Last night’s episode of Mad Men (Episode 506, entitled “Far Away Places”) was exceptionally bizarre and merits BWEscussion, but since Michelle isn’t here anymore, and because I only have so much RECAP MARROW I can give, let’s discuss last night’s trippy events in an Open Thread, since we really enjoy everyone’s comments on the Walking Dead & Game Of Thrones Recaps.
We’ve got three plotlines occurring simultaneously but playing out in succession, in a sort of “Run Mad Men Run” experimental format (Matthew Weiner says in the AMC “Inside The Episode” that the structure was modeled after a Max Ophüls anthologized French film, but “Run Mad Men Run” is fun to say). We’ve got:
Plot 1: Peggy flips out during her Heinz presentation (I like that the Heinz guy was instantly offended; on a lesser show, he would’ve pulled the “I have never in my life been so…IMPRESSED!!!! Here’s $9 billion ketchup buckz!!!”), then she gets high and gives a stranger a handjob, in a scene right out of the 60s anti-weed educational film “The Grass Isn’t Groovier On The Other DIED.”
Plot 2: Roger and Jane experiment with LSD, revealing Roger’s ultimate truth: That his relationship with Jane is over, and that he constantly wishes for Don to be behind him in the mirror at all times. Time for Roger and Joanie to finally start a functional relationship? DEAR LORD.
Plot 3: Don semi-forces Megan to accompany him upstate to the flagship Howard Johnson’s, leading to the most passive-aggressive sherbet-eating scene in television history. After Megan’s squeals of fake-delight, a nearby woman goes “I’ll have the sherbet she’s having” and the camera zooms in on a young Rob Reiner rubbing his chin.
So, Mad Men Episode 506 thoughts? Favorite / least favorite parts? Reactions to Peggy’s promiscuity and Don’s recurring dysfunctionality, or desires to drop LSD with Roger Sterling? Predictions for the rest of the season? Leave ‘em in the comments.
Monday
Commentary: HBO’s Girls Is Not A Show About Velociraptors
Every website on the internet has posted some sort of detailed reaction to the new HBO series Girls – I just finished reading the ones on Askjeeves.com, Whitehouse.gov, The Will & Grace Fanfic Geocities site, and the Wikipedia page for “Charlemagne” – and I had originally planned to write my own, but foolishly, I decided to wait until more than one episode of the series aired before launching into a lengthy, passionate diatribe about the show’s cultural implications.
After the second episode aired, I was preparing to gather my thoughts into an unnecessarily verbose piece about the thirty-minute comedy, but unfortunately, every conceivable argument that anyone could possibly make about the show has already been taken: Girls is a refreshingly honest triumph, Girls is a glorified paean to privilege, Girls is a gender breakthrough, Girls patronizes the gender, the gender is irrelevant to Girls, Girls proves that girls are just as funny and gross as guys, any arguments that Girls “proves” anything about the funnyness of girls is a patronizing implicit endorsement of the “girls aren’t funny” archetype, backlash towards Girls, backlash towards the backlash of Girls, frontlash towards the backlash of Girls, sidewayslash to the frontlash of Girls that doesn’t endorse the backlash towards the backlash-lash, and so on, including the numerous lengthy, phenomenally well-written passionate pieces arguing that the mere existence of all these lengthy passionate pieces about Girls misses the point entirely.
After scouring the internet nonstop for the past week, I’ve confirmed that there is only one argument in the entire English language that hasn’t been made yet about the show Girls, so it’s the only argument I’m left with to make here:
Here are three incontrovertible reasons why the show Girls is not actually a show about velociraptors – please feel free to argue away in the comments, and don’t forget to Facebook and Tweet this post so we can continue arguing about this thirty-minute HBO comedy that’s aired for two episodes:
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