Slate Articles

Mad Men, Season 6

Paul Ford — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:02:00 GMT

Seth, Hanna,

I keep coming back to two scenes in this episode. First, when Kenny is shot, and second, when Don has an eye-opener.

When I watch other series in the “serious television” category—Game of Thrones, say, or Boardwalk Empire—I’ve started to notice how often these shows fall back on a sense of menace, how often a vulnerable character is at risk, with music cues to match. TV certainly is much better than in decades past, but as a viewer there’s so much squinting and squirming, and “darkness” takes the place of “character development” as an indicator of quality. 24 was almost all menace and years later barely has a place in my memory, aside from “it was about torture and Chloe was cool.” I wonder if when people look back at the recorded entertainment that obsessed us in these years they’ll wonder why we wanted to be so worried all the time.

And this used to be Mad Men, too. But this season hasn’t had as many of those moments where you watch through your fingers and bite your palm, hoping to God the awfulness stops. The gun isn’t just shown in the first act; it’s in the first few seconds of the first act and it goes off right away. And we don’t even know that Ken’s wife is pregnant until after we learn he’s alive. We find out because he tells us.

It used to be with this show that anything could happen. A mysterious European nobleman could take an interest in Don, for example, and then he could drift back to New York. Weird stuff just kept happening. But the range of possibility keeps shrinking. I wonder if the surfeit of conspiracy theories about the characters is a reflection of this: As the show gets smaller and smaller, its viewers start to imagine more and more dramatic arcs, almost to compensate and bring Mad Men back into the realm of the familiar—that is, the dark menace of quality TV.

So Bob Benson is not a spy. Nor is it likely that Don Draper will have a heart attack and fall out of a skyscraper and land in front of a little boy (and that little boy ... was ... Matthew Weiner!).

Which is why I keep thinking about the scene where he loads up his orange juice with vodka, after Megan asks him to lay off. It’s not that he’s doing something transgressive by having an eye-opener. Don Draper has never cared what time it is. It’s that he acts ashamed, and worse, is hiding. Which simplified Don for me. The man doesn’t need to find love or accept himself or commit to Megan. Don needs to go to a meeting. He needs to dry out. So much of this show is about lying, to others or to yourself, but hiding your drinking from your wife is a different order of lying—the small, urgent, childlike need to feed the addiction. Don can’t even hold to his own code of respect and secrecy any more, which is why he pulled the rug out from under Ted and manipulated the firm back into Sunkist. And why? Because Ted had Peggy’s affections? Because the thought of not being in power is too excruciating for him to handle? Don is acting like someone who is afraid of being cut off: From power and from booze.

It’s hard to imagine this man getting help. Betty went to therapy, as did Sally and as does Roger. But when I imagine Don on the therapist’s couch, my mind freezes. He just clears his throat for an hour and stares his beady stare. It’s even harder to imagine him at a meeting, working through the steps—making a personal inventory, and going out to the people he has hurt and making amends. Or drying out somewhere upstate. So far in this show that’s been the recourse for weaker men, like Freddy Rumsen, who hit bottom when he pissed himself in front of his coworkers, basically the bottomest bottom of all.

Of course one of the ways that people hit bottom is they lose their job. That’s what happened to Freddy, but how could it happen to Don? Who would do the firing? This character is going to hold on to his emotions and his bottle with an iron grip.

Thinking through what you both wrote, I suddenly realized: I’m not looking forward to the next episode. I’m not not looking forward to it, either. It’s just that I don’t need the story to finish. It’s not like Daenerys with her dragons or Jack Bauer trying to stop a nuclear bomb. There’s nothing ticking here for me, except for a very normal clock. So far—so far—this season the show has done such a good job of localizing the action around a few characters, stepping back from the pulpier aspects of the first few seasons (stolen identity, secret pregnancy) to give at least equal time to smaller but very real things like surly teens, complex divorces, and the eternal battle between Sunkist and Ocean Spray. Every season brings us less, not more. So what’s ahead for characters like these? Marriage or divorce, remarriage, early death, polyps, college bills, Florida. Once I might have dreaded the death of a character in the season’s final episode. Now I mostly dread that the show’s writers will feel obligated to kill someone off.

The eighth level of Dante’s Inferno is fraud, and we’ve definitely seen a lot of that. The ninth level is treachery. Nixon is coming.

He’s not that virtuous. He’s just in love with you,

Paul

Mad Men, Season 6

Seth Stevenson — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:45:00 GMT

Paul, Hanna,

If nothing else, we now know the meaning of last week’s Moshe Dayan cameo. It was cheeky foreshadowing! An eye patch that graces Stan’s wall one week miraculously pops up on Ken’s face the next.

We also got some more fodder for the Chevy-is-Vietnam theory. Ken—a bird-hunting pacifist, he doesn’t even discharge his weapon—sustains a wound and wants to end his tour of duty in the quagmire that is GM. When he sends Pete out there in his place, he warns, “You’re gonna need to know where the land mines are buried.”

(By the way, getting back to the foreshadowing: Was Ken’s hunting mishap a reference the amazing 2006 moment in which Vice President Cheney shot a dude in the face? That incident ended with a noble gesture that should be enshrined in the mercy hall of fame: 78-year-old attorney/bulls-eye Harry Whittington professed to be “deeply sorry” for the trouble he’d caused Cheney when he rudely intercepted Cheney’s birdshot.)

I previously predicted that, having caught her dad Ocean Spraying the neighbor, Sally might enter an acting-out phase involving a mélange of Glen Bishop, marijuana, and a cult. I hadn’t foreseen that the cult would be Miss Porter’s School. Nor had I guessed I’d be so pleased to check in on Glen. He showed a fair amount of mercy toward Sally when he kept his cool even after she salted his make-out session. Glen’s maturing into a fine young man, isn’t he? Less creepy by the day.

There’s been lots of theorizing over the mystical B.B.–D.D./Bob Benson–Don Draper connection. Two entirely self-spawned creatures. Ambition devoid of soul. But instead of illuminating their shared DNA, the deeper link forged between them this week seems mostly to have shed light on Pete. Namely: I think this might well be the first time in Pete’s life that he’s mastered his emotions.

Pete played it all wrong when he busted Don back in Season 1. But he learned from his error. This time, he held his schoolboy glee in check even though he’d caught Bob without a hall pass. He saw that a far greater payoff might be his if he offered a little mercy. And now Bob is a manservant of sorts to Pete—forever beholden, dismissible on a whim.

What did you guys make of all the fertility references this week? We open with Don in a fetal position. And then Megan—not long off a miscarriage—overboils some eggs on the stove. Soon, it’s the pregnancy horror of Rosemary’s Baby; some roleplay in which Don is forced to impersonate a crying infant; Ken’s announcement that his wife is expecting; and then our closing shot of Don in the fetal position once more.

It’s interesting that, within the framework of Ted and Peggy’s little play, Don embodies Rosemary’s demon child. Later, Peggy calls him a monster. So, OK, he’s Satan. But is he really any worse than he’s ever been?

This seemed like the Don of yore: drunk, manipulative, sometimes cruel, mostly right on the merits. Sunkist is a bigger client, even if it means that Ted has to beg Ocean Spray for (hey, look, more) mercy. Ted did spend too much on that aspirin casting, and then Don fixed it. Most delicate of all, Ted isn’t thinking with his head, and Don’s correct that others can see it. Joan, Ginsberg … people are tired of Ted’s goo-goo eyes.

Of course, this is not to say that Don’s motives are entirely pure. He’s clearly jealous of Ted’s intimacy with Peggy. Consider the insert shot of Ted’s hand on her hip, and the awkwardly proffered information that Don’s never slept with her. But is Don longing for that chaste, spiritual/creative connection he and Peggy used to share and no longer do? Or is watching Peggy cavorting with Ted forcing Don to realize that his feelings are slightly murkier?

Whatever it is Don wants, it doesn’t seem to be Megan. He’s ignoring her pleas to “pull back on the throttle.” Even abandoning their bed.

The season wraps up next week. Will Megan will be killed by a crazed hippie clan? Will we get any closure on the Rosen situation? Will Sally swallow her secret forever like a dutiful little WASP?

You’ve been on a soap opera too long,

Seth

Mad Men, Season 6

Hanna Rosin — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:45:00 GMT

Seth, Paul,

Paul, I do have thoughts about the episode’s title, “The Quality of Mercy”! It comes of course from Portia’s speech in Merchant of Venice in which she tries to convince Shylock that he should not in fact extract his due pound of flesh from her friend Antonio, that the more noble, and, in fact, the more powerful thing to do would be to have mercy. It is a beautiful compassionate Christian speech that can move you in the moment—but it’s also utterly cynical. Portia is playing Shylock for a fool; she and the whole wealthy, spoiled Venetian society that is the 16th-century version of Madison Avenue has treated Shylock with nothing but contempt and made it clear that he is beneath their Christian values. Plus Portia is about to use some clever legal maneuvering to cheat Shylock out of his rightful pound of flesh anyway. Mercy in this case is a power play; it is entirely situational and does not arise naturally from a pure heart.

One thing Mad Men gives us very little of is a pure heart. Megan is as close as it gets this season, but in general, the show’s philosophy seems to be that people who do the right thing do it despite themselves. An act of mercy arises accidentally from the muck of human existence, like a baby aspirin that appears in a room full of monsters. Did Don do the right thing in that meeting with the St. Joseph’s executives? Did he rescue the whole ad campaign by coming up with that bogus heartrending story about how this was Frank Gleason’s last idea? Did he save Ted and Peggy from themselves by making them acknowledge the fact that their mutual mooning is getting in the way of their work? (And do it in a way they will never, ever forget?) Yes, yes, and yes (and yes).

But still, Peggy’s not wrong when she yells at Don that he’s a monster. Don did not need to shame Peggy and Ted like that. It was in fact part of a power play for him, a corollary to getting Sunkist back and once again vanquishing Ted. It was the right thing to do—Peggy and Ted were poisoning the office atmosphere and they seemed totally unaware of it—but it was also totally cynical and cruel. After betraying his old friend Peggy, Don collapses into a fetal position—this time not in an imaginary crib screaming “Wah wah” but on his own couch.

Paul, you ask if Pete is Shylock. I think that’s reversed—in that case it’s Pete who is playing the role of Portia (who in the play gives her speech disguised as a man) and Bob who is Shylock. Shylock is the outsider, the one trying to absorb the values of the ruling class he lives in but who is always in danger of getting smoked out. (The Jews and the gays, together again.) Pete already had one fake magnanimous act earlier in the episode, when he “graciously” agreed to take Kenny Cosgrove’s role on the Chevy account, which he’s been angling for all along. And now with Benson he was again trying to be magnanimous. I have to admit, I could not follow all of Pete’s maneuvers in his speech to Bob Benson. What exactly was he apologizing for? And he’s off limits for … sex? But in the end he wound up doing just what Portia does—neutralizing an enemy and putting him back in his place.

A subtheme in Merchant of Venice is the spoiled rich kids who come out of this culture of greed. In this episode we get or own version of the tainted next generation. Paul, I deeply appreciated your analysis of boarding school mores. I think you’re right, that boarding school provides Sally with a ruling system she can figure out how to navigate. But I take slight issue with your characterization of how she behaved. Did she really call Rollo out on his behavior and call Glen to the rescue? Rollo was a jerk to call her “frigid” but is that the same as trying to “force” her, as she accused him of doing? Or did Sally just knock on Glen’s door because she didn’t want Millicent to win that one, just like her father doesn’t want Ted to win? I tend to side with what Millicent the mean girl told Sally: “You like trouble, don’t you?”

Call your mother and tell her you’re useless,

Hanna

Mad Men, Season 6

Paul Ford — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:15:00 GMT

Hanna, Seth,

The episode kicked off with Kenneth Cosgrove getting shot in the face (and surviving, although we didn’t know it at the time; all around America people thought Oh my God, they killed Kenny). Kenny has featured in a series of increasingly horrifying cameos, culminating in this final defeat. The man hasn’t had much to do recently besides get beat up, get shot, and tap dance. I wonder if his physical battering is supposed to be analogous to the moral battering that the characters keep taking from their jobs and love lives.

After his shooting, Ken quits the Chevy account and hands his workload to Pete. He’s going to be a father. It’s time for compromise and responsibility. This leads to one of the best bits of dialogue all season as the partners try to talk him out of it. “I once had a client cup my wife’s breast,” says Jim Cutler. Roger Sterling: “Lee Garner Jr. made me hold his balls.”

These people are as broken inside as Ken is on the outside. Ted Chaough, on the other hand, is suddenly deeply opposed to compromise; he is courting Peggy (though in denial about doing so) and wants her to do her best work on a campaign for ... children's aspirin. If it’s good enough—and maybe it can be, if the client is willing to spend money—Peggy will win a Clio.

Peggy is surrounded by birth. (A better word might be haunted.) And by Ted. She’s doing an ad for St. Joseph’s children’s aspirin, working with a man for whom she has strong feelings, and her commercial is riffing on, of all things, Rosemary’s Baby.* Under the thinnest pretext she and Ted go see the movie—the choice of a Polanski-directed film will be catnip for the Megan-is-Sharon-Tate conspiracists—and get caught out by Don and Megan. It’s an early viewing; Megan notes that they were hiding. Movies are where Mad Men characters go to hide.

Rosemary’s Baby is about deception, about the vulnerability of women and the predatory, even Satanic nature of the very rich. Which makes it perfect fodder for this show. At the end of the movie Mia Farrow is finally reunited with her child (and Satan’s!) and her maternal instincts take over. A lesser show would probably show Peggy sobbing in the bathroom, but there can be an enormous, sometimes infinite distance between cause and effect on Mad Men. We may be reminded of Peggy’s pregnancy by the interstitial ads that confuse us when we try to fast-forward past the commercials, but it isn’t on anyone else’s mind.

Kenny wanting off of Chevy means that Pete sees a way onto the account. He wants to schmooze in Detroit, but is informed that he’ll be working with Bob Benson, whom Pete is convinced made a pass at him. This sets into motion a confrontation, in which Bob shows some spine. Pete: “So you didn’t profess your love to me?” Bob: “Only my admiration, which is waning quickly.” Although see this excellent breakdown of Bob’s sexuality for a different context.

That confrontation sets off a wave of research into Bob’s past, and we learn very rapidly that Bob, like Don, is a completely invented person, and is in fact a nobody from West Virginia. No blue-blood, he worked in private banking as a personal servant, which is where he picked up his impeccable manners. Hanna, you pointed out that Bob makes a perfect Nick Carraway, but here his story is exactly Jay Gatsby’s—signing up to see the world on Dan Cody’s yacht, and transforming himself from Gatz to Gatsby by pluck and criminality. All that’s missing is the bootlegging. And, of course, the incredible wealth.

For a long, fascinating moment it looked as if Pete and Bob were about to go to war. But Bob buckled—all he asked for was a day to clear out of sight. He’s been caught before. Pete, on the other hand, took a different path. He stepped aside. He said: “I want you to graciously accept my apologies, work alongside me—but not too closely. I’m off-limits. And please, can you find a way to get your friend out of my mother’s life?”

Pete once went to war with Don and lost utterly, but this was a very interesting move because, well, Pete won. Bob was ready to clear out, to vanish. Maybe Pete is growing and realizes he can get along if he doesn’t push away the people who are kind and caring toward him. Or maybe Pete just wants to unleash Bob and see what happens. Or maybe it’s both. Perhaps Bob is Rosemary’s baby.

There’s been a lot of this sort of Bob/Pete detente this season. (Anyone have any thoughts as to the title, “The Quality of Mercy”? Is it about Pete and Bob? Is Pete the Shylock of Mad Men?) Don and Ted agreed to collaborate; Don and Sally found some sort of compromise through a closed door. If you can’t love one another you can agree not to hurt one another. And there’s also an acknowledgement: I see you.

Don may see Ted, to Ted’s discomfort, and he can see Peggy too. But he won’t see Megan. Perhaps it’s his guilt over Sylvia Rosen, but he literally turned her off when she appeared on his television. “I’m talking to you,” said her character. “Don’t you dare ignore me!” Click. Later he ignored her entreaty to come into the bedroom. He’s slipping, getting less and less visible, and she’s gone almost transparent to him. He’s spiking his orange juice. When Betty tells him Sally wants to go to boarding school he just offers to pay, whatever Sally wants.

Of all of them, Sally seems to have her head best on her shoulders. She can’t bear to be with her father after walking in on him. She finds her mother intolerable, with some justification. She needs desperately to be anywhere else, but she isn’t the type to disappear. She doesn’t want to go live in squalor in the East Village. She knows that she’s still a kid. Says as much, even. So she chooses boarding school.

I went to a boarding school—mine was for poor kids, so I didn’t experience the mix of privilege and cynicism that’s on display here. That said, I’ve known people who did go to the fancier schools and it seems the experience has some universal qualities. Boarding school compresses adolescence into its pure, aggressive essence. The hazing, the rituals, the sneaking through windows (we called it “hooking out”)—there’s a society of teenagers separate from any other society. The school functioned in place of parents. Which meant that you were mothered by a bureaucracy. You succeeded by navigating that bureaucracy, routing through the rules, if you could figure out what they were.

I guess in these regards it was a lot like a regular high school, but it was high school at night, too, when your peers would wake up and wander like ghouls. (I have a memory of being awoken after midnight by a housemate who was simply unleashing fire extinguishers in sleeping people’s faces.) Vulnerability was weakness, so you became good at hiding things, both physical and emotional contraband. In that situation “home” became a very fluid concept.

That’s why it rings very true to me that Sally would want this. The idea of home and family for her has become insanely complex, abstract, basically meaningless. Those girls hazing her, bringing her out, testing her—there’s actually an order there, amid all the teen bleakness. Seen one way it looks awful, but situations involving drugs and booze and a sexually aggressive boy are pretty typical to that age, not to mention that era. It’s how you handle it that counts. Sally got drunk but didn’t get high, she shut down Rollo and called him on his behavior, she called Glen to her rescue (does anyone have thoughts on his jacket?), and she impressed the hell out of her temporary roommate. She didn’t get caught, either, which is absolutely critical.

All of these behaviors are valuable in a boarding school, but they’re also valuable at Sterling, Cooper & Partners. Sally may spitefully claim her father never gave her anything, but she is her father’s daughter. Perhaps this is a place where she can thrive.

I like Bob, Chevy likes Bob, and if you don’t like Bob we can find someone who does,

Paul

Correction, June 17, 2013: This article misidentified the company for which Peggy and Ted are creating campaign. It is St. Joseph’s children’s aspirin. (Return.)

Game of Thrones, Season 3

Rachael Larimore — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 19:39:00 GMT

As TV writers and Game of Thrones fans like to point out, Westeros is a terrible place to be a woman. Those from powerful families are married off to horrible boys (or horrible men) to strengthen their families’ alliances. Those from poor families are raped by soldiers rampaging through their village. Or they turn to prostitution, which can be deadly when they sleep with soldiers from the wrong army or, gods help them, cross Littlefinger. Poor Brienne of Tarth can’t get anyone except Renly to take her seriously as a knight. Cersei Lannister is right about the grasping Tyrells, but her father won’t listen.

All of which are valid points. Women are undervalued and treated like pawns or property or burdens. But wait. Projecting our modern, enlightened ideals on a swords-and-dragon drama ignores another important point. It kind of sucks to be a man, too—a fact that was on display all of Season 3 but most visibly (and painfully) in Sunday’s finale.

Not long after the gruesome aftermath of the Red Wedding, wherein we had to watch Robb Stark’s body being paraded around with his direwolf’s head attached, we cut to (uh, sorry) Theon Greyjoy and Ramsay Snow. The crazy bastard son of Roose Bolton has removed Theon’s manhood and strung him back up on that weird crucifix-like torture device. Then he beats him into submission until he gives up his name.

Let’s review: Robb is dead, Theon is maimed and broken (and disowned!), Jaime Lannister has been relieved of his sword hand (and as such all his power). Gendry, whose only crime is being the illegitimate male progeny of Robert Baratheon, is on the run again after a narrow escape from Melisandre. Davos became a knight so his son could have a better life, and now? His son is dead.

It’s pretty brutal out there for men with no connections to kings, too. Tens of thousands have died in this war, and it hasn’t been that many years since other tens of thousands died in Robert’s Rebellion. Even a simple old man with a cart can’t fix his broken axle without getting clocked by the Hound and Arya both.

And honestly, our surviving major female characters are doing all right for now. Dany has three dragons, an army, a new boyfriend, and thousands of admiring followers. Yara is boldly (and compassionately) going after her brother. Arya is a budding assassin. Cersei is miserable, but she’s still the queen regent. Margaery Tyrell is betrothed to Joffrey, but she seems to have made peace with that misfortune. (And this is entirely keeping with George R.R. Martin’s thoughts on feminism.)

Game of Thrones gives us much to ruminate on regarding power, honor, and family. But it also reminds us that whether one is rich or poor, man or woman, honorable or evil, in Westeros life ain’t fair.

Mad Men, Season 6

Seth Stevenson — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 15:52:00 GMT

Hanna, Paul,

You’re right, Hanna, that Don’s admiration for Arnold inspired him to do a mitzvah for the Rosen boy. Have we seen Don bro out like this before? I can’t remember him spending a ton of time with non-work pals in previous seasons. As Ted said: “I bet you don’t have a lot of friends, Don.”

Don does seem in genuine awe of Arnie’s skill and his contribution to humanity. In this season’s first episode, their easy banter and mutual affection struck me as a healthy step forward for Don—a friendship not about career advancement, or one-upmanship, or relentless boozing and womanizing. Alas, we soon discovered that Don is not the sort of buddy you want around. Sure, he’ll get you a free Leica. But he’ll also shtup your wife. That’s what friends are for?

I thought it was telling that Ted constructed his dance metaphor the way he did. He might have said, “What if every time Fred Astaire opened his arms to catch Ginger Rogers, she kicked him in the groin?” Instead, he cast himself in the female role. I suppose, compared to Don and Roger and the other pre-hippie paleo dudes surrounding him, Ted is a bit “feminized.” He’s hyper-aware of the feelings and concerns of his co-workers. He loves his wife and agonizes when he’s tempted to stray. His complete joy upon returning home to a scene of domestic bliss was an emotion alien to, say, Don, who would have dappled it with self-loathing and destructive impulses. As we move into the '70s, Ted is ready for jogging and est. Don is ready for suppressed rage and a triple bypass.

Well folks, two episodes left in Season 6. Place your bets, place your bets. I’m guessing we’ll get some major acting-out from Sally, which I am very much looking forward to. Will she scurry to Glen in her time of need? Smoke dope? Hook up with the Manson clan? Mad Men loves to zero in on the myriad ways our parents eff us up.

You were a sour little boy and now you’re a sour little man,

Seth

Mad Men, Season 6

Hanna Rosin — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 12:00:00 GMT

Paul, Seth:

Maybe this episode was about how we are all prostitutes, a little bit (akin to Kottke’s recent post about how we all commit three felonies a day). We have all complained before about how heavy-handed this season’s prostitution metaphors have been, not to mention the actual hookers. This episode, though, hit similar themes in a more subtle way. Several characters were willing to trade sex for favors in ways that were eminently credible: Don, Sylvia, Peggy, Bob, even Manolo, who trades the illusion of sex for good behavior from Pete’s mother. As you point out, Paul, there are no innocents, not even Sally, who has a gift for choosing best friends who are every mother’s worst nightmare.

Seth, I think you omitted one other important reason why Don does the favor for young Mitchell Rosen: his man-crush on Arnold. Given the way Don fixates on Arnold, I often wonder whether he’s sleeping with Sylvia just to become enmeshed with the good surgeon. Similarly, at their drunken confessional dinner, Peggy accuses Pete of being in love with Ted. Of course, that’s where the episode stopped being subtle. I can’t tell you how irritated I was at the Benson knee press. It’s always such a letdown when a mystery is solved and the answer is … He’s gay, even if Internet rumors have long abounded. How much more satisfying if the answer had been … nothing, as you wished for last week, Paul, and Benson had remained his thoroughly inscrutable shiny self for the whole of the season. Although I suppose we should have guessed it, since the vibe between Bob and Joan was more Elton John and Marilyn Monroe than Don and Sylvia.

Lately I’ve begun to think of the show as operating on two very different planes. One is full of fairytale conflict and Jungian archetypes and Biblical-level dramas. This is the plane on which Don and most of the characters from earlier seasons are trapped. The plot twist that led Sally into her worst Freudian nightmare was straight out of a 17th century play: a purloined letter. (In classic French farce characters are always eavesdropping behind doors and screens.) Meanwhile the original spirit of the show—rooted in a particular moment in American history and moving along with the decade—resides with the newer characters. While Don is sinking deeper into himself, Ted is building a bridge to the modern era. Ted is petty, neurotic, conflicted, effective, and processes his own emotions out loud constantly. (“I don’t want his juice. I want my juice.”) His life is one long employee review session. He can riff as well as Roger, only he doesn’t do it to deflect: “Imagine if every time Ginger Rogers jumped in the air Fred Astaire punched her in the face.”

As a couple, Betty and Henry Francis are frozen in aspic, but Ted and his wife are almost transportable to any modern TV drama, or as the second example in a trend story about the dangers of the opt-out revolution. Ted’s wife does not traffic in Betty-style self-delusion or even Megan-style strained optimism; she just tells it to him straight: “Even when you’re home you’re not here” and “I can feel how disappointing this all is compared to your battles at work.” Tack on a happy ending and those lines could come from Modern Family.

Seth, you asked about the Moshe Dayan poster in Stan’s room. In the late '60s Dayan would have been the Jews’ equivalent of Che, a freedom fighter for a cause which at that point in history many were still rooting for. And yes, the notorious eye patch gives the image extra significance, because this episode is so much about not seeing what you ought to. (Dayan’s ex-wife Ruth did not turn a blind eye. A chapter in her book is called “Moshe’s bad taste in women.”)

As for what Don said, it was surely bad parenting—Sally knows what she saw—but there is something profound about asking a child to collude with you in an obvious lie. (Marjorie Williams addressed this question in her beautiful essay about Santa Claus and dying of cancer.) Contrast Don’s decision to lie with Pete’s to bully his way into what he sees as the truth about his mother and Manolo. Pete refuses to see that “it’s complicated,” as Don tells Sally, so he winds up in a cruel place where he robs his mother of her only comfort, fires Manolo, and sneers at Bob Benson. Sometimes we need our lies—something an ad man understands better than anyone.

Good night, my sweet,

Hanna

Mad Men, Season 6

Paul Ford — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:25:00 GMT

Seth, Hanna,

Sally really has a knack, doesn’t she? First she walks in on Roger Sterling and Megan’s mother last season, and now she stumbles in on her father and Mitchell Rosen’s mother. But that knack runs in the family. Remember young Don Draper earlier in the season, looking through the keyhole at his stepmother and his “Uncle Mac”? The loss of innocence, as Seth discusses, is often as much the consequence of your own actions as much as what happens to you. Quiet, monastic types don’t lose their innocence as quickly as the girls running around breaking and entering with keys cadged from the doorman.

Speaking of, I wonder what happened to Sandy, that girl from the beginning of the season who played violin, and went to live in the East Village? She was disgusted with the world around her, and now Sally may also have equal reason to be disgusted, to run. Although we also know her mother will chase her.

What’s remarkable to me about Don’s situation with Sally, and about this entire season, is that over the last many years the people with the most power and privilege on the show made their very big, adult decisions, and everyone else had to pay for them. Typically the person who pays is the person who can afford it the least. And that process has been breaking down lately, just failing, especially for Roger and Don. (Ted, on the other hand, is getting what he wants: out of the firm, out of Don, and possibly even out of his family.)

And now we have Don back at the doorway (the title of the first episode) whispering, well, advertisements into his daughter’s ears, trying to restructure her reality. Sally is being tested.

Can she understand what her father is asking? I don’t think he is asking her to forget what she’s seen. I think Don is describing a reality that is easier, simpler, better than the ugly reality. Giving her the choice, letting her pay the bill later. This is the awful part of adult life: When we choose, actively, to deceive ourselves. Here she was obsessing over Mitchell, and now she’s got to make a decision as to whether to follow along with her father and act as if nothing happened, or stick to the facts. We’ve seen him beg this season, and plead, and squint, and fall back into the arms of Sylvia. As I’ve watched Don this year I thought he was a man who can’t stop himself, who takes what he can get. But watching him whisper at the door I see a drunken, miserable guy who doesn’t know what he wants. And who, when he tried to do something noble for Mitchell, found himself right back in a sinkhole of moral failure. And who, also, has a bad cough.

I’m worried about Sally.

I’m also worried about Bob Benson, Seth. Thank you for asking. Because at some level he has been treated so cruelly that it would make a regular person disappear into oblivion. His small speech to Pete was one of the most revealing moments for the character:

“Couldn’t it be that if someone took care of you, very good care of you, if this person would do anything for you, if your well-being was his only thought, is it impossible that you might begin to feel something for him? When there’s true love, does it matter who it is?”

I suppose the fact that Bob came on to Pete could be seen as the “reveal” of his secret, but is sex the only driving force of this character? What I saw in particular was that, after his speech above, he is ordered to fire Manolo. Bob’s face changed so suddenly, from soft empathy to one of pure do-goodery, and he said: “Of course.” As he marched out of the office there was, I thought, a look almost of wonder in his eyes, as if to say Did that just happen? Because for all the awkwardness of their knees touching, Pete still needs Bob.

Bob’s naivete is surprising, though. When there’s love, it very much does matter who it is. That’s been one of the themes of the show, back to Don’s early flings and the tragic story of Sal Romano. But it’s also a theme with Don and Sylvia (and many other women); and of Roger with Joan, and Joan with Roger and also Greg Harris. And with Peggy and everyone.

Poor Peggy. She literally can’t give it away. She tells Pete about his mother’s possible fling with her nurse to get the weirdness off her chest, and once again her actions lead to a terrible outcome—Manolo fired, Pete’s mother alone. Peggy can’t get a break, so she gets a cat. Pete is surrounded by people who would do anything for him and yet is left alone eating Raisin Bran, sending Bob out to do his dirty work. It’s a mess.

Also, as Seth asked,what was going on with the Moshe Dyan poster in Stan Rizzo’s bedroom?

The thing that set off so much of the terrible action this episode was Don acting not just selflessly but actively trying to preserve the innocence of a young man: Willing to sacrifice the relationship with General Motors, willing to make an oath to Ted (and Don’s code, for all his failings, will bind him to that), trying everything just to keep this young man, the son of a woman who ditched him, from having to suffer through Vietnam. He tried so damn hard to put something right, to organize the universe, to preserve innocence. And then it all crumbled, everything crumbled, exactly because of his attempt.

My hobby is coming up with names for the XP,

Paul

Game of Thrones, Season 3

Rachael Larimore — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:39:00 GMT

Every week in the Game of Thrones TV Club, Rachael Larimore will IM with a different fan of the show about the goings-on in Westeros and across the Narrow Sea. This week she discusses the finale with Yahoo Sports writer and columnist (and frequent TV Club guest) Jay Busbee.

Rachael Larimore: Well, Jay, another Game of Thrones season is come and gone, and all that’s left is to mop up the blood. After the trauma of the Red Wedding—of which we got one more bitter taste in the finale—the episode featured some lighter moments, some humor, and even—dare I say it?—some hope. What did you think?

Jay Busbee: I thought it was a perfect ending to the season, but I didn't get quite the same sense of hope (Mother of Dragons aside) … this felt, to me, like an episode where several major characters realized the crushing inevitability of fate. If you'll pardon a hack cultural reference, this was like the end of Empire Strikes Back: We knew there wasn't going to be a happy ending to this tale after last week, and as word of the Red Wedding trickles out, the characters are realizing it as well.

Larimore: Well, Gendry has been saved for now, and Jon Snow is back home at Castle Black, and Stannis is on his way to fight the White Walkers, so there is something to look forward to. But yes, for many characters, there was a huge grief hangover. Poor Sansa! She was having what would pass in her world as a lovely day, out for a walk with her husband and finding some common ground. It was a little sad for us viewers, knowing what she was about to learn. But Tyrion and Sansa were very nice together in this scene, no?

Busbee: That might have been the tenderest scene all year, if not all series. Each sees something in the other that they treasure. Tyrion has been looking out for the Starks since he slapped Joffrey in the face back at Winterfell in Season 1. And Sansa has been looking for someone in a position of authority whom she could trust since her father died. It's not anything within shouting distance of a "normal" marriage, but then nothing is in Westeros. Shoot, were it not for the complications of Shae and the fact that Tyrion's family had Sansa's family killed, I'd think these two crazy kids might just work out.

Larimore: But not now! It's too bad, because Tyrion seemed to be bringing Sansa out of her shell a bit. One thing I noticed in this episode was that many characters seemed to be at their utmost selves (well, not Theon). Tyrion was all the great things Tyrion is: wise, charming, funny, drunk. Joffrey was at his most obnoxious, Davos his most noble, and Arya her most vengeful (and most awesome). While we're still talking about the Starks ... those Frey bannermen never saw it coming, did they? Arya has had a hard life since her father died, and she’s been resilient. She has longed for vengeance for her father and others around her who’ve died—we’ve all heard the list of people she wishes to kill that she whispers every night. But this taunting is too much, and her grief is too fresh, and she reacts viciously.

Busbee: I feel like we shouldn't want a little girl to go on a murderous crusade of vengeance, but I'll say it: I'm rooting for her. Valar morghulis, girl. And yes, we did see everyone boiled to their essences in this episode. Everyone except our pal Jaime. I’m interested to see what your thoughts are. He's not the same man as when Cersei last saw him, and not just because he's missing a little something.

Larimore: We get an idea of how humbled he's been by his journey—all of it, from when he realized that Cat just wanted her daughters back, to his friendship with Brienne, to losing his hand—that he can only chuckle when a man in King's Landing treats him like lowborn scum. The old Jaime would have reacted a tad more indignantly. Speaking of Cersei, we actually had a few moments of "sympathetic Cersei" here, like when she tells Tyrion to give Sansa a baby so she can have a small amount of happiness. (Again, we must throw in the caveat that Westeros is a strange, strange place, so that suggestion actually has some logic to it.) And she actually means it! It's always disconcerting to see that side of Cersei, don't you think?

Busbee: To pivot off Tyrion's line about monsters, the most terrifying monsters are the ones who have some shred of humanity about them. Tywin, you know he'll step on your neck without a second thought. Cersei? She does have a tiny bit of kindness in her, or at least understanding of what kindness is. That makes her all the more threatening, because she'll have you off guard at every turn. Even Tyrion is somewhat thrown by her at times, and it's tough to play a player. That's what was disconcerting about much of this episode, the way that several characters, like Ygritte and Melisandre, acted unexpectedly and forced you to reassess them.

Larimore: I can't say I'm a fan of Melisandre, but her scene with Davos was good (though it does remind us that Stannis is really pretty useless. Who needs him?). They both are different examples of something that the series (books and show) does well. Davos reminds us that the most noble characters are rarely noblemen (his title, as he tells Gendry, is a "recent state of affairs"). And magic and religion are handled with such complexity. When you put the honorable and full-of-common-sense Davos in a room with the mysterious Melisandre (is she really powerful, or just power hungry?), sparks fly. And whatever Melisandre is, she's not stupid. Whether the "fire" tells her that the “real war lies to the north,” or whether she realizes it's a way for Stannis to earn the respect and love of the Westeros he would rule, she's shrewd. And so it's worth it to spare Davos, since they want the same thing.

Busbee: It's interesting how those on the fringes of power are often the most compelling. Davos turned in a performance that now will keep me from rolling my eyes every time the story shifts to Stannis. (I'm with you. Robb and Cat buy it and this guy still walks around, grilling leeches and boring everyone around him?) And Varys is one of my absolute favorite characters in the series. You get the sense that his influence runs so much deeper than even we know, that we could have an entire Varys & Littlefinger spin-off series showing how these two keep King's Landing, and by association all the other kingdoms, hopping.

Larimore: (Maybe HBO can do Varys & Littlefinger as a medieveal take on The Odd Couple if it ever happens that the show gets ahead of the books, a common concern of fans.) My eyes roll whenever Shae whines to Tyrion about Sansa. She's been around the Lannisters long enough to see how they work. But I did like her conversation with Varys, where she admitted she cared deeply for Sansa and would kill for her. It gave her some much-needed self-awareness and depth. And it marked another misstep for Varys—he essentially got Ros killed when she confided in him, and now he fails to buy off Shae. No one can bat 1,000, but it makes you wonder if he is slipping. Now, we've talked about Stannis heading for the north, but we haven't talked too much about what's going on up there now. Despite three arrows from the lovely and sad Ygritte, Jon Snow made it back to the Wall. And unbeknownst to him, Bran is making his way north of there. Do you have any predictions for how the brothers will fare?

Busbee: Well, we know for sure now that Jon Snow does indeed know nothing, at least as regards women. As for the brothers … I was happy to see the loops starting to close there, what with Sam meeting Bran. Too much of this season has felt scattered, with very few characters leaving their circles to interact with others. (Seriously, Dany … I know the slaves are happy you're there and all, but any time you feel like joining the main narrative. …) You'd hope that the Stark family has some good tidings coming their way, what few of them are left, but I know enough not to root for anybody in this series.

Larimore: At least you know something, Jay Busbee.

Busbee: I know enough not to turn my back on a woman with an arrow pointed at me, I'll tell ya that. (By the way, my archery rankings: 1. Hawkeye from the Avengers, 2. Ygritte, 3. Merida from Brave, 4. Katniss. We need to have a tournament.)

Larimore: (I would think that Ygritte and Katniss would make formidable foes if they partnered up in a Hunger Games, that is for sure.) Now, since this was the finale: How do you feel about the season? A lot happened, and there were some surprising developments, even for readers of the books who knew the Red Wedding was coming. The relationship between Jaime and Brienne was delightful, as was (somewhat unexpectedly) the journey of Arya and the Hound. It reminds me that, even in a sweeping epic series with 10 or 12 storylines and almost that many locations, that what the show does best is really advance a story by showing two people together, talking, fighting, screwing, or wheeling-dealing.

Busbee: Exactly. You learn who these people are in those quiet moments. Jaime's transformation is the most remarkable, but based on the Kingslayer anecdote, he's always been this guy … we just haven't seen it visible. The Hound is going to be hard-pressed to sell off Arya to the highest bidder. And the Tywin-Joffrey conversations are cringeworthy.

Larimore: What will you remember most? What are you most looking forward to next season?

Busbee: Outside of the Red Wedding, which nobody's ever going to forget, it'll be the Jaime arc for me, especially if he is tempted to return to a life of comfort and privileged brutality. And I want to see how the Lannisters deal with what are apparently two overwhelming threats: the White Walkers and Daenarys and her armada. It appears the Lannisters will not have the upper hand (sorry, Jaime) for the first time all series.

Larimore: No one—northerners, southerners, the highborn, the lowborn, HBO subscribers—will forget the Red Wedding. In many ways, the season was a long march to that series-defining moment. I think that I will remember Arya most fondly. She's gone from a brave little girl wishing people dead to being a killer, and a pretty darn good one. She's a Stark unlike any we have seen before, with her family's sense of honor but her own sense of justice.

Larimore: And now, unlike Joffrey, I will admit that it’s late and I’m tired. I’m off to see if the Grand Maester can rustle up some essence of nightshade.

Busbee: But of course! Until next we gather again, I'll be perfecting my Bowl of Brown recipe.

Larimore: And may you never have to live near the privy pipes.

Mad Men, Season 6

Seth Stevenson — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:20:00 GMT

Hanna, Paul,

We open with a rat in Peggy’s apartment. We close with Don praying Sally won’t rat him out. Peggy solves her problem by getting a new tabby; Don’s problem is a smidge more difficult.

Someone should page Dr. Freud, stat. Sally wandered through that service door with sex on her mind—mainly, some complex thoughts regarding the tight-trousered ass of Mitchell Rosen. She had no idea she’d end up watching her own father “comforting” Mrs. Rosen. Just the thought of his mom having sex drove Pete to wish for death by plane crash. What will the sight of her father in flagrante do to Sally?

As for Don, will this be the moment he faces his demons head on? Comes clean, takes his lumps, bares his soul? If so, he’s made an awful start of it. Sally’s old enough that “I know you think you saw something” isn’t going to sway her. She knows exactly what she saw. Don will need to find a way to buy her silence.

Titled “Favors,” this episode was packed with all manner of salacious quid pro quo-ing. Peggy asks Stan to play exterminator, offering sex in return. Bob offers Pete selfless devotion, Manolo-style—but Bob’s game of footsy (or I guess legsy) suggests he’d like a little something for the effort. And of course Don tries to help Sylvia’s son Mitchell escape Vietnam, which leads to hot gratitude nookie.

It’s not always clear whether people are trying to help their friends or trying to get in their friends’ pants. Or, as Betty says with more resonance than she realizes: “Diplomacy Club is just another excuse to make out.”

Mitchell took a stab at following his own conscience, but he now seems destined to follow George W. Bush into the Air National Guard. (Bush joined in spring 1968.) And his reprieve comes from a rather unlikely source. Don ain’t no senator’s son—though these days he finds himself hobnobbing with the elite—but more important, Mitchell ain’t Don’s son. So why is Don so keen to help the kid?

Don’s efforts began before he’d spoken to Sylvia on the phone. I honestly think Don meant to be a good friend to poor Arnie. Or perhaps this was a roundabout quid pro quo: Don was doing Arnie a favor in return for having shtupped his wife.

We’ll need to wait to discover what sort of fallout will result from Sally’s eyeful. In the meantime, here’s what I’m contemplating this week:

—Paul, as our resident Bob Benson expert, I’m eager to hear your thoughts on this revelation. Bob’s secret is out. Though Bob still isn’t.

Bob does seem surer of himself than Sal Romano ever was. You get the sense he can coolly maneuver in and out of his hidden persona, grinning all the while. (As others have pointed out, Bob shares more with Don than just an alliterative name. Both wear various masks.)

But will Pete play along, pretending nothing ever happened? Will he demand Bob’s resignation in light of this “disgusting” behavior? Or late at night, when Pete’s running low on cereal in his squalid flat, will he wonder what it might be like to have that beaming Benson smile all to himself?

—Hanna, as our resident Israeli, I wonder if you have any thoughts about the Moshe Dayan poster that appeared on the wall of Stan’s bedroom. Is the eyepatch some sort of riff on seeing/not seeing? “I know you thought you saw something”—but please do turn a blind eye to it? A quick Wikipedia peek also suggests that Dayan was a noted philanderer, so there’s that.

—There was a huge new puzzle piece for the Megan/Sharon Tate conspiracy theorists. While discussing the charms of Mitchell Rosen, Sally and her friend compared him to Mark Lindsay—the lead singer from Paul Revere and the Raiders. Ready to be spooked? Lindsay at one point lived in the Los Angeles house where Tate was later murdered.

God can turn off the lights at any moment,

Seth