What Will the Gosselins Do With Their Free Time Now that ‘Jon and Kate Plus 8’ Has Suspended Filming?

The New York Post reported this week that, in the wake of Jon Gosselin’s demand that his kids no longer be featured in a TLC reality show (the one that made the Gosselin's a household name), it's entirely likely that we've seen the last original episode of Jon and Kate Plus 8. "This is the last episode for which we have completed filming," a TLC spokeswoman told the Post. "We remain suspended."

The Post reporter read between the lines and offered this: "It's believed that, behind the scenes, neither the network nor Kate are pushing Jon to rescind his ban on filming the kids."

That leaves the separating/divorcing Gosselins with some extra times on their hands. What should they do with that time?

While one of Jon’s girlfriends, 22-year-old Hailey Glassman, has told The Insider that Jon already spends a good bit of his time having “mantrums” (man tantrums), taking his temper out on her and lying (“Sometimes he has trouble with the truth and he will dance and dance around his lies,” Glassman said), it’s being rumored that Jon will go out on a date with the Octomom as part of a reality show. (And if they brought all their kids along on the date, they'd have the equivalent of the population of Rhode Island in tow.)

Meanwhile, Kate has told the media that she doesn’t think anyone would want to marry into her situation and is contemplating returning to her nursing career. (Wonder how her bedside manner would compare to Edie Falco's Nurse Jackie?)

In case Jon and Kate are looking for something to help them to fill their days, which were once spent in front of TLC cameras and promoting the show and their "happy" family, I've got some suggestions for them:

Jon could try to improve his reputation as a devoted father of eight young children by writing a book about how challenging it is to be a divorced father while in the glare of media spotlight (at the same time he's courting said spotlight . . . but he doesn't need to mention that.). When he’s done, he can have his publicist arrange to hold his book launch party poolside at a Las Vegas hotel next to svelte bikinied women, seeing as though “hosting” a party at a similar locale earlier this year did so much to boost his loving daddy image.

Or Jon could take a page from the father of Sarah Palin's grandson and give a tell-all, scathing interview about his soon-to-be ex-wife to Vanity Fair, pose for photos while holding a photo of Kate’s head on a stick with the eyes cut out (as Levi Johnston did with a photo of Palin),  then offer to pose naked for Playgirl, continue to give interviews where you taunt the person who you now loathe (in Jon’s case it would be Kate who he’s already trashed on ABC by saying he “despises” her) and say that you’ve got “huge” stories about that person that you've yet to reveal, as Johnston did on CBS' Early Show this week.

Given that Kate has told the media that she feels comfortable in front of the camera, maybe she could consider becoming a third co-host of the 47th hour of the Today Show, accompanying Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb. Kate and Kathie Lee can take turns rolling their eyes, cracking wise and making exaggerated arm motions as they discuss the news of the day.

Do you have any suggestions as to the next career moves for Jon and Kate?

Image credit: TLC via the Examiner.

'24' Promo Featuring Jack 'Call Me Grandpa' Bauer Coming Out of 'Retirement'

The promo for the eighth season of 24 -- which starts January 17 -- features a nicely recovered Jack Bauer (out of the morphine-induced coma he was in at the end of season seven after the effects of the chemicals in a bioweapon became too much for him to bear) with his cute-as-a-button granddaughter. She calls him "Jack." He asks her to call him "Grandpa."

Later in the trailer, Jack grumbles something about having "retired" from government service, even though we see shots of him racing around shouting at people and, once again, protecting the U.S. president and the entire country from certain doom.

Retirement, "grandpa," what is this, the AARP version of 24?

'Friday Night Lights:' Promos for Season 4

Unfortunately for fans of Friday Night Lights who don’t have DIRECTV, (including yours truly), we’ll have to wait until 2010 to get our fix of our favorite Texas high school football coach, his high school principal wife and the angst-ridden students who populate the show. For those of you who do have DIRECTV, you’ll be able to see the premiere of this wonderfully nuanced drama tomorrow (that's Wednesday, y'all) at 9 p.m.

In the meantime, we can all enjoy promos for the fourth season featuring a town divided, as Tami Taylor is the principal of one high school and her husband, Eric Taylor, is the football coach at the cross-town rival high school. I can’t wait.

Notes on Politics: Women & the Health Insurance Reform Debate

While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid attempts to muster enough votes to back a public option in a Senate health insurance reform bill (as White House officials cast doubt on the likelihood of a bill including a public health insurance option passing), one group of constituents is amping up its public relations efforts to make sure their needs are represented in whatever health insurance reform bill becomes a law: Women.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column on Mommy Tracked urging women to pay close attention to this debate because issues that go to the heart of health care for women are at stake. Women who've had C-sections or can still get pregnant or plan to utilize maternity care services in the future, I wrote, are denied health insurance in some states or are forced to pay higher premiums than men, unless they get sterilized.

But the discrimination against women goes further than that. According to CNN and the National Women's Law Center, women who have been victims of rape or domestic abuse can and are denied health insurance in some parts of the country.

One woman told her story this week to CNN. She was raped by two men, took anti-HIV meds as her doctor recommended, then her health insurance company dropped her. The woman, ironically, works in the health insurance industry.



The advocacy group National Women's Law Center is currently running a pro-health insurance reform ad entitled, "A Woman is Not a Pre-Existing Condition." It's pretty powerful stuff.



Remember in September when Arizona Senator Jon Kyl said during a debate about the Senate Finance Committee's insurance reform package that he didn't want to mandate that health insurance policies include maternity care because he didn't need it and it would make health insurance policies too expensive? (Maternity care, by the way, was utilized by his mother, his wife and his daughter.) That, that attitude right there, is treating women like a "pre-existing condition." It's no wonder women are peeved.

'In Treatment' Greenlit for Season Three

Remember several months ago when those who have a particular affinity for the insightful, and, at times emotionally sharp HBO therapy drama In Treatment were sending bars of Irish Spring soap to lobby HBO execs to renew the show with its Irish star, Gabriel Byrne, in the leading role as Dr. Paul Weston?

Don't know if it was the strong scent of the soap or not, but HBO recently announced that In Treatment will have a third season. Three cheers for intelligent dramas. According to Reuters, the show will start shooting early next year in New York.

Image credit: HBO.

‘Desperate’ Monday: Everybody Ought to Have a Maid

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the latest episode of Desperate Housewives.*

“It is in our nature to judge those around us.”

In the opening scene of Desperate Housewives, we were handed the theme of the episode about our propensity to judge others yet not wanting to be judged ourselves. Gabby didn’t want her parenting judged by an overprotective helicopter mother. Bree didn’t want to be judged for having an affair by the housekeeping staff at a motel. Susan didn’t want to be judged by her neighbors as over-the-top jealous of Mike’s ex-fiancé Katherine's efforts to get him back. And Tom didn’t want to be judged by another guy for seeming to have no . . . walnuts.

I loved, just loved, the Gabby storyline this week about the virtues of good enough parenting versus smothering parenting. As Gabby poured herself a glass of red wine, she heard a thump followed by a yell. When she ran to the source of the sound, she found Juanita and her friend Rachel after they’d “sledded” down the carpeted stairs in an open suitcase. Gabby determined that the girls were fine just as Rachel’s mother entered the house, aghast that Gabby hadn’t been watching the girls’ every move so they’d never sustain so much as a scratch.

“You’re pretty cavalier given that your carelessness almost killed my daughter,” the mom said.

Gabby took the overreacting mother aside and told her she’d been a “wet blanket” since she quit smoking, to which the mother replied, “I think you’re a lousy mother.”

“Did you just say that to my face?” Gabby asked.

“Yes, and I’m afraid I won’t be bringing my daughter here anymore. The safety and well being of my child must come first.”

“Fine. Juanita only had Rachel over because she felt sorry for her,” Gabby said. “It was a pity playdate.”

The rest – the ostracization of Gabby by other mothers who were told their children aren’t safe at Gabby’s house, Gabby’s revenge by planning a killer birthday party that the kids begged their mothers to attend and the monkey-run-amok for which Gabby was blamed – wasn’t as funny as the first scene which opened the show and scored delightful points about hovering over one’s children.

What I irritated me somewhat about how this thread was concluded was, in the wake of the monkey-savaging-the-clown scene, Carlos said Gabby’s “negligence” had turned their daughters into self-sufficient, confident girls. Liked the point he made about raising strong children (as opposed to frightened and insecure ones) but not the part that labeled her as a bad mother for not keeping an unbroken eyelock on her kids.

Bree’s affair with Karl. *sigh* I just cannot get into this story, no matter how much I might want to, even when a wise member of the housekeeping staff offered herself up as a cautionary tale to Bree about the steep costs of infidelity. Karl is a snake. Susan is Bree’s friend and Susan’ll never forgive Bree for having an affair with Karl. And Bree knows this, therefore I’m having a hard time sympathizing or comprehending or caring much about Bree’s rationale for frequenting a cheap motel room -- which she called “our place” -- with the man who broke one of her good friend’s hearts.

Oh, and Susan shot Katherine. I want to take Katherine and shake her by both shoulders to put some sense back into her. This was a professional woman with culinary Bree-like skills and creativity, someone who had the courage to flee an abusive spouse and start a new life, and now she’s become completely unhinged by the fact that her fiancé went back to his first wife, the mother of their son, so much so that Katherin’s acting like a lunatic. One could understand deep disappointment, hurt feelings, humiliation, anger and the desire to get back at Mike and Susan for hurting her. But this has gone to crazy lengths, even by DH standards, watching Katherine unravel.

But to offset crazy Katherine, I was pleased to see the old Lynette and Tom resurface, even though they were only given minor face-time this week. Tom’s explanation to Karen McCluskey’s main squeeze Roy about why he allows Lynette to maintain the illusion that she calls all the shots in their home was that it makes her feel safe after growing up surrounded by insecurity and shouldering too much responsibility at too young an age. Sweet.

Do we care about the creepy Bolen family whose teenaged son gave Julie the gun which got into Susan’s hand and wound up being used to shoot Katherine? Or that Julie Mayer dumped the married Nick Bolen who has a son her age? Eh, not so much.

Your thoughts on “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid?”

Image credit: Danny Feld/ABC.

'Mad Men' Creator and Stars Analyze 'The Gypsy and the Hobo'

Watching the AMC video below -- featuring interviews with Mad Men creator/writer Matt Weiner, and stars Jon Hamm and January Jones -- doesn't really answer fundamental questions about the impact of Don's admission of his life of lies to his wife and whether Betty's going to leave him or try to make it work. If anything, it spawns more questions:

'Mad Men' Monday: The Gypsy and the Hobo

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men.*


I don’t entirely trust Don Draper and how he reacted to being caught in his web of lies as his carefully crafted image was smashed to smithereens by his wife. When I watched “The Gypsy and the Hobo,” after a tough-as-nails Betty called Don on the carpet and refused to back down in the face of his attempts to bully her, I kept wondering if Don and Betty were trying to play one another and whether an actual emotional connection was being formed between them as a realignment and a leveling of marital power was unfolding in front of my eyes.

Why so cynical? Several reasons, chief among them was that Betty had no reason to raise the issue of Don’s serial deceptions with an attorney unless she was seriously considering divorce, particularly in the wake of Don asserting financial control over her, refusing to give her more money when she knew for a fact that stacks of cash were sitting in his desk. Betty doesn’t usually respond well to feeling like someone’s made a fool of her. At the end of season one, she told her therapist that she knew Don was cheating on her, but didn’t directly confront Don. The reason she tossed Don out of the house in season two was because Jimmy Barrett told her Don and Bobbie Barrett were sleeping together and Betty felt publicly humiliated, so much so that she vomited shortly after Jimmy told her. When Don tried to make her feel as though she was an idiot and fabricating a Don-Bobbie affair in her head, she booted him.

When Betty learned from the Hofstadt family attorney that if she sought a divorce she’d get nothing, could lose the kids and everything else to Don unless she could prove his infidelity, I got the distinct impression that Betty started mulling how she could accumulate evidence to hold over his head and use at her convenience. Now she’s confirmed that Don broke the law, stole someone’s identity, went to California during his marriage to Betty to stay with his ex-wife Anna, plus Betty knows about Bobbie and has a witness in Jimmy Barrett, who hates Don.


When Don was cornered and ‘fessed up about the tragic truth of his family background, Betty tentatively put her arm on his shoulders to indicate that she isn’t without compassion. But regardless of Don’s tears, I think Betty’s going to continue to compile a dossier of information about his misbehavior, just in case. Betty’s so miserable, so betrayed, so tired of Don’s lies that I could definitely see her trying to get Don’s money and attempt to keep her parents’ home for herself so she could start over, maybe with Henry Francis, someone who’d trust her with his heart and wouldn't erect walls of deception between them.

My husband, however, argued that Betty’s decision to accompany Don and the kids trick-or-treating is an indication that she’s going to find a way to make peace with all of this, now that the power dynamic between Don and Betty has now been leveled. Don has to take Betty seriously because she has information that could destroy him. I’m just not as certain of Betty’s desire to remain married to Don as my husband is. In season two, for example, I don’t think Betty would’ve let Don back in the house had she not been pregnant. If she learns about Suzanne Farrell, I think it’s curtains for the Drapers.

As for Don, when he was caught with his box of deceit, I kept wondering if he was simply executing a hastily-made, desperate pitch to try to convince Betty of his sincerity amid his tears and throw himself at her mercy. Think about the way in which he revealed his personal backstory and his emotions to Betty as compared to how he came clean with Rachel Menken in season one. The post-coital revelations to Rachel were genuine, from the heart. His emotions weren’t manufactured and had no ulterior motive other than in forging an emotional connection. He’s held Betty at arm’s length and hasn’t been honest with her because he didn’t have enough faith in her love to tell her the truth, whereas he trusted Rachel. With Betty, he had to be compelled to tell the truth, once she had the hard, cold evidence. Don wouldn’t have come clean willingly because he’s never really let Betty inside, as he admitted to Anna Draper last year, yet he’s been willing to allow at least two of his mistresses, including Suzanne Farrell, closer to him than his own wife.
 
While his tears were real, as were the regrets about his brother and the shame he feels about his conception and lineage, I don’t foresee Don suddenly feeling comfortable with being himself with Betty as he has with Rachel and Suzanne. He seems like he simply wants to preserve his hollow, stolen identity, no matter what.


Another reason why I’m suspicious about Don’s sincerity is because when Suzanne asked him if he’d called to tell her he couldn’t see her anymore, his response was, “Not right now. No.” Was he telling her that they had to cool things temporarily until Betty gets less wary, or was he really breaking it off?

However I must say that Don’s dramatic dropping and releasing of his clenched fist in which he held the keys to his desk drawer and all his secrets after Betty said she knew what was inside, the tears he shed over Adam, all made Don seem like a shattered soul. (Jon Hamm was fantastic.) The next morning, though, with his suit of armor back on, it was hard to tell if this event will really fundamentally transform the Draper marriage.

What do you think? Were Don and Betty were being sincere with one another and do they really wish to make their marriage work, or do you think one or both of them is playing games? Will this change anything?

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

The Ambivalent Mother . . . on Your TV This Fall

Noticed a mini-trend in TV shows this fall featuring an ambivalent mother?


Desperate Housewives has Lynette Scavo, the married, full-time ad exec, mother of four, who is distinctly unenthusiastic about the fact that, in her mid-40s, she’s pregnant with twins. In fact, during her first ultrasound, she didn’t even want to look at the screen and later said that there was a voice in her head telling her not to do this.

On Private Practice, single psychiatrist Violet Turner -- a recent victim of a violent crime where a maniac former patient cut Violet’s unborn baby out of her belly and left Violet for dead – said she feels so emotionally dead inside that she doesn’t feel as though she can care for her baby Lucas. So she brought the baby to his father’s home, Violet’s co-worker Pete, and left him there. When Pete has brought Lucas to work in the hope of getting Violet to engage and bond with her infant, she simply couldn't because she sees the baby as a living, breathing reminder of the attack that has traumatized her.

On Mad Men, set in the 1960s, Betty Draper just gave birth to her third child and hates her life. Parenting is the last thing she wants to be doing, particularly when it comes to dealing with her young daughter who’s acting out in anger because she misses her grandfather who recently died and everyone seems to think she should be “over” it by now. Betty doesn't realize she's still mourning too, even though she named her baby after her father and has seemed like she's favoring her infant over her two other kids.

On ABC’s new comedy The Middle, Patricia Heaton’s Frankie Heck does her best to work and parent, but winds up, out of sheer exhaustion, tuning out a lot of what her kids say, including when her awkward teenaged daughter talks to her and she only half-listens. She also forgets things all the time and her kids face the consequences.


Maybe it’s not a trend, but I’m finding these characters to be a breath of fresh air, mothers who aren’t all phony rainbows and unicorns when it comes to parenthood. They provide a nice balance.

Image credit: Karen Neal/ABC.

Latest ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Ep Felt a Lot Like ‘ER’

*Warning, spoilers from recent Grey’s Anatomy episode ahead.*


With Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl sidelined for personal reasons (Pompeo just had a baby and Heigl just adopted one), Grey’s Anatomy writers have had to come up with ways to explain their absences. For Meredith Grey, it’s that she felt guilted into donating some of her liver to help save her alcoholic father, and she needs time to recuperate. For Izzie Stevens, she was fired for making a bone-headed decision at work at the same time when the Chief needed reasons to fire people as his hospital merged with another Seattle Hospital. Now she’s taken off. And is . . . somewhere.

Ever since then, Grey’s Anatomy – which I’ve liked because it’s largely been a character-driven, not necessarily action/plot-driven show – has turned into ER. Especially the latest episode. While cleverly written so that you, the viewer, felt as confused as the Seattle Grace administrators about what led to the death of a mother of a young boy who’d been in a hotel fire, there was precious little in the way of character or relationship building on a smaller, individual scale, with the exception of Lexie reacting to a teen burn victim and Arizona telling her to toughen up. The episode was almost all based on chaos in the Emergency Room – as Derek told the Chief at the end – and the hostile relationship between the two groups of competing hospital staffs. Between the groups, not the people. As individuals.
 
Back in Grey’s first season, the focus was on a group of interns, but it took the time to take each character and really examine him or her. We saw what their lives were like, personally and at work and how those affected one another. We learned their backstories and why they interacted the way they did. They felt like fully fleshed out characters, not cardboard characters about whom I don't care what happens. (I simply didn't care about the Mercy Wester getting fired last night.) The medical cases on Grey's were used as dramatic tools by and through which you could get to know the characters better. (Yes, the ferry boat accident a few years ago was over the top, but it led to the heart-breaking exploration of whether Meredith Grey was suicidal and depressed.)


Last night’s theme of “chaos” was well executed and snappy, I'll give it that. The actors were convincing. But that “I Saw What I Saw” episode, along with the one that preceded it called “Invasion,” felt much more like ER, than Grey’s. And I wanted to watch Grey’s.

Image credit: ABC.

Dyna Moe Captures ‘Mad Men’s’ Aqua Net Moment

I didn’t mention it in my review of “The Color of Blue” Mad Men episode, but this scene, where members of the Sterling Cooper creative department acted out the ad pitch for the Aqua Net account, was highly amusing, didn't you think? The only way to improve it would've been to have Kinsey in the scarf.

By the way, what do you think will happen to Sterling Cooper? Bought back? Bought by a malevolent outsider?

Image credit: Dyna Moe/Nobody’s Sweetheart.

The Edwardsing of 'Brothers & Sisters'

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Brothers & Sisters.*

Are the writers of Brothers & Sisters trying to inject a bit of the real life John and Elizabeth Edwards drama into the ABC show's storyline?


Main character Kitty Walker McCallister (Calista Flockhart) -- who just adopted a baby boy with her husband Sen. Robert McCallister (Rob Lowe), who’s running for California governor -- was diagnosed with lymphoma several weeks ago. The McCallister marriage had been on the rocks following the senator’s heart attack (yeah, this is a healthy family) which occurred on the same day their son was born. As Sen. McCallister forged ahead with a gubernatorial bid without first consulting his wife, he also emotionally withdrew from her, the woman who once served as his communications director. So Kitty turned to a fellow at-home parent and had an "emotional" affair with him, but broke it off and decided to work on the marriage. Robert and Kitty just were starting to repair the breach when Kitty was diagnosed.

Here’s where the similarities to the Edwards family come into play: In the latest episode, it seemed as though Robert wanted to simply let his gubernatorial campaign wither away. He refused to field questions or respond to attacks which criticized him for continuing to run for governor while his wife was sick and they had a baby at home. Meanwhile, Kitty actively urged him to continue the campaign and decided to stage an impromptu TV interview to express her full support of his bid for governor, hoping to blunt the criticism.

All I kept thinking about during that most recent episode was John and Elizabeth Edwards – minus John’s cheating and his love child – and how much flak they received when it was revealed early on in John Edwards’ 2008 presidential campaign that Elizabeth’s cancer had returned and had metasticized. There were all manner of loud voices attacking the couple for continuing the campaign in the wake of her dire diagnoses, and for bringing their young children along for the ride. Elizabeth herself was called a “terrible mother” for campaigning while sick and one blogger wrote: “Elizabeth, I don’t like the choices you’ve made. Take your kids home. Get off the freaking campaign trail.”



How will the campaign and the cancer treatment play out on Brothers & Sisters? Will there be continued political backlash against the candidate who keeps forging ahead with his campaign while his wife is sick at home with cancer and trying to care for their infant son?

Image credit: Randy Holmes/ABC.

'Desperate' Monday: The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the latest episode of Desperate Housewives.*

Okay, what have they done with the Carlos Solis character which the show carefully cultivated over the past few seasons, the one who was caring andloving, a full-fledged human, not a stock character from Mad Men’s Sterling Cooper? The one who became worthy of the love and devotion of his wife and two daughters, the one who wanted to work for the blind and didn’t care about money until Gabby forced him into taking a six-figure job? He’s now an unrecognizable sexist meathead who’s not only willing to pass over a talented woman for a promotion because she’s pregnant (Remember the days when children and family were important to Carlos? When he was actively trying to knock Gabby up?), openly tell Lynette about how he didn’t want to promote a pregnant woman, then use what he perceives as Lynette’s surgically enhanced breasts to seal a business deal.

The guy who last season wanted to devote his life to the basics of love and family, is now uttering such lines as, “Why did you get those things if you don’t want people looking at them?”

He even told Lynette to buy a dress that would reveal her cleavage to two men with whom he’d arranged dinner, and then encouraged her to take off her coat. When Lynette said it was too chilly in the room to remove her jacket, Carlos then, unbelievably told HIS EMPLOYEE that it’d be even better for their chances of securing the deal if it was cold when Lynette revealed her boobs.

I now HATE Carlos (as I’m supposed to, I guess). And that pains me because I didn’t hate him last season. Now he’s a Neanderthal again and the inconsistency of all of this is driving me crazy.


Of course the storyline is building up for the big reveal, when Carlos finds out Lynette’s pregnant with twins. What will happen? Will he fire Lynette? Demote her? Will she then sue for gender discrimination? How low will they have Carlos go?

That’s what made the scenes with Gabby and John, then later with Gabby and Carlos (when she told him that while she’d never imagine this would be her life, she loves it, unlike Betty Draper) lose their power. The writers can’t have it both ways, that Carlos is a sweet, doting family man on the one hand, and on the other, he’s a sexist pig who’s wildly discriminating against women and making them use their breasts to land business deals . . . not after turning him into a kind, down-to-earth character last year. I, frankly, was unmoved by Gabby’s declaration of love for Carlos knowing that Carlos had just pimped out Lynette’s breasts. Carlos is not Don Draper, with whom viewers can have a love/hate relationship.

The big twist of the episode, of course, was that Julie Mayer woke up from her coma (She was only in a coma for five days? Boy did that seem longer!) only to discover that her mother Susan knows that she dropped out of med school six months ago, now works as a waitress and is/was dating a married man whose first name started with the initial “D” whose baby Julie had been worried she was carrying, though she’s not pregnant. Then, at the end, we learned that Nick Bolen’s real name is Dominic and that he was/is Julie’s lover. Even though I really hate the Bolen family, especially the Danny subplot (I could care less about him), mixing it up with an apparently loon like Angie could be provocative to say the least. Maybe Angie and Katherine could team up to rumble with the Mayer women. Sounds like something Desperate Housewives writers might consider for sweeps week.

Speaking of provocative . . . I found Susan’s line to Julie when she expressed her shock that Julie, of all people, would have an affair with a married man who has a family, poignant, “You know what an affair like this can do. You saw it firsthand.”


What did you think of this episode? What do you think of the Carlos-Lynette work situation?

Image credit: Ron Tom/ABC.

'Mad Men' Monday: The Color of Blue

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men.*

So now she knows. Someone named “Don Draper,” whom she knows as her husband, was once married to a woman named “Anna Draper,” for whom Don has the deed for her California home. She knows that Don has a secret shoebox tucked away in a locked drawer, next to piles of cash, and contains two sets of dog tags for Donald Draper and Richard Whitman, as well as photos with a younger Don being referred to as "Dick."

Betty knows Don’s hiding from her. More than about being unfaithful and rerturning to his sneaky ways again, not coming home, being distant, just like he did when he was sleeping with Bobbie Barrett, and the other women whose names Betty doesn’t know. The question is: What’s she gonna do about it?

Is Betty going to call him on his box of secrets and his lies, or does she hold all of this in reserve, as a weapon to be wielded at just the right moment? If Don had come home the day she found the box when she waited up, it seemed as though she was going to blast him with both barrels, as I, for one, was desperately hoping. But, when he didn’t come home, she put her trump card away. Why, I wondered.

If Betty was smart, she’d do her research, look into Anna Draper, the California deed, etc. to learn the truth. Then she’d have some power over Don, something he clearly has over her, though, I’m hoping, that that’s about to change. Think about how much power Mona Sterling had when Roger left her for Jane and everybody knew it? The specter of the Sterling divorce and Mona taking Roger to the cleaners is what prompted the sale of Sterling Cooper, after all.

Another observation:

“Nobody feels as good about what they do as you do,” Don said to Suzanne Farrell as they were lying in bed and she was talking about something funny that happened with an 8-year-old student in her class.
This got me wondering, is Don only attracted to women who have passion in their lives, people who love what they do? Midge had her art and her bohemian life outside of Don, plus other lovers. Rachel had her department store and her money. Bobbie had her work in the entertainment industry managing her famous comedian husband. Suzanne has her idealism and her teaching (although I suspect the moment she becomes needy -- like she did on the train -- Don will find that unattractive).

Betty hates her life and has no interests. She’s bored and unenthusiastic about everything, her passion extinguished. Does this repel Don? Think about their trip to Rome. Betty was thrilled to be there. She used her Italian and her cosmopolitan ways. She flirted. She felt sexy. She was desired. And this made Don want her. But the moment they got home, he realized she was “stuck” in what she saw as boring suburban hell, she rebuffed Don’s sexual advances and was distinctly unenthusiastic about his gift of a charm from Italy, by telling him she hated their home, their friends and their life. Soon thereafter, Don was running into Miss Farrell’s arms.

I’m not blaming Betty for Don’s infidelity, just trying to understand it. Where Betty clearly longs to be desired, doted upon and pursued (she told Sally that every kiss after the first one is a pale imitation), Don wants a happy, confident woman. They seem to be at a crossroads. Plus they're a bad match, one that I now believe cannot survive in the long term, not happily anyway, not without one of them – Betty – feeling miserable for the rest of her life.

What did you think of “The Color of Blue?” Think Betty will call Don on his lies? Use it to her advantage?

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

You See What Happens When I Give Someone the Benefit of the Doubt?

Clearly the Heene family has a screw (or several) loose. But when I last posted here on Friday, I wasn't 100 percent convinced that the parents had intentionally perpetrated a hoax on the American public, blatantly toying with our emotions in order to secure a reality show contract to become another Jon and Kate, as if they're not enough of a cautionary tale.

Perhaps the kids messed up, I thought, and the 10-year-old mistakenly thought he saw his brother on board that homemade helium balloon while 6-year-old Falcon Heene hid in fear because his dad had yelled at him. I thought it was possible. I wasn't ready to put the cuffs on 'em right away, though the whole thing looked mighty odd.

If there was one thing of which I WAS convinced, however, it was that Richard and Mayumi Heene were certainly guilty of bad parenting, as demonstrated by the Friday morning news interviews they continued to do while their youngest son -- aka faux "balloon boy" -- was literally puking. What kind of a parent keeps going while the kid is sick? The Wife Swap debacles, where the parents encouraged wretched behavior, as well as the rap video with the boys saying manner of awful garbage were solid evidence that the Heenes were poster children for bad parenting.

Then over the weekend, the local sheriff confirmed what many, including myself suspected even though, prior to this, we had no solid proof on which to pin their guilt:

"They put on a very good show for us, and we bought it," the sheriff said Sunday morning, according to the New York Times following a search of the family's home and computers, as well as new interviews with each Heene individually. And as a result, the Wife Swap lunatics may be charged with three felony counts including conspiracy to commit a crime, contributing to the deliquency of a minor and an attempt to influence a public servant, as well as the misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report, according to the New York Times. Children's protective services has also gotten involved in the case.

I further read this morning that Richard and Mayumi met in ACTING class and that they'd been shopping around a reality TV show and had thus far failed. Listening to the 9-1-1 tape, the Heenes seemed to be experiencing parental anguish, which makes me even more angry that I spent even a minute of my life feeling sorry for the heart ache I thought they experienced. But, according to police, it was all bogus. Planned in advance.

Apparently Falcon Heene was the only one telling the truth when he said on CNN that the reason he hid (where, it's still not clear) was because, as he said to his father, "You guys said that we did this for the show."

I think Saturday Night Live put this whole, God-awful mess into the right context:

Faux Balloon Boy Mess Seems . . . Um, Odd, Doesn't It?

Once the world learned yesterday that the 6-year-old Colorado boy, Falcon Heene, was NOT inside that homemade helium balloon which flew 50 miles away from his home and crashed into a field, that the kid was safe hiding in his attic, everyone breathed a sigh of relief . . . after all the cable networks went wall-to-wall with live coverage of the runaway balloon after which the U.S. military sent a Black Hawk helicopter and other aircraft, and for which the FAA grounded take-offs in the area. The child's older brother had told authorities that he thought his younger brother was on board the balloon.

Then we started learning other things about the family, which apparently spends spare time chasing storms and inventing things. Videos of them on the reality show Wife Swap surfaced, as did a "rap video" the three young Heene boys did.

Then it got even weirder.

They went on CNN last night and, when the boy was asked why he hid from his family, Falcon said, "We did this for a show." (The CNN clip is shown in the Today Show segment below.)

This morning, the Heene family did the circuit of morning talk shows. During NBC's Today Show, Falcon threw up. Did the family cut the interview short? Nope. The interview continued, thoug Meredith Vieira offered to take a break and return once the family had gathered itself together, much too late for my tastes. The Heene family also did another interview on ABC's Good Morning America even though their son was physically ill. Diane Sawyer had to suggest to the Heenes that perhaps one of them should go after the 6-year-old who ran away from the camera while puking. After his mother helped him in the bathroom -- vomiting clearly heard over the microphones -- the mom and Falcon RETURNED to sit in front of the camera. Here's the link to the Good Morning America interview.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Heene family also released a video of the moment when the balloon took off yesterday.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Am I simply a jaded cynic to suggest that something just does not seem right here?

UPDATE: My Mommy Tracked column on this whole saga is now up on Mommy Tracked.

Cake Wrecks: A Must-See Comedic Blog

While reading this morning's New York Times, I decided to look at the Dining section which is always an ironic thing for me to do since my three children have transformed the word "dining" into an ironic one, at least in our home. Their idea of "dining" consists of one of two things: Stuffing as much food into their mouths as quickly as they can and leaving the kitchen table in five minutes or less, OR making disgusted looking faces and telling me that my pathetic culinary offerings have sapped their collective will to live.

Nonetheless, I forged ahead and perused the Dining section. And I'm glad I did, otherwise I wouldn't have come across this article about a delightful web site called Cake Wrecks, which runs reader-submitted photos of professional cakes and confections which, shall we say, are amazingly horrific. There are misspellings galore. (I never knew the words "birthday" and "Daddy" had so many spelling variations.) Decorating directions are written onto the cakes in frosting instead of implemented, such as "Congratulation, As small As Possible" or a cake that says, "Nothing" when the instruction was to put no wording on the cake.

Examples of this, courtesy of the Cake Wrecks web site, include: The first photo above where the customer had requested a 3-D ocean cake, the second cake which contained directions regarding the top of the cake and the fruit garnish and the one below where the request was simply to have the word, "Welcome" on the cake.

If you're having a cruddy day, take the time to look through the blog's many pages and I guarantee you'll laugh out loud at least once. Me, I had to grab a box of tissues I was laughing so hard.

Image credits: Cake Wrecks.

'Mad Men's' Betty in Rome

When she's not hurling metal lock boxes filled with campaign donations for the New York governor's re-election at his top political aide for whom she has the hots, Mad Men's Betty Draper likes to spend time vacationing in Rome, donning mod attire, speaking Italian and flirting with the local men at an outdoor bar.

Dyna Moe of Nobody's Sweetheart created this fab illustration. See all of Dyna Moe's fabulous interpretations of Mad Men scenes here. I'm hoping that she offers a 2010 calendar as I was too tardy in ordering a 2009 calendar and missed the boat.

'Army Wives' Season Finale: Fields of Fire

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the Army Wives season finale*


Y’all knew it’d end this way, with lives hangin’ in the balance. Clearly we knew that Jeremy’s future was precarious, Lifetime has been showing that scene of Jeremy staring at the service revolver for weeks. The health and future of Pamela and Chase’s marriage was likewise obviously precarious as the once truth-telling radio talk show host who lectured others about simply dealing with being an Army wife didn’t like it when her own reality turned messy. But did the finale have to have TWO characters potentially be (though not likely) dead?

This is why I’m not a fan of season finales. They artificially juice up the action and drama just to leave off on some big cliffhanger (or cliffhangers, as the case may be), which, nine times out of 10, get quickly resolved by the beginning of the next season. And if you pull the dead character card one too many times, viewers become jaded.

At the conclusion of Army Wives’ first season, it was the Holden’s oldest daughter Amanda who was shockingly and abruptly killed. At the conclusion of the second season, the Holdens were suddenly packing up and moving to Europe so Michael could serve in NATO, which caused their youngest daughter Emmalin to freak out and run away with a soldier to get married, while, at the same time, the Sherwood’s marriage seemed headed toward divorce.

When the third season concluded, the stakes apparently had to be raised exponentially. Not only is one marriage on the precipice of divorce (the Morans'), but two, count ‘em, TWO lives may have been lost, Jeremy’s by a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Joan’s at the hands of a terrorist in Iraq as she was bravely trying to save her injured colleague. While it’s true that Jeremy was grieving the loss of his best friend in Iraq and wasn’t really getting any official psychological help from the Army, writers didn’t have to imply that, due to his post-traumatic stress, he committed suicide. They also didn’t have to suggest that the mother of a baby – who was shown in a pre-taped video reading Guess How Much I Love You to her infant daughter interspersed with footage from Iraq – was killed in action. AND then add to that Chase coming home to an empty house and what appears to be Pamela’s empty closet. Did they have to have all three happen at once?
 
Each issue is an important one to explore: Emotional estrangement from one’s family after sustaining a trauma in battle, survivor guilt when a combat buddy dies and mothers of babies serving in combat. They are all worthy of the inevitable discussions spawned by a dramatization on Army Wives, but seriously, all simultaneously on one episode? That just irks me, particularly when Army Wives has a habit of resolving issues too quickly, with the exception of Amanda’s death. If they’re going to do justice to these three subjects, I sincerely hope that they don’t just dispense with them in episodes one and two of their fourth season next year and move on.
 
As for the rest of the finale: Roxy’s pregnant with baby number three and her assistant Viola with the touch of gold has left The Hump Bar for the world of music. Michael Holden became a two-star general and there was precious little discussion of the specter of Fort Marshall perhaps closing. (Base closings are another important issue facing military families and communities which have sprung up around them, particularly in this economy, one in which I’d hope the writers, in season four, will sink their teeth into.) And Roland was left cleaning up the mess after the mysterious disappearance of his business partner, who’s wanted by authorities and goes by an alias. Work messes are going to be the last thing on Roland’s mind when the show returns next year.


What’d you think of the finale? Too much or just right?

Image credit: Lifetime.

'Desperate' Tuesday: Never Judge a Lady by Her Lover

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Desperate Housewives.*


This episode began with a voice-over saying, “There’s a certain kind of woman you see in the suburbs.” Then a series of unflattering portrait of suburban women was unleashed: The mom who waits with her kid for the school bus while still wearing her bathrobe and clutching a mug of coffee. The mom who’s clutching the baby carrier while running to the post office with curlers still in her hair. Another one unloading groceries from the grocery store – as her kids were dashing into the house -- while wearing sweats and a T-shirt. “This woman is a housewife. . . She will try to look beautiful if she has someone to look beautiful for.”

Then they went to a shot of Gabby with her hair haphazardly pinned on the back of her head while she was eating out a restaurant with her family, including her two young kids, one of whom had just hurled food at her. Only Gabby hasn’t resembled said description of a “housewife” -- who looks like the rest of us mere moral suburban moms -- since early last season before Carlos regained his sight, back when Carlos was a humanitarian who wanted to work for little to no money, only Gabby pressured him into accepting a cut-throat, overtime working, six-figure job.

Since the middle of last season, Gabby has been back to her svelteness and her couture, regardless of the shot of her messy up-do, and Carlos has been back to being the ruthless businessman he was when Desperate Housewives started years ago. Gabby’s going to be jealous of her former gardener lover’s interest in her hot niece and Carlos is discriminating against a pregnant woman by offering Lynette a major promotion while openly telling her that he didn’t pick the other candidate because she’s pregnant, of course laying the groundwork for a discrimination suit should he try to take away that promotion from Lynette once he learns she’s pregnant, with twins no less.


The shift backwards in Carlos’ and Gabby’s characters have annoyed me since last season just when I was actually starting to cotton to Gabby and was loathing what had happened to Lynette’s character, who was a mere shadow of the greatness she’d been during that same freshman season. Now it’s as if they’ve swapped places. Lynette’s back to season one goodness and Gabby and Carlos are back to being shallow, heartless folk. What a shame, just as I was starting to like Gabby too.

As for the Susan-as-the-outraged-mother story -- where she spread erronenous rumors that her new neighbors’ son Danny choked Julie and then attacked Danny by nearly crushing him with a car as she tried to get him to admit his guilt -- I’m at least glad that the writers didn’t tie up the who-strangled-Julie mystery in a neat, little bow. So Danny didn’t do it, but obviously someone in the creepy Bolen family did . . . something. Now there are two mysteries: Who hurt Julie and what the Bolen family is hiding. And you know what, I don’t care about either one of them. Give me actual character development with sharp suburban satire instead of hollow plot advancers and I’ll be happy.

A genuinely amusing moment from the episode, was the Scavo kids’ reaction to Lynette’s announcement that she’s pregnant:


“Aren’t you going to be like the world’s oldest moms?”

“It’s so gross that you’re still doing it.”

What’d you think of “Never Judge a Lady by Her Lover?”

Image credit: ABC.

'Mad Men' Tuesday: Wee Small Hours

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men.*


“I want what I want when I want, when I want it. You don’t care what it does to the rest of us.” -- Betty Draper, about her baby waking up in the middle of the night crying in hunger, but it wasn't really about the baby.

"I want you. I don't care. Doesn't that mean anything to someone like you?" -- Don Draper, to a young woman he's about to bed after she warns that they could get caught.


I don’t understand Betty and Don Draper. No matter how hard I try.

I can understand Betty’s distaste for the dullness of suburban life, her intellectual boredom, her jealousy that Don gets to work in the city, mix it up creatively, dine in fine restaurants with “clients” and live an exciting life outside of the home. I can also understand that Don doesn’t seem to think he deserves a beautiful wife and an idyllic family who live in a beautiful home in the ‘burbs because of his background, and that thing with the stolen identity. A multi-millionaire who’d appeared on the cover of Time Magazine told Don that he was "indecently" lucky, so why didn’t he feel that way? And almost all the women on the show (except for Peggy Olson) seem to be trying to get what Betty has but she doesn’t seem to want it either.

However when it comes to Don and Betty’s romantic lives, I’m going to have to come to terms with the fact that I don’t completely get them and am not sure I ever will. Don and Betty just shared a wonderfully sexy jaunt to Rome, proving that they’re still hot for one another, but the moment they entered their suburban home all of that just evaporated, like their home and their kids serve as one big, cold shower dampening their affections for one another. So they turn outward instead of inward in an attempt to satiate their deep unhappiness, instead of working together.

Betty, who seems like she’s just waiting for the feminist revolution to start, wants to feel desired and senses that Don’s distracted (or doesn’t like being Don’s housewife, a possession) and looks elsewhere for affection. In Mad Men’s second season, Betty looked to the young, handsome equestrian to dote on her, to desire her, but the moment he tried to forge a real romantic connection and kiss her, she cut him off and directed his affections toward her married friend. At the end of that season, before allowing her unfaithful husband to return to the home, Betty evened the infidelity score with a fling with a stranger in a bar. This season, it’s been Henry Francis, the powerful aide to the governor who has made it plain he wants a relationship with her, which she seems to be seeking (by writing him letters, going to his office to chuck a heavy box at him) and then rebuffs Henry’s attempt.


“I don’t know what you want,” Henry said to her. What does Betty want? Does Betty even know? Is it all just about the satisfaction of the chase and when the chase is over any potential relationship is kaput, like when Betty told Sally that every kiss beyond the first is but a mere shadow by comparison?

Speaking of loving the chase, there’s her husband Don, who has this beautiful Grace Kelly wife and, after she threw him out last year, seemed to be on the good husband/good daddy road to redemption. Don has not acted on his sexual impulses since the near-fling with the flight attendant in the season premiere (though he did run away like an angry teen when Betty asked him why he didn’t sign the Sterling Cooper contract). Then he fell off the faithful husband bandwagon during this “Wee Small Hours” episode where he consummated his simmering desire to have the idealistic, young elementary school teacher whom he asked whether she’s “dumb or pure.”


What’s curious is his selection of conquests. In season one, with Don’s affair with Bohemian artist Midge there was little chance of Don getting caught or Midge running into Betty or anyone Don knew. But as his time has gone on, Don has selected women who are more likely to meet and have run-ins with Betty. Bobbie Barrett was a client’s wife and a person with whom Betty would run into at events. Miss Farrell, Sally’s former teacher who said she sees Betty at the market and lives close by, is even one degree closer. Is he trying to get caught and be punished like the bad boy he thinks he is, deep down inside?

Other storylines:

-- Poor Sal. He was acting in all manner of social correctness with the drunk and aggressive Lee Garner Jr. If Lucky Strikes Lee had made a move on Don which Don rebuffed, do you think Don would’ve been fired as easily as they disposed of Sal? As I watched Sal photocopy his work, I wondered/hoped he and the other “misfits,” Sal and Peggy, would jump ship to join Duck.

-- By golly, is Connie Hilton a nut? The moon stuff, the telling Don he’s like a son and an “angel” and then reprimanding Don for not actually pitching a Hilton on the moon, that whole exchange was baffling. “You did not give me what I wanted. I’m deeply disappointed Don,” Connie said after Don presented a smart Hilton campaign. “. . . [W]hat do you want from me love? . . . When I say I want the moon, I expect the moon.” (Betty could just as easily have said those words to him.) All the moon talk made me think of It’s a Wonderful Life’s George Bailey promising to give Mary Hatch the moon. Anyone else get the feeling that this odd relationship between Connie and Don will end badly?

What’re your thoughts on what Don and Betty really want? On Sal’s termination from Sterling Cooper? Connie’s Hilton on the moon?

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

Kate Shows Her Sense of Humor on 'Leno,' Jon Not So Much

THIS is the way the Gosselins should go. Forget the whining on ABC News about how you "despise" your estranged spouse. Forget about complaining to the Today Show about the status of the joint bank account. Forget endorsing milkshakes or cupcakes or Twinkies or whatever the heck Jon was shilling the other day.

Go on a CHARM offensive. The Gosselins have heard of charm, right?

Kate's appearance in the video spoof on The Jay Leno Show -- of "paparazzi" hounding her, and her treating them like children -- is exactly the kind of thing Jon and Kate need to start doing to distract from the whole mess o'ugly they've been dishing out to the national media. This video makes her look like she at least gets how the public sees her and indicates that she's got some kind of a sense of humor.



If Jon appeared in a similar kind of spoof, maybe I'd warm back up to him too (though he's committed so much self-inflicted damage to his image that he's got his work cut out for him, rebuild-wise). Instead of doing some comedy, Jon agreed to be interviewed by Nancy Grace. Bad move dude. Seriously. She smoked you.



Do you think Kate's appearance in a Leno spoof was a good idea or a bad one? Should both Gosselins do more of this or just keep a low profile for the time being?

For When You're in Need of a 'Mad Men' Fix: Character Tweets on Twitter

I’ve become increasingly entertained by the folks who are creating a dynamic version of fan fiction in the form of the Twitter feeds for various Mad Men characters.

The non-AMC-related Twitterers write tweets for Don Draper, Betty Draper, Sally Draper, Gene Hofstadt’s ghost, Roger Sterling, Peggy Olson, et al (nearly 70 Mad Men-related "characters" tweet, according to MSNBC) have genuinely embraced their characters, the show’s plotlines and have a savvy sense of humor. The interactions between the characters have provided me with chuckles as they pop up on my Twitter account throughout the week.

Take a look at some recent tweets posted by various Mad Men characters over the past few weeks:

Don Draper, Twitter handle: @_DonDraper (one of a couple Don Drapers on Twitter)

@Roger_Sterling is acting like a teenager. Apparently that’s what makes him happy.

@genes_ghost I’m going to have to get rid of that old helmet.

Maybe it’s time to take @Roger_Sterling out for another oysters-and-martini lunch.

Sally has been crying for days now. I don’t know what to do with her anymore.

Happiness is a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay.

Betty Draper, Twitter handle: @bettydraper

Do let me know if you see @sally_draper sneaking cigarettes again @PreppyPrincess!

Had another dream about Daddy.

Stop it @sally_draper! There is no such thing as @Genes_ghost!

Addressing envelopes for the Junior League.

Tying a scarf.

I’m an orphan.

Taking meatloaf out of oven. Topping it with ketchup.

Gene Hofstadt, Twitter handle: @genes_ghost

Wondering if I can convince @robert_draper to hide the helmet in @Gene_S_Draper’s room or in the trunk of the Lincoln.

I don’t know if I like that @FaintingCouch. Reminds me of my mother’s parlor. Plus it blocks the hearth. What if you want to light a fire?

I turned the TV on to static last night, and @sally_draper came down and put her hands on the screen. I think she was sleepwalking.

MORE AFTER THE JUMP:

'Army Wives' Monday: Fire in the Hole

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Army Wives.*


They kept it light in the second to last episode of the Army Wives’ third season by giving a lot of time to the central quartet of Army wives playing in a charitable golf tournament and letting them play off of one another with aplomb. Who knew that Denise was such a serious duffer, who was distinctly Type-A when it comes to the links? I would’ve pegged Claudia Joy as the super-serious golfer, not Denise. To pair Denise with the golfing rookie Roxy, wearing her “I Have Crabs” T-shirt from her sponsor, was good TV, especially when Roxy sped passed another woman with a golf cart as if there were a fast lane.

The lightness of the golfing adventure took the edge off of Jeremy’s desperate, despondent behavior, the drinking, the bar fight busting up The Hump Bar and having to lose his dog Lucky (who he believes saved his life in combat) a second time so closely on the heels of losing his best friend in Iraq a week before they were supposed to arrive home. Previews keep showing Jeremy with a gun.

Meanwhile, Pamela’s anger toward Chase is darkly simmering (“The man I married, he could be a real jerk sometimes but he’d never look at me in the eye and lie. He’s changed.”) and I expect that, in combination with Jeremy’s increasingly agitated state, that next week’s season finale will feature fireworks in the Moran and Sherwood households.

On top of those family crises, another grenade tossed into the mix was the prospect of Fort Marshall being closed down in a Pentagon move to save some cash. Everybody who thinks Fort Marshall’s really going to be closed, raise your hands. Okay, seeing none, I’m movin’ on . . .


Roland was handed the entire therapeutical practice when his partner skedaddled out of town, fearing that their wrongful arrest when they were helping a patient strung out on drugs, would lead to his arrest. For something, some outstanding charges which went unnamed. When Roland pressed for more info, his partner threatened to physically run through him. Like Roland needs more pressure what with a baby at home and his wife serving in Iraq.

Next week’s the season finale, any predictions?

Image credit: Lifetime.

'Desperate' Mondays: Being Alive

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Desperate Housewives.*

Choking Julie

Okay, so the mystery surrounding Julie Mayer is somewhat interesting. We’re all made to think that the creepy new kid Danny strangled her because we saw the two of them arguing a few scenes before Julie was strangled and because he lied regarding his whereabouts. The mysterious new family from New York has a bad boy son who chokes you if you tick him off? This is Desperate Housewives. It can’t be THAT easy to figure it out, can it? If it is that easy and Danny's the one who strangled Julie, then the writers have definitely lost their touch.

To check for clues about who the assailant might be, I watched the scene where Julie was strangled in super-slow motion, to see if, perhaps, it was the spurned Katherine who might’ve done it to get back at Susan for marrying Mike. But going by the body type, clothing, shoes, etc. the perpetrator looks like a male, someone who’s able to lift her off the ground while strangling her.

The out-of-the-blue curve ball news that Julie was worried that she might be pregnant with the baby of someone Susan had never heard, well that stirred the pot. Obviously it's meant to have us viewers speculate about what else Susan doesn't know about her daughter's life. As to whether Julie saw Bree and Carl kissing during the few seconds of consciousness Julie had in this episode, I could really give a hoot about that. That so-called “hot” storyline about Bree stepping out with Carl is now leaving me cold. After last week when Bree bought new sheets to put on the hotel bed so she could be assured of committing infidelity while on fine, clean linens was funny, but the affair stuff has quickly gone downhill from there.

Power Grab


I can’t decide whether I like or hate the Gabby/Ana power struggle, with Ana lying and sneaking around, pushing all of Gabby’s buttons so Gabby will respond by laying down the law and imposing house arrest. But I do know that I’m no fan of this new character, who seems as though she accidentally set foot on ABC’s Wisteria Lane set instead of a CW set someplace. She looks like she belongs on another teen drama, not one about fortysomething suburban women.

Plus, the Gabby/Ana storyline is sucking all the oxygen out of the Solis household. With Ana in the picture, suddenly Gabby and Carlos’ daughters are, for all intents and purposes, AWOL. It’s very likely that they’d be acting out if there was another child in the house hogging all their mom’s attention.

Quietly Pondering Abortion?

Lynette has continued to be unhappy that she’s pregnant with twins, so much so, that she was toying with aborting the babies, despite the fact that Tom is over the moon that they’re going to have six kids. (Ever notice we never heard about Kayla anymore, Tom’s kid with the now-dead lover? What’s with all these missing kids? Shoved aside when they no longer advance plot points, apparently.) Lynette didn't actually use the words "abortion" or "termination," but she did tell Susan that she had a little voice inside her saying, “Maybe I shouldn’t” have the babies.

Susan, in the end, persuaded Lynette to keep the babies by saying: “Everybody talks about a kid being a gift . . .  but they are a gift Lynette. I know that because I spent the last few hours thinking I was gonna lose mine. I realized that I would trade everything I own, I would give everything I will have for just one more day as Julie’s mom. But I’m not telling you what you should do.”


“Actually, you are,” Lynette said. “And I’m glad you did.”

What did you think of “Being Alive?” Any thoughts on the identity of Julie’s assailant?

Image credit: ABC.

Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Urging Moms to Pay Attention to Health Insurance Reform Debate

This week's Pop Culture and Politics column at Mommy Tracked is all about the health insurance reform debate on Capitol Hill and why it's an important issue for folks to follow. I provide several reasons, including the little anecdote about the Arizona senator who argued against a measure that would've made his insurance company include maternity care as part of a basic insurance package because HE doesn't need it. (This is a senator who is married, has children and whose adult daughter has a child. Yeah, I think the women in his life needed it.) Oh, and the fact that when women who've had C-sections seek to find new insurance policies, in some cases and in some places around the nation, they're told that they have a "pre-existing condition" and denied coverage.

I don't take a specific stance on what health insurance reform bill -- if any -- deserves support, however I do urge the Mommy Tracked readers to "citizen up" and pay closer attention to what's going on and, if they don't like something, tell 'em to speak the heck up about it to their congressman or woman, and senators.

As I detailed which bills are where in the legislative process -- there are several competing health insuracne reform bills in the House and Senate -- I recommended that, if folks were confused about how this whole bill-to-law process works, they should refresh themselves by watching that "I'm Just a Bill" School House Rock video we watched as kids. Couldn't hurt.

‘Mad Men’ Monday: Souvenir

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men*

Whenever I tell people that -- regardless of what they’ve heard about lead character Don Draper -- Mad Men is at its best when it’s about the women, this latest episode will make a great addition to my list of examples, right behind the episode where Betty was shooting the neighbor’s pigeons with a BB gun.

It’s crystal clear that Mad Men is going to go down the Betty Friedan/Feminist Mystique road. Betty Draper not only shares a first name with the author, but definitely suffers from the malaise and disappointment of feeling trapped in the staid life of a housewife, after having received a college education and having led an exciting single life. Everyone told women of her time that what Betty has is what all women should aspire to – a beautiful house in a leafy suburb, money, a successful (handsome) husband, healthy children, household help, nice clothes.

Joan told Peggy in the first episode that if she was lucky, she’d find a husband at Sterling Cooper (like Jane eventually did with Joan’s former lover) and become a housewife. Joan, who wielded authority in a high-powered New York City advertising agency as the office manager (though her ambition was frequently thwarted because of her gender), wanted a life like Betty’s. She found herself a handsome man, a doctor, and became engaged and married him, even after he date raped her when she was at work. Joan planned on “being happy” as an affluent housewife, only her husband’s failure to become a surgeon pushed her back into the workforce where she’s now a manager in a department store and looking quite despondent about it.

However Betty hates her lot in life. She wants to live like Joan again, live in the city, have excitement, have a purpose. Betty seemed thrilled with her work with the Junior League, as it gave her a reason to get out of the house, put on her best clothes, flirt with a man (even receive a kiss from him) in order to get him to do her bidding.

To fly to Rome with Don, to deftly utilize her Italian, to flirt with some men who tried to pick her up and then seduce Don, only amplified Betty’s hatred for her lot in life back in Ossining, a life that’s now about taking the kids to the pool and redecorating the living room. When she returned home, it seemed as though the spell that had been cast in Italy had been broken. And she didn’t like it.

Consider the lead paragraph from The Feminist Mystique and tell me this isn’t where Betty’s headed:

“The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night – she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question – 'Is this all?'”

Betty feeling desired by Henry Francis, by the Italian men, feeling powerful and being able to laugh while men called Don “old” and “ugly” in Italian (given that Don’s such a babe magnet, I’m sure Betty found that highly amusing that Betty was the object of affection) these are things Betty craves, itches that aren’t being scratched, at least not enough for her tastes.

In other stories, the parallels between Henry Francis and Pete Campbell were stark. Both men helped a damsel in distress whom they found attractive and needy and whom they wanted to bed. They both expected something in return for their help, however one was somewhat restrained and let his payment be a kiss, while the other one was a boorish man-child who forced himself on a young, powerless woman who didn’t feel as though she could rebuff him.

While his wife Trudy was out of town, Pete acted like a child, eating cereal in front of the TV while watching cartoons, staying up all night. And he, once and for all, cemented his place in the world of Mad Men as a cad after he pressured a timid au pair – who was frightened he’d rat her out to her bosses for wearing the woman’s dress and staining it – into having sex. You just know that the Peggy thing isn’t over and is going to come back to haunt him.

I loved this episode, for the sexiness of Don and Betty’s Italian sojourn and her Junior League foray into local politics, to the forlorn look on Joan’s face after she saw that Pete found her working in a department store.

What did you think of “Souvenir?”

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Response to FunnyOrDie Pro-Health Care Reform Video

Remember the recent MoveOn.org-funded video favoring a public option in the health care insurance reform debate? The sarcastic one that featured Will Farrell, Mad Men's Jon Hamm and House's Olivia Wilde, among other celebs? The one that mocked "overpaid" health insurance executives who they said would have to give up some of their profits (which would cut into their funds for mini-zoos in their backyards) in order to pay for a government-financed health insurance option?

Well now FunnyOrDie is being politically even-handed in running a response video entitled, "Listen to Overpaid Celebrities" which spoofs the original video and sarcastically asserts reasons why a public option could be harmful to American taxpayers.

PSA - Listen to Overpaid Celebrities - watch more funny videos

Between these two videos (see the original Farrell one below) do you think they're helping illuminate any points in this health care debate or just muddying the issue?

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell