Don't Worry About The Government
by MOLLY LAMBERT
What is the difference between success and failure? Time (and ideally, talent). What is the difference between Don Draper and Kenny Powers? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Although it turns out Kenny P has a way healthier ability to self examine than Don D does. Would that we all had a Dick Whitman or Stevie The Cockfighter to blame all our indiscretions and bad decisions and moments of most extreme weakness on.
Seriously though, Eastbound & Down came back and it was so thematically similar to Mad Men that I'm still not a hundred percent sure which one featured its protagonist jerking off to a faculty photo in a yearbook. Volume 5 of my Eastbound & Down mix is coming (fucking) soon so keep watching this space. Hope you like rock flute!
If Don does end up making a break for it to escape his problems now that he's been forced to deal with them again, let's hope he makes a run for the border and ends up cockfighting with Kenny like a couple of cable TV character hobos. When the going gets tough, just bail on your life! There's no way that could possibly not work out for the best! Sorry Don, there's no witness protection program for assholes!
Cool panic attack Don. I am well versed in anxiety attacks. That is my dark secret, and I just revealed it on a blog, for all the world to see! Interview me now Department Of Defense I have nothing to hide! I haven't actually had a panic attack in a few years since I decided to buckle down and deal with it, but believe me I tried to avoid it for as long as humanly possible. Even Kenny Powers knows that avoidance never works.
Don's shirt-rippping panic attack was also a backdoor audition for Jon Hamm for the role of every superhero ever, which uh, THE PART IS ALL YOURS. Whatever superhero Jon Hamm likes, let him play it. Actually, superhero movies generally suck, so maybe let's keep him away from the embarrassing hair and costume styling that has already befallen his ex-wife Bets. Please cast Vincent Kartheiser as a supervillain though.
What has been this season's best costume? Joan's pajamas and glasses ensemble? Trudy's sexy mod pregnancy lingerie? Lane's steak belt? Peggy's birthday suit? Don Draper's blowjob face? Don's BJ face looks like this : D and this week we found out about its evil other half, Don's "please stop trying to make me be emotionally intimate with you" face, which it turns out looks exactly like this sideways face emoticon : /
Dr. Faye's romantic plotline with Don embodies the other theme of this season, that people tell us who they really are and we ignore them. First impressions are usually telling, but we still get disappointed when people's actions live up to our immediate preconceptions. Finding out you were right the first time is hardly satisfying.
Joan was T.C.B., Taking Care of 'Bortions. Peggy was nowhere to be found, most likely because she would have died by death from eye-rolling if she had witnessed any of the old boys' shenanigans. The oldest boy of all, Lane Pryce's evil British father, pimp caned the fuck out of Lane for his impropriety. Lane, progressive that he is or wants to be, still could not shake it off by the end. I cheered when he semi-promoted Joan.
Roger is getting old, yall. It's not just his increasing public tenderness towards Joan, which is starting to border on embarrassing. A child of privilege, he is headed into the senior home kicking and screaming. You can't be at the height of your powers forever Rog, sad but true. There's an inevitable decline. Just be glad you didn't peak earlier.
Also embarrassing, Don's boner for Megan the secretary. No Don, don't do it! Danger danger! I know she's brunette but she's an idiot child like Roger's anorexic wife! It's Dr. Faye you want! People are so easily fooled by hair color. As a ginger it's not like I ever really had a choice in life about whether I wanted to be perceived as feisty.
I like how they're trying out a different new stylistic device every week, and then abandoning them. It's super sixties cool of them, because it's very French New Wave. This week was Roger dropping the f-bomb, and sort of breaking the Mad Men 4th wall in that drawing attention to sound editing draws attention to means of production. Do you think it'll be uncensored on the DVD? Can we get an all Roger voiceover season?
Keeping with the sado-masochistic theme of the season Donald Draper took what seemed like a big step towards opening up by telling Dr. Faye his real deal, and then put up a big psychic blockade between them the next day. Is that what keeps Don's relationship flames burning? His own inner mysteriousness? Is Matt Weiner determined to punish us, the masochistic viewer, for wanting to see Don emotionally mature?
As Tess Lynch, the author of 500 Days Of Hat put it: "Don can't love because he's not real. Only Dick is real. He can only love when he ACCEPTS Dick. He gets panic attacks when he's confronting it so he ran, because he can only stay Don as long as he's with someone who reflects Don back to Don! Especially since Faye is so insightful, it's like she can strip him away and when she does he throws up like, REJECTING HIS INSIDES."
Man did I ever think those Beatles tickets weren't gonna come through. I'll bet Sally's favorite Beatle is John Lennon because he is brooding and handsome and tortured and a genius and a hilarious dick and seems like he could secretly become a feminist if the right Japanese fluxus artist were to come along and teach him how to love again.
Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She tumbls and twitters.
"The Fight" - Sia (mp3)
"Clap Your Hands" - Sia (mp3)
"You've Changed" - Sia (mp3)
