Flavor 1 of The Human being in the High Castle concluded with a fleck of a mind-blowing reveal. The alternate history nightmare that served as the impetus for Philip K. Dick's novel of the same name and the series developed past now-departed showrunner Frank Spotnitz was suggested to be exactly every bit the viewer saw it – a timeline altered at some crucial juncture to become a twisted version of the audience's reality. The revelation was witnessed by Trade Government minister Nobusuke Tagomi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), calculation some other layer of peculiarity to the somewhat surreal chemical element of a possible time to come discovered in the filmstrips nerveless by the titular Man in the High Castle.

The reveal did as and then many goggle box shows do these days: Rather than bring the beginning season to a definitive close, information technology acted as the precursor to more – an introduction to, and assurance of, a much larger story ahead. While taking this detail storytelling route can often experience reductive, in that it ostensibly diminishes the importance of the season you lot just watched, turning it into an advertizement for the already-greenlit (in most cases) second flavor, the attention paid to whetting the whistle of those watching can have an unexpectedly positive effect. That's certainly the promise with shows like Cinemax'due south Outcast, Hulu's The Path, and more recently, HBO's Westworld. All three shows ended their kickoff seasons with what felt more similar opening remarks instead of definitive kickoff flavor conclusions. The intimation being something far grander in scope is on the horizon and that y'all, beloved viewer, are in for a treat and so long as you agree to come up back. That'southward essentially the tactic employed by Amazon with its expensive-looking series. Information technology'south essentially proverb the first season is a proof of concept and at present that concept will plough into a far more engaging story.

In addition to the promise of more than, what made The Man in the High Castle season 1 work was the dreadfulness of its "What if?" conceit and that information technology was wrapped up in a past the audience new did not happen. Different the supposedly far flung setting of the recently liberated Hosts of Westworld, the story of a Nazi-controlled U.S. didn't presage a complicated future; information technology told of a virtually miss and the fear of what could have been (well, until recently). Merely flavor ii is tasked with doing so much more. The series tin can't rest on the honor of a compelling conceit alone; information technology has to develop that conceit into a story worth following, one that is capable of presenting, exploring, and challenging new ideas forth the way – all through the eyes of its characters.

Thankfully, The Human being in the High Castle has a large ensemble that has been flung far and wide when flavor 2 begins, offering myriad storytelling possibilities inside the sound framework of history gone incorrect and a future that may actually be upward for grabs. The season 2 premiere, 'The Tiger's Cave', wastes no time in getting the new grapheme threads ready, introducing new elements into ii chief storylines without making it experience as though the characters accept been retro engineered to better fit with the new flavour's emerging storyline.

Principal amidst them is Juliana Crane (Alexa Davalos), who last season felt awash in the mystery of the resistance, the filmstrips, and the question of who the Homo in the Loftier Castle really was and whether or not he fifty-fifty existed. Juliana's character was encumbered by the ambiguities of her story, so aside from a willingness to place herself in impairment's way for some answers to questions that felt at times unasked even by her, there wasn't much in the way of an bodily character in that location. Still, as a plot engine, Juliana's misadventures in the Neutral Zone helped ascertain the edges of the actual story the show was trying to tell. The idea of a resistance continuing up to a ruthless disciplinarian government is nothing new, but without the blink of an endgame watching can feel as hopeless as the situation in which the characters discover themselves.

Although the kickoff few episodes don't necessarily offer a light at the finish of the tunnel, they exercise chase off some of the lingering questions from season 1 – namely, the mystery of the filmstrips and who the Man in the High Castle really is. As it turns out, he's a chain smoking loner named Abendsen Hawthorne (played by Stephen Root), who doesn't similar to be asked too many questions – or whatever at all, really. The introduction of Abendsen takes a tremendous amount of pressure off the series moving forrard and makes a compelling case for other telly series dabbling in mysteries to know when to cease feeding the secrecy and instead requite the audience something to digest. It doesn't accept much, every bit 'The Tiger's Cave' just seeks to ameliorate understand the nature of the filmstrips and to confirm in that location is an actual Man in the High Castle before shuffling Abendsen off screen. The idea that the filmstrips offering a glimpse at an uncertain future further underlines the eeriness of the series' concept, insulating it from the depletive effects likewise much exposure can accept on an idea as unsettling equally this.

Equally a way to maintain the sense of intrigue, though, the season premiere installs a safety device in the form of Callum Keith Rennie'southward Gary Connell, who is intent on murdering Juliana following her introduction to Abendsen. The resistance's paranoia and willingness to impale to protect what they see as an ace up their collective sleeve puts them in an interesting moral grey expanse that becomes the umbrella under which and then many of the season'southward other, sometimes disparate, storylines can exist constitute.

In season 1, Joe Blake (Luke Kleintank) was ostensibly the serial' co-protagonist, a double amanuensis working for the Nazi government, who had conflicting emotions about his office in the search for the filmstrips and in rooting out the resistance. In season ii, Joe'southward inner conflict is made manifest with the introduction of his father, Reichsminister Martin Heusmann (Sebastian Roché). The thread takes Joe to Berlin, far away from Juliana and Rufus Sewell'southward Obergurppenführer John Smith, and the result is the creation of far more than animate room for all three storylines, allowing them to comingle in surprising ways as the season progresses.

And that is proverb nil of what's unfolding in the Japan-controlled territory of the sometime U.S. W Declension. Frank Frink (Rupert Evans), Ed McCarthy (D.J. Qualls), and Robert Childan (Brennan Chocolate-brown) find themselves embroiled in a high-pressure scam involving the Yakuza, while Trade Government minister Tagomi and Inspector Kido (Joel de la Fuente) attempt to untangle their own mysteries in what appears to be the lead up to a war with Germany.

It is odd to say, but at times during the first 4 episodes, The Man in the High Castle almost has besides much intrigue in place; information technology nigh has too much going on. Every bit was the instance with flavour 1, the diverse story threads make for compelling avenues to travel, but without a clear destination in heed, those travels begin to await an awful lot like aimless wandering. At that place are plusses and minuses to this approach. Season-long arcs are immune to unfold more slowly and their predictability is greatly reduced. But at that place is a departure to beingness unable to see where the story is headed and wondering if it has a destination in mind at all. That may non exist the example here, equally the 2d half of the flavor may double back to some of the narrative's earlier objectives, to give them a greater sense of significance moving forward. Hopefully this will evidence to be true, as this twelvemonth has provided The Human being in the Loftier Castle with a rare opportunity to mine its chilling concept for more genre thrills or the terrifying site of abhorrent iconography and ideals being normalized.

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The Man in the High Castle flavor 2 is available in its entirety on Amazon Prime Video.

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Kevin Yeoman (3539 Articles Published)

Kevin is Screen Bluster's TV Editor. He is a graduate of the Academy of Wyoming and the Academy of Washington. Kevin is a member of the TCA.

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