'The Man in the High Castle' Recap: 'The Tiger's Cave'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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

When we last left the world of The Man in the High Castle, the situation was grim. War was brewing between Japan and Germany courtesy of Trade Minister Tagomi's gambit to sneak secret plans for an atom bomb into the Japanese goverment. Juliana Crane had just let double agent Joe Blake walk away with the latest film from the titular man that shares his name with the title of the show and Obergruppenführer John Smith had uncovered a massive plot/conspiracy to overthrow Führer Adolf Hitler and return the Reich to its warmongering ways.  

Yes, all of that is how season one wrapped up for this thrilling saga and it made for an excruciating wait to find out what came next for these passionate characters and their plight to make the world a better place. But thankfully that wait is over and season two is streaming on Amazon Video and well, the second season premiere, 'The Tiger's Cave', certainly does not disappoint since it picks up right where we left off and it manages to advance the plot leaps and bounds by giving us some critical answers and this story introduces us to quite the important character. 

But before we get to that, let's take a moment and talk about Frank's journey this go round because this poor man, who has often been left holding the bag when it comes to Juliana and her quest to get in with the Resistance almost went off the deep end this episode. Faced with the fact that Juliana is more less missing in action and that his closest friend took the fall for the attempted assassination of the Crown Prince, Frank simply began to crumble, trashing his apartment and lashing out at Juliana's step dad Arnold in an attempt to find peace, that is until Arnold plants a notion in Frank's mind...that it might be possible to save his friend if he can find the right person with the right connections. It leads him back to Robert Childan in the hopes of making use of his client list and the only person on that list that can give Frank any shot at saving Ed's life...is the one man that Robert and Frank swindled with fake jewelry.

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However, despite the fact that Frank is able to convince Childan to help him in his quest to save Ed and meet with Robert's client, the 'nothing to lose' attitude Frank continues to exhibit leads to a stunning moment wherein Frank spills the beans as to how he and Childan ripped the man off and well...at this point who knows what kind of trouble Frank just created for himself, and it's simply incredible to see the man fall to pieces in this manner. But he's not the only one crumbling under the pressure. Following his escape from San Francisco, Joe Blake found himself in a little trouble on the boat he boarded when the crew discovered he was a Nazi and they prepared to murder him and take the film leading Joe to negotiate his release with a ton of money and while he seemed pleased with paying off the crew and escaping back to the Reich, the fact that the crew was double crossed and violently murdered by the Nazi's didn't settle well with him.

In fact he outright asked John Smith to leave his duties as a spy, something John refused to allow him to do and Joe's delivery of the film is what led to the most fascinating elements of this episode because this is when world's collided. As John prepared to fly to Berlin and deliver the film by hand to the Führer himself, Juliana Crane found herself under fire from the Resistance for letting Joe escape and demanded to see the Man in the High Castle...and she got her wish. Yes, we finally met the mystery man that loomed large over the entire first season and in the process...learned much about what the man, whose real name is Hawthorne Abendsen, is trying to accomplish. It turns out that he can see into alternate realities, and he is trying to save this one from inevitable destruction. Because there is one common thread between these alternate realities...San Francisco is always destroyed in the worlds where the Japanese occupy it...save for one where a mysterious man is killed in an alleyway. It's a man that Hawthorne hopes Juliana has seen before and while he does seem familiar, if she cannot figure out exactly who he is...this world may face similar destruction...

Either way, there you have it. Tagomi's 'vision' of a free America was no vision at all. He crossed a dimensional rift and stepped into another world and well...the fact that the show is toying with the Multiverse Theory is absolutely awesome and I love the fact that the entire season and the secret to possibly saving this world was set up in the first episode. It adds a sense of urgency to this year's story and now that Juliana is starting to piece together where she has seen the mystery man from the film, a race against time to save the planet from a Third World War is about to begin and I cannot wait to sit down and watch the next episode to find out who this man really is and how exactly his death is going to save all of mankind from nuclear armageddon. Until next time.

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