Man in the High Castle is over. The journey through a world where Nazi Germany and imperial Japan won world war two and conquered America has concluded. The most interesting part of this season was not the confusing ending, but the show’s willingness to explore race in a way it hasn’t previously.

I’m thinking specifically of the Black Communist Rebellion (“BCR”). It’s a group of black revolutionaries fighting against the Japanese occupation of America’s west coast. They want to expel the Japanese invaders and then set up a separate state for black people.

While many other Americans quietly acquiesced to Nazi or Japanese rule in the show’s alternate timeline, the blacks had no choice but to resist. There is a moving scene where BCR members go around the room sharing the names of concentration camps they had lived in and family members lost. Resisting was risky; they could die if caught, and there was a high chance of getting caught. But not resisting would have brought certain death. Under Nazi ideology, blacks were sub-human and subject to extermination.

The show raises interesting questions about what they’re fighting for. At first, it’s a separate state for blacks of the sort that Malcolm X or Marcus Garvey envisioned. They don’t even want to work with white resistance groups. At first glance, this behavior might be hard for viewers to sympathize with. Aren’t they engaging in the same racially exclusive thinking the Nazis are? The answer is complicated. Whites resisting the Nazis and Japanese are fighting for America as it was before the war. They had liberty and the ability to manage their own affairs. The blacks, on the other hand, did not in the same way. Their experience was of segregated water fountains, unequally funded schools, sharecropping, and in not-too-distant-memory, debt peonage and slavery. Fighting simply to go back to the way things were was unappealing.

Man in the High Castle subtly acknowledges this in the alternate universe. John Smith, reichmarshall of Nazi-occupied America, uses recently-developed technology to travel to an alternate world where his son Thomas is still alive. One morning, John takes his son out for breakfast at a diner in Virginia. We get a glimpse of what their life would have been like if Thomas had not been euthanized as defective because of his genetic condition. A group of blacks come in and sit at the lunch counter demanding to be served. The diner refuses and then the blacks experience violence before getting arrested. Thomas berates his father for not saying anything. Tellingly, neither did any of the other whites.

This accounts for the debate about using the American flag as a symbol as the season is ending. Lemuel Washington recovers an American flag and suggests using it as a symbol to unify all Americans under Nazi rule. But the BCR’s leadership refuses. For them, the American flag can never be a symbol of freedom and liberty. To them, it only symbolizes America’s failure to live up to its promise before the Nazis set foot in the country.

Indeed, there was a need to reach out to other racial groups. After the Japanese end their occupation of the Japanese Pacific States, the Nazis plan to invade. As a small minority group (many of whose members have been exterminated), there just aren’t enough blacks to fight off the world’s most powerful empire. If that weren’t enough, the Nazis on the show pandered to racial prejudice to win public support for their invasion. They sent bombers over the west coast that said “[r]esist Your Negro Overlords, The Reich is Coming!”

In real life, the Nazis used blacks in their propaganda. They did it to bolster the morale of the home front and instill fear of what a foreign occupation would mean.

Failing to resist could lead to scary-looking black men violating “pure” German women. Of course, pandering to racist prejudice against blacks is a familiar tactic in politics. Within living memory for some of the black characters on the show was reconstruction, the brief period after slavery where blacks in many southern states exercised real political power.

Opponents used race in an attempt to scare and scandalize whites into voting against republican rule. Delegates at Arkansas’ constitutional convention warned about the dangers of black men going after white women. One delegate claimed that a constitutional amendment banning amalgamation was necessary because a black man from his neighborhood had recently kidnapped a white woman. He said the measure was necessary to protect “poor white trash, if you please, as they have been styled by some…from further social degradation.” He warned that black men would acquire land, money, and position in society and then “insidiously make their advances to these unfortunate and helpless persons [poor whites]” and then “mislead and misguide them [] into error and folly…”

And, just as the Nazis on the show—and in real life—tried to sow fear of black leadership, so did reactionaries during and after reconstruction. Trying to undermine black judges—hard as it is to believe, there were black judges on the bench in southern states just years after slavery ended—writers opposed to reconstruction spun wild tales. In one case, when a black judge was told that he had not charged the jury (lawyer speak for providing instructions before deliberations), the judge allegedly said “Gemmen of de Jury, I charge you half a dollar apiece and you must pay it before the case goes on.”

Another newspaper described a black Arkansas judge as “a true type of the old plantation negro” who was “one of the many ignorant persons to whose hands Radical prejudice of the State has given the administration of the law.” The judge’s courthouse was allegedly “his own log cabin, humble as a shanty.” When interrupted by a plaintiff, Brown allegedly replied “hold on dar Mr. Clerk, go on wid de court; I knows de law.”

A delegate at Texas’ constitutional convention argued for making only a handful of judicial districts for the election of judges to ensure a white majority in every district. Having any district with a black majority would “destroy the hopes of fifteen counties and put them under negro rule…by forcing upon them [whites] a set of district judges elected by the negroes of those districts.” Black officials were treated as ignorant and an affront to basic dignity. Whites were supposed to be embarrassed to have such blacks ruling over them. This is the same embarrassment the Nazis wanted to exploit on the show.

The show wasn’t perfect on race. Although it was very moving to hear BCR members go around a circle and share portions of their life story, it would have had more impact to show flashbacks. The show could have shown life in America before the Nazi invasion. It would have packed a real emotional punch to show one of them, say, going through side entrances of a store or learning from hand-me down textbooks in segregated schools with inadequate resources, and then being herded into a Nazi concentration camp.

Still, I’m glad the show chose to seriously engage with race this season.

Adonis Creed may have walked away from Creed II’s final fight as world heavyweight champion, but Ivan Drago was the biggest winner.

We first met Ivan more than 30 years ago in Rocky IV. There, as in Creed II, he was the villain. The Soviets touted him as a boxing machine that could destroy anything in its path. He rarely spoke, and when he did, it was to say things like “I must break you.” He killed Apollo Creed–Adonis’ father–in an exhibition fight and showed no remorse for doing so. When Rocky beat him in Moscow, we celebrated more than a great fighter winning a match. We enjoyed seeing a vicious man get his comeuppance.

But we wouldn’t have enjoyed seeing what came after. When he lost to Rocky, Ivan’s own wife left him and their son. His country turned its back on him. This left deep wounds that Ivan’s still dealing with in Creed II. He was made to feel like he was worthless to everyone in his life merely for losing one match. Part of why Ivan pushes his son Viktor so hard is to prove his worth. If he can train Viktor to be a heavyweight champion, then he won’t be a failure anymore. He would be worthy of his ex-wife and country’s affections. He would be loved.

It’s sad that his worldview is so transactional–he wins a boxing championship and then he wins love. And yet, that isn’t so different from the way we treat our sports heroes. We laud them when they make the big catch or the tough shot to win the game; we scream for them to be traded when they mess up.

And it unfortunately is not always far from how we view love. Sure, most of us wouldn’t abandon a spouse or a child for losing a boxing match. But how many children get good grades or pursue certain professions out of a desire for love on some level? They think they’ll become high achievers, and then they’ll be worthy of love and hence loved by their families. We fear that love is conditional, and let’s face it, sometimes it is.

That’s what makes the final fight so moving. After crushing Creed in the first fight, Viktor was a huge favorite to win their rematch. But by the end of the second match–despite being an overwhelming favorite–Viktor is getting beaten so badly that he looks likely to suffer grievous injuries or worse. Ivan throws his towel to end the fight. He tells Viktor “it’s ok.” Later, we see them running together.

Tellingly, Viktor’s own mother had left when he started getting pummelled. And the fans turned their backs on him. This is exactly what happened to Ivan. But in throwing the towel and embracing him, Ivan rises above the conditional view of love his mistreatment has conditioned him to expect. Viktor is his son, and he’ll stand by him and love him, champion or not.

For the last 30 years, Ivan has been in a far tougher fight than the one he lost to Rocky: the one for his humanity. At the end of Creed II, he won it. And in so doing, he taught us something valuable about love.

This is probably the first of several Black Panther posts. One of the lines that stuck with me throughout the movie was after T’Challa becomes king of Wakanda. His father T’Chaka tells him that “it’s hard for a good man to be king.” There are a couple of ways to take this.

The first is that it is difficult for a moral person to make the compromised moral choices successful governing might require. In the movie, T’Challa faces some tough moral dilemmas. For example, he can choose to accept refugees and give them a far better life than they would otherwise know, but risk exposing Wakanda to the rest of the world. Then, other nations might try to conquer Wakanda for its vibranium, in which case T’Challa would make the lives of his people worse.

There is certainly an argument to be made that a wealthy, advanced nation like Wakanda has a special duty to those languishing in poverty nearby. So, it would seem that a good person would take the refugees in. But Wakanda’s king may still be unable to admit them if doing so would ultimately put his people at risk. If we frame T’Challa’s choices this way, a good leader may not be able to do the right thing. This is a reality that could confront all leaders at some point. A leader committed to honesty might have to weigh disclosing aspects of national surveillance that she thinks people have a right to know about against the possibility that terrorists will then have an easier time circumventing intelligence efforts. A leader who hates violence might have to take her country to war, which will lead to countless deaths, in order to place the country in a stronger geo-political position. In both cases, the leaders might not be able to live up to their moral ideals.

So perhaps T’Chaka is right and a good person who insists on following their moral convictions will be unable to make the choices leaders sometimes must for their countries. So is the solution to pick amoral leaders?

I don’t think so. The above scenarios present moral tradeoffs between two moral goods and two moral evils. On one hand, preserve your country’s safety, and on the other lie to its people. Refuse to take part in a war now and preserve lives, but at the cost of putting your country in a vulnerable position where others continually dominate it. Only a moral leader can see the moral implications of whatever actions she takes or does not take. After all, it takes a working moral compass to navigate the moral landscape all leaders must traverse.

The second way to take T’Chaka’s statement is that a moral person will have a hard time being a successful leader because he will be more tormented by tough decisions than a person with fewer moral scruples. And here, I think he is on solid ground. Eventually, a moral leader would find that the moral tradeoffs a king of Wakanda must make weigh on him. They make him question whether he is a good person and whether he is doing what is right. The voice at the back of his head saying “that isn’t right” will go from a whisper to a constant roar. More than likely, he may find himself surrendering his moral compass or surrendering his power.

I hope the inevitable sequels really dig into this question. How long can T’Challa live with the moral contradictions confronting him?

If you hurt somebody, you say you’re sorry. That’s a lesson just about every child gets in Kindergarten or before. What isn’t clear is just why we’re supposed to apologize. Is it really to make amends for what we did wrong, or is it about soothing our own discomfort?

This is a tension I saw in last week’s episode of This is Us. Kevin is trying to make up for everything he did while drunk. He starts with Randall, helping him to renovate the apartment complex. Of course, given that he had Randall’s daughter in the car with him when he was driving drunk, it will probably take a lot to have Randall look at him the same way. And then Kevin apologizes to Sophie. He has plenty to apologize to her for, including cheating on her in the past, and the way he treated her during his addiction to pain medication.

The way Sophie reacted got my attention. At first she seems skeptical of his motives. She even tells him after he’s apologized that he can now cross her name off his list. Sensing that Sophie isn’t really buying his apology he tells her that she wasn’t just a name on his list; she was the name. Finally, she sends him away, telling him that she’s accepted his apology, but that he should leave her.

Part of Kevin’s motive that he wanted Sophie to take him back? Almost surely. The two were married at one point, and Kevin still loves her. And part of him probably wanted to feel better about all the pain he had caused her. Seeing how his selfish actions had tormented her over the years must have made him sad. Like looking in the mirror and realizing you don’t like the person staring back at you. Apologizing, then, was a way of being able to say he was a better person than that.

And perhaps our motive for apologizing affects how others perceive it. Part of the reason Sophie seemed so hesitant to genuinely accept Kevin’s apology was that she sensed he was doing it more for himself than for her. By contrast, I think most of us have an easier time accepting an apology when we feel it is truly about us.

So the next time you have to apologize to someone, remember to watch This is Us first.

It was fantastic! [Spoilers included].

I think what I most enjoyed was the way it chronicled adolescence in a realistic, but endearing way. We see that kids are cruel. Henry seems to take sadistic pleasure in bullying Ben and the other losers. Although some of his antics are exaggerated, I suspect there is a kid like him in every middle school. Somehow, too, the movie manages to portray him in a sympathetic light as well when it shows his father mistreating him. Like a lot of bullies, his actions are driven in part by his own feelings of inadequacy.

Even the losers can be mean to each other and they devolve into fighting at one point. Kids can be fickle and impulsive (not that any parent needed to be reminded I’m sure).

Perhaps the most heartwarming part is the way the losers are comfortable in their own skin. They know they will never be the popular kids. They know they will never be the coolest. But there is an obvious comfort they feel in their own skin which most adolescents could learn from. Ben likes being in the library and doesn’t see a need to hide it.

The movie seemed relatively lighthearted for a horror movie even though it explored some heavy themes. That’s probably because the verbal jousting among the losers frequently left me laughing.

It gets two thumbs up from me. If you haven’t already, you should see it.