‘The Man in the High Castle’ Recap: ‘Jahr Null’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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

Often times, television shows and movies know precisely when to scale back the darkness that they are presenting and with good reason. After all, too much darkness in a story can become overwhelming for an audience to the point where they are supremely uncomfortable and unwilling to see where the story goes, so scaling back, even just a bit, gives the audience everything they need to properly enjoy the tale they are so invested in. But sometimes, a story refuses to take its proverbial foot off of the gas pedal, or it’s outright unable to do so because the darkness is just that relevant to the story and well, all of those latter options apply to The Man in the High Castle.
 
Because a few episodes ago, the slow burning character study that season three provided us with was replaced with darkness and tension, and all of that, came to a stunning head in the season three finale, ‘Jahr Null’, since it seems that everything that could possibly go wrong, and offend the audience in the process, was going to happen in this tale. Case in point, the fact that Hawthorne Abernathy, whose real name is Abe Hawkes, was captured by John Smith at last, and his capture was only the beginning for this bleak tale. For Juliana’s plan to destroy the Reich’s dimensional gate failed miserably, putting her behind bars as well and believe it or not, things actually managed to get worse from there.
 
For this sequence of events removed all hope from my heart in regard to John Smith stepping up and doing something more and heroic in this twisted world. Because despite how disturbed he was by the events happening around him, he still followed orders and gave them as well, and it’s just sad to see that John no longer has a spine. Yet I made mention of the fact that this episode managed to outright offend the audience, or at least in this case me, and that’s something the series hasn’t done much of this season. But the kickoff of Jahr Null, wherein the Statue of Liberty was blown to bits and left to rot in the New York harbor definitely left me glaring at my television with disdain and the fall of Lady Liberty only inspired further ugliness in the story since her collapse led to all kinds of riots and purges of American History from a youth that doesn’t understand the evil they are embracing, and this, well this just made me sick.
 
Because it speaks to the power of fascism, and how quickly a society can embrace it and seeing Manhattan burn in celebration of the Reich, left me shaking my head with disgust and it left me wondering if there would ever be hope for this world. And believe it or not, there is, thanks to Wyatt at least. Because he and a damn fine sniper were able to wound the Reichsführer badly during the celebration, putting a damper upon it and Wyatt wasn’t quite done wounding the Reich just yet, since he also made many a copy of the film, and it is clear now he plans to distribute it in order to inspire others to rise up and fight and in the Pacific States, Frank’s symbols of hope are now finding new life as well thanks to Ed and Jack and Robert and of course…Juliana is out there somewhere in the multiverse, albeit wounded and hopefully…she returns and soon to help this world resist the horrors that permeate it.  
 
Yet, despite the sliver of hope that this finale provided us with, the darkness still overpowered everything and quite frankly, it was a necessary evil so to speak. Because there is a level of comfort and routine that has come about with this series when it comes to the Reich and what it represents and the ugliness that Himmler helped motivate in this tale, alongside the experiments present in his story, all served to remind us of the depravity of the Reich and the need for this world to rise up and I really do hope season four of this saga features a Reich in crisis as the people fight for their freedom, and the setup for that here was handled nicely and really, when all is said and done, this was quite the powerful finale. It upped the ante, it made me squirm and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t captivated while watching this and well, I want more. I want to see if the people do indeed rise up and if John will ever grow a spine and sadly, I have to wait until season four to see if all that will happen and I’ll be keeping my eyes open on the web to see exactly when this particular and harrowing tale will return to wow us all. Until next year.  

---