Over the last several weeks we’ve been given clues, but after four episodes it has finally become clear what Manhattan is essentially about: isolation and confinement. Or perhaps more appropriately: characters and how they react to the extreme conditions of isolation and confinement. The “artificial hive” metaphor posed in last week’s episode is precisely what allows us to dig deep into the complex psychologies of these otherwise mundane personages. And despite a slew of secondary characters vying for their moment in the spotlight, it is clear that the star of this show is John Benjamin Hickey’s Frank Winter. Yet there is something intriguing about a man so recklessly single-minded, and we aren’t the only ones to be inadvertently drawn in. Like Colonel Cox in previous episodes, and the snide Brit Harry Lloyd in “The Last Reasoning of Kings”, we somehow can’t resist following along with his quixotic pursuit of scientific discovery. And this week the writers have been so kind as to give us a window into the madness that drives the man. Through a series of flashbacks that, for better or for worse, betray the series’ budgetary limitations, we see a baby-faced Frank Winter in the trenches of WWI digging through the pockets of dead bodies before returning to base to find his whole company killed by mustard gas. Frank Winter, it turns out, is the mid-century equivalent of a post-traumatic Vietnam vet, and indeed, he nearly falls into cliché when he draws a gun on Harry Lloyd and lectures him about how there’s “no comfort in battle”. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for all news updates related to the world of geek. And Google+, if that’s your thing!
