Promotional material for Mad Men's fourth season is starting to pop up all over the place.
The latest source is USA Today'sPop Candy blog which ran several still photos from the new season including one startlingly different image of Peggy Olson. This got me to thinking about how much Peggy's changed over the past few seasons, going from Don's brand spankin' new secretary who wasn't sure if she should flirt with him, to the first female copywriter at Sterling Cooper, and to a pivotal member of the new ad agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce who's having an affair with Duck.
Here's Peggy from season one, fresh from secretarial school:
Peggy looked much different later on in season one:
Peggy, post-promotion (post-baby), in season two, after shedding her extra weight:
Season three's Peggy with a new do:
The new season four photo that I saw on USA Today:
What do you think of this season four Peggy photo? She looks much more business-like, older and more sophisticated than in season one.
When I saw these Lost bobbleheads on USA Today'sPop Candy blog, I fell in love with them, particularly the one of the ever-bloodied Ben Linus.
However I'm surprised that the company waited so long and is releasing bobbleheads of other characters well after Lost runs its course. While the Ben version is currently sold out, the Richard Alpert one is due out in July, an odd Hurley one in August, along with the rabbit-holding Dharma doc and an orange-holding Locke the same month.
Stumbled across a new Lost promotional image on Pop Candy this morning with the cast of Lost posed to resemble Jesus and his disciples in Da Vinci's famous painting, The Last Supper.
While I was trying to absorb the imagery (ruins of a Dharma building, gun under the table, a skull . . . maybe? Is that supposed to be a cross over Jack Shephard's left shoulder?), I saw the twin promo photo, where the castmates are all looking at the dead-not-dead "Locke," with a few of the people sitting in different places (Claire, Sun, Jin and Miles).
The New York Times' TV blogger Dave Itzkoff points out that in both images Sayid is standing where Judas stood (I would've thought Ben Linus would've been put in this position) and that Locke is smiling in the image when everyone's looking at him but not in the one where everyone's looking straight ahead.
What does this Locke-as-Jesus photo mean with the Losties sitting behind a table fashioned out of an airplane wing?
I'd seen AMC's new cool app -- where you "Mad Men yourself" -- on a number of sites, including on USA Today'sPop Candy. Using the illustrations of the fabulous Dyna Moe, you get to pick your body type, hair, eyes, nose, clothing, props and scene where you can appear with other Mad Men characters such as Senor Draper.
After a bit of monkeying around with my laptop (I initially had trouble downloading my Mad Men image) I finally managed to save my version of me, Mad Menned.
It's taken me two days and two viewings of Lostbefore I've been able to write a post here about the most recent episode. (Plus I took my three February vacationing kids to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop yesterday and lost more than a few brain cells in the process.)
That being said . . . Wednesday's episode, "316," was one of the best and provocative installments I've seen in this series. So many elements came together and spurred questions:
Take the likening of John Locke to Jesus and Jack Shephard to Doubting Thomas (aka -- Thomas the Apostle), as well as having Locke serve as a stand-in for Jack's deceased father Christian on the flight.
The mysterious call made by a blood-spattered Ben to Jack from the pay phone at a marina. (Given that Penny and Desmond had docked their boat in LA, is it possible that Ben hurt or killed Penny as he promised he would?).
The uncertainty of what happened to Aaron (with Claire's mother?), coupled with the implied sexual relations between Kate and Jack after Kate told Jack not to ask about Aaron again. Did Kate become pregnant, representing the pregnant Claire on the flight?
Ben was reading Ulysses by James Joyce on the doomed flight; the book has chapters entitled "Hades" and "Penelope."
How, exactly, did the Losties got back to the island? (Was there an explosion? a crash?)
The single line of Locke's suicide note -- "I wish you had believed me." -- references the lack of belief that Jack, called the man of science in season two, had in Locke, the man of faith, about not leaving the island. This episode was entitled "316" which is also a Biblical passage, John 3:16, which says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
As I tried to take this all in, I was, simply, blown away. After I watched the episode a second time, I went online and looked up a number of other folks' analyses and found these to be among the best:
-- Entertainment Weekly-- which called this the "proverbial pilot episode for a whole new chapter of the show" -- had loads of amazing details and offered various connections between plot points. -- Pop Candy's commenters provided great grist for discussion. -- Jezebel and New York Magazineprovided fabulously insightful episode wrap-ups.
Here's ABC's Lost Untangled video to help explain "316" (link to video here):
I still feel as though I need to read up more on Thomas the Apostle and Ulysses in order to prepare for next week's episode, "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham," which, going by ABC's previews, has Locke wearing a Jesus-like cloak and includes a scene where someone is kneeling in front of him. (Ben?) Link to preview for next episode here.
