Halt and Catch Fire (2014–2017): Season 3, Episode 1 - Valley of the Heart's Delight - full transcript
Donna and Cameron explore their options to expand beyond chat. Gordon settles in at Mutiny. Joe launches his latest product.
Previously, on AMC's
"Halt and Catch Fire"...
We built the MALclient on
top of the existing code.
That's very clever.
You call this a company?
Do we have people signing
up just for Community?
Stand alone messaging, no game.
I think we should move to California.
It would be a fresh start.
I'm talkin' about you
and me partnering again.
I'm going to work for Mutiny.
Holding hands with Joe MacMillan
never ends well.
I guess it's time to move
out to the left coast.
# They all laughed at
Christopher Columbus #
# When he said the world was round, aha #
# They all laughed when
Edison recorded sound... #
Ahem. Ooh.
# They all laughed at
Wilbur and his brother #
# When they said that man could fly #
# They told Marconi
wireless was a phony... #
Is he doing Frank Sinatra?
He can do Frank Zappa for all I care.
As long as it holds him off.
All right, let's cycle her through again.
- Her?
- Yeah, her.
Temperamental, high-maintenance,
only responds to the right touch.
Yeah, well, I've been touching
this thing for six months
and he still hasn't turned on.
# They all laughed at Rockefeller Center #
# Now they're fightin' to get in #
# They all laughed at Mutiny
and our cotton gin... #
# They all said we never would be happy #
# They laughed at us, and how #
# But, oh, ho-ho #
# Who's got the last laugh now? #
Hey, could you make
them hurry up downstairs?
- Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
- We're gonna lose this dude.
Hey, it's nice to see
some ladies here for once.
Probably should've waited
to schedule the celebration
of a working mainframe
until the mainframe was
actually, you know, working.
Hey, Bos says hurry up.
That reporter's gonna leave.
Yeah.
All right, try that.
Still not booting up.
You okay?
Yeah.
Scale of one to 10?
I'm fine.
Do you want to lie down?
Yeah, of course I want to lie down.
I've been awake for 20 hours.
I just...
Scale of one to 10?
Two.
Three, max.
Mm, let me check the power unit again.
And now, please, without further ado,
let's welcome our founder, Cameron Howe.
Come on.
Come on.
Hey.
- Hi.
- Hey.
- Cameron Howe.
- Ross Weaver, "InfoWorld".
Mm.
Quite a party, but, um,
maybe a little premature.
Seriously, how much longer?
Um...
Oh, God, somebody put a
cigarette out on this wire wrap.
You know, once we're our own network,
Cameron and I can get back
to what really matters.
I'm sure she's eager to get you back.
Booting up?
It's on!
It's on!
Oh!
The Death Star is online and operational.
Alderaan will never know what hit it.
Hey, Donna. Cam wants you
upstairs like right now.
Yes. Let's go celebrate.
All right! Suck it, Telenet,
you faxed us your last invoice!
Whoa, ho! Whoa, whoa, hey, hey!
That is way more fireworks
than we talked about.
Speech! Speech!
Hey, come on.
Okay. Okay, okay, okay.
Okay, first of all, I
would like to welcome
our guest, Ross Weaver, from "InfoWorld".
I hope you've all had
a chance to talk to him.
He'll be covering our relaunch.
Hide the drugs.
As you know, we hit
100,000 users last week.
Yeah!
But, more importantly,
it's a banner day, you guys.
Our Independence Day!
Oh, oh, one more thing.
This is very important.
John Bosworth is officially a grandfather.
Look, I know it feels like we
got to California two minutes ago,
but we can't slow down now.
We are continuing to expand
user experience on the network...
Avatar modification,
building out neighborhoods.
We have a ton of really
important deadlines coming up
and we are counting on you guys.
We know how hard it was to leave
all our friends and family in Texas,
but we are so impressed
with your commitment
- and we just want...
- Speaking of commitment,
there is one person I would
especially like to thank...
my husband Gordon Clark.
Come on up.
Gordo!
I just want to say thank you so much
for believing in this crazy idea
and slaving away in the basement with me,
because we couldn't
have done it without you.
I couldn't have.
Whoo!
All right, come on, let's
get back to the party.
"Shut Us Down" playing
I couldn't have done
it without you, Gordon.
Yeah, couldn't have done
it without your money.
# Halt & Catch Fire 3x01 #
Valley of the Heart's Delight
Original Air Date on August 23, 2016
Unbelievable.
This is a complete hatchet job.
I know it hurts, but, trust me,
there's no such thing as bad press.
And the Pro got creamed in the trades
and it still outsold the
Giant by a factor of five.
No, this is different. This is bad.
What, let me guess. You're gonna kill him?
No, it's his facts that are killing us.
We're a quarter of the size of CompuServe,
we have less infrastructure
than The Source,
nowhere near the investment
visibility of Q-Link.
I hate it, but he's right.
- What's up, squirt?
- "Family Circus" still sucks.
- That's true.
- Hey, language.
Language.
- Where is Joanie?
- Getting dressed.
He calls you upstarts, says
you're a welcome addition
of heart and vitality
to the Valley landscape.
The guy's... that's great.
Yeah, he's also got us going under by '88.
Well, if you're that worried about it,
issue a press release
full of stats and revenue
and, you know, tell your
version of the story.
What? No one reads press releases.
They read magazines, like this one.
Well, then, we might as
well write an obituary.
- Oh, shit.
- Language.
Sorry, honey.
I've got to meet with Joanie's
principal today at 4:00.
Why?
She got in a fight on Monday.
Okay, when were you
gonna tell me about that?
I'm sorry. Completely forgot.
She win, at least?
The school wants a parent meeting.
Uh, we have a development meeting at 4:00.
- I know.
- So, can't he do it?
Okay, I'll give you guys a minute.
Roar!
Roar! Got you.
You totally didn't know I was in there.
Yeah, well, you're totally busted
for the fight you got into at school.
Whatever. I kicked her ass.
- Really?
- Go ahead. You know you want to.
What?
You're such a little brat.
And I...
I know you're frustrated.
I'm frustrated, too.
We're five people living on
top of each other, and that's...
Donna, I'm frustrated because
this was supposed to be temporary.
- It is temporary.
- No, it's been six mo...
Oh, shit.
Haley, sweetheart, get under the table.
Joanie!
- Mom!
- It's okay, it's okay.
It's all right. You okay?
Was that...?
Yes, it was. Hang on,
there's broken glass here.
What should we do? Should we
stay in the doorway or go outside?
You're fine. You're
fine right where you are.
Joanie, baby, are you okay?
I'm fine, just don't freak out on me.
Sorry, do you think
that was just a preview?
Like a bigger one's coming?
- Or is that the final thing?
- Hey, listen.
- You're not helping.
- Don't be such a wimp, Haley.
- Hey, Joanie.
- Your sister's scared. Be nice.
- You always take her side.
- Joanie.
Hey, listen, guys.
Jesus, people, it's toast.
My, don't you look out of this world.
Pretty rad, right?
The antennae just rolled out this week,
along with sunglasses, regular glasses,
and a Mohawk customization.
You should totally get the Mohawk.
Oh, we should totally get going.
Let's start with Main Street
and then the smaller places.
Oh, there's Sledgehammer.
Did you hear CompuServe's
expanding to Japan?
And GEnie added 10,000 users last quarter.
At least CBS might back out of Trintex.
Great, then it's just IBM and Sears.
Seams kind of dead on here, doesn't it?
Well, yeah, at 9:00 a.m. on a Tuesday
and the system's like a
casino floor in the morning.
It's only the hardcores.
But, hey, look at Comic Book Corner.
Oh, the niche room metrics
are off the charts 'round the clock.
That place is rowdy, man.
There's more fights
than a Hells Angels bar.
Well, I guess it's good that these
guys' glasses are digital, then.
Nice. Oh, hold on a sec.
Guy's got a 1311 with a
modded thumbfire button.
Jeez, do you know everybody on here?
And then here we are.
64,000 pixels
of prime, undeveloped real estate.
It can be whatever we want it to be.
It's got to be...
it's gotta be something great.
Ryan. What's up?
Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.
Are we still on? I know we said 9:00.
- Maybe it was 9:15.
- No, it was 9:00.
Yeah, no, 9:00. Come on in.
I don't know.
Okay, here's another way to look at it.
Community looks like this.
No, uh, it looks like this.
Well, no, like this.
Just... okay, blah, blah,
chatting, chatting, chatting.
We dress it up with a
sprite-scaling interface,
but underneath it's just paint-by-numbers.
You know, here's a room, chat in it.
I think it's a little
more than paint-by-numbers.
To discount the meaningful
human interaction.
No, no, no, it works, it's fine.
It's like vanilla ice cream, but it's...
So, here are the users
and here's private chat.
And the users, they're talking, talking.
"Hey, what's going on?
Let's get to know each other more."
So they go to private chat.
And then private chat is
just PETSCII because...
1977.
You know how your mom always
says to close the door behind you?
These two users, they... they leave,
and they don't close the...
Okay, so, all these other
people here are saying,
"Hey, what are you guys doing?
Where are they going? I
want to check that out."
And so they... they go, like that.
And so...
that's your problem.
Have you guys ever
seen "The Conversation"?
Which conversation?
Wait, the... the Gene Hackman movie?
Exactly.
Uh...
People think private chat is private.
But because of the way
somebody wrote it...
- The way I wrote it.
- Wait, wait.
You're telling me that people
are hacking private chats?
Sure, um, big-time.
Look.
So, see this little guy here?
That's the hacker. Totally masked.
The asterisk is a prompt for
data. You can't mask that.
Hold on. How did you get this?
These are private chat transcripts.
Easy, I just walked through the
gaping holes that the hackers did.
- Ryan.
- No, you cannot do that.
Sure, I can. I just...
Don't do it again. I mean it.
That's a direct violation
of our user agreement.
Yeah, okay. Um, totally right.
Uh, but here's my idea.
So, you connect users outside public room,
but to different encryption
points first, then to each other.
You cover tracks,
you rebuild private chat
separate from Mutiny,
but also still talking
to Mutiny outside Mutiny.
Second but separate Mutiny.
Users here, here, and here
network, remote, program, hub,
RSA filters one, two, three.
No cache. Voila.
Ryan, that's an entirely new
and very expensive something
using techniques that our
coders don't even know, so...
I can do it. I can do it.
You still have a ton of
sprite rendering for me.
Then put one of the guys
who can't do this on it.
Ryan, we're not doing it.
Okay.
But here's another idea.
Okay, you know what?
Ryan, why don't you just
send it to us electronically?
Okay.
Cool. No problem.
Great, really looking
forward to checking it out.
Oh, and just to say it one more time,
something like this is
way better for Mutiny
than putting a bow tie on an avatar.
Got it. Yeah, thanks.
"One Way Ticket" playing
It's happening again!
It was funny the first six times.
Next person that does it is gonna
wear their underwear as a hat.
Cut it out, you cretins.
Every time you screw around, it
rains down debris on the mainframe.
Look. There's a date now.
Dude, that's today.
If you ask me, it's got Reagan's
fingerprints all over it.
- Jesus.
- Hello, remember lasers in space?
Okay, it starts with fear
because nobody wants to
die in a nuclear blast.
And then, one by one,
they take away your rights
until you're Sieg Heilin' Ronnie
and bowing down before Ed Meese.
It's gotta be some gay thing.
You know, like AIDS.
Real sensitive, dude.
Maybe it's a religious thing,
like Pat Robertson saying
the world's gonna end again.
You idiots.
- It's Joe MacMillan.
- Wait, what?
- No way!
- Nyet.
- Oh, that's better than Reagan.
- The anti-virus guy?
- How are you so sure?
- They were partners.
Is it true he knows Madonna?
Like, really knows her?
I heard his first client was the CIA.
Yeah, no, that was Oracle.
Didn't MacMillan, like, steal your idea
and make a gazillion dollars?
Yeah.
But I'm suing the son
of a bitch, aren't I?
No, I slept right through it.
I woke up and some water had
sloshed out the toilet bowl,
but that was about it.
But, look, Terry, before
the big one hits...
I want to get this modem order sorted out.
You're damn right, v.22.
Hey, and I want the
wholesale number for that.
Ter... oh, come on, man.
I can walk right across the street to USR
and get high-speed transfer for that.
Just...
all right, well, call me
back when you want to talk,
when you've come to
your senses, all right?
Thanks.
Look, you need to... you need to invest
in some improvements
in the mainframe room.
It's a disaster waiting to happen.
All right, whatever you need.
No problem.
There something else, Gordon?
How do you do it?
How do you deal with all this nonsense?
Oh, well...
You know, it's like
feeding animals at the zoo.
Dangle a couple kippers
out for them and they dance
and keep them locked up in
their cages the rest of the day.
You talking about the queens of the
jungle, that's a different story.
Advice?
I find it wise not to
interfere with the brain trust.
They run the place. I just work here.
Bosworth.
Boy or girl?
- Excuse me?
- Boy or girl?
Your grandchild.
Oh, it's, uh... he's a boy.
Who is this?
Come on, did you really forget about me?
Joe?
I just wanted to call
and say I'm happy for you.
Hey, how did you even get the...
Be well, John.
Yeah, 100,000 users sounds good,
but what really matters
is how long they stay on.
And moving that number is proving
a lot more difficult than it looks.
Hey, listen.
Once I get the mainframe solid,
I was thinking...
I don't know, I was thinking about
maybe pursuing other opportunities.
Wh...
We did what we set out to do with the 3033
and, come on, there's not
really much more for me to do.
Well...
I want you to be happy.
Hi.
I'm guessing you two
are Joanie's mom and dad.
Oh, are you Jennifer's mom?
Most of the time. People
also call me Diane.
Of course. I'm Donna.
Oh, Gordon, sorry.
Look, as far as Joanie
goes, I know how hard it is
to be the new kid in school.
She has my sympathy.
But I think what this boils down to
is Jennifer is just pretty
pissed at her father and me.
We're going through proceedings.
It's been a bit rocky.
Pr... proceedings?
Divorce.
I'm so sorry.
Oh, I'm not. Believe me,
it's better for everyone.
Except Jennifer, who's lashing out.
Anyway, so, I apologize
and I hope it hasn't
caused you too much grief.
Uh, Mr. and Mrs. Clark. Oh, Mrs. Gould.
Principal Wilcox will see you now.
Great.
- Hey, Cam.
- Hi.
Hey, did you tell anyone
else about my grandson?
No.
Should I not have announced it?
Nah, nah. I'm just wondering.
Hey, Bos. Come here.
What?
Uh, I need you to give Ryan a raise.
Just bump him up 15%.
All right, that's a good call.
The kid's been doing a bang-up job.
- Yeah.
- All right.
Hey, I'm working here.
Dude, we're all going to Burger King.
Come to lunch with us.
I brought today. I'm good.
Come on, this Boo
Radley-in-the-basement thing
is getting kind of creepy.
We're offering you a
flame-broiled way out of here.
Look, I don't have time.
This is important, okay?
Seriously?
Whatever.
What a slave. What, does he sleep late?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Why? I'm the one changing
in the middle of a little girls' room.
Thank you again for
being so understanding.
Kids'll be kids.
Maybe Jennifer can come
play with Joanie sometime.
Well, that would be odd considering
they don't like each other.
Oh, um, I'm sorry. I'll talk to Joanie.
I like it that we're both
raising girls who are fighters.
Don't you?
What?
I'm just glad you didn't get suspended.
I know you think you hate California.
I know it's... it's hard here.
But...
we have to commit.
Otherwise, it's never
gonna feel like home.
The whole house was shaking.
Sweetie, you okay?
I'm fine.
- You sure?
- Fine.
We are gonna be okay.
I promise.
It's a raise, son.
You won today.
Did Cameron or Donna
mention anything else?
Is it less than you asked for?
I didn't ask for anything.
I just pitched them some ideas.
I'm sure they'll reach out
when and if the time is right.
Hmm?
I'm sure they'll let you know.
Blue Moon Detective?
- Oh, hey, CamHowe.
- Hey.
Nice to meet you... in person.
It's weird meeting
people this way, isn't it?
It's like you jumped
out of my computer screen
or something, like you're not real.
Yeah, yeah, Mutiny's
pretty cool in that...
I haven't been on long.
I only just discovered it.
How about you?
Uh, I work there, actually.
Oh, wow. That's gotta be fun.
Yeah, you know, it's harder than it looks.
Is this the gear?
Oh, yeah, yeah. Please go ahead.
Um, I think it's in there somewhere.
Oh, yeah.
Hope the paint's okay.
Yeah, no, he was a big Niners fan, right?
Yeah, he was.
Uh, how do you know about that?
What?
That he was a...
wait, did we talk about him?
- Yeah.
- My son.
Yeah, yeah. You posted in
the grief and support room.
And I'm so sorry for your loss,
but the, um, joystick looks great, so...
We didn't meet on the grief board.
We met in the tech room.
Right.
That's where we met,
but I saw that you posted
in the grief and support room and then...
All I posted was... I mean, I just
posted that I had lost someone.
I never said anything about...
I just had private chats
about him with other people.
- Not anything...
- No.
We never talked about him, never.
How... how the hell
do you know about that?
How do you know about him at all?
I...
I think I should go.
How do you know about my son?
Those conversations were
supposed to be private.
What, can you blame me?
All this to add graphics
capability to chat.
Whatever keeps the users on longer.
Seriously doubt it'll work long.
Yeah, but this LZW
compression is pretty cool.
You really think people are gonna
stick around because of GIFs?
- It's pronounced "jif".
- No way. Hard G, "gif".
I heard "jif," but it's
cool if you want to be wrong.
Hey, look, everyone, it's "Jordon".
Hey, you guys know I can
hear everything you say
down in the mainframe room?
Yeah, can you hear this?
Marty, I worry about you.
What I couldn't help but overhear
is you guys whining
about having a long night.
Back in the Cardiff kill room,
we developed a little technique
for pushing through nights like this.
Called it the "Tandy-Shandy".
One keeps you sharp, and the other's...
the other's a beer.
Well, we've got our own technique,
if you're interested.
Ooh.
And that, gentlemen, is
how you jerk off a dinosaur.
All right, now, look, I'm
gonna make a phone call.
When I come back, I wanna
hear about that Amiga.
All right?
Bosworths, leave a message.
Hey there, son. It's Dad.
I suppose you're getting
used to calling yourself that
right about now, huh?
Oh, hell, I bet it's
getting late in Rockwall.
Dang it.
I hope I didn't wake my
little sweet pea up there.
I'm sorry I keep missing you.
I just want to hear every
little detail about that kid.
It would occur to me I don't even know
the little fella's name.
Did you guys decide on one or...
So...
So I go over to Joe's house,
you know, I'm expecting to see
this guy swinging from the rafters.
Holy shit.
But, surprise, he's alive.
He opens the door. I
mean, he looks like hell,
but he's alive.
So, I go in.
You know, the whole place is cleaned out.
And I can see it, his whole life gone,
destroyed.
It's exactly what I had thought,
which is exactly why I stayed up all night
reversing the Sonaris code.
You know, honestly, I
really wanted to help him.
So I gave him the disk out
of the goodness of my heart.
We hugged.
Joe MacMillan knows how to hug?
Next thing you know, I wake up,
I'm reading about $10
million in financing,
all based on my software.
That's insane.
Yeah.
Of course a guy like that
would steal your idea.
I mean, he's too stupid to
come up with one of his own.
No, no, no, no, no.
Don't you do that.
Don't you underestimate him.
That's when he's most dangerous.
No, Joe's...
Joe's brilliant.
And when you're in that guy's thrall,
you know, it feels like a drug.
You know, you... you feel...
like the most important
person in the world.
And that's when you wake
up with your neck slit,
bleeding all over the floor.
What is that?
They're Ryan's private chat transcripts.
He'd already printed them off
and I figured maybe there'd
be some answers in here,
but what if we do go under by '88?
I mean, everything we went through
last year, all the battles we fought,
moving everything out
here, everyone, our...
leaving our families and our friends.
What if we did all that just to, what,
putter around out here
for a couple of years
and then disappear like we were
never even here in the first place?
No, moving here wasn't a mistake.
Here.
There's gotta be something in here.
Well, there's all kinds of reasons
that people are signing off.
They're getting along so well,
they want to talk on the phone.
Maybe that's obvious.
Sometimes they even want
to meet up in person.
Or they want to make a trade.
I met up with the joystick guy earlier.
Then why did you go to Fry's?
Because when I met up with him in person,
he turned out to be a total creep.
Transactional interactions?
Like, what if you didn't have to sign off
when you wanted to make a trade?
- You could just...
- Do it online.
Okay, sure.
That's just what you did,
but that's only one reason...
Okay, look. We're never gonna stop people
from talking on the phone, right?
And we don't want to because that's...
a genuine connection.
But with transactions...
Here, look!
This is about bootlegs.
"I've got the Venice show from last fall".
"I've got the whole summer up north".
Here's another one!
Here. How about my "WrestleMania '85"
for your Hagler/Hearns "War" VHS?
It's not gonna be every time,
but there could be enough of these
that it warrants building something
so that people are doing
this interaction on Mutiny.
Even if people aren't already trading,
it's a brand-new type of interaction
that could draw in more and more users.
Yeah, yeah. If it's good enough.
It just has to be good enough.
Okay, that's...
That's interesting.
I've never seen that before.
But is this it?
I-I don't know.
I've never seen it before, either,
and I feel like we've seen a lot.
This could be the sort of thing
that would make people really sit up
and pay attention.
- But is it it?
- Right?
'Cause it needs to be it,
'cause we're only gonna get
one shot at this out here.
Well...
Yo.
Yo.
Everything okay with the mainframe?
Yep.
Took care of it.
Anyways, it gave me an excuse
to hang out with the coders.
- You know.
- Tandy-Shandy?
And then some. Oof.
You guys working on something?
Mm.
Oh, yeah, we were just
coming up with some ideas...
Ah, I'll leave it to the brain trust.
Okay, that was so weird.
So, what do you think?
I think let's do it.
Yeah, I think so, too.
But if this is gonna work,
we're gonna have to trust each other.
Reading private chats is a
violation of our user agreement.
Can we close the back door of that code?
Yeah, sure.
No problem.
You're high.
Yeah, so are you.
Oh, hey, hey.
Hey.
You smell like Berkeley, Gordon.
- I could take a shower.
- No.
When's the last time our
bedroom smelled like weed?
That's the great thing about California.
Our bedroom can smell
like weed whenever we want.
Shh, shh, shh.
Fear...
it's a natural reaction to
moving closer to the truth.
You know, ever since I
started MacMillan Utility,
I've been accused of selling fear.
But let me ask you...
is it fear?
Or is it truth?
How sure is our footing?
Yesterday morning, many of us
were reminded of that question
when we literally felt
the ground move beneath us.
We live in a world that
is constantly shifting,
sometimes bringing us together
and sometimes pulling us apart.
Hey, Pop, don't worry about calling late.
We already gave up on sleep.
Anyway, uh, I thought you'd like to know
we are going with Samuel John.
Who are our friends?
Who are our enemies?
What's gonna happen to us?
Are we safe?
What I created has grown.
Now, some of you...
...even call MacMillan
Utility the gold standard
in corporate anti virus protection.
But in the meantime,
I've been asking myself,
"What should the price
of security really be?
How much should we pay
to feel safe?"
Wait, here's another one
from that same ancient tradition.
The whole secret of existence
is to have no fear at all.
Never fear what will become of you.
Depend on no one.
Only in the moment
that you reject all help
are you really free.
Only by moving past fear
can we ever arrive at the truth.
And the truth is freedom
from fear is a right,
not a commodity.
I know what you're thinking.
I charge my corporate clients millions.
Well, they can afford it.
But tomorrow I'm releasing
our user version, Citadel,
the version I created for all of you.
Mainframe-quality security
for your personal computer.
Wait, wait.
And I'm charging you...
nothing.
For you...
it will be absolutely free.
Mr. MacMillan, I've got a
question from "InfoWorld".
"Halt and Catch Fire"...
We built the MALclient on
top of the existing code.
That's very clever.
You call this a company?
Do we have people signing
up just for Community?
Stand alone messaging, no game.
I think we should move to California.
It would be a fresh start.
I'm talkin' about you
and me partnering again.
I'm going to work for Mutiny.
Holding hands with Joe MacMillan
never ends well.
I guess it's time to move
out to the left coast.
# They all laughed at
Christopher Columbus #
# When he said the world was round, aha #
# They all laughed when
Edison recorded sound... #
Ahem. Ooh.
# They all laughed at
Wilbur and his brother #
# When they said that man could fly #
# They told Marconi
wireless was a phony... #
Is he doing Frank Sinatra?
He can do Frank Zappa for all I care.
As long as it holds him off.
All right, let's cycle her through again.
- Her?
- Yeah, her.
Temperamental, high-maintenance,
only responds to the right touch.
Yeah, well, I've been touching
this thing for six months
and he still hasn't turned on.
# They all laughed at Rockefeller Center #
# Now they're fightin' to get in #
# They all laughed at Mutiny
and our cotton gin... #
# They all said we never would be happy #
# They laughed at us, and how #
# But, oh, ho-ho #
# Who's got the last laugh now? #
Hey, could you make
them hurry up downstairs?
- Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
- We're gonna lose this dude.
Hey, it's nice to see
some ladies here for once.
Probably should've waited
to schedule the celebration
of a working mainframe
until the mainframe was
actually, you know, working.
Hey, Bos says hurry up.
That reporter's gonna leave.
Yeah.
All right, try that.
Still not booting up.
You okay?
Yeah.
Scale of one to 10?
I'm fine.
Do you want to lie down?
Yeah, of course I want to lie down.
I've been awake for 20 hours.
I just...
Scale of one to 10?
Two.
Three, max.
Mm, let me check the power unit again.
And now, please, without further ado,
let's welcome our founder, Cameron Howe.
Come on.
Come on.
Hey.
- Hi.
- Hey.
- Cameron Howe.
- Ross Weaver, "InfoWorld".
Mm.
Quite a party, but, um,
maybe a little premature.
Seriously, how much longer?
Um...
Oh, God, somebody put a
cigarette out on this wire wrap.
You know, once we're our own network,
Cameron and I can get back
to what really matters.
I'm sure she's eager to get you back.
Booting up?
It's on!
It's on!
Oh!
The Death Star is online and operational.
Alderaan will never know what hit it.
Hey, Donna. Cam wants you
upstairs like right now.
Yes. Let's go celebrate.
All right! Suck it, Telenet,
you faxed us your last invoice!
Whoa, ho! Whoa, whoa, hey, hey!
That is way more fireworks
than we talked about.
Speech! Speech!
Hey, come on.
Okay. Okay, okay, okay.
Okay, first of all, I
would like to welcome
our guest, Ross Weaver, from "InfoWorld".
I hope you've all had
a chance to talk to him.
He'll be covering our relaunch.
Hide the drugs.
As you know, we hit
100,000 users last week.
Yeah!
But, more importantly,
it's a banner day, you guys.
Our Independence Day!
Oh, oh, one more thing.
This is very important.
John Bosworth is officially a grandfather.
Look, I know it feels like we
got to California two minutes ago,
but we can't slow down now.
We are continuing to expand
user experience on the network...
Avatar modification,
building out neighborhoods.
We have a ton of really
important deadlines coming up
and we are counting on you guys.
We know how hard it was to leave
all our friends and family in Texas,
but we are so impressed
with your commitment
- and we just want...
- Speaking of commitment,
there is one person I would
especially like to thank...
my husband Gordon Clark.
Come on up.
Gordo!
I just want to say thank you so much
for believing in this crazy idea
and slaving away in the basement with me,
because we couldn't
have done it without you.
I couldn't have.
Whoo!
All right, come on, let's
get back to the party.
"Shut Us Down" playing
I couldn't have done
it without you, Gordon.
Yeah, couldn't have done
it without your money.
# Halt & Catch Fire 3x01 #
Valley of the Heart's Delight
Original Air Date on August 23, 2016
Unbelievable.
This is a complete hatchet job.
I know it hurts, but, trust me,
there's no such thing as bad press.
And the Pro got creamed in the trades
and it still outsold the
Giant by a factor of five.
No, this is different. This is bad.
What, let me guess. You're gonna kill him?
No, it's his facts that are killing us.
We're a quarter of the size of CompuServe,
we have less infrastructure
than The Source,
nowhere near the investment
visibility of Q-Link.
I hate it, but he's right.
- What's up, squirt?
- "Family Circus" still sucks.
- That's true.
- Hey, language.
Language.
- Where is Joanie?
- Getting dressed.
He calls you upstarts, says
you're a welcome addition
of heart and vitality
to the Valley landscape.
The guy's... that's great.
Yeah, he's also got us going under by '88.
Well, if you're that worried about it,
issue a press release
full of stats and revenue
and, you know, tell your
version of the story.
What? No one reads press releases.
They read magazines, like this one.
Well, then, we might as
well write an obituary.
- Oh, shit.
- Language.
Sorry, honey.
I've got to meet with Joanie's
principal today at 4:00.
Why?
She got in a fight on Monday.
Okay, when were you
gonna tell me about that?
I'm sorry. Completely forgot.
She win, at least?
The school wants a parent meeting.
Uh, we have a development meeting at 4:00.
- I know.
- So, can't he do it?
Okay, I'll give you guys a minute.
Roar!
Roar! Got you.
You totally didn't know I was in there.
Yeah, well, you're totally busted
for the fight you got into at school.
Whatever. I kicked her ass.
- Really?
- Go ahead. You know you want to.
What?
You're such a little brat.
And I...
I know you're frustrated.
I'm frustrated, too.
We're five people living on
top of each other, and that's...
Donna, I'm frustrated because
this was supposed to be temporary.
- It is temporary.
- No, it's been six mo...
Oh, shit.
Haley, sweetheart, get under the table.
Joanie!
- Mom!
- It's okay, it's okay.
It's all right. You okay?
Was that...?
Yes, it was. Hang on,
there's broken glass here.
What should we do? Should we
stay in the doorway or go outside?
You're fine. You're
fine right where you are.
Joanie, baby, are you okay?
I'm fine, just don't freak out on me.
Sorry, do you think
that was just a preview?
Like a bigger one's coming?
- Or is that the final thing?
- Hey, listen.
- You're not helping.
- Don't be such a wimp, Haley.
- Hey, Joanie.
- Your sister's scared. Be nice.
- You always take her side.
- Joanie.
Hey, listen, guys.
Jesus, people, it's toast.
My, don't you look out of this world.
Pretty rad, right?
The antennae just rolled out this week,
along with sunglasses, regular glasses,
and a Mohawk customization.
You should totally get the Mohawk.
Oh, we should totally get going.
Let's start with Main Street
and then the smaller places.
Oh, there's Sledgehammer.
Did you hear CompuServe's
expanding to Japan?
And GEnie added 10,000 users last quarter.
At least CBS might back out of Trintex.
Great, then it's just IBM and Sears.
Seams kind of dead on here, doesn't it?
Well, yeah, at 9:00 a.m. on a Tuesday
and the system's like a
casino floor in the morning.
It's only the hardcores.
But, hey, look at Comic Book Corner.
Oh, the niche room metrics
are off the charts 'round the clock.
That place is rowdy, man.
There's more fights
than a Hells Angels bar.
Well, I guess it's good that these
guys' glasses are digital, then.
Nice. Oh, hold on a sec.
Guy's got a 1311 with a
modded thumbfire button.
Jeez, do you know everybody on here?
And then here we are.
64,000 pixels
of prime, undeveloped real estate.
It can be whatever we want it to be.
It's got to be...
it's gotta be something great.
Ryan. What's up?
Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.
Are we still on? I know we said 9:00.
- Maybe it was 9:15.
- No, it was 9:00.
Yeah, no, 9:00. Come on in.
I don't know.
Okay, here's another way to look at it.
Community looks like this.
No, uh, it looks like this.
Well, no, like this.
Just... okay, blah, blah,
chatting, chatting, chatting.
We dress it up with a
sprite-scaling interface,
but underneath it's just paint-by-numbers.
You know, here's a room, chat in it.
I think it's a little
more than paint-by-numbers.
To discount the meaningful
human interaction.
No, no, no, it works, it's fine.
It's like vanilla ice cream, but it's...
So, here are the users
and here's private chat.
And the users, they're talking, talking.
"Hey, what's going on?
Let's get to know each other more."
So they go to private chat.
And then private chat is
just PETSCII because...
1977.
You know how your mom always
says to close the door behind you?
These two users, they... they leave,
and they don't close the...
Okay, so, all these other
people here are saying,
"Hey, what are you guys doing?
Where are they going? I
want to check that out."
And so they... they go, like that.
And so...
that's your problem.
Have you guys ever
seen "The Conversation"?
Which conversation?
Wait, the... the Gene Hackman movie?
Exactly.
Uh...
People think private chat is private.
But because of the way
somebody wrote it...
- The way I wrote it.
- Wait, wait.
You're telling me that people
are hacking private chats?
Sure, um, big-time.
Look.
So, see this little guy here?
That's the hacker. Totally masked.
The asterisk is a prompt for
data. You can't mask that.
Hold on. How did you get this?
These are private chat transcripts.
Easy, I just walked through the
gaping holes that the hackers did.
- Ryan.
- No, you cannot do that.
Sure, I can. I just...
Don't do it again. I mean it.
That's a direct violation
of our user agreement.
Yeah, okay. Um, totally right.
Uh, but here's my idea.
So, you connect users outside public room,
but to different encryption
points first, then to each other.
You cover tracks,
you rebuild private chat
separate from Mutiny,
but also still talking
to Mutiny outside Mutiny.
Second but separate Mutiny.
Users here, here, and here
network, remote, program, hub,
RSA filters one, two, three.
No cache. Voila.
Ryan, that's an entirely new
and very expensive something
using techniques that our
coders don't even know, so...
I can do it. I can do it.
You still have a ton of
sprite rendering for me.
Then put one of the guys
who can't do this on it.
Ryan, we're not doing it.
Okay.
But here's another idea.
Okay, you know what?
Ryan, why don't you just
send it to us electronically?
Okay.
Cool. No problem.
Great, really looking
forward to checking it out.
Oh, and just to say it one more time,
something like this is
way better for Mutiny
than putting a bow tie on an avatar.
Got it. Yeah, thanks.
"One Way Ticket" playing
It's happening again!
It was funny the first six times.
Next person that does it is gonna
wear their underwear as a hat.
Cut it out, you cretins.
Every time you screw around, it
rains down debris on the mainframe.
Look. There's a date now.
Dude, that's today.
If you ask me, it's got Reagan's
fingerprints all over it.
- Jesus.
- Hello, remember lasers in space?
Okay, it starts with fear
because nobody wants to
die in a nuclear blast.
And then, one by one,
they take away your rights
until you're Sieg Heilin' Ronnie
and bowing down before Ed Meese.
It's gotta be some gay thing.
You know, like AIDS.
Real sensitive, dude.
Maybe it's a religious thing,
like Pat Robertson saying
the world's gonna end again.
You idiots.
- It's Joe MacMillan.
- Wait, what?
- No way!
- Nyet.
- Oh, that's better than Reagan.
- The anti-virus guy?
- How are you so sure?
- They were partners.
Is it true he knows Madonna?
Like, really knows her?
I heard his first client was the CIA.
Yeah, no, that was Oracle.
Didn't MacMillan, like, steal your idea
and make a gazillion dollars?
Yeah.
But I'm suing the son
of a bitch, aren't I?
No, I slept right through it.
I woke up and some water had
sloshed out the toilet bowl,
but that was about it.
But, look, Terry, before
the big one hits...
I want to get this modem order sorted out.
You're damn right, v.22.
Hey, and I want the
wholesale number for that.
Ter... oh, come on, man.
I can walk right across the street to USR
and get high-speed transfer for that.
Just...
all right, well, call me
back when you want to talk,
when you've come to
your senses, all right?
Thanks.
Look, you need to... you need to invest
in some improvements
in the mainframe room.
It's a disaster waiting to happen.
All right, whatever you need.
No problem.
There something else, Gordon?
How do you do it?
How do you deal with all this nonsense?
Oh, well...
You know, it's like
feeding animals at the zoo.
Dangle a couple kippers
out for them and they dance
and keep them locked up in
their cages the rest of the day.
You talking about the queens of the
jungle, that's a different story.
Advice?
I find it wise not to
interfere with the brain trust.
They run the place. I just work here.
Bosworth.
Boy or girl?
- Excuse me?
- Boy or girl?
Your grandchild.
Oh, it's, uh... he's a boy.
Who is this?
Come on, did you really forget about me?
Joe?
I just wanted to call
and say I'm happy for you.
Hey, how did you even get the...
Be well, John.
Yeah, 100,000 users sounds good,
but what really matters
is how long they stay on.
And moving that number is proving
a lot more difficult than it looks.
Hey, listen.
Once I get the mainframe solid,
I was thinking...
I don't know, I was thinking about
maybe pursuing other opportunities.
Wh...
We did what we set out to do with the 3033
and, come on, there's not
really much more for me to do.
Well...
I want you to be happy.
Hi.
I'm guessing you two
are Joanie's mom and dad.
Oh, are you Jennifer's mom?
Most of the time. People
also call me Diane.
Of course. I'm Donna.
Oh, Gordon, sorry.
Look, as far as Joanie
goes, I know how hard it is
to be the new kid in school.
She has my sympathy.
But I think what this boils down to
is Jennifer is just pretty
pissed at her father and me.
We're going through proceedings.
It's been a bit rocky.
Pr... proceedings?
Divorce.
I'm so sorry.
Oh, I'm not. Believe me,
it's better for everyone.
Except Jennifer, who's lashing out.
Anyway, so, I apologize
and I hope it hasn't
caused you too much grief.
Uh, Mr. and Mrs. Clark. Oh, Mrs. Gould.
Principal Wilcox will see you now.
Great.
- Hey, Cam.
- Hi.
Hey, did you tell anyone
else about my grandson?
No.
Should I not have announced it?
Nah, nah. I'm just wondering.
Hey, Bos. Come here.
What?
Uh, I need you to give Ryan a raise.
Just bump him up 15%.
All right, that's a good call.
The kid's been doing a bang-up job.
- Yeah.
- All right.
Hey, I'm working here.
Dude, we're all going to Burger King.
Come to lunch with us.
I brought today. I'm good.
Come on, this Boo
Radley-in-the-basement thing
is getting kind of creepy.
We're offering you a
flame-broiled way out of here.
Look, I don't have time.
This is important, okay?
Seriously?
Whatever.
What a slave. What, does he sleep late?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Why? I'm the one changing
in the middle of a little girls' room.
Thank you again for
being so understanding.
Kids'll be kids.
Maybe Jennifer can come
play with Joanie sometime.
Well, that would be odd considering
they don't like each other.
Oh, um, I'm sorry. I'll talk to Joanie.
I like it that we're both
raising girls who are fighters.
Don't you?
What?
I'm just glad you didn't get suspended.
I know you think you hate California.
I know it's... it's hard here.
But...
we have to commit.
Otherwise, it's never
gonna feel like home.
The whole house was shaking.
Sweetie, you okay?
I'm fine.
- You sure?
- Fine.
We are gonna be okay.
I promise.
It's a raise, son.
You won today.
Did Cameron or Donna
mention anything else?
Is it less than you asked for?
I didn't ask for anything.
I just pitched them some ideas.
I'm sure they'll reach out
when and if the time is right.
Hmm?
I'm sure they'll let you know.
Blue Moon Detective?
- Oh, hey, CamHowe.
- Hey.
Nice to meet you... in person.
It's weird meeting
people this way, isn't it?
It's like you jumped
out of my computer screen
or something, like you're not real.
Yeah, yeah, Mutiny's
pretty cool in that...
I haven't been on long.
I only just discovered it.
How about you?
Uh, I work there, actually.
Oh, wow. That's gotta be fun.
Yeah, you know, it's harder than it looks.
Is this the gear?
Oh, yeah, yeah. Please go ahead.
Um, I think it's in there somewhere.
Oh, yeah.
Hope the paint's okay.
Yeah, no, he was a big Niners fan, right?
Yeah, he was.
Uh, how do you know about that?
What?
That he was a...
wait, did we talk about him?
- Yeah.
- My son.
Yeah, yeah. You posted in
the grief and support room.
And I'm so sorry for your loss,
but the, um, joystick looks great, so...
We didn't meet on the grief board.
We met in the tech room.
Right.
That's where we met,
but I saw that you posted
in the grief and support room and then...
All I posted was... I mean, I just
posted that I had lost someone.
I never said anything about...
I just had private chats
about him with other people.
- Not anything...
- No.
We never talked about him, never.
How... how the hell
do you know about that?
How do you know about him at all?
I...
I think I should go.
How do you know about my son?
Those conversations were
supposed to be private.
What, can you blame me?
All this to add graphics
capability to chat.
Whatever keeps the users on longer.
Seriously doubt it'll work long.
Yeah, but this LZW
compression is pretty cool.
You really think people are gonna
stick around because of GIFs?
- It's pronounced "jif".
- No way. Hard G, "gif".
I heard "jif," but it's
cool if you want to be wrong.
Hey, look, everyone, it's "Jordon".
Hey, you guys know I can
hear everything you say
down in the mainframe room?
Yeah, can you hear this?
Marty, I worry about you.
What I couldn't help but overhear
is you guys whining
about having a long night.
Back in the Cardiff kill room,
we developed a little technique
for pushing through nights like this.
Called it the "Tandy-Shandy".
One keeps you sharp, and the other's...
the other's a beer.
Well, we've got our own technique,
if you're interested.
Ooh.
And that, gentlemen, is
how you jerk off a dinosaur.
All right, now, look, I'm
gonna make a phone call.
When I come back, I wanna
hear about that Amiga.
All right?
Bosworths, leave a message.
Hey there, son. It's Dad.
I suppose you're getting
used to calling yourself that
right about now, huh?
Oh, hell, I bet it's
getting late in Rockwall.
Dang it.
I hope I didn't wake my
little sweet pea up there.
I'm sorry I keep missing you.
I just want to hear every
little detail about that kid.
It would occur to me I don't even know
the little fella's name.
Did you guys decide on one or...
So...
So I go over to Joe's house,
you know, I'm expecting to see
this guy swinging from the rafters.
Holy shit.
But, surprise, he's alive.
He opens the door. I
mean, he looks like hell,
but he's alive.
So, I go in.
You know, the whole place is cleaned out.
And I can see it, his whole life gone,
destroyed.
It's exactly what I had thought,
which is exactly why I stayed up all night
reversing the Sonaris code.
You know, honestly, I
really wanted to help him.
So I gave him the disk out
of the goodness of my heart.
We hugged.
Joe MacMillan knows how to hug?
Next thing you know, I wake up,
I'm reading about $10
million in financing,
all based on my software.
That's insane.
Yeah.
Of course a guy like that
would steal your idea.
I mean, he's too stupid to
come up with one of his own.
No, no, no, no, no.
Don't you do that.
Don't you underestimate him.
That's when he's most dangerous.
No, Joe's...
Joe's brilliant.
And when you're in that guy's thrall,
you know, it feels like a drug.
You know, you... you feel...
like the most important
person in the world.
And that's when you wake
up with your neck slit,
bleeding all over the floor.
What is that?
They're Ryan's private chat transcripts.
He'd already printed them off
and I figured maybe there'd
be some answers in here,
but what if we do go under by '88?
I mean, everything we went through
last year, all the battles we fought,
moving everything out
here, everyone, our...
leaving our families and our friends.
What if we did all that just to, what,
putter around out here
for a couple of years
and then disappear like we were
never even here in the first place?
No, moving here wasn't a mistake.
Here.
There's gotta be something in here.
Well, there's all kinds of reasons
that people are signing off.
They're getting along so well,
they want to talk on the phone.
Maybe that's obvious.
Sometimes they even want
to meet up in person.
Or they want to make a trade.
I met up with the joystick guy earlier.
Then why did you go to Fry's?
Because when I met up with him in person,
he turned out to be a total creep.
Transactional interactions?
Like, what if you didn't have to sign off
when you wanted to make a trade?
- You could just...
- Do it online.
Okay, sure.
That's just what you did,
but that's only one reason...
Okay, look. We're never gonna stop people
from talking on the phone, right?
And we don't want to because that's...
a genuine connection.
But with transactions...
Here, look!
This is about bootlegs.
"I've got the Venice show from last fall".
"I've got the whole summer up north".
Here's another one!
Here. How about my "WrestleMania '85"
for your Hagler/Hearns "War" VHS?
It's not gonna be every time,
but there could be enough of these
that it warrants building something
so that people are doing
this interaction on Mutiny.
Even if people aren't already trading,
it's a brand-new type of interaction
that could draw in more and more users.
Yeah, yeah. If it's good enough.
It just has to be good enough.
Okay, that's...
That's interesting.
I've never seen that before.
But is this it?
I-I don't know.
I've never seen it before, either,
and I feel like we've seen a lot.
This could be the sort of thing
that would make people really sit up
and pay attention.
- But is it it?
- Right?
'Cause it needs to be it,
'cause we're only gonna get
one shot at this out here.
Well...
Yo.
Yo.
Everything okay with the mainframe?
Yep.
Took care of it.
Anyways, it gave me an excuse
to hang out with the coders.
- You know.
- Tandy-Shandy?
And then some. Oof.
You guys working on something?
Mm.
Oh, yeah, we were just
coming up with some ideas...
Ah, I'll leave it to the brain trust.
Okay, that was so weird.
So, what do you think?
I think let's do it.
Yeah, I think so, too.
But if this is gonna work,
we're gonna have to trust each other.
Reading private chats is a
violation of our user agreement.
Can we close the back door of that code?
Yeah, sure.
No problem.
You're high.
Yeah, so are you.
Oh, hey, hey.
Hey.
You smell like Berkeley, Gordon.
- I could take a shower.
- No.
When's the last time our
bedroom smelled like weed?
That's the great thing about California.
Our bedroom can smell
like weed whenever we want.
Shh, shh, shh.
Fear...
it's a natural reaction to
moving closer to the truth.
You know, ever since I
started MacMillan Utility,
I've been accused of selling fear.
But let me ask you...
is it fear?
Or is it truth?
How sure is our footing?
Yesterday morning, many of us
were reminded of that question
when we literally felt
the ground move beneath us.
We live in a world that
is constantly shifting,
sometimes bringing us together
and sometimes pulling us apart.
Hey, Pop, don't worry about calling late.
We already gave up on sleep.
Anyway, uh, I thought you'd like to know
we are going with Samuel John.
Who are our friends?
Who are our enemies?
What's gonna happen to us?
Are we safe?
What I created has grown.
Now, some of you...
...even call MacMillan
Utility the gold standard
in corporate anti virus protection.
But in the meantime,
I've been asking myself,
"What should the price
of security really be?
How much should we pay
to feel safe?"
Wait, here's another one
from that same ancient tradition.
The whole secret of existence
is to have no fear at all.
Never fear what will become of you.
Depend on no one.
Only in the moment
that you reject all help
are you really free.
Only by moving past fear
can we ever arrive at the truth.
And the truth is freedom
from fear is a right,
not a commodity.
I know what you're thinking.
I charge my corporate clients millions.
Well, they can afford it.
But tomorrow I'm releasing
our user version, Citadel,
the version I created for all of you.
Mainframe-quality security
for your personal computer.
Wait, wait.
And I'm charging you...
nothing.
For you...
it will be absolutely free.
Mr. MacMillan, I've got a
question from "InfoWorld".