Mad Men Season 5, Episode 13: “The Phantom”

For Don, this whole season has been about the changed man he has become after his marriage to Megan, but it ends with a question about how much he’s actually changed, and a strong implication that it’s less than the we might hope. However, before getting to the fantastic scene that concludes this season, let’s back up and think about how this episode leads up to that point.

Mad Men Season 5, Episode 12: “Commissions and Fees”

Matt Weiner has said that the theme of this season is “everyone for themselves.” Again and again, through nearly all of the big and many of the small developments this season, we’ve seen this theme manifest in the mindset and behavior of the characters: Don’s hedonistic “love leave” comes at the expense of SCDP; Megan quits her advertising career to focus on her acting dream; Peggy leaves SCDP to advance her career; Joan prostitutes herself for a partnership; Michael and Peggy each bilk Roger for under-the-table work he throws their way; Don leaves Michael’s Snoball pitch in the cab, and so on and so forth. Lane’s embezzlement of company money to pay his taxes is yet another prime example, and in “Commissions and Fees,” we finally see some of the saddest consequences of this mindset. In the payoff to what other critics have described as an excessive amount of foreshadowing of something tragic befalling one of the SCDP partners, Lane hangs himself rather than deal with the shame of being fired by Don once Don discovers what Lane has done.*

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.”