Notes on Pop Culture/Politics: 'Big C' Going it Alone, 'Desperate' Season 7 and Status of Women Now Vs Then

The Big C Going It Alone

After watching the third episode of Showtime’s The Big C, I’m having a tough time figuring out Laura Linney’s character Cathy Jamison. She won’t tell her husband or her teenage son that she has stage four melanoma. She kicked her husband out of the house without explaining to him, or their son, why, other than the fact that she seems to have grown tired of being the responsible, do-gooder, vanilla wife and mother who martyrs herself, taking care of their every need while they take her for granted.

As Cathy continues to act in ways that are uncharacteristic for her, I wonder if she’s secretly waiting for her husband and son to figure out what’s wrong or whether she just wants to act in whatever manner suits her and not be questioned about it. My episode review is over on CliqueClack TV.

Desperate Season 7

ABC has released a promo video for the seventh season of Desperate Housewives and my question is this: Do people care anymore? Adding Vanessa Williams is certainly a good move, but is there any magic left in this once sharp show that deftly satirized the faux perfect life in the ‘burbs? I'm not so sure.



Status of Women Now Vs Then

My Pop Culture and Politics column this week took the occasion of the 90th anniversary of U.S. women’s suffrage to compare what my newly-minted 12-year-old daughter sees when she looks at the world – four female U.S. Supreme Court justices, women as a vast minority of elected office holders and CEOs, women’s sports still treated like the forgotten step-sister to men’s sports, Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” rocking the iTunes singles list – with what I saw when I was 12, way back in the Stone Ages of 1981, when the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice was nominated to the court, when everyone was obsessed with Diana marrying Charles, Olivia Newton-John topped the pop charts with “Physical” and there had been no female candidates on a major national ticket.

Despite some dismal numbers with regard to the number of women in politics, running major businesses and the paucity of media coverage of women's sports, things, as a whole, have markedly improved.

One of the Reasons Why I Love 'Modern Family:' Manny!

When I saw Rico Rodriguez -- who plays Manny Delgado -- on the stage last night when Modern Family so justly won the Emmy for best comedy for one of the best freshman comedy seasons I think I've ever seen, I just wanted to give him a big hug.

How cute is he, the little fashion plate?!

Image credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images via New York Times.

'Mad Men:' Waldorf Stories

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

We learned, quite early on, that this was one of those what-comes-around-goes-around episodes. We got to see Don as an eager fur salesman who'd hounded Roger Sterling for a job, tried to impress and ingratiate himself to Roger, even showed up in the lobby of Sterling Cooper in order to "accidentally" run into him. Then, many years later, as Don’s been nominated for a coveted advertising award, Roger felt as though he’d found Don and, therefore, deserved credit when Don succeeded.

We recall that Peggy was once Don’s eager secretary who was “found” by Don (actually found by Freddy but it was Don who promoted Peggy) to have talent, whose talent Don uses, without providing proper, public credit, to accept an award for work to which Peggy contributed. And Peggy, justifiably, feels jealous.

Then there’s Danny Siegel (Doyle from Gilmore Girls) who’s like a hybrid version of those characters: He’s an eager wanna-be ad man – but he’s got connections to Roger’s wife’s cousin – who tried to impress Don and who pressed too hard. Drunk Don (!) then proceeded to steal “Roger’s idiot’s” idea and pitched it to a clients -- without providing credit -- after Don’s own advertising campaign idea fell flat.

There were a lot of hurt feelings during this episode. Peggy was hurt by Don's apparent blindness to her contributions which led to his Clio. Roger was hurt that Don didn’t credit him with plucking him out of the fur salesman business and hiring him, though the hungover Roger forgot/wasn’t sure that he even hired Don during his booze haze, kind of like how the drunken Don forgot that he used Danny’s “cure for the common [cereal]” line with the Life cereal people and was then guilted into hiring Danny, though he did try to slime his way out of it.

I loved seeing the early scenes between Don and Roger when Don was making the hard sell, slipping his portfolio of advertising ideas into the box containing the fur Roger had bought for Joan. (Ever notice how Don’s eyes seemed wider – literally – and he smiled a whole lot more in the flashbacks, like he did when he was in the flashbacks with Anna telling her that he was going to marry Betty?)

We saw the reappearance of the sad, drunk Don, who’s well on his way to becoming either a brooding Roger or an embarrassing Duck Phillips, who’s also divorced and whose kids are distant with him, largely because of his alcohol problem.

What was awful to watch was Don, fumbling his way through the Life cereal pitch, using the same “nostalgia” line he used in the season one finale, the one he’d so eloquently pitched to the Kodak people for “the Carousel.” Don was a mere shadow of what he was back then, when it dawned on him that family and loved ones were of paramount importance. Only he realized that fact a bit too late to salvage that particular Thanksgiving with Betty and the kids.



To make matters worse, sloppy, inebriated Don continued drinking on that Friday night after he won the Clio. He went home and slept with an advertising professional and woke up at noon on Sunday with a waitress named “Doris” in his bed who referred to him as “Dick,” because apparently he’d lapsed back into his original identity. He woke up from his bender to an irate phone call from his ex-wife Betty who reamed him out for being more than two hours late in picking up the kids as he'd promised to do, making Betty and Henry miss an appointment. Don didn’t even know it was Sunday yet.

And I thought that the post-Christmas party Allison situation, coupled with her emotional resignation, might’ve been a turning point for him. What is Don, another Rescue Me/Tommy Gavin type who needs to reach about a billion low-points before getting the message that things need to change? If he doesn’t allow that message to seep into his consciousness soon, he could indeed be headed for Duck territory.

As for Peggy, that moron Stan and the Vick's campaign . . . I admire the courage Peggy frequently displays when she’s facing difficult situations with no obvious way out. I certainly wouldn’t have taken the route of stripping naked to prove that Stan’s a full-of-crap-blow-hard when it came to his "we should all live purely and naked" line, but that’s why I’m a fan of Peggy’s. She takes you to very unexpected, and oftentimes pretty great places.

Most intriguing moment: Don reaching for Joan’s hand -- after Joan and Roger had already clasped hands under the table -- just before the Clio award in their category was announced. Plus the way Don kissed Joan after he won seemed curious, but maybe I’m reading too much into it.

What’d you think of “Waldorf Stories?”

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

Emmy Awesomeness: 'Mad Men,' 'Modern Family' and Fallon

"I love TV. I love watching TV. . . Let's have some fun tonight." -- Jimmy Fallon, Emmy host

I really enjoyed the Emmy show last night, mostly because of Jimmy Fallon. Starting with the fantastic "Born to Run" dance number -- Betty White! Jorge Garcia! Tina Fey! Jon Hamm! Even Wacky Kate Gosselin! Glee people! -- it felt fun and light.



Of course there was also that Modern Family/George Clooney skit. Loved it.



And Fallon's tribute to the shows which ended -- 24, Law & Order and Lost -- . . . classic. ("The island it was mythical, and in the end they died. I didn't understand it but I tried.")



As for the winners, well, before the awards show I'd written four words in my notebook: Modern Family, Mad Men. And they won best comedy and best drama. As it should be. As it was meant to be. (I was also supremely pleased that the season three finale of Mad Men got a writing award for "Shut the Door. Have a Seat." No offense, but I really didn't want the Lost series finale to win any writing awards. Yes, I'm still that bitter.)

I was surprised that the spectacular Bryan Cranston won another Emmy for Breaking Bad -- though he's amazing -- because he was up against some extremely stiff competition in Jon Hamm, Hugh Laurie, Matthew Fox (I don't blame him for the finale), Michael C. Hall and Kyle Chandler. And he was so very gracious in his victory. It was nice to see Cranston's co-star, Aaron Paul, also win, as he looked clearly stunned upon having beaten Terry "Smoke Monster" O'Quinn, Michael "Ben Linus" Emerson, John "Roger Sterling" Slattery and Andre Braugher.

The biggest mistake of the night came in the best supporting actress in a drama category. Don't get me wrong. I like Archie Panjabi in The Good Wife. She's intriguing. But there's no way her first season as Kalinda was superior to Elisabeth Moss' Peggy Olson on Mad Men.

What were your favorite/least favorite Emmy moments/awards?

Fall TV Previews: Keri Russell/Will Arnett's 'Running Wilde'

On paper, this has a Sabrina-like premise: The daughter of a housekeeper who worked for an extremely wealthy family (until the housekeeper was fired) had a childhood crush on the rich son. But because Fox’s Running Wilde is created by folks affiliated with Arrested Development and stars Will Arnett, odds are that any potential love affair will be uniquely wacky.

Let’s hope that the wacky equals laughs.

Arnett plays Steve Wilde, the idiot rich son who attempts to “help” Keri Russell’s Emmy Kadubic, the housekeeper’s daughter -- who'd been helping a poor tribe in the Amazon where Steve dad wants to drill for oil -- by moving the entire tribe to California mansion. This left Emmy, a single mom, with no job since the people she’d been helping and whose culture she’d been studying now live in the United States.

“You have lorded having nothing over me since the day you found out I had everything,” Steve said to Emmy, accusing her of acting superior to him. When it’s revealed that Steve invited Emmy and her “mute” daughter to live in his Beverly Hills mansion, that’s where it’ll become all nutty and Arrested Development-like. I hope.



Running Wilde premieres on Sept. 21 at 9:30.

Fall TV Previews: J.J. Abrams' 'Undercovers'

Among the shows for which I have high hopes this fall is the new NBC drama Undercovers, created/produced/directed by J.J. Abrams of Lost, the most recent Star Trek movie and Alias. After reading about the show and seeing the preview I thought: Alias, minus Rambaldi, Jack Bristow, Arvin Sloane and baby Bristow/Vaughn.

The premise of Undercovers is like an after-Alias: These married caterers, who used to be CIA spies five years ago, are called back into the fray, just when they were looking for something to amp up the excitement quotient in their marriage. What better than espionage to get the juices flowing?



Several of the scenes in the preview reminded me of Sydney and Vaughn – which is good because I miss Alias – like seeing Steven and Samantha Bloom fleeing a building while wearing jump suits (I thought of Syd and Vaughn in the Vatican), Samantha in the black lingerie (Syd on the SD-6 plane with the master computer) and Samantha stomping on a guy (Syd in the pilot episode in the parking lot after she’d been pursued by SD-6 goons).

What do you think?

It premieres on Sept. 22 at 8 p.m. on NBC.

Notes on Pop Culture: 'The Big C' & 'Weeds' Premiere, Divorce on TV

The Big C & Weeds Premiere

Let’s just say this: I’m hopeful about Showtime's The Big C, no matter what Cathy’s diagnosis may be and how much time she may have left. Though the “death comedy” pilot was a tad uneven, I have faith in Laura Linney’s acting and believe that I’m going to love watching her tightly-wound high school teacher, wife and mother dispatch with her play-it-safe way of living her life.

I really liked the follow-up to the show’s very first scene: Cathy offered to pay double for a guy to immediately dig up her backyard and put in a sunken hot tub, barbecue pit and expand the deck. She’d wanted a pool, she’d asked for a pool, but reluctantly agreed to go along with the contractor’s recommendation. Went along to be nice. She said, “That’s fine, just do that,” so as not to make trouble, though she WAS insistent about the work getting started ASAP.

Later, she put her foot down, told him that she didn’t really want to do what he’d suggested and that, damn it, she wanted a pool like she said originally. Bring out the biggest digger you’ve got and get cracking, she said. For those of us who allow ourselves to get steamrolled too often (my hand is up), seeing Cathy muster the courage to assert herself was very satisfying. (Reminded me of the satisfaction drawn from watching fellow cancer patient Walter White on AMC’s Breaking Bad finally stop letting the world walk all over him once he realized his days were numbered with a cancer diagnosis.)

That’s from where I think the joy of watching this show will come, from watching Cathy emerge from her vanilla, suburban slumber. The emphasis is on, well, NOW, that, and enjoying life in a “I’m just having desserts and liquor” kinda way.



As for Weeds’ season six premiere, while I really liked the gallows humor in the season premiere (especially with Andy making all the wrong choices with his short-lived fiancé and the mallet quips), Nancy was starting to bug me with her selfishness. My irritation was given a voice by Shane and Silas who observed that Nancy, in her haste to go on the run with her family, took the time to pack stuff for herself -- including an entire bag of shoes – but didn’t afford either of them the same opportunity. If they’re leaving for good, the least Nancy could’ve done would’ve been to have let them grab a bag, particularly if she was packing shoes.

I’m just surprised that Nancy didn’t have them stop for an iced coffee for herself on the way to Andy’s house to take his van. But then again, she was drunk. And had just learned that her middle son is a killer, so I suppose I should cut her some slack.

Divorce on TV

After watching AMC's Mad Men’s Don Draper and Betty Francis do a pretty poor job of handling their divorce – as their children, especially their daughter Sally, suffer emotionally – I started thinking about how divorce on TV is done, at least these days.

I dedicated my latest pop culture and politics column to divorce in primetime focusing on, not just divorce on Mad Men, but on HBO’s Hung, TNT’s Men of a Certain Age, a trio of ABC dramas (Private Practice, Brothers & Sisters,  Grey’s Anatomy) and Lifetime's Army Wives.

'Mad Men' -- The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

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

After this episode concluded, the first thing I asked my husband, with whom I was watching it, was, “What would we do if we walked in on that?” That, of course, was the most shocking scene of the episode (other than Betty’s face-slapping of Sally after the 10-year-old had impulsively cut her hair), the one where Sally acted like a normal, curious kid, except that she picked the wrong venue in which she should've, shall we say, explored.

What happened next was an unfortunate overreaction on the part of Sally’s friend’s mother: Bringing Sally home and shaming her, but I suppose that’s probably what would’ve happened in 1965. (Betty then storming into Sally's room and threatening to cut Sally’s fingers off as the penalty for lying and for her "transgression" . . . Mother. Of. The. Freakin'. Year.)

Betty is becoming so harsh in her treatment of Sally that it's growing more difficult to sit through these mother-daughter scenes, particularly when Betty thinks that everything Sally does is in some way directed at her, as opposed to Sally's way of crying out for help. Sally’s humanity, her imperfections, seem to gall Betty, like they're an affront to Betty's vision of the perfect suburban family and must be eliminated, or ignored, no matter the cost. So cold is Betty toward Sally that she didn’t even accompany Sally to the psychiatrist’s office; she had Carla bring her instead. (As Dr. Edna said, I think it’s Betty who needs the therapy more than Sally.)

Sally has been practically invisible to Betty for so long. Sure, Betty was able to tell the child psychologist that Sally took the death of her grandfather especially hard, but Betty never really helped Sally get through all of that grief. Weeks later, when Sally's little brother was born and there was that whole naming-the-baby-Gene-and-sleeping-in-dead-Grandpa Gene’s-room which thoroughly freaked Sally out, Betty was largely oblivious to her daughter’s pain.

To lighten up the mood last night, I enjoyed the delightfully caper-ish storyline where the folks from Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce completely played the rival advertising agency that’s been snapping up some of SCDP’s accounts, making the competition think that SCDP was cutting a high-priced TV ad for the Honda pitch. Notwithstanding Roger’s attempts to fatally sabotage the Honda account – because he fought the Japanese in World War II and still considered them the enemy – SCDP’s subterfuge and appeal to the Honda people’s code of honor won out in the end. Though SCDP didn't get the account, at least Don got the competition to shell out major bucks to try to win it, hobbling their future ability to make pitches for other clients.

Over the course of the past two episodes, is it possible that Don’s confrontation with Allison in “The Rejected” -- where Allison quit and called Don a mean person – was a catalyst of sorts to get him to right his ship and (hopefully) put an end to the sad, mean, drunken divorce guy who pays for sex routine? He hasn't seemed his old charming, dapper self in quite some time. (In last night's episode, he was, once again, seeing Bethany, who’s potentially a mate, not just a bed partner, though I still think she’s a younger version of Betty.)Throw in the surprisingly open chat Don had with Faye in the break room, where he uttered a massive understatement (“It is not going well.”) and confessed that his daughter was going to start seeing a psychiatrist and that he misses his children when they’re not around and yet when he drops them off at his old house he's relieved, and I'm wondering if we're seeing Don gradually turn the corner.

A moment of levity from last week: Seeing Peggy’s head appear in the glass part of the wall between her office and Don's, peering into the room to see what was going on after Allison heaved a paperweight at Don and broke some glass made me laugh out loud.

Another observation from last week: The way in which the news of Trudy’s pregnancy played out between Pete and Peggy was delicate and awkward and real as they silently acknowledged that this won’t be Pete’s first child. That look they exchanged at the end of the episode . . . priceless.

Speaking of Peggy, that Life Magazine gal who invited Peggy to the party, Joyce . . . that situation didn’t go the way that I expected. I was greatly impressed that Peggy didn’t flip out over Joyce’s sexual overture like the way Joan did with her roommate in season one. But then again, most of these episodes have been surprising me lately. I never know what to expect, anything from Lane Pryce wearing a steak belt buckle and heckling a movie, to Roger Sterling playing Santa Claus and Betty's house getting trashed in a home invasion.

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

We'll Be Back After This Brief Blogging Break . . .

I'll be taking the upcoming week off from my writing/blogging duties so you'll have to save up all your Mad Men comments, thoughts on the new Weeds premiere (this Sunday), the pilot episode of The Big C (also this Sunday), the antics on Rescue Me and any other breaking pop culture/politics stories that might've been discussed on this internet watercooler for when I return . . . like if another airline attendant goes berserk or Levi Johnston announces his intentions to marry someone else/run for another Alaskan public office/get someone else pregnant/pose nude for another publication.

I promise I'll post two separate Mad Men episode reviews and catch up on what I've missed while I was re-charging my caffeine-laden brain.

Ciao peeps.

Who DOESN'T Need an Evacuation Chute, Like That Airline Attendant

*Cross-posted from the Picket Fence Post.*



When I opened up my Facebook account yesterday, I saw a post from a friend of mine who is obviously a kindred spirit when it comes to this whole parenting thing. She wrote:

“I am seriously getting depressed. If I see one more post about what a perfect family day someone had I am going to scream. My kids are driving me crazy and they are driving each other crazy. Nothing is perfect or idyllic here more like a slow boil with the chance to bubble over at any second.”

Her post seemed to have opened up a spigot of frustration as a chorus of similar parental sentiments followed in the comments section. Moms and dads chimed in with their not-so-nice feelings about the oftentimes aggravating, overheated days of summer. One person said that her kids constantly shouting “Mom!” were starting to make her feel like a “homicidal maniac.” Another joked that she’s only going to respond to her children calling for her when they refer to her as “Your Majesty." (Not a bad idea.)

I tossed my less-than-ideal summer observations into the mix, admitting that this week I’ve hidden from my three kids in the garage so I could carry on an uninterrupted telephone conversation. (I could hear them looking for me but I said nothing as I sat there in the dark. No, I'm not proud.) Yesterday, I intentionally let the rug rats waste away the morning hours in front of the TV because they were driving me nuts and I needed the time to finish some work without being harassed.

There must be something in the air, because this morning I read a page one story in the New York Times about a flight attendant who, like some of these parents, has had enough. And he totally lost it. When a passenger on a New York-bound flight left his seat to get the belongings he'd stowed in the overhead compartment after the plane had touched down but it was not yet safe for passengers to leave their seats, a longtime airline attendant, Steven Slater, told the passenger he had to sit down. Here’s how the rest of this weirdly inspiring story played out, according to the Times:

“The passenger defied [the flight attendant]. Mr. Slater reached the passenger just as he pulled down his luggage [from the overhead compartment], which hit Mr. Slater in the head.

Mr. Slater asked for an apology. The passenger instead cursed at him. Mr. Slater got on the plane’s public address system and cursed out the passenger for all to hear. After citing his 20 years in the airline industry, he blurted out, ‘That’s enough.’ He then activated the inflatable evacuation slide at a service exit and left the world of flight attending behind.”

He paused, however, to grab two beers from the service cart before jumping down the slide and running across the tarmac to the employee parking lot, the paper reported. (Unfortunately, Slater was arrested and charged with criminal mischief and reckless endangerment.)

The comments on the Times web site about this story cracked me up. “I am having one of these [evacuation chutes] installed in every meeting room,” one person said, adding, “Haven’t we all wanted to hit the ‘escape button?”

Another said, “I wish my office had an evacuation slide.”

During the past 24 hours since the news broke, Steven Slater has been christened a "folk hero," according to New York Magazine. There are Free Steven Slater T-shirts, a Steven Slater Legal Defense Fund and even a move to try to get folks to contact JetBlue on his behalf.

For parents with young kids who spend summer days behaving like kids – meaning tormenting their siblings, challenging/harassing their parents and acting like the immature little creatures they are – don’t we all sometimes need an escape chute, an evacuation slide? Or at least a darkened garage to slip off to when Mommy needs a time out?

'The Kids are All Right:' Parents are Parents

The Spouse kindly agreed to accompany me to the movies last week where I dragged him to see The Kids are All Right, the new Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo flick.

By the time we left the theater, we were convinced that the whole point of the film was this: Regardless of the fact that the main couple was comprised of two women who had raised two children, ages 15 and 18 (they each got pregnant with donor sperm from the same guy), their gender didn’t really matter all that much. What DID matter most was the fact that raising children changed their relationship, challenged it and sometimes obscured the romantic partners’ ability to see one another as they really are, not simply a collection of assorted weaknesses and flaws that can prove irritating.

In my pop culture column this week I wrote about the commonalities I felt I had with the film’s characters, saying, “. . . I felt as though I was observing some of the similar challenges facing my marriage to my husband being played out on the silver screen, witnessing the inevitable scars child-rearing, and life in general, can cause to a relationship.”

'Friday Night Lights'' Season Finale -- Sweet and Neat

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the Friday Night Lights season finale.*

Considering that this was one of the strongest seasons that this underrated show has had – kicking some serious butt on the Vince Howard storyline with his tale of a teen trying to overcome poverty, drugs and gang violence, and daring to go “there” with a story about teenage pregnancy – I admit that I was somewhat disappointed that the season finale wrapped up some of the stories a bit too neatly for my taste.

Having the underdog East Dillon Lions beat the playoff-bound West Dillon Panthers . . . I’m sorry, as much as I love seeing Joe and J.D. McCoy’s smug noses rubbed in defeat -- especially after the lousy punks vandalized the East Dillon Lions’ field -- that victory wasn’t realistic, though I was happy to see Landry make that field goal. Given that the bulk of this season been marinated in difficult, messy reality, this Lions victory seemed improbable.

As for Tami Taylor, I was cheering when I saw Principal Tami walk out of the school board’s meeting without reading that bogus apology that the board had written for her, leaving those who wanted to scapegoat her for a young woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy, all in a tizzy. “Listen, y’all . . . I’ve always put the welfare of the students ahead of everything else, every action that I made was with that intent and it always will be,” Tami said before she left the meeting, calls for her firing heard in the background.

But to have Tami leave her West Dillon principal’s post, after being told she was being placed on “administrative leave,” to take a step down and run the guidance program at East Dillon (she was a guidance counselor before she became principal), seemed, what's the word . . . off. (Plus it makes the folks who run West Dillon High, as well as the school board, seem pretty stupid, dumping two successful members of the Taylor family from the West Dillon faculty in two consecutive years.)

The rosy ending to Tami’s multi-episode arc – with the warm, homey final scene, the folksy music, Tami’s smile, Eric putting up Christmas lights while the girls played with decorations on the front lawn – made me think that the writers simply had a hankering to leave viewers with visions of a happy and contented Taylor family, with Eric’s team having beaten West Dillon and Tami keeping her dignity and having a job that she’s good at.

The story wasn’t so rosy for the Riggins brothers. “You are my brother and you are all I have,” Tim said. “You have a family now. You are a father. And you need to be one.” Watching Tim Riggins take the fall for Billy the moron was so upsetting. Billy should have known better. Tim already has a ton of obstacles in front of him if he wants to succeed in life, but now having to serve time for chopping up stolen cars, that’s certainly not going to help his cause any. Now this was a story that ended on a realistic note, as was the scene with Jess dumping Landry and Matt and Julie finally breaking it off.

Overall, the “Thanksgiving” episode was a moving the-good-guys-can-still-sometimes-win conclusion capping an outstanding season. I absolutely cannot wait for the fifth and final season to begin.

Image credit: NBC.

'Mad Men' -- The Good News (Dick + Anna '64)

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

This episode was called “The Good News,” but frankly, there wasn’t any good news, other than the fact that Lane Pryce has a wicked sense of humor when it comes to the subjects of slabs of steak and Texas belt buckles.

Don’s downward spiral has been a depressing and fascinating thing to behold. First of all, he’s not eating, with the exception of gobbling down Lane’s sandwich in the break room. Secondly, he’s just drinking his way through his haze of a life, bouncing from one distraction to another (making one inappropriate sexual come-on after another, his secretary, Anna’s niece) trying to get himself forget the pitiable lonely life he’s leading in the wake of his divorce.

So it was a fresh relief to see him visit the calming oasis which consistently seemed to center him: Anna, who still calls him by his given name, Dick. In all the scenes they’ve shared together, there was always something distinctly different, more relaxed and tender in Don’s face. Like he was finally home. (Watch the scenes when he’s in New York, he looks like another person.) “I know everything about you, and I still love you,” Anna told him soothingly, the way he wishes Betty would have after he confessed the truth to her.

By the way, Don’s delusional if he thinks that the reason Betty divorced him is because of the manner in which he was born (from a prostitute whose married john wound up with custody of the baby after she died) and that he came from poverty. “After I told her, I felt relieved,” Don said to Anna about finally telling Betty the truth. “. . . I could tell, the minute she saw who I really was, she never wanted to look at me again, which is why I never told her.”

No Don. Midge, Rachel, Bobbie, that flight attendant, Miss Farrell, the piles of cash that were hidden in a locked desk (about which he lied), his attempts to control and manipulate Betty’s every move (shaming her if he had to) while refusing to allow her access to his true emotions THOSE are the reasons why she finally left. Not because he was poor or because of what his mother did for a living. Anna’s the only person on the planet whom Don/Dick had allowed to see inside his soul.

To learn that Anna had little time left because she had cancer that had spread throughout her body – and no one clued her in about her diagnosis – was such a crushing blow to Don, knowing that the one constant in his adult life was about to leave this world, so soon after his marriage died. I must admit that, given his deep feelings, I was mildly surprised to see him run away from Anna’s like a coward, knowing that this was likely the last time he’d see her. (I’m willing to entertain the argument that perhaps the comments by Anna’s sister contributed to Don, the broken family man’s fleeing: “You have no say in the affairs of this family. You’re just a man in a room with a checkbook.”) He then sought refuge in his favorite places: Inside a bottle and in the arms of a call girl.

LOVED Joan in this episode, her in-your-face argument with Lane when she asked for two vacation days off before Greg goes to basic training, and Lane turned her down because they’d just be coming off a holiday break. “I understand that all men are dizzy and powerless to refuse you but consider me the incorruptible exception,” Lane said. “. . . Now don’t go and cry about it.”

To see them both implode after Joan chucked the flowers at Lane, when she received the wrong set of flowers, was entertainingly uncharacteristic for the both of them.

I also enjoyed watching the heartbroken Lane -- on a verge of a divorce or, at the very least, a serious martial estrangement – engaging in some masculine bonding with Don, causing a lively ruckus in the movie theater, getting rowdy with a steak at an upscale restaurant and then venturing to Don’s sad bachelor pad and sleeping with an escort, a pal of Don’s slap-happy call gal. But the distinct difference between Lane and Don, as we all know, is that Lane’s foray on the wild side is but a blip. For Don, it is becoming a lifestyle, for how long is anyone’s guess.

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

Notes on Politics: Michelle in Hot Water, 'Time's' Cover Girl and Kagan to Court

Michelle Obama in Hot Water

While President Obama was celebrating his birthday in Chicago, his wife and their 9-year-old daughter Sasha were traveling abroad in Spain. When the Obamas' Spain itinerary was released, there wasn’t much of an outcry.

Until the photo of our First Lady, looking glamorous and chic while walking through the streets of a southern Spanish town, started getting circulated, most prominently on the Drudge Report. Until reports about the hefty vacation price-tag and the details of the trip were revealed: They were staying at a ritzy, five-star hotel -- where the rooms go for “up to . . . $2,500” -- with 40 of Michelle Obama’s friends on a get-away vacation, to which the Obamas took Air Force Two and brought along 70 Secret Service agents, costing taxpayers major bucks, reported the New York Daily News.

Given the dire economic climate in the United States – including a new report out today saying that the jobless rate is just under double-digits nationwide – this is bad timing. And Michelle Obama’s taking a whole lot of crap for it. The Daily News’ Andrea Tantaros likened the First Lady to a “modern-day Marie Antoinette on a glitzy Spanish vacation” while the peasants beg for an extension of unemployment benefits because they can’t find jobs because no one’s hiring.

Tantaros wrote:

“I don’t begrudge anyone rest and relaxation when they work hard. We all need downtime – the First Family included. It’s the extravagance of Michelle Obama’s trip and glitzy destination contrasted with President Obama’s demonization of the rich that smacks of hypocrisy and perpetuates a disconnect between the country and its leaders. Toning down the flash would humanize the Obamas and signify that they sympathize with the setbacks of the people they were elected to serve.”

All of this hullabaloo reminds me of the kind of flack directed at Nancy Reagan back in the day with her pricey china. Nancy certainly got rhetorically smacked around quite a bit for appearing clueless about the obvious contrast between struggling Americans weathering the early 1980s recession and her regal “Reagan red” designer duds and high-end taste.

Time’s Cover Girl

Time Magazine did something daring. It placed an 18-year-old Afghan woman on the cover this week. What’s so button-pushing about the photo is that the woman has no nose. (She also has no ears but that fact is covered by her hair and a veil.) Why no nose? Because her husband – from whose family she had fled because they severely beat her and treated her like a slave – cut it off. He also removed her ears and left her to bleed to death.

Next to the jarring image on Time’s cover are the words, “What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan.” “. . . Afghan women fear that in the quest for a quick peace, their progress may be sidelined,” wrote Aryn Baker. Baker quoted an Afghan parliamentarian as saying, “Women’s rights must not be the sacrifice by which peace is achieved.”

The juxtaposition of the photo alongside the headline -- the if-the-United States-leaves-we'll-subject-other-girls-to-this-fate sentiment -- hasn’t set well with some folks who say that the United States didn’t embark on a war in Afghanistan to “nation build,” but now, somehow, building and fashioning this nation into something more democratic and western has become the U.S. military’s charge. The cover, with its accompanying headline, has been lambasted as manipulative pro-war advocacy. Either way, I can’t get that photo out of my head. It’s damned haunting.

Kagan to Court

After she’s sworn in as the 100th associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by Chief Justice John Roberts this weekend, Elena Kagan will join two other female justices on the Supreme Court, giving this court more estrogen than it’s ever had.

“Will three finally be the magic number that effects real change for women in terms of pay parity, access to education and sexual harassment in the U.S.?” asked Meghan Casserly in Forbes.com.

She continued:

“A study from Catalyst in 2007 suggests it will. In their study of the U.S.’s 500 largest companies, Catalyst found that the point where women effect change on corporate boards is three. Three women on the board proved to be the point where return on equity, return on sales and return on investment capital saw the biggest improvement. The bottom line: stronger than average performance results when at least three women serve.”

I’m just hopeful that there will soon be a day when a woman being nominated to the Supreme Court -- or to a corporate board for that matter -- won’t be something historic. It’ll just be a run-of-the-mill PR announcement.

Image credits: Torres/AP via the New York Daily News and Jodi Bieber/Time Magazine.

Notes on Pop Culture: Two Seasons of 'Breaking Bad,' 'Rescue Me' Battles Alcoholism & Army Mom Goes AWOL

Breaking Bad’s First Two Seasons

CliqueClack TV, a blog to which I contribute, has this nifty little feature called the “Virgin Diaries” where the site’s writers watch a TV series for the first time and write about it, giving readers who are already fans of the show the chance to re-live the show from the beginning.

In the past few weeks I've been writing about AMC’s Breaking Bad, the drama where Malcolm in the Middle’s Bryan Cranston plays anti-hero Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who’s diagnosed with lung cancer and starts cooking meth so that when he dies, he’ll leave some significant money behind for his pregnant wife and their 15-year-old son with cerebral palsy, as well as trying to make sure that the cost of his cancer treatments doesn't drive the family into bankruptcy.

The cancer, coupled with the drug making (he's a whiz at making pure crystal meth) awakens something dormant within Walt -- chiefly his confidence -- and he blossoms, going from a timid teacher (who had done Nobel Prize-worthy work in graduate school) to a cut-throat drug manufacturer.

My review of the complete first, seven-episode season is here, followed by my take on the first part of season two as well as the remainder of Breaking Bad’s sophomore season.

I was riveted by the first season while watching Walt transform, but I didn't find the second season as compelling as the first. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad, it was just . . . different, more depressing, as Walt’s personal life fell to pieces as he learned the ropes of the meth business and his partner coped with tragedies and struggled with his own appetite for drugs.

Rescue Me Battles Alcoholism

Speaking of depressing . . . the past two weeks of Rescue Me have featured the intense fear that Tommy Gavin’s daughter Colleen – who’s a raging alcoholic like her father – had died after going on a bender with Tommy (I was convinced that she was going to be found dead by the end of last week's episode), to this week's episode, where Tommy claimed he’s off the juice again and tried to drive demonic spirits out of his daughter by forcefully baptizing/exorcising her by plunging her face into a baptismal font which Tommy had filled with a priest’s stash of booze.

I can’t decide whether the show is going to try to sink Tommy to even lower depths – I don’t think he’s reached “rock bottom” yet, whatever one might call “rock bottom” – in his and his troubled family’s battle with alcohol, or whether it'll spend the remainder of the time trying to have Tommy climb his way out of the hole he's in. I also can't figure out where the writers are headed, and that's, I think, a good thing.

Army Wives and AWOL Moms

Recently Army Wives took on the thorny issue of what to do when a single parent is supposed to deploy overseas and his or her childcare arrangements fall through. Based on a true story of an Army cook who was threatened with court martial for failing to report for duty to go overseas after her mother backed out of taking care of her 10-month-old son, Army Wives tugged at the heartstrings, asking the question of whether this fictional AWOL Army mom should’ve been loyal to her job or to her child.

My column on moms in the military -- both on the Lifetime drama and what's gone on in the real Army -- was posted on Mommy Tracked this week.

Image credit: AMC.

'Weeds' and 'The Big C' Combo Promo: Which Mom Has It Worse?

Which character has it worse: The married high school teacher/mom of a teen who has terminal skin cancer and isn't telling anyone about it as she unravels and acts out (declaring she's only going to have "desserts and liquor" at a restaurant), or the on-the-run, drug-dealing mom of three who married a powerful, drug-dealing politician, had his baby, then fled when her middle son killed an aide to her husband who threatened her kids?

You decide.

Laura Linney and 'The Big C'

I read the profile of Laura Linney in this past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine and fell in love with her. Now, I must admit that I was already a Linney fan, what with her awesome depiction of Abigail Adams in the HBO mini-series John Adams, her raw performance in The Squid and the Whale, her no-nonsense turn in Kinsey and the crisp desperation of her Mrs. X in The Nanny Diaries.

Getting a tiny glimpse into how she thinks, as I did while reading this particular article, was like taking in a big gulp of fresh air given all the garbage spewed by actresses/celebrities who frequently tell the rest of us peasants how we should live our lives, how we should look, how we should act and how we should eat while they live their own pampered little lives.

Consider what the 46-year-old Linney had to say about “the privilege of aging,” a touchy subject for Hollywood actresses who seem to be largely Botoxed, surgically altered and plumped and generally messed-around-with in order to look as though they’ve discovered the antidote to aging (while the likes of George Clooney gray and wrinkle and still winds up on lists of sexy celebs). Here’s what the Times’ Frank Bruni wrote:

“As we sat in the new Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant ABC Kitchen, [Linney] worked her way through a curious pea-centric line-up of pea soup and pea salad and talked about aging, and about her mystification and frustration with so many people’s rebellion against it. She conceded that sagging skin, waning energy and creaky joints aren’t fun, but said that the early deaths of beloved friends had opened her eyes to the fact that growing old is the greatest of blessings. ‘A lot of people don’t get that privilege,’ she said. ‘And there’s an extreme disrespect toward that that’s cuckoo.’

I asked her how many friends had died, and who, but she waved the question away: I’d crossed into one of those no-fly zones. ‘A lot of people,’ she said. ‘And I miss them.’ She added that whenever she realizes that she’s about to complain about aging, ‘I imagine them taking me by my shoulders and shaking me: ‘Snap out of it!’”

Aging as a blessing. What a wonderfully, down-to-earth way of looking at things. That makes me just want to watch her more, especially as she takes the reins of a new, dark Showtime drama, The Big C, about a high school history teacher with a terminal case of skin cancer who, at least early on, not only refuses to tell her family about it, but decides to stop being so timid and restrained -- so very suburban about everything --and embraces life. Linney’s character, the 42-year-old wife and mother of a teen, is named Cathy (like the Cathy comic) and, based on the previews, seems as though she's going to unleash her true self in interesting ways, kind of like the opposite of the melodramatic story of Izzie Stevens'/Grey’s Anatomy skin cancer.



The Big C premieres on Monday, Aug. 16 at 10:30 after the season premiere of Weeds. Showtime has posted the pilot episode online at its web site. You can watch it here to see if Linney’s turn as a cancer patient has you as intrigued as I am.

Image credit: Hendrik Kerstens/New York Times.

Notes on Pop Culture: Depressing 'FNL,' Meanest Anti-'Lost' Finale Tweets, 'Eat Pray Love' & 'The Philadelphia Story'

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Friday Night Lights.*

FNL’s Depressing Episode

Fifteen-year-old Becky Sproles’ abortion on Friday Night Lights’ – a choice fully supported and, in fact, insisted upon by her mother Cheryl – continues to haunt Tami Taylor, even though Tami neither advised Becky to terminate her pregnancy nor did she advocate that Becky do anything other than talk with her mother.

Somehow, the baby daddy’s mother, Margaret Cafferty, got it into her head that the abortion was all Tami’s idea and that since Margaret didn’t get to speak with Becky while Becky was still pregnant, Tami is the one who has to pay. In the latest episode, “Laboring,” Margaret had taken the false story to the newspaper, resulting in Tami getting attacked in an article with her photo next to it, accusing her of pushing Becky into having an abortion. After the article's publication, Tami received phone calls at home calling her a “baby killer” and telling her she’s going to rot in hell (even though she pointedly told Becky, who’d asked Tami if she’d go to hell for having an abortion, that she didn’t think Becky would burn in hell). Tami got picketed at school with signs, while the school board pressured her to publicly apologize of her “inappropriate behavior,” even though she didn’t do anything inappropriate.

Sure, there's a big football game coming up between the two rival Dillon teams and Eric is all worked up about it – fielding his own hate-filled, taunting phone calls, hearing the mean-spirited trash talk and seeing his car covered with graffiti -- but between Tami’s situation and poor Vince’s, where he bravely stood up to a gang member who wanted him to help him kill a rival who gunned down one of their friends . . . never mind that Billy Riggins became a daddy at roughly the same time he and his younger brother Tim were hauled to jail for running a chop shop, and the East versus West game seemed like a minor concern by comparison, except for that heartbreaking scene where the spoiled heathens from West Dillon ransacked the East Dillon field, knowing full well that East Dillon doesn’t have the money to repair it. That was truly sad, particularly because it seems like the odious brats will get away with it.



Meanest Anti-Lost Finale Tweets Sent to Lindelof

During a the TV Critics Association Awards over the weekend, Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof accepted an award for best drama series by sharing a handful of the nastier tweets he received after the show’s controversial finale (I still cannot discuss the finale rationally), New York Magazine reported. Among them:

“Hey, douche! Instead of backpacking in Europe or whatever the f_*& you’re doing, how about you give me six years of my life back?”

AND

“Has anyone accused you of being an emotional terrorist yet? And research these words: closure and actual explanations.”

Eat Pray Love: The Eating Portion

Having just dispensed with The Help last week (I couldn’t stop thinking about Betty Draper’s housekeeper/nanny Carla, who we saw for the first time last night), I’m now onto Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I completed the Italy section over the weekend and, I must say, I developed an immense desire to consume copious amounts of fresh, authentic Italian fare and wash it down with a fabulous glass of red wine while reading it.

And while I dabble in yoga – try to take classes intermittently – I can’t envision that reading about the India portion of Gilbert’s trip is going to compel me to pull out my yoga mat and meditate every morning. (It’d be kind of impossible, the notion of meditating, what with the three kids who live here in the house, including the one who likes to wake up at the crack of dawn and follow people around.)

The Philadelphia Story

My 9-year-old son had a friend sleep over our house the other night and for entertainment, the two of them chose to watch the Pink Panther 2 with Steve Martin for the umpteenth time because they so adore watching Martin mispronounce “hamburger” while affecting a French accent.

Since I didn’t think I could sit through it again (actually, I think I’ve only watched portions of it), I, opted to retreat to my room to watch The Philadelphia Story for the umpteenth time without having to listen anyone whine, “Mooom, this is so borrrr-ing!).” Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant, they never get old. Plus having Stewart portray a not-well-paid writer, well, that hits a note with me.

'Mad Men' -- Christmas Comes But Once a Year

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

After watching last night’s episode of Mad Men, I had to wonder whether or not the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd had screened an advance copy, what with her column comparing Don Draper to Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s that ran in yesterday's paper. Dowd wrote:

“Even though many of us grew up not realizing it, Holly’s a hooker. And in the new season of AMC’s Mad Men, which started last Sunday, Don hires a hooker and wants to be slapped . . . In Mad Men, the single Richard Whitman from Pennsylvania coal country morphs into the married Don Draper after an accident in the Korean War. In Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the married Lulamae Barnes morphs into the single Holly Golightly to get out of the backwater Tulip, Tex.”

Dowd's column was fresh in my mind as I watched Don Draper – now openly, widely pitied in his office (called "pathetic") for going home drunk and alone to his dark apartment alone every night (so drunk that his neighbor Phoebe often hears him drop his keys and one night helped pour him into his bed and remove his shoes) – have sex with his stunned secretary Allison on his sofa after she left the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Christmas party to bring his apartment keys to him because he’d accidentally left them behind.

It was a painful scene, watching Don looking (*gasp*) ugly as he slobbered all over the wide-eyed Allison, taking advantage of her, similar to the way he tried to pull Phoebe down on top of him, only Phoebe is not employed by Don and she's not as naive as Allison. Even worse was the scene the following day in the office, when Don didn’t actually acknowledge the reason why Allison was smiling so broadly and instead handed her an envelope – her Christmas bonus – with two $50 bills, cash, inside the card which felt, at least surficially, as though Allison had been paid for services rendered . . . complete services, everything from buying Don’s kids’ Christmas gifts (and wrapping them), fetching him ice and aspirin, to satisfying his drunken sexual needs. Don became THAT guy in this episode, the one who sleeps with his secretary and then acts like it never happened.

It seemed as though a number of people in the episode were, in some ways, prostituting themselves, or trying to bend others to their will by giving them favors and expecting a return on their investment.

There was Peggy’s baby-faced boyfriend Mark who handed her a pathetic plate of cookies -- that he didn’t even make, just stole from work – and expected that the presence of ill-gotten confections would somehow make Peggy fall onto the ground and let him have his way with her. Mark – “We’re not doing anything I can’t do myself” -- actually said, “I brought you cookies!” He tried all these high-pressure tactics to try to persuade Peggy to sleep with him, including bogusly claiming that Swedish folks “make love the minute they feel attracted.” (“You’re never going to get me to do anything Swedish people do,” Peggy replied humorously.)

“If Lee Garner Jr. wants three wise men flown in from Jerusalem, he gets it,” Roger Sterling said.

Lee Garner Jr. knows that he’s one of SCDP’s biggest clients, therefore everyone, particularly Roger, has to do what he wants (including firing Sal Romano) lest, as Don said last season, Lee would shut out the company’s lights. After a drunken Roger made of mess of things during a telephone call with Lee, Roger wound up telling Lane that they had to have a big Christmas party – despite the fact that they don’t have the money to do so – because that’s what Lee wanted. That’s why Lee can and does order Roger around. That's why Roger donned a Santa suit and let Lee take photos of him as Lee ordered various employees to sit on Roger’s lap. That's why Roger allowed Lee to taunt him, by telling him to be careful with Santa’s sack. “Don’t want you to have a third heart attack,” Lee said as he put his arm around the sparkly Jane.

Meanwhile, Glen “Stanley” Bishop was trying to send a signal to Sally – who told him she hates where she’s living, what with always half expecting her father to be around every corner – that he’ll do . . . whatever, to get into Sally's good graces, including risking getting caught trashing the house that she hates by chucking food everywhere and making a general mess (raw eggs in Bobby’s bed!) all except for Sally’s bed, where he left a tell-tale calling card to let her know that he was looking out for her. And given this creepy walk-in-on-you-in-the-bathroom-ask-for-a-lock-of-Betty’s-hair kid’s history – particularly in season two when he told Betty, during her first separation from Don, that he’d protect her – you just know that this unbalanced boy is going to come around looking for payment from Sally at some point.

Top it all off with Don, literally fleeing the room when a survey is being conducted by consumer research professionals who want SCDP to use their services because of the “level of intimacy” required in order to participate (questions about one’s feelings about one’s father, for example), Don seems as though he’s trying to distance himself from true emotional contact with anyone to try to make sure no one gets inside of him because he’s already in pretty crappy shape, self-medicating with booze. Things like receiving that letter from Sally saying what she’d really like for Christmas is for Don to be there on Christmas morning to give her her gift in person, though she knows that’s not possible, are like scratching at a still-bleeding internal wound about which he’s doing nothing to staunch the blood. When you throw in the scene from last week, where Don hired a call girl and asked her to slap him around while they were having relations, Don is in a very, very bad place right now.

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.