Well, as things wind down, things can be said to have heated up, yes? Welcome one and all to Witless Prattle's dubious yet strangely popular coverage of Mad Men. Last week, some major shit went down as Sally actually saw Don banging Sylvia (because we will never be done with that plotline until someone dies, it seems) and Don seemed to weather the storm well enough. But given the title of this episode and the implications of same, will he continue to get away scot free? Let's find out!
"THE QUALITY OF MERCY"
"He just disappeared one day with an electric pencil sharpener and the company Christmas card list.."
So, uh, Cosgrove got his eye shot out.
Then the episode got weird.
Don has reacted to the whole fallout of the Sally thing in his usual style--acting hurt, drinking a lot, and generally retreating into himself. Sally's elected not to visit him anymore and is considering going to boarding school (Don eagerly offers to pay for all of it, because he's never averse to situations that involve him pushing people away with money in a way that seems to him like he's doing them a favour) and he's been telling everyone he's got a horrible cold.
To cheer him up in the midst of all this grinding angst, Megan takes him to see Rosemary's baby, which is a method of coping with things, I hadn't realised was a thing. While they're, they see Ted and Peggy chilling out in the same theatre, which Megan immediately twigs as something salacious going on (though given what Peggy gets up to in movie theatres, it's not an unfair assumption) and Don, perhaps reminded of his own infidelity, gets annoyed when Megan won't drop it.
Meanwhile, Pete, who is always the guy you go to for expressions of profound humanity, inveigles into Ken's spot after he finally decides he's had enough of Chevy and their crazy-ass bullshit. This seems for a moment to be a return to grace for him--after being marginalised for so long, here he is at the head of the firm's biggest account.
The he discovers he has to work with Bob, and it seems much less like a triumph, especially when Ted nails him to the floor by telling him that he knows Pete's trying to get rid of him because he made a pass at him. Ted tell him he misunderstood, then advises him that he better be careful what he says to people with the quiet gentility Patrick Bateman expressed right before he hacked up someone with an ax.
What follows is a game of chess, and if I'm honest, Bob kinda kicks Pete's ass around the woodpile. Pete tries to use Duck to get him a better job elsewhere, Bob uses Pete's mother's relationship with Manolo to get at him. Pete fumes and acts like a jackass because that's his default response to stimuli.
This little thread takes a hard right turn into crazy-town when Duck reveals that Bob Benson . . .is not at all who he claims to be. Yes, SC & P has fallen yet again for another man without a past (even Duck is pretty flabbergasted they didn't bother to check him out) Pete's able to use this to bring Bob to heel in a way he was never able to with Don.
Meanwhile, during Sally's boarding-school overnight, she calls up Glen (because of course she does) so she can impress the students. This leads to Glen being her white knight, which she actually liked, and yeah, I'm calling bullshit on that and moving on.
Meanwhile, Peggy and Ted are rapidly approaching power couple status, as he's constantly putting her on the vanguard of new accounts and runs with her idea for a commercial for children's aspirin based on Rosemary's Baby (thank God they didn't go see Night of the Living Dead) Don is pretty troubled by this, though whether it's because Peggy's a stranger to him more than ever or because Ted can fuck around and get away with it and he's jealous.
It's probably the latter, because it finally comes out that after torpedoing Ocean Spray (which Peggy was working on) and the aspirin ad (in the ugliest, most vicious way possible) and lambastes Ted for being indiscreet with Peggy (under the guise of doing him a favour, because Don LOVES punishing others for crimes he's committed) Peggy sees through it, of course, and rips Don a new asshole, calling him a "monster." And because Don's coping skills are like Pete's, he immediately curls up into a ball and goes all woe is me while the fucking Monkees play us out.
This was one of those episodes where you kinda hate everyone on this show as they're all doing really hideous shit to each other and clothing themselves in the vestments of self-righteousness. I'm with Peggy--Don's completed his molt into full monsterhood and he's finally managed to piss away the last bit of potential that this merger offered him personally and professionally. It's a good episode, but holy shit, its heart is as black as midnight in a coal mine. If the season finale goes all Red Wedding . . .it wouldn't be like they didn't have it coming.
And that's it for this week. Join us next week for the season finale, when Peggy finds her dragons and frees the slaves, Roger violates the rules of hospitality and stabs everyone, and Bert gets his junk cut off again. All of these things happened on another show, but surely won't happen on this one, when we meet in seven days for a little chunk of finality they're calling "In Care Of." Who will survive?
Showing posts with label mad men. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mad men. Show all posts
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Sunday, June 9, 2013
MAD MEN 6.11--"Favours"
So, last week on Mad Men, we got a rather problematic episode that nevertheless managed to get some plot legwork done--SCDPCGC had a new name "Sterling Cooper & Partners," or SC& P for short. Behind the scenes, it seems Cutler is playing a long game to take over, Don almost drowned because he's a terrible hash-head, and Pete took a rip of his first joint. It was, as I said, a rather problematic episode. Fortunately, not many folks were watching as they were busy losing their shit over the Red Wedding on Game of Thrones.
What will happen this week as we begin the final lap for this season? Well, there's no time like the present to find out, is there?
"FAVOURS"
"Like everything else in this country, Diplomacy Club's just another excuse to make out"
We begin on a succession of awkward notes--Peggy has an awkward encounter with Pte's painfully senile mother who blabs about having a child, mistakes her for Trudy, and confesses that she's having a physical thing with the nurse that Bob Benson got her a few episodes back. Pete and Peggy have a grim, awkward, and finally cathartic laugh about it soon after, which is a great little bit of business--they haven't really had a scene that's not been tense or guarded and when you add Ted to the mix (Pete can see he's crazy about her and considers Peggy one of the few people who really knows him, as Don told her a couple seasons back) It's a great scene because it shows that Ted, unlike Cutler, really wants to fit in here and some of the long-term members of our gang are happy to let him in.
Sorta. More on that later.
Less successfully, there's a bit with Don getting involved with helping Sylvia's son avoid the draft, thus forming a perfect combination of two things I haven't liked this season--THE SIXTIES horning in on the story in more blatant and thuddingly obvious ways at the expense of the story, and the dreadful Sylvia Rosen subplot that refuses to end even though we had the damn ending a few episodes back. Don makes some effort to help his kid (who is a real dolt) and I can see why they thought it made sense to do it (Don deserted, so putting him in the position to defend the war is dramatic irony) but . . .I kinda recall this show being subtler than this before.
Ted, though he likes working with Peggy and Pete and building relationships with them, is also in a hell-for-leather competition with Don (even though they're part of the same firm now, that need to prove oneself is a fire that is never quieted) and even more exasperating, Don's so disengaged he doesn't even see it, which only makes Ted even more exasperated. Though thanks to Don's clumsy attempts to feel out how the well-to-do at Chevy handle getting their kids deferred, it seems he has a sign of weakness, and Ted, who is actually paying attention at work, might actually do something with that knowledge.
The two things dovetail, however--it turns out that Ted has a resource that can get Sylvia's kid in with the Air National Guard, and he offers to set it up if Don will stop fighting him and work with him. Don acts like he didn't even realise that he was doing it (thought considering how out to lunch he's been, that's entirely possible) and if this gets him on the same page, it might even be worth this rather leaden plot. Unfortunately, the main upshot seems to be Don and Sylvia canoodling some more and shit, I've seen enough of that by now.
But I'm not the only one. Because, due to circumstances WAY too convoluted to go into here, Sally walks in on Don and Sylvia in flagrante dilecto. Don reacts like you'd think he would--as if the world were but a few seconds from ending and the Earth was about to swallow him whole. But while he goes on a bender and prepares himself for imminent doom it turns out that things aren't so bad--the kid may get his deferment and Sally hasn't told anyone anything (yet) and Don tries his best to defuse the situation. I can't say I rate his chances high.
Meanwhile, Peggy is freaked out by the rats in her apartment, to the point where she tempts Stan with sexual favours to get him to come clear out the rat traps. Honestly, there has to be a better way to handle these crises than getting horizontal in the name of rodent extermination.In other news, Pete is grossed out by his mom's crush on his nurse and lays down the law to Bob, who (not so) subtly outs himself, and Pete responds with the usual withering irritated disgust which was summed up best by his senile mom in a moment of clarity when she called him unlovable.
Well, I knew that whole draft-dodging plot would end in disaster and sure enough it did, as now Don's thinking with his Dick Whitman has led to a slow-motion explosion. Given we have but two episodes left, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. I can't really call it a good episode as of yet--it's probably one that will work better in the context of the whole season. We shall see.
And that's all for this week. Join us next week when Cutler decides to eat a whole pallet of margarine on a dare, Ted Chaough is deeply fascinated by a single Lego brick, and Don becomes the Beastmaster. All of these things plus the revelation of who's going to play Doctor Who next have a likelihood of not happening on the order of "metaphysical certitude"in a funky penultimate little kind of thing we're gonna call "The Quality of Mercy" (a title which, given the circumstances and people involved of this episode, feels a touch dodgy) Join us then, won't you?
What will happen this week as we begin the final lap for this season? Well, there's no time like the present to find out, is there?
"FAVOURS"
"Like everything else in this country, Diplomacy Club's just another excuse to make out"
We begin on a succession of awkward notes--Peggy has an awkward encounter with Pte's painfully senile mother who blabs about having a child, mistakes her for Trudy, and confesses that she's having a physical thing with the nurse that Bob Benson got her a few episodes back. Pete and Peggy have a grim, awkward, and finally cathartic laugh about it soon after, which is a great little bit of business--they haven't really had a scene that's not been tense or guarded and when you add Ted to the mix (Pete can see he's crazy about her and considers Peggy one of the few people who really knows him, as Don told her a couple seasons back) It's a great scene because it shows that Ted, unlike Cutler, really wants to fit in here and some of the long-term members of our gang are happy to let him in.
Sorta. More on that later.
Less successfully, there's a bit with Don getting involved with helping Sylvia's son avoid the draft, thus forming a perfect combination of two things I haven't liked this season--THE SIXTIES horning in on the story in more blatant and thuddingly obvious ways at the expense of the story, and the dreadful Sylvia Rosen subplot that refuses to end even though we had the damn ending a few episodes back. Don makes some effort to help his kid (who is a real dolt) and I can see why they thought it made sense to do it (Don deserted, so putting him in the position to defend the war is dramatic irony) but . . .I kinda recall this show being subtler than this before.
Ted, though he likes working with Peggy and Pete and building relationships with them, is also in a hell-for-leather competition with Don (even though they're part of the same firm now, that need to prove oneself is a fire that is never quieted) and even more exasperating, Don's so disengaged he doesn't even see it, which only makes Ted even more exasperated. Though thanks to Don's clumsy attempts to feel out how the well-to-do at Chevy handle getting their kids deferred, it seems he has a sign of weakness, and Ted, who is actually paying attention at work, might actually do something with that knowledge.
The two things dovetail, however--it turns out that Ted has a resource that can get Sylvia's kid in with the Air National Guard, and he offers to set it up if Don will stop fighting him and work with him. Don acts like he didn't even realise that he was doing it (thought considering how out to lunch he's been, that's entirely possible) and if this gets him on the same page, it might even be worth this rather leaden plot. Unfortunately, the main upshot seems to be Don and Sylvia canoodling some more and shit, I've seen enough of that by now.
But I'm not the only one. Because, due to circumstances WAY too convoluted to go into here, Sally walks in on Don and Sylvia in flagrante dilecto. Don reacts like you'd think he would--as if the world were but a few seconds from ending and the Earth was about to swallow him whole. But while he goes on a bender and prepares himself for imminent doom it turns out that things aren't so bad--the kid may get his deferment and Sally hasn't told anyone anything (yet) and Don tries his best to defuse the situation. I can't say I rate his chances high.
Meanwhile, Peggy is freaked out by the rats in her apartment, to the point where she tempts Stan with sexual favours to get him to come clear out the rat traps. Honestly, there has to be a better way to handle these crises than getting horizontal in the name of rodent extermination.In other news, Pete is grossed out by his mom's crush on his nurse and lays down the law to Bob, who (not so) subtly outs himself, and Pete responds with the usual withering irritated disgust which was summed up best by his senile mom in a moment of clarity when she called him unlovable.
Well, I knew that whole draft-dodging plot would end in disaster and sure enough it did, as now Don's thinking with his Dick Whitman has led to a slow-motion explosion. Given we have but two episodes left, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. I can't really call it a good episode as of yet--it's probably one that will work better in the context of the whole season. We shall see.
And that's all for this week. Join us next week when Cutler decides to eat a whole pallet of margarine on a dare, Ted Chaough is deeply fascinated by a single Lego brick, and Don becomes the Beastmaster. All of these things plus the revelation of who's going to play Doctor Who next have a likelihood of not happening on the order of "metaphysical certitude"in a funky penultimate little kind of thing we're gonna call "The Quality of Mercy" (a title which, given the circumstances and people involved of this episode, feels a touch dodgy) Join us then, won't you?
Sunday, June 2, 2013
MAD MEN 6.10--"A Tale Of Two Cities"
Some people think Sunday is the end of the week, and some think it's the beginning of the week. All we know is that if it's Sunday it's time year again for another trip 55 years (give or take) back in time to review Mad Men--exactly the kind of show you wouldn't expect someone writing about comics on a blog somewhere to be writing about, and yet, you would be wrong. This may or may not be what is considered a "black swan event." I myself am not sure.
Last week, Abe got stabbed by Peggy, thus making last week the Greatest Episode of Mad Men ever. Well, not so much, but there was a lot of people realising they couldn't exist either in the place they used to or the place they wanted to. What waits for us this week? Let's find out!
"A TALE OF TWO CITIES"
"SCDCC sounds like a stutter and looks like a typo"
We begin by foregrounding this week's major 1960's Event, which is rolled out in a somewhat clumsy fashion: This, dear readers, shall be the episode about the 1968 Democratic Convention. Thankfully it fades into the background, more or less and becomes an occasional level for conflict more than having people talk about The Big Historical Events That Will Reverberate For All Time . . .mostly. When it doesn't it reaches Wonder Years-level navel contemplation, sadly. At least when they did the Kennedy Assassination it felt a little more natural.
There's plenty of internal friction, in any case--after a notable period of time, the agency grapples with trying to name itself. This is a look under the hood at some internecine strife, as Cutler is rather annoyed that there's so many of SCDP's people still in key positions, but Ted recognizes (as Don doesn't) that there aren't two sides--they're one side, and they have to get along together (which was the whole point of the merger in the first place, you'll recall) Cutler seems to make an effort to do that by getting Bob from accounts to babysit Ginsburg who's being an ass.
Or so it seems, because the whole thing ends up being a somewhat complicated gambit to lose one of Roger's clients as a means of centralising some power on their end. That this costs them a lot of money and some bad word of mouth is immaterial, as Cutler's still playing the power game, which Ted warns him about again.
Meanwhile, the episode draws a contrast between Roger, Harry and Don going to woo the Carnation people. They're pretty arrogant and lazy about the whole thing, assuming the Carnation people are going to be country mice, completely wowed by the hoity-toity New York City folk. They get a rude surprise when they learn that the Carnation people have their own views of the city mice and take a hard line with them. It doesn't work.
Meanwhile, we spend a bit of time at a 1960's Hollywood party. I'm not gonna spend too much on it, because dear God it was pretty embarrassing. Thought it was something of a surprise that Danny from Season 4 (he of the crappy 'The cure for the common ______" ad pitches) shows up and when he's finally tired of Roger's short jokes, punches him in the nuts. Don takes a rip from a hookah full of hashish and nearly drowns. Given Roger is an experienced LSD pilot, obviously Don is a lightweight by comparison.
Joan lucks into something by arranging a meeting with Avon's ad rep (this is, one assumes, the payoff to the girl's night out with her friend a couple episodes) and feels a bit all at sea when she detects that this could be new business. She tells Peggy, who blanches a bit when Joan immediately suggests Don. Things seem a bit better when Ted suggests that Joan take Peggy along, but then it's Joan's turn to blanche when Pete gets the call to woo the client.
So Joan doesn't invite him.While this seems like a good idea because nothing brings a business dinner down like having Pete there is a definite baller move on Joan's part (who's been struggling this season about trying to get out of the perception people have of her as the Eternal Secretary) and she and Peggy actually do a decent job of wooing the client, even though they don't quite work as smoothly as Roger and Don (possibly because they're doing something Peggy knows they probably shouldn't) Joan sees it as a necessary power move to get herself seen as something other than The Girl Who Slept With Jaguar The Hutt which she wants to be even less than the Eternal Secretary, and unfortunately Peggy throws it right in her face. It's . . .well, kinda mean.
That said, I hope it works. Given Peggy's grave warnings about going her own way, I hope Joan doesn't have Lane Pryce's punishment for overreach in her future. It's not quite that bad--Pete reads her the riot act for the thing with Avon, but Peggy--bless her--covers for Joan, even if it's a temporary respite.
So this all culminates with a new name at last: Sterling Cooper & Partners. It's a concrete example of Ted trying to make peace and unify everyone and Don seems to grudgingly see the need for it. Pete freaks out and smokes a joint so powerful it makes The 60's happen right in front of him.
This was a pretty muddled episode, and for all the good bits, there was just so much "Look! The 60's! Mini-skirts! Janis Joplin! It was a time that happened!" It got a bit wearing. And the whole business with constantly playing the whole "two cities" motif felt a bit obvious and lacked Mad Men's usual light touch. Though if I remember right, they pretty much have an episode that's not quite as complete before things speed up for the final drive. Here's hoping they've got all the nonsense out of their system now.
And that'll do it for this week. Join us next week when Sally invents a time machine out of baking soda and a refrigerator box, Harry Crane becomes a cyborg, Pete develops a mad posh for cuchi fritos, and Peggy perfects the Weirding Way. All these things and more guaranteed to have an utterly negligible chance of happening when we meet back here in seven, for a little somethin-somethin' called "Favors"It's bound to be a real thigh-slapper!
Last week, Abe got stabbed by Peggy, thus making last week the Greatest Episode of Mad Men ever. Well, not so much, but there was a lot of people realising they couldn't exist either in the place they used to or the place they wanted to. What waits for us this week? Let's find out!
"A TALE OF TWO CITIES"
"SCDCC sounds like a stutter and looks like a typo"
We begin by foregrounding this week's major 1960's Event, which is rolled out in a somewhat clumsy fashion: This, dear readers, shall be the episode about the 1968 Democratic Convention. Thankfully it fades into the background, more or less and becomes an occasional level for conflict more than having people talk about The Big Historical Events That Will Reverberate For All Time . . .mostly. When it doesn't it reaches Wonder Years-level navel contemplation, sadly. At least when they did the Kennedy Assassination it felt a little more natural.
There's plenty of internal friction, in any case--after a notable period of time, the agency grapples with trying to name itself. This is a look under the hood at some internecine strife, as Cutler is rather annoyed that there's so many of SCDP's people still in key positions, but Ted recognizes (as Don doesn't) that there aren't two sides--they're one side, and they have to get along together (which was the whole point of the merger in the first place, you'll recall) Cutler seems to make an effort to do that by getting Bob from accounts to babysit Ginsburg who's being an ass.
Or so it seems, because the whole thing ends up being a somewhat complicated gambit to lose one of Roger's clients as a means of centralising some power on their end. That this costs them a lot of money and some bad word of mouth is immaterial, as Cutler's still playing the power game, which Ted warns him about again.
Meanwhile, the episode draws a contrast between Roger, Harry and Don going to woo the Carnation people. They're pretty arrogant and lazy about the whole thing, assuming the Carnation people are going to be country mice, completely wowed by the hoity-toity New York City folk. They get a rude surprise when they learn that the Carnation people have their own views of the city mice and take a hard line with them. It doesn't work.
Meanwhile, we spend a bit of time at a 1960's Hollywood party. I'm not gonna spend too much on it, because dear God it was pretty embarrassing. Thought it was something of a surprise that Danny from Season 4 (he of the crappy 'The cure for the common ______" ad pitches) shows up and when he's finally tired of Roger's short jokes, punches him in the nuts. Don takes a rip from a hookah full of hashish and nearly drowns. Given Roger is an experienced LSD pilot, obviously Don is a lightweight by comparison.
Joan lucks into something by arranging a meeting with Avon's ad rep (this is, one assumes, the payoff to the girl's night out with her friend a couple episodes) and feels a bit all at sea when she detects that this could be new business. She tells Peggy, who blanches a bit when Joan immediately suggests Don. Things seem a bit better when Ted suggests that Joan take Peggy along, but then it's Joan's turn to blanche when Pete gets the call to woo the client.
So Joan doesn't invite him.While this seems like a good idea because nothing brings a business dinner down like having Pete there is a definite baller move on Joan's part (who's been struggling this season about trying to get out of the perception people have of her as the Eternal Secretary) and she and Peggy actually do a decent job of wooing the client, even though they don't quite work as smoothly as Roger and Don (possibly because they're doing something Peggy knows they probably shouldn't) Joan sees it as a necessary power move to get herself seen as something other than The Girl Who Slept With Jaguar The Hutt which she wants to be even less than the Eternal Secretary, and unfortunately Peggy throws it right in her face. It's . . .well, kinda mean.
That said, I hope it works. Given Peggy's grave warnings about going her own way, I hope Joan doesn't have Lane Pryce's punishment for overreach in her future. It's not quite that bad--Pete reads her the riot act for the thing with Avon, but Peggy--bless her--covers for Joan, even if it's a temporary respite.
So this all culminates with a new name at last: Sterling Cooper & Partners. It's a concrete example of Ted trying to make peace and unify everyone and Don seems to grudgingly see the need for it. Pete freaks out and smokes a joint so powerful it makes The 60's happen right in front of him.
This was a pretty muddled episode, and for all the good bits, there was just so much "Look! The 60's! Mini-skirts! Janis Joplin! It was a time that happened!" It got a bit wearing. And the whole business with constantly playing the whole "two cities" motif felt a bit obvious and lacked Mad Men's usual light touch. Though if I remember right, they pretty much have an episode that's not quite as complete before things speed up for the final drive. Here's hoping they've got all the nonsense out of their system now.
And that'll do it for this week. Join us next week when Sally invents a time machine out of baking soda and a refrigerator box, Harry Crane becomes a cyborg, Pete develops a mad posh for cuchi fritos, and Peggy perfects the Weirding Way. All these things and more guaranteed to have an utterly negligible chance of happening when we meet back here in seven, for a little somethin-somethin' called "Favors"It's bound to be a real thigh-slapper!
Sunday, May 26, 2013
MAD MEN 6.9--"The Better Half"
Look, I KNOW you all feel the darkness right now, but I want you to know we're going to get through this, and it'll be brilliant. Yes, it is once again time for another weekly installment of Witless Prattle's inexplicably popular Mad Men reviews, proof positive that, as always, the least likely is the most dangerous (or, y'know, something) Last week . . .man, last week was something wasn't it? Everyone shot full of meth, acting crazy as hell, tap-dancing for God knows what reason and even with all that going on, they found time to have a break-in at Don't apartment. Oh, and I finally twigged that the guy who plays Cutler was Perseus in the old Clash of the Titans movie. Perhaps I need a B12 shot as well. What sort of madness awaits us this week as we enter the home stretch for the season? Let's find out!
"THE BETTER HALF"
"We're all a little out of context right now"
The theme for this episode is "duality," the ongoing conflict between Ted Chaough and Don Draper, and those trapped in between, and where one belongs at what point in time.
Don is well aware that Peggy prefers Ted to him (how much, one imagines he doesn't know) and parades her through the room in an effort to force the issue. Peggy doesn't want to play this bullshit and tells him off for making it a contest and point out--not incorrectly--that if they just worked together and didn't make it a horse race they'd get a lot more done. But since Don has too much fun being a miserable asshole, the lesson slides off his back.
Meanwhile Pete is feeling a bit all at sea, having burned his bridges, lost a shitload of business on account of being Pete Campbell and having a mom now mightily into her Crazy Cat Lady years and no good option on how to deal with that and having a window seat among the partners post-merger, consults a head-hunter, who is Duck Phillips, a man who, given the levels of dissipation we've seen him go through must be able to perpetually reincarnate himself. Duck accurately diagnoses his problem that his personality is toxic and priorities are like crazy paving, but like with Don, Pete's far too much of an asshole to take helpful advice like that on-board.
He's not the only one. Roger, fresh off of failing at being a Cool Grandad with his grandson (apparently Don's advice about taking the kids to see Planet of the Apes is not something that's consistent across all lines. Then again, if you're taking parenting lessons from Don, you've already lost) tries to bond with Joan and their child in the most awkward way possible, doubly so because we drop in on the reality that Bob and Joan are a thing. Joan tries to handle it as diplomatically as possible and poor Roger looks crushed (and given how annoying Bob is, seeing him with Joan probably crushed a lot of people)
Because one can never fight only ONE war on this show, Peggy finally has enough of Abe's liberal white guilt bullshit and says she's selling their west-80's place. It's good to see her finally stand up against that crap--I mean, he's been pulling since they met, giving her shit for working for THE MAN. And to his credit, Abe backs down in a moment of clarity.
Then Peggy stabs him, on accident, and Abe breaks it off with her because working in advertising "means she's always the enemy." Peggy, to her credit, doesn't stab him again, because that kind of assholism should really be punishable by death.
Meanwhile, Don goes to see Bobby at summer camp and runs into Betty, which I'm sure is a meaty story thread and not at all just an excuse to give Betty something to do. Mind you, she's already had a rather troubling moment earlier when one of Henry's buddies at the fundraiser offers her some coffee and sex (sand coffee) and Betty actually doesn't rule the idea out immediately. Henry is kind of a jerk about it, but it turns out he's just kinda turned on by the idea, and then, because this wasn't icky enough, Betty and Don knock boots because of course they do. Is Don on some kind of "have sex with every woman he used to have sex with as some sort of exit interview" process after Sylvia? It seems . . .and odd way to deal with a breakup.
That said, for all the crap I give Betty and for all that I wonder why she's on the show at moments, the afterglow scene is actually pretty good, as she diagnoses Don's problem pretty succinctly--anyone who loves him, he really treats like shit. Even more amazing, Don readily admits that he has some kind of disconnect that means he can't do that (which reaches back to that scene about Bobby after they went to see Planet of the Apes) It all gets a rather poignant button when Don wakes up alone the next day and sees Betty having a grand old time with Henry. There doesn't seem to be a place for him in the past, present, or future, does there?
While this is going on, Megan gets the make put on her by Arlene, which Megan rebuffs in a rather assholish way and Arlene gets all catty about it. While I laud Megan for being the person with the most fidelity in this entire cast of characters, "letting her down easy" is not one of her virtues. Though it does lead to her having a heart-to-heart with Don about how he's been disconnected from her and Don admits to it. It's a neat parallel to Sylvia's dream two episodes ago about telling her husband she was back home. Whether Don means it for keeps or not remains to be seen--there's another month's worth of episodes for him to screw it up.
Meanwhile, the fallout from the Abe breakup gives Peggy a perfect opportunity to formally hook up with ted, but Ted rebuffs it (again) and poor Peggy is left adrift between Don and Ted--repelled by the former's contempt and antagonism and the disinterest of another (and ironically, Don is in a similar position)
While this wasn't an episode with everyone tap-dancing or otherwise tripping balls, it was quite incisive and elegantly tied up a whole lot of things. Plus Abe got stabbed--I've been waiting I dunno HOW many years for that. Even the whole Betty thing, which usually feels like just an excuse to keep her on the show served the story and really brought a lot of stuff out. It was quite good.
And that'll do it for this week. You know, after the dope-fueled mayhem of last week, me putting irrational stuff here in the teaser for next week doesn't seem that far out now. That said, join us next week when Don starts a commemorative spoon collection, Bobby regenerates into Colin Baker, and Joan lives a life of danger for the FBI. These three things and whatever other batshit nonsense I dream up is mostly probably guaranteed not to happen in next week episode, "A Sale of Two Titties"--err, I mean "A Tale of Two Cities." Be there. Aloha!
"THE BETTER HALF"
"We're all a little out of context right now"
The theme for this episode is "duality," the ongoing conflict between Ted Chaough and Don Draper, and those trapped in between, and where one belongs at what point in time.
Don is well aware that Peggy prefers Ted to him (how much, one imagines he doesn't know) and parades her through the room in an effort to force the issue. Peggy doesn't want to play this bullshit and tells him off for making it a contest and point out--not incorrectly--that if they just worked together and didn't make it a horse race they'd get a lot more done. But since Don has too much fun being a miserable asshole, the lesson slides off his back.
Meanwhile Pete is feeling a bit all at sea, having burned his bridges, lost a shitload of business on account of being Pete Campbell and having a mom now mightily into her Crazy Cat Lady years and no good option on how to deal with that and having a window seat among the partners post-merger, consults a head-hunter, who is Duck Phillips, a man who, given the levels of dissipation we've seen him go through must be able to perpetually reincarnate himself. Duck accurately diagnoses his problem that his personality is toxic and priorities are like crazy paving, but like with Don, Pete's far too much of an asshole to take helpful advice like that on-board.
He's not the only one. Roger, fresh off of failing at being a Cool Grandad with his grandson (apparently Don's advice about taking the kids to see Planet of the Apes is not something that's consistent across all lines. Then again, if you're taking parenting lessons from Don, you've already lost) tries to bond with Joan and their child in the most awkward way possible, doubly so because we drop in on the reality that Bob and Joan are a thing. Joan tries to handle it as diplomatically as possible and poor Roger looks crushed (and given how annoying Bob is, seeing him with Joan probably crushed a lot of people)
Because one can never fight only ONE war on this show, Peggy finally has enough of Abe's liberal white guilt bullshit and says she's selling their west-80's place. It's good to see her finally stand up against that crap--I mean, he's been pulling since they met, giving her shit for working for THE MAN. And to his credit, Abe backs down in a moment of clarity.
Then Peggy stabs him, on accident, and Abe breaks it off with her because working in advertising "means she's always the enemy." Peggy, to her credit, doesn't stab him again, because that kind of assholism should really be punishable by death.
Meanwhile, Don goes to see Bobby at summer camp and runs into Betty, which I'm sure is a meaty story thread and not at all just an excuse to give Betty something to do. Mind you, she's already had a rather troubling moment earlier when one of Henry's buddies at the fundraiser offers her some coffee and sex (sand coffee) and Betty actually doesn't rule the idea out immediately. Henry is kind of a jerk about it, but it turns out he's just kinda turned on by the idea, and then, because this wasn't icky enough, Betty and Don knock boots because of course they do. Is Don on some kind of "have sex with every woman he used to have sex with as some sort of exit interview" process after Sylvia? It seems . . .and odd way to deal with a breakup.
That said, for all the crap I give Betty and for all that I wonder why she's on the show at moments, the afterglow scene is actually pretty good, as she diagnoses Don's problem pretty succinctly--anyone who loves him, he really treats like shit. Even more amazing, Don readily admits that he has some kind of disconnect that means he can't do that (which reaches back to that scene about Bobby after they went to see Planet of the Apes) It all gets a rather poignant button when Don wakes up alone the next day and sees Betty having a grand old time with Henry. There doesn't seem to be a place for him in the past, present, or future, does there?
While this is going on, Megan gets the make put on her by Arlene, which Megan rebuffs in a rather assholish way and Arlene gets all catty about it. While I laud Megan for being the person with the most fidelity in this entire cast of characters, "letting her down easy" is not one of her virtues. Though it does lead to her having a heart-to-heart with Don about how he's been disconnected from her and Don admits to it. It's a neat parallel to Sylvia's dream two episodes ago about telling her husband she was back home. Whether Don means it for keeps or not remains to be seen--there's another month's worth of episodes for him to screw it up.
Meanwhile, the fallout from the Abe breakup gives Peggy a perfect opportunity to formally hook up with ted, but Ted rebuffs it (again) and poor Peggy is left adrift between Don and Ted--repelled by the former's contempt and antagonism and the disinterest of another (and ironically, Don is in a similar position)
While this wasn't an episode with everyone tap-dancing or otherwise tripping balls, it was quite incisive and elegantly tied up a whole lot of things. Plus Abe got stabbed--I've been waiting I dunno HOW many years for that. Even the whole Betty thing, which usually feels like just an excuse to keep her on the show served the story and really brought a lot of stuff out. It was quite good.
And that'll do it for this week. You know, after the dope-fueled mayhem of last week, me putting irrational stuff here in the teaser for next week doesn't seem that far out now. That said, join us next week when Don starts a commemorative spoon collection, Bobby regenerates into Colin Baker, and Joan lives a life of danger for the FBI. These three things and whatever other batshit nonsense I dream up is mostly probably guaranteed not to happen in next week episode, "A Sale of Two Titties"--err, I mean "A Tale of Two Cities." Be there. Aloha!
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Mad Men 6.8--"The Crash"
Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality. But . . .there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place just as real but not as brightly lit . . . a DARKSIDE. Hello and welcome once again to Witless Prattle's inexplicably consistent, determinedly swift (even when my cable goes out, as it did last week) coverage for Mad Men. Last week was a somewhat grim episode that was so bleak Robert Kennedy's assassination seemed like an afterthought. Let's see if we get back to the rollicking thigh-slapping comedy that Mad Men is known for this week
"THE CRASH"
"Every time we get a car, this place turns into a whorehouse."
Appropriate to the overall theme of the episode, we begin with some real Hunter Thompson shit, as Ken Cosgrove, driving an Impala, crashes because he's apparently picked up a group of authentic lunatics to ride around with. This is a bit of a microcosm of what is proving to be Firm Yet To Be Named's overall problem--while GM pays their bills, they're not running any of their work--they have to prepare stuff on a very rigorous schedule, but it's not getting out and has to go through such a torturous approval process that it seems to be bleeding FYTBN white.
Not that Don is really doing terribly well. The whole business with Sylvia giving the old heave-ho has led to him contracting a case of mildly stalking her. It nearly blows everything wide open, and Don is absolutely furious when Sylvia tells him to knock it the hell off and he starts flashing back to when he had a real bad chest cold during his youth in the whorehouse and he was nursed back to health and also got his first lay (this has not been my experience recuperating when I was sick. That's . . .not something I feel like I missed out on). He's feeling bad.
With the death of Gleason (the guy who'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer) and the creative drain Chevy's putting on everyone, really everyone is either sick or their energy flags. This leads Cutler to suggest everyone go up and get a B12 shot in the ass, which causes two things to happen--one, everyone gets a shot in the ass and two, the entire episode gets really effing crazy and almost defies my ability to review it, as just when I think that I may have some notion of what's going on, Culter and Stan are having a footrace, Cosgrove tap-dances for little adequately explored reason, and Stan is letting people throw pencils into his arm.
Man, I can't wait for the 80's when everyone mellows out on calming, blissful cocaine.
It was quite nice of the writers to reference The Prisoner episode "Free For All," wherein No. 6 is drugged to the point of insanity and the whole episode gets so crazy and baroque it makes terrifyingly little sense just to make it plain what we'd be up to tonight.
Meanwhile, Don is getting crazier, Sally's reading Rosemary's Baby and stumbling upon someone breaking into the apartment Sally, proving she probably wasn't the right person to be invested with loco parentis after all (Megan had to go to a play and Don is still buzzed out of his mind) Bobby's not much help when he discovers the person breaking in, which . . .well, that's not the stupidest thing that happens this episode.
Do you know, I think I might actually be high right now writing this. I'm not sure anymore.
That would be this: Don, meanwhile has been busy . . .coming up with the perfect way to woo Sylvia back, even though that wasn't what he got the shot for or what he was supposed to be working on, and everyone's so buzzed on the same shot they can't recognise how crackheaded his logic is. Peggy looks exasperated by all this and finally goes home. She has a point.
Thankfully there is a kernel of insight to be gained by all this--in the wake of the flashback with Don and Amee the whore, we get a bit of insight into Don: namely that after his first sexual experience, Amee got kicked out and he got the shit thrashed out of him with a wooden spoon, and in the immortal words of Lana Kane "A WHOLE lot of shit just made sense."
Man, this was a . . .confounding episode. It was never boring, I'll give it that. I guess after the "Roger takes LSD" episode they just decided "Hell with it, let's do the WHOLE EPISODE like that and see what people make of it." I can't say it was bad--lord knows it wasn't mediocre or boring.
And that's it for this week. Join us next week When Betty decides to dye her hair pink and try out for Gerry Anderson's UFO, Harry Crane's sideburns join into a full and yet somehow infinitely more nasty beard, and Don can't stop rubbing hamburgers all over his naked body. All of these things guaranteed to never happen (unless the doctor hands out more B12 shots) but in the sickest imaginings of Mad Men reviewers looking for a way to button their reviews and tease for next week. Join us next time for "The Better Half!"
"THE CRASH"
"Every time we get a car, this place turns into a whorehouse."
Appropriate to the overall theme of the episode, we begin with some real Hunter Thompson shit, as Ken Cosgrove, driving an Impala, crashes because he's apparently picked up a group of authentic lunatics to ride around with. This is a bit of a microcosm of what is proving to be Firm Yet To Be Named's overall problem--while GM pays their bills, they're not running any of their work--they have to prepare stuff on a very rigorous schedule, but it's not getting out and has to go through such a torturous approval process that it seems to be bleeding FYTBN white.
Not that Don is really doing terribly well. The whole business with Sylvia giving the old heave-ho has led to him contracting a case of mildly stalking her. It nearly blows everything wide open, and Don is absolutely furious when Sylvia tells him to knock it the hell off and he starts flashing back to when he had a real bad chest cold during his youth in the whorehouse and he was nursed back to health and also got his first lay (this has not been my experience recuperating when I was sick. That's . . .not something I feel like I missed out on). He's feeling bad.
With the death of Gleason (the guy who'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer) and the creative drain Chevy's putting on everyone, really everyone is either sick or their energy flags. This leads Cutler to suggest everyone go up and get a B12 shot in the ass, which causes two things to happen--one, everyone gets a shot in the ass and two, the entire episode gets really effing crazy and almost defies my ability to review it, as just when I think that I may have some notion of what's going on, Culter and Stan are having a footrace, Cosgrove tap-dances for little adequately explored reason, and Stan is letting people throw pencils into his arm.
Man, I can't wait for the 80's when everyone mellows out on calming, blissful cocaine.
It was quite nice of the writers to reference The Prisoner episode "Free For All," wherein No. 6 is drugged to the point of insanity and the whole episode gets so crazy and baroque it makes terrifyingly little sense just to make it plain what we'd be up to tonight.
Meanwhile, Don is getting crazier, Sally's reading Rosemary's Baby and stumbling upon someone breaking into the apartment Sally, proving she probably wasn't the right person to be invested with loco parentis after all (Megan had to go to a play and Don is still buzzed out of his mind) Bobby's not much help when he discovers the person breaking in, which . . .well, that's not the stupidest thing that happens this episode.
Do you know, I think I might actually be high right now writing this. I'm not sure anymore.
That would be this: Don, meanwhile has been busy . . .coming up with the perfect way to woo Sylvia back, even though that wasn't what he got the shot for or what he was supposed to be working on, and everyone's so buzzed on the same shot they can't recognise how crackheaded his logic is. Peggy looks exasperated by all this and finally goes home. She has a point.
Thankfully there is a kernel of insight to be gained by all this--in the wake of the flashback with Don and Amee the whore, we get a bit of insight into Don: namely that after his first sexual experience, Amee got kicked out and he got the shit thrashed out of him with a wooden spoon, and in the immortal words of Lana Kane "A WHOLE lot of shit just made sense."
Man, this was a . . .confounding episode. It was never boring, I'll give it that. I guess after the "Roger takes LSD" episode they just decided "Hell with it, let's do the WHOLE EPISODE like that and see what people make of it." I can't say it was bad--lord knows it wasn't mediocre or boring.
And that's it for this week. Join us next week When Betty decides to dye her hair pink and try out for Gerry Anderson's UFO, Harry Crane's sideburns join into a full and yet somehow infinitely more nasty beard, and Don can't stop rubbing hamburgers all over his naked body. All of these things guaranteed to never happen (unless the doctor hands out more B12 shots) but in the sickest imaginings of Mad Men reviewers looking for a way to button their reviews and tease for next week. Join us next time for "The Better Half!"
Sunday, May 12, 2013
MAD MEN 6.7--"Man With A Plan"
A city built upon delusions: New York. There, many ad execs who believe that angst is power, fight battles that happen entirely in a one (and occasionally two) hour block every Sunday night for about 13 weeks at a time. They are the Advertising Sentai: Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Cutler Gleason Chaough and their story isn't over yet!
Man, last week was pretty eventful, wasn't it? Fresh off burning Jaguar and alienating everyone then going after Chevrolet and merging his agency with Ted Chaough's just to get it. Of course, this is all in pursuit of advertising the Chevy Vega, so it's pretty much still a poisoned chalice, but as I said last week--Mad Men doesn't usually jump ahead like this until the end of the season, so let's see what the fallout is likely to be from last week!
"MAN WITH THE PLAN"
"It took 40 minutes to find out no one knows shit about margarine."
So in the wake of the SCDP/CGC merger, there are a lot of growing pains--even with two floors, moving two agencies together is causing no end of friction. Not that everyone's coming along for the ride--Bert Peterson gets fired yet again (and Roger takes a right sadistic pleasure in it--not the ONLY time I'll say this tonight) and everything's getting shuffled around.It's a troubled marriage already--cliques are being formed and new dynamics are causing some friction (Ted Chaough runs the creative side of things with a lighter touch than Don--getting them together to brainstorm about margarine, for God's sake.) Peggy's still not sure where she fits in--she doesn't seem to like the effect that Don's drunken brainstorming session has on Ted and there's a definite difference in approach between the two of them--Ted likes things rigorously systematized and Don likes for sudden bursts of innovation to happen.
Their relationship--confounding and confusing, is a microcosm of what's going on as the merger keeps on--Ted feels like Don's sizing him up more than they're actually doing any work. It's not helped that Ted's tolerance for getting his drank is dwarfed by Don. Peggy gives Don shit for trying to turn Ted into another one of him and they fall into a not-encouraging, yet familiar pattern.
On the plus side, Roger and Cutler are Accounts Bros now. They're getting along great.
Oh, and Ted is a pilot. Given the title of the next episode, this is a worrying association.
Meanwhile, Pete has discovered that it can always get worse. In the wake of losing Vicks thanks to being an utter dicknuts. This has the knock-on effect of marginalizing him at the office to the point where he can't even get a chair at a meeting. To add injury to insult, his mother's going senile and has apparently gone well down the path of getting into "crazy cat lady" territory. Pete handles this with the sensitivity you would think he would--he's an unbearable asshole to her and confounds her willingly. I suppose one could say it's an unpleasant reminder for him that his life is disconnecting around him and he no longer has any place within it, but I think it's more than he's a massive douche who is getting what he deserves. If you scorch the Earth in every direction it's a bit difficult to hang onto much of anything, seeing as how you've already burned it to the ground.
Meanwhile Joan is sick, and it seems like it could be some serious shit--recurring pain, throwing up in her office. This led to some alarming speculation, but apparently it was just an ovarian cyst. The more important news was that Bob, the Phantom of Accounts, actually did something of import to the plot in ensuring she got to the hospital. Joan assumes it's because he was fretting over his job since the axe is swinging in all directions, but her mother's not so sure. In return for her yeoman work, Joan covertly saves Bob's job.
Here's to new alliances, I guess.
The Don and Sylvia thing also sees some motion this week in that she and Don embark on what could only be described as a continuing s/m relationship with Don laying down the law to her and holing her up in a hotel room. This isn't really news--hes been doing this kinda thing off and on as far back as Bobbie Barrett, but it's the first time he's been this overt about it. One wonders if this isn't an attempt to assume some control over some facet of his life given all the tumult with the merger.
In any event, this doesn't work out all that well, as after a few days of being humiliated, Sylvia's Catholic guilt and shame reasserts itself and she breaks it off. Don looks astonished that this could be a thing that is happening to him ("why" is a question that strains the limits of human credibility) and puts up a brave front and tries to go back to Megan and pretend everything's great. He does somewhat less of a sterling job in that regard.
And then Robert Kennedy gets shot and things get worse. So, the answer to the question I was pondering since last week is that the merger doesn't fix very much--it rattles some cages, causes the dynamic to wobble dramatically, and seems to lead to everyone simmering in their own resentments more than a bit. I wondered elsewhere if the notion of putting CGC and SCDP in the same boat was getting the ship righted or putting two sinking ships into a bigger sinking ship. It's not looking good so far.
And that's it for this week! Join us next week when Harry Crane's sideburns take on a malevolent sentience, Pete tells the world that if he could have only one food the rest of his life it would be cherry-flavoured Pez, and Don develops a fetish for Belgian waffles. All this and so much more is absolutely guaranteed not to happen in the next thrilling episode of Mad Men, entitled, "The Crash." With a title like that, it's sure to be the feel-good hit of the season!
Man, last week was pretty eventful, wasn't it? Fresh off burning Jaguar and alienating everyone then going after Chevrolet and merging his agency with Ted Chaough's just to get it. Of course, this is all in pursuit of advertising the Chevy Vega, so it's pretty much still a poisoned chalice, but as I said last week--Mad Men doesn't usually jump ahead like this until the end of the season, so let's see what the fallout is likely to be from last week!
"MAN WITH THE PLAN"
"It took 40 minutes to find out no one knows shit about margarine."
So in the wake of the SCDP/CGC merger, there are a lot of growing pains--even with two floors, moving two agencies together is causing no end of friction. Not that everyone's coming along for the ride--Bert Peterson gets fired yet again (and Roger takes a right sadistic pleasure in it--not the ONLY time I'll say this tonight) and everything's getting shuffled around.It's a troubled marriage already--cliques are being formed and new dynamics are causing some friction (Ted Chaough runs the creative side of things with a lighter touch than Don--getting them together to brainstorm about margarine, for God's sake.) Peggy's still not sure where she fits in--she doesn't seem to like the effect that Don's drunken brainstorming session has on Ted and there's a definite difference in approach between the two of them--Ted likes things rigorously systematized and Don likes for sudden bursts of innovation to happen.
Their relationship--confounding and confusing, is a microcosm of what's going on as the merger keeps on--Ted feels like Don's sizing him up more than they're actually doing any work. It's not helped that Ted's tolerance for getting his drank is dwarfed by Don. Peggy gives Don shit for trying to turn Ted into another one of him and they fall into a not-encouraging, yet familiar pattern.
On the plus side, Roger and Cutler are Accounts Bros now. They're getting along great.
Oh, and Ted is a pilot. Given the title of the next episode, this is a worrying association.
Meanwhile, Pete has discovered that it can always get worse. In the wake of losing Vicks thanks to being an utter dicknuts. This has the knock-on effect of marginalizing him at the office to the point where he can't even get a chair at a meeting. To add injury to insult, his mother's going senile and has apparently gone well down the path of getting into "crazy cat lady" territory. Pete handles this with the sensitivity you would think he would--he's an unbearable asshole to her and confounds her willingly. I suppose one could say it's an unpleasant reminder for him that his life is disconnecting around him and he no longer has any place within it, but I think it's more than he's a massive douche who is getting what he deserves. If you scorch the Earth in every direction it's a bit difficult to hang onto much of anything, seeing as how you've already burned it to the ground.
Meanwhile Joan is sick, and it seems like it could be some serious shit--recurring pain, throwing up in her office. This led to some alarming speculation, but apparently it was just an ovarian cyst. The more important news was that Bob, the Phantom of Accounts, actually did something of import to the plot in ensuring she got to the hospital. Joan assumes it's because he was fretting over his job since the axe is swinging in all directions, but her mother's not so sure. In return for her yeoman work, Joan covertly saves Bob's job.
Here's to new alliances, I guess.
The Don and Sylvia thing also sees some motion this week in that she and Don embark on what could only be described as a continuing s/m relationship with Don laying down the law to her and holing her up in a hotel room. This isn't really news--hes been doing this kinda thing off and on as far back as Bobbie Barrett, but it's the first time he's been this overt about it. One wonders if this isn't an attempt to assume some control over some facet of his life given all the tumult with the merger.
In any event, this doesn't work out all that well, as after a few days of being humiliated, Sylvia's Catholic guilt and shame reasserts itself and she breaks it off. Don looks astonished that this could be a thing that is happening to him ("why" is a question that strains the limits of human credibility) and puts up a brave front and tries to go back to Megan and pretend everything's great. He does somewhat less of a sterling job in that regard.
And then Robert Kennedy gets shot and things get worse. So, the answer to the question I was pondering since last week is that the merger doesn't fix very much--it rattles some cages, causes the dynamic to wobble dramatically, and seems to lead to everyone simmering in their own resentments more than a bit. I wondered elsewhere if the notion of putting CGC and SCDP in the same boat was getting the ship righted or putting two sinking ships into a bigger sinking ship. It's not looking good so far.
And that's it for this week! Join us next week when Harry Crane's sideburns take on a malevolent sentience, Pete tells the world that if he could have only one food the rest of his life it would be cherry-flavoured Pez, and Don develops a fetish for Belgian waffles. All this and so much more is absolutely guaranteed not to happen in the next thrilling episode of Mad Men, entitled, "The Crash." With a title like that, it's sure to be the feel-good hit of the season!
Sunday, May 5, 2013
MAD MEN 6.6--"For Immediate Release"
MAD MEN--A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist. Don Draper, a sexy, inscrutable womanizer stricken with permanent ennui in a world of social and political upheaval. He also doesn't have a talking car (alas) and this this where my homage falls apart. Anyways--welcome once again to the halfway point of our coverage of Mad Men's penultimate season. Last week, we crossed a a major threshold into 1968 as our gang dealt with the fallout of the assassination of Martin Luther King (which, among other things, gave us another splendid moment of perfect assholery--seasoned with indirect racism-- by Harry Crane) Henry Francis explored the notion of running for state Senate, Don and Bobby fucked off from the main plot to take in Planet of the Apes, and Peggy contemplated buying an apartment. What awaits us this week? There's no time like the present to learn about the past!
"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE"
"It was mutually-assured destruction"
The big news of the week is helpfully in the first scene--apparently Pete and Joan are scheming to take SCDP public, which would net them quite a huge amount of cash for their shares, but before that happens, they have to get Don on board (who's being kept in the dark, not unlike how they froze him out of the Jaguar thing) Pete, in his usual irritating douchebag way, is acting like his conquered the world already, even though it's far from a done deal and tries to use that confidence to get back in with Trudy on one of his rare visits home, in a way that allows him to be both creepy and an asshole. Plus, I have to look at Pete in his boxer shorts. Thanks for that, Mad Men.
There's all sorts of stuff swirling around however, that could screw this IPO thing up--for one thing, there's an ominous meeting with Jaguar that is sure to involve the fallout from Don intentionally blowing up Herb the Jagoff's plan to get the ad money funneled his way. This comes to a head at a ghastly dinner with Ghastly herb and his ghastly wife (leavened only by Marie viciously tearing them down in French--at last, her passive-aggressive viciousness is actually used for good) Don, however, decides to be more overt and when Herb springs his next idea on him (planting one of his guys in on creative so they can better pivot SCDP's efforts in his direction) Don burns the whole thing down by telling Herb to shove it. Whole Herb does have a point that the customer is always right, Don can't see past the utter awfulness that was done to get Jaguar and has (one gets the impression) looking for an excuse to scorch the earth between them.
This has the side effect of torpedoing the IPO and Don incurs he wrath if Pete (because he stole his thunder and ruined his Big Moment) and Joan, who speaks truth to Draper (as Peggy did) that he always thinks of himself first and everyone else . . .well, never, and that his asshole grandstanding meant what she did, she did for nothing.
But as the Chinese say, in crisis there is opportunity as well, and Roger has been diligently working to secure a new client, and that client is Chevrolet (which CGC is also trying for, but more on that later) who has a new car they're trying to launch to compete with Ford's Mustang. Being that it's more important than ever that they get it (and it's only going to get worse) Don manfully steps up to the plate to secure it.
Then things get worse. Owing to seeing his father-in-law in the same whorehouse HE frequents, His father-in-law cuts Vick's Chemical out of SCDP, and when Pete goes to confront him, he utterly eviscerates Pete for being unworthy of his daughter and just a real shitheel. He's uh, not wrong. His father in law implores him to do the right thing, and Pete, being Pete, dimes out his father-in-law to Trudy because Pete wouldn't know the right thing if he woke up in bed with it.
Meanwhile, Abe's dream of living in a hip multicultural part of town is going as well as you'd expect one of Abe's ideas to go--people defaecate on the stairs up to their apartment and Abe is incapable of hammering a nail without causing himself injury. Peggy seems to be in a permanent state of quiet exasperation.Peggy's hallucinating getting all up ons Ted Chaough, which may or may not be the paint fumes, or the tipping point with Abe (who says 1968 is going to be hunky-dory for here on in, proving that left or right, NO ONE is really good at seeing the face of 1968 to come) Peggy liked Ted a lot because he's not Don, who she's worked for and liked it so much she moved over to CGC. Peggy will have a sudden attack of irony in a bit.
OK, back to CGC and the Chevrolet thing. They're tying themselves in knots over it and we meet the other third of the Cutler, Gleason and Chaough partnership--Cutler, who's suffering from pancreatic cancer (I don;t know why you say "hello," I saw "goodbye") Cashing Cutler out will cripple their company if they don't have Chevy's car (having thrown Alfa Romeo overboard to get it) CGC and SCDP are very much in parallel positions--everything is balanced on a hair, and given that CGC and SCDP are both small agencies fighting it out with the big guys (see the Heinz thing earlier this season) More on that . . .right now.
Thing is, when everything's balanced on a hair, and there's nothing left to lose, there are two choices. You blow everything up (as Pete did with his family, Dr. Rosen quitting his job, and Don did with Jaguar) or, seized with a crazy idea that just might work, you roll the hard six.
Just as Don did at the end of Season 3, when he didn't want to work for McCann, he springs an idea at a despondent Ted Chaough. They're both tired of being small fry agencies, manipulated by the bigger agencies to get their creative so they can give it to larger firms.
Don has an idea--why don't they merge?
And they do. They get Chevrolet, they merge and two former rivals are now side by side and Peggy's back with Don, which may or may not be a good thing. Peggy's reaction to the news is utter shock, as you might imagine. Draper kept his word that he'd spend the rest of his life trying to hire her, and Peggy's attempt to get away from him has drawn her back in.
There's hope and fear, because while they scored a big win and did something extraordinary . . .things are still uncertain and they're still hanging on the abyss . . .there's just some more company, and a lot more days in a very perilous year yet to come.
There was a LOT to unpack in this episode. The notion of destruction--due to pride, or fear, or anger, or spite--the idea of tearing people apart and setting people against people on the one hand, the idea of making peace with your perpetual rivals to stave off imminent destruction on the other, and the idea of getting back in bed with the people you've been desperate to flee. I'm kinda shocked this didn't get held back for a season finale, so much heavy-gravity stuff happened. I now have no idea how things are gonna play out for the remaining seven episodes.
And that's all for this week. Join us next week when Peggy makes a playhouse in a refrigerator box, Joan can't stop making Japanese lanterns, Roger is endlessly fascinated with a spinning button on a string, and Pete won't stop huffing mucilage. None of this arts and crafts mania straight from the World Book's "Make and Do" volume is likely to happen in our next thrilling episode, entitled: "Man with a Plan." It's sure to be a tasteful mix of the 60's, 70's, 80's and today!
"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE"
"It was mutually-assured destruction"
The big news of the week is helpfully in the first scene--apparently Pete and Joan are scheming to take SCDP public, which would net them quite a huge amount of cash for their shares, but before that happens, they have to get Don on board (who's being kept in the dark, not unlike how they froze him out of the Jaguar thing) Pete, in his usual irritating douchebag way, is acting like his conquered the world already, even though it's far from a done deal and tries to use that confidence to get back in with Trudy on one of his rare visits home, in a way that allows him to be both creepy and an asshole. Plus, I have to look at Pete in his boxer shorts. Thanks for that, Mad Men.
There's all sorts of stuff swirling around however, that could screw this IPO thing up--for one thing, there's an ominous meeting with Jaguar that is sure to involve the fallout from Don intentionally blowing up Herb the Jagoff's plan to get the ad money funneled his way. This comes to a head at a ghastly dinner with Ghastly herb and his ghastly wife (leavened only by Marie viciously tearing them down in French--at last, her passive-aggressive viciousness is actually used for good) Don, however, decides to be more overt and when Herb springs his next idea on him (planting one of his guys in on creative so they can better pivot SCDP's efforts in his direction) Don burns the whole thing down by telling Herb to shove it. Whole Herb does have a point that the customer is always right, Don can't see past the utter awfulness that was done to get Jaguar and has (one gets the impression) looking for an excuse to scorch the earth between them.
This has the side effect of torpedoing the IPO and Don incurs he wrath if Pete (because he stole his thunder and ruined his Big Moment) and Joan, who speaks truth to Draper (as Peggy did) that he always thinks of himself first and everyone else . . .well, never, and that his asshole grandstanding meant what she did, she did for nothing.
But as the Chinese say, in crisis there is opportunity as well, and Roger has been diligently working to secure a new client, and that client is Chevrolet (which CGC is also trying for, but more on that later) who has a new car they're trying to launch to compete with Ford's Mustang. Being that it's more important than ever that they get it (and it's only going to get worse) Don manfully steps up to the plate to secure it.
Then things get worse. Owing to seeing his father-in-law in the same whorehouse HE frequents, His father-in-law cuts Vick's Chemical out of SCDP, and when Pete goes to confront him, he utterly eviscerates Pete for being unworthy of his daughter and just a real shitheel. He's uh, not wrong. His father in law implores him to do the right thing, and Pete, being Pete, dimes out his father-in-law to Trudy because Pete wouldn't know the right thing if he woke up in bed with it.
Meanwhile, Abe's dream of living in a hip multicultural part of town is going as well as you'd expect one of Abe's ideas to go--people defaecate on the stairs up to their apartment and Abe is incapable of hammering a nail without causing himself injury. Peggy seems to be in a permanent state of quiet exasperation.Peggy's hallucinating getting all up ons Ted Chaough, which may or may not be the paint fumes, or the tipping point with Abe (who says 1968 is going to be hunky-dory for here on in, proving that left or right, NO ONE is really good at seeing the face of 1968 to come) Peggy liked Ted a lot because he's not Don, who she's worked for and liked it so much she moved over to CGC. Peggy will have a sudden attack of irony in a bit.
OK, back to CGC and the Chevrolet thing. They're tying themselves in knots over it and we meet the other third of the Cutler, Gleason and Chaough partnership--Cutler, who's suffering from pancreatic cancer (I don;t know why you say "hello," I saw "goodbye") Cashing Cutler out will cripple their company if they don't have Chevy's car (having thrown Alfa Romeo overboard to get it) CGC and SCDP are very much in parallel positions--everything is balanced on a hair, and given that CGC and SCDP are both small agencies fighting it out with the big guys (see the Heinz thing earlier this season) More on that . . .right now.
Thing is, when everything's balanced on a hair, and there's nothing left to lose, there are two choices. You blow everything up (as Pete did with his family, Dr. Rosen quitting his job, and Don did with Jaguar) or, seized with a crazy idea that just might work, you roll the hard six.
Just as Don did at the end of Season 3, when he didn't want to work for McCann, he springs an idea at a despondent Ted Chaough. They're both tired of being small fry agencies, manipulated by the bigger agencies to get their creative so they can give it to larger firms.
Don has an idea--why don't they merge?
And they do. They get Chevrolet, they merge and two former rivals are now side by side and Peggy's back with Don, which may or may not be a good thing. Peggy's reaction to the news is utter shock, as you might imagine. Draper kept his word that he'd spend the rest of his life trying to hire her, and Peggy's attempt to get away from him has drawn her back in.
There's hope and fear, because while they scored a big win and did something extraordinary . . .things are still uncertain and they're still hanging on the abyss . . .there's just some more company, and a lot more days in a very perilous year yet to come.
There was a LOT to unpack in this episode. The notion of destruction--due to pride, or fear, or anger, or spite--the idea of tearing people apart and setting people against people on the one hand, the idea of making peace with your perpetual rivals to stave off imminent destruction on the other, and the idea of getting back in bed with the people you've been desperate to flee. I'm kinda shocked this didn't get held back for a season finale, so much heavy-gravity stuff happened. I now have no idea how things are gonna play out for the remaining seven episodes.
And that's all for this week. Join us next week when Peggy makes a playhouse in a refrigerator box, Joan can't stop making Japanese lanterns, Roger is endlessly fascinated with a spinning button on a string, and Pete won't stop huffing mucilage. None of this arts and crafts mania straight from the World Book's "Make and Do" volume is likely to happen in our next thrilling episode, entitled: "Man with a Plan." It's sure to be a tasteful mix of the 60's, 70's, 80's and today!
Sunday, April 28, 2013
MAD MEN 6.5--"The Flood"
If it's Sunday at ten o'clock, that can only mean it's time once again for Mad Men, our weekly sojourn into the world of 1960's advertising, ennui, sideburns, and horribly patterned jackets. Last week was another thigh-slapper of an episode, featuring Joan giving Harry Crane the DEATH STARE, Harry Crane being an asshole, Don being an cheating asshole, Pete being a repulsive asshole, and Megan looking sad and weepy. Oh, and in an attempt to score the Heinz Ketchup account, SCDP wagered what they had of their business and lost.
What exciting thing does this week's episode hold? Let's find out!
"THE FLOOD"
"Don't do anything stupid"
"It's too late--I'm going to Harlem in a tuxedo."
It looks like things are going to go one way--it's time for the Ad Club of New York's awards ceremony and Megan's up for an Award as is Peggy (and their respective agencies are given a seat somewhere in New Jersey, apparently) and things seem set up for a really ghastly evening full of sublimated tension, when the news drops--Martin Luther King has been shot. Needless to say, this stops the world dead in its tracks (though not so much that Pete can't be an asshole about--some things can't be put on hold.
Proving how unusual this episode is, Bobby actually gets a subplot to himself (not a big one, but when they remember a Draper child other than Sally, it's well worth noting) wherein he's completely aggravated by an uncertain world and wallpaper that doesn't line up (in what must be said is a rather laboured metaphor for the events of the episode and those promised) but I did get a kick out of he and Don going to see Planet of the Apes. Meanwhile, a whole season after all of this got set up, Ginsburg actually gets a follow-up on his subplot, as his Topol-esque father sets him up on a blind date, and Ginsburg, ever eager not to play to stereotypes, Woody Allens his way through the whole thing. I'm sure these kinds of things endear Ginsburg to some people, but . . .dear Lord, it's like the greatest stereotypes of yesterday and today and there's not much character to it.
The death of MLK leads to an interesting ripple effect--given most of the characters are trapped in a city that's threatening to blow itself apart (in a country equally close to blowing apart) Pete calls Trudy, and you get a sense that it took the upheaval of an assassination for him to get how badly he screwed thing up with Trudy, but contrition or not, she's not having it (and good on her) Pete looks shattered after she hangs up on him, trapped om a city busy burning itself down. This leads to him getting really pissed off that Harry's main source of upset about the whole business is they're losing TV ads, which gets on Pete's nerves to the extent that he straight-up calls him a racist (which Harry doesn't exactly make a case against--he's now two for two with being an unbearable dicknuts on a weekly basis) and Bert has to keep it from exploding into a straight-up fist-fight.
Meanwhile, our other "favourite" peripheral characters are happy to get in on the jerk-assery as well--Megan's dad thinks it's splendid news, which Megan summarizes as "I'm so sick of his Marxist bullshit." Betty decides to needle Don about not picking up the kids and forcing him to drive through Harlem because the one thing Betty Draper can not afford to have is a sense of proportion. Also, her with black hair is really weird. But things are going well-ish for her, as this whole thing has really lite a fire under Henry's hard-line conservatism and he's setting his sights on a seat in the state Senate. He also thinks that the MLK thing is as bad as it's going to be. The lesson here is DON'T put a lot of faith in Henry Francis' predictions if you know . . .anything . . .about 1968.
Oh, before I forget, Roger's prospective client--Randall the insurance agent--was a ray of sunshine in a very bleak episode, as he both acted like he'd wandered in from a David Lynch movie and is completely insane. The scene where Roger, Don, Stan, and Ginsburg have to listen to him rattle off his batshit idea and chant like Tecumseh. Don looked even more exasperated than he did when he and Megan were being scouted for some swinging action. It was sublimely hilarious.
Oh, and Peggy's appalled that he rental agent would use the race riots as an excuse to try to underbid for her prospective apartment, but not so much that she doesn't try it out anyway. They don't get it, and Abe's not much help, as that would get in the way of his insufferable effete liberalism, and proposes they try for something in the west 80's.
In the wake of all this and the fact that Don has tried to cope with this by crawling into a bottle and retreating (you can kinda see as he might do, given the last time a major seismic event like this happened--the Kennedy assassination--his life fell apart around him) and he finally tells Megan why--he's not really sure he loves his kids all the time, and hates himself for pretending in the moments in between. Megan looks a little appalled, but given that Betty doesn't seem to love her kids at all (that would, after all, require emotion, and Dr. Soong hasn't installed her chip yet), Don's kind of the least worst parent by default, if nothing else.
This was a pretty heavy episode, and I was pleased they didn't really beat the MLK event into the ground. This was more about the fractures that happen in the wake of something like that and where they point the characters in the wake of something like this. Don gets pushed inward, Henry gets ambitious, Pete has a macrocosm event that sheds a light on what a mess he made of the microcosm of his home life, and Peggy's just trying to find her way through. Oh, and Randall went utterly batshit crazy.
Big events change people, and the big events are just getting started.
And that's all for this week. Join us next week when Roger, Don, and Bert decide to open up a pet store as a front for a ring of burglaries, Joan nets the coveted Johnnie Walker Black account because she ordered it, and Peggy can't stop playing with Tinkertoys. All of these things are guaranteed NOT to happen in seven days in a little tale they're calling "For Immediate Release." It'll be "fun!"
What exciting thing does this week's episode hold? Let's find out!
"THE FLOOD"
"Don't do anything stupid"
"It's too late--I'm going to Harlem in a tuxedo."
It looks like things are going to go one way--it's time for the Ad Club of New York's awards ceremony and Megan's up for an Award as is Peggy (and their respective agencies are given a seat somewhere in New Jersey, apparently) and things seem set up for a really ghastly evening full of sublimated tension, when the news drops--Martin Luther King has been shot. Needless to say, this stops the world dead in its tracks (though not so much that Pete can't be an asshole about--some things can't be put on hold.
Proving how unusual this episode is, Bobby actually gets a subplot to himself (not a big one, but when they remember a Draper child other than Sally, it's well worth noting) wherein he's completely aggravated by an uncertain world and wallpaper that doesn't line up (in what must be said is a rather laboured metaphor for the events of the episode and those promised) but I did get a kick out of he and Don going to see Planet of the Apes. Meanwhile, a whole season after all of this got set up, Ginsburg actually gets a follow-up on his subplot, as his Topol-esque father sets him up on a blind date, and Ginsburg, ever eager not to play to stereotypes, Woody Allens his way through the whole thing. I'm sure these kinds of things endear Ginsburg to some people, but . . .dear Lord, it's like the greatest stereotypes of yesterday and today and there's not much character to it.
The death of MLK leads to an interesting ripple effect--given most of the characters are trapped in a city that's threatening to blow itself apart (in a country equally close to blowing apart) Pete calls Trudy, and you get a sense that it took the upheaval of an assassination for him to get how badly he screwed thing up with Trudy, but contrition or not, she's not having it (and good on her) Pete looks shattered after she hangs up on him, trapped om a city busy burning itself down. This leads to him getting really pissed off that Harry's main source of upset about the whole business is they're losing TV ads, which gets on Pete's nerves to the extent that he straight-up calls him a racist (which Harry doesn't exactly make a case against--he's now two for two with being an unbearable dicknuts on a weekly basis) and Bert has to keep it from exploding into a straight-up fist-fight.
Meanwhile, our other "favourite" peripheral characters are happy to get in on the jerk-assery as well--Megan's dad thinks it's splendid news, which Megan summarizes as "I'm so sick of his Marxist bullshit." Betty decides to needle Don about not picking up the kids and forcing him to drive through Harlem because the one thing Betty Draper can not afford to have is a sense of proportion. Also, her with black hair is really weird. But things are going well-ish for her, as this whole thing has really lite a fire under Henry's hard-line conservatism and he's setting his sights on a seat in the state Senate. He also thinks that the MLK thing is as bad as it's going to be. The lesson here is DON'T put a lot of faith in Henry Francis' predictions if you know . . .anything . . .about 1968.
Oh, before I forget, Roger's prospective client--Randall the insurance agent--was a ray of sunshine in a very bleak episode, as he both acted like he'd wandered in from a David Lynch movie and is completely insane. The scene where Roger, Don, Stan, and Ginsburg have to listen to him rattle off his batshit idea and chant like Tecumseh. Don looked even more exasperated than he did when he and Megan were being scouted for some swinging action. It was sublimely hilarious.
Oh, and Peggy's appalled that he rental agent would use the race riots as an excuse to try to underbid for her prospective apartment, but not so much that she doesn't try it out anyway. They don't get it, and Abe's not much help, as that would get in the way of his insufferable effete liberalism, and proposes they try for something in the west 80's.
In the wake of all this and the fact that Don has tried to cope with this by crawling into a bottle and retreating (you can kinda see as he might do, given the last time a major seismic event like this happened--the Kennedy assassination--his life fell apart around him) and he finally tells Megan why--he's not really sure he loves his kids all the time, and hates himself for pretending in the moments in between. Megan looks a little appalled, but given that Betty doesn't seem to love her kids at all (that would, after all, require emotion, and Dr. Soong hasn't installed her chip yet), Don's kind of the least worst parent by default, if nothing else.
This was a pretty heavy episode, and I was pleased they didn't really beat the MLK event into the ground. This was more about the fractures that happen in the wake of something like that and where they point the characters in the wake of something like this. Don gets pushed inward, Henry gets ambitious, Pete has a macrocosm event that sheds a light on what a mess he made of the microcosm of his home life, and Peggy's just trying to find her way through. Oh, and Randall went utterly batshit crazy.
Big events change people, and the big events are just getting started.
And that's all for this week. Join us next week when Roger, Don, and Bert decide to open up a pet store as a front for a ring of burglaries, Joan nets the coveted Johnnie Walker Black account because she ordered it, and Peggy can't stop playing with Tinkertoys. All of these things are guaranteed NOT to happen in seven days in a little tale they're calling "For Immediate Release." It'll be "fun!"
Sunday, April 21, 2013
MAD MEN 6.4--"To Have And To Hold"
In 1963, a crack advertising firm was sent to New York by a series of economic factors for a crime they didn't commit. These men and women promptly escaped from being bought by McCann Advertising and escaped back to Madison Avenue. Today, still sought after by many clients, they survive on clients like Jaguar, 1960s-era angst, and meaning gazes into the middle distance. If you have a problem, if you need something sold, maybe you can hire . . .THE MAD MEN
[Shame on you, Internet, for not having a Youtube of Mad Men in the style of the "A-Team" intro for me to slot in here. However, feel free to imagine it being here and being totally awesome.]
Last week was a pretty grim episode, wasn't it? I mean, sure, it has the awesomeness of having Trudy utterly humble Pete in ways that even the Iron Sheik wouldn't unleash on someone, and Don torpedoing Herb the Jagoff's attempt to get all the ads to feature him, but . . .yeah. Bleak stuff, even for Mad Men.
This week, the title of the episode is "To Have and To Hold," which is the title of the soap that Megan's on. Does this mean something? Let's find out.
"TO HAVE AND TO HOLD"
"We're sitting here waiting for the phone to ring: this IS high school."
We open with that rarest of things--a continuing plot thread from last week (this early, it's quite the thing) Pete and Don have a clandestine meeting (in Pete's hellaciously depressing apartment in the city) with the Heinz Ketchup rep from last week--the one that the Bean rep lost his shit about in an epic "If you so much as look at him, I'll kill all three of us" wobbly. They make plans to work in secret on a spec project to woo Heinz to SCDP, and Don puts Stan in a windowless room to work on the campaign, which so far seems to be Don and Stan hitting a joint and debating what a hot dog really wants on it.
This leads to another baller-move Draper presentation, followed quickly by Peggy's presentation (so much for secrecy) and a wonderful scene where Draper's crew sits with Peggy's crew and learns they've both lost, and even though they're rivals, there's a quiet moment of understanding between the two of them--as small firms, they fight over the scraps.
Well, right before Ken Cosgrove comes in and tells them their secret project has cost them the Heinz beans. Nothing wagered, nothing gained, but a little wagered and everything's lost.
That might be important later.
Meanwhile, Joan gets a visitor--Kate (who I think was her roommate from way back in Season 1? I may be wrong there) She's repping for Mary Kay, but planning to interview with Avon because women competing with women is really rough. This is contrasted with Joan, who's now a partner at SCDP (with all the gnashing of teeth the memory of that entails) and Joan's mom--who, you'll recall spent most of Season 4 punching holes in her boat is actually proud of her, because she has money and power.
Think on that--we'll come back to it a little later. In the meantime, take a shot of Johnnie Walker.
Meanwhile, Dawn (Don's secretary that they hired to take the curse off being construed as racist last season) gets a subplot, which is pretty stunning on its own, but more for the knock-on effect. She punches fellow secretary Scarlet's time card so she can skip out on five hours worth of work, and this draws the attention of Joan, who inflicts her DEATH STARE on both of them, forces out the truth, and she fires Scarlet on the spot, threatening to do the same to Dawn.
Unfortunately, Scarlet's Harry Crane's secretary and fuck-buddy and this touches off Harry Crane's molting from "homunculus with ridiculous sideburns" to "Omega-level asshole" and he storms into a meeting of the partners, demanding a partnership, as he's just dreamed up an idea to help Dow Chemical (who SCDP DID get it seems) to prop up their sagging image, as it's been suffering given that they're y'know, dumping napalm on people at this time in history. The trouble is, baller moves like that are beyond Harry's ken, and he's not quite smart enough to know that, and continues to run his mouth even after he gets a fat commission check threatening that he's going to fuck off an ply his trade elsewhere. Cooper dismisses his theatrics with laser-guided insults and Roger manages to up even his usual level of withering contempt.
Joan, meanwhile, is done with this shit, and the only thing you can do when that happens is a girl's night out. So she and Kate go to a single's bar, then another, which primarily consists of drinking and picking up guys, and Joan looks rather OVER the whole damn thing. This culminates in a great scene where, the day after, Joan and Kate are talking about where Joan in and how Kate admires her. Joan, knowing what got her there, doesn't see anything special about what she's done or where she is, but Kate tells her it's there--it's available, and she can take it.
That might be important later.
But hey, that soap opera thing with Megan? She's got a big role and a love scene, which weirds Don out a bit, but not as much as when a dinner with Megan's work friends turns into an invitation to an orgy. Don's expression is pretty damn priceless as they stammer out a polite declination, but it's just a hilariously awkward scene. Don doesn't swing that way, it seems.
It would get in the way of his cheating, after all. He accosts Sylvia in the elevator and hits the "stop" switch (Can you DO that in elevators without getting in trouble? Because they do it on TV all the time) and they make plans for some canoodling. There is an added layer of irony in the fact that Megan is playing at having an affair while Don is having an affair.
Irony, however, is something that happens to other people, and Don is an asshole about it, all but calling Megan a whore for kissing guys for money . . .and then Don tottles off and bangs Sylvia, who at least gets a pointed shot at Don by saying she prays for him to find peace. Good luck sister--that search has been on for years now.
This was a pretty good episode, and felt a lot more thematically "together" than most episodes this early in the season. Joan's story was touching and sad and paralleled Don's--like him, it seems she's never happy even when she has what she "wanted." Megan's not happy because she can't make Don happy and the firm can;t be happy with Heinz baked beans, and lose everything when they get greedy.
Again, that might be important later.
And that's it for this week. Join us next week when Pete takes up playing with Tinkertoys, Roger can't stop making Devil's Mountain with his mashed potatoes, and Bert Cooper drops acid and insists that everything be bolted down and would you please use the chains this time. All this and more is guaranteed NOT to happen in the next exciting episode, "The Flood." Wear your hip waders!
[Shame on you, Internet, for not having a Youtube of Mad Men in the style of the "A-Team" intro for me to slot in here. However, feel free to imagine it being here and being totally awesome.]
Last week was a pretty grim episode, wasn't it? I mean, sure, it has the awesomeness of having Trudy utterly humble Pete in ways that even the Iron Sheik wouldn't unleash on someone, and Don torpedoing Herb the Jagoff's attempt to get all the ads to feature him, but . . .yeah. Bleak stuff, even for Mad Men.
This week, the title of the episode is "To Have and To Hold," which is the title of the soap that Megan's on. Does this mean something? Let's find out.
"TO HAVE AND TO HOLD"
"We're sitting here waiting for the phone to ring: this IS high school."
We open with that rarest of things--a continuing plot thread from last week (this early, it's quite the thing) Pete and Don have a clandestine meeting (in Pete's hellaciously depressing apartment in the city) with the Heinz Ketchup rep from last week--the one that the Bean rep lost his shit about in an epic "If you so much as look at him, I'll kill all three of us" wobbly. They make plans to work in secret on a spec project to woo Heinz to SCDP, and Don puts Stan in a windowless room to work on the campaign, which so far seems to be Don and Stan hitting a joint and debating what a hot dog really wants on it.
This leads to another baller-move Draper presentation, followed quickly by Peggy's presentation (so much for secrecy) and a wonderful scene where Draper's crew sits with Peggy's crew and learns they've both lost, and even though they're rivals, there's a quiet moment of understanding between the two of them--as small firms, they fight over the scraps.
Well, right before Ken Cosgrove comes in and tells them their secret project has cost them the Heinz beans. Nothing wagered, nothing gained, but a little wagered and everything's lost.
That might be important later.
Meanwhile, Joan gets a visitor--Kate (who I think was her roommate from way back in Season 1? I may be wrong there) She's repping for Mary Kay, but planning to interview with Avon because women competing with women is really rough. This is contrasted with Joan, who's now a partner at SCDP (with all the gnashing of teeth the memory of that entails) and Joan's mom--who, you'll recall spent most of Season 4 punching holes in her boat is actually proud of her, because she has money and power.
Think on that--we'll come back to it a little later. In the meantime, take a shot of Johnnie Walker.
Meanwhile, Dawn (Don's secretary that they hired to take the curse off being construed as racist last season) gets a subplot, which is pretty stunning on its own, but more for the knock-on effect. She punches fellow secretary Scarlet's time card so she can skip out on five hours worth of work, and this draws the attention of Joan, who inflicts her DEATH STARE on both of them, forces out the truth, and she fires Scarlet on the spot, threatening to do the same to Dawn.
Unfortunately, Scarlet's Harry Crane's secretary and fuck-buddy and this touches off Harry Crane's molting from "homunculus with ridiculous sideburns" to "Omega-level asshole" and he storms into a meeting of the partners, demanding a partnership, as he's just dreamed up an idea to help Dow Chemical (who SCDP DID get it seems) to prop up their sagging image, as it's been suffering given that they're y'know, dumping napalm on people at this time in history. The trouble is, baller moves like that are beyond Harry's ken, and he's not quite smart enough to know that, and continues to run his mouth even after he gets a fat commission check threatening that he's going to fuck off an ply his trade elsewhere. Cooper dismisses his theatrics with laser-guided insults and Roger manages to up even his usual level of withering contempt.
Joan, meanwhile, is done with this shit, and the only thing you can do when that happens is a girl's night out. So she and Kate go to a single's bar, then another, which primarily consists of drinking and picking up guys, and Joan looks rather OVER the whole damn thing. This culminates in a great scene where, the day after, Joan and Kate are talking about where Joan in and how Kate admires her. Joan, knowing what got her there, doesn't see anything special about what she's done or where she is, but Kate tells her it's there--it's available, and she can take it.
That might be important later.
But hey, that soap opera thing with Megan? She's got a big role and a love scene, which weirds Don out a bit, but not as much as when a dinner with Megan's work friends turns into an invitation to an orgy. Don's expression is pretty damn priceless as they stammer out a polite declination, but it's just a hilariously awkward scene. Don doesn't swing that way, it seems.
It would get in the way of his cheating, after all. He accosts Sylvia in the elevator and hits the "stop" switch (Can you DO that in elevators without getting in trouble? Because they do it on TV all the time) and they make plans for some canoodling. There is an added layer of irony in the fact that Megan is playing at having an affair while Don is having an affair.
Irony, however, is something that happens to other people, and Don is an asshole about it, all but calling Megan a whore for kissing guys for money . . .and then Don tottles off and bangs Sylvia, who at least gets a pointed shot at Don by saying she prays for him to find peace. Good luck sister--that search has been on for years now.
This was a pretty good episode, and felt a lot more thematically "together" than most episodes this early in the season. Joan's story was touching and sad and paralleled Don's--like him, it seems she's never happy even when she has what she "wanted." Megan's not happy because she can't make Don happy and the firm can;t be happy with Heinz baked beans, and lose everything when they get greedy.
Again, that might be important later.
And that's it for this week. Join us next week when Pete takes up playing with Tinkertoys, Roger can't stop making Devil's Mountain with his mashed potatoes, and Bert Cooper drops acid and insists that everything be bolted down and would you please use the chains this time. All this and more is guaranteed NOT to happen in the next exciting episode, "The Flood." Wear your hip waders!
Sunday, April 14, 2013
MAD MEN 6.3--"The Collaborators"
It's time once again for Mad Men! One of the most highly-regarded television shows of our time by some, an excuse for good-looking people to look mopey and broody to others and for the person who writes this blog, a handy and reasonably easy excuse to have regular content on Sunday nights. Last week--Betty suggested her husband get in on a little rape, Don thought about Death, went to Hawaii and came home and banged Lindsay Weir and Peggy cracked the whip in an effort to sell headphones and everyone looks hideous because it's 1968 and facial hair and ridiculous jackets stalk our land like two giant stalking things. This week, it's still 1968, and what are our people up to? Let's find out!
"THE COLLABORATORS"
"He's demanding the unreasonable. How does that make him any different from anyone else who walks through that door?"
Our story begins with Pete and Trudy entertaining the folks back in the suburbs. The guys flirt with Trudy, because despite Community not being invented for nearly 50 years, they know what they like, and they like what they see. Meanwhile, Pete, resplendent in a jacket that makes me think 1868 is the year fashion gave up and went home early, sets up a rendezvous in his apartment in the city.
This is paid off with a scene with Don making time to go bang Lindsay Weir again. Apparently, the notion that Don and Megan was going to have dinner with the doctor and his wife got his loins in a tizzy, and so he goes to her apartment for a quick tumble.
This leads to a rather telling moment during their pillow-talk, when Don flashes back to the day his mom dropped him off at a whorehouse (which, this being Depression-era, is about as sexy as dying of scurvy) and the man of the house laying down the law about how it is. It's a small scene, yet explains so much, as does the follow-up scene at the end of the episode. Don is deeply fucked up. In other news--water is wet and fire is hot. Keep breathing.
During the pillow talk, meanwhile Lindsay (OK, her name's Sylvia, but I only really know her from Freaks & Geeks) and Don grapple with the guilt they feel over what they're doing. Don tries to talk about it in his favourite terms--"It never happened." But unlike before, when drawing a line under the past promised a new beginning and a new outlook, now Don uses it is a blanket excuse to escape and do what he wants to do.
It's like he's become Bobbie Barrett. He enjoys being bad, then being good when he's home. Lindsay even says he seems to enjoy not only the sex, but the fact he's putting one over on Megan and the doctor guy.
The notion of lying and lying to oneself to keep the Jenga tower of lies you build from falling over is further underlined when Megan confesses to Sylvia that she's miscarried, and what's more, given what being on maternity leave could do to her career, she's not all that sorry it went down that. And yet she is. Sylvia tries the whole "you wouldn't be a good person if you didn't feel bad despite how hard you're trying to tell yourself that you don't feel bad" spiel, which only seems to make Megan sadder, and causes her to bow out of the dinner.
Meanwhile, Peggy fails once again to get the people working under her to do their best work--too much scaring, not enough encouragement. During a phone call with Stan, he explains to her that it's a bit of an ask to expect the people who work under you to like you (best case scenario, they respect you) During their shop-talking, Peggy tells Ted Chaough about something going on with Heinz at SCDP, which let's talk about right now.
Don and the boys take a meeting with the guy from Heinz beans, who brought along the head of the ketchup branch. This leads to the beans guy throwing the Ketchup guy out and ranting about how much he hates the ketchup guy and makes a veiled threat that he'll burn his bridges at SCDP before he lets them near ketchup.
Stan tells this to Peggy, who mentions it to Chaough, who parlays it into a meeting with the ketchup guy. This puts Peggy in an uncomfortable position, as this is now her actively hurting SCDP. Chaough reminds her that wars are won through the exchange of secrets (as this is all taking place during the Tet Offensive, war is much on everyone's mind) Peggy at least has the good sense to feel icky about the prospect.
But dear readers, none of that compares with what an appalling ass Pete makes of himself. His little afternoon delight wit the neighbour spirals into a nightmare--her husband beats her and sends her to Pete, and the whole mess comes out in front of Trudy, who's finally had enough of this bullshit (she was willing to accept his philandering, but not fouling their own nest) and throws Pete out. Pete replies with his usual wormy bravado. You know . . .you'd think that when his little dalliance last season needed shock therapy to erase Pete from her brain he would take that as a sign. And yet, you would be wrong.
Meanwhile, things are not so rosy with Jaguar. Herb the icky ass Jaguar rep comes in and tries to brace Joan, who drops him with a precision insult and not all the Bactine in the world will salve that SICK BURN. Herb wants the agency to pitch his Jaguar bosses for more local radio spots highlighting his dealership rather than the marque. Don, hating him, hating what it took to get Jaguar, and hating the whole idea does, in what was the one decent thing he did the whole episode, does a shittier job of selling the Jaguar bosses on Herb's idea than Han Solo did trying to convince the guy on the radio everything was fine in the Death Star jail.
There's a whole current this episode of secrets being destructive, but secrets being power, and secrets being key to winning the war. Chaugh tells Peggy secrets win wars, Doctor guy tells Don they're losing the war, and Don and Roger liken appeasing Herb to the Munich conference. The notion of secrets being part of war also links up the notion that they're also as destructive as any weapon can be.
Roger mentions to Don, after his performance, that "[Don] had a choice between war or dishonour and chose dishonour. You still might get war." Pete got his war. Don may yet get his.
And that's all for this week. Join us next week when Don invents robot pants, Roger does his best to beat the world record for Donkey Kong despite the fact that it hasn't been invented yet, Joan builds a TARDIS, and Bert Cooper learns the secrets of Caste Grayskull at last. All of these things are virtually guaranteed not to happen in an episode they just had to call "To Have and To Hold." C'mon. All the cool kids are doing it.
"THE COLLABORATORS"
"He's demanding the unreasonable. How does that make him any different from anyone else who walks through that door?"
Our story begins with Pete and Trudy entertaining the folks back in the suburbs. The guys flirt with Trudy, because despite Community not being invented for nearly 50 years, they know what they like, and they like what they see. Meanwhile, Pete, resplendent in a jacket that makes me think 1868 is the year fashion gave up and went home early, sets up a rendezvous in his apartment in the city.
This is paid off with a scene with Don making time to go bang Lindsay Weir again. Apparently, the notion that Don and Megan was going to have dinner with the doctor and his wife got his loins in a tizzy, and so he goes to her apartment for a quick tumble.
This leads to a rather telling moment during their pillow-talk, when Don flashes back to the day his mom dropped him off at a whorehouse (which, this being Depression-era, is about as sexy as dying of scurvy) and the man of the house laying down the law about how it is. It's a small scene, yet explains so much, as does the follow-up scene at the end of the episode. Don is deeply fucked up. In other news--water is wet and fire is hot. Keep breathing.
During the pillow talk, meanwhile Lindsay (OK, her name's Sylvia, but I only really know her from Freaks & Geeks) and Don grapple with the guilt they feel over what they're doing. Don tries to talk about it in his favourite terms--"It never happened." But unlike before, when drawing a line under the past promised a new beginning and a new outlook, now Don uses it is a blanket excuse to escape and do what he wants to do.
It's like he's become Bobbie Barrett. He enjoys being bad, then being good when he's home. Lindsay even says he seems to enjoy not only the sex, but the fact he's putting one over on Megan and the doctor guy.
The notion of lying and lying to oneself to keep the Jenga tower of lies you build from falling over is further underlined when Megan confesses to Sylvia that she's miscarried, and what's more, given what being on maternity leave could do to her career, she's not all that sorry it went down that. And yet she is. Sylvia tries the whole "you wouldn't be a good person if you didn't feel bad despite how hard you're trying to tell yourself that you don't feel bad" spiel, which only seems to make Megan sadder, and causes her to bow out of the dinner.
Meanwhile, Peggy fails once again to get the people working under her to do their best work--too much scaring, not enough encouragement. During a phone call with Stan, he explains to her that it's a bit of an ask to expect the people who work under you to like you (best case scenario, they respect you) During their shop-talking, Peggy tells Ted Chaough about something going on with Heinz at SCDP, which let's talk about right now.
Don and the boys take a meeting with the guy from Heinz beans, who brought along the head of the ketchup branch. This leads to the beans guy throwing the Ketchup guy out and ranting about how much he hates the ketchup guy and makes a veiled threat that he'll burn his bridges at SCDP before he lets them near ketchup.
Stan tells this to Peggy, who mentions it to Chaough, who parlays it into a meeting with the ketchup guy. This puts Peggy in an uncomfortable position, as this is now her actively hurting SCDP. Chaough reminds her that wars are won through the exchange of secrets (as this is all taking place during the Tet Offensive, war is much on everyone's mind) Peggy at least has the good sense to feel icky about the prospect.
But dear readers, none of that compares with what an appalling ass Pete makes of himself. His little afternoon delight wit the neighbour spirals into a nightmare--her husband beats her and sends her to Pete, and the whole mess comes out in front of Trudy, who's finally had enough of this bullshit (she was willing to accept his philandering, but not fouling their own nest) and throws Pete out. Pete replies with his usual wormy bravado. You know . . .you'd think that when his little dalliance last season needed shock therapy to erase Pete from her brain he would take that as a sign. And yet, you would be wrong.
Meanwhile, things are not so rosy with Jaguar. Herb the icky ass Jaguar rep comes in and tries to brace Joan, who drops him with a precision insult and not all the Bactine in the world will salve that SICK BURN. Herb wants the agency to pitch his Jaguar bosses for more local radio spots highlighting his dealership rather than the marque. Don, hating him, hating what it took to get Jaguar, and hating the whole idea does, in what was the one decent thing he did the whole episode, does a shittier job of selling the Jaguar bosses on Herb's idea than Han Solo did trying to convince the guy on the radio everything was fine in the Death Star jail.
There's a whole current this episode of secrets being destructive, but secrets being power, and secrets being key to winning the war. Chaugh tells Peggy secrets win wars, Doctor guy tells Don they're losing the war, and Don and Roger liken appeasing Herb to the Munich conference. The notion of secrets being part of war also links up the notion that they're also as destructive as any weapon can be.
Roger mentions to Don, after his performance, that "[Don] had a choice between war or dishonour and chose dishonour. You still might get war." Pete got his war. Don may yet get his.
And that's all for this week. Join us next week when Don invents robot pants, Roger does his best to beat the world record for Donkey Kong despite the fact that it hasn't been invented yet, Joan builds a TARDIS, and Bert Cooper learns the secrets of Caste Grayskull at last. All of these things are virtually guaranteed not to happen in an episode they just had to call "To Have and To Hold." C'mon. All the cool kids are doing it.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
MAD MEN 6.01-02 "The Doorway"
And here we shake off the long hibernation of a moribund time trying to pretend to be a comics blog and failing by returning to Witless Prattle's inexplicably popular traffic-generating reviews of the popular show of the day, now beginning it's penultimate season.
Last season, things got dark and stayed there. For those of you who came in late, Roger dropped acid, Peggy quit and went on to a new job, Don got his tooth pulled and struggled being married to a young Quebecois with the most splendidly assholish parents in history, Pete got the crap beat out of him twice, and Lane, who beat the crap out of Pete, hung himself, and that wasn't even the saddest thing that happened--that was Joan being pimped out for the Jaguar account (though she was smart enough to work it to where she was made full partner in the firm for it)
Also, Betty got fat for awhile because the show struggles with what to do with her now and this was a desperate flail at keeping her in orbit.
That's what got us here. Let's get ramblin'.
"THE DOORWAY"
"One day I'll be the man who can't sleep and talks to strangers."
We pick up on someone looking over someone else, and, one assumes, is having someone checking his vitals. That gets filled in a bit later, but is only one of the cornucopia of morbidity that erupts. While Don and Megan celebrate their anniversary in glorious Hawaii (a working vacation for Don featuring more Jessica Pare fanservice than you could zou bisou bisou at) and Don's reading Dante's Inferno, because it's gonna be that kind of season, it seems.
Stricken by late-night angst, Don wanders down to the bar and runs into a solider on leave from Vietnam, who's come to Hawaii for his wedding. As inevitably happens when confronted by poignant reminders of his real past Don is pretty awkward and aloof, but gets roped into standing in at his wedding, despite committing the unforgivable sin of wearing a crazy-ass late '50s jacket with leis in a way that says "I'm gonna throw up."
This has an ironic echo later on.
Turns out ever since the commercial, Megan's had a decent amount of success--she's got on a soap opera and is popular enough to be badgered for an autograph whilst on location. She comes back to some frustration, however, when she's given a script for one scene upon her return and it seems she's being put on the bus. Things turn around some when she lucks into the role of being a scheming bitch on a soap opera (really seems like it'd be Betty's thing, but who am I to judge?) and seems to thrive in the role.
Meanwhile, Betty is . . .odd. She gets a ticket for reckless driving, asks Henry if she wants to rape Sally's new friend Sandy (who gets and almost Ginsbergian level of "Hey! Please care about this new character that we're going to spend ten minutes with") and has a tense conversation with her about her future and Betty's past. It's good they can talk, even after the whole rape thing from before. I tell you what, you stop eating whipped cream right out of the can, and you just go crazy, I guess.
I'd like to think Betty's bitter because with Cersei Lannister on the scene she's no longer TV's #1 bitch. But that's idle speculation. Meanwhile, Sally is following in the footsteps of her mother and eviscerating people with wildfire sarcasm. It's good to see her come into her own.
Upon hearing that Sandy's headed off to New York City (in a rather squalid corner of the Village--it's rather gone downhill since Midge's days) and I hope no one was having dinner during that part of the episode. Betty gets confronted with the extreme deprivation there and handles it in her usual "you assholes brought this on yourself" kinda way she gets when people don't give her her way. She dyes her hair dark because that's the best way to deal with feeling disconnected with what's going on in the world, of course.
Meanwhile, Roger's in therapy now--either the LSD had less than the desired effect, or he's moved on to further vistas of self-improvement in the usual Roger way, which means he's performing in his usual vapid, narcissistic, sarcastic sort of way for his shrink while still complaining about his dwindling options. When later confronted with the fact of his long-lived mother's demise, Roger acts about the way you'd expect him to act--bitching about how this will inconvenience him personally.
This is a set-up for his mother's funeral, which ends as all good funerals should--with Don puking into a garbage can, as he's gotten into a weird, existential drunkenness. Apparently his doorman was the one who collapsed and nearly died and he's kind of fascinated by the notion of dying, having run into the army guy in Hawaii, convinced as he was that married guys live longer. Yeah, ask Greg Harris about that.
Don's brush with mortality is a lot for him to take, no least because the private's lighter seems to almost follow him, as if it were reminding him that death is not very far away.
Roger, meanwhile, is grappling with feeling like he's teetering on the abyss. His first wife, Mona, tries to explain to him that people do care about him and he shouldn't disappear up his own backside being so self-centered, and Roger kinda attempts to reconnect, but . . .well, that's a big wall to hurdle. It's not helped by his daughter immediately trying to persuade him to invest in a refrigerated truck scheme.
Everyone wants something always, it seems.
Roger finally shatters when he gets one tragedy too many--his shoeshine man dies, and on top of everything and his fears that he's peaked and now his life is only going to be one long series of goodbyes, and everything that's happening seems to be confirming his worst fears.
Peggy, now in charge at CGC, deals with a crisis--the headphone company she's done a Superbowl ad for, echoing a bit from Julius Caesar, now seems somewhat less than judicious given the war in Vietnam has now given us the indelible image of GI's cutting the ears off Vietcong. To her credit, she's a good deal more diplomatic than she was when Heinz nixed her ad, in that she's not yelling so much, but she hasn't quite mastered veiling her contempt all that much, especially with her almost Don-esque viciousness with her subordinates. Nevertheless, she seems to be thriving in her new job, and that's something to see.
There's a great moment when, in the throes of crisis mode, Peggy puts it together and comes up with an alternate idea for the headphone ad. Her boss loves it, and speaks glowingly about it.Peggy's really coming into her own, but while she has Don's agility (well, the agility Don usually has) she lacks the wisdom to know when not to drive the help too much. That said, she really did seem to need that career move after all.
Don, back in his element at the office (now with swank new staircase!) is . . .not in his element anymore. Now he seems a little distant than before, and Pete and the underlings at the office (Good Christ, Stan's beard, Ginsberg's mustache and whatever the hell Harry Crane molted into--late 60's fashion is almost more eerie than Betty's rape-happiness) seem to be more open in their contempt. Given that things seem to be going well for the firm in general (apparently they got Dow chemical after all) the question is was this due to Don or is this kind of thing happening without him and he's drifting into another, more distant, orbit?
Meanwhile, Don screws up the purpose of his Hawaii trip--the presentation to the client goes rather badly when the ad he suggests doesn't include the hotel and suggests a suicide attempt. Don seems rather flabbergasted that such a thing would occur to anyone, flails about a lot, and even Roger and Pete look on him with withering contempt.
Given what we discover in the punchline to all this--the relationship with their neighbors, his interest in Dante, and oh yeah, Don's banging his neighbor's wife--they're probably right to be disappointed. Don says he'd like to stop doing this, but feels like he's locked into the things he does.
As the timeline for this two-hour episode is really fragmented, the episode seems a lot more concerned with asking questions than answering them, which is no great revelation for Mad Men--this early in the season, the writers delight in playing with space, time, and perception. The first act of these seasons always does this kinda thing, then the middle third is short stories featuring the characters before things wrap up by tugging at a few disparate threads. While this may be annoying to folks used to a tightly-plotted arc, Mad Men trusts that you'll be interested enough just seeing the characters interact as things slowly unfold.
Sometimes it even works.
And that's all for this week. For you newcomers, I will explain how we do things here--owing to AMC's policy of taking a simple proposition of a "Next time on Mad Men!" and, perhaps in homage to William S. Burroughs or Negativland, cut the thing up into such an incoherent mess as to be utterly opaque. So in general, we just make shit up here as to what happens next week. With that in mind, join us next week as Don declares whoever passes sentence should swing the sword, Pete gets slapped by a midget, and Joan has a lot of names to offer up to the Red God. Join us next week for "The Collaborators." It's a momentary diversion on the road to the grave!
Last season, things got dark and stayed there. For those of you who came in late, Roger dropped acid, Peggy quit and went on to a new job, Don got his tooth pulled and struggled being married to a young Quebecois with the most splendidly assholish parents in history, Pete got the crap beat out of him twice, and Lane, who beat the crap out of Pete, hung himself, and that wasn't even the saddest thing that happened--that was Joan being pimped out for the Jaguar account (though she was smart enough to work it to where she was made full partner in the firm for it)
Also, Betty got fat for awhile because the show struggles with what to do with her now and this was a desperate flail at keeping her in orbit.
That's what got us here. Let's get ramblin'.
"THE DOORWAY"
"One day I'll be the man who can't sleep and talks to strangers."
We pick up on someone looking over someone else, and, one assumes, is having someone checking his vitals. That gets filled in a bit later, but is only one of the cornucopia of morbidity that erupts. While Don and Megan celebrate their anniversary in glorious Hawaii (a working vacation for Don featuring more Jessica Pare fanservice than you could zou bisou bisou at) and Don's reading Dante's Inferno, because it's gonna be that kind of season, it seems.
Stricken by late-night angst, Don wanders down to the bar and runs into a solider on leave from Vietnam, who's come to Hawaii for his wedding. As inevitably happens when confronted by poignant reminders of his real past Don is pretty awkward and aloof, but gets roped into standing in at his wedding, despite committing the unforgivable sin of wearing a crazy-ass late '50s jacket with leis in a way that says "I'm gonna throw up."
This has an ironic echo later on.
Turns out ever since the commercial, Megan's had a decent amount of success--she's got on a soap opera and is popular enough to be badgered for an autograph whilst on location. She comes back to some frustration, however, when she's given a script for one scene upon her return and it seems she's being put on the bus. Things turn around some when she lucks into the role of being a scheming bitch on a soap opera (really seems like it'd be Betty's thing, but who am I to judge?) and seems to thrive in the role.
Meanwhile, Betty is . . .odd. She gets a ticket for reckless driving, asks Henry if she wants to rape Sally's new friend Sandy (who gets and almost Ginsbergian level of "Hey! Please care about this new character that we're going to spend ten minutes with") and has a tense conversation with her about her future and Betty's past. It's good they can talk, even after the whole rape thing from before. I tell you what, you stop eating whipped cream right out of the can, and you just go crazy, I guess.
I'd like to think Betty's bitter because with Cersei Lannister on the scene she's no longer TV's #1 bitch. But that's idle speculation. Meanwhile, Sally is following in the footsteps of her mother and eviscerating people with wildfire sarcasm. It's good to see her come into her own.
Upon hearing that Sandy's headed off to New York City (in a rather squalid corner of the Village--it's rather gone downhill since Midge's days) and I hope no one was having dinner during that part of the episode. Betty gets confronted with the extreme deprivation there and handles it in her usual "you assholes brought this on yourself" kinda way she gets when people don't give her her way. She dyes her hair dark because that's the best way to deal with feeling disconnected with what's going on in the world, of course.
Meanwhile, Roger's in therapy now--either the LSD had less than the desired effect, or he's moved on to further vistas of self-improvement in the usual Roger way, which means he's performing in his usual vapid, narcissistic, sarcastic sort of way for his shrink while still complaining about his dwindling options. When later confronted with the fact of his long-lived mother's demise, Roger acts about the way you'd expect him to act--bitching about how this will inconvenience him personally.
This is a set-up for his mother's funeral, which ends as all good funerals should--with Don puking into a garbage can, as he's gotten into a weird, existential drunkenness. Apparently his doorman was the one who collapsed and nearly died and he's kind of fascinated by the notion of dying, having run into the army guy in Hawaii, convinced as he was that married guys live longer. Yeah, ask Greg Harris about that.
Don's brush with mortality is a lot for him to take, no least because the private's lighter seems to almost follow him, as if it were reminding him that death is not very far away.
Roger, meanwhile, is grappling with feeling like he's teetering on the abyss. His first wife, Mona, tries to explain to him that people do care about him and he shouldn't disappear up his own backside being so self-centered, and Roger kinda attempts to reconnect, but . . .well, that's a big wall to hurdle. It's not helped by his daughter immediately trying to persuade him to invest in a refrigerated truck scheme.
Everyone wants something always, it seems.
Roger finally shatters when he gets one tragedy too many--his shoeshine man dies, and on top of everything and his fears that he's peaked and now his life is only going to be one long series of goodbyes, and everything that's happening seems to be confirming his worst fears.
Peggy, now in charge at CGC, deals with a crisis--the headphone company she's done a Superbowl ad for, echoing a bit from Julius Caesar, now seems somewhat less than judicious given the war in Vietnam has now given us the indelible image of GI's cutting the ears off Vietcong. To her credit, she's a good deal more diplomatic than she was when Heinz nixed her ad, in that she's not yelling so much, but she hasn't quite mastered veiling her contempt all that much, especially with her almost Don-esque viciousness with her subordinates. Nevertheless, she seems to be thriving in her new job, and that's something to see.
There's a great moment when, in the throes of crisis mode, Peggy puts it together and comes up with an alternate idea for the headphone ad. Her boss loves it, and speaks glowingly about it.Peggy's really coming into her own, but while she has Don's agility (well, the agility Don usually has) she lacks the wisdom to know when not to drive the help too much. That said, she really did seem to need that career move after all.
Don, back in his element at the office (now with swank new staircase!) is . . .not in his element anymore. Now he seems a little distant than before, and Pete and the underlings at the office (Good Christ, Stan's beard, Ginsberg's mustache and whatever the hell Harry Crane molted into--late 60's fashion is almost more eerie than Betty's rape-happiness) seem to be more open in their contempt. Given that things seem to be going well for the firm in general (apparently they got Dow chemical after all) the question is was this due to Don or is this kind of thing happening without him and he's drifting into another, more distant, orbit?
Meanwhile, Don screws up the purpose of his Hawaii trip--the presentation to the client goes rather badly when the ad he suggests doesn't include the hotel and suggests a suicide attempt. Don seems rather flabbergasted that such a thing would occur to anyone, flails about a lot, and even Roger and Pete look on him with withering contempt.
Given what we discover in the punchline to all this--the relationship with their neighbors, his interest in Dante, and oh yeah, Don's banging his neighbor's wife--they're probably right to be disappointed. Don says he'd like to stop doing this, but feels like he's locked into the things he does.
As the timeline for this two-hour episode is really fragmented, the episode seems a lot more concerned with asking questions than answering them, which is no great revelation for Mad Men--this early in the season, the writers delight in playing with space, time, and perception. The first act of these seasons always does this kinda thing, then the middle third is short stories featuring the characters before things wrap up by tugging at a few disparate threads. While this may be annoying to folks used to a tightly-plotted arc, Mad Men trusts that you'll be interested enough just seeing the characters interact as things slowly unfold.
Sometimes it even works.
And that's all for this week. For you newcomers, I will explain how we do things here--owing to AMC's policy of taking a simple proposition of a "Next time on Mad Men!" and, perhaps in homage to William S. Burroughs or Negativland, cut the thing up into such an incoherent mess as to be utterly opaque. So in general, we just make shit up here as to what happens next week. With that in mind, join us next week as Don declares whoever passes sentence should swing the sword, Pete gets slapped by a midget, and Joan has a lot of names to offer up to the Red God. Join us next week for "The Collaborators." It's a momentary diversion on the road to the grave!
Sunday, June 10, 2012
MAD MEN 5.13--"The Phantom"
It's time now for Mad Men! Five good-looking New Yorkers from all walks of life! Draper, their leader, is Mad Men Red! Pete, able to leap tall trees, is Mad Men Black! Roger, the acid-dropping human outboard motor is Mad Men Blue! Harry, the slow-thinking head of media is Mad Men Yellow! And their man squeeze Joan Harris is Mad Men Pink! Under the guidance of the his man, Dr. Cooper, who, from his advertising agency and day care center keeps the world safe from the evil machinations of Bernie Tanaka, and Mel Fujitsu--at one time his partners, but now his arch-enemies!
Who can stop them? Who can save the world! Cooper, that's who!
The ultimate persuader in the war against shitty advertising, these are the continuing adventures of Mad Men!
"THE PHANTOM"
"You want to be someone's discovery, not someone's wife."
Well, in the midst of SCDP's best quarter ever, the mythical second floor is potentially no longer mythical, and everyone's lining up for position for a new office, because no one wants the one available, because it was Lane's. Lane's absence is felt, but not really talked about explicitly, most especially by Joan, who is really stepping up to his role, though the empty seat in the conference room is a silent reminder that things aren't quite right.
Speaking of things being out of joint, Topaz Pantyhose storms out of a meeting where Ginsberg was being a pushy shithead (as usual) about their latest ad. Topaz, you may remember, was the company that finally broke SCDP's losing streak last season, and was won by Peggy. Clearly, her loss is beginning to tell--another silent reminder of one who is absent.
This is manifesting itself around the office for different people. Joan is reminded painfully of the cost of their prosperity (and Lane's malfeasance) when she gets the cheque from the insurance company for Lane's death benefits, and wonders to Don if she could have done something for him (*ahem*) to help him. Don has no answer . . .
. . .because Don has his own pointed reminder of absence and the cost of loss, because he's been seeing his dead brother Adam (who also killed himself by hanging) around the office. One could read this as his version of Joan and the empty chair, but Don's lost a lot this season--his notions about the company he built, his wife working the job and keeping him engaged, his friend, who he thought he was cutting a break, and now Peggy, his protege.
It culminates in a very creepy moment with Don when, at a trip to the dentist, he sees Adam, who tells him it's not his tooth that's rotten. The image of the rope burn around his neck is really kinda creepy.
Peggy, who we see in command at CGC (whipping everyone into shape) is doing OK, or seems to be, when Ted Chaough hands her Phillip Morris' newest project, a cigarette for women, which I suspect is Virginia Slims. This is a bit of a difficult thing for her, as she doesn't smoke. . .but I guess she'll learn.
Pete, meanwhile, has another dalliance with Beth, who wants one last tumble before she goes in for electroshock therapy. I'm not really sure that he's the guy you would choose for your last fling before you use current to erase it from your mind, but I can certainly understand why you'd want to delete Pete from your memory. Though I'm not sure she really has any kind of mental problems that require electroshock therapy as much as she's a deeply bland actress.
Pete should be happy, as he gets what he wanted--another ride on the Beth-train, plus deniability because she can't remember, but if you you know Pete at all, you know what's coming. Dude can't resist picking the scab. So he goes to visit her in the hospital post-therapy to see if she remembers feeling a tingle, but she's completely wiped him out, which causes him to do an agonizing appraisal of his situation, which, Pete being Pete, will not take in any way shape or form.
Because Pete can't stop picking the scab, and gets in a fight with her husband on the train, which Pete loses. Then Pete picks a fight with the railroad dick, and gets punched again (Does this rise to fanservice yet?) and thrown off the train. And in a final twist of the ironic knife, Trudi says he should totally have an apartment in NYC, right about the time he'd talked himself out of it.
But these are all little things which rotate around the spine of the episode--Megan is trying for a job in a commercial that Don is overseeing, one she wants so bad (possibly because she hasn't worked ever since she began going in for auditions) that she throws her friend under the bus to try to get it. Don tries to talk her down from it, claiming it'll do her no favours, but there's an added vector of pressure: Megan's mom, Mrs. Calvet, is staying over and really being an utter bitch.
It's not just her usual haughty Frenchness. It's not sneaking off to go rolls in the hay with Roger (people bond over the craziest shit) it's not her cool dismissal of Don, it's her incessant smashing of Megan's ambition to be an actress. Mrs. Calvet has no faith that her daughter is talented or any good, and thinks Megan should just give up--it's not like Don won't take care of her anyways.
This, then, becomes a vector of pressure on Don, because Megan really needs the win to throw it in Mrs. Calvet's face. Coupled with Adam saying he's "rotten" and a meeting with the widow Price, who lets him have it, blaming him for a whole bunch of shit he really had nothing to do with (kind of a shame, given what happens, that Don gets shit for what he doesn't do. Not like he didn't have plenty of ugly shit he actually did) this ultimately tips him to the dark side (we are led to assume) as he gets Megan the job, and, it seems, is going back to his classic philandering ways.
Meanwhile, the view from where Peggy's staying in Richmond is of two dogs fucking. The symbolism in this show is like a heel kick to the groin sometimes.
So! Sic transit Season 5 of Mad Men, where everything seems balanced on an abyss finally tumbles in. But at least Pete got smacked around a couples times, lest it all be utter bleakness. I'm not really sure I like the implication here that "at their heart, people don't really change," which, if you know that's coming, tends to negate the drama and my investment in it--resetting everything to default works for Tom and Jerry cartoons, not so much for five seasons of a continuing drama.
We'll have to see how it all plays out, I suppose.
And that's it for this wee. . .well, this season, really. Join us next year (I guess?) for the penultimate season of Mad Men, which I'm sure they'll switch up things by making it a happy fun-time musical or something like that. After the Russian winter that was this season, some sunshine would be welcome. Anyways, join us here at the Prattle for season 6, and until them--soupy twist!
Who can stop them? Who can save the world! Cooper, that's who!
The ultimate persuader in the war against shitty advertising, these are the continuing adventures of Mad Men!
"THE PHANTOM"
"You want to be someone's discovery, not someone's wife."
Well, in the midst of SCDP's best quarter ever, the mythical second floor is potentially no longer mythical, and everyone's lining up for position for a new office, because no one wants the one available, because it was Lane's. Lane's absence is felt, but not really talked about explicitly, most especially by Joan, who is really stepping up to his role, though the empty seat in the conference room is a silent reminder that things aren't quite right.
Speaking of things being out of joint, Topaz Pantyhose storms out of a meeting where Ginsberg was being a pushy shithead (as usual) about their latest ad. Topaz, you may remember, was the company that finally broke SCDP's losing streak last season, and was won by Peggy. Clearly, her loss is beginning to tell--another silent reminder of one who is absent.
This is manifesting itself around the office for different people. Joan is reminded painfully of the cost of their prosperity (and Lane's malfeasance) when she gets the cheque from the insurance company for Lane's death benefits, and wonders to Don if she could have done something for him (*ahem*) to help him. Don has no answer . . .
. . .because Don has his own pointed reminder of absence and the cost of loss, because he's been seeing his dead brother Adam (who also killed himself by hanging) around the office. One could read this as his version of Joan and the empty chair, but Don's lost a lot this season--his notions about the company he built, his wife working the job and keeping him engaged, his friend, who he thought he was cutting a break, and now Peggy, his protege.
It culminates in a very creepy moment with Don when, at a trip to the dentist, he sees Adam, who tells him it's not his tooth that's rotten. The image of the rope burn around his neck is really kinda creepy.
Peggy, who we see in command at CGC (whipping everyone into shape) is doing OK, or seems to be, when Ted Chaough hands her Phillip Morris' newest project, a cigarette for women, which I suspect is Virginia Slims. This is a bit of a difficult thing for her, as she doesn't smoke. . .but I guess she'll learn.
Pete, meanwhile, has another dalliance with Beth, who wants one last tumble before she goes in for electroshock therapy. I'm not really sure that he's the guy you would choose for your last fling before you use current to erase it from your mind, but I can certainly understand why you'd want to delete Pete from your memory. Though I'm not sure she really has any kind of mental problems that require electroshock therapy as much as she's a deeply bland actress.
Pete should be happy, as he gets what he wanted--another ride on the Beth-train, plus deniability because she can't remember, but if you you know Pete at all, you know what's coming. Dude can't resist picking the scab. So he goes to visit her in the hospital post-therapy to see if she remembers feeling a tingle, but she's completely wiped him out, which causes him to do an agonizing appraisal of his situation, which, Pete being Pete, will not take in any way shape or form.
Because Pete can't stop picking the scab, and gets in a fight with her husband on the train, which Pete loses. Then Pete picks a fight with the railroad dick, and gets punched again (Does this rise to fanservice yet?) and thrown off the train. And in a final twist of the ironic knife, Trudi says he should totally have an apartment in NYC, right about the time he'd talked himself out of it.
But these are all little things which rotate around the spine of the episode--Megan is trying for a job in a commercial that Don is overseeing, one she wants so bad (possibly because she hasn't worked ever since she began going in for auditions) that she throws her friend under the bus to try to get it. Don tries to talk her down from it, claiming it'll do her no favours, but there's an added vector of pressure: Megan's mom, Mrs. Calvet, is staying over and really being an utter bitch.
It's not just her usual haughty Frenchness. It's not sneaking off to go rolls in the hay with Roger (people bond over the craziest shit) it's not her cool dismissal of Don, it's her incessant smashing of Megan's ambition to be an actress. Mrs. Calvet has no faith that her daughter is talented or any good, and thinks Megan should just give up--it's not like Don won't take care of her anyways.
This, then, becomes a vector of pressure on Don, because Megan really needs the win to throw it in Mrs. Calvet's face. Coupled with Adam saying he's "rotten" and a meeting with the widow Price, who lets him have it, blaming him for a whole bunch of shit he really had nothing to do with (kind of a shame, given what happens, that Don gets shit for what he doesn't do. Not like he didn't have plenty of ugly shit he actually did) this ultimately tips him to the dark side (we are led to assume) as he gets Megan the job, and, it seems, is going back to his classic philandering ways.
Meanwhile, the view from where Peggy's staying in Richmond is of two dogs fucking. The symbolism in this show is like a heel kick to the groin sometimes.
So! Sic transit Season 5 of Mad Men, where everything seems balanced on an abyss finally tumbles in. But at least Pete got smacked around a couples times, lest it all be utter bleakness. I'm not really sure I like the implication here that "at their heart, people don't really change," which, if you know that's coming, tends to negate the drama and my investment in it--resetting everything to default works for Tom and Jerry cartoons, not so much for five seasons of a continuing drama.
We'll have to see how it all plays out, I suppose.
And that's it for this wee. . .well, this season, really. Join us next year (I guess?) for the penultimate season of Mad Men, which I'm sure they'll switch up things by making it a happy fun-time musical or something like that. After the Russian winter that was this season, some sunshine would be welcome. Anyways, join us here at the Prattle for season 6, and until them--soupy twist!
Sunday, June 3, 2012
MAD MEN 5.12--"Commissions and Fees"
Witless Prattle was a dream given form--oh, wait, no, it was just borne out of boredom on one day in January 2009. It's goal was initially to write about comics, but when that gets depressing, thank heaven we can always retire to the sunny feel-good television comfort food that is Mad Men. Last week was one of the most nightmarishly bleak episodes not in the run of Breaking Bad, wherein the whole firm near-about was dragged into the moral sewer and Joan got pimped out so they could get the Jaguar account, and bought into a firm that has a ticking time-bomb called "Lane Pryce's embezzlement" in it, for double the misery. Oh, and Peggy left, and carried the hearts of a besotted nation with her.
What sort of sublime joy will we find in this, the penultimate episode of the season? Let's find out!
"COMMISSIONS AND FEES"
"You'll tell them it didn't work out; and the next one will be better, because it always is"
We open with Don getting a haircut and trying to field a compliment about getting Jaguar (is there a conflict of interest there, given that Roger hawks Lincolns and Don shill Mercedes Benz during the commercial breaks?) Don handles the comment about like how you'd expect given his attitude last week--it's like sloshing acid around in his mouth.
At work, things aren't much better--at the partner's meeting Joan has to hold Scarlett's hand through her old job, Pete is ungodly smug (Jaguar really likes him, and you may read into what that you will) Don is still bitter about the way Jaguar was attained and snipes at the rest of them for it.
But what comes to pass is a recommendation by Jaguar to work on a fees-based system instead of the commissions model that SCDP had been using up to this point. This entails a lot of due diligence, and everyone goes off to do that . . .
. . .and that's when Bert finds the cheque Lane wrote and signed Don's name to. If you thought that things would lighten up after last week, well, suck on this: Don quickly discovers what's what and brings Lane into his office, forcing him to flat-out fire Lane's ass. This is easily the worst day of Lane's life, as he'd been nominated (and accepted) a position of fiscal responsibility (ha ha) for the 4 A's. This turns to ashes in front of Lane's eyes and he comes apart to Don, finally blowing up that he didn't have the luxury, as all the other partners did of having a comfortable nest egg to fall back on when he left his job.
This leads to a downward spiral that gets very close to the darkest latitudes of total blackness, as Lane has to pretend that he;s not fired to his wife, who bought a Jaguar XKE to celebrate. This causes Lane to snap and try to kill himself in the Jaguar, which won't start (nice payoff of the long-running joke, there) and well, he goes to plan B. More on that later.
Meanwhile, in plot B, Sally throws a fit about re-using ski boots which causes Betty to get her bitch on (good to see she's bounced back to her old self) and drops her off with Don. Sally demonstrates her usual good judgment by inviting Glenn to see her, and calling him her boyfriend. Glenn further lays an emulsion of ickiness on the proceedings by confessing he told the kids he goes to school with (who, we're told, beat the shit out of him. Kids are real perceptive that way) and Sally further makes sure this is as uncomfortable for all concerned by freaking out when she realises she's getting her period, getting a cab, and going all the way back to Betty's house. Betty handles this as you'd expect, smugly telling Megan "she just needed her mother." I realise that the show's creator wants us to think Betty's sympathetic and all, but really, if she had a mustache, she'd have been twirling it during that whole scene, and I can't even take her seriously as a character what that kinda thing happens, let alone feel any sympathy for her.
Back to Don for a bit. His annoyance with the way the Jaguar thing went has made him irritable and restless. One imagines he wants another big win, but a cleaner one. Roger, recognising that this is the Don with the fire back in his belly suggests they go after Ken's father in law at Dow Chemicals, the one who told Don that the tobacco letter was an albatross around his neck that marked him down as someone far too untrustworthy to hire. Roger and Don decide to take a run at him all the same, if for no reason than to get the secret of good business hugs.
Don comes out swinging and if you thought that this meant things were turning around? Well, suck on this: Lane hung himself in his office. Did anyone have "death by hanging" in the suicide pool? I myself worry now that I kept using metaphors like "the noose tightened around his neck" and stuff like that.
Everyone takes the news with horror (even Pete, surprisingly enough), especially Don, who probably feels more than a little responsible given that he was the one who fired Lane and also because his brother hung himself when he rejected him wayyy back in the first season. You can imagine this causes him pain on a number of levels.
So, yeah. TWO fun episodes in a row! Gosh, the relentlessly upbeat sunniness that is Mad Men threatens to make my cup of joy overflow at times.
And that's all for this week, thank heaven. Join us next week for the season finale, wherein Don looks at things, Peggy looks at things, a lot of people open and close doors, and Pete hates everyone for looking at things and opening doors in a shock sandwich we had to call "The Phantom," featuring music by Paul Williams. Until; next time--soupy twist!
What sort of sublime joy will we find in this, the penultimate episode of the season? Let's find out!
"COMMISSIONS AND FEES"
"You'll tell them it didn't work out; and the next one will be better, because it always is"
We open with Don getting a haircut and trying to field a compliment about getting Jaguar (is there a conflict of interest there, given that Roger hawks Lincolns and Don shill Mercedes Benz during the commercial breaks?) Don handles the comment about like how you'd expect given his attitude last week--it's like sloshing acid around in his mouth.
At work, things aren't much better--at the partner's meeting Joan has to hold Scarlett's hand through her old job, Pete is ungodly smug (Jaguar really likes him, and you may read into what that you will) Don is still bitter about the way Jaguar was attained and snipes at the rest of them for it.
But what comes to pass is a recommendation by Jaguar to work on a fees-based system instead of the commissions model that SCDP had been using up to this point. This entails a lot of due diligence, and everyone goes off to do that . . .
. . .and that's when Bert finds the cheque Lane wrote and signed Don's name to. If you thought that things would lighten up after last week, well, suck on this: Don quickly discovers what's what and brings Lane into his office, forcing him to flat-out fire Lane's ass. This is easily the worst day of Lane's life, as he'd been nominated (and accepted) a position of fiscal responsibility (ha ha) for the 4 A's. This turns to ashes in front of Lane's eyes and he comes apart to Don, finally blowing up that he didn't have the luxury, as all the other partners did of having a comfortable nest egg to fall back on when he left his job.
This leads to a downward spiral that gets very close to the darkest latitudes of total blackness, as Lane has to pretend that he;s not fired to his wife, who bought a Jaguar XKE to celebrate. This causes Lane to snap and try to kill himself in the Jaguar, which won't start (nice payoff of the long-running joke, there) and well, he goes to plan B. More on that later.
Meanwhile, in plot B, Sally throws a fit about re-using ski boots which causes Betty to get her bitch on (good to see she's bounced back to her old self) and drops her off with Don. Sally demonstrates her usual good judgment by inviting Glenn to see her, and calling him her boyfriend. Glenn further lays an emulsion of ickiness on the proceedings by confessing he told the kids he goes to school with (who, we're told, beat the shit out of him. Kids are real perceptive that way) and Sally further makes sure this is as uncomfortable for all concerned by freaking out when she realises she's getting her period, getting a cab, and going all the way back to Betty's house. Betty handles this as you'd expect, smugly telling Megan "she just needed her mother." I realise that the show's creator wants us to think Betty's sympathetic and all, but really, if she had a mustache, she'd have been twirling it during that whole scene, and I can't even take her seriously as a character what that kinda thing happens, let alone feel any sympathy for her.
Back to Don for a bit. His annoyance with the way the Jaguar thing went has made him irritable and restless. One imagines he wants another big win, but a cleaner one. Roger, recognising that this is the Don with the fire back in his belly suggests they go after Ken's father in law at Dow Chemicals, the one who told Don that the tobacco letter was an albatross around his neck that marked him down as someone far too untrustworthy to hire. Roger and Don decide to take a run at him all the same, if for no reason than to get the secret of good business hugs.
Don comes out swinging and if you thought that this meant things were turning around? Well, suck on this: Lane hung himself in his office. Did anyone have "death by hanging" in the suicide pool? I myself worry now that I kept using metaphors like "the noose tightened around his neck" and stuff like that.
Everyone takes the news with horror (even Pete, surprisingly enough), especially Don, who probably feels more than a little responsible given that he was the one who fired Lane and also because his brother hung himself when he rejected him wayyy back in the first season. You can imagine this causes him pain on a number of levels.
So, yeah. TWO fun episodes in a row! Gosh, the relentlessly upbeat sunniness that is Mad Men threatens to make my cup of joy overflow at times.
And that's all for this week, thank heaven. Join us next week for the season finale, wherein Don looks at things, Peggy looks at things, a lot of people open and close doors, and Pete hates everyone for looking at things and opening doors in a shock sandwich we had to call "The Phantom," featuring music by Paul Williams. Until; next time--soupy twist!
Sunday, May 27, 2012
MAD MEN 5.11--"The Other Woman"
You may find yourself living a shotgun shack. You may find yourself in another part of the world. You may find your self behind the wheel of a large automobile. You may find yourself with a comics blog. You may mind yourself reviewing Mad Men despite the lack of overlap. You may say to yourself "Well, how did I get here?"
Then you decide to hang all that and get to the point, because here it is episode 11 and in a couple more weeks this'll all be done and dusted. Last week we had a humorous pile-up of plotting, including yet not limited to Lane embezzling, Harry banging a Hare Krishna, Megan throwing spaghetti and Joan throwing airplanes. What madcap hi-jinks await us this time? We'll just have to see.
"THE OTHER WOMAN"
"Don't fool yourself--this is some very dirty business"
Man, this episode starts heavy and gets worse, ultimately becoming blacker than midnight in a coal mine. We pick up with where we left off last week--with SCDP committing itself in force to securing the Jaguar account. Don has his people working nose to the grindstone and have locked into the notion of Jaguar (they were--and are--extraordinarily high-maintenance cars) as the "mistress" car--expensive, high-maintenance, and not altogether reliable. One may compare and contrast this with Don's past as searching out woefully complicated infidelities when he was with Betty and Pete's recent adventures in being oily and creepy and unfaithful this season.
If that were all it was, that would be bad enough. But one of the Jaguar dealers decides to make things difficult by suggesting that if he were allowed to have sex with Joan, it would ensure his vote Unfortunately, he does this in front of Pete, who has not had his ethical program installed by Dr. Soong, and thus, makes it a whole production to Joan (who, obviously says no.) and then to the partners, which initially seems to go well, as Don thinks it's an insane idea to even entertain and Lane is appalled (naturally, as he has that whole embezzlement noose around his neck after last week) but . . .Roger and Bert are surprisingly willing to entertain the idea of what is essentially high-value prostitution.
However, ugly as it is, Lane plants a rather explosive idea in Joan's head about making her a full partner (incidentally dropping a line about the source of his tax problems--when they formed SCDP back at the end of Season 3, he settled for something lower than his worth, which, one assumes, led to his tax problems. That he suggests something that might tank the entire firm is . . .intriguing, and speaks somewhat to his state of mind with the noose around his neck) as an incentive to sleep with the guy. And Joan, motivated perhaps by a broken fridge, her mom verbalising what we've all been thinking about Greg (that we hope he gets killed in Vietnam) lays down the ultimatum--she wants to be a partner (and not a silent one) with a sufficient percentage of the business to set her up for life.
The "dirty business" or, to be less delicate, "shit rolling downhill" causes all kinds of shockwaves. For one thing, Peggy's handling all the work while Don and the boys are contemplating Jaguar. Unfortunately, added responsibility doesn't equal more respect or credit, a reality Don proves in an utterly repelled display (as display so bad even Harry Crane leaves without comment) Peggy's been close to leaving before, but in telling Ken to go to hell with regards to their pact that if he found something good he'd take her along, she's ever closer to going her own way.
Don further fails to distinguish himself by throwing a shit fit when Megan's audition possibly will end up with her leaving for Boston for rehearsals. Don, upset about the Joan thing, upset because Jaguar's not breaking right, because the partner's voted to pimp Joan out without him, and maybe just upset at being abandoned, throws a shit fit and Megan gives it right back. Don's fear of abandonment will further wound him in this episode, but we'll get to that in a bit.
Because Joan goes through with it, and it's cross-cut with Don's pitch to Jaguar (of Ginsberg's idea, which I must confess, I didn't think that much of. As usual with his stuff it seems blatantly on the nose so we're assured of how "deep" he is) with Joan having sex with the sales rep. It is easily one of the bleakest things I have ever watched on this show and I marveled, slightly, at the dark art necessary to make Joan being raped by Dr. Greg on the floor of Don's office seem like small potatoes next to the apocalyptic grotesquerie of this. It is an incredible scene, and honestly, I dunno if I could ever watch it again easily, especially when we realise that poor Don was too late to talk her out of it. It is sad enough to be William Styron level bleakness.
But hey, the ends justify the means, right? SCDP gets Jaguar, and everything's great, huh? Joan gets her partnership, Don gets a big win, Lane gets that noose around his neck tightened (and potentially has now dragged Joan into it--last season the partners were expected to kick in money to keep the lights on and even Pete couldn't afford his stake and Don had to kick his in) Don knows what it cost to make happen and feels disgusted . . .
. . .and Peggy quits SCDP to go work with Ted Chaough (who you may remember from last season--he postured himself as Don's nemesis and got burned by Don with the Honda thing) Don takes this news . . .not well at all, really. Remember, this is the person who he begged to come with him when SCDP started, the person who was there with him when Anna died, the person who's always been there. And she left on a day wherein the business that kept him away from Megan won a big one at a price too awful to be easily tolerated.
I don't say this easily, and it's certainly not as explosive in it's bleakness, but this episode was almost Breaking Bad level bleak. The recurring motif of the women of the show being eyed like a piece of meat (even when she's escaping to a new job poor Peggy has to deal with Chaough leering at her) was awful, the tension unbearable, and the final scene just brutal.
Two episodes to go. Gonna be strange with Peggy elsewhere, and everyone else walking wounded for a whole host of reasons.
That's it for this week! Join us next week when Joan plays with Silly Putty, Bert and Roger decide to get out of town and go for a drug-fueled rampage through Las Vegas, and Pete finally quits shopping in Nordstrom's boys department in a little funky fresh jam we call "Commissions and Fees." Until next week--soupy twist!
Then you decide to hang all that and get to the point, because here it is episode 11 and in a couple more weeks this'll all be done and dusted. Last week we had a humorous pile-up of plotting, including yet not limited to Lane embezzling, Harry banging a Hare Krishna, Megan throwing spaghetti and Joan throwing airplanes. What madcap hi-jinks await us this time? We'll just have to see.
"THE OTHER WOMAN"
"Don't fool yourself--this is some very dirty business"
Man, this episode starts heavy and gets worse, ultimately becoming blacker than midnight in a coal mine. We pick up with where we left off last week--with SCDP committing itself in force to securing the Jaguar account. Don has his people working nose to the grindstone and have locked into the notion of Jaguar (they were--and are--extraordinarily high-maintenance cars) as the "mistress" car--expensive, high-maintenance, and not altogether reliable. One may compare and contrast this with Don's past as searching out woefully complicated infidelities when he was with Betty and Pete's recent adventures in being oily and creepy and unfaithful this season.
If that were all it was, that would be bad enough. But one of the Jaguar dealers decides to make things difficult by suggesting that if he were allowed to have sex with Joan, it would ensure his vote Unfortunately, he does this in front of Pete, who has not had his ethical program installed by Dr. Soong, and thus, makes it a whole production to Joan (who, obviously says no.) and then to the partners, which initially seems to go well, as Don thinks it's an insane idea to even entertain and Lane is appalled (naturally, as he has that whole embezzlement noose around his neck after last week) but . . .Roger and Bert are surprisingly willing to entertain the idea of what is essentially high-value prostitution.
However, ugly as it is, Lane plants a rather explosive idea in Joan's head about making her a full partner (incidentally dropping a line about the source of his tax problems--when they formed SCDP back at the end of Season 3, he settled for something lower than his worth, which, one assumes, led to his tax problems. That he suggests something that might tank the entire firm is . . .intriguing, and speaks somewhat to his state of mind with the noose around his neck) as an incentive to sleep with the guy. And Joan, motivated perhaps by a broken fridge, her mom verbalising what we've all been thinking about Greg (that we hope he gets killed in Vietnam) lays down the ultimatum--she wants to be a partner (and not a silent one) with a sufficient percentage of the business to set her up for life.
The "dirty business" or, to be less delicate, "shit rolling downhill" causes all kinds of shockwaves. For one thing, Peggy's handling all the work while Don and the boys are contemplating Jaguar. Unfortunately, added responsibility doesn't equal more respect or credit, a reality Don proves in an utterly repelled display (as display so bad even Harry Crane leaves without comment) Peggy's been close to leaving before, but in telling Ken to go to hell with regards to their pact that if he found something good he'd take her along, she's ever closer to going her own way.
Don further fails to distinguish himself by throwing a shit fit when Megan's audition possibly will end up with her leaving for Boston for rehearsals. Don, upset about the Joan thing, upset because Jaguar's not breaking right, because the partner's voted to pimp Joan out without him, and maybe just upset at being abandoned, throws a shit fit and Megan gives it right back. Don's fear of abandonment will further wound him in this episode, but we'll get to that in a bit.
Because Joan goes through with it, and it's cross-cut with Don's pitch to Jaguar (of Ginsberg's idea, which I must confess, I didn't think that much of. As usual with his stuff it seems blatantly on the nose so we're assured of how "deep" he is) with Joan having sex with the sales rep. It is easily one of the bleakest things I have ever watched on this show and I marveled, slightly, at the dark art necessary to make Joan being raped by Dr. Greg on the floor of Don's office seem like small potatoes next to the apocalyptic grotesquerie of this. It is an incredible scene, and honestly, I dunno if I could ever watch it again easily, especially when we realise that poor Don was too late to talk her out of it. It is sad enough to be William Styron level bleakness.
But hey, the ends justify the means, right? SCDP gets Jaguar, and everything's great, huh? Joan gets her partnership, Don gets a big win, Lane gets that noose around his neck tightened (and potentially has now dragged Joan into it--last season the partners were expected to kick in money to keep the lights on and even Pete couldn't afford his stake and Don had to kick his in) Don knows what it cost to make happen and feels disgusted . . .
. . .and Peggy quits SCDP to go work with Ted Chaough (who you may remember from last season--he postured himself as Don's nemesis and got burned by Don with the Honda thing) Don takes this news . . .not well at all, really. Remember, this is the person who he begged to come with him when SCDP started, the person who was there with him when Anna died, the person who's always been there. And she left on a day wherein the business that kept him away from Megan won a big one at a price too awful to be easily tolerated.
I don't say this easily, and it's certainly not as explosive in it's bleakness, but this episode was almost Breaking Bad level bleak. The recurring motif of the women of the show being eyed like a piece of meat (even when she's escaping to a new job poor Peggy has to deal with Chaough leering at her) was awful, the tension unbearable, and the final scene just brutal.
Two episodes to go. Gonna be strange with Peggy elsewhere, and everyone else walking wounded for a whole host of reasons.
That's it for this week! Join us next week when Joan plays with Silly Putty, Bert and Roger decide to get out of town and go for a drug-fueled rampage through Las Vegas, and Pete finally quits shopping in Nordstrom's boys department in a little funky fresh jam we call "Commissions and Fees." Until next week--soupy twist!
Sunday, May 20, 2012
MAD MEN 5.10--"Christmas Waltz"
Low down dirty shame/kicking it live like it ain't no thing/Yeah, low down dirty shame/Witless Prattle like it ain't no thing. Pitiful attempts at R & B aside, this here is yet another installment in Witless Prattle's occasionally popular and much desired Mad Men reviews, which is like erotic fanfiction for your miiiiiiiiind, man.
This week, we enter the home stretch of the season, and from the episode description, it looks like a Harry Crane episode. Does this mean we'll be dealing with his wormy needy people-pleasing, his alleged whoring and stories of his large penis? In a Christmas episode? Let's find out!
"CHRISTMAS WALTZ"
"They're projections. They're based in reality, but they're hopes and dreams."
Our first big plot development is Lane Pryce's tax follies. Turns out he's in for a bit hit from Inland Revenue (the cause of a lot of tax exiles from across the pond) and he connives to get the money by extending SCDP's line of credit by 50,000 and then hitting upon the idea to distribute Christmas bonuses ("how conveeenient," I hear you saying) to boost office morale.
Meanwhile, Pete has finagled a meeting with Jaguar, again. You may remember that the last time this went down it ended with the Jaguar rep getting chewing gum on his junk and Lane beating real on Pete, a set-to that nearly repeats itself in the meeting as the room simmers between Lane wanting to ramrod through the Christmas bonuses and Pete wanting to thump his chest about Jaguar and not getting anything from anyone.
This culminates in a scene that they very helpfully scored with MUSIC OF DOOM as Lane forges Don Draper's signature on a cheque to clear up his tax problem. Then, just in case we thought this was done with, his tax lawyer shakes lane down for his fee. Because there's no way this doesn't end up blowing up in his face.
And hey! This isn't even the thing most pregnant with doom in this episode! Because you demanded it, Paul Kinsey returns. And he's a Hare Krishna, because he wasn't enough of a supercilious douchebag before now. He drags Harry Crane to a Hare Krishna meeting because I like to think Krishna told him to find the most awkward Cyril Figgis-looking dude in New York City and get him to chant for hours and hours.
As with human interactions in mad Men, Paul has an ulterior motive for inviting harry. He wants out of the Hare Krishnas, but he wants to take his main squeeze, Lakshmi with him.So he needs Harry's help to get his spec script for Star Trek (honestly, Mad Men . . .I . . .have no words) which is horrible and pretentious like pretty much everything that is Paul Kinsey. Harry does his usual job of trying to wriggle out of having to tell Kinsey that his script is godawful (generally by trying to make Peggy do it, a task which she looks as much forward to as swallowing bleach) and Lakshmi comes back to the office to see Harry because his chanting made her sari moist.
Yeah, I call bullshit on that in pretty much every permutation of bullshit that it is possible to extrapolate from that situation. He is Cyril Figgis now, I swear.Fortunately, she's running a savage burn on him that culminates with her straight-up slugging Harry (making her blessed in my eyes, if not Krishnas) apparently Paul's an awesome recruiter, and she won't have him strayed from the path. So naturally she decided to slap and tickle Harry, in the literal and figurative meaning of the term.
But Harry, bless him, actually tries to do the right thing, giving Paul $500 and telling him to go to LA and pitch his shitty teleplay. You can't really say his motives are entirely noble, but good on him for rising above solipsistic schlubbiness for a bit.
Man, what was a more depressing outcome--finding out Midge was a junkie last season, or Paul being a Hare Krishna?
Meanwhile, in plot C, Joan is trying to carry on with all the dignity she can muster, so much so that she's turning down Roger's off-the-books child support payments (explaining, not altogether incorrectly, that it's easier if he's completely out of the picture and they don't have to play the lie) This goes drastically southward when Joan is served with divorce papers from Doctor Rapist (and admit it--when you saw the guy with papers you were hoping he'd been KIA in Vietnam) Joan actually cracks under this, and doesn't just give the receptionist a stern talking to, but completely loses her shit, and it's only the timely intervention of Don that defuses her going completely nuclear.
This does double-duty for Don, as Pete's been pressuring him to take Megan over and test-drive a Jaguar. In the wake of Megan leaving (a fact that is STILL causing tension and plenty of passive-aggressive barbs from Don) don't not so eager to do the husband and wife Nick-and-Nora-sell-ads fandango they were doing before and takes Joan instead. Joan is on-board with pretending and eyes a Jaguar XKE (also known as Emma Peel's car of choice. Joan has a good eye.) This leads to a great extended scene with Don and Joan talking about divorce and the olden days and really connecting and having a good time, which, given how grim this episode is about to get, was kind of wonderful.
But in Mad Men, as with poetry, nothing gold can stay, so Don comes home to a furious argument with Megan (which he is unable to twist into some spicy angry sex) and some bitter words about how even she knows he's not giving his all at work. This seems to engage something in Don, and in the last scene, he gives a rousing speech that they're going to get the Jaguar account (getting your first car is a big milestone in an ad agency, and as we're in the heart of car fetishism here at the doorstep of 1967, you can see how that would be a thing worth chasing) and he will work night and day to make that a thing.
And it's a good thing, because Pete's initial announcement makes nary a ripple. Partly because it's just a pitch and as with the Honda thing from last season, that and 50 cents will buy you a cup of coffee. There's also a teeny weeny pall hanging over things, as Mohawk Airlines gets hit with a strike (which, if Wikipedia can be believed, labor disputes will ultimately finish them as a company four years hence) and pulls their advertising. Cooper suggests the partner forgo their bonuses so the lower ranks can have theirs, and it's a great idea.
It just. . .kinda . . .screws up Lane's plans from the beginning big time, doesn't it?
So with three episodes to go, we have some gentle embezzlement, sparks striking between Don and work (and to a lesser extent, Don and Joan) Roger being frozen out of Joan's life, Pete continuing to feel unappreciated, and everything hinging on getting the Jaguar account. It wouldn't be near-the-end-of-a-Mad Men-season without everyone looking into an abyss, I s'pose.
And that's it for this week! Join us next week when Roger spikes the office's water cooler, Joan goes on a roaring rampage of revenge, and Don gets the Lego brick accounts and builds brightly coloured robots all day in a little Ray Parker Jr. joint we call "The Other Woman." Until next week--soupy twist!
This week, we enter the home stretch of the season, and from the episode description, it looks like a Harry Crane episode. Does this mean we'll be dealing with his wormy needy people-pleasing, his alleged whoring and stories of his large penis? In a Christmas episode? Let's find out!
"CHRISTMAS WALTZ"
"They're projections. They're based in reality, but they're hopes and dreams."
Our first big plot development is Lane Pryce's tax follies. Turns out he's in for a bit hit from Inland Revenue (the cause of a lot of tax exiles from across the pond) and he connives to get the money by extending SCDP's line of credit by 50,000 and then hitting upon the idea to distribute Christmas bonuses ("how conveeenient," I hear you saying) to boost office morale.
Meanwhile, Pete has finagled a meeting with Jaguar, again. You may remember that the last time this went down it ended with the Jaguar rep getting chewing gum on his junk and Lane beating real on Pete, a set-to that nearly repeats itself in the meeting as the room simmers between Lane wanting to ramrod through the Christmas bonuses and Pete wanting to thump his chest about Jaguar and not getting anything from anyone.
This culminates in a scene that they very helpfully scored with MUSIC OF DOOM as Lane forges Don Draper's signature on a cheque to clear up his tax problem. Then, just in case we thought this was done with, his tax lawyer shakes lane down for his fee. Because there's no way this doesn't end up blowing up in his face.
And hey! This isn't even the thing most pregnant with doom in this episode! Because you demanded it, Paul Kinsey returns. And he's a Hare Krishna, because he wasn't enough of a supercilious douchebag before now. He drags Harry Crane to a Hare Krishna meeting because I like to think Krishna told him to find the most awkward Cyril Figgis-looking dude in New York City and get him to chant for hours and hours.
As with human interactions in mad Men, Paul has an ulterior motive for inviting harry. He wants out of the Hare Krishnas, but he wants to take his main squeeze, Lakshmi with him.So he needs Harry's help to get his spec script for Star Trek (honestly, Mad Men . . .I . . .have no words) which is horrible and pretentious like pretty much everything that is Paul Kinsey. Harry does his usual job of trying to wriggle out of having to tell Kinsey that his script is godawful (generally by trying to make Peggy do it, a task which she looks as much forward to as swallowing bleach) and Lakshmi comes back to the office to see Harry because his chanting made her sari moist.
Yeah, I call bullshit on that in pretty much every permutation of bullshit that it is possible to extrapolate from that situation. He is Cyril Figgis now, I swear.Fortunately, she's running a savage burn on him that culminates with her straight-up slugging Harry (making her blessed in my eyes, if not Krishnas) apparently Paul's an awesome recruiter, and she won't have him strayed from the path. So naturally she decided to slap and tickle Harry, in the literal and figurative meaning of the term.
But Harry, bless him, actually tries to do the right thing, giving Paul $500 and telling him to go to LA and pitch his shitty teleplay. You can't really say his motives are entirely noble, but good on him for rising above solipsistic schlubbiness for a bit.
Man, what was a more depressing outcome--finding out Midge was a junkie last season, or Paul being a Hare Krishna?
Meanwhile, in plot C, Joan is trying to carry on with all the dignity she can muster, so much so that she's turning down Roger's off-the-books child support payments (explaining, not altogether incorrectly, that it's easier if he's completely out of the picture and they don't have to play the lie) This goes drastically southward when Joan is served with divorce papers from Doctor Rapist (and admit it--when you saw the guy with papers you were hoping he'd been KIA in Vietnam) Joan actually cracks under this, and doesn't just give the receptionist a stern talking to, but completely loses her shit, and it's only the timely intervention of Don that defuses her going completely nuclear.
This does double-duty for Don, as Pete's been pressuring him to take Megan over and test-drive a Jaguar. In the wake of Megan leaving (a fact that is STILL causing tension and plenty of passive-aggressive barbs from Don) don't not so eager to do the husband and wife Nick-and-Nora-sell-ads fandango they were doing before and takes Joan instead. Joan is on-board with pretending and eyes a Jaguar XKE (also known as Emma Peel's car of choice. Joan has a good eye.) This leads to a great extended scene with Don and Joan talking about divorce and the olden days and really connecting and having a good time, which, given how grim this episode is about to get, was kind of wonderful.
But in Mad Men, as with poetry, nothing gold can stay, so Don comes home to a furious argument with Megan (which he is unable to twist into some spicy angry sex) and some bitter words about how even she knows he's not giving his all at work. This seems to engage something in Don, and in the last scene, he gives a rousing speech that they're going to get the Jaguar account (getting your first car is a big milestone in an ad agency, and as we're in the heart of car fetishism here at the doorstep of 1967, you can see how that would be a thing worth chasing) and he will work night and day to make that a thing.
And it's a good thing, because Pete's initial announcement makes nary a ripple. Partly because it's just a pitch and as with the Honda thing from last season, that and 50 cents will buy you a cup of coffee. There's also a teeny weeny pall hanging over things, as Mohawk Airlines gets hit with a strike (which, if Wikipedia can be believed, labor disputes will ultimately finish them as a company four years hence) and pulls their advertising. Cooper suggests the partner forgo their bonuses so the lower ranks can have theirs, and it's a great idea.
It just. . .kinda . . .screws up Lane's plans from the beginning big time, doesn't it?
So with three episodes to go, we have some gentle embezzlement, sparks striking between Don and work (and to a lesser extent, Don and Joan) Roger being frozen out of Joan's life, Pete continuing to feel unappreciated, and everything hinging on getting the Jaguar account. It wouldn't be near-the-end-of-a-Mad Men-season without everyone looking into an abyss, I s'pose.
And that's it for this week! Join us next week when Roger spikes the office's water cooler, Joan goes on a roaring rampage of revenge, and Don gets the Lego brick accounts and builds brightly coloured robots all day in a little Ray Parker Jr. joint we call "The Other Woman." Until next week--soupy twist!
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