‘Halt and Catch Fire’ episode 8 review: Did Cardiff get to COMDEX?

We were wondering when there was going to be a moment on AMC’s “Halt and Catch Fire” when everything was going to truly hit the fan. This happened Sunday night with “The 214s.”

The episode started off in an ominous enough way, and that was with Joe MacMillan bearing witness to police officers decorating the walls of Cardiff. Cameron and John had worked together to funnel money away from the company via hacking so that they could finish the project and head to COMDEX, where they would make back the majority of the money in sales. That didn’t happen, and instead we had heroes in handcuffs, Gordon desperate to find a way to finish the Giant, and Joe realizing for the first time that this may be too big of a hole for him to dig himself out of.

Gordon went completely bonkers over the course of this hour, taking his work home and scaring Donna so much that she was panicking with her mom. This is without mentioning what happened with her and Hunt (who bailed on his own job after everything went south with the two of them).

Somehow, Gordon managed to be so crazy that he actually convinced Joe to bail on IBM again, team up with him and Cameron, and work with them in order to ensure that they ended up going to COMDEX, after all. This entire sequence at the end of the episode was pure brilliance, and it was just the motivation that the crew needed. Joe sold his car, the money has been raised, and they can move forward. Heck, even Donna went with them, and we were pretty convinced that she was going to leave the guy after all this nonsense.

On a night with a ton of great programming, “Halt and Catch Fire” was still the best thing on Sunday night. The writing has improved dramatically, the acting is better than ever, and we have a show here that we really hope lasts for many seasons to come. Let’s just hope it finishes strong. Grade: A-.

What was your take on this “Halt and Catch Fire” episode overall? Let us know in the comments.