(Mild spoilers.) Ginsburg has never been a real character, so I guess they felt they could dump some excess metaphorical freight on him and push him out to sea. Nothing about his scenes rang true on any level -- even the great Elisabeth Moss didn't seem to know what kind of relationship she was supposed to have with him -- and it left me wondering: Why was he ever here? Maybe just to signify the infusion of nervy Jews on Madison Avenue (why not someone more like George Lois, then*? That would have livened things up), or merely to be wasted, so his psychotic break could be a harbinger of some end-of-60s bad craziness to come.
Unlike some watchers, I wasn't worried about Laurel Canyon in this regard. The SoCal sybaritism Megan's gotten into is as vapid as any of other supposed fun scenes, from Greenwich Village to poolside L.A., that Mad Men likes to sneer at from time to time, as if to say, see, they think they're better but they're not; besides, to tell the truth if Tex and the gang came helter-skeltering in I don't think I'd feel much loss. And I don't think Don would either. I have never, never understood that relationship except on the most banal Freudian level, and it never made less sense than when Megan was pushing him into a three-way and Don was looking at the two chicks with astonishment, as if they were Cosgrove tap-dancing on speed. By the next day maybe Megan thought so too. But why is that a big deal for her? Come to think of it, why is she here, either?
The most interesting person in the episode was Lou. I didn't realize Allan Havey, who plays Lou, had a comedy career, but it figures: Actors like to play villains, and the more ee-vil the better, but they don't generally like to play pricks and schmucks; Lou is both, and Havey applies a comic's malignant brio to him. His fit over the mockery his stupid cartoon engendered -- a hundred times better than Underdog! -- had some good sour stomach acid in it, which was a relief because the rest of the creative staff has been floating off into the ether for a while now. Jesus, fellas, back in the day they did some work in addition to getting stoned, you know.
As much as we've been warned not to root for Don anymore, and as unbelievable as his pitch was, it was fun to see him throw elbows in the Commander pitch. But it's a guilty pleasure. They're the only kind, I fear, Don has to offer us anymore.
Oh, I wish I could remember the person on Twitter who noted that when Ginsburg said "What am I, Cassandra?" he might actually have been talking about this guy.
* OK, so Lois is Greek; that's close enough, right?
UPDATE. I forgot about the Francis family thread, which I liked very much. Betty, to my surprise, actually seemed stronger after she cracked; I wonder whether she was surprised too. Sally is becoming wonderfully horrible, and I admire her feeling for her brother, which is about the least narcissistic relationship in the whole show. Speaking of which, their discussion of running away reminded me of the episode's title, and of what I suppose is Don's equivalent -- pressing Harry to leave Megan's party with him for a bar, where he also shakes some useful agency intelligence out of the poor schlub by telling him, "I hope you know how much I appreciate this." Now that's narcissism.
These reviews are great, but you ruined MAD MEN for me a few years ago when you pointed out (rightfully) that it wasn't really adding up to much, and I think this season it has added up to even less. I kept waiting for them to DO something with Ginsburg; I had images of him breaking out as a great standup or something. That right there is a better idea than what they did come up with, and I think his 'gift' to Peggy was just a sick and stupid stunt on the part of the writers. What did it mean? Again, probably nothing.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea where this show is going, or if it's even going anywhere. I like watching it, but as the end credits roll I just think "Yeah? And?"
Great soundtrack this season, though.
Can't disagree. It figures those LA dopes would be listening to BS&T.
ReplyDeleteI figured that guy doing the tango with Megan at the party was
ReplyDeletea stand-in for Dennis Wilson.
And the post-Kooper one. My freshman roommates and I worshiped The Child is Father to the Man. (I still do.) I can still remember the combination of disbelief and existential nausea I felt when I first heard David Clayton-Thomas. "There must be some mistake" wasn't the half of it.
ReplyDeleteSally is, now that you mention it, the only character who seems honest and trustworthy. It's as though the entire show is hit on the head with a baseball bat before every episode. Everyone is in a daze of denial, calculation, or simple befuddlement. Except her. (Not that I'm complaining.)
ReplyDeleteAt the time I thought Havey was really good on that show. I remember one night he had Robyn Hitchcock on. The conversation turned to Robyn's daughter and her taste in music. She was into "Industrial," which was big at the time. Robyn said he didn't care for it much but admitted: "It's probably what I'd be listening to if I were alive today." That's always stuck with me.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Alan Havey did Marc Maron's podcast not long ago. It's worth a listen.
It's important to keep in mind that Ginsberg is a survivor of the Nazi holocaust--he said he was born in a concentration camp and his mother died there. I assume his father died too as the father he lives with takes care of is not a blood relative, he's the man that adopted him when he was a young boy. While he's always been shown as a "quirky" character, now his quirks (and increasing paranoia) look more like undiagnosed PTSD (echoing the Vietnam War and something that would remain undiagnosed for a couple more decades) and lends a pretty chilling meaning to some of his lines, like "that machine came for us, one by one..."
ReplyDeleteAnd now that horrible song has been stuck in my head since Sunday. Damn you, Weiner!
ReplyDeleteI'm fond of "House in the Country."
ReplyDeleteThat was directed at Matthew, not Ellis, by the way.
ReplyDeleteTo me, Lou is so EXACTLY Mitt Romney that it impedes my ability to get anything else out of the actor or character.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to me to come here and find a voice I more or less respect dumping shit all over the episode, after finding nothing but praise for its brilliance everywhere else on the Web.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mind the episode, although I didn't find much there to analyze, and I suppose that makes me stupid, since everyone else seems to be sinking deep shafts into the mines of its symbolism and triple entendre.
I actually liked Don in this one, and I hardly ever like Don... I know I'm supposed to because he's the wish fulfillment alpha male who generally gets what he wants, but usually, I just find him to be a lying, backstabbing prick. In this one, well, he actually seems to be trying to be something more than that, but no one wants to let him. Megan won't let him be a good 'uncle' to his pregnant 'niece', and she won't let him be a faithful husband, either (and after he passed up Neve Campbell for her, too!).
As to his possible triumph over Lou and Cutler, well, it was lovely to watch Don walk in and establish dominance over a room full of enemies. I enjoyed that... and I enjoyed even more the look of utter horror on the execrable Peggy's face when Ginsberg gave her his nipple in a little jewelry box. THAT was awesome.
Roger's brief tour of 60's drop-out land, where he ended up being routed by a shattering truth spat into his lap by his loving daughter, worked well for me. And I find myself liking Sally in about equal proportion to how much I loathe Betty. Sally is obviously absolutely desperate to grow up into anyone other than her mother, and she's just as obviously doomed to become just like her. But my main question is, what the fuck has Henry EVER seen in Betty? She's a babe, yes, but it's impossible to imagine she's any good in bed, and she has absolutely no other redeeming virtues, either. I could always understand Don not minding losing her; I could never understand Henry snatching her up.
Mostly though, I find I really don't much are about this show. PENNY DREADFUL, on the other hand, has been awesome so far.
Ginsberg, who feared the dreaded IBM machine the most, ended up becoming Hal 9000, right down to the lip-reading.
ReplyDeleteRambo knew who the real enemy was:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pEjfuRygS4
Not long ago I played Billie Holiday's version of "God Bless the Child" for a friend I grew up with. He said, "Hey, that's good. I always thought it was just a Blood, Sweat & Tears song."
ReplyDeleteThanks for the recommendation. I was wondering about that.
ReplyDeleteI think Henry saw how good Betty is at keeping up appearances, and that she has good appearances to keep up. Remember the guy at the fundraiser who propositioned her while Henry was in the phone booth? "I have three children... no; can you believe I've had three children?" She'll never lose that skill.
Just as -- I wish I could remember who said it -- Ralph Kramden is Jackie Gleason without money, Lou is Mitt ditto.
ReplyDeleteI suspect you're exactly right about what Henry sees in Betty. I've always wanted to like Henry, despite him being a Republican (he is, at least, a Republican in a time period when the party wasn't entirely comprised of lunatics, greedheads, and avid influence peddlers) so I suppose I wasn't seeing that. But even if that's what Henry thought at the time, I think he's starting to see cracks in the facade.
ReplyDeleteThe more I think about MAD MEN -- and I don't find myself wanting to think about the show much -- the more I believe there's a dissertation out there for someone in a detailed comparison between this show and BEWITCHED. For a very long time, American televised fiction broke down into one pretty simple formula -- dramas center around an alpha male doing good, one episode after another, while comedies revolve around a bumbling beta male trying to do good without having the luck, skill, or talent to really accomplish it. MAD MEN has taken Darren Stevens' beta male and transformed him into an alpha male capable of dealing with a world without magic (a world Darren Stevens always yearned to live in, actually)... and as I always suspected, it turns out, when Darren Stevens gets his wish, he turns out to be quite a dick. Or Dick. Whatever.
If the hard right is correct about how badly our social fabric has decayed, well, you can see that mirrored in the moral corruption of our dramatic alpha males. Vic Mackey, Al Swearingen, Tony Soprano, Don Draper, Walter White... they're all alpha males behaving badly. The interesting thing is that their supporting cast -- especially their wives -- haven't changed much over the decades (as Anna Gunn neatly embodies, having played wife to two different yet equal Alpha Male assholes in two different but equal shows). And if Don Draper is Darren Stevens with all his wishes granted, how frustrated must that make Betty, a witch who has somehow lost all her magical powers?