https://www.avclub.com/in-its-glowing-two-part-finale-everyone-on-halt-and-ca-1819472740

What comes next. That’s always been at the heart of Halt And Catch Fire’s narrative as the show’s characters, having tied their ambitions to the inexorable and accelerating rocket car of computer technology, must constantly seek the next, biggest thing. We’ve seen our conception of each character’s dreams develop as they have for the characters themselves. Gordon’s hands-on tinkering was an expression of his desire to prove himself worthy, a clunky, halting progression through idealistic projects whose half-realized natures were always in need of sweaty patch-jobs. Donna, as much of a tinkerer and dreamer as her onetime husband, carried the added pressures and conflicts of a woman in a male world trying to manage her own expectations (and those of her fragile husband) while never being satisfied with being anyone’s side-player. Cameron the lost, rebellious teen grown to punk rock genius, sought to use her prodigious talents and imagination to craft whole virtual worlds for her to, finally, find a place in. And Joe MacMillan, introduced as a manipulative cypher, smooth-talking his way toward goals known only to him (a serious dramatic misjudgement that nearly sun the show before it was bailed out by one of the most successful retoolings in TV history), improbably became a human being. Echoing his first, shark-sleek pitch to the restless Gordon that they ape the IBM BIOS in order to beat the big boys at their own game, Joe pitches his vision again to the Comet team in a different context. “Computers aren’t the thing. They’re the thing that gets us to the thing.”