Heydrich is known as “the Man with the Iron Heart,” and there’s an allusion made to his “enslavement of the African continent.” (Comparatively, Smith almost seems like a nice guy.) As I was just beginning to wonder if Smith had given up on his mole hunt, Heydrich asks the same question - but Smith knows he doesn’t really care about the mole. Like the Childan subplot, this is a narrative twist I really didn’t see coming - and Sewell’s performance in the scene is truly stunning.Īs if the news about his son wasn’t horrifying enough, Smith is visited in his office by Oberst-Gruppenführer Heydrich (Ray Proscia) a legendary Nazi figure. The doctor allows Smith a small bit of kindness: “What must be done can be done in the kinder setting of your home.” He hands him a syringe and chemicals, then tells him to kill his son. As we learned when Joe spotted ash falling from the sky in the Midwest, the Nazis kill any sick or crippled people. Smith tries to deny this diagnosis, but soon realizes his son’s awful fate.
It’s classified as a class A congenital disorder. Thomas has a serious degenerative disease called Landouzy-Dejerine Syndrome. No big deal, right? The doctor reports otherwise. In the episode’s most heartbreaking and fascinating subplot, Smith (Rufus Sewell) visits a doctor with his son. Kido is particularly unhappy about the shakedown. The gangsters are playing both sides, which certainly won’t end well. At the same time, a Yakuza boss meets with Kido (Joel de la Fuente) and Yoshida (Lee Shorten), offering to sell the film to them for 150,000 yen. We have what you came for.” The Yakuza have stolen the film and want 100,000 yen for it. When Lem and his partner try collect the High Castle film from their contact, they discover his dead body. She does tells them, however, that she knows an operative who wants to help. Interestingly, she doesn’t tell them about Sakura Iwazaru, or how Arnold betrayed Trudy. Juliana goes out to buy “three yellow daisies,” which puts her back in touch with the Resistance. Childan almost backs out of the deal, while Juliana tells Joe (Luke Kleintank) that she’s thinking about backing out too. He says he’s going to buy bus tickets and get them out of town. It’s Ed (DJ Qualls), who hasn’t really done much this season, but now he wants to help his buddy out. The way the show has handled Trudy’s death exemplifies that - it wasn’t merely a plot device.įrank (Rupert Evans) is working on the fake antique for Childan (Brennan Brown) when there’s a loud knock at the door. Though it’s an action-driven program, the violence carries real emotional consequences. It’s interesting how the inciting incident of The Man in the High Castle has lingered through so much of the first season. She reveals that Trudy was shot by the Kempeitai, devastating both her mom and Arnold (Daniel Roebuck), who sold Trudy out from his position within the surveillance office. Juliana (Alexa Davalos) goes to tell her mom and stepdad about Trudy, whose body she found in a mass grave at the end of last episode, confirming her death. This is an unusual task Lem doesn’t leave the Neutral Zone.
In a brief prologue, Lem (Rick Worthy) is given a code that orders him to go to San Francisco, secure the newest film in circulation, and bring it to the Man in the High Castle.
With two episodes left in the season, series creator Frank Spotnitz seems to be wrapping up the big narratives on a high note. It’s a well-paced, emotionally resonant, and technically accomplished hour of television. After director Brad Anderson elevated The Man in the High Castle’s previous episode, “End of the World” turns directorial duties over to Karyn Kusama, the filmmaker behind Girlfight and Aeon Flux, as well as two great chapters of AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire.