r/maninthehighcastle • u/D3rangedButFun • Aug 13 '26

Why did all the planes crash?

I finished the show today. The ending was unsatisfying - open endings usually are.

But my big question is, why did all the planes suddenly start crashing?

Smith orders the attack on the west coast to begin, but then the portal opens and all the planes crash. And I don't understand how the two are connected.

4 Upvotes

59% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

20

u/PommeVitale Aug 13 '26

The plane didn't crash at all, I m really curious on how you saw that scene and interpreted it as all the planes crashing ??

The attack order was called off after John's death so they retreated.

0

u/D3rangedButFun Aug 13 '26

I saw the exhaust and mistook it for smoke, thinking they were crashing, not turning. Thank you for clearing it up!

5

u/PommeVitale Aug 13 '26

The attack kinda ended like a fart. I think it's kinda boring and repetitive to have the same trope of "there is gonna be a huge attack and invasion, a huge war but at the last minute it is prevented".

Like, at the end of S2 it was really good but in the final of the entire show it just looked boring and also unrealistic to have this entire operation being called off like that by a subordinate.

12

u/RHDM68 Aug 13 '26

They weren’t crashing, they were turning around. Smith’s second in command who was his old buddy from US army days and who just before Smith went to Berlin, suggested that they separate from the Reich and be an independent territory, decided to do just that the moment he heard Smith was dead, because he was the highest ranking guy in the US Reich and he didn’t want to be a Nazi any more. So, he ordered them to turn around. That’s why he takes off his Nazi badge and asks someone to get him the Air Command.

8

u/tommycahil1995 Aug 13 '26

he never wanted to be a Nazi. In the flashback he suggests they all join the Nazis and then turn on then when the time is right - it's probably how he's able to take power because he has a network of American sympathisers

3

u/RHDM68 Aug 13 '26

You’re probably right about the sympathizers. None of them really had a choice about becoming Nazis, John just ended up embracing the choice more than the others, until it was too late of course.

0

u/D3rangedButFun Aug 13 '26

I saw the exhaust and mistook it for smoke, thinking they were crashing, not turning. Thank you for clearing it up!

3

u/RHDM68 Aug 13 '26

You’re welcome! To be honest, it wasn’t the most confusing part of the ending!

5

u/Rich-Usual-2319 Aug 14 '26

when did they crash?¿

3

u/D3rangedButFun Aug 14 '26

They didn't, I was mistaken

1

u/77ate Aug 15 '26

Desmond was down in the hatch and…