Monday, April 13, 2015

Mad Men: New Business

I just blew in from Toronto, downloaded the episode and watched it. I'm not sure what, in the end, should be said. I'm not sure of all that must be said. I can say this; this was the most dishonest episode of the entire show.

For starters, what the hell is Megan complaining about. She left him! If she'd found out about his cheating, maybe she'd have something to complain about but she left him because she'd set off to pursue a new and different life. That was her decision, or, rather, her series of decisions.

Second, what is this crap with Harry. Okay, I've been around a long time, I'm no longer even remotely surprised at the evil crap people will pull in order to get love and sex. I have no trouble seeing Harry do something really stupid in an attempt to get Megan. It's this particular something stupid I don't get.

As I said last week, Weiner is out to reset the clock back to his original premise. I got confirmation of this when I watched the interview he did around the first episode. He talked about Rachel and how her death opened "an old would" for Don. Get it? The pain from an old would. In the season finale from season one, Don says that an old Greek he worked for named Teddy, told him that "nostalgia" means "the pain from an old wound." Ninety-nine million people have pointed out that that isn't true. It literally means to ache from a desire to return home. The first part, 'nostos" comes from Homer and, if we've read the Odyssey, we know that Don's old boss Teddy wasn't so far off as all the people snidely corrected him say.

I get that, I like that. What I didn't like was this week's episode.

It was brilliantly acted, well-written and well directed. Artistically, there was nothing wrong with it except for the bit about its being completely untrue to the history of the characters.

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