Review: The Man in the High Castle S4 E3: The Box
The Man in the High Castle keeps the hits rolling in its final season with Episode 3: The Box. With this episode we get some solid action as well as discussions that will influence the rest of the series.
Spoilers Ahead
As all of the episodes have started this season, we get a small beginning before the intro. On a complete side note, the intro scene is one of my favorite intros in media. The music coupled with the images is something that fits so perfectly and I found to be very fitting for the series.
Helen is talking to her brother in a pickup truck, still in Montana and it becomes clear she is returning to the Reich. She gets out of the car and walks up to what can only be described as the Berlin Wall on steroids. It appears to be a fully manned and maintained wall that is between the Neutral Zone and the GNR. The two images I got were the Berlin Wall and the wall separating Palestine and Israel which, considering the subject of Man in the High Castle, is something I had not expected to see a parallel in.
We are then transported back to our timeline where a visibly shaken Juliana Crain meets Russ in his pickup. It becomes clear she had asked him for a firearm and he seems hesitant. He states how he did some checking into her and discovered that a Juliana Crain died in a car crash in San Francisco with the rest of her family. This explains how Juliana was able to enter our timeline. Russ seems to just want some honesty for Juliana and she gives it to him, stating she is “up against Nazi’s from another world”. He obviously doesn’t believe her and she apologizes for asking for a gun but he gives it to her anyway! (Ah, America and firearms).
Back to the JPS, Inspector Kido discusses with General Yamori how Mingus Jones had an alibi the night that Minister Tagomi was assassinated. General Yamori does not seem fazed and orders Inspector Kido to close the investigation. He tries to play at Kido’s sense of duty to the army in order to get him to drop the case.
The day of the auction has arrived and Wyatt Price is entering the grounds of the Presidio with his team of resistance fighters. They seem to be nervous and Wyatt discusses that before a mission he opens up a box and everything that happens on the mission goes in the box and then he closes the box. One of the fighters asks what happens when no more room exists for the boxes but we do not get an answer to this question.
Kido’s son is at the Bamboo Palace, a Yakuza front. He is in uniform and has his medal on, the same medal that caused the nervous breakdown the previous day. In the Bamboo Palace white women are topless and obviously courting the Japanese clients in the establishment. As would be the same anywhere, the flesh trade business is alive and well in the JPS. He is having a drink and one of the ladies tries to offer her services to the “war hero” but he brushes her off which in turn causes a Yakuza man to speak with him. The moment the man lays hands on him, Kido’s son hits him with a bottle and we do not see what happens next.
Helen returns home much to the surprise of John and we finally discover that Himmler is alive and well and will be hosted by the Smith’s at a dinner the next day. Helen is obviously conflicted as she goes through her clothes and wardrobe, you can see how she does not wish to be back but is doing it for what appears to be her children. Jennifer confronts her and wishes she would go back to the Neutral Zone where she could be free. Jennifer wants to leave the GNR and Helen tells her to stop talking like that and that “some day” she will help her get out.
We rapidly move between different scenes here which is fine as it keeps multiple storylines going at once. First we are back in ‘our’ timeline where Thomas is talking about enlisting in the Marines with Juliana. Thomas seems excited and eager to fight for the flag and his patriotism for America is clear. She tells him that he probably shouldn’t do it and talk to his father about it.
Back to the JPS, Kido is getting ready to go to the auction and is the only one of the four targets (Masuda and the two defense ministers) that has not arrived as of yet. He receives a call from the Yakuza boss who states that his son was there and he needs to speak to Kido. We then see that the man that Kido’s son hit is dead on the ground so it is obvious his PTSD got the better of him.
Helen and John have a heart to heart where she explains that she isn’t there for John but for her daughters. She doesn’t even know if their marriage means anything anymore or if she cares about it but she states she will be an ally to John and that is the one thing he truly needs more than a wife as Berlin is “coming for him”.
Kido takes cares of the incident with his son, Toru. States that the murder will be concealed and the reports will be made to make sure his son is not implicated. Toru goes off about how he can not forget what he did in Manchuria (we had seen some flashbacks just prior to the bar fight and it looks similar to the Rape of Nanking in our timeline). Toru and Kido fight with Toru calling them both puppets for the Empire and that they are losing the war in China regardless of what the papers are reporting. As the fight continues Toru tells Kido that he abandoned his family for the Empire. Kido can’t take this and forcefully throws his son out telling him he disowns him. The whole scene is rather intense and I feel for Kido here as well as his son. Toru’s words are accurate they really are both puppets. Everyone is a puppet in some manner.
Kido is trying to rush to get to the auction when he receives an urgent message from another member of the Kempetai that Lem has been seen in the JPS accompanied by another man. They have a drawing of the other man and Kido instantly recognizes him as the caterer Wyatt Price. He orders someone to alert the auction right away but the attack has already started. The BCR hear the radio transmissions and half of them evacuate the area, not wanting to get captured now that their cover is blown. Bell Malory continues the fight and winds up walking outside and executing General Masuda. The three targets that were at the auction are all taken out by the joint BCR/Resistance forces before Kido can get to the auction.
Elijah and Wyatt are fighting over the blown operation at the BCR safe house when they realize that Childan had been hiding in one of the stolen cars. Childan states they had attacked the wrong people and the defense ministers had been at the auction on the orders of the Crown Princesses to start negotiating a peace treaty. He claims he can get a message to the Crown Princess. I am unsure how he knows that is why they are at the auction, if it is all conjecture based on the conversation between the Princess and the Admiral in his shop or if something more took place off camera.
Back in our timeline Juliana meets Alt-John Smith at a restaurant before he goes on a work trip after she saw a vision of John Smith. They talk about his motivations as a man and he admits that he saw and did things in the war he could never tell his family about. He says when he got a battlefield promotion in the Philippines he realized if he stayed in that job he would love it too much and it would have grown into him, giving some explanation as to why he became what he became in Juliana’s timeline. She tells him he needs to tell his sone some of those things he saw in the war to convince him not to go and then leaves. She realizes that a Nazi is in her car just as he wraps a plastic bag over her head and a struggle begins. Just as it seems Juliana is going to die as she drops her gun, Alt-Smith steps in and fights the Nazi, getting stabbed to death for his trouble while Juliana drives away rapidly.
This episode gave us some significant action as well as some major character development. Juliana realizes that Smith had the position grow on him and was not an evil man to start, just developed into it. Kido is wrestling with some major demons in regard to what he did and didn’t do for his son. The portrayal of PTSD and mental issues is a huge win to me as I found the “box” metaphor discussed by Wyatt to be accurate even in my own life as an EMT.
The real question I have is where does it go from here?
