding because they ended up with a female venture capitalist.  They forgot that they had to wade through all the men and their discrimination before they found the one woman who would take them seriously.  They forgot that the vast majority of stock buyers are going to be those same men.  If Donna had remembered all that, she should have realized that yes, while she's the CEO of the company, she has not had any luck at all in selling the company's idea to men.  Its unfortunate, but very true at the time.  

At the least, she should have done the interviews/presentations with Boz, introducing him as CFO or whatever, something so that the men who might be interested in buying the stock, would see a male face as well and feel more comforted by the fact that there's a man "helping" out the ladies.  Especially when she has to disclose that the founder of Mutiny, another woman, left - because that's what men think women do - they work for a bit, then leave to have kids or be with their families and don't take the business seriously - so why would they want to invest in a company run by a woman who's probably only doing it for a 'hobby' and is likely to quit at a moment's notice.

[attica]

Even at a disappointing opening price, it's still incoming capital. Plus, a lower opening price could be viewed by buyers as a purchase lure, driving up over time.  Could, but won't, because the show requires Mutiny to be young, scrappy, and hungry, as @scrb says above.

Tom, in Japan: "Yeah, my wife went out for a packet of cigarettes..."

It's a good thing Lee Pace is pretty, because the camera likes to linger on his face waaaay more than dramatically required.

[qtpye]

1 hour ago, Hanahope said:

I think Donna forgot all the problems she and Cameron encountered when they were looking for venture funding because they ended up with a female venture capitalist.  They forgot that they had to wade through all the men and their discrimination before they found the one woman who would take them seriously.  They forgot that the vast majority of stock buyers are going to be those same men.  If Donna had remembered all that, she should have realized that yes, while she's the CEO of the company, she has not had any luck at all in selling the company's idea to men.  Its unfortunate, but very true at the time.  

At the least, she should have done the interviews/presentations with Boz, introducing him as CFO or whatever, something so that the men who might be interested in buying the stock, would see a male face as well and feel more comforted by the fact that there's a man "helping" out the ladies.  Especially when she has to disclose that the founder of Mutiny, another woman, left - because that's what men think women do - they work for a bit, then leave to have kids or be with their families and don't take the business seriously - so why would they want to invest in a company run by a woman who's probably only doing it for a 'hobby' and is likely to quit at a moment's notice.

 

I hate to say this, but you are absolutely right.  I remember women were being told that too be taken seriously, they had to have no feminine qualities what so ever (think of Lilith Crane in Cheers).

I remember the asshole who thought Cam and Donna were going to engage in a mena ga tois for VC money, because Donna was wearing a bold lipstick.

Boz should have been the one to pitch the idea.  Not only is he a man, but he is also a great salesman.  He would have had that vapid news lady eating out of his hand..."Sure, darlin, we gotta make sure you have shoes for those pretty feet..."

Quote

Tom, in Japan: "Yeah, my wife went out for a packet of cigarettes..."

I am going to spoiler tag this because I have no idea how valid my source is...

Spoiler

It seems like the finale does a time jump to the Comdex of 1987.  This might mean that Cam does accompany Tom to Japan and perhaps has some Japanese backers for a new company or game.  I hope Mutiny is alive and strong and that Cam and Tom are not divorced.

Edited October 7, 2016 by qtpye

[dubbel zout]

1 hour ago, Hanahope said:

I think Donna forgot all the problems she and Cameron encountered when they were looking for venture funding because they ended up with a female venture capitalist.

I don't think Donna forgot the problems as much as she thought having Diane, an established VC, in her corner would override things. I think people are being a bit too hard on Donna's selling skills; she's still learning how. She's not a natural, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. She needs practice, which is what she's getting by going around the country with Diane. 

Bos isn't the face of the company because it's not his company. He owns a piece of it, yes, but Donna and Cam are the ones who know the ins and outs. It makes sense to me that Donna is the spokesperson. I'm not sure Bos would have necessarily made a pitch that got them a better starting price. I'm not denying the sexism and misogyny Donna faced, but it's not as if Bos would have hidden the fact that two women started the company.

12 hours ago, qtpye said:

Also, don't underwriters and the company agree to a set price when the stock first appears on the market? Why the heck did Diane and Boz think it was going to open at 15?

I think you do set a price, but that doesn't mean anyone will buy it at that. Isn't the price we were seeing what people were offering?

[Hanahope]

30 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

I don't think Donna forgot the problems as much as she thought having Diane, an established VC, in her corner would override things. I think people are being a bit too hard on Donna's selling skills; she's still learning how. She's not a natural, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. She needs practice, which is what she's getting by going around the country with Diane. 

Didn't someone say in the show that Diane had "inherited" the business from her husband?  I don't think its been established that Diane is a major VC, certainly she was one of the last, if not the last, that Donna and Cam went to, and they said something about now having to go to 'small' firms because they'd been rejected everywhere else.  So I'm not convinced that even with Diane, that demonstrates enough "strength" to overcome the woman-bias that I think was part of the IPO price.  And certainly Donna didn't do all that well on the interview, and notice she was paired up with a bit of a ditzy blonde who didn't even know what a modem was.  The television channel made that decision, almost certainly, because Donna was a woman.  Had she been a man, she would have gotten a more serious interviewer.

[qtpye]

53 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

I think you do set a price, but that doesn't mean anyone will buy it at that. Isn't the price we were seeing what people were offering?

I was asking because the opening price was 8 and that is almost half of what they were expecting.  Of course, it went down rapidly after that, because no one was buying.

I hope Donna can get over this setback and lead Mutiny to glory.  There is no reason the company can still not be a success.

[ahpny]

Quote

I loved Joe trying to force Gordon to spell out exactly what he was he was asking about him and Ryan, i.e., if they'd slept together. Gordon's waggling eyebrows were hilarious.

That scene worked well because it played on Gordon's "polite" acceptance, but awkwardness in having to say it out loud. Joe insistence seemed to be testing how accepting you really are if you have that much trouble saying it. But that exchange also seemed to suggest there might have been some missing foundation or exposition of why Ryan jumped. It's easy to imagine alternate or more detailed story boards that had Ryan feeling sexually rejected by Joe in addition to professionally rejected, and that that type of rejection could provide a more understandable, though still sad and regrettable, reason for him to do what he did. Joe said he had no such feelings for Ryan, but recall a few episodes back Ryan's inscrutable look as some young guy left Joe's apartment just as Ryan arrived. Nevertheless, as we saw, Ryan remains an asexual cypher that seemed more upset about the prospect of never working with Joe again than with spending a relatively shortly time in jail. Ryan's professional interest to Joe and his business plans doesn't offer much of an explanation for Ryan's decision.

[jamblastx]

On ‎10‎/‎5‎/‎2016 at 7:24 PM, ketose said:

Apparently, he picked up Joe's gift for prognostication because Ryan's speech was basically about social media and cyber-bullying more than a decade before it existed.

Yep, and I HATE when these otherwise excellent period piece shows/movies inject 'today's' issues/values back in time when they would have made zero sense in the reality of the past. 

The whole Ryan suicide was in fact very lazy and made no sense to me as far as the character is concerned.  The evening before, a year in jail and five years of not being able to use a computer (that in reality is connected online and most people back then were using only local computers) was too long, yet an eternity of not being able to is a better solution?  At that point, why not take Joe up on the offer for $50K and run away...in those days he probably could have been set up with a false identity quite easily and just slipped away.

As far as the IPO is concerned, I just think it was way too much before its time.  Back in 1986, I was 21 years old and had a Commodore 64 but I wasn't online...it wasn't even a thing really.  Much more fun playing games off of floppy disks since they would have been much more complex than anything offered through a dial up modem back then. 

[scrb]

If the IPO succeeded, the feel of the show would change.  Certainly there wouldn't be this idealistic pursuit of changing the world.

And certain characters could cash out with the kind of money they were talking about.

Obviously these characters will not become a part of some huge tech success.  They are seen as should-have/would-have people who had some visions which would turn out to be big deals.  But ultimately their arc is not to be a part of such history-making success.

[AllyB]

20 hours ago, qtpye said:

I don't know if anyone here marathoned through the first two seasons, but it is totally worth it to see how the series has evolved.

I watched the first episode when the series started and hated it so I stopped watching. A huge part of why I hated it was Donna. She seemed like a cliche of the nagging wife who doesn't automatically row in behind her husband's shot at greatness instead favouring security and stability for her children and being unreasonably unhappy about all the extra stress and work her husband's genius puts her under. The unbelieving shrew! I started watching again over a year later because a few people told me that Donna was the best thing about the series and I was really curious to see how a character who seemed like she was being set up as a foil for her husband was turning out to be a fan favourite. So I marathoned the first series and part of the second.

And Donna's arc was one of the freshest I've seen. The show's explicit acknowledgement that her reservations were more than well founded. Yet her having the genius, skills and wherewithal to pull it all together and be instrumental in Gordon's success, even though she was also the weak link that their competitors were able to exploit for insider knowledge. It was great. Donna is great, she has multiple skill sets from computer engineering to keeping her family going in spite of her husband's weaknesses (which were later shown to be a result of his illness). But she's also flawed and makes multiple mistakes some of which she learns from, some of which repeats (as she has a history of enabling Gordon and then moved on to enabling Cameron). She's a rounded, interesting, very human character.

I wish the show was able to pull off the same depth for Cameron but she remains a petulant child and a total one trick pony who thinks she is so much more than she is. If she's grow up and cop on, she could be great. But so far the show has just allowed others to enable her so she never has to grow.

[ganesh]

So a fairly useless character who was largely there to facilitate plot is gone. Ok. I'm good. Were we supposed to be shocked or concerned? The show is Joe, Gordon, Donna, Cameron. With Boz. So whatever.

Edited October 9, 2016 by ganesh

[thuganomics85]

Finally saw this.  Yawn.  No surprise, Cameron is more or less vindicated by having the IPO be a bust, and Donna, Diane, Boz, etc. eat crow. It does seem it had more to do with sexism, as the news anchor really didn't see to show Donna any respect, and anytime Donna tried to be professional or explain how it works, the anchor was all "But you can buy shoes, right?!!"  But I would that thought Diane or someone would have been more prepared for that.  I get they couldn't succeed, since they aren't going to become AOL, Amazon, etc., but they could have done a better job at this.

Totally knew Ryan was going to take Option 3, instead of any of Joe's suggestions.  Whatever.  I'm not sure what the character brought to the show in the long run.  At least his death made Joe seem human for once.  Lee Pace is clearly talented, but he never really had that much to work with.

Tom gets a job in Tokyo, and Cameron says she is down with it, but is she now expressing doubts or something?

Show is starting to disappoint me, compared to last season.

[dmc]

On 10/7/2016 at 5:58 AM, AllyB said:

But Donna isn't just a business person. Donna is a genius hardware engineer, just like Gordon. Many of the innovations they used to create the Giant came from Donna. She also recovered all of Cameron's code when Joe let everyone think she destroyed it. She kept Mutiny working all through series two, not just with her money and business acumen but by literally keeping their machines functioning. She brought Gordon in to do one of her jobs at Mutiny so she could focus on the business side as the company expanded. She also has a background in coding but she recognised early that her talents are in hardware. Donna is every bit the genius that Cameron is, she just isn't nearly as full of her own self-importance.

I'm not even that convinced of Cameron's genius. Obviously she writes amazing code. But none of her ideas are that great. The user interface she created for the giant was terrible. She essentially improved the interface that was already starting to evolve on kid's toy computers, like the Discovery System. She needs someone else to come up with the ideas and her to write the code that makes it happen.

Agreed Donna can write code etc but her role has evolved to a business persona and Donna herself season 1 that she isn't what Cameron is in the episode where Cameron loses her code and Donna tries to replicate it.  

 

Writing code the way Cameron does is considered genius.  

Edited October 10, 2016 by dmc

[AllyB]

27 minutes ago, dmc said:

Agreed Donna can write code etc but her role has evolved to a business persona and Donna herself season 1 that she isn't what Cameron is in the episode where Cameron loses her code and Donna tries to replicate it.  

Writing code the way Cameron does is considered genius.  

Writing code isn't Donna's tech speciality, it's just something she learned in college but never pursued a career in because her talents were as a hardware engineer. She is the same speciality as Gordon, not Cameron. On a very simplistic level, she makes the machines work in ways that allow Cameron's code to work. Like how she came up with the idea of 'folding' the motherboard and building a layered array that let the Giant increase it's processing power while being smaller. That was what her job with Mutiny was meant to be but she had to take over the business end because Cameron would have run it into the ground if she didn't. Eventually Mutiny grew, so she made Gordon take over her original job as she needed to focus on growing the business.

[2AT]

On 10/7/2016 at 2:44 AM, dmc said:

I totally see Cameron as a sort of Steve Jobs character and Donna is being portrayed as a sort of Skully character (the one that fired Jobs from his own company).  Theoretically a business needs both people: both the creative and business end to make a company work.  But frequently the business side sees themselves as more of asset than the idea side.  The thing is the world is full of Donnas.  Her job is a job that a lot people can do.  Camerons are more rare.  The way Cameron is described is the way most people with that kind of genius are described: self centered, egotistical, etc.  Cameron is going to build something else that will be just as or more successful than this project.  

The world may be full of Donna's, but the highway of the business world is littered with Cameron roadkill.   I have personally witnessed some genius people fall by the wayside because they could not keep the lights on, so to speak.  The most famous example of this from history is Nicola Tesla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla.  

Along with hard work, you need genius and business sense, which could be one reason why the writers had the IPO fail.  It was the combination of Cameron (genius) and Donna (business sense) that made Mutiny a success, which could not be replicated by the business side of things (Donna, Bos, Diane) alone.  Now that I look back at it, they have been telegraphing that all season with everyone telling Donna and Cameron in all sorts of ways that they need each other.  It seems like Gordon finally understood this as well, and was willing to give Joe another go.  I think Gordon will end up working with Donna, who he recognizes to possess some of the same abilities as Joe.

Wow, bagpipes for Ryan.  To be honest, I felt more when Lev got gay bashed last season.  It seems like Ryan was written to be "spectrum-esque" (hope I am not offending anyone, I have family all over the spectrum) but he just came off as unlikable and never fully realized as a character. 

Edited October 11, 2016 by 2AT
It seems like...NOT I seems like..

[dubbel zout]

34 minutes ago, 2AT said:

 I seems like Ryan was written to be "spectrum-esque"

I didn't get that at all. My impression was Ryan was a brilliant nerd with the social unease that often goes along with that. Sometimes awkwardness is just that, nothing more. 

[ganesh]

I didn't get spectrum-esque either. Honestly, I didn't get anything. I have no idea what the point of Ryan was except to be in the room when Joe was talking so Joe didn't have to sit in the apartment talking to himself all the time before he finally got scenes with Gordon.

[2AT]

There will be a season 4!

http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/11/13241722/halt-and-catch-fire-fourth-season-amc-renewal

[magdalene]

2 hours ago, 2AT said:

There will be a season 4!

http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/11/13241722/halt-and-catch-fire-fourth-season-amc-renewal

AMC has been truly stand-up for this show. Four seasons with such miniscule ratings.

[dubbel zout]

Four seasons feels right. The show has been wildly uneven, but I hope the final season can wrap things up without blowing it.

[ganesh]

I was amazed we got this season.

[stillshimpy]

I came here to see if anyone had any great insights into why Ryan entered stage tedious and exited stage window.  I figured there would be some kind of behind-the-scenes story that would explain why we spent so much time with a character and didn't get to know him, at all, seemingly by the show's choice.  Muddy reaction shots all over the place, no easily discerned animating force or identity.  Just "brilliant coder" according to Cameron, some very vague suggestions that he might be mentally ill as he outlines some truly paranoid stuff in the episode before...and then he basically throws himself from the highest tower with little fanfare.  

Umm...okay?  

Honestly, it reminded me of a story Rob Lowe tells about The Lyon's Den in which ABC cared so little that when it was pitched to them that Rob Lowe's Social Justice Crusader lawyer is busted by Kyle Chandler's character as...I kid you not...a serial killer (yes, what? What the fuck was that?) ...Lowe's character pauses in eating a steak in front of him long enough to stab Chandler's character and throw him over the balcony, before sitting down to finish eating the steak. 

Although the development came out of absolutely fucking nowhere, apparently the suits were all, "That sounds great! Do that!"  knowing it would never even air outside of whatever tiny country was willing to air the 13th episode in a show that was clearly going to be canceled.  They just wanted to burn their episode order. 

But AMC renewed this series for a fourth season, so I'm afraid I'm just going to have to put down Ryan's entire characterization as a baffling writing decision.  Pity the damned season spent so much time with the character only to have him be so unimportant that his death isn't even about him.  

I really enjoy so much about this series and will doubtless end up buying the 4th season rather than waiting for it on Netflix but...what the fuck was that?  

I'm glad the cast is so banging good that they can distract from a writing decision that strange as a key plot element of the entire season.   They introduced a character with the depth and shading of a Dixie cup and then treated him as being just as disposable as one.  Okay then.  

[paramitch]

On 11/26/2017 at 0:41 PM, stillshimpy said:

I came here to see if anyone had any great insights into why Ryan entered stage tedious and exited stage window.  I figured there would be some kind of behind-the-scenes story that would explain why we spent so much time with a character and didn't get to know him, at all, seemingly by the show's choice.  Muddy reaction shots all over the place, no easily discerned animating force or identity.  Just "brilliant coder" according to Cameron, some very vague suggestions that he might be mentally ill as he outlines some truly paranoid stuff in the episode before...and then he basically throws himself from the highest tower with little fanfare.    

After watching this episode -- which I thought was actually pretty good -- I finally got what they were going for with Ryan, but think it failed mostly due to casting, but also due to writing.

When we first meet Ryan and he shows us how smart he is, I feel like there should have been more of a "Tom" vibe to him, that feeling that he was really gifted and brilliant and that even at Mutiny, he was viewed as special. Instead, he was just kind of depicted as this smart but slightly irritating antisocial guy.

When Ryan goes to Joe's presentation -- that's another moment that I felt was utterly mishandled. That's the BIG moment, when Ryan falls in love (whether literally or metaphorically), when his life is irrevocably changed. The actor just didn't give us that. I didn't even think he was genuinely impressed with Joe until he pursued the job with him. 

So anyway, not to microanalyze each moment, but Ryan's arc, on paper, to me at least made some sense. He was a guy who was brilliant and prescient and who was deeply inspired by what Joe was attempting to do. He gave his heart and soul to it... then died because he believed every single word Joe said at that first conference. 

I just think a different actor could have changed that entire storyline. The guy who played Ryan was really handsome, but as was pointed out before, I never knew exactly what he was supposed to be conveying. Those final few scenes between him and Cam and between him and Joe should have been heartbreaking. They weren't, quite. 

And writingwise, the big weirdness for me was the subtextual relationship between Ryan and Joe. We had those odd little  repeated moments when Ryan was watching Joe's emotions, flirtations, and romances,  which could have been interesting if addressed more directly. Like, for instance, maybe Ryan had thought he was heterosexual, for instance, then he has these powerful feelings for Joe, and decides to go all in. That would have been both traumatic and scary for him, and also sort of intoxicating. Joe's a really magnetic person that way (shoot, even Gordon gave that speech about Joe's magnetism earlier in the season that had definite homoerotic undertones). And it would've been another powerful way to convey that this kid is betting everything on Joe and on his belief in Joe, and unfortunately, Joe would have let him down here, albeit because he was trapped by Ryan's own actions.

I dunno. I mean, part of me liked that Joe never slept with Ryan, but on the other hand, the writing seemed to be trying to say something else. (I even wonder if there was a version of that final scene, for instance, where Ryan tried to act on his feelings and Joe kindly turned him down.)

I did think Lee Pace did a nice job of depicting Joe's quiet devastation, though, and I liked that he was horrified at what he had inadvertently done. I'd like to think this is a watershed moment for Joe, and that he may finally be turning into a Real Boy.

Edited January 21, 2018 by paramitch
tenses and typos