‘The Man in the High Castle’ Recap: ‘The New Colossus’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

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The best television shows out there, regardless of their genre, all share one common and important thread; there comes a point where their plots kick into overdrive by way of an episode that leaves the audience in awe. And when it comes to The Man in the High Castle, that particular moment in season three arrived with the fifth episode, ‘The New Colossus’. Because this story, featured all kinds of incredible surprises that catapulted everything forward and all of that was accomplished by way of two key characters; John Smith and Juliana Crain, with the latter of those two journeys providing us with one of the most shocking moments the series has seen to date.
 
But before we dig too deeply into that particular stunner, we need to talk about John Smith’s journey in this tale, simply due to the fact that this story showed us just how far he is willing to go to keep his family safe from here on out. Because Hoover and Rockwell were ready to make their move on the Hero of the Reich and bring him down, even going so far as to bring the Reichsfürher to New York to expose Smith for the fraud they believed him to be. But Smith wasn’t going down without a fight, and thanks to the intel he had been quietly gathering on Hoover, he was able to convince the man to back the right side, the Smith side if you will, and embarrass Rockwell and get him tossed from his job as Reichsmarshall.
 
However, while that was a stunning and oddly satisfying surprise in its own right, alongside the fact that Himmler seemed to approve of any shady tactics done on Smith’s part to get the job, since this change up made him Reichsmarshall, all of that paled in comparison to the fact that Smith added an insurance policy to his new title as supreme leader of America, by having Rockwell murdered during his exile in Cuba. Yes, that’s right. John Smith went all out to ensure that Rockwell never came back to haunt him and while it was fascinating to see John evolve like this, I’m still questioning his loyalty to the Reich since he and his wife have spoken to their desire to live a better life that isn’t in this vein, and the shock John displayed over the plan for Year Zero has part of me hoping that he will use his newfound power to fight the Reich somehow.
 
But those are questions for another time I suppose, since we do need to discuss the wonder of Juliana’s story as well. Because this particular tale saw her relationship with Joe come to head in ugly fashion. Because as it turns out, Tagomi survived his assassination attempt thanks to a nightly patrol that managed to spook dear Joe and once Juliana learned of this attempt, she went to Joe and did a little sleuthing after another romantic encounter and came to discover the cold truth about Joe and at long last, he showed his true colors to Juliana and demanded she return to the Reich with him once his work in San Fran was complete. But rather than abide by his demands, she instead did the unthinkable, and killed Joe in order to secure her freedom and to keep Tagomi safe.
 
So, just like that, we’ve seen our first real major character death on the show in three years and well, this was quite the tale the say the least. It really was an edge of your seat affair through and through and I loved this one for being so bold and well, the the simmer that the last episode set up is steadily being brought to a boil and it’s clear now that the dimensional gate being built in Lackawanna is going to be a big focal point going forward, as is the situation in New York since the new Reichsmarshall is conflicted about his role, at least I hope he is. Because John may be the last good hope for the future in the GNR and it should be interesting to see where the plot is headed from here on out. Until next time.   

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