Always You: The Lingering Heartache of Halt and Catch Fire

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photos of Cameron, Gordon, and Haley on Joe MacMillan’s desk in the final moments of Halt and Catch Fire

Scenes of unimportance, photos in a frame
Things that go to make up a life
-Genesis, “Home by the Sea”

I was 28 years old when, on July 21, 2005, Nate Fisher died at the age of 40 on Six Feet Under.  

I had just turned 41 when, on September 30, 2017, Gordon Clark died at the age of 40 on Halt and Catch Fire. 

When the former happened, I was deeply dissatisfied with my life. I hadn’t yet transitioned, my gender dysphoria was excruciating and entirely prevented me from forming the kinds of honest, meaningful connections I so desperately needed. But I felt that twelve years was a long time, and figured that by the time I’d reached Nate’s age, I’d at least be able to look back and say that I’d had a few good, honest years of authentic living.

When the latter happened, it made me take stock again. I’m older now than Gordon ever got to be, and yes, my life is much better now than it was in 2005, more authentic. But it’s still often a lonely life, a life in which finding certain kinds of emotional intimacy, affection and closeness has thus far proved impossible, a life guarded against the transphobia that exists all around me all the time. Of course I know it’s folly to compare one’s life to another’s, that there are all kinds of success and meaning that one can have in one’s life, and that in some ways I’ve been very lucky. Yet there’s no question at all that his life, fictional though it was, incomplete as it was, was infinitely more full of life, love, closeness, connection and meaning than mine has been. 

The thing about Gordon is that, more than any other character on the show and more than most of us, he’d figured it out. Figured out how to live. 

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Figured out how to better love the people he loves.

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Figured out how to more effectively be in the moment, and to appreciate what matters.

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My therapist went through something a few weeks ago. I don’t know the details but I know that someone close to her died. The next time I saw her, she urgently said to me that we–that people–need each other as sure as we need food and water. 

I never forget this, because I feel the lack of it in my life every day. Does it often take loss for us to be reminded? On Halt, it takes Gordon’s death for some characters to put their old grudges aside, and we see them all gathered around the table together, a kind of family. 

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This is what I wanted for the characters. I wanted this moment to last. I wanted them to keep being there for each other. Like me, some of them have little or no family to speak of, other than their friends. Some of them really only have each other. 

It doesn’t last, though. The hardest part of it not lasting for me was Joe and Cameron splitting before the end. Not because I always want these things to work out in movies and TV. I don’t. Usually I’m suspicious of pat, formulaic, happy endings. But because I really felt like these characters had earned it. They’d come together and then pushed each other away so many times before, but now, Joe was changing. I felt like he was working at being the kind of person who could make things with Cameron work. He was learning how to be there for her. How to listen. How to just offer her his presence, which is the most precious thing any of us have to offer another.

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I guess I wanted it to work between them because I felt like in some ways they had what I want. They were two people who respected each other, admired each other, who could really look at, see, and know each other

When he died, Gordon’s life was incomplete, as lives always are. He was about to work out a Comet redesign with Joe. He was about to have an important conversation with his daughter. He’d just started a great new relationship with a great woman. There were so many things going on in his life. Meaningful things. 

As Joe and Cameron confront the reality that it’s over between them, Joe recalls his famous line from the first season: “Computers aren’t the thing. They’re the thing that gets us to the thing.” He tells Cameron that the thing he was looking for was always her. It makes sense. Halt was always about connection, whether technological or interpersonal. When I was 28, feeling so disconnected, 40 seemed so far away. But the time went by so fast. Now I’m so aware both of the blessings in my life, and how much is still missing from it. While I don’t have any way of knowing how much time I have left, I’m grateful to be here now, and to maybe still have a chance to form the connections I’ve been looking for for so long.