I made a mistake and actually looked at the overall review percentages for this decent series season by season and found that season 2 is ranked considerably lower than the others. Since I enjoyed the ending of season 1 (not gonna spoil it) I figured I would carry on watching but only at night in my bed because this series moves very slowly and has so many characters introduced that it is difficult to follow.
When a new season of anything starts we kind of expect the first episode to be absolutely outstanding because in showbusiness it is commonly known that you have to start strong and finish strong. The accomplished this is season 1 although I did have many many gripes about how slowly the show moved and how too much time was spent on useless dialogue in order to make episodes near an hour long with a prescribed 10 episode season.
This is going to sound very vague because I don't want to spoil things for any potential viewers so I am going to stick to basics that you would see in the trailer and also learn in the first 20 minutes of the first episode of season 1. Basically, the Nazis and Japanese have won WW2 and have taken over the United States. Things are peaceful now but all semblance of the United States even being a nation is non-existent. The "Americans" that lived there after the country was conquered are allowed to continue living there but live under authoritarian rule that honestly, doesn't seem all that bad. They do make the scenery intentionally very grey to make life seem mundane, but for the most part people carry one with their lives only much of their surroundings are now in German or Japanese.
The entire resistance movement that is taking place in the series revolves around these bits of film that appear here and there that contain footage of an alternate reality compared to what is actually going on in the film. The films bits show the Allies winning WW2 and these bits of film are highly sought after by both the resistance and the Nazis. The Japanese up to this point seem to be either unaware of their existence or have very little interest in acquiring them.
We mostly focus on a few core characters of Juliana, Frank (urgh, that guy annoys me), and Joe. Who are all heavily involved in the obtaining of the films although 2 of them initially wanted nothing to do with it and were content to simply carry on living their lives in Japanese occupied California. The main baddie, who is kind of presented as a good guy that I think will later become a bigger part of the overall pictures is an American who reports to Hitler named John Smith who holds one of the highest ranks in the Nazi party that is obtainable. Out of the 4 characters that I have touched base on thus far, John Smith is, in my opinion, the only one that is really all that interesting.
John's story unraveling is the only one that really holds my interest because despite his devotion to the Reich, he seems to have a secret crisis of conscious about his position and even though I have not looked ahead to see what happens, I would be willing to bet that he turns later into a "good guy." I could be wrong about this but I have a pretty good track record of being able to see the future as far as characters are concerned.
I am only on episode 3 of Season 2 at the moment but honestly, I think it will take some high levels of boredom in my regular life to actually finish all of it because it is moving so damn slowly that it is maddening. This is what happens when a US production company gets a hold of a 200 page book and decides to make a 40-hour series out of it. In my mind, there simply isn't enough source material in the Philip K. Dick novel to justify a series of this epic length. This doesn't seem to matter a great deal to the people who make series in the States though and just like with most shows they seem to be dragging it out for as long as they possibly can. Thus far, everything I have seen take place in the story could have easily been fit into 3 or MAYBE 4 total episodes and even that would be stretching it out.
Instead of having things move along we have a never-ending circle of bickering between the main characters especially between Juliana and Frank - who is one of the most annoying characters in any series I have watched in recent years.
It probably isn't entirely actor Rupert Evans' fault that his character is so cringe but rather than coming across as a seriously important cog in the machine he just seems like a whiney bitch boy who continually slows things down and screws things up with his erratic behavior. I mentioned before in my first write up about season 1 that his basement apartment where he is doing illegal or semi-illegal things in is constantly unlocked and this annoyance continues into season 2. Almost any time that Frank is in the apartment, which is a terrible place to hide anyway, the door is always unlocked and someone is going to come by, walk on in, and there is going to be 8 minutes of senseless dialogue that doesn't advance the story one iota.
All the nasty things I have been saying thus far still don't take away from the fact that Amazon has done a very good job of "drip-feeding" crucial information to the audience. We really DO want to know who the "Man in the High Castle" actually is, and they are not doling out this information very quickly. It's a dirty tactic that is likely going to result in me simply reading a blurb about season 2 rather than watching all of it.
I can no longer give this series a recommended rating and am downgrading it. Honestly, if I had a better series on deck I likely wouldn't be watching it anymore.
at the moment this series is only available on Amazon Prime or you could always go sailing to get it
