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Don Draper and the thief of time
“I’m here to make you feel better,” says Frank Gleason’s sexpot daughter, after her dad’s funeral. It could’ve happened earlier that day or three years before, there’s no way to tell the time when a woman claiming to be your mother has stolen all your watches. More
(1)'Mad Men,' in a dark wood
Have you heard the tale of the guy who offered his seat to his secretary and upset the balance of the world? He was lured into drinking too much and passed out at his desk. When he awoke, men were scrambling to turn time back, not forward. More
On Don Draper's unlucky star, and what becomes of the broken-hearted
It’s Don’s third attempt to convince us that what we don’t see is more important than what we do. First he didn’t want to show us luxury hotels, then ketchup and now cars. A picture of the American dream is beginning to emerge, composed of empty space. The same man who asked his doorman what death looked like is trying to sell us on the excitement of the unknown: “People’s faces, all kinds, teenagers, dads, moms, different expressions of wonder. What could this possibly be?” More
Don Draper in the World of Tiers
It never occurs to Charlton Heston that the planet on which he is now imprisoned is the same one where he was once free.
(2)Matthew Weiner: 'Mad Men' has to end, because people try too hard to 'perceive the machinery'
Moderator Caryn James asked the question early on in the night, directing it at Weiner, “Tell us about Betty’s transformation, physical and internal. Why did you put on that weight for her?” Weiner responded matter-of-factly, “Well, it was a creative solution to a real-life problem, that January was pregnant—and everything worked out great, she has a baby [laughs]—and we had to start shooting, so I had the choice between doing the laundry basket thing or really trying to deal with it, not trying to hide it.” So, an accident of the filming process? Not quite. More
Don Draper, the Hollow Man
The fake scene ends and Don gets in a fight with Megan for pretending to have sex for money. Then it's off to his mistress' house, where he pays for real sex with a penny. More
The attrition warfare of 'Mad Men'
On the evening of Jan. 30th, 1968, 200 US officers attended a pool party in Saigon, not one of them aware that the city would be attacked in a few hours. Trudy gets invited to a pool party too, unaware that her husband is peddling hot dogs in the foyer nearby. He holds up two coats for two women. It seems like either one will fit. After Trudy finds out about Pete’s affair, he asks her if she wants a divorce. “I refuse to be a failure,” she tells him, not understanding that sometimes continuing to fight can make you seem like a much bigger loser. More
Donald Draper might just be the devil
"How much time do you have left?" Don asks, referring to one type of struggle but getting an answer about another. "Four hours" says Dinkins. He asks if Don will give him away because he feels weird about one of the hotel employees pretending to be her dad. "They look just like the enemy," he tells Don before asking whether Don noticed that heaven and hell are the same place. More
Breaking Bad, the final season: Men without pants
He’s become “king of all wild things” but now he’s feeling lonely and homesick for his own bedroom and a hot homemade supper made with love instead of nuked into existence in the same amount of time it takes for him to commit mass murder. More
(1)Breaking Bad, the final season: Twos and threes
The show has to keep making Walter worse and worse, until every last one of us wants him dead while continuing to (presumably) keep him alive for another nine episodes in a way that feels solid and true to the plot and not in any way artificial. Because the minute we sense that they’re sparing his life for just the sake of the timeline, this delicate puzzle we’ve been assembling will collapse. More
(3)Breaking Bad, the final season: Look who's coming to dinner
In season 1, Walt meets up with his ex for a nice lunch that ends not all that differently from the dinner with Skyler in this episode. He’s full of spite even though she reminds him that he was the one who left her. I’ve always held that scene up as one of the most disturbing in the whole show, since it showed us that Walt was a monster, or at least had monstrous tendencies, way before the cancer struck. More
(5)'Breaking Bad,' the final season: The long game
Part of the game of "Breaking Bad" is remembering that we are playing too. Last week, I watched Lydia fumble with the fuse box, as though she were being confronted with it for the first time; and yet I still found myself halfheartedly filling in my own explanation instead of accepting that the show was telling me something. We the viewers were shown a moment in time that the other characters weren’t, and that never happens by accident. More
(1)'Breaking Bad,' the final season: A watching brief
Once again, into the pool drops wreckage caused by Walt’s deeds. This time it’s Skyler who is falling. Now she is the one doing the scheming. But even though it’s all part of her plan to get the children out of the house, didn’t her face look serene when she was floating under the water? More
(5)Breaking Bad, the final season: What Walter White wants
To figure out how much of the puzzle is left to complete, we need to first understand the goal. Just what is it that will make everyone whole? More
'Breaking Bad,' the final season: The wizard of ABQ
Each Monday, Starlee Kine writes about the previous night's episode of "Breaking Bad." This is the first installment. More
