Halt and Catch Fire: So This Is Mutiny

"Play With Friends"
Directed by Kimberly Pierce
Written by Dahvi Waller

"Extract and Defend"
Directed by Michael Morris
Written by Zack Whedon

"10Broad36"
Directed by Larysa Kondracki
Written by Jamie Pachino

What does it mean to have control?

Control can be a positive thing. It's good to understand your limitations, abilities, opportunities, and threats. Holding back the chaos from engulfing you is a thing worth doing. When control means agency, restraint, and keeping an even keel, it's good.

But it can also be a negative thing. This is particularly true when you move from controlling yourself to controlling others. There you might deny them their own agency, and stifle a relationship, a company, a nation.

Between the nature of working with others, sharing the company with Donna (Kerry Bishé) and the misbegotten good intentions of Gordon (Scoot McNairy), Cameron (Mackenzie Davis) was losing control of Mutiny. Meanwhile, Joe (Lee Pace) was regaining control of his narrative as he came up with a great idea. Would they be able to keep control of their lives, as the pivotal year of 1985 continued moving forward?

"Yes, yes, in success." - Cameron Howe, "Play With Friends"

After the disaster that was Sonaris, Mutiny was not in good shape. They were down to 1/3 of their XTs still running, and their subscriber base had shrunk dramatically. While they weren't out of lives, things weren't great. Because their remaining cash on hand had to go to operational costs, they were gonna have to suspend programmer pay. They would be given equity instead, but it was cold comfort. At first no programmer volunteered to stay.

And then Tom (Mark O'Brien) stepped forward. Lev (August Emerson) followed, and then Carl (Nik Pupo), Wonderboy (J. Elijah Cho), Arki (Gabriel Manak) and Bodie (Joshua Hoover). It looked like Cameron and Donna had won them over. But then Yo-Yo (Cooper Andrews), one of the programmers who had been with Cameron since the early days at Cardiff, said he was out. No way was he sticking around for the off chance the shares would pay out. It hurt Cameron, but there was nothing she could do. As much as she'd like to say otherwise, things were dire.

But all was not lost. Even as the company floundered, Donna's pet project Community was growing. It was up to 18 rooms now, so many that Lev was starting to have issues keeping up with it. Even more amazingly, people who were not gamers were signing up just for Community. Cat ladies and birders were arriving to fight it out over the proper uses of cat litter. What had been a hunch now had clear data backing it up. Donna was excited to see where Community would go next.

In addition, though Cameron lost Yo-Yo, she regained Bos (Toby Huss). Having made peace with the fact he couldn't go back to how it was, Bos decided to look forward instead. He volunteered to put shoe leather to asphalt and go on a mission to get the teetering whales (i.e. high spending customers) back into the fold. He also came up with a great idea: use prepaid ad space in a magazine to put a picture of the team, making them look like they were a vibrant and healthy company. It was the exact kind of spark they needed, after the colossal embarrassment of the Sonaris incident.

Almost immediately, Bos paid off, making a visit to Cookie Kuempel (Jennifer Irwin) and her son Marc (Jared Staley) and getting her to turn Mutiny back on. He did it by appealing to the clear sense of community found at Mutiny:

Ma'am, you and I are too old school to understand this, but to your son here and his friends, Mutiny is the church. It's where they find community. Sometimes that's the only place.

Yeah, he laid it on a little thick. But it was to some degree the truth. Mutiny was down, but it was not out.

"We are getting along. Let's not ruin it by jumping back into business together." - Gordon Clark "Play With Friends"

Joe tried to do it by-the-books. He went to Ellis Mortimer (Javier Grajeda) to pitch his mainframe time sharing project. But Ellis didn't see the reward, only the potential security risk of letting just anybody into Westgroup's mainframes. Joe's protestations and attempts at using Jacob's name didn't win him over. Ellis knew who Joe was and knew all he had to do was wait him out. It would be Peter 2.0. Joe would have to do his project on the side, unbeknownst to Jacob (and Sara).

He paid a technician in cash to install the T1 connections. But he still needed someone to add the time-sharing capabilities to the mainframes. And do it after hours while getting paid under the table. Fortunately, Joe had one friend in Dallas who knew his way around a mainframe or two: Gordon.

When Gordon returned from a jog, he saw Joe waiting outside for him. Gordon tried to impress him with his remote-controlled blender; Joe didn't care and just went into his spiel. He wanted Gordon to set up the mainframes for him. They used Cardiff software, so Gordon would be perfectly suited to the work. Gordon politely refused, in part because he didn't want to ruin what he and Joe had by hopping right back into business with him. It appeared Joe would have to go elsewhere.

But later on, Gordon walked into the bathroom and was scared shitless by Donna sitting in the tub. Cameron had threatened to shut down Community, and she was hiding out, uncertain what to do. Gordon gave her a pep-talk, letting her know it was time to stop hiding. Furthermore, he realized a way Joe could help Donna with his new network. He'd do Joe's project, if Joe agreed to take Mutiny as his first client, and give them a sweet hourly rate: $3/hour.

Gordon has screwed up everything with Sonaris. He was gonna fix it all now.

"'Play with Friends.' That's the tag." - Cameron Howe, "Play With Friends"

Cameron had let Donna know she was gonna shut down Community. But Gordon's pep talk had turned Donna around, and she challenged Cameron to actually use Community. Cameron took the bet and chatted with Tom.

She first apologized to Tom for yelling at him when he had shown up late looking like crap one morning. Turned out he wasn't late because he wasn't committed to the team; he had overslept because he was picking up late night shifts at a grocery store so he could keep working at Mutiny.

That taken care of, their Community conversation continued as such.

TRENDON: We're cool. I've got new 3D stuff to show you.

CAMHOWE: I'll come by when I'm done re-configuring all the games that shithead scorched.

TRENDON: Hey now, Gordon = Donna's husband

CAMHOWE: No. Gordon = The guy who hung two kids on her and now she's trappeD\!

Funny thing about Community. Shift + d + ! was the command to broadcast the message to everybody in the channel, rather than just the private chat. This last message went to everyone in the Community > Admin channel, which was everyone at Mutiny, including Donna.

Donna was the last one to see it, and it was humiliating. Cameron tried to play it off as a joke.

Okay, I lied. I don't know how to use Community.

Donna was not in the mood. Cameron offered to apologize to everyone, which was the last thing Donna wanted. She made it known that if Cameron had an issue with Gordon, she should bring it to her. And she was to never, never badmouth her kids. Those boundaries set, Donna switched to using the mishap to press her point about how big Community could be:

You know that feeling of freedom that you had when you're sending private messages with Tom? A feeling you had a place to go where you could say things you wouldn't in person? That--that is the value of Community.

Before the conversation could continue, Tom interrupted them to say it was time to make nice and take the team picture for the ad. After several minutes of herding cats, Tom finally got the team together for the picture, only for Donna and Cameron to blow it by not smiling. They lined up again, only for Bodie to jump into the shot wearing only his underpants and a t-shirt. At least Donna and Cameron looked like they were having fun in the moment for once.

Donna went home because she wasn't feeling well. Cameron told Carl to keep Community up for a few more days. And Tom drafted her into a game of nerf dart tag, part of a rolling celebration the team had due to Bos bringing users back into the fold. Cameron had a blast, conveyed to us in the audience by shooting the montage as if it were a first-person shooter. Eventually she ended up in a show-down with Tom in a closet. Were they about to kiss? No, something even more intimate: Cameron had an idea, and she wanted to share its development with Tom. The next Mutiny game would be a PvP shooter similar to the dart game they had played. They traded ideas for a while, but Tom left for a date.

The next morning, Tom arrived with developed photos. Bos, Cameron, and Tom looked at the picture from the night before. It was the shaggy joy of the place, in picture form.

Outside, Tom and Cameron cleaned up beer cans from the celebration. Tom had left his date early to think about the game. Cameron had thought about it all night as well. And then they kissed.

"Maybe you should go see a doctor, you know? Just to rule out anything serious." - Gordon Clark, "Play With Friends"

After agreeing to terms with Joe, Gordon met him at a bar across the street from Westgroup at 8:00 pm. Gordon was confused why they were meeting there and why Joe was reimbursing him the costs out of his own pocket. Eventually Joe let him know he was doing the job on the side. Gordon got mad at this and wondered why Joe didn't just take the project to Jacob. Joe ruled that out, as he wanted to have incontrovertible numbers to take to his future father-in-law. To make his case, Joe reminded Gordon that he hadn't told Donna who was providing Mutiny with the sweet time-sharing deal. That form of mutually assured destruction worked on Gordon, and he agreed, albeit reluctantly.

Gordon: You know, I'd like to punch you in the face right now.

Joe: Be my guest. [eats burger]

Through the night, Gordon worked to get the Westgroup mainframes ready to go. Joe helped out as much as he could. It was kind of like that weekend when Gordon and Joe worked together to reverse engineer the IBM BIOS. Eventually it approached morning, when people would soon be showing up. Joe was worried Gordon wouldn't be finished in time, but Gordon just said the work would take as long as it needed to take. He was in his element, not having to try to manage a product. He was a builder, and he liked building. Joe offered to get him another Coke.

And then, Gordon fell down. He said he tripped over the open server cabinet door. But he had passed out. It was clear Gordon was not doing well. His nose was bleeding randomly at times. His hands were fitfully weak. And now he was passing out. This wasn't cocaine or the stress of the Giant project. It was something else. Nevertheless, Gordon finished his work.

After a long night, Gordon returned home to find Donna was still in the bathroom. Assuming she was still sick from catching the flu Joanie (Morgan Hinkleman) had recently gotten over, Gordon suggested she should go see a doctor. Of course, he failed to mention his own issue just hours earlier when he had passed out to her.

Gordon moved on to better news. The contact, who he kept anonymous, he had done the consulting gig for had offered Mutiny a sweet promotional deal for their networking. Donna, who sounded like she was elsewhere, just said it was amazing news. Gordon, concerned that Donna didn't seem like she was there, asked if she was throwing up. Donna said yes. But that was a lie. She was sitting on the toilet looking at a pregnancy test.

The liquid was blue. She was pregnant.

"Joe Who?" - Donna Clark, "Extract and Defend"

Cameron and Tom had moved on from their kiss to having sex with each other. It was their little secret, and they enjoyed the early days of a relationship as they talked (and argued) over how the new game should work. They set up a good little cycle. They'd spend the night together, having sex and talking over the game, and then Tom would sneak out the window as the sun rose, only to return a little later for work. One morning, Bos saw him do this. It was no longer a secret for two.

Now that Mutiny was on the mystery benefactor's new network, things were stabilizing. Bos had gotten back several of the big spenders, and Community was continuing to grow. Donna was hard at work, often returning home to sleep for a couple hours as the sun rose. One morning, she met Gordon, who was just waking up. She drank a beer to relax after a hard night's work and pressed Gordon to reveal who the secret network provider was. After all, they needed a name for billing purposes. Gordon tried to change the subject, but Donna was insistent. And Gordon, to his credit, admitted it was Joe who ran the network.

Immediately Donna went to let Cameron know. Thanking her for her honesty, Cameron asked Donna to leave so she could be alone. Immediately afterwards she screamed and knocked over a dresser.

Nevertheless, Mutiny kept running, and Community kept growing. Lev was talking to a guy he had a crush on (Bos' reaction: "Hell, I gotta cousin...") which showed an untapped potential for the network: hooking up. To put it another way, Community was letting people connect with other people in ways it wasn't possible to in real life.

Donna took the idea and started thinking about formalizing it in Community: creating a personals room where people could match up, then have a private chat with each other. Community was no longer just a test project; it was becoming an integral part of the Mutiny experience.

"Atrophy?" - Gordon Clark, "Extract and Defend"

Gordon took his own advice and went to see the doctor (R. Keith Harris) about his worsening symptoms. The doctor had him do an MRI, and it came back with bad news: Gordon's brain showed signs of damage. The diagnosis was Chronic Toxic Encephalopathy. There was no cure, and it was likely Gordon's symptoms would get worse as time went on.

Gordon tried to get Donna to go out with him to dinner to tell her. She was too busy. Instead, he went into a club and had a flashback of Donna dancing years ago. He told a stranger he had brain damage, and that he thought he might be dying. She couldn't hear a word he said.

He tried to ask Donna to lunch. She was too busy. He wanted to take the girls anywhere they wanted to go. They wanted to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house to play Nintendo.* He didn't tell Susan (Annette O'Toole), but she got him to pay her back for the money they lent him for the Symphonic. It was awkward, but he had the money. At least that was off his mind now.

For whatever reason Gordon did not tell Donna about his diagnosis. Of course, she didn't tell him she was pregnant. Instead, the two of them continued living their separate lives, never telling each other the big secret they held close. He called his brother Henry (Kevin Rankin) out in California and arranged a visit for him, Joanie, and Haley (Alana Cavanaugh). Henry seemed happy to hear his brother was coming to visit him.

"We don't keep secrets. I don't care how small, I can't do it." - Sara Wheeler, "Extract and Defend"

With Joe's secret out to Donna and Cameron, he would have to let Jacob and Sara know as well. At this point Mutiny would need to meet with who they did business with. Joe tried to push back on the inevitable when Gordon brought it up to him, but it didn't work.

He brought the idea up to Jacob, who wasn't particularly happy Joe kept it from him. But he agreed to keep the business, pending a meeting with somebody from Mutiny. Jacob Wheeler refused to do business with someone without first meeting them and looking them in the eyes.

Sara was less accepting of Joe keeping the secret from her. She wasn't going to tolerate him keeping secrets. Especially if they involved Cameron. She had enough to deal with her father sending over a prenup for them to sign against her wishes. Joe disrespecting what she wanted was even worse.

Cameron, for her part, wanted nothing to do with Joe. But Bos told her the truth that Joe sucked but he was a good businessman. He made his point by saying the thing only he could get away with:

From a strictly commercial standpoint, pulling your operating system was the right move. That machine it meant a lot to me. It wasn't art, but it was sound business, and one thing about Mutiny is that you've got a whole lot of the former and not much of the latter.

Cameron didn't enjoy hearing what Bos said, but she knew he was right. She showed up for the meeting with Jacob Wheeler and blew the doors off. She was charming, conveyed the right information, and even found the strength to say something nice about Joe when asked by Jacob:

He's a hell of a guy. Congratulations.

After the meeting, Joe tried to reconnect with Cameron, but Cameron would have none of it. Things were complicated by Sara showing up partway through this conversation. They were cordial, making a promise to get together for dinner neither of them ever intended to honor.

Joe wanted to reestablish trust with Sara. So, he signed the prenup. It was a colossal misunderstanding of what Sara wanted and needed from him. She didn't need him to dance to her father's tune. She wanted him to reject the premise of the prenup along with her. She told Joe she needed some time to herself alone and went back to Austin for a while.

"I just...want everyone to leave Mutiny alone. It's mine." - Cameron Howe, "Extract and Defend"

Cameron had done a great job at the meeting with Jacob Wheeler. But all of the compromises were taking a toll on her. Bos had kicked annoying Chet off the network for getting behind on his bills. He had also bought Cameron a new office chair to replace her old one. And of course, there was Community, which was not Cameron's idea. Little by little, decisions made by others were whittling away at what Cameron had created. She laid it out for Bos, after she went to bail him out at a restaurant after his card was declined on a date with Cookie Kuempel:

No, it's a community. It's my community. And we don't kick people out. It sends a message, okay? He's been with us since day one. He's loyal. Yeah, he's a pain in the ass, but I like being annoyed by him and I like my shitty chair. I just...want everyone to leave Mutiny alone. It's mine.

Cameron was scared she was losing Mutiny. To her, this was akin to losing herself. She had been wrecked when Gordon had ripped out her operating system from the Giant. She could not do that again.

What's more, Tom had been cold to her since he had found out about Joe. As the team watched The Terminator, he left for what he said was a date. Cameron went back to her room and picked up the dresser she had knocked over earlier. Maybe Tom really had a date, and whatever they had was gone. Maybe she was alone again.

At that moment Tom climbed through the window, and saw she was going through it right then. He was there for her once more. He walked over, and Cameron walked toward him, and embraced him.

Donna, meanwhile, sat outside with Bos. He shared a beer with her, and they talked. Bos was worried about Cameron and was worried Tom had gotten her pregnant. After all, he had found a pregnancy test in the trash. Donna, aware she couldn't hide the truth, told him it was her that was pregnant. All he could say to that was "Congratulations" in the least congratulatory tone imaginable.

"So this is Mutiny." - Joe MacMillan, "10Broad36"

The secret of Tom and Cameron's relationship was fast becoming less of a secret. As they were together in her room, Lev was gathering the programmers to catch them in the act of their secret tryst. He knocked on her door, saying a subscriber had accessed their autoexec.bat and was handing out free user IDs. Tom went to exit the window like normal, and the programmers went out to catch him. Donna also saw this, sitting in her car as she had just gotten in. The day Tom was caught climbing out the boss' window was gonna be the big thing for the day. But that was until Cameron walked out and found Joe standing there. The devil was in the sanctuary.

He had been sent by Jacob to get the Mutiny deal done. But there had been a change. Instead of the $3/hour rate, the Business Development team had changed the contract to $5/hour. Joe was able to convince him to let him negotiate the rate down to $3.50 at the absolute lowest. But when Donna tried to get him to negotiate, he wouldn't budge. Cameron sat quietly and calmly as Joe pulled more of his bullshit, but Donna didn't do her part. Instead of staying calm and playing the negotiation game, she broke down crying. And then she started yelling at Joe:

This is bullshit! Joe, this is bullshit! All you own is time on a network. What entitles you to have an opinion about anything that we do here? What makes you think that you can question our commitment for one dollar an hour?

She then goes on to attack him for being engaged to Sara, which was a much lower blow than she even knew. Joe just exhaled sharply and walked out, unwilling to listen to Cameron's plea to stay.

Cameron was worried, but Donna was insistent he'd called back to give them the $4/hour rate. Instead, he shut the network down. Cameron tore into her:

Donna: What happened?

Cameron: Joe MacMillan happened! He pulled the plug! So I guess he wasn't bluffing.

Bos: (trying to get Cameron to calm down as she's making a damn scene in front of the team) Okay, okay, okay.

Cameron (to Donna): Um, so do you want to call him, maybe, or are you just gonna cry again?

Bos: That's enough.

Cameron (clapping her hands): Come on, Donna. The name on page 12 of our contract just shut our company down because of your great negotiation skills!

Like a dysfunctional family, Cameron the daughter yelled at Donna the mom as Bos the dad fruitlessly tried to keep the peace. And the programmers just looked on at the ugliness. Donna left to fix it.

"God, it feels so good to just sit here and do the wrong thing with you." - Gordon Clark, "10Broad36"

Gordon and the girls’ visit to Henry, his wife Wendy (Heather Lyda), and their children Jody (Cece Kelly) and Michael (Brody Rose) started off so well. I mean, Gordon told Henry about his diagnosis, but Henry said all of the things you're supposed to say when a close relative gives you bad news. Things weren't going so hot for Henry either, as their dad was threatening to sell the family auto shop to Midas, which could leave Henry out of the business. They had this conversation at the local bar, where Gordon reconnected with Jules Duffy (Erin Cummings), Henry's high school girlfriend. She was a bartender, had a 12-year-old son, and was not married. Gordon was happy to see her.

Gordon asked Henry to borrow his truck, ostensibly to visit their father and give him the bad news about his diagnosis. Instead, Gordon drove to the bar to pick up Jules and went to talk with her out by a lake in the back of the truck. They talked about Henry's worsening alcoholism, which had been the reason Gordon gave for needing to meet. Eventually Jules revealed she had marijuana. Gordon let it be known he'd like some marijuana.

So, there they were, getting high, and talking about the "good old days". Gordon got deep into his thoughts, thinking about the life that could have been. Of course, the life he got was pretty sweet to Jules, especially considering she didn't know about the brain damage. Pretty damn clear Gordon's life in Texas was better than if he had stayed in town. Although maybe selling tractors by the 5 would be a pretty sweet gig. Gordon made moves as if to go. He didn’t go. They kissed and had sex.

Afterwards Gordon really spoiled the mood by deciding to dump his entire illness bullshit on Jules. She tried to be sympathetic at first, but then he dumped the big one on her: he hadn't told Donna yet. At that, Jules went from being there for Gordon to being rightfully pissed at him.

And it only got worse when he returned to Henry's. It turned out that Haley woke up and got scared because Gordon wasn't there. Henry had called his father, who said Gordon had never shown up. Henry smelled Gordon; he smelled like marijuana and sex. Henry thought Gordon was gonna go to Sacramento to help him out with their dad. Gordon told Henry he knew about his alcoholism, and how he had pissed away the repair shop's business. Henry kicked Gordon, Joanie, and Haley out. So much for California.

"A wolf in UNIX clothing" - Tom Rendon, "10Broad36"

Donna went to Westgroup, and pleaded with Joe to be reasonable. After making it clear she would not leave without a deal, she asked what they could do. Joe said he'd consider dropping the rate to $3.50/hour if they met a few benchmarks. Make some changes to the layout, add mail, and (the big one) make Mutiny compatible with an IBM computer running UNIX. You see, Mutiny could only run on Commodore 64s. All pretty reasonable asks, if also boring. Donna took them back to Cameron.

Cameron hated them. They were Mutiny, the punk rock gaming network. The stock tips and stodgy email was more of a Compuserve thing. But mostly, she hated the benchmarks because they were from Joe. As much as she hated the idea, however, she knew it was vital to lock in the cost savings meeting the benchmarks would give them.

Tom came up with the idea to fake the port to the UNIX box. He had talked a bit with Joe while Donna and Cameron were discussing their negotiation strategy. And he was not impressed with his taller predecessor's technical knowledge. He was pretty sure they could trick him.

So instead of busting their ass to actually do it right, they all got together to figure out how to pull off the con job on Joe MacMillan. Bos occasionally chimed in, like Jiminy Cricket with a Texas drawl. Like the old cricket, he didn't have much luck getting Cameron to heed his words.

One by one the team figured out the obstacle at hand. They would separate the Commodore cards with cardboard to make them fit like they needed them to. They'd remove the fan, sacrificing cooling for more pressing matters. They'd run a tape recorder inside the case playing the sound of the modem. And they would use coax cable run an advanced ethernet encoding. The con was a finely tuned system, a work of art.

And it almost worked. The layout looked great, even if it wasn't in color. Mail worked as well, albeit kind of clunkily (you accessed it through Community with a game). The games played. Joe seemed to have bought it.

And then he played chess again. And a third time. And every time, regardless of the supposedly human player he was playing, they each played the exact same moves. From there Joe looked at the box, and it was hot to the touch and melting to the table. He tore the case open and found Bodie's tape recorder. Finally, he saw they had connected to another computer using the Ethernet cables. He stormed out, seemingly angry that they had gone out of their way to screw him over.

Joe (to Cameron): You did this to yourself. What kills me about it is you're so much better than this.

Joe drove away, and like that Cameron had to deal with the probability that Mutiny was done. She sat down on the deck steps to think for a while. Donna joined her.

"I have to tell you something." - Donna Clark, "10Broad36"

Donna had made her mind up. There would be no third Clark child. She had not intended to tell anyone because this was what she wanted. She only told Bos because he thought Cameron was the one who had taken the test. She told her mom, because they had a good relationship. But even there she lied to her, saying she had a miscarriage before she had even had the abortion. It was a way to thread the needle, to tell her mom what was going on without getting into a whole debate with her conservative Texas housewife mom. In the conversation, she made her case to herself and us in the audience:

I love the children we have. You know, it really wouldn't have been fair to them. It was a really special time when they were small, but we are in a different place now, our family feels complete, and so...maybe in a way--maybe this is what's best.

She told Cameron there on the steps, as Mutiny appeared to be dead. She wanted a ride to the abortion clinic. Cameron drove her. Whatever had gone on, whatever they had disagreed about, she was there for her friend and partner.

Cameron parked the car. She made sure Donna wasn't doing it for Mutiny, stating plainly the company quite possibly would be finished in the morning. Donna was clear it wasn't because of Mutiny. This was what she wanted. This was her choice.**

Cameron asked Donna if she wanted her to come along. Donna said she'd go alone. Cameron went with her anyway.

Later, Donna sat alone quietly at home. The phone rang, and she let the family's cheerful message where they each said their name play. The message was Gordon calling, asking Donna to pick up as Haley cried in the background. Kicked out of Henry's house, they had gone to a hotel. Haley wouldn't go to sleep unless Donna did her usual routine of singing to her as Haley snuggled with her stuffed elephant Jinx.

Gordon put the phone down on the pillow so Haley (and Joanie) could listen. Donna sang them a special version of "Baby Mine" from Dumbo.

Haley mine, don't you cry
Haley mine, dry your eyes
Rest your head, close to my heart.
Never to part, baby of mine.

As Donna started humming the tune. Joanie, lying next to Haley, held herself and fell asleep. Haley, lying between Joanie and Gordon, also closed her eyes and fell asleep. Gordon held his head, wide awake.

He still hadn't told Donna he was sick. Donna still hadn't told him she had been pregnant.

"This is beginning to feel like a pattern, Joe." - Jacob Wheeler, "10Broad36"

Joe reported back to Jacob that he had given Mutiny benchmarks for them to try to meet in exchange for giving them a discounted rate. Jacob, at this point, was frustrated with Joe continuing to make decisions behind his back. But Joe continued, telling Jacob that Mutiny completed the first two in 24 hours. The third they considered so much of a waste of their time, they chose to trick Joe instead.

Jacob: Now you know how it feels.

Joe: Here's the interesting part. Just to avoid doing it, they ended up using a sophisticated Ethernet encode and streaming data over a line they were using to steal pay television. The technology is called broadband.

At least a decade before it would become a viable alternative to phone modems, Mutiny had stumbled into the future trying to con Joe MacMillan.

Joe had a new idea for Mutiny. He wanted to buy them.

Next Week: Gordon starts a new business, and Cameron has a choice to make.

Footnotes

* The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was not available for sale yet at the time this episode was set. But Donna's dad had Japanese connections due to his mail order business. One of them had sent him an early NES well before it was available in stores.

** Not gonna let this go by without acknowledging this quiet moment of autonomy and solidarity between Cameron and Donna would make them criminals in Dallas, TX here in 2026.

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