'The Man in the High Castle' Recap: 'Kintsugi'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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

It's always quite the special occasion when a television show goes above and beyond in its storytelling to completely and utterly surprise the audience and that's something that The Man in the High Castle managed to pull off with the sixth episode of season two because 'Kintsugi' is a story that didn't do much to advance this season's thrilling plot. Nor did it provide us with any stunning revelations, instead what made this episode so absolutely and utterly incredible is the fact that it gave us our most in depth look to date at life in the Reich and well, what we learned was downright fascinating and heartbreaking.

Case in point, the first cold lesson we learned about life in the Reich, is how important status is to some of its citizens and this discovery came by way of Juliana, who was given an ugly choice this episode. Either play nice with the Smiths, and cozy up to the Greater Nazi Reich's elite, or face the consequences for helping out Joe Blake. Naturally she chose the former of the two options and quickly befriended a woman named Lucy, whose husband was the top man when it came to television in the GNR. It was here that we and Juliana learned exactly what status means to the Reich's elite, because despite her chipper like demenaor, Lucy had a moment of weakness where she confessed to Juliana that the pressure of not being able to deliver a baby to her husband was wearing on their marriage and potentially their future because she could be viewed as a second class citizen down the line for not being able to procreate.

While Juliana learned about the darker side of life in the Reich, Joe Blake finally had an opportunity to experience what Berlin is really like when one removes themselves from the political side of it all by attending a party with Nicole and well...what an interesting contrast this party turned out to be. Thus far, everything we've seen about the Reich is clean and sanitized, with mere hints of insurrection from its citizens as they go about living the vision that the Führer has put forth, whereas this party...felt quite familiar. There was free thought in this place, plenty of drugs and free love as well, and this more or less resembled some of the movements we saw in America in the 1960's, and well...it was a genius stroke of storytelling to say the least.

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Because by demonstrating that free thought and the desire for a better future exists in this bleak and alternate plane of existence, for the first time in a long time, the show delivered a true sense of hope within the story. But alas, who knows how long that will last because the end of Joe's storyline for this episode was troubling to say the least as he seemed to finally embrace life within the Reich and its grand/disturbing vision for the future and it was heavily implied that he came to realize it was time for him to pick a cause and commit to it one hundred percent so that his life will finally mean something and well...watching him carefully examine the swastika arm band provided with his suit made for one chilling moment.

However, not everything in this episode was pure gloom and doom. There was one other element explored about life in the Reich this go round, just how important family is to some of its citizens, or more specifically...John Smith. Because as it turns out John finally figured out a way to save his son from certain death in the Reich, by sending him away to South America on a Hitler Youth trip. It's something Helen doesn't agree with, until John informs her in private that once Thomas arrives down south...he will be 'kidnapped' and while John will personally lead a search to bring him home, he will fail in his endeavors, all so that he can provide his son a chance at life and well...this was beautiful in every sense of the word. To see a man as important as Smith use his far and sweeping power to save his son like this, demonstrates what kind of man he really is, and it's quite unfortunate he's stuck in a place where he cannot help more people in this fashion.

Either way, wow, what an episode. I've always thoroughly enjoyed it when this series goes deep into the inner workings of this disturbed world and the vast amount of detail it provided us with this go round kept me on the edge of my seat. But I did mention earlier that this particular tale did make some effort to push forth the plot and it did that by off handedly revealing what Smith and Kido talked about...the fact that the Yakuza are on the GNR's payroll and I also enjoyed the fact that Tagomi's time in our reality is starting to force his mind to open up to new ideas about his world and what it means to respect other cultures. In the end though, this was a nice little unexpected break from the powerhouse story brewing in the background and I'm sure it won't be long before we return to the race to save San Francisco. Until next time.

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