I have a hard time when television shows throw in a death to serve as the episode’s conflict. On a show like Lost — before it got horrible — death served to keep the show honest: you couldn’t be terrified of the island as a viewer without the consequences feeling real for the characters. (That, incidentally, is Read More
I understand there’s been some talk about Betty ’round these parts before. Let me just go on the record as saying that I find Betty Draper to be a terrible human being and an utterly compelling character. Her character was in classic form yesterday. But we’ll get to that.
The story lines of rejection this week are two-fold. The first describes Pete Campbell’s inability to reject his father-in-law’s business, partly because he worked really hard to get the account and partly because his wife’s dad ruins her surprise that she’s pregnant. But that’s a minor hitch soon overcome, Pete uses it to leverage even Read More
Last year, G.D. and I disagreed on how the Drapers judged the quality of their marriage. He called it objectively bad and thought both viewed getting out as a blessing. But I thought the Drapers, or at least Don, wouldn’t necessarily have thought of marriage in the same way we would today. For Don, marriage Read More
(x-posted @ my blog) Don Draper has to beat women off with a stick – both on screen and off. Message boards are full of women swooning over the Mad Men protagonist despite his character being emotionally unavailable, unfaithful and secretive. Even feminists. You heard right. Feminists. The women in question offer fairly standard responses. Read More
On a whim about a month ago, I started watching AMC’s Mad Men on iTunes. It’s not TheGreatestShowEverOMGWhyAren’tYouWatchingThis like another show I could mention, but it’s pretty damn fun. The suits are dope,* the acting is first-rate and Peggy Olson is one of the best female characters a TV drama has produced. We should probably Read More
