Mad Men Season 5, Episode 11: “The Other Woman”

Peggy had to leave. That’s the only thing she could do after Don treated her like trash yet again, this time by throwing money in her face. Don’s behavior is all the more egregious this time, because Peggy actually deserves high praise for saving the Chevalier Blanc campaign by spinning a revision of it out of thin air. Peggy has never deserved the degree of lambasting to which Don routinely subjected her, but this time, Don completely misreads her behavior – she seems to question Don’s giving this account back to Michael partly because she wants the account, but also because she is genuinely confused over her responsibilities during the run up to the Jaguar pitch (although there is a degree of petulance in her voice when she questions Don’s decision). Don’s behavior here is a watershed moment for Peggy and for viewers. Peggy and Don have had many breakthroughs in their relationship both this season and last: she and Don have become closer, and Peggy has acquired more and more responsibility at SCDP. Yet Don still lashes out at her when he’s having difficulty with unrelated matters (Jaguar, Megan), and it’s made all the worse this time for happening in front of others, rather than in private. We’ve seen it in bits and pieces all season, most memorably when she stands up to Don for blaming her when Megan leaves SCDP, but the changes in both Peggy’s personal and professional life have done wonders for her self-esteem, and we see it again in the aftermath of Don’s latest abuse. Rather than reducing her to the verge of tears, Don’s berating frustrates and angers her. Crying would have indicated that Don made her feel bad about herself (as he has in the past), whereas anger indicates instead that she’s simply fed up with Don’s abuse. Don’s behavior really leaves her no recourse but to leave if she is to continue to value herself as highly as she has these past two seasons. All she needed was a little push from Freddie Rumsen to make her realize it.

Mad Men, Season 5, Episode 10: "Christmas Waltz"

I had been idly wondering whatever happened to Paul Kinsey after the end of season 3, when the senior partners formed the new agency but didn’t invite Paul to join them. This week’s episode answered this question quite thoroughly, and once again demonstrated the way characters on this show change, but also how they stay the same. Paul’s a Hare Krishna. Certainly his appearance has changed, as has his belief system and occupation. But in other ways, he’s still the same Paul: insecure, pretentious, envious, and somewhat delusional (or at the very least, a terrible judge of his own abilities and the character of others). As with Don and Roger this season, perhaps Paul’s biggest change in character is his greater self-awareness, which we see repeatedly throughout the episode. He points out to Harry that when the two knew each other better, Paul was very insecure, and he seems to understand the envy he feels when Harry tells him that he had a vision while chanting earlier, and he even admits to Harry that he struggles with the basic tenets of his new religion (particularly emptying his mind during chanting). This last item is not something the old Paul would readily be willing to admit. At the same time, however, he still has these same feelings, just as he did before he became a Hare Krishna, and still suffers from the same inability to estimate his own capabilities, as we surmise from the description we hear of his rather unsubtle Star Trek spec script. Even greater self-awareness hasn’t helped Paul here. His futile struggle to escape from himself brings to my mind the phrase, “Wherever you go, there you are.”

Community Season 3, Episodes 20-22

The first of last night's episodes, "Digital Estate Planning" is exemplary of one of the reasons I love this show: there is no other comedy on television that so thoroughly and successfully reinvents itself from week to week. Last season it seemed as if Dan Harmon was trying his hand at every genre he’d ever wanted to write and produce (horror, western, fantasy, science fiction, conspiracy thriller, documentary, drama, not to mention the parodying of television staples like clip shows, bottle episodes, and Christmas specials), and we got a bit of that again this week, when he turned his show into a video game (there have been other instances this season as well: musicals, Ken Burns documentaries, and forking plot narratives, to name a few). The episode finds the study group playing a 16-but era video game for Pierce’s inheritance, and it’s both a funny homage to video games and another opportunity for the show to display its excellent grasp of its characters. One of my favorite gags is exemplary: Troy’s jumping animation is a somersault, while the others just have a normal jump, and he uses it far more frequently than the others. His avatar can hardly sit still; he even jumps around as other characters stand and talk with one another, which demonstrates his excitement over not only getting to play a game, but getting to play as himself. This is a joke that stems from the nature of his character, and it simultaneously makes excellent use of this particular episode’s premise. In many ways, Troy can be very child-like, so of course he’ll play a game in a relatively child-like manner. The episode is chalk-full of these kinds of character-based jokes that also take advantage of the video game premise. The show routinely excels at this particular brand of comedy: no matter the particular hat it’s wearing in any given episode, it manages to be both aware of television and movie tropes and to embrace them at the same time. Often it seems as though each episode is an answer to the question: “How would these characters behave if they found themselves in an X show?” where X is the genre or convention of the week. Very rarely do I find the answer to this question unimpressive. My only complaint is that the last three episodes never acknowledged Jeff and Annie’s promise to sleep together in the musical number of the season premiere. Thankfully, there will be another season to resolve this and other character developments.

Other thoughts:
- I was happy to see the return of Evil Abed in the season finale. Harmon once said he wanted to take Abed in a darker direction this season, and he certainly accomplished this by emphasizing the ways in which Abed's limitations strained his relationships in the study group (especially in his fight with Troy), but it was also amusing to see Abed literally become evil, and what he thought this entailed. It was also a nice touch that after her traumatic therapy session with Evil Abed, Britta told Annie that she was thinking of dying her hair. This is precisely what Britta did in the actual darkest timeline from "Remedial Chaos Theory": she dyed a blue streak in her hair.

- Chang's been taken to a pretty broad place at this point. I wonder if he'll stay this way next year or if he'll be reeled back in somewhat.

- I also wonder if they'll take Britta and Troy any further than goofy grins and affectionate hugs. The show has never seemed terribly comfortable dealing with potential romantic relationships between its regulars, but I would be interested to see how either of them behave with a more long term romantic partner.

- Donald Glover's offhanded delivery of Troy's line about being the AC school's messiah was hilarious.

- I also enjoyed Annie and Shirley's accidental murder spree in the blacksmith shop. We've seen Annie transform into strange versions of herself over the course of the show's run, given the right circumstances (a security guard in season one, a tough as nails heroine in the first part of the season two finale, a crazed assistant to a mad director in the Apocalypse Now homage from this season, etc.), so it was funny to see it happen again, but unintentionally.

- On the whole, I found season 2 to have a greater quantity of outstanding episodes, but this season certainly had its moments as well. To my mind, the ones that compare most favorably include "Remedial Chaos Theory," (the forking plot episode) "Pillows and Blankets," (the Ken Burns episode) "Virtual Systems Analysis," (Annie and Abed in the dreamatorium) "Basic Lupine Urology" (the Law and Order episode), and "Contemporary Impressionists" for Britta's Michael Jackson alone. Others had their moments, however (the Britta-Chang rivalry in "Geography and Global Conflict" was pretty hilarious, as was Britta's brief romance with Subway in "Digital Exploration of Interior Design." Britta was on fire all season, really).

UPDATE: it looks like others out there agree that the video game was supposed to be 8-bit, rather than 16-bit, although it looked more 16-bit to me. Also, Sepinwall points out that Annie sort of got over her crush on Jeff in the dreamatorium episode. Maybe I'm just a shipper.

Mad Men Season 5, Episode 9: "Dark Shadows"

 

This episode begins to reap dramatic spoils from seeds sown earlier in the season, specifically regarding Michael’s employ at SCDP, although it manages to do so in a characteristically unexpected way. We’ve seen his talent manifest over the course of previous episodes (his Topaz pitches were particularly inspired, while last week saw him succeeding with his idea for Chevalier Blanc), and it was not a far stretch to anticipate his becoming a creative rival for Peggy (more on that later). However, this episode pits him not against Peggy, but against Don. We see this develop throughout the episode, first as Michael expresses mildly condescending surprise that Don could come up with an idea as good as the devil campaign after going for so long without writing. Later, both Michael and Don thank Ken simultaneously for Ken’s compliments on their work in the conference room scene – Don’s thanks sounds perfunctory, whereas Michael makes his thanks sound overly gratified, as if in relief for the recognition Don didn’t give him (and Don is rather annoyed in his glance at Michael after they both thank Ken). And of course, there’s also the uncomfortable scene in the elevator, where Michael confronts Don over not giving the client a chance to hear both pitches. While it’s not completely unexpected for Michael to be as good as Don – there are many talented people in advertising – what is surprising is that Don feels just a little bit threatened by him. Don has always been a pragmatist when it comes to selling clients ideas, so it might be true that approaching Snoball with two campaigns could have been perceived as a sign of weakness, but the show made it pretty clear that his decision came from a place of insecurity over Michael’s talent, rather than one of confidence in his own idea.

Mad Men Season 5, Episode 8: “Lady Lazarus”

With "Lady Lazarus," Mad Men finally intersects with one of the major cultural touchstones of the 1960s: The Beatles. When Megan handed Don a copy of Revolver as an example of what’s going on “out there,” in American/youth culture, my initial exclamation and excitement over the show acquiring the rights to a Beatles song was quickly followed by guesses as to which song they acquired. The first song I happened to think of was “Elanor Rigby,” but I quickly decided it was inappropriate. Reflecting on the events of the episode, my next guess was (in my opinion) the most haunting song on the album, “For No One.” I thought it would fit somewhat nicely, as the song essentially describes the days immediately before (or after) the dissolution of a romantic relationship. Megan and Don are not there (yet), and it would have been a bit excessive considered in relation to Pete’s story this episode, but it could still fit, since it is possible to construe this episode as the beginning of the end for Don and Megan. However, “Tomorrow Never Knows” works much better both for this episode, and for Mad Men as a whole. Part of the show’s overall appeal lies in its unpredictability, which is definitely analogous to “Tomorrow Never Knows,” both in terms of the song’s deviation from the standard Beatles sound, and in terms of John Lennon suggesting we “surrender to the void.”

The Avengers

I also watch movies every now and then. I saw The Avengers yesterday, and had enough thoughts about the film that I decided to put some of them on paper. Overall, although it starts slow, the film’s action set-pieces more than makes up for its initial clunkiness, as do the ever-present Whedonesque touches of cleverness and humor, almost always stemming from the various characters’ personalities and the way in which they engage with one another.

Let’s get the bad out of the way first. The first 45 minutes or so are somewhat lumbering, which can be partially blamed on the film’s needing to pick up where all of the major characters’ solo features left off. However, not all of the blame can be placed at the feet of the film’s position in regard to its predecessors. The film’s very first narrative material concerns a deal made between Loki and the (evil) forces dictating the terms of his return to Earth, but it is rushed, and strangely withholds Loki’s identity, a needless restriction since Loki appears just a few minutes later in the film’s next scene. Additionally, much of the action at the soon-to-be-destroyed S.H.E.I.L.D. base is overly concerned with the film’s MacGuffin, a cube of energy called the Tesseract.

While he is menacing, Loki is somewhat of a strange choice for a villain (if one partially determined by the preceding films); despite Whedon’s bona fides concerning supernatural forces, Loki does not connect well to the kind of personal conflict at which Whedon excels, and which gives much of the Marvel universe its tremendous appeal. Marvel heroes have superhero-level problems, of course, but unlike the characters in many DC comics, they also often remain grounded in the problems of everyday life, or are often analogues for how people can feel at different times in their lives (the X-Men and teenagehood, for instance), which is a part of what makes Marvel characters so appealing. The first two Spider-Man films are exemplary; they did a wonderful job of relating the threats represented by their respective super villains to Peter Parker’s struggles as a person and a hero. Aside from some humorous parallels between Tony Stark and Loki, and the familial tension between Loki and Thor, much of that sort of connection between Loki and the heroes is missing from The Avengers. To certain extent, this is somewhat inevitable, given that the Avengers consists of a group of otherwise unrelated heroes who assemble only to take on threats bigger than any single one of them could handle alone, and it is admirable that the film is able to make it personal for as many of them as it does. Nonetheless, for many of the film’s characters, it does not feel like much is at stake in Loki’s particular threat aside from the routine need for good to triumph over evil; any other interpersonal conflicts the film explores (and thankfully, there are many) merely seem to be happenstance. While Loki occasionally has the opportunity to display his particular brand of maliciousness (trickery), his grasp of human psychology seems tenuous at best. His gibberish about humans being made for subjugation is particularly void of merit; super villains are often more compelling when there’s something substantive at the core of the beliefs that motivate them to their heinous acts. However, that’s the last of anything even mildly negative about the film.

Much of what makes the film work so well is the mileage Whedon is able to get out of interpersonal conflict amongst the Avengers themselves, and the friction generated when so many powerful and well-developed characters are put into a room together (a staple of any Marvel super team). In addition to Loki, each of the characters faces more personal struggles stemming from their pasts, their personalities, or their powers. Whdeon seems to have had the most fun writing for Iron Man and Hulk. Tony Stark is the closest equivalent the film has to a quipster (a stock Whedon character), whereas Hulk nicely serves many different dramatic functions (and gets nearly all of the film’s biggest laughs). More than any of the others, Bruce Banner is tortured by his “superpower,” which in itself provides good dramatic material, as does the unease it creates in his allies. As the strongest and wildest character in the Marvel universe, the other characters are rightly afraid of the potential for the Hulk to become unleashed in a contained space, and the film’s lengthy middle, aboard a flying S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft carrier, gains much of its gravitas from the possibility of Banner losing control and Hulking out. This gravitas is paid off nicely when Banner does indeed transform, with only a terrified Black Widow around to serve as the focus for his rage. This is a particularly smart choice; she is the least super-powered of the group, relying on martial artistry, subterfuge, and psychological manipulation to achieve her ends (we see this repeatedly in her interrogation methods), so she has no other recourse but to flee in terror when confronted with an unstoppable, unreasonable, irrational force (and her terror is very well-played by Scar Jo, who shakes visibly after nearly getting destroyed).

The climactic battle is particularly masterful, pitting the Avengers against an invading army of aliens flowing through a wormhole into the streets and skies of New York. It is worth a detailed discussion, as it is one of the best team-oriented superhero action scenes I’ve seen – much better than anything on offer in the X-Men films, for example. Whedon is able to clearly convey how the team works as a cohesive unit both stylistically and narratively. Captain America serves an important function in this regard. As the battle commences, he takes charge, and dictates to the audience as much as to the other members of the Avengers what role of each of them will play in the following fracas, making the action much more comprehensible, both by making it easy to understand where certain actions are taking place in relation to one another, as well as why the film’s six heroes are able to corral an invading army of soldiers on hover-chariots and giant, flying, armored space worms. Once we know where each of the heroes will be, and what they will be doing, crosscutting back and forth between them is not confusing, nor is the way in which they communicate with each other (although the cohesiveness of the heroes’ plans does not make the invaders’ plan of attack any clearer, beyond “destroy cars and create fireballs”). Additionally, Captain America’s orders have the added bonus of clearly delineating the strengths of each of the superheroes, which in turn further supports the clarity of subsequent action.

Iron Man, the swiftest and most mobile of the bunch, is on perimeter duty, and it’s his job to prevent any enemies he faces from escaping a three-block radius. Thor is charged (nyuk nyuk) with using his command of lightning to bottleneck the wormhole that’s transporting the invaders to New York. Hawkeye is perhaps the most crucial of the bunch, as he takes the high ground and serves as a watchtower, picking off the occasional foe, but mostly alerting the other heroes (and viewers) of the status and whereabouts of clusters of invaders, civilians, and each of the heroes whereabouts in relation to one another. He’s largely the reason that the battle does not become illegible and incredulous – the heroes know where to go and what to do because of his vantage point, and he enables viewers to piece together individual skirmishes into a larger picture of the overall conflict. Black Widow and Captain America hold the center, duking it out with whatever invaders get past Thor, although Black Widow soon takes it upon herself to close the wormhole. And in a funny line, Captain America gives Hulk the only order he can really follow: “Smash.” Effectively, the Hulk functions as a wildcard, running amok throughout the battle, taking out both the human-sized invaders and the giant space worms, and in an extremely crowd-pleasing moment, even giving Loki a brutal thrashing.* Later, he is joined in his rampage by Thor.

However, this battle's impact is not derived solely from our understanding of the role each of these heroes serves; its grace also derives from film style. There are many shots in which we observe one hero battling the invaders, and though camera movement or the use of different spatial planes, another hero enters the frame, either battling their own set of enemies or supporting another hero who is about to be overwhelmed. The most visceral of such shots are those in which the battle is on the move through the air, weaving in, out, and around the buildings of New York. Three of the six characters can more or less fly (Iron Man is a rocket, while Thor and Hulk can leap tall buildings in a single bound, and Black Widow eventually steals a hover-chariot), creating the opportunity for shots in which Hulk or Thor are battling atop the back of a giant space-worm in the middle ground, and where Iron Man swoops into the frame in the foreground, shooting down hover-chariots in pursuit of Black Widow. Combined, all of these factors – our cognizance of the location and role of the heroes, their ability to communicate with and support one another, and the film’s graceful maneuverings between various segments of the action – do an excellent job of conveying the epic scale and scope of this confrontation, and the need for so many heroes of such high caliber to work together to stop it. This battle effective conveys what the Avengers were always meant to do in the comics – meet the challenges any of them would not be able to face alone in their solo titles, while also simultaneously overcoming their own personal shortcomings. As such, it’s a worthy adaptation that far exceeds the quality of any of these heroes’ individual feature films thus far. 

*The film is careful to demonstrate that the Hulk is triggered both by making Banner angry, but also as a sort of autonomic defense system – Banner will transform whenever he is placed in life-threatening situations, even ones of his own devising. However, to put on my nerd glasses for a moment, the film could have been a little clearer in explaining the degree of control to which the Hulk can be subjected. My (somewhat layman) understanding is that he’s like an overpowered toddler: you can give him suggestions and hope the he listens to them (relatively easy to do when his only instruction is to smash things), but that he can also have tantrums and focus his rage on whatever is closest at hand. The former describes the last scene of the film when, he is given free rein to smash, while the latter describes the middle section, where Banner is attacked on board the airship and loses control, and where only Black Widow has the misfortune of being nearby when it happens (fortunately for her, this film also has Thor).

Mad Men, Season 5, Episode 7: “At the Codfish Ball”

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