“Extract and Defend” (referred to as “Infiltrator” in some places) designates the midpoint of Halt’s second season and the point at which the narrative begins to majorly pivot towards potentially tragic consequences for our heroes. Moreover, after two installments defined by large-scale dramatic catalysts (the program bug and Cameron’s chat room snafu), “Extract and Defend” takes a more low-key approach, allowing characters to simmer under various tensions both big and small before another inevitable, incendiary explosion.
The central action of the hour involves Gordon’s confession that Joe is the person in charge of the (still sort of illegal) Westgroup’s mainframe lease. Already distressed by her recently confirmed pregnancy, Donna is put under even more pressure when she’s forced to relay this news to Cameron who has an expected furniture-tossing freakout. What’s all the more tragic is how Joe’s abrupt re-entry into her life comes just as she seemed to be developing a healthy romantic relationship with Tom. The episode even begins with the two playfully quoting The Terminator to each other in bed.
Despite her raging internal feelings, however, Cameron proves herself a consummate professional by meeting face-to-face with Joe to pitch Mutiny to a skeptical Jacob Wheeler. Perhaps having picked up a few pointers from Bosworth, she takes note of Jacob’s love of hockey and caters her pitch to his interests.
In any case, the fact that Cameron can later maintain this restraint after not only learning that Joe is engaged but subsequently meeting Sara in the flesh speaks to how far her character has come since the first season. At first, I was worried that the show would have Cameron experience some kind of blow-up and sabotage the deal, so it’s nice to see that the creative team is not falling prey to more melodramatic tendencies. That’s not to say Cameron won’t let her feelings interfere with this delicate relationship, but it’s good to know that the writers are not taking the easy way to this destination.
Indeed, rather than confront her feelings head on, Cameron instead projects her frustration on the objects around her. When Bosworth reveals late in the episode that he both bought her a new chair (her old one kept breaking) and banned an original subscriber who kept defaulting on payment, she ends up unloading a good chunk of her anger on him. “It’s my community and we don’t kick people out,” she exclaims. Subtle? Not exactly. But it does work.
All of this drama, however, comes across as small beans when compared to the news that Gordon receives at his doctor’s office. Apparently, years of working in computers have exposed him to toxins that are currently causing brain damage. According to the doctor, there’s a good chance the symptoms will only get worse from here. Gordon spends the rest of the episode in a kind of half-daze. He tries to tell Donna several times only to have her rebuff him. He tries to spend quality time with his kids only to find that they would rather go to their grandmother’s house to play Nintendo. He tries to make a connection with Grandma Susan only to discover that she expects him to pay her back for the initial investments she made in the company. It’s about as dismal as it sounds.
Of course, time has always been an invisible enemy in the Halt universe. The characters are, after all, fighting against an inevitable future that only the audience is keenly aware of. Gordon’s diagnosis, however, represents perhaps the first time that a tangible idea of time and mortality has manifested itself in the show. With the idea of death fast approaching, Gordon will now be forced to observe the concept of his long-term legacy and what he will be leaving behind. It’s a ballsy development and one that, unfortunately, may also confirm the notion that this will be Halt’s last season.
Joe experiences his own form of devastation when, in perhaps the episode’s only minor miscalculation, Sara announces that she wants to “slow things down” and move back to Austin. Presumably, this stems from some semblance of trust issues, but I honestly would be hard-pressed to explain her sudden change of heart. Sure, running into a partner’s ex, as she does with Cameron, is an awkward moment, but nothing in Joe and Cameron’s behavior really hints at anything illicit. Joe even signs a prenup in an attempt to legally document his sincerity. Overall, Sara’s sudden decision feels more like a desire to complicate Joe’s storyline than the organic result of a season’s worth of burgeoning trust issues. It doesn’t help that Sara has not exactly been given a good deal of proper development or character consistency over this first half of the season.
“Extract and Defend” has enough solid moments and engaging twists to keep the season’s momentum going, but it does ultimately feel a bit like a stepping-stone episode wherein plotlines and character developments are being set-up for massive dramatic payoffs down the road. It’s a necessary episode, if not exactly a standout one. Then again, there’s also the chance that, once the season has delivered its full story, the episode will attain much more significance in my eyes the way certain episodes in Season One did.