'The Man in the High Castle' Season 4 Episode 5 'Mauvaise Foi': Who is Reichsmarshall John Smith?
Major spoilers ahead for season 4 episode 5 'Mauvaise Foi' of 'The Man in the High Castle'
This was inevitable. Die Nebenwelt was established for this very reason.
John Smith (Rufus Sewell) is informed that even if Juliana's (Alexa Davalos) assassination was unsuccessful, Alt-John Smith is dead. It comes as a pleasant surprise for Smith since he can now travel through the multiverse into Alternate America without dying.
And obviously he does. How could he not, after seeing that Thomas (Quinn Lord) is alive and well in that universe? How could he not when he sees his family happy and tight-knit, without the forces of fascism tearing them apart? Through the photographs of the Smith family in the alternate world that he is brought, all John sees is a healthy Thomas, no longer scared for his life. Even though he doesn't show any symptoms of the degenerative disease in that world, there are no looming threats of Thomas being disposed of via an extermination program for the sick.
So John travels to the alternate world to take the place of the ordinary travelling salesman John Smith. In the alternate world, he meets the old Helen (Chelah Horsdal) - cheerful, loving, warm, stress-free and happy. They spend some quality time with each other, passions reunited. When he meets Alt-Thomas for the first time, his heart skips a beat and overwhelmed, he just hugs him. But their heart-touching reunion soon takes a turn. Alt-Thomas finally has the pending conversation about joining the Marines with who he thinks is his father.
In the previous episode, Alt-John was supposed to talk with Alt-Thomas telling him about the horrors of the war and why he wants to keep him from enlisting. But with Smith, the conversation doesn't go well.
But the episode 'Mauvaise Foi' is remarkable for another thing. Smith meets his old Army buddy Daniel Levine (Charlie Hofheimer) in the Alternate America - a place where both of them can be friends. In Smith's world, Daniel is forced to flee after the Nazis bomb Washington DC. Smith gives him some food and resources to help him flee. But in the Alternate America, where the Allied Powers won the war, Daniel and John are the oldest friends.
But when Daniel visits the Smith house, Smith can't even bring himself to look him in the eyes. He is visibly disturbed and being in the same room as Daniel gets him very uncomfortable. He asks to be excused and bids him farewell at the door. But a tearful Smith - we rarely see a tearful Smith - begins profusely apologizing to Daniel. "You know I had no choice, right? I'm sorry," he pleads and breaks down. Daniel, unable to understand where this is coming from, hugs him back and says that they're brothers and no one needs to apologize.
As he leaves, we are taken back to a night several years ago when John Smith was just an American in the Schutzstaffel. Danny is captured in a truck that is due to go to a concentration camp. Upon seeing Smith, he calls out, pleads with him, begs him to just let him out and that no one will know. But Smith doesn't - it breaks him to ignore the pleading of his dear friend, but he doesn't do anything.
As gut-wrenching as this scene is, it doesn't make us feel sorry for Smith. Instead, it reveals Smith's history and the roots of his character. For the first time in four seasons, we see how a soldier in the American army moves to the Schutzstaffel to become Reichsmarshall John's Smith of the Greater Nazi Reign (GNR).
Before this the only glimpse we saw of Smith's past was him and a heavily pregnant Helen (possibly with Thomas) witness the Nazis drop the bomb on Washington to colonize the USA. It comes a full circle this episode with Daniel in the Smith house, shortly after which Smith had persuaded him to escape.
The title of the episode 'Mauvaise Foi' is a testimony to John Smith.
Mauvaise Foi is French for 'Bad Faith', a philosophical concept that existentialist philosophers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre used to describe "the phenomenon in which human beings, under pressure from social forces, adopt false values and disown their innate freedom, hence acting inauthentically."
Individuals are intrinsically always free to make choices - even in a colonized state they hold the power to choose to surrender, to resist, to counter-attack. But Smith does neither of those things - he gives in and acts inauthentically. Although a superficial dive into the concept of Mauvaise Foi, it highlights how John Smith chose to be where he is, what he does, and what he has done all these years.
All episodes of season 4 of 'The Man in the High Castle' are currently streaming to Amazon Prime Video.