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'I'll have nightmares': Devils, monsters, tricksters and martyrs in 'Mad Men'

It isn’t until the end when Peggy calls him the word that Rosemary can’t bring herself to say about her newborn son, that Don curls up and seems like neither the Devil nor the baby Jesus but just the same sad kid that he’s always been. More

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By Starlee Kine

On 'Mad Men,' cold comfort and misdirection

What Sally sees in Mitchell's apartment makes her understand what it feels like to really lose your home. The apartment Peggy didn't even want is stained with blood. Where is Bob Benson when you need him? More

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By Starlee Kine

On 'Mad Men,' hysterical deafness in the canyons of L.A. and Manhattan

In California the women know how to listen but can't speak. They're kept in cages on the Sunset Strip. In New York, where they're three hours ahead, Joan folds her son's laundry with her back turned until finally the clamor of the present grows too loud to ignore. More

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By Starlee Kine

The many sons of 'Mad Men'

Father Abraham was the alter ego of the Dutch musician Pierre Kartner. He wore a fake look—in his case a beard—until a real one replaced it, as will one day be the case with January Jones and all the rest of us too. The biblical Abraham's first son was born from his handmaid, because his wife was too old. Don and Megan, who just plays a maid on TV, have no children but he and Betty conceived Sally while vacationing at a summer camp. They were married a long time and had this whole life that didn't just involve his sneaking out to go to beat poetry slams or her discovering his false identity. They took trips together. He knew her parents. Two halves of the same person together produced two more. More

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By Starlee Kine

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

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By Starlee Kine

'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

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By Starlee Kine

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

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By Starlee Kine

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.

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By Starlee Kine

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

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By Starlee Kine

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

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By Starlee Kine