"The Man in the High Castle" Recap: "The New World"

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

Sometimes in the fiction world, it's an absolute blast to play a game of "What If?" After all, letting loose like that and letting your imagination wander is always fun as you explore places and concepts you never thought possible. But, at the same time, "What If?" can also be a most dangerous game, taking our mind to dark and disturbing places that we never wanted to go and we're glad our lives never really went there when we return to reality. 

It is the latter of those two options that takes front and center in the Amazon Original Series, The Man in the High Castle as we are transported to a story originally conceived by author Philip K. Dick, where the United States and the Allied Forces lost World War II and were instead conquered by the Axis Powers, wherein the Nazi and the Japanese forces divided our great nation in half, leaving a neutral zone buffering both superpowers as they slowly slide into an uncomfortable Cold War with the peace between these two nations hanging by a thread.  

We join the story in 1962 to meet two characters, Joe Blake, a young man living in the Greater Nazi Reich's New York City and a man looking for a chance to make a difference in this tough new world by joining the Resistance to transport important contraband to Canon City and Juliana Crain, a young woman living in the Japanese Pacific State's San Francisco, trying her best in this life to find her way after suffering an accident but the death of her sister Trudy will change her life forever. Trudy as it turns out was in possession of something powerful, a strange little film called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a newsreel film that shows the Allies doing the impossible, winning the war. Realizing her sister is working for the Resistance she decides to finish the mission for her and heads for Canon City in the heart of the Neutral Zone to deliver the film.

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This of course being a pilot episode for the series, those little details to the plot merely set everything up. We know there is a mysterious man known as "The Man in the High Castle" making these films that are deemed as treason to possess and we also learn by the end of the episode that Joe is a double agent, working for the Nazi regime as well, but outside of those fascinating plot points that suck you in...let's get right down to it and point out that this series is absolutely brilliant in its concept and design. In fact, it's down right terrifying for the entire hour that you watch the show because the folks behind the scenes have completely transformed the world we know. 

Nothing about this show leaves you comfortable as you watch it, simply because it's unsettling and depressing to see this alternate version of the United States of America. The show has transformed our home into a savage place, full of oppression and fear where no one is safe and one has to watch what they do and what they say every minute of every day. The visuals only enhance the experience when you see the red, white and blue everywhere, enhanced with a Swastika and quite frankly the most disturbing scene in the pilot is when Joe is getting help from a state trooper for a flat tire and it begins to snow, and we quickly discover, it's not snow...it's the hospital burning the sick and the handicapped and well...the trooper just sees this as an everyday thing and that's what made this pilot so terrifying, the people of America simply accept their fate. 

Yet, the show only manages to delve into darker places along the way as learn near the end of the episode that the Führer, Adolf Hitler is in poor health and once one of his legendary lackeys takes over when he is gone, there will no doubt be a war to remove the Japanese from the rest of North America. But, regardless of how bleak the episode ends, there is one piece of silver lining, Juliana. She is the beacon, shining bright in this show because she has found purpose through this illegal and fascinating film for one simple reason...it is has given her hope in something more and something greater and that perhaps the Resistance can make that film come to life, and when it comes to a story like this and in a world this dark and dismal...hope is the most powerful weapon of all. 

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