This review makes reference to The Man in the High Castle Season 2, and contains some spoilers.
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Year: 2016
Category: Alternate History, Dystopian, Science Fiction, Thriller, Drama.
Director: Daniel Percival, Colin Bucksey, Daniel Sackheim, David Petrarca, John Fawcett, Paul Holahan, Karyn Kusama, Alex Zakrzewski, Chris Long.
Cast: Alexa Davalos, Rupert Evans, Luke Kleintank, DJ Qualls, Joel de la Fuente, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Rufus Sewell, Brennan Brown, Callum Keith Rennie, Bella Heathcote, Chelah Horsdal, Michael Gaston, Jason O'Mara.
Plot
After giving Joe the film, Juliana is forced to flee the fury of the Resistance while embarking on a new path to save her home from destruction. Joe confronts his absent father in Berlin, who is not as he seems. Smith wrestles with what to do about his ill son. Frank takes a gamble with his life in a bid to save Ed. Tagomi's life is turned upside down by his "travel" to an alternative world.
Opinion
At the end of last season the coup against Adolf Hitler perpetrated by Heydrich fails, so he is finally arrested by the Obergruppenführer John Smith; Joe Blake flees from the resistance recovering the film; Ed McCarthy is arrested by the Kempeitai because Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido accuses him of firing on Crown Prince, diverting responsibility from the real culprits, the Nazi conspirators, in order to avoid a war between the Greater Nazi Reich and the Empire of Japan; Finally, Nobusuke Tagomi, the Trade Minister of the Pacific States of America, seems to travel to another dimension, to one in which the Allies won, in which John F. Kennedy is president and a controversial film like Lolita is announced on a poster advertising along with many other things that would be prohibited in his reality.
In this way, what we see this season is like characters that during the first season were kept separate, as a result of recent events, they relate to each other, while those characters that remained related are separated, as happens with Jon Blake, who goes to Berlin to meet his father, one of the most influential men in the world, Martin Heusmann; Juliana, who after meeting the Man in the High Castle flees from the Resistance since they intend to kill her for allowing Joe Blake to flee with the film, was refugee in the American Reich.
In this season the political problems diminish, or so it seems superficially, because while the main characters deal with personal problems, a series of circumstances will provoke political events that will revive the tensions between the Greater Nazi Reich and the Empire of Japan.
While John Smith, by direct orders of the Führer, must continue in the search and capture of the Man in the High Castle, he must also deal with the situation of his son, Thomas, who suffers from facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, which under the government of the Greater Nazi Reich is not acceptable, so he tries to keep it a secret and try to save him.
On the other hand, Joe Blake goes to Berlin and discovers that he is a Lebensborn, that is, born as part of a program that was in charge of choosing physically and intellectually competent women to be the procreators of the children of the SS officers, and also meet Nicole, a young aryan who is also a Lebensborn, with whom she will maintain a very close relationship.
Frank Frink will do everything possible with the help of Robert Childan to free his friend, Ed McCarthy, which will cause him many problems, and as if that were not enough, he will join the resistance, and emotionally and sentimentally distanced from Juliana, who goes to New York in search of George Dixon, the real father of Trudy, which causes Juliana to relate to the family of the Obergruppenführer John Smith while transmitting information to the resistance not to be killed.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido must face different problems related to the Yakuza, the resistance, and the presence of General Hidehisa Onoda, who intends to develop a bomb with the information provided by Rudolph Wegener to the Science Minister Shimada last season, and so defend or attack the Nazis.
Finally, the last narrative line refers to Nobusuke Tagomi, the Trade Minister, who is in another version of reality, which allows him to broaden his vision of events, and know what would happen in case of losing the war against the allies, also discovers that in that universe Juliana Crain is part of his family, something that seems to be a big problem for him in that reality.
The first thing I thought while watching the first episodes of this season is that the series was losing the level, and that the political tension caused by the clash between the two most powerful nations in the world had disappeared, so I was a little disappointed. It showed Joe Blake going to Berlin without contributing much to the plot, and Juliana interacting with the family of Obergruppenführer John Smith also without too much importance, in addition, Nobusuke Tagomi, the Trade Minister, has a separate narrative line that deviates from the main story, which made me think that the series was losing its way, however, while the season was progressing showed that I was wrong, in each episode a quite complicated scenario was built, satisfactorily joining all the pieces that were separated, creating a quite tense and exciting resolution, definitely it was a good work of the screenwriters.
The direction continues to maintain the same level, and although it has some imperfections related to the behavior of some characters and certain decisions they make, in general the level is the same as last season. The performances are fine, the inclusion of Bella Heathcote in the cast was a success, perfectly interprets Nicole, a character that gives interest to the narrative line of Joe Blake.
My biggest confusion about what happens in this season happens in the last two episodes, which have more tension, because although I'm happy that Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido does not die, since he is one of my favorite characters, the way he survives is product exclusively of the writers, it is impossible for him to survive a shot and that explosion. In addition, it is not clear if Frank Frink dies or not, and although I feel that he is still alive, I think he must have died, it is impossible that he survived the explosion. This is the kind of things I do not like in movies and series, if you decide to put your character in a situation where he must necessarily die, you must let him die, otherwise it is a deus ex machina. Finally the season ends with a reunion between Juliana and the Man in the High Castle, showing Trudy alive, which was a great cliffhanger, but I expect an excellent explanation for the next season.
In short, it is a good season, at the level of the first, however, I feel that the series still does not make a qualitative leap to be among the best series, but it promises a lot.
Trailer
Score
7/10
Good direction, great script, relatively decent performances, a couple of interesting characters, and an original story. It is available on Amazon Prime Video.
