I've had one of these moments at least once every season. Yes, Joan is a goddess and the Betty Draper/Grace Kelly analogies are kind of apt, but my Mad Men watching heart will always belong to Ms. Olson.
Anyway, I was more than a little in love with the latest episode, for the way it handled Peggy's story, made me realize I've actually missed Pete -- I loved how fatherhood spurred him into action -- and then managed to tie all the plot threads together.
Favorite moments: Peggy peeking over the office wall at Don after Alison quits; Lane giving Pete a snarky response after "I'm going to be a father," then rethinking it and genuinely congratulating him (most other shows would've ended on a caustic line); and as always, Roger Sterling, talking to Lee at Lucky Strikes after new tobacco regulations forbid them from showing athletes with cigarettes, and how they can get around it: "Bowling's a sport...how about horse racing?...Lee, the jockey smokes the cigarette."
Least favorite moment: This was a very strong episode, but I could've done without the shot of Peggy and her new bohemian friends literally walking away from the assembled suits. It was a little on the nose, and was saved from being even more obvious by the decision to close not on that moment, but on Don returning home to his apartment and the "Didja get the pears?" couple. Nice work, by the way, by John Slattery (Mr. Sterling himself), who directed this episode, the first cast member to do so.
***
After last week's episode, I joked to my girlfriend that True Blood could retitle itself "Blood and Fornication." (OK, I may have used a slightly different word.)
This week had far more of the former than the latter, but frankly, I'm only watching the show for the non-Bill Compton vampires at this point. Eric, Pam, Jessica, Nan Flanagan and -- especially -- Russell* are all fascinating, and any time we leave them to spend with, say, Arlene or Jason or Sam and his snot-nosed brother, the show just gets stuck in a swamp.
*I'll confess I had no clue who Denis O'Hare was before this summer, until he blew me away as Russell, True Blood's best villain so far. If you're a Stephen King fan, it's worth tracking down the audio book of Just After Sunset, where O'Hare is one of the narrators on "N," a truly frightening short story.
But this week, any boredom I felt watching the human characters was washed away with that amazing, completely insane final scene. Why couldn't this show just have been about the vampires in the first place?
Tom Coombe
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