'The Man in the High Castle' season 4 episode 2: Black Communist Rebellion on rise; Kido and Smith's kids struggle with war
Major spoilers ahead for season 4 episode 2 of 'The Man in the High Castle' titled 'Every Door Out..."
At the end of the first episode of season 4 of 'The Man in the High Castle', Reichsmarshall John Smith (Rufus Sewell) comes back to the Neutral Zone, where his wife Helen (Chelah Horsdal) escaped to with their two daughters to take them back to the Greater Nazi Reich (GNR). It is heartbreaking to watch Helen struggle to keep her daughters safe even if it meant them fleeing the GNR.
In episode 2 'Every Door Out...', we get an update from Die Nebenwelt: Dr Josef Mengele (John Hans Tester) tells Smith that the Nazis have managed to reach the alternate world where the Axis lost the war - the same world where Juliana (Alexa Davalos) escaped to at the end of season 3.
Mengele also tells Smith that apart from a few academic papers and nuclear weapon advancement, this alternate world has no real knowledge of the multiverse whereas Die Nebenwelt has also created a map of the multiverse. At the same time, it shouldn't come as any surprise that the Alt-American lead nuclear researcher is dead at 50 by a heart attack.
Smith also gathers more information on the Alt-John Smith. In the world where the Allied powers won the war, John Smith is a mere traveling salesman and his family doesn't have daughters - Helen and John only have a son together.
We also get to know the beginning of the Black Communist Rebellion (BCR). Sparked by Equiano Hampton (David Harewood), the BCR is fighting the Imperial Japanese and is dedicated to the liberation of African-Americans. But the movement has since evolved and is now led by Bell Mallory. As Bell, actress Frances Turner makes her debut this season.
Upon escaping the camp, Bell flees to the Japanese Pacific States, where she meets up with a man named Elijah (Clé Bennett), eventually starting a romantic relationship.
The BCR exists in a reality where there was no civil rights movement in the US. After the Nazis and the Japanese take over the States, the Whites are suppressed but the African Americans are largely exterminated. In an earlier interview, the show's executive producer had said that the BCR brings "an entirely different fight" to the table.
“[Bell] is not necessarily a reluctant leader, but she’s somebody who ultimately is the leader of the factions because of her tenacity and her ability to strategize, and she’s fearless. We talked about her early on, in the earliest days of the writer’s room this season, and we were all so excited about this character and very loosely based [her] on Angela Davis.”
In episode 2, the BCR meets with Wyatt Price (Jason O'Mara) after Lem (Rick Worthy) managed to fix a meeting with them. While reluctant at first to work with whites, the BCR and Wyatt come up with a plan to strike the Japanese Pacific.
Childan (Brennan Brown) is hosting an auction of American knick-knacks that will see General Ryuu Masuda (Clint Jung), Chief Inspector Kido (Joel de la Fuente) and Defense ministers Nagasaki (Larry Hoe) and Shimura (Takahiro Inoue) in attendance. The BCR and Wyatt's rebels are set to carry out the attack in order to eliminate all four men of power, particularly General Masuda who will be in the Japanese Pacific States fresh from the conquests in Manchuria. Coming from Tokyo, Masuda plans to take over the BCR in the same way he attacked the Chinese - testing grenades, vivisection without anesthetics, biological experiments and atrocities on the civilians.
Episode 2, in particular, shows how the war and the threat of war have affected the children of two of the show's warriors, Smith and Kido.
On one hand, Smith's daughters Jennifer (Genea Charpentier) and Amy (Gracyn Shinyei), now back from the Neutral Zone finding themselves in a completely different Reich. Jahr Null has entrusted a brand new crop of Nazi youth with power via propaganda. So much so that school teachers are terrified of the generation. This Jennifer disagrees with.
Having spent the last year in the Neutral Zone, Jennifer has broken away from the shackles of the Third Reich. She listens to, enjoys and sways to "black music" and listens to the Resistance Radio. Back in the GNR, Jennifer finds herself suffocating; she calls Helen, who is back in the Neutral Zone after refusing to return to the Reich with Smith, and tells her that she doesn't belong in the Reich. Smith's younger daughter Amy, still at an impressionable age, asks Smith "why can't black people live here?".
On the other hand, it is clear that Kido's son Toru (Sen Mitsuji) has PTSD from fighting in Manchuria. In the previous episode, as the Japanese are rounding up African Americans in the hunt for Tagomi's (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) killer, he couldn't bear the sight of the violence and blood. Due for an interview, Kido encourages his son to wear the Kinshi Kunshō awarded for bravery, leadership or command in battle. He cannot bear the memories of war, the atrocities his unit committed in Manchuria; yet Kido persists: "Wear the medal to the interview. And all will be as it should be".
All 10 episodes of season 4 of 'The Man in the High Castle' are currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.