Sympathy for Swastikas

The Man in the High Castle will have you seeing differently

The goal of a showrunner is very challenging, but it's in no way complex. It all comes down to creating relatable and likable characters. And you must do this regardless of who they are and the situations they've been put in. How can you expect someone to commit hours of his or her time to a bunch of people they don't particularly like? Likable characters are critical to show's success; everything else is just gravy.

Against the odds, Amazon's The Man in the High Castle has pulled this off. The show is based on a novel by the oft-troubled and oft-adapted Philip K. Dick. It's about an alternate universe in which the Axis Powers win World War II. The United States have been carved up into the Greater Nazi Reich in the east, the Pacific States in the west, and a run down Neutral Zone in between. And as season 1 progresses, we see there's more to the opposition than a tiny resistance movement.

Also pictured: a US map under President Trump

The show centers around the effervescent Juliana Crain, portrayed brilliantly by Alexa Dalavos. As the mystery behind the show starts to unravel, she's with us every step of the way discovering too. Creator Frank Spotnitz and the entire production team do a great job building this world, and Juliana's character essentially acts as our tour guide. I won't spoil any plot points here, but the way in which Juliana moves through it all is a fantastic display of storytelling.

Along for the ride with her is a great supporting cast all coping with sympathetic circumstances of their own. Joe Blake (I heard my friend's name Joe Blay the first time he said it, so from now on I'm going with that) is a Nazi operative pretending to be part of the resistance. But you can see the conflict Joe Blay struggles with once he ventures beyond Nazi borders and gets to know Juliana. Frank Frink watches his entire bloodline get killed because they've been hiding Jewish ancestry. And both these men have feelings for a girl who seems to be attracting trouble wherever she goes.

It's hard not feel for those guys, but what may be even more impressive is how the show makes you sympathize with the occupiers as much as you sympathize with the occupied. There's Tagomi, the Japanese Trade Minister, who is doing everything in his power to prevent a war between his nation and Germany that the Nazis would decidedly win. There's Rudolph Wegener, the Nazi soldier who has begun to realize the atrocities his side committed during the war, and then there's the most fascinating of them all, John Smith.

Much like the John Smith of Pocahontas fame, this one embedded himself into a foreign, unfamiliar civilization. This rendition was American born, but he fell into the Nazi brainwashing machine at some point during the war. He then becomes enough of a war hero to rise up the ranks and become the S.S. Obergruppenführer (that's a real word!) in New York City.

His character is a clever extrapolation of the American Dream. He commutes in from Long Island every day, and every night he goes home to his loving wife and three children. Did I mention he's doing this all with a swastika armband attached to his coat?

Also pictured: uniformed police under
President Trump

But here's the thing. Even though this character is supposed to be my enemy, I can't help but feel for him. He's put all of his belief into the Aryan way, and he's become an honorary one in the process. But it starts to fall apart for him on multiple fronts. Again without spoiling any specific plot intrigue, he's betrayed by both the system and his fellow agents. He's been dealt a hand with which he knows he cannot win, but keeps on fighting anyway. I respect that a ton, even if I'm probably not invited to his VA day party. Rufus Sewell projects that pain and internal conflict in a beautiful and vulnerable way. Uniform and all, it's actually pretty hard to root against him.

I'd be remiss to not mention the other elements that make this a phenomenal show. The unraveling mystery moves slowly at first, but it really picks up as the season goes along. 

And the set designers go to remarkable lengths to visualize this alternate universe. The attention to detail is incredible. I have my doubts that a Nazi-occupied America would be pumping out music so similar to what we had in the real 1950s, but they sell that world so well that I'm willing to believe.

And at any rate, all that is secondary to the characters. They're magnetic, dynamic, and tremendously fun to be around. For all the show's bells and whistles, The Man in the High Castle still makes sure to hit its marks in Television 101. And that's what makes show a must-watch.