'Homeland' Season 2 Promo Promises Answers

"The answers are coming . . . Brace yourself."

I have no idea how the geniuses behind the Showtime drama Homeland are going to possibly top their first brilliant season. And this trailer for their sophomore season raises expectations sky high.

This show is like the anti-The Killing, which I've stopped watching because I got so fed up with the series and because of the botched season one conclusion. Homeland scribes have deftly figured out how to combine suspense and tension without leading viewers on or patronizing them with insulting red herrings.

My fingers are crossed that when they've got good stuff in store for us when the second season starts on September 30 and we again see Claire Danes' spectacularly complex Carrie Mathison and Damian Lewis' eerie Nicholas Brody. Mandy Patinkin as the curmudgeonly Saul Berenson is pretty awesome as well.

Mad Men: A Woman's Worth

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

What. In. The. World. Was. That?

Dollar bills balled up and angrily hurled at a woman's face.

A married woman with a baby at home asked to put out in order to land an account for her firm.

Another married woman at an audition asked to turn around slowly so men could examine her figure, not her acting abilities.

Two ad campaigns which used women's bodies to sell products: One with a nude Lady Godiva image, the other by comparing a woman and her body to a car and its mechanical parts.

Women were but mere commodities in this episode. Things to be bought and sold. Possessed. Controlled. Consumed. Enjoyed by men. Discarded when they became too old, too used, too familiar. We always knew that the men on Mad Men viewed women this way, but never had their views been so nakedly laid bare.

Don -- himself the product of a commercial exchange of sex -- gave lame lip-service to his objection to prostituting Joan out to a client in order to get the Jaguar account. (I tried to imagine his reaction if someone had ever suggested that he lend Betty or Megan out for a night in order to win an account, and all I came up with were violent images in my head, Don's fists in a ball.) But for all his protestations, Don seemed more upset that he didn't win Jaguar on purely the merits of his own pitch, his own charm and brilliance, without Joan muddying the waters, detracting from his golden boy image.

Yet with Peggy, Don has always been Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. On the one hand, he treasures Peggy's insight, talent and loyalty. But on the other hand, he takes her for granted, like she's a pesky little sister whom he can berate and embarrass without consequence because, at day's end, they're family.

You'd think that the son of a prostitute would know better than to throw crumpled up wads of cash into a woman's face in an attempt to belittle her and her accomplishments, as though whatever value she offers him is somehow contemptible and not worthy of respect. He should know that's not going to go over well.

Don has always acted as though he was Peggy's knight in shining armor, that he singled her out in order to give her a chance but in reality, she made the name for herself. Her talent was initially recognized in season one by Freddy Rumsen, who called it to Don's attention. And when Pete, with whom Don was feuding at the time, objected to the involvement of a secretary on an ad campaign, Don christened her a copywriter. The move was more about Don one-upping Pete than him championing a talented young woman. When the partners fled the sinking Sterling Cooper ship at the end of season three, Don treated Peggy shabbily, diminished her again like his kid sister. Although Don encouraged Peggy to return to the workplace after she had a baby, Peggy bailed him out with that whole Bobbie Barrett mess. She was at Don's side when he hit rock bottom. Neither of them can hold a moral high ground over the other. But they're not brother and sister. There's nothing tying them together except for good will, which Don torpedoed with the straw that broke the camel's back, with those crumpled dollar bills. How ironic in an episode about women's worth.

While he was screwing up his relatinship with Peggy, Don has no idea what to make of his wife Megan's declaration that she has a career that's just as important as his own and that if it leads her to Boston, he has no right to tell her she can't take it. He can't control her like he did with Betty, or Peggy for that matter. Megan's a mystery to him. Don just can't stop himself from stepping in it. Megan, meanwhile, like Joan and Peggy before her, was also treated like a piece of meat on her audition, asked to spin around in front of men who was casting for a play, her figure more important than whether she knew her lines.
Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

Gatsby Anyone?

New York.

Circa 1922.

Gatsby.

On the silver screen.

Mark your calendars for this December.

That reminds me . . . I'm due to re-read this great American gem again. I adore re-reading The Great Gatsby. It's such a richer experience to read it when you're an adult and you've voluntarily decided to do so rather than when you're in high school and forced to read it when it doesn't quite resonate as deeply as it does once you've lived a little.

Mad Men -- What in the Hare Krishna is Goin' on Here?

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

Joan and Don flirted in a bar after taking a bright red Jaguar for a spin. And they didn't wind up sleeping together.

Paul Kinsey joined the Hare Krishnas and shaved his head.

Harry Crane had sex in the office with a Hare Krishna leader Lakshmi, a woman for whom Paul not only has feelings but wants to build a life with her. Guilty Harry handed Paul money and urged him to flee to Hollywood to follow his dreams.

Megan channeled Betty Draper as she raged about Don blowing off dinner and not telling her where he was all night.

Lane embezzled thousands of dollars from Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and forged Don's signature. (Oh the delicious irony of Don -- who stole his identity from a dead man -- having his signature forged.)

Roger, who sported some hideous attire in this episode, actually told Joan he wanted to be responsible -- Roger Sterling, responsible! -- and pay child support for Kevin.

To quote Liz Lemon . . . What the what? For yet another week in this very different fifth season from the previous four, events seemed out of whack. (At least there were no semi-naked shots of Rory Gilmore.) Characters behaved, well, out of character so much so that I have no idea what to expect from anyone next week. Will Joan burn her bra? Will Roger join the priesthood? Pete join the anti-war movement?

For example, we already knew that there was more to Lane than his all-business, musty British demeanor. He wanted to leave his wife last season. He had an affair with an African-American Playboy bunny. He drunkenly shouted at a movie screen and later a fine restaurant -- remember the slab of steak he held up as his belt buckle? -- with Don before the two of them busied themselves with women of the evening.

Lane isn't a shrinking violet by any means, the man who "sacked" Don, Roger and Burt in order to afford them a head start to launch their new firm with which he'd be a partner. But I never pegged Lane as an embezzler or someone who'd mess with the books for his own personal gain. He's the guy who chastised Joan last year for wanting to spend "too much" on a Christmas party, then had to turn around and throw a pricey shindig because Lee Garner Jr. announced he'd be making an appearance. A commenter on a TV blog posed an interesting query: On what is Lane spending all his money? Why is he suddenly skint?

As for Joan, I'd completely understand if she wants to wash her hands of Roger's immaturity and is fed up with men in general, especially after Greg's self-serving stunt with the divorce papers. But it doesn't seem to make sense for Kevin's future financial well being, that she'd spurn Roger's offer of monetary support. It's short-sighted and Joan's not usually short-sighted. But hey, at least she didn't melt into Don's arms when he asked her to dance. Now THEY would've made an intriguing couple. If Joan had danced with Don and made it clear that she was open to more, I wonder if Don would've slept with her or said, "Thanks but no thanks."

While the light in Don's eyes from having Megan work on his creative team has been extinguished -- severely disappointing Don who'd sloughed his work to the side in favor of doting on his new wife -- Megan is now wading into Betty territory (although when she chucked the dinner plate against the wall it reminded me of when Don hurled Bobby's toy against the wall after Betty urged him to "do something" when Bobby was misbehaving during dinner). However I don't think Don's a fan of this side of Megan, not when she's yelling at him or openly criticizing Don's profession. Was it her rejection of advertising that set the fire under Don's behind again and prompted him to make that rousing speech about the Jaguar account, recommitting himself to his work?

Last, but not least, the Hare Krishna thing. Paul in that get-up. Harry falling for Lakshmi's line that she was "burning" for him. Harry, not known for being generous with anyone, giving his now floundering colleague a whole lot of money and a load of encouraging words. This I did not see coming. At. All. I was glad to see old Paul though, I'd been wondering what had become of him, just like I wonder whether we'll see Sal Romano again, or his wife Kitty who's busy wrecking her medical career over on Grey's Anatomy.

Image credit: Jordin Althaus/AMC.

Mad Men Characters as Comic Book Stars, in Ad Campaigns, Plus Other Mad Men News

The peerless Mad Men-obsessed illustrator Dyna Moe has created quirky new Mad Men images for those of us who simply can't get enough of the period AMC drama.

In addition to her book, Mad Men: The Illustrated World where she interpreted key scenes from the show in colorful illustrations, she keeps a Flickr stream where she uploades images inspired by the 1960s show.


Her latest pics have placed Mad Men characters into ad campaigns which complement their storylines, or as comic book heroes/villains or even on album covers.

Love.

Be sure to check out Sally as Nancy Drew, gal detective.

In other Mad Men news:

Jessica Pare, otherwise known as Megan Draper on Mad Men, is on the cover of New York Magazine's television-centric issue this week, talking all about her infamous "Zou Bisou Bisou" scene in the season premiere, becoming Don Draper's wife and the intriguing bit of trivia that she initially auditioned to be the prostitute who slapped Don in the face last season before landing the part of Megan.

Meanwhile, my retinas remain scarred from seeing Alexis Bledel -- forever Rory Gilmore from the Gilmore Girls to me -- in smarmy Pete Campbell's fantasy in the "Dark Shadows" episode, wearing a fur coat and underwear while trying to seduce Pete at the office.

In an interview on the Mad Men web site, Bledel said that her character Beth Dawes, a depressed housewife who sought out a fling with Pete, is intriguing. "I instantly wanted to know more about her because she's quite mysterious and she's conflicted," Bledel said. ". . . I felt for her right away. She is stuck in a bad marriage that is really taking a toll on her psyche I think, so I just wanted to explore what that meant for her."

I just keep picturing Bledel in season one of Gilmore Girls in the "That Damn Donna Reed" episode where Rory dressed up like a 1950s housewife, complete with faux pearls, serving up steak and instant potatoes to impress her boyfriend Dean. I know, I know, Bledel is in her 30s now. She's no longer a teen. And that episode aired way back in February 2001, but even now, you've got to admit, she still looks very young, way too innocent for the likes of Pete Campbell.

Image credits: Dyna Moe/Nobody's Sweetheart, New York Magazine and TV Fanatic.

Mad Men -- Everybody's Lookin' Out for Number One

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

"You are not loyal. You only think about yourself." -- Peggy Olson to Roger Sterling after Roger gave a new copywriter extra work (and cash) instead of asking Peggy.

Everybody's got an agenda, and it's all about benefiting the person they see in the mirror every day.

Betty, who doesn't seem to want what she has but wants what she can't have (food, Don's affection/respect/confidences), wants to make Don and Megan miserable so she'll feel better about herself, particularly after getting a glimpse of the slender Megan when she was getting dressed.

Don, who hasn't been exercising his creative muscles lately, wants to best an up-and-coming copywriter so he'll feel better about himself and doesn't play fair when he uses his seniority to trump the guy.

Pete -- who, like Betty, doesn't want his life or his spouse -- daydreams about sexy dalliances with a woman who's married to the guy with whom he commutes to work every morning. That's when he wasn't off trying to promote himself and only himself, excluding other members of his firm . . . only to fail miserably in his public relations efforts. (Have I mentioned how much I hate Pete Campbell? Snake.)

Roger, who ditched the loyal mother of his first child for a younger wife who he also dumped after he grew bored with her too, wants to sully Jane's new digs so he'd be the first man to have her in her apartment even though Jane expressly said she wanted a fresh break from him, after she extracted a bribe from him in exchange for accompanying him to work dinner.

Everybody's a selfish git in this episode, scheming and maneuvering about how to handle situations in ways which are beneficial to themselves. Even characters who have always been selfish -- Don, Roger, Pete -- demonstrated a little extra self-absorption at the expense of others in their workplace with Don smacking down an employee whose efforts could help Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce's bottom line, Roger blowing off Peggy who'd helped him in a pinch and Pete who was only looking out for himself and not his ad agency when he made his bid for New York Times publicity.

The cruelty we saw that was personal in nature was rooted in each character's insecurities. Betty, unhappily overweight, wanted to hurt Don and his thin trophy wife by not only trying to wreck Megan's warm relationship with Sally, but by telling Sally about Anna Draper, hoping to damage Sally's relationship with her father. Roger, who didn't like the notion of being replaced in Jane's bed by the twentysomething son of a client, wanted to wreck Jane's fresh start. Megan's friend Julia, who was trying out for a role that Megan said was fairly lousy, lashed out at Megan for being freed from having to audition for crappy scripts because she sits on an affluent "throne" courtesy of her husband's money.

Nobody seems happy with anybody. Nobody seems nice to anyone else, except for Henry, who chose not to tell his weight watching wife that he was starving after all the low-calorie dinners and fried up his own steak in the middle of the night, hoping she wouldn't notice. (Henry already demonstrated his insecurities earlier this season when he didn't tell Betty that Don had called to inquire about her health after she feared she had cancer.)

By the way, what is up with Megan being barefoot all the time? Is this supposed to represent a new, freer, youthful, late 1960s kinda vibe? It certainly contrasted with Betty who showed up in Don's apartment looking like the 1960s housewife she is.

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

Y'All, I Sure Miss Coach Taylor

I want to tell you something. I just need to say that I sure do miss Coach Eric Taylor.

(Found this via the AV Club.)

'Are You MOM Enough?' Happy Mother's Day from Time Magazine

Seriously?

What the heck is up with that "Are you MOM enough?" headline? And, for that matter, what would possess Time Magazine's editors to pair such a shamelessly Mommy Wars-baiting kind of question with an intentionally salacious (not maternal, not nurturing) image of a nearly 4-year-old boy, who's identified by name, standing on a chair with his mouth on his slender, tank top attired twentysomething mother's exposed breast?

This cover is not about provoking a rationale discussion or even a lively debate about the pros and cons of attachment parenting or extended breastfeeding, two subjects certainly worthy of intellectual dissection. The cover isn't, as the editors claim, simply promoting the lead story inside the magazine which profiles America's leading attachment parenting advocate, who happens to be a seventysomething pediatrician. It's about titillation. Yeah, I said that.

Once you get past the cover, the magazine's lead story is entitled, "The Man Who Remade Motherhood." The accompanying articles (available for Time subscribers and on sale tomorrow on newsstands) are about Dr. Bill Sears and his attachment parenting philosophy which includes the promotion of extended breastfeeding through at least the first year of a baby's life and beyond, co-sleeping with the baby, not letting a baby "cry it out" and wearing the baby around in a baby sling. Other articles include a woman's tale of extended breastfeeding and a token analysis of attachment parenting and comparing its tenets to what science has discerned by studying its practice. Again, I think that these are important subjects to assess, particularly when it comes to tension between attachment parenting and the ability of women to work outside the home.

However that cover does a disservice to breastfeeding and flouts what breastfeeding advocates repeatedly say about it: It's not sexual and we need to get beyond seeing breasts as sexual objects and recognize that they're purposeful, functional parts of the female anatomy after a woman has a baby.

I'm a very low-key breastfeeding advocate, having nursed my babies for a long time, and think women should be able to do it wherever and whenever they and/or their babies need to. But this cover isn't about all of that. It's about newsstand sales. The magazine's editors should be embarrassed by their craven exploitation of this woman and her son, whose friends will be able to Google this image of him, at almost 4, suckling his mother's breast. Did anybody think about the impact of this photo on the kid?

Image credit: Time Magazine.

Notes on Politics: Hillary Clinton Appeared in Public Without Makeup. Film at 11.

 

How sad is it, the fact that the U.S. Secretary of State appeared in public without cosmetics having been applied to her face (she wore lipstick) is considered big news? That it was a lead story on Drudge? That the internet was all abuzz about it?

While I absolutely love that Hillary Clinton said she has no interest in what people are saying about her decision not to wear makeup (except for lipstick) -- and hope that young women take note of how she doesn't care -- the fact that it's news at all, never mind prominently so, is disturbing.

Where are the news stories intelligently parsing what she was in Bangladesh to speak about, because it certainly wasn't about the multi-million-dollar American cosmetics industry? I haven't heard a whole lot about why she was over there in the first place, only that she did so wearing glasses (The scandal!) and let people see that she has freckles (The horror!).

I take umbrage at how some folks are responding to the photos, with some saying she looked like a "schoolgirl" (Girl? Really? When are male pols referred to as "boys?") and others maligning her as looking "tired and withdrawn."

I don't care about any of that. Just tell me what she was there to discuss, will you please? I don't want to read about speculation as to whether she has a stylist. After some rooting around online, I learned that Clinton was discussing microlending to the poor, expressing her hope that such efforts wouldn't be "undermined by government actions" in Bangladesh, CNN reported. Additionally, Clinton called for the end of politically-motivated violence and for "further cooperation between the United States and Bangladesh on counter-terrorism, environmental, health, food security and educational issues," the Los Angeles Times reported. But the focus of the bulk of the coverage? Her looks.

Erin Gloria Ryan at the blog Jezebel likewise had a strong reaction to this no make-up flap, saying:

"For a society that produces ads and photo spreads so airbrushed that they're technically cartoons, we're oddly obsessed with seeing women without airbrushing for various reasons: to satisfy our own curiosities (and insecurities) or so that we can mock them for being human or praise them for bucking tradition, especially if they're women in power, and double extra especially if they're polarizing women in power. But even entering the conversation is unnecessary and dangerous."

Image credit: Pavel Rahman/AP via Yahoo News.

Mad Men -- Pete Campbell's a Snake Who Longs to be Don Draper

 

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

When Pete asks a lady of the evening to slap him on the face, hard, then we'll know that his attempt to morph into Don Draper will be complete. But we're not quite to that point yet.

Pete is doing to his marriage what Don did to his first one with Betty, along with their cozy little family that was living a lovely little life in the New York suburbs: Trying to sabotage it because he doesn't understand why he's not happy living in the "country" with a pretty wife and young daughter in their nice home, while in the city he has earned respect at the workplace and a partnership stake in his Madison Avenue agency. Plus he's got Harry Crane's sweet office space now too.

Pete has already paid women for sex (like Don did last season), got into fist fights with colleagues/clients (like Don did with Duck last season and Jimmy Barrett years ago), hit on young women (like Don did with Miss Farrell) and slept with a married woman who's not his wife (as Don did with Bobbie Barrett).

Only now, Pete is upping the ante, almost as though he's hoping that he'll get caught by messing around with the wife of a friend of his, Howard, with whom he rides the train into the city each day, a man who Pete knows is carrying on an affair "on the side." Howard and his wife Beth live in the same neighborhood as do the Campbells, so when Pete got busy with Beth in Beth and Howard's house, he was taking a risk, something Don did with increasing regularity until he hit the bottom.

Two things fascinated me about Beth:

1. She was played by Alexis Bledel, otherwise known as Rory Gilmore from the Gilmore Girls. During her first few scenes, particularly when her character had sex with Pete, I kept yelling, "Pete Campbell can't do that to Rory Gilmore!" and "Lorelai's not going to like that!" (Lorelai did get very angry when Rory slept with Dean after he'd married another woman.) It's going to take more convincing scenes for me to forget that she was ever Rory and see her as Beth, a miserable 1960s housewife, a fellow suffering sister like Betty Draper. However it's unclear if Bledel's character will return.

2. The name of this episode was "Lady Lazarus," a reference to a Sylvia Plath poem. You remember Plath, the famous poet who eventually killed herself. (I kept thinking about Plath's death and the fact that Don was seen looking down an empty elevator shaft as if he'd just seen his own death just after Megan left the office for good.) A couple of disturbing lines from the poem stood out as parallels to the Beth's melancholy and Don looking into the shadowy, potentially killer elevator shaft:

"And I a smiling woman
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

. . . Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call."

Compare the despair with which Pete is acting out, thrashing around against a life of his own design, with Don, who seemed, at least on the surface, content with who is is now and where he is in his life. Just when Don has tried to settle into his new life with his new wife, she starts changing things, changing what Don saw as their marital road map and he's unsure what to make of it, even as he feigns support for the new course she's charted for herself.

Megan has been constantly evolving in front of Don's eyes. She can't be pinned down. Last season she was his demure, eager-to-please secretary and a charming woman who got along swimmingly with Don's children. This season, she's Don's young, sophisticated and modern wife (serenading him in a sexy minidress) who initially really engages with her work (even when Don wanted her to play and blow off her colleagues) and turned into a copywriter who displayed glimmers of strategic business savvy that happened to turn Don on. But in this episode, she told Don she was done with all of that. She bailed on advertising in order to take a stab at acting. The look on Don's face when he came home from the office to find her cooking dinner while barefoot was inscrutable but it wasn't one that was wild with pleasure. Then, poof!, she left him alone to listen to young people's music, a new Beatles' album, which Don neither seemed to understand nor care about as Megan went off to acting class.

Megan's absence at work -- where Don had planned a Cool Whip bit for a client in which Megan played a pivotal role -- left Don rattled. The disconnect is growing like a giant hole between them, or an ominous, empty elevator shaft.

The saddest scene in the episode (other than Pete and Rory) was Don acting like a cranky old dude, with his drink resting on his belly, as he sat in his living room and repeatedly called Peggy to demand info on Megan's whereabouts. So desperate to avoid lying to her mentor who wouldn't give it a rest, Peggy pretended he'd dialed the wrong number and gruffly said, "Pizza House!" into the phone then blew off his subsequent calls.

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

Notes on Politics -- Obama Goes Dog-Heavy, Scott Brown's Lucky Shot, 'Scandal' & 'West Wing' Quasi-Reunion

Obama Goes Dog-Heavy at D.C. Dinner

This is how presidential humor is supposed to be done, at venues like the White House Correspondents' Dinner. And while President Obama was very funny delivering his litany of jokes -- my favorite was his "What a snob" Santorum reference -- the dog stuff ... really?

Apparently the Obama people believe that the way to short-circuit the Obama-ate-dog story is to drive hard into the belly of the beast like a linebacker. While I can respect the attempt, several of Obama's "I ate dog" lines were disconcerting, like that joke about the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull (stealing from Palin, obviously). Punchline: A pitbull is delicious. What's that now? Comparing the taste of dogs and moms? Bad taste.

Mr. Brown from Downtown

U.S. Senator Scott Brown, who's in a tough race against Elizabeth Warren in my home state of Massachusetts, visited the youth center on Cape Cod recently and, just for fun, tried a half-court shot. And made it.

 Despite the hullabaloo over the fact that his adult eldest daughter is on his Congressional health insurance plan, courtesy of the Obama health care law which he vigorously opposed, he's having a better week than Warren who's doing battle with her Native American ancestry flap. Perhaps she should brush up on her outside shot. Couldn't hurt.

Have You Seen Scandal Yet? Give It a Spin.

It's no West Wing. It doesn't pretend to be. But the new Thursday night ABC drama Scandal, the latest product from Grey's Anatomy guru Shonda Rhimes, is one fun ride.

The lead character, Olivia Pope -- played with intelligent, fierce luminescence by Kerry Washington -- is a powerful D.C. "fixer" who tries to help clients deal with, well, scandals. A former White House aide, Pope had an affair with the married president and, although she projects a ferocious I-don't-need-anyone aura, can project vulnerability, but only in private. She's recently taken on the underdog case of a young White House aide who not only said she too had an affair with the president -- which the president confirmed -- but that she's pregnant with a presidential love child, an interesting amalgam of the Monica Lewinsky and John Edwards scandals.

Sure, the show is larger than life in the way it shows Pope and her loyal collection of "gladiators in suits" prevailing more often than not, always happening to uncover the truth and ultimately doing the right thing. It wildly exaggerates. But given the crop of recent real life political scandals -- Weiner, Edwards, Sanford, Spitzer, Clinton, etc. -- it's not entirely off the mark.

I'm covering the show for CliqueClack TV and am having a blast doing so. If you're looking for dramatic escapism, Scandal's been fun thus fun.

Walk & Talk - The West Wing Reunion from Martin Sheen

West Wing 'Reunion'

Speaking of dramas about the president and the White House, several members of the cast of The West Wing -- including Josh Malina (Will Bailey) who's also on Scandal -- came out with a Funny or Die video promoting, hold onto your hats . . . walking. It's mildly amusing, and also makes me hanker to watch some West Wing repeats.

Image credit: Danny Feld/ABC.

Mad Men -- 'At the Codfish Ball' Episode = What the Heck?

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

Things are seriously twisted in the world of Mad Men. More so than usual. More so than when Roger Sterling dropped acid.

You've got Sally Draper -- the girl who was humiliated last season after she was caught pleasuring herself at a friend's house, the kid who adores her father -- walking in on Roger, with whom she was palling around, being given oral sex by the married mother of her father's new wife.

Don, who was feted in grand style by the American Cancer Society for blasting Lucky Strike and all of tobacco in the New York Times, learned that the titans of business don't trust him because of his celebrated correspondence.

Peggy, who seemed truly disappointed that her boyfriend Abe suggested that they move in together instead of marry, unconvincingly tried to sell the arrangement as something edgy. (I don't buy that she's into this.)

Megan put a new twist on Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce's flailing Heinz campaign and, after getting Don to blurt her idea out before the Heinz guy could fire Don over dinner, saved the day. For those of you keeping track at home, that makes twice that Don struck out in the business realm, given that the Heinz success was all Megan's doing.

The world seems upside-down.

Seeing Megan's parents openly fight the way they did, seeing Marie go after the willing Roger and seeing Megan rescue Don made Megan seem like a more substantive character than she's been portrayed thus far. She is now more than a young, pretty secretary who's good with kids and caught Don's eye. Plus she's been bringing out these vulnerabilities in Don that we haven't seen before, weaknesses that he hid from Betty and for which he overcompensated by being sternly authoritative. As we saw in the previous episode, being authoritative doesn't work with Megan who isn't in the grasp of the massive insecurities that plague Betty.

Then there's poor Sally, the kid who gets slapped by her mom in front of people, who is fearful of eating as she witnesses her mother pile on pounds of misery. She's maturing and starting to dress like a teenager under Megan's youthful, hip influence. She's forced to mother her officious step-grandmother when Mother Francis got hurt, weeks after Mother Francis gave her a prescription sleeping pill when the child was anxious. Sally's making clandestine phone calls to Creepy Glen who's at a residential school. I don't see happiness ahead for Sally, or for her father Don who, despite proclaiming his contentment, seems unmoored.

Image credit: Ron Jaffe/AMC.

Notes on Politics: I Wish Presidential Candidates Would Stop Going on Comedy Shows

It's supposed to humanize them, make the voters see that they're more than starched shirts and talking points.

But what then-Governor Bill Clinton made popular by jamming on the saxophone while wearing shades on Arsenio Hall's show -- and giving a substantive interview afterward -- has gotten a little old. It's no longer fresh and novel. Presidential candidates are already so overexposed in the media that watching them attempt to be humorous on late night comedy shows, when they seem like they're going through the motions, is like watching them check off a must-do on their campaign list like eat rubbery pancakes in a New Hampshire diner or wax poetic about butter at an Iowa fair.

The life has been sucked out of these appearances because the sticky fingerprints of the campaign advisers are all over them. When I watch presidential candidates on these shows nowadays as they attempt to be "regular" people, they smack of inauthenticity because it's blatantly obvious that they're trying too hard to be real. And when you have to try to be real, you aren't.

Take President Obama on Jimmy Fallon the other night and "Slow Jamming" the news. Obama was trying to be wry and down with the humor, but his appearance felt flat. Sure, he used the news about the potential doubling of interest rates on college loans as his jumping off point (a serious issue), but with Fallon (whom I love) rapping about the "Preezie of the United Steezie" and the "Barackness Monster," trivializes the issue and muddles Obama's message. What's next, Mitt Romney "Slow Jamming" the news and talking about the income tax rates? He's kind of got to "Slow Jam" the news now, doesn't he? God help us.



When Romney went on David Letterman (twice!) and did the Top 10 List (twice!), it was like watching a second grader who'd been compelled to read a poem he didn't quite understand on Poetry Day in front of an audience of his classmates' parents: Stiff, artificial and clearly just following orders. "What's up gangstas?" coming from Romney's lips is just ridiculous. We're not voting for comedian-in-chief.

While I like seeing famous people being themselves as much as anyone, the late night shows no longer seem like the right venue for presidential candidates to do that with all those awful, pre-scripted jokes. With a dour economy, high gas prices, escalating violence in Afghanistan and a potentially nuclear Iran, I am quite content to take a pass on a presidential candidate taking a pass on "Slow Jamming" and focus on how to deal with the fact that 65 percent of Americans believe our country is headed in the wrong direction.

Mad Men -- A Triad of Weirdness

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

Last week's Mad Men episode featured an unexpected fistfight between, of all people, Lane Pryce and Pete Campbell. This week Roger Sterling dropped acid. What'll happen next week, Joan Harris will burn her bra? If the parade of ugly late 60s clothing didn't already clue you in, we are deep into the cliched 60s now and I suspect that things will get uglier with each passing installment.

This "Far Away Places" episode unfolded in a different format for Mad Men: Three different stories began at one point in time at the office then took off to follow Peggy's day (including her midday, pot-fueled interlude with a stranger), Roger indulging in LSD and coming to the conclusion that he and Jane are finished and Don's day, specifically his intense fight with Megan. It's been a few days since I first saw this episode and I'm still processing what it all means.

First, Peggy. She went all Don Draper-during-the-Jantzen pitch on the Heinz people. She told the naysayers that the two pitches she'd worked up for them, based on their explicit wishes, were brilliant and that if they didn't like them, they were knuckleheads. And she wasn't wrong. Don did essentially the same thing when he ordered the bathing suit guys out of his office after they responded poorly to his advertising campaign last season.

Seeing that Don has taken off in the middle of the work day on too many occasions to count, Peggy followed his lead after her failed pitch and went to the movies. But she did it 60s style, by smoking pot with a stranger and putting her hands down his pants during the film. Is Peggy trying to literally follow Don by screwing around with strangers? Couple the way in which Peggy's boyfriend Abe complained that all she did was work and Peggy panicking because she couldn't find those violet candies (the ones Don once told Bobby that Don's dad used to carry) and her emotional connection to Don couldn't be clearer.

Don, meanwhile, flipped out when Megan, in the heat of an argument about him not taking her career seriously, invoked his mother. (Has he not been totally honest about his background with her?) Don was thoroughly unhinged, unable to listen to her explain that she loves work and felt guilty about not helping her creative team (which, as her boss, he should applaud). In a blind, orange sherbet-induced rage, Don abandoned Megan at Howard Johnson's, which she didn't find quite as charming as he did, another thing that set him off.

However, unlike Betty, who suffered through Don's baloney for so many years, Megan wasn't having it and found her own way back home without leaving any word for Don that she was safe, his punishment for selfishly ditching her in a strange place. Megan, despite her youth, seems quite capable of going toe-to-toe with Don even when he chases her down in their living room and tackles her like she was a running back and he a burly center on the losing football team. His emotional declaration that he thought he'd "lost" her seemed to melt her defenses, but if he keeps acting like a caveman toward his modern wife, this "I'm in charge" attitude is going to get old. Roger and Jane serve as a cautionary tale.

Acid helped Roger and Jane take down their miserable marriage which began much like Don and Megan's, with the older, affluent ad man sleeping with a young, nubile secretary. The days of Jane in bed writing poetry about her affection for Roger while her long, wavy hair cascades around her shoulders and she clings to crisp white sheets, have been replaced by hostility and hideous clothing. Roger, under LSD's influenced, tuned in to his inner voice telling him that he and Jane should part ways. (Now will he become a proper baby daddy to Kevin, even though he doesn't yet know that Joan's ditched her louse of a spouse?)

After this buffet of oddities, I can't wait to see what happens next. What did you think of this strange Mad Men trip?

Image credit: Jordin Althaus/AMC.

Notes on Pop Culture & Politics: Prez Campaign Goes Canine, Updating 'FNL' & 7 Reasons Why Katniss Kicks Butt

No Mas with the Dogs Already

As a voter who's squarely in the politically moderate middle of the road, I issue this plaintive plea to the presidential campaigns and the news media: Enough with the canines already.

Now I'm as much of a dog lover as anybody. (Check out my lifestyle blog, The Picket Fence Post, where I've been chronicling our hunt for family dog numero dos.) But seriously, what do the infamous tale of Seamus Romney atop the Mittster's family car and the fact that, as a child, Barack Obama ate dog meat have to do with the dire U.S. economy and the yawning gap between the 1 percent and the 99 percent? With the costly (money & lives) over-commitment of U.S. troops in dangerous locales across the globe without any clear objectives? With a potentially nuclear Iran? With the fierce partisan logjam in Washington that has spawned a climate of stubborn intolerance and the demonization of one's political rivals that has done absolutely nothing to raise the level of political discourse?

Unless either guy vying for the Oval Office has intentionally hurt a pooch (kicked it, starved it, etc.), then I don't care about their Marley & Me stories. This whole who's-worse-than-the-other-guy gambit when it comes to dogs is fine fodder for the late night comedians but to the voters, it's truly meaningless. I hope this isn't foreshadowing a hideously shallow general election. I'm game for some meaty debates and analysis, but not frothy stupidity better fit for the likes of Snooki.

What Ever Became of 'Friday Night Lights'' Boobie Miles?

I love, love, loved Friday Night Lights, the book about journalist H. G. Buzz Bissinger's year spent with the Odessa, Texas Permian Panthers high school football team in the late 1980s.

When I taught journalism at the University of Massachusetts, I had my students read this book and when non-football fans would grumble about the assignment, I'd tell them that the book isn't about football, it's about our priorities and about life in a town where high school sports was king above all else. And, after they read the book, I never heard a word of complaint about the compelling tale, especially the tragic story of promising running back Boobie Miles who had his bright future ripped from his hands after he suffered a career-ending injury and was rendered irrelevant to the school that didn't educate him and had no use for him once his days of playing football were over.

Now Bissinger has revisited the story that made him a household name. He has recently spent time with Miles and has written After Friday Night Lights, a 34-page Kindle Single which focuses on what has become of Miles in the wake of what Bissinger described as "a symbol of everything that was wrong with high school football." You can read an excerpt on Grantland.

I'm downloading my copy tonight.

7 Reasons Why 'The Hunger Games'' Katniss Everdeen Kicks Butt (Especially to My 13-Year-Old Daughter)

1. She's got fierce survival skills.

2. She has a savvy combination of smarts and strategic thinking that she's not afraid to show to others.

3. She is extremely mature for her age.

4. She has a rock-solid set of morals and refuses to kill others in the Hunger Games (the sick fight-to-the-death games pitting children against one another) unless they pose a mortal threat. (She wouldn't even kill a violent rival, in a climatic scene, when she could wound him instead.)

5. She doesn't care about her own popularity and allows her actions to speak volumes for her.

6. She'd take a bullet (or an arrow or a tribute slot) for those about whom she cares.

7. She doesn't feel the need to wear make-up.

Katniss is a heroine I can fully embrace. I'd love to get Katniss and Hermione Granger in a room together. Now that would be something.

Image credits: Byliner.com and Lionsgate Films via The Mirror.

Mad Men -- A Parade of Ugly

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

Okay, first we've got to talk about the fashion. Normally, I don't comment on fashion. But come on, those clothes in the "Signal 30" episode were hideous. Don's jacket?! Ken and Pete's jackets? And that heavy swath of blue eye shadow over Megan's eyes ... we are so entering the ugly part of the latr 1960s where the fashion evolved from the crisp and proper duds of 1960 into Technicolor horrors like the ones on display on this episode.

The other shocker: Pete and Lane (Lane?!) going mano-a-mano in the conference room while Don & Co. closed the shades, pulled out the smokes and gawked at the skinny, nerdy and perverted dudes, wondering who'd prevail.

The pathetic and creepy quotient was extremely high in this episode as Lane pummeled Pete's face after Pete attempted to show Lane up in the workplace, as Pete ogled a teenage girl (and actually thought he had a shot with her) and as Lane plastered a big smooch on Joan, whose recent separation from her husband wasn't mentioned.

Everything, from the buttoned-down fashion that was featured in season one (remember that scene where Don chastised guys for talking coarsely and not removing their hats in the presence of a woman in the elevator?) to the fabric of society was being deconstructed and the stories of the Mad Men characters seem to be reflecting that.

In season one, Don and Betty's home was a symbol of making it in America. The enviable home in the 'burbs, complete with two kids and a dog, the gorgeous wife nurturing the home and hearth and trying to make her husband happy. The suits, the dresses, the meals Betty put on for Don's higher-ups to make a good impression for Don, who craved all of this when he was raised in poverty by an abusive, alcoholic father who'd knocked up his mother, the prostitute, who died while giving birth to him. But, inevitably, getting all of this didn't make Don happy.

In season five, the home in the 'burbs, with the baby and the pretty wife wasn't looking so good. It's being called a veritable hell by Don -- who twice made references to suicide, as a New York Magazine observer noted -- while he's living in a swanky Manhattan apartment with his twentysomething trendy career gal trophy wife.

Pete, who's now at the point in his life where Don was when the series began, is more openly opining about how he thinks his life sucks even as he welcomes his work colleagues into his home (and saves the biggest steak for the big alpha dog Don). He doesn't seem to want Trudy any more. Doesn't seem to care about his child. The look that Pete gave Don in the elevator after all of this, as he practically trembled with anger, outrage and frustration ("I have nothing, Don.") as Don, the remarried former (or simply dormant) womanizer, not only didn't find it necessary to patronize a prostitute like Pete and the others, but has found himself a younger, hipper wife and still lived in the cool city: Total envy.

Is anyone ever happy?

What does all of this mean for Don, who, despite his violent feverish dreams of murdering his former lover, is still exuding a complacent, life's okay attitude? Is it all an act? Is he still suffering from what he complained about to Anna with regard to Betty, that he's scratching around the edges of his life but can't get inside of it?

Image credit: Ron Jaffe/AMC.

Attention Fellow Women: Let's Take on One Another's Ideas, Not Personal Lifestyle Choices

“Guess what? [Mitt Romney’s] wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school?” -- Hilary Rosen, Democratic strategist and CNN political analyst, on Anderson Cooper 360.

“Spare me the faux anger from the right who view the issue of women’s rights and advancement as a way to score political points. When it comes to supporting policies that would actually help women, their silence has been deafening . . . I have no judgments about women who work outside the home vs women who work in the home raising a family. I admire women who can stay home and raise their kids full-time . . . It is a wonderful luxury to have the choice. But let’s stipulate that it is NOT a choice that most women have in America today.” -- Rosen in a piece on the Huffington Post after her appearance on Anderson Cooper.

"I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work." -- Ann Romney's first Tweet on her new Twitter account opened after Rosen's comments on CNN.

"My career choice was to be a mother. And I think all of us need to know that we need to respect the choices women make. Other women make other choices, to have a career and to raise a family. I respect that. That's wonderful." -- Romney on Fox News.

"Every mother works hard, and every woman deserves to be respected." -- Michelle Obama's Tweet sent out hours after Rosen's comments.

If Hilary Rosen wants to challenge and/or attack Mitt Romney and his stances on certain issues and if she wants to blast the Republican Party, go for it. It's as American as apple pie to challenge candidates and their parties.

Ann Romney, like Michelle Obama, puts herself out there in the public eye as a campaign surrogate for her husband, offering personal anecdotes about life at home and how she thinks her husband would be a good leader. The decision to pick up that microphone and speak in public makes her statements on behalf of her husband fodder for media analysis.

Ann and Mitt Romney are very wealthy, therefore their perception of what "regular" Americans struggling to pay their bills may think and go through, are likewise fair game for scrutiny.

But to issue a one-off criticism of Ann Romney rooted in the fact that she chose to be an at-home mother, therefore implying that she has no right to talk about what any women may or may not be thinking about the economy, is a step too far and is seriously unproductive. If Rosen had said that Ann Romney's affluence made her a specious representative for "regular moms" then I'd be cool with that. But that's not what she said.

It's not wise to pick apart other mother's decisions with regard to work-life issues and how they raise their children. (All of this reminds me of the nasty and vitriolic comments directed at Elizabeth Edwards when she decided to take her children on the presidential campaign trail along with her husband John in 2008 even after she learned that her cancer had returned. People excoriated Elizabeth Edwards for making a choice that they wouldn't have, even though that choice was none of their business and had nothing to do with John Edwards' political agenda.)

Ann Romney's decision to be an at-home mom isn't a) relevant to the criticisms of her husband's campaign stances or b) a reasonable justification to dismiss her views on what some women might be thinking or worrying about. Just because someone is an at-home mother (or father) doesn't make that individual a clueless moron with no connection to the outside world and no leg to stand on when it comes to issues of concern to other parents.

Women are not a monolithic voting group. We come in all shapes, sizes, colors and creeds. We don't all make the same lifestyle decisions. Just like our male counterparts. We should celebrate the diversity of American women instead of sniping at one another with regard to our child-rearing decisions.

Seriously.

Notes on Pop Culture: Hillz Yeah!, Plus Trailers for 'Veep' & 'The Newsroom'

Hillary Clinton's Got Game

I first saw it last week, the internet meme based on a single photo of Hillary Clinton on a government plane, using her cell phone while wearing sunglasses. The meme was given a simple name, "Texts from Hillary" where people imagined what our Secretary of State would've texted to the likes of President Obama, Vice President Biden, Mitt Romney, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, actor Ryan Gosling and comedian Jon Stewart.

This week, Madam Secretary responded to the internet sensation with a genuine message of her own: "Thanks for the many LOLZ. Hillary 'Hillz.'"

Oh yes. She did.

Her reply was the subject of a Maureen Dowd column in the New York Times about how Clinton has gone from being a member of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuit crowd, to radiating cool.

Season 1 Trailer

Season 1 Trailer 2

HBO's 'Veep' Trailers

Speaking of politicians . . . have you seen the trailers for HBO's upcoming comedy Veep starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus?

Louis-Dreyfus' Vice President Selina Meyer reminds me of some kind of weird blend of Parks & Recreation's Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler, without the wide-eyed naivete), Tina Fey's version of Sarah Palin and Louis-Dreyfus's recent character, Christine Campbell (from The New Adventures of Old Christine), with a dash of the intelligent irreverence of Showtime's Episodes thrown in. Can't wait.

Season 1 Trailer - A Changed Man

'The Newsroom' Trailer

Also promising, the promo for HBO's new show The Newsroom, which premieres on June 24, from the mind that brought you The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin.

Looks fabulous. Hope it does not disappoint.

Image credits: Texts from Hillary.