Year in TV: The 10 Best (and 5 Worst) TV Shows of 2010

It's that time of year when we bid farewell to the last twelve months and start looking toward the future, but it's also a chance to reflect, to catalogue, and to reminisce as well.

My selections for the Ten Best (and, cough, five worst) TV shows of 2010 have now gone live over at The Daily Beast.

The series selected represent the very best that television had to offer the past twelve months and include such shows as Mad Men, Community, Terriers, Parks and Recreation, The Good Wife, Fringe, Justified, Boardwalk Empire, Friday Night Lights, and Modern Family.

It wasn't easy to whittle down the competition to just ten shows as, despite the overall drain in creativity this calendar year, there were quite a lot of fantastic series. (In fact, one of the very best of the year didn't even air on American television at all: Season Three of BBC One's Ashes to Ashes--including its breathtaking and gut-wrenching series finale--would have made this list if it had been open to overseas programming that hadn't aired within the US during 2010. Additionally, Downton Abbey would have made the list but it's set to air in January on PBS, so will be held until the 2011 list.)

As for other runners-up, that category would include (but wouldn't be limited to) such series as Damages, Party Down, Nurse Jackie, Sherlock, Bored to Death, Better Off Ted, Doctor Who, True Blood, Treme, Big Love, Archer, The Choir, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The IT Crowd, The Life and Times of Tim, Luther, and 30 Rock (for the current season, at least).

But now that the list is (finally) live, I'm curious to hear what you had to say:

What's your take on the best of 2010? Do you agree with my picks for the best of the year and the worst? Head to the comments section to discuss, debate, and analyze, as well as share your own best-of list for 2010.

The Daily Beast: "AMC: Television's Hottest Network"

Mad Men. Breaking Bad. Rubicon.

Those titles are intimately familiar to any television devotee and cabler AMC, the home to those groundbreaking series, is about to launch their fourth original series this weekend with The Walking Dead.

Over at The Daily Beast, I examine AMC's success, speaking to the channel's top executives--president/general manager Charlie Collier and SVP of original programming Joel Stillerman--as they dive headfirst into the horror genre with Sunday's The Walking Dead.

The piece, entitled "AMC: Television's Hottest Network," contains a discussion with Collier and Stillerman covering AMC's brand, their programming decisions, and the future and challenges for the basic cable network as well as topics such as the fate of Rubicon, next year's crime drama The Killing, and much more.

Tomorrowland: Facing the Future on the Season Finale of Mad Men

"I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach." - Don Draper

The fourth season of Mad Men gave us a Don Draper who was at odds with the confident opportunist we had come to know over three seasons. Divorced and living alone in a dark West Village apartment, he drank too much, wrote in a journal, and walked through life amid a cloud of intense loneliness. His mistakes and indiscretions became the plot twists of the fourth season, and as his family grappled with the fallout of his divorce, he sought to find his compass once more.

In the fourth season finale of Mad Men ("Tomorrowland"), written by Matthew Weiner and Jonathan Igla and directed by Matthew Weiner, Don Draper seemed to have found what he was searching for, attempting to face the future unencumbered by his emotional baggage. His choice of wife reflects his state of mind at the moment: he doesn't want to dwell on the past, on the choices he made, but rather regain the optimism and hope of his youth.

Weiner, whom I spoke to over the weekend, wasn't lying when he said that the season finale would "confound people's expectations."

The wrenching season finale did counter our expectations, giving us a potential ray of hope for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (or is it just Sterling Draper Pryce now?) and as for Don Draper himself, rather than repeating the pattern established in the third season ender. This wasn't a finale in which characters killed themselves (though some members of the media seemed to relish that remote possibility) or bulldozed the agency. Rather, it was about choosing the rational and scientific above the magical and transcendent, much like Bobby wants the fighter jet of Tomorrowland over a flying elephant at Disneyland.

Was that sinking feeling in Don's gut a signal of dread? Or of a sweeping change to his life? While he confides in Faye about the aura of anxiety that's gripping him, Don was about to fly off with the kids to California, a place of dreams and possibilities where throughout the series Don has proven to be at his most vulnerable and comfortable, able to cast off the trappings of Don Draper to be himself.

This trip is no different. Don and the kids--and secretary Megan (Jessica Paré), hired as an au pair for the week--head off to the Magic Kingdom, but the trip is really a journey of a different kind, the magic kingdom a pathway to the emotional past at the heart of Don Draper, a man who desperately wants to believe in the spell he's cast for consumers. He wants the whole American Dream: the house in the suburbs, the beautiful and young wife, the perfect kids.

Which leaves him at odds with Faye (Cara Buono), the headstrong and opinionated girlfriend who is more than a match for Don. She knows his secrets--including the darkest of the lot--and she still loves him. She compromises her moral code to ensure his survival because she believes in what they're building. They could have a future together, but it's not the one that Don wants, not the one that he has bought into.

Which is why Megan offers such a tantalizing alternative. From the way she's utterly nonplussed when Sally (Kiernan Shipka) spills her milkshake at the diner to the way she, Maria von Trapp-style, teaches the children a French lullaby, she's woven a spell around Don, offering him what he's lost: the pure happiness of youth. In choosing Megan over Faye, Don follows in the footsteps of Roger and Jane, building his future on echoes of happiness from his past self, looking to reclaim what's been lost by grabbing hold of something young and shiny, someone who makes him feel young again.

It was only fitting that, back in "The Beautiful Girls," Sally is consoled by Megan rather than Faye when she stumbles in the hallway at the agency. Megan's sweetness, her innocence, and her maternal qualities were on display from that moment forward. Witness too the look Don gave her as she stood at her desk, preparing to leave for the night. Unlike his relationship with Faye, it seemed uncomplicated and simple. And when they slept together in his office, Megan claimed that wasn't looking for a promotion or a relationship: she just wanted him.

Over at The Daily Beast, I commented that Anna's engagement ring was the marital equivalent of Chekhov's gun: it had to go off before the end of the episode. In a way, it's fitting that Don should choose to give Megan this particular ring, its weight heavy in his pocket. Just as he had stolen Don Draper's identity so many years earlier, Anna makes his transformation complete, obliterating Dick Whitman not only with her death but with this final boon. But while Don came clean to Faye about his past and his mistakes, Don starts out his new life with Megan with a lie, saying that the ring has been in his family for a long time. Yes, he corrects himself by saying that it belonged to someone he cared for deeply, but the damage is potentially done.

Which is interesting that it comes on the heels of Don admitting something to his children about himself. Upon seeing the "Dick and Anna '64" painting on the wall of Anna's old house, Sally questions just who Dick was, leading Don to admit that it's somewhat of a nickname. It's the closest the children will likely get to the truth about their father. And likely one of the last times that Don will reflect back on just who Dick Whitman was.

The truth about his identity has poisoned the well of two relationships already. Betty left him after she learned about his past actions and Don couldn't quite look at Faye the same way after he told her the truth. With Megan, he's making a concerted effort to not deal with the truth about his past. Their whole relationship, in fact, is based on future happiness, the unknowable potential of Tomorrowland.

Yet, despite his rapid courtship of Megan and the accepted proposal, Don is still restless. The final shot of the episode depicts the two of them in his Greenwich Village apartment as Megan sleeps soundly. But the same can't be said for Don. His eyes are open, his mind still working, the cogs turning brightly. He turns his head to look out the darkened window to... What exactly? The future? The unknowable? Is he comforted by the causality of events that led him to Megan? Or is he questioning once more whether or not she'll be the one to give him the happiness he seeks? Is he, as Faye suggests, only in love with "the beginnings of things"?

Can we ever truly escape our pasts? Can we fight against the tides of change?

Betty seems, at least on the surface, content to change everything in her life. Her callous and indifferent treatment of poor Carla point to a woman who is attempting, futilely, to exert some level of control over the chaos of life. Unable to control Sally seeing Glen, she takes out her frustration on Carla, firing her housekeeper after ten years and denying her the right to even say goodbye to the children. It comes at a time when Betty has finally acquiesced and is uprooting the children, moving them from the house they shared with Don in Ossining to a new house in Rye.

Glen's parting words to Betty hit home in the most shattering way: "Just because you're sad doesn't mean everyone has to be," he screams at her as he slams the door. Henry's parting words to her echo this: "No one is ever on your side."

But Betty is sad. Don's bed might be filled with the potential of happiness, Megan's body curled up against him, but Betty lays down in an empty house on a bare bed, tucking her knees beneath her. A sad little girl in an empty dollhouse, the furniture absent. A girl attempting to fight against change, to hold on to something permanent, only to discover that she is the engineer of her own fate.

Which is why that final scene between Don and Betty in the old house is so provocative and fraught with tension. As she reapplies her powder, Betty waits specifically for Don. After her fight with Henry, she won't admit that she's made a mistake but her actions seem to scream this with every affected look and manipulation. Her excuses--forgotten objects from the bathroom cupboard, being unaware that Don had an appointment to show the house--are flimsy at best. Betty wanted to catch Don, to force nostalgia upon him, to remind him of what they once had, what she had perhaps thrown away. A final box of memories, a long-hidden bottle, the odds and ends of their former married life.

But she's surprised that Don has moved on, not with Bethany Van Nuys as she immediately suspects but his secretary, the one who looked after the children in California. He's traded up in a sense, traded the iciness of Betty for the warmth and compassion of Megan. Traded a trophy wife for a genuine mother to his children. Carla's parting words to Betty--"someone had to look after these children"--are a bitter pill to swallow. Whatever hold she may have had over Don is long vanquished, the spell ended with the final exchange of the key.

They've both moved on and whatever that house may have represented, it's gone. Critics and viewers heap a lot of hatred upon Betty Francis, but to me, she's the most tragic character on the series, a woman trapped by her own Victorian ideals, unable to move forward in time, to let go of her icy veneer of perfection. Her self-infantilization is fully realized in that scene with Don in the kitchen. She appeals to him as a child might a parent, pushing him, manipulating him with the hopes that he'll forgive her without actually apologizing. But their time is long past. Her near-tears the only visible sign that she really did care for Don and might now regret how things played out with their marriage.

But Don also sees Betty in a different light as well. "Things aren't perfect" is the closest that Betty will come to admitting that perhaps she lacks the facility for happiness. A new house isn't a joy but a thing to be fixed, a kitchen to be ripped out, a never-ending tide of improvements and criticisms. Rather than address the comment for what it is, Don simply says that she can always move again. Change your house, change your life.

But the fact is that, no matter where she lives, Betty might as well be curled up on that bare bed.

While Don's efforts to save the company may have resulted in some long-term goals for the agency, a new campaign with the American Cancer Society, but it's actually Peggy Olsen who is contributing to the short-term survival of SCDP, landing the agency their first account since Lucky Strike pulled out.

Interestingly, it's through Peggy's friend Joyce that the opportunity arises, an inadvertent comment about Topaz firing everyone that turns the wheels inside Peggy's head. Together with Ken Cosgrove, they land the account, ending the agency's losing streak. It should be a cause for celebration, but instead the news is buried among bigger stories: namely, Don and Megan's engagement announcement, news that knocks Peggy for a loop.

(Aside: I also found it interesting that Ken would choose to be utterly unlike Pete Campbell: to refuse to leverage his family--his real life, his future--in order to bring in new business. I never thought of Ken as a moral guy but his effort to keep the two spheres of his life separate point towards a more grounded view of marriage and family.)

I was glad to see Peggy close the door of Don's office and attempt to have a genuine tete-a-tete with him about this sudden turn of events, to force the issue between them and remind him that she has his best interests at heart. Interestingly, Don says that Megan reminds him of Peggy, that she has "the same spark" and that she admires Peggy as much as he does. Hmmm...

It's a twist that sends Peggy not to her own office but to Joan Harris' interestingly enough. While these two have never been friends, we're given a rare glimpse into a moment of camaraderie between these two working women. As Joan shares her own news--she's been made director of agency operations and no champagne was opened for her--the two women share a laugh as Joan implies that she has learned to not get her satisfaction from work. It's a remarkable moment that's taken four years to get to, the two women finally united against a common enemy, their fates at odds with the pretty young things like Jane and Megan who happen to marry their way into success.

As for Joan, she's concealing a rather large secret of her own: she didn't go through with her abortion in the end and has lied to Greg about the paternity of their unborn baby. As she speaks with him in Vietnam, she references Roger even as Greg asks her when she is going to tell the agency about her pregnancy. Something tells me that Roger might have something to say about this news when it comes out.

But with Greg's life in danger in a far away field, the future is uncertain for everyone, from Joan and Peggy to Don and Megan. It's only the young whose sleep at night is deep and free from reflection. But for the others, for the adults who have lived and drank and loved and lost, their eyes are open in the dark.

While as yet not renewed, Season Five of Mad Men is expected to air next summer on AMC.

The Daily Beast: "Mad Men's 12 Most Memorable Moments"

Surprised by last night's season finale of Mad Men?

While you can read my take on "Tomorrowland" here, you can also head over to The Daily Beast, where you can read my latest feature, entitled "Mad Men's 12 Most Memorable Moments," in which I pick the twelve most memorable moments from Season Four of Mad Men and dissect them within the larger context of the season.

From Megan to Roger and Joan, Betty falling to the death of Miss Blankenship, I've picked my favorites from this season and included video of the scenes in question, to boot.

Which was your favorite? And which do you think was the most memorable? Head to the comments section to discuss.

The Daily Beast: "Mad Men's Volatile Season" (Interview with Matthew Weiner)

Season 4 of Mad Men has focused on an often sad and desperate Don Draper. Creator Matthew Weiner previewed Sunday's finale, telling it "will confound people's expectations."

Over at The Daily Beast, I talk to Mad Men creator/executive producer Matthew Weiner about Don's journey, the real-life Miss Blankenship, Joan and Roger, Sally Draper, and more in a piece entitled "Mad Men's Volatile Season", which just went live at the site.

The fourth season finale of Mad Men airs Sunday evening at 10 pm ET/PT on AMC.

Afterimage: Changing the Conversation on Mad Men

"I thought you didn't go in for those kinds of shenanigans." - Peggy Olsen

It's fitting in a way that with Don Draper's life balancing precipitously on a knife's edge, that he would cross paths with a figure from his past whose own life has turned out to be even more tragically dead-ended than one could imagine. Offering a looking glass in which to view his own life's decisions, Don sees a fate avoided, a life worse than his own, an addiction that's unable to be sated, burning through the body of someone he once loved.

On this week's episode of Mad Men ("Blowing Smoke"), written by Andre Jacquemetton and Maria Jacquemetton and directed by John Slattery, things went from bad to worse for the partners at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, as they were faced with some tough decisions to make. Would they begin to lay off staff? Could they round up enough cash to guarantee a bank loan to keep them afloat for another six months? Would they be able to snare any new business with news of Lucky Strike out in the wind?

For the first time since the fourth season began, it seemed as though everything Don had worked so hard to built was slipping through his fingers like grains of sand. The advertising firm that had his name on the wall was little more than a sinking sandcastle, further washed away by every phone call, every bill, and every rejection.

Don had once advised Peggy to "change the conversation" when they didn't like the way the talk was going. It's advice that he takes to heart, making a decision that will either save the agency or sink it for good.

What does Don see when he closes his eyes? What is the afterimage that's burned on his retinas?

I wondered that it wasn't just a little too coincidental that Don would run into ex-lover Midge Daniels (Rosemary DeWitt) in the lobby of the building rather than in Greenwich Village, where they both live. Her jovial reconnection, the casual way she invited him over and informed him that she was married should have been a flashing red right to Don Draper, but he went along with her plans, despite his misgivings.

Arriving at her cramped studio apartment, he meets her husband, who immediately cops to the fact that Midge tracked Don down. Not to sell him her artwork, her new take on an afterimage but rather to use him for some quick cash to score their next fix of heroin. Now a hopeless addict, Midge is willing to sell Don anything--her painting, her body--for some cash. It's tragic and heartbreaking to see how far this bohemian painter had fallen, selling out her craft for the lure of heroin, selling out her time with Don for $120 in crisp bills.

He takes the painting anyway, though it's beside the point. I couldn't help but feel that if he hadn't given her the cash--proffered after she refused his check for $300--that she would start to cry and/or scream, to beg, to plead, to shake Don until he caved. Depressing, really.

Such desperation and was also wafting in good measure from the offices of SCDP this week as Don met with a Heinz executive--a meeting set up by Faye after she breached the Chinese Wall--and was met with still more rejection. Not a "no," per se, but rather a "not now," which is even worse when the agency needs all the new business it can get its hands on.

It's a dire situation that's compounded when Philip Morris uses a scheduled meeting with the agency to leverage a better deal at Leo Burnett, using the dying body of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce as little more than a springboard. But Don isn't one to take defeat lightly. He's been an opportunist for his entire adult life. One doesn't steal another man's identity if they're prone to navel-gazing and altruism. Don is more than willing to get his hands dirty to protect his own self-interests. After all, the agency wouldn't be in such a dangerous position if he hadn't killed the $4 million NAA deal that Pete brought in.

While Peggy suggests that they change the name of the agency and start over (which is, let's not forget, what he did personally once before), he can't stand by and watch the agency he built crumble into dust. Instead, he opts to take Peggy's words ("If you don't like what they're saying about you, change the conversation.") and transform it into something daring and dangerous. He opts, once again, to change the conversation.

Don's decision to sit down and write "Why I'm Quitting Tobacco," was a brilliant payoff to the journal-writing of the past few weeks (a storyline that some viewers found out of character), an exploration of how to turn around any situation. Rather than admit defeat in light of Lucky Strike and Philip Morris' decisions, Don creates a scenario in which SDCP doesn't want to be in the business of supporting Big Tobacco on ethical grounds.

The juxtaposition of nicotine's addictive nature is nicely juxtaposed with Midge's own addiction, her afterimage painting ("Number Four") the creative ember that propels Don to write his treatise... and send it into The New York Times, where it runs the following morning as a full-page ad. It's a masterstroke of changing the conversation, of removing the shame from the agency and transforming it instead to a strong ethical stand.

Which isn't how the other partners see it, of course. Cooper immediately quits the agency while Pete accuses Don of throwing a tantrum. But what they don't see is that Don may have, with those few sentences, saved the agency entirely. Rather than be perceived as a sinking ship, the agency can instead position itself as a high-minded organization that doesn't need tobacco's business to succeed. It's changing the rules of the game itself.

Don claims that he can finally sleep at night without Lucky Strike on the books. While he's smoking a cigarette the following day, it's the message contained within that sentiment that's important. Even with the agency struggling to stay alive, Don's conscience is at ease. They're no longer pushing an addictive product on the public. Lucky Strike may have paid for his home and the agency's plush midtown offices, but they were built on the back of all-consuming addiction. Which doesn't make them much better than Midge's dealer or her no-good husband.

The art is inconsequential. For all the campaigns and the imagery and creative, they're selling their bodies rather than artwork, just as Midge had done earlier in the episode. Her painting was beside the point, whether Don chose to take it or not. A way of saving face with Don when all she really wanted was her next fix. The addict's closed eyes produce only one afterimage: the drug itself.

Don's "tantrum" at least leads to a call for a campaign on behalf of the American Cancer Society. It might not, as Roger says, put food on the table, but it's a prestigious PSA and will allow them to get new work on the air. It will allow them to at least maintain the illusion that they are moving forward rather than backwards. And who knows what it could lead to? They've successfully changed the conversation, after all.

Which is why I loved the final scene between Peggy and Don in his office as he asks her who she can live without, as they have no choice but to make staff reductions, all too familiar to viewers in the current economy. Relieved that her job is safe, Peggy is asked what she thought of the letter. Her response? A pitch-perfect reply that serves as a call-back to the season premiere's Sugarberry Ham caper: "I thought you didn't go in for those kinds of shenanigans."

Peggy, meanwhile, seemed genuinely touched by Faye Miller, inviting her to have a drink with her and reminding her that she wasn't being phony about it. Faye remains a touchstone for Peggy, an idealized image of herself, a successful woman who hasn't had to play games to get to where she is. "Is that what it looks like?" Faye asks her. Peggy's vision of Faye isn't quite truthful, it's an afterimage rather than the thing itself, an effort to place the trailblazer on a pedestal rather than see her for who she is.

I'm glad that Don came forward with Pete's $50,000 share. I had a feeling that he would, given his complicity in the chain of events that led them here and the fact that Pete has had to make sacrifices in order to conceal Don's secret. That said, Pete still seemed surprised that Don had done so, his thanks and Don's acknowledgment restricted to a series of nods exchanged between the two men.

But Mad Men has always been about what's not said rather than what is. Look at the conversation between Betty and Dr. Edna, in which the two dance around the issue that Betty needs to be in therapy. Given her past experiences with psychiatrists, Betty's refusal to seek help makes sense, even as she is in denial about the true purpose of her meetings with Dr. Edna, held in the guise of tracking Sally's progress.

Betty goes so far as to deny Sally's change of behavior in order to attempt to continue unburdening herself to Edna, who finally admits that she's "a child psychologist," even as she reluctantly agrees to continue her meetings with Betty. Betty can't free herself from that dollhouse, even as Sally continues to make leaps and bounds. She's realized that her anger is justified but that she can't provoke her mother, who is suffering from other "stresses" and that she lashes out at Sally because she can't cope. Over a game of Go Fish, Edna tells Sally that she's proud of her for the vast progress she's made, progress that includes an effort to be civil to her mother, to attempt to spend time with her and Henry and get her mother to see her as more than a child.

Which is Betty's fear as well. Her effort to infantilize Sally (and by extension herself, perhaps) means that she can keep her in that mythical dollhouse for longer. Sally's "relationship" with Glen disturbs that delicate balance. She can't be a child if she's a woman. She can't be safe if she's exploring with Glen (despite the fact that Sally won't even drink his offered "backwash," much less do anything more with her off-kilter neighbor). She can't be in control if Sally is setting her own rules.

But Betty seeing Glen and Sally together spark a new twist: rather than attempt to hold onto the house she once shared with Don, Betty is now only to willing to be rid of it, to escape the low element that's taking over their idyllic neighborhood, to take Sally far away from Glen, whose oddness Betty has glimpsed first-hand.

Is Betty growing up and taking responsibility? Or is the move just another punishment, another stress, another chip at the perfect veneer? Is she trying to protect Sally or herself?

As for Sally, who breaks my heart each and every episode this season, she throws herself on her bed, clutching the lanyard that Glen had given her, and sobbing into her pillow. Her keening sadness, her silent fury, and her innate fears are all beautifully manifested in that one scene, a little girl attempting to hold on for just a little longer to what she has.

Change is coming, for all of these characters, and there's nothing that any of them can do to halt the inevitable. Even if they all close their eyes.

Next week on the season finale of Mad Men ("Tomorrowland"), opportunity arises for Don and Peggy.

The Daily Beast: "TV's Pop Art Boom"

Law & Order: SVU valentines, anyone?

Over at The Daily Beast today, I offer a look at "TV's Pop Art Boom."

In my latest feature, I talk to graphic artists Dyna Moe and Ty Mattson about their Mad Men-, Lost-, and Dexter-inspired artwork, which has redefined the term "fan art" and taken it to an entirely different level, where television-inspired pieces are challenging the way that we look at the medium and offering a new perspective to the atmosphere, characters, setting, and tone of some of our favorite series.

Plus, I offer a gallery of television-inspired pieces of art from Dyna Moe, Ty Mattson, Brandon Bird, and others, including some must-see Law & Order-inspired pieces.

Channel Surfing: Starz to Recast Spartacus, Warehouse 13 Renewed, Mad Men's John Slattery to 30 Rock, Glee, and More

Welcome to your Tuesday morning television briefing.

It was only a matter of time, really. Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello (who is soon to depart the magazine/website) is reporting that Starz has begun the search for a replacement for Spartacus' Andy Whitfield, who was forced to drop out of the production due to a recurrence of cancer. "According to the just-released casting notice, producers are searching for a Caucasian male in his mid to late 30s to play the 'smart, intense, passionate' title role," writes Ausiello. "Interested parties must have an authentic British accent and be prepared to sign a three-year contract." (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd is reporting that Syfy has renewed Warehouse 13 for a third season, with 13 episodes on tap for next season. Additionally, Jack Kenny will remain aboard the series as the showrunner and has signed a development deal with the cable network. "Jack Kenny's superlative leadership and the incredible talent of his cast and crew delivered an outstanding second season of Warehouse 13," said Syfy's Mark Stern. "We're excited to see this successful series return next year and to developing our next hit with Jack." (Hollywood Reporter)

More 30 Rock/Mad Men crossover goodness. Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Mad Men's John Slattery will guest star in an upcoming episode of NBC's 30 Rock, where he will play "a candidate running for congress." Slattery is expected to appear in this season's seventh episode. (Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files)

TVGuide.com's Denise Martin has an interview with Glee co-creators Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan and Cory Monteith about tonight's spirituality-themed episode ("Grilled Cheesus"), in which the glee kids tackle the hot-button issue of religion. "I wish there had been something to launch conversations about feelings and emotions in my household when I was younger," Murphy told Martin about the potential of Glee to start conversations. "When the show is at its best, that is what I think we're doing." (TVGuide.com)

Elsewhere, Entertainment Weekly's Tim Stack has a brief chat with Murphy as well about tonight's episode. “I love when people see Jesus in bird droppings on the windows and then there are lines out the door and that seems to happen so often now,” said Murphy. “To me, it just shows everybody in our society, particularly young people, are just desperate to believe in something.” (Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch)

ABC is eyeing another scripted summer series, this time an untitled female-centric spy drama from writer Greg Poirier, director Steve Shill, and executive producers Grant Scharbo and Gina Matthews (The Gates) that is described as "Taken meets The Bourne Identity). (Deadline)

ABC Family has cancelled freshman drama series Huge and will not be ordering the back ten episodes of the first season. "First and foremost, we want to thank everyone who embraced Huge and supported it," said co-creator/executive producer Winnie Holzman. "While it's disappointing not to be able to go forward with the characters we love so much and had so many plans for, we're deeply grateful for this opportunity. Our goal was and is to create television of depth and complexity that inspires people to think and feel. We believe we accomplished that with Huge and can't wait to do it again." (Variety)

Lone Star may have tanked but the pilot director--Marc Webb--who also directed (500) Days of Summer, has already scored a new project at FOX: a single-camera workplace comedy entitled Battleground, which has a script order at the network. (Deadline)

The New York Times' Dave Itzkoff talks with the cast and crew of FOX's comedy Running Wilde, which is struggling to find an audience this season. "If we stay kind of where we are or even grow a little bit, we’re in good shape,” co-creator Mitch Hurwitz said of the series' chances. “If we continue to drop, anything can happen.” (New York Times)

Deadline's Tim Adler is reporting that Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge could be returning to television once more as Baby Cow will recut its series of Fosters-branded internet shorts as a new television series. "Until now Coogan’s cringingly-embarrassing TV chat show host and disc jockey has always aired on the BBC," writes Adler. "The new 6-part series could be sold to Channel 4 or digital comedy channel Dave, Baby Cow boss Henry Normal tells me." (Deadline)

TVGuide.com's Robyn Ross is reporting that Matthew Lawrence will guest-star alongside brother Joey on an upcoming episode of ABC Family comedy Melissa & Joey, slated to air November 2nd. (TVGuide.com)

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva is reporting that ABC is close to signing a deal to develop a US adaptation of Spanish series Aqui no hay quien viva (Or: I Hate This Place) from executive producers Ben Silverman and Sofia Vergara, with writer Craig Doyle attached to write the script. (Deadline)

Stay tuned.

Soft Secrets and Hard Truths: The Crumbling of the Chinese Wall on Mad Men

"Why is it whenever anything good happens, something bad has to happen?" - Peggy Olson

Peggy's question, coming on the heels of news that Lucky Strike has pulled out of the agency, might as well be about the series itself, which does take a particular joy in tormenting its characters just as they've achieved some semblance of happiness. It's a question about causality that's deeply rooted in her Catholic upbringing. Because Peggy is happy in her personal life, after tumbling into bed with Abe, does it mean that her work life has to fall into chaos as a result?

This week's stunning episode of Mad Men ("Chinese Wall"), written by Erin Levy and directed by Phil Abraham, seeks to examine the fallout from the Lucky Strike bombshell, a major blast that could signal the end for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce just as the fledgling agency finally got its wings. That the news would be delivered by an acquaintance of Ken Cosgrove rather than by Roger Sterling himself points to just how deep a state of denial Roger is in at the moment, unable to admit that he failed to keep his sole client happy and jeopardized the entire agency.

But, in keeping with Peggy Olson's pondering about the inner workings of the universe at large, all things--even our 1960s ad agency microcosm--tend towards entropy. That inexorable end looms large here as Don Draper attempts to rally the troops and send them into battle but there are certain wars, as everyone learned at the time, that can't be won.

The whiff of desperation swirling around the halls of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce might signal the beginning of the end for this experiment. Don's decision last week--to kill the NAA account lest the truth about his identity be found out--have startling repercussions here in the light of the news that Lucky Strike, the agency's largest client is consolidating its brands over at BBDO. David, after all, can't always slay Goliath and the advertising industry is likely littered with the corpses of other independent, boutique agencies that weren't able to rise to the top.

The agency's dire straits and its potential death is neatly juxtaposed with the birth of Pete and Trudy's baby, a daughter for Pete, a legitimate child to replace the one he bore with Peggy. Life goes on, the cycle keeps on turning. Even in death, there's life.

Which might be why, though he chafes at the suggestion, that Pete might consider jumping ship and heading to CGC as his father-in-law Tom pushes him to do. Don's outburst at Pete at the emergency agency meeting shows that there are definitely sore spots there, particularly as the one thing holding Pete back is that he's a partner at SCDP, has a major ownership stake. But Ted Chaough is playing hard ball. He knows that he's got Don over a barrel and, while his efforts might be to "hobble" Don as Pete suggests, he's making serious overtures to Pete Campbell, offers that include a full partnership and his name on the door.

Will Pete's ambition win out over loyalty? That's the real question here. And with Pete go the accounts that he brought into the agency in the first place. While everyone is looking to Roger to fix the situation with Lee Garner Jr. and to Don to guide them somehow, it's Pete who actually wields the power to save them or sink them. What's terrifying is that no one seems aware of how much his decision could ultimately cost them.

The atmosphere at the agency is thick with concern. Is it, as Stan believes, the last days of Rome? Are people clinging to anything in these desperate times? Peggy's relationship with Abe is anything but desperate, a chance to see Peggy carefree and happy, the salt water in her wavy hair a reminder of just how young she is, the opening scene with its clowns-in-a-tiny-car scene a portrait of a very different America than the one at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, a drug-fueled youthquake about to erupt. Here, Peggy isn't a powerful copywriter but rather another girl at the beach and, while she chafes against getting on Abe's lap in the car, his gentle brushing of sand off her arm positions her in a very different role than we've seen Peggy in before: confident, in control, in touch with her sexuality.

Stan's attempt to seduce Peggy, however, remind her of how easily she can be put in her place. Turning him down again, Peggy is allowed to go to a hugely critical Playtex pitch with red lipstick smeared all over her teeth. An opportunity to humiliate her in front of the clients. Fortunately, the client in question seems sensitive to her plight and attempts to gently inform her about her mishap (which Peggy comically misreads)... and the account isn't lost due to Stan's minor revenge plot. (In fact, Peggy's pitch about softness and sensuality wins them the approval of the Playtex executives.)

Roger, meanwhile, engaged in some kabuki theater in an effort to save face with the rest of the SCDP partners, faking a call to Lee Garner, Jr. in which he railed at the Lucky Strike owner for blindsiding him with this news... and then went so far as to fake a trip down to Raleigh in an effort to convince Lee to change his mind.

While Roger's scheming was shocking, it was also utterly depressing, the lengths that this man will go through to save face, the vanity that is shattered when his promised thirty days fail to bear fruit. The lengths he goes to, the shadow puppets and sleight-of-hand, reveal a man at odds with himself, a man so deeply sunk into denial that he can't come clean to anyone about his failure.

Except, that is, to Joan Harris.

Throughout his life, Joan has remained emblematic of what's been missing from his life, the one thing he prized so dearly but couldn't leave his wife to embrace fully. The one who got away. The one, he thought, that he had gotten back again.

Joan's horror, upon learning that Roger knew about Lee and was calling her from a Manhattan hotel, was the falling of the scales from the eyes, the first time she saw with clarity again of what Roger truly was and what he would always be: a scared little man clinging to the last vestiges of his vanity and ego. In one fell swoop, he had not only endangered her marriage to Greg but also her job as well.

I'm not entirely sure what he expected Joan to do with the information, the equivalent of a smack across the face. It may have woken Joan out of her reverie and brought her back to reality, may have crumbled any semblance of a wall between them but it also broadened the distance between them to an insurmountable chasm.

When Cooper lashes out at Roger, telling him that Lucky Strike never took Roger seriously because he never took himself seriously, the same applies to Joan Harris' perception of Roger as well. He never took her seriously either. He claimed to love her but he left Mona not for Joan but for the silly Jane. His inscription to her in the first copy of his autobiography, "Sterling's Gold," is "to my loving wife." But nowhere does he indicate that he actually loves her in return. She might be proud of him but the same can't be said for Roger.

Despite the book's title, everything Roger touches doesn't turn to gold, after all, but to excrement.

Don, meanwhile, attempts to do whatever he can to save the agency, trying to placate their current clients and attend a funeral to drum up new business. But he's reduced to smashing his beloved Clio Award when Glo-Coat follows in Lucky Strike's footsteps and pulls their business. Everything Don has built has the potential to crumble around him.

Which might be why he demands that Faye break her "Chinese Wall" and share privileged information with him about her other clients, insisting that she help him save the agency. Faye is shocked that Don would ask her to break her moral code and betray her own ethics to save him. She would never ask him to do that for her. The two argue and Faye storms out of his office, a new complication to their relationship, considering that Don had just only recently told Faye about his real identity, a major breach in the shield around his heart.

But rather than work off his frustration, Don falls prey to his new assistant Megan's cunning. She fixes the Clio Award that he threw across the room and launches a campaign to win Don over, appealing to his vanity (teach me!), his male ego ("I just want you right now"), and his logic ("I'm not going to run out of her crying tomorrow"). While everyone may have looked at Megan as a posh mannequin, the former receptionist not only has brains but ambition and drive. She doesn't just want to be Peggy Olson, she wants to be Don Draper. She's educated (she studied literature) and is an artist. She wants it all. (As opposed to Allison, she doesn't appear to be after Don's heart, just his ability to advance her career.)

And, though he knows that he shouldn't (especially after everything that happened with Allison), Don does fall on the couch with Megan. Everyone one of his senses is screaming at him to stop but he can't help himself. Don's fatal flaw has always been in his pants and his inability to put a stop to Megan's very obvious advances might just signal the end of his relationship with Faye, with a strong and sensitive woman who knows him, flaws and all.

Which might be why Don was so surprised to see Faye outside his apartment later that night. But rather than scrawling a break-up message on that envelope, she's there to tell him that she broke her code of ethics for him: that she got him a meeting with Heinz because she "wanted" to.

And then he ends up back on the couch, this time with Faye. But rather than fall into easy sex with her, she just wants to sit with him, resting her head on his chest, a picture of false domesticity. The weight of his betrayal rests heavily on Don in that moment, feeling Faye breathe peacefully, knowing that she saved the man she loved from potential ruin. While he screwed his secretary because she offered herself to him.

Depressing all around, considering how hard she tried to keep that Chinese Wall between them. But some walls were always meant to fall down, some confidences to be broken. And some hard truths, one supposes, will eventually come out.

Next week on Mad Men ("Blowing Smoke"), in the midst of a crisis, Don runs into an old friend.

The Honest People: The Semblance of Control on Mad Men

The universe has a nasty way of reminding us that we're not in control of our lives. Though we might scheme and lie and grab onto some semblance of control in an effort to quell that inner truth, it's a bitter pill to be reminded of just how little authority we have over our own destinies.

When Lee Garner Jr. tells Roger, "There's no reason. Nothing you can do," he might as well be speaking for that unseen horseman in whose hands all of our reins sit. Like Lucky Strike's Lee, Life is a capricious and unforgiving mistress.

In this week's glorious episode of Mad Men ("Hands and Knees"), written by Jonathan Abrahams and Matthew Weiner and directed by Lynn Shelton, the truth spilled out uncomfortably for several characters, who were forced to reckon with the lack of control they have in their individual lives. When faced with making life-altering choices, each of them--whether that be Don Draper, Joan Harris, Lane Pryce, or Roger Sterling--were forced to contend with the fact that the choice was already made for them by someone else.

Secrets have a way of coming out, even if you bury them deep inside and for each of these characters (and even Pete Campbell, despite his speech about being one of "the honest people"), there's a ticking clock element to the concealment of their innermost truths. One doesn't need G-men stalking your ex-wives to feel the pressure, after all, and the hard truth can often hurt as much as a blow from a cane to the back of the head.

The fictional construct of Don Draper has been built on layers of control, of refinement, and of stolen opportunity. While the mix-up in Korea wasn't Dick's fault per se, he made a concerted effort to steal the identity of Don Draper, to make the government--and for a while himself as well--believe that he really was this other man. Because by being Don Draper, he wasn't an uneducated farmer's son, he wasn't a military deserter. His life was a blank slate and he could recreate it in any way he saw fit.

But one can't run forever. The panic attack that Don suffers at his apartment, Faye Miller by his side, is the result of keeping the truth bottled up, of running from his true responsibilities for so long. The life he created for himself--gorgeous Manhattan offices, Beatles tickets for his daughter, that Brylcreamed profile--is built on quicksand and it's only a matter of time before the bottom drops out completely. That the government agents, conducting a routine background check on Don as part of his request for security clearance, question Betty is the moment that Don has feared more than anything.

After all, Don managed to finesse Pete Campbell into keeping his dark secret. He formed a bond with the late Anna Draper. He came clean to his wife, even though it ultimately destroyed the final vestiges of their marriage. But a governmental probe into his personal life, into the fiction that he's constructed around himself? It's too dangerous. There are elements that don't match up: his age, for one. And while an everyday citizen might be able to be bribed, coerced, or placated into going along with his identity theft scheme, there's no way that he'll be able to convince a government official of any innocence. There is no going back.

It's interesting that Don opened up to Faye Miller in this episode, telling her about his past, despite the fact that they haven't been together very long. It's a reversal of fortune for Don. After concealing the truth from Betty for so long (and getting burned when he did tell her) and having the lie discovered by Pete, Don chooses to unburden himself to Faye in an effort to regain control over this all-encompassing truth about himself. He chooses to tell her, openly and honestly, though it's also worth noting that his defenses are down. He's "tired of running," and is so exhausted he can barely keep his eyes open.

But in telling Faye, Don doesn't regain control. Not really. In fact, by telling Faye, it seems as though their relationship is over before it's even really begun. Despite the fact that Faye accepts Don and is happy that he told her the truth, she has already begun to make plans and arrangements. This situation isn't something that can be left alone. She alludes to solving the problem, that Dick was just a kid when it happened, that they can figure it out together.

Which is the problem.

Don doesn't want to go back to being Dick. Faye may have surprised him by being so understanding and sympathetic towards his situation but he's been running since he was 18 years old. He's not going back to being Dick Whitman. He doesn't want to fix anything. In that moment, his casual relationship with Faye became something fraught with far too much complication.

Hence, perhaps, Don's sudden admiration of new assistant Megan outside his office. As she reapplies her lipstick at her desk, unaware of Don's gaze, something stirs within him. Is he aware of that he's lost control over his relationship with Faye already? Is he perhaps attracted once again, not to the strong and impassioned woman that Faye represents, but something far easier?

We're reminded, after all, of the fact that even something as simple as Sally's happiness is outside his level of control. Despite the fact that he has promised her to take her to see the Beatles, the tickets aren't in hand and Don spends the episode attempting to track down those concert tickets, lest he disappoint Sally even further after the events of last week.

Pete does keep Don's secret and the company drops NAA as a client as Pete falls on his sword for Don. The Beatles tickets do arrive, however. It's Megan who manages to get them and who hands them to Don after he's reassured Faye that everything is fine between them. "Everything worked out," Megan coos, handing him the tickets. It did, but only this time.

Elsewhere, Joan--not unsurprisingly--told Roger that she was pregnant and that the baby was his and not Greg's, as he was deployed seven weeks earlier. While they consider their options, it's clear that the fate of Joan's pregnancy has already been decided: she'll once again abort, the third time that she's done so. It's not an easy decision, given the fact that Joan has been trying to get pregnant for some time now. She freely entered into this extramarital arrangement, yes, but her yearning for a child doesn't come into the equation. She has as little control over her life--or that of her offspring--as much as the 17-year-old girl she encounters at the clinic.

Our sad Madonna, dressed in blue, can't even be honest with the woman about what she's doing there, pretending that she's supporting her 15-year-old daughter as she gets an abortion. The lonely bus ride home, the loss that she's suffered, only serve to further remind us of how little power Joan has over her own life.

Separate from the sexual and bodily issues of control plaguing Joan, Roger himself suffers a moment of clarity when Lee Garner Jr. tells him that they are taking their business from Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce to BBDO. It's a shock to Roger, the end of nearly thirty years of business together but Garner says that the decision--like everyone's this episode--was out of his hands. The board decided they wanted to consolidate their brands and this is just a business decision.

Roger attempts to buy time, pleading with Lee to reconsider, to at least give him thirty days to get their affairs in order and keep things secret until then, the literal "hands and knees" begging of the episode's title. While Lee agrees to give Roger thirty days, he still attempts to keep the news under his hat, refusing to even tell the other partners of the loss of their largest client.

Which is why he lashes out at Pete over the loss of the $4 million NAA account. Given the financial jeopardy they're now in thanks to the end of the billable hours from Lucky Strike, they are in dire circumstances. His anger at Pete is displaced rage towards himself, a cosmic frustration with how things have--or haven't--worked out for him, for Joan, for his life. (It hasn't for others either, as Roger discovers most of his business leads are literally dead.)

Circumstances are conspiring around them. Don may have convinced Pete to dump NAA but he wasn't aware of the Lucky Strike situation. Roger might have to apologize to Pete for jumping down his throat, but he hasn't told anyone about Lee's announcement. And Lane leaves for England, believing the company to be fiscally solvent. The lies being told at the conference table bind all of them together, even if they can't see at that very moment that the walls are crumbling down around them.

Lane, for his part, believes himself to be his own man, to be independent of the abuse and tyranny of his Victorian era-born father Robert (W. Morgan Sheppard). He believes that he's made a new life for himself in New York, one that's separate from his estranged wife Rebecca. He is a man in love, having fallen for Playboy Club waitress/bunny Toni Charles (Naturi Naughton).

His relationship with Toni reveals just how far out of his father's orbit Lane has traveled, refuting the Victorian ideals of his father's generation and planting himself in a modern America. Robert immediately takes umbrage to Lane's choice of lover: Toni is both black and a Playboy bunny; she represents the sexual revolution underway. She's a cocktail waitress who basically wears a swimsuit and a bunny tail to work each night. In other words, she's an affront to everything that Robert believes in, his carefully ordered view of the universe.

Still, Lane attempts to wrest control of his life from his domineering father, believing that he can stand up to the old man and forge his own path in life, even if Robert and Rebecca are conspiring to keep his son from him. Despite the fact that Robert makes the situation with Toni all the more uncomfortable, Lane tries to salvage the evening.

But it gets worse. His efforts to enforce his own rule backfire completely as Robert shockingly smacks him over the head with the crook of his cane and then stands on the prone Lane's hand until he agrees to return to England to sort out his family. It's a portrait of a beaten man, one whose plight echoes the likely frequent abuse meted out by this tyrannical man. This new man is infantilized by the exchange, reduced once again to a child at the whims of his enraged father. The blood on his hand, the result of that blow to his head, don't come as so much of a shock but rather an awful reminder once more of the fragility of his self-control.

It's no surprise that Lane takes a leave of absence, intending to sort things out in the United Kingdom. He might be in love with Toni, but their relationship is shattered as soon as that cane connects with his skull, a brutal wake-up call at the end of a dream.

It's just one of many dreams that, rather sadly, none of these characters can toil under any longer.

Next week on Mad Men ("Chinese Wall"), Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce employees resort to scuttlebutt after an agency-wide meeting is called.

Chinese Wall: Truth and Consequences on Mad Men

I'd like to think that we all fall sometimes.

This week's sensational episode of Mad Men ("The Beautiful Girls"), written by Dahvi Waller and Matthew Weiner and directed by Michael Uppendahl, focused on the women in Don Draper's personal and professional life, crafting provocative storylines for Joan Harris, Peggy Olsen, Faye Miller, and little Sally Draper. While it's the latter who physically hits the floor at the end of the episode, there's the definite sense that each of these women not only picks themselves up but keeps moving ahead, their eyes on the future.

For the three adults, the feminist spirit of the 1960s has awakened something in each of them and this forward-facing approach is best summed up when Peggy, Joan, and Faye board the elevator together at the end of the day. All three women have made a specific decision in her own life, one with dramatic consequences for each of them. Entering the confines of the elevator, they face ahead rather than at each other, their eyes staring towards the camera, towards audience, towards the future. Did they fail the tests that they were given? Or did they choose to instead to follow their own rules?

While it's Faye who earlier brings up the concept of the Chinese wall, that information screen that safeguards the flow of intelligence, it's clear that there are a number of walls either toppling down or being built up in this episode. The final confrontation between Don and Sally--the supremely gifted Kiernan Shipka--points to something as insurmountable as the Great Wall itself springing up between father and daughter.

It was only a matter of time before Sally would choose to run away, choosing Don's life in Manhattan over her rigid and icy existence in Ossining. Here, she boards a train in a display of rebellious independence, a chance to surprise Don and force his hand before she pleads her case: she wants to live with him rather than Betty and Henry. Don represents an unrealized ideal rather than the honest reality of what such an existence would mean. He can't care for her, not in any meaningful, real way--he dumps the responsibility of watching her for an afternoon on Faye simply because she's there and a woman--but Sally doesn't see it that way. She sees a life of pouring rum on French toast, wearing his t-shirts to bed, and stopping by his slick office on the way to the zoo.

Sally's attempt to manipulate Don point to just how much she learned from watching her own mother. Her petulance and mischievous smile (such as when Don agrees to order pizza) match up perfectly to the same way that Betty interacted with Don. With her new haircut and more mature looks, Sally is nearly a mirror image for the Betty we saw in the earlier seasons of Mad Men. The gap between their ages has been bridged by a haircut and an atmosphere of lost innocence.

In her childish way, Sally yearns for change. When she can't coax, cajole, or charm her way into Don's new life, she attempts reverting to an emotional response: screaming, kicking, and running. But her fall after screeching through the halls of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce isn't her own. As the women of the office look on, it's not Faye or Peggy who comes to her rescue, but innocent receptionist Megan, whom Sally throws her arms around. Sally isn't just looking for her father but that sense of protection, warmth, and comfort that she so desperately craves.

It's interesting that it's Megan who comforts Sally rather than, say, Faye, whom Sally knows is Don's girlfriend, whether or not he denies it. (She, like Sally, knows where the plates are, as well as that Don has peanut butter in his apartment.) It's clear that Faye is uncomfortable around Sally and around children as well. She might like kids but she doesn't have any of her own, she lacks "child psychology," and she speaks to Sally as though she's four or five years old.

Rather than see that Don selected her because she was there and because he trusts her in his apartment, Faye sees her care of Sally as a crucible by which her relationship with Don will be judged. Is she worthy of becoming Sally's replacement mother? Of segueing into the role of Don Draper's new wife? Don certainly doesn't see it that way; the situation wasn't an audition for the role because he hasn't even considered it. He's not looking to fill that role emptied by his divorce and doesn't see his very new relationship with Faye in that manner. When she fails to calm Sally down, it's not a test to be passed or failed, but rather a last-ditch effort to quiet his troubled daughter, to pacify her in a way that he doesn't know how to or won't do.

But that's not inherently contained within the DNA of this woman, nor perhaps in the two others who gather in that elevator at the end of the day. Each of them has a complicated relationship to motherhood that's only fitting given their professional status within the pre-women's liberation years of the 1960s. Faye has chosen to focus on her career and not on her uterus; Peggy gave up her child to forward her professional stake; Joan was desperate to get pregnant before Greg left for Vietnam.

In their own way, each is not equipped to handle the reality of Sally Draper's tantrum, of the psychic damage inflicted by Don and Betty's divorce. Instead, they huddle around the doorway, watching as Don returns Sally to Betty, a casualty of the war waged between her bitter parents. She's the little girl lost, a bruised young woman, who might have the future ahead of her but is determined to change her life right now, even if she lacks the maturity to see what that life truly is.

In that future for Sally, the possibilities are limitless. While she doesn't know it yet, the women who don't know how to calm her down are the trailblazers who make her future chance at happiness (whether personal or professional) possible. While Cooper regards the late Ida Blankenship as "an astronaut," a woman who was born in a barn and died in a skyscraper, it's Sally who could be an actual astronaut. She can be anything she wants to be in a way that has been denied Joan, Peggy, and Faye. They've fought and clawed their way into the precious power that they've gathered for themselves but it's been a battle, particularly when men like Abe Drexler don't see that they're still being subjugated.

In an episode rife with so much emotional complexity, this week's installment also contained some deliciously hilarious moments as well. If comedy is tragedy plus time, the death of Ida Blankenship was played for its tragic-comedy qualities straightaway. The shock of Peggy discovering Blankenship's demise journeyed into a hysterical sequence in which Joan and Pete concealed her body and moved Ida before the clients saw her corpse.

It's Joan who begins Blankenship's obituary but it's Cooper who finishes it and manages to celebrate Ida's life, as well as the transition from an agricultural America to a thoroughly modern one, barns segueing into skyscrapers, a farm girl dying surrounded by the people she answered phones for.

It may have been a life lived but it was once hampered by what paths Ida Blankenship could have taken, and the vast in-roads that the three elevator-traveling women have made in the time since her youth all the more apparent.

Peggy's decision to protect herself and her career, to chose her pocketbook over her heart with regard to Abe Drexler point to her own priorities. She might be political in her own way (she did attempt to bring up the discrimination issue to Don in the meeting), but Peggy Olsen is not stupid. Abe is just some guy with a manifesto. He might be "interesting soup," but she's looking for a full meal. She doesn't need to be the pot but can be something entirely different. After all, she's already sacrificed so much in the name of advancing her career. Why wouldn't she want to hold onto that?

And then there was poor Joan. I loved that Roger sent over the masseuses to make up for rubbing her the wrong way, but I also knew that these two--with the unfinished business between them--would transition back into something more than work colleagues and old friends. For Roger, Joan was the one who got away and writing his memoirs has reminded him of this in no uncertain terms. There might not be a chapter in his book about his lost love but he can't help but pine for this sad Madonna even as he made his choice to leave Mona not for her, but for Jane.

Joan manages to deflect Roger's advances throughout the episode until they're robbed at gunpoint and Joan literally loses that constant reminder of her marriage: her wedding band. Faced with a brush with a gun, Joan passionately kisses Roger and they make love in that seedy neighborhood. But, later, it's Joan who signals that that's as far as things can go. She's not sorry it happened but she's married and so is Roger. While Joan's husband faces an uncertain future in Vietnam, she's going to do her best to remain faithful to him. While she displayed a moment of weakness, it was also a clarion call to her that it can't happen again.

Which makes me wonder if Joan will finally get the baby she's been so desperate to have, even while she runs the risk of losing her husband in the war.

Ultimately, "The Beautiful Girls" was a lush, lyrical, and emotionally bracing episode that examined the past, present, and future of women in this particular time period. While they might each work in that glittering skyscraper, it's not their names on the wall. Not yet, anyway.

Next week on Mad Men ("Hands and Knees"), an unannounced visitor at the Francis home rattles Betty.

The Sun and the Wind: Introspection and Clarity on Mad Men

It's fitting that when Don Draper attempts to organize his thoughts, he does so with a pad and pen rather than Roger's confessional cassettes.

Don's writing--reminding him of those 250-word essays he wrote before dropping out of high school-- is part of a concerted effort to gain some clarity in his life, to unburden his mind even as the last vestiges of his true self slip away in the wake of Anna's death. While Don might look the part of the carefree summer man, the internal struggle raging within him is anything but placid.

Throughout this week's episode of Mad Men ("The Summer Man"), written by Lisa Albert, Janet Leahy, and Matthew Weiner and directed by Phil Abraham, we see glimpses of a very different Don Draper, one painfully aware of his own mortality--hence the look of horror at his actual physical condition while swimming--and of the coping mechanisms in his life. He sees for the first time perhaps the way that alcohol affects him, the way that it swimmingly fills his brain, pushing his fears and concerns to the back of his brain. He's traded clarity for false comfort.

It's interesting then that Don would choose this time to back away from the booze, to attempt to find himself on the page, to unjumble his thoughts into something lucid and cogent, and to attempt to change, something he's able to do at the end of the episode: to choose to delay gratification in a way that the old Don Draper never would have.

After all, as we learned in this week's episode with a hat tip to Aesop, the sun's approach is always preferable to that of the wind.

It's interesting that Aesop's fable should loom so large over this installment, which juxtaposed Don's voice-over narrative as he wrote down the facts of his current situation against two other storylines: one involving Joan and Peggy at the office, each enmeshed in a power struggle, and that of Betty and Henry in Don's old house. In all three circumstances, the choice between brute force and gentle supplication--between the wind and the sun's differing methods of achieving the same ends--are utilized to great effect.

In the fable, the sun and the wind enter a competition to see who can make a man remove his coat first. While the wind attempts a direct assault on him, the man simply draws his coat tighter, whereas the sun simply slowly warms him and the man easily removes his jacket. According to Faye, "kindness, gentleness, and persuasion win where force fails."

It's a method that Don seemingly embraces in his apparent conquest of Faye Miller, in fact. Despite the fact that she has turned down Don's advances in the past, his knowledge that she has broken up with her boyfriend result in a different tack, as she agrees to an actual date rather than the after-work dinner that Don proposes. After that dinner, she's keen to go back to his place but Don chooses to simply drop her off at her place instead. He's not only happy sleeping alone, his whole body filling the bed like a "skydiver," but he's also grown up a bit since his fallout with Betty. His dalliances might have been suitable for a twenty-something but Don isn't as young as he used to be, the generation gap between him and Bethany Van Nuys a vast chasm that's growing by the day. By gently rejecting Faye, he embraces the gentleness of the sun, whereas the old Don would have kicked up a fierce gust. (It takes Faye by surprise, in fact. She didn't expect him to be quite so gentlemanly in that moment.)

Don's efforts--to pull back on his work-hours drinking, to take things slow with Faye (even as he receives some, er, pleasuring from Bethany in a different cab ride)--point towards a path of redemption for this reluctant bachelor. He's discovering his own simple pleasures--the cool spots of the bed he can hold onto when he's sleeping alone--as well as the transformative powers of altered thinking. By attempting to find clarity, he's finding his new self. His act of writing, of self-discovery, are paving stones on this new path. He can make due with what he has, rather than mourning what he's lost. He can choose not to follow in the footsteps of Roger Sterling but forge his own journey, reclaim his wounded pride, and put the past behind him.

He does just what when he travels to Ossining to pick up the last of his things from the house he once shared with his family. When he arrives, he finds the cardboard boxes--labelled simply "Draper"--dented on the sidewalk, placed there as one might refuse on garbage day. As he pulls up, he sees Henry mowing the lawn of his old home, his place usurped by another man, his castle now no longer his. The old Don may have drowned his sorrows in a deep glass. Instead, Don packs up the boxes in the trunk of the car and then puts them into a dumpster. He doesn't tear up over the crated-up possessions, the symbols of his old life. Rather, he accepts them and then puts them behind him, consigning them to the rubbish bin of yesterday. They don't define him. Not anymore.

But it's Betty who finds that it's more difficult to let go than she imagined. Henry maintains that he has a cordial--if strained--relationship with his ex-wife but insists that he doesn't hate her, whereas Betty's vociferous hatred of Don reveals that not only is he still taking up room in their house but in her heart as well. She can't move on and a chance encounter at a Manhattan restaurant (where Don is on a date with Bethany) stirs up a host of unresolved feelings and animosities towards her ex-husband.

It's interesting that Betty's looks would be so perfectly captured within Anna Camp's Bethany: the scene plays up the similarities in their looks, their hair, their blue dresses, and earrings. What Betty sees reflected back at her is a looking-glass into yesterday, a painful reminder of what was and what will never again be. She sees Don's happiness and it stabs her precisely because she herself will never be happy. She traded one marriage for another, one domineering husband for a different one, one unhappy situation for yet another. She and Henry might have "everything"--the house, the kids, the marriage, but Don has something that she will never achieve: freedom.

Betty downs a drink and then another, she runs off to the ladies' room, but she can't escape what she feels. Her scene--and the subsequent pouting in the car--demonstrate her own tempestuous nature, the wind in her very veins. But she changes her tune later, thanks to an offhand comment made by Francine (the always welcome Anne Dudek, here in her first Season Four appearance), who says that Don has nothing to lose and she has everything.

If she causes a scene at Gene's birthday party, she risks looking foolish in front of her friends and further upsetting Henry after she "misbehaved" at that dinner. She can choose to be the wind or take the path of the sun: choose to be welcoming, kind, and persuasive. Choose sunniness over brusqueness. Which she does spectacularly, welcoming Don and finally allowing him time with Gene. Even as Henry visibly prickles, Betty tells him that it's alright. "We have everything," she whispers. Even as she says it, she looks at Don and sees just what has been lost.

While it's perhaps a thawing of the iciness between Don and Betty, it doesn't mean that things will be coming up roses between them. However, it does point to each of them taking a different approach with the other and perhaps finally coming to terms with the new circumstances they're in right now. Perhaps by being gentle with each other, they can turn that gentleness on themselves...

Back at the office, Joan discovered unpleasantly just how little power she truly has at Sterling Draper Cooper Pryce, as she saw herself for the first time as a relic from another time, yet another symbol of that gap between Roger's generation and those of the immature, over-confident young men of Joey's.

Spinning out of last week's confrontation between Joan and the creative team over the messiness of their office, Joan was not only the butt of several jokes this week but of a pornographic drawing of her and Lane, one that capitalized on her seductive nature and her (perceived) menial job. Whereas she ran Sterling Cooper with an iron fist, she doesn't have the respect here that she once did. Hell, her office is used as a thoroughfare between two points, rather than as a place of sanctuary. Her kingdom is so small that the two doors of her office are less defendable battlements than they are a symbolic revolving door.

And it's true that Joan's loss of power isn't limited to her career. Her marriage is hanging on by a thread as Greg prepares to leave for basic training, after which he'll be shipped out to Vietnam... and, as Joan knows in her heart of hearts, likely won't return to her. Her remarks to the boys of creative that they too will likely be sent over there and die in the jungles is scathing but only too true. It cuts to her heart of her own fears that Greg is being sent to die.

Even as she tearfully prepares to send him to his fate, she discovers just how truly alone she really is. She has no one to talk to, no one to confide in, and certainly no one who understands her. Certainly not Peggy Olsen, who wrongly believes that she can ingratiate herself to Joan by firing Joey.

Don empowers Peggy to fire Joey and Peggy offers Joey a lifeline: he can apologize to Joan but he refuses. He rails against her because he sees in Joan a mirror image of his own power, the pen around her neck, flaunting her sexuality to get her way, a joke of an office peon who believes she has power because she makes men stare. (He even goes so far as to piercingly call her "mom," a reflection of last week's episode where Joan said to the boys that she wasn't their mother.)

Peggy's firing of Joey reinforces her role of authority within the agency, even as she witheringly tells Joey that Don doesn't even know who he is, putting him down even as she raises herself up. But in doing so, she chose to make herself the "cold bitch" in the equation, the wet blanket who ruined the boys' fun and lacked a sense of humor about the "joke" at hand. Furthermore, in doing so, she carved out a role of power at the expense of Joan herself. While unintentional, Peggy wresting control of the Joey situation revealed Joan to even less capable of defending herself. She was reduced to little more than a secretary, wounded at the hands of the cruel boys who had to have someone else bail her out and save her.

Joan wanted to be less outwardly brutal. She would have preferred to handle it her own way, to apply persuasion (the sun, again) and get Joey kicked off the Sugarberry account rather than blow in, guns blazing. It's the choice between Aesop's feuding natures, but it's also a sign of the times. Joan isn't as young as she used to be; could it be that Joey saw her usefulness in the same way that Don sees Miss Blankenship's? That both have outlived their day in the sun?

As the elevator opens and Peggy is left agape, the sad truth about the two roles that women in 1960s workplaces could take is made all the more apparent. Peggy might have willingly taken on the role of "humorless bitch," but she ripped Joan down from whatever level of power she had made for herself, reducing her to the role of "meaningless secretary," a woman unable to fight her own fights. Someone in need of rescuing.

In the end, perhaps progress is about what's gained as much as what's lost. While Don may have set foot on the road to redemption, the times are being less kind to Joan Harris, for whom I imagine heartbreak is only just beginning. The summer might have arrived for Don Draper, the scent of chlorine on his skin, but one can only hope that, even in the cold months to come, he can hold onto his invincible summer.

Next week on Mad Men ("The Beautiful Girls"), Peggy receives a romantic gift that could compromise her career.

Unwanted Guests: Emotional Baggage on This Week's Incredible Mad Men

Though Don might have once told Peggy Olsen always to look forward and never look back, it's an impossible credo to embrace completely. Regardless of how much we might attempt to escape the trappings of our past, they have a nasty way of staring us right in the face, whether that's an inevitable phone call, a playground, or a pregnant rival.

It's the past that we always carry around with us, dragging our failure and shortcomings at our heels, shoving them into whatever baggage we might grab at the moment, whether it's an army duffel bag or a stylish Samsonite suitcase.

This week's beautiful and intense episode of Mad Men ("The Suitcase"), written by Matthew Weiner and directed by Jennifer Getzinger, swung the focus back around to the central relationship between Don Draper and Peggy Olsen, two sides of the same coin, each grappling with the intrusion of an unwanted guest into their structured and compartmentalized lives.

Threaded around the Cassius Clay/Sonny Liston boxing match, the episode shines a spotlight on the often contentious relationship between Don and Peggy, each of whom proves in this week's installment that, no matter how many times they get knocked down, each of them manages to get back on their feet again. Like a piece of Samsonite luggage, they can take a hit and keep on swinging. This season has been noticeably scant on Don and Peggy intimacy as their relationship seemed to take a bit of a hit when they moved to the new agency... and Don's Clio Award cemented a frustration on Peggy's part, as did his constant needling of her ideas.

Of course, Don is hard on Peggy because he's hard on himself, more so than anyone else. Like he does with himself, he holds Peggy to an unrealistic expectation of perfection, one than no mortal can meet. If Don had to be the best in order to overcome his upbringing, his lack of education, and his lack of experience, so too has Peggy. They have to be the best at everything because Don has seen that it can all so easily be ripped away from them.

"I know what I'm supposed to want," says Peggy, sadly, "but it just never feels right, or as important as anything in that office."

While the major theme this week seemed to be unwanted guests--from the unwelcome appearance of Peggy's family at Mark's surprise birthday dinner, Duck's near-defactory cameo at the office, the mouse in the office, the roach in the Parthenon--it also delved into notions of identity and perception. If the people who know us in the truest, deepest sense of the word are no longer alive, no longer remembering, are we still intrinsically us? If our pasts are scrubbed from memory, can we escape who we were? Who we are?

Despite the fact that Don has long known that Anna Draper was going to die, Stephanie's call from California still comes as a shock and he does everything in his power to delay making the call, the call that will forever alter his life as he is forced to contend with Anna's death and its inescapable implications. He goes so far as to keep Peggy at the office lest he have to deal with picking up the telephone, throwing himself into work, shielding his heart behind the office walls. His intransigence towards Peggy, towards the Samsonite campaign--not due for two more weeks--is an effort to delay the inevitable.

But he can't forget. The phone remains omnipresent throughout the episode, each time it rings it becomes the clarion symbol of some painfulness he's hoping to avoid. But each time, it's Peggy's boyfriend Mark, increasingly fed up with the fact that she is making excuses and keeping all of them waiting for her. While Peggy's frustration with Don mounts, it's really Mark who she's the most upset with, once she learns that he brought her entire family to dinner, her overbearing and clucking mother who disapproves of her lifestyle. It's as if, Peggy tells Don, he doesn't know her at all.

So who does know us in the end then? It's those who see us at our best and at our worst. For Peggy, that's Don Draper, the only one who visited her in the hospital, who nurtured her talents and promoted her, who gave her the life that she was so desperate to live, a life that she chose over her own baby, given away for adoption. He has seen Peggy at either end of the spectrum, just as she has done with him. They both still have their secrets; while both have revealed truths about themselves, each has chosen to conceal something powerful about their pasts--Peggy that Pete is the father of her child, Don that he stole another man's identity--but that doesn't diminish the bond between them, one forged in the fires of honesty, the late nights at the office, the frantic calls, and the sometimes horrific consequences of their mistakes.

It's fitting that Don attempts to bring Peggy back around by sharing with her his own discovery, the tapes that Roger has been making for his autobiography, entitled--of all things--"Sterling's Gold." Among the juicy tidbits we learn: that Don's secretary Ida Blankenship was once the "queen of perversions" and that Bert Cooper had his testicles removed... for no good reason.

It sets up what ends up being a night of truths, not just ones coerced from illicit tapes but ones shared openly between Don and Peggy, their fractured relationship breaking down once she erupts at him... and then finally being knitted back together over coffee at a Greek diner, drinks at a bar, and a trip to the men's room. (I loved Peggy's reaction upon seeing the urinals therein.) All before Don attempts to protect Peggy's honor when a drunk Duck calls her a "whore." (If Duck was hoping to woo Peggy into his bed or his office, he failed miserably on both accounts, particularly after he nearly defecated in Roger's office.)

Throughout it all, both Don and Peggy drag their own emotional Samsonites across town, circling back into the office. (Don cracks his open to tell Peggy that he grew up on a farm and his father was killed by a kick from a horse.) But each is a heavyweight in their own right, their inner selves unable to broken by just anybody, even when it's being hefted from the height of the Eiffel Tower. Rather, each is able to open up those suitcases for one another.

Don's breakdown in the office removed any semblance and artifice from his relationship with Peggy, a moment of such agony and pain--upon hearing confirmation that Anna had died--that he is not embarrassed by his grief, nor by expressing it in front of Peggy. In fact, there are similarities between the way that Peggy is painted in this episode and the way that we've seen Don's relationship with Anna, one that's not encumbered by a sexual dimension but rather by a familiar rapport that marks them more as siblings rather than would-be lovers. Don falling asleep on Peggy's lap on the couch marks their relationship as strictly platonic, a mirror image of Don and Anna.

It's fitting that Anna's ghost, appearing to Don in the wee hours of the morning, carries with her a Samsonite suitcase, a receptacle for everything they shared, the knowledge of Don's true self. After all, Don sees her passing as the death of not just his best friend in the world but also, in a way, of the last connection to Dick Whitman in his life. It's not just Anna who dies, in that sense, but also Dick as well. She was "the only person in the world who really knew me," says Don. But that's not true, not really. While she doesn't know the full story, Peggy does know him. She knows the man he is today, his flaws, his courage, and his charm. She's seen behind the facade and lived to tell the tale. When she says that it's not true, we feel that she's telling the truth inasmuch as anyone can know anyone else.

There might be another way out of the office, one the mouse is capable of navigating, but Don and Peggy don't find it that night, each of them grabbing some kip on the couch in their respective offices before starting a new day tackling the Samsonite campaign once more.

The question before the final scene, unspoken but hanging in the air like smoke, is whether Don would acknowledge the very real moment that passed between them the night before. Would he look forward as always, or would he admit that what had happened between them--the supreme moments of connection over a shared evening and open truths--had actually happened?

After all, that's all that Allison had wanted: Don to admit that they had slept together, that it wasn't all in her head, that he hadn't somehow drunkenly forgotten, that he wouldn't pretend that nothing had occurred. Don wasn't able to do that with Allison. He switched into his standard operating mode, one of no regrets, no looking back, sweeping the unpleasant and the awkward under the thick rug.

Not so with Peggy. While it might be all business--another take on the Samsonite pitch, this time using Clay's victory as a basis--Don breaks the spell, taking Peggy's hand in his and holding on. It's an acknowledgment of what passed between them, of the depth of their relationship, and of the unbreakable bond that they share.

I'll admit that I freely started crying at that part, not by what's been lost but by what's been found for each of them. We might not be able to ditch our emotional baggage but we can sometimes in life find those willing to help us carry it.

Next week on Mad Men ("The Summer Man"), Joan and Peggy deal with high-jinx in the office.

The Daily Beast: Fire and Ice: Mad Men's Christina Hendricks and January Jones

As promised, the last Emmy-related piece of this year.

While I've already discussed Modern Family and Glee, Friday Night Lights, and to a certain extent Lost, as well as rounded up my picks for who will win a gold statuette and who should have won, I can't imagine not discussing AMC's luminous period drama Mad Men.

Over at The Daily Beast, my latest feature--which is curiously entitled "Mad Men's Ice Queen"--takes a look at Mad Men's Emmy nominated actresses January Jones and Christina Hendricks and explores how they fit into certain female iconic traditions and why our perceptions of their characters seem to spill over into their real lives.

Just why is Betty Draper so misunderstood and disliked? Why does Jones seem so icy whereas Hendricks--a somewhat reluctant sex symbol--seems so vibrant and full of life? Can they escape our own perceptions of them? Head to the comments section to discuss.

Season Four of Mad Men airs Sunday evenings at 10 pm ET/PT on AMC.

A Doll's House: The Chrysanthemum and the Sword on Mad Men

"A man is shamed by being openly ridiculed and rejected."

On this week's fantastic episode of Mad Men ("The Chrysanthemum and the Sword"), written by Erin Levy and directed by Lesli Linka Glatter, we see how symbolism is in the eye of the beholder: what one man sees as a vase of chrysanthemums is another man's symbol for death. What a mother sees as her daughter attempting to punish her is a cry for help. Or it's none of those things at all, but a burgeoning sexuality or effort to explore and to understand.

Or it's just an attraction to The Man From U.N.C.L.E..

We can parse the meanings from others' behaviors but we always apply our own patina of understanding to the symbols we take in. Sally's behavior isn't of a wanton nature; she's not on a path of destruction, despite Betty's claims that her daughter is "fast" or is picking up things from Don's "whores." She's a normal girl dealing with normal things, particularly after her world came crashing down around her following her parents' divorce.

That dollhouse that Betty so admires in Dr. Edna's office is an illusion. It's a house without a wall on the outside, letting us peer into another world. Betty sees a perfect family living inside, everything in its proper, ascribed place. But what we might see are lifeless dolls, unable to think for themselves, unable to express their rage, frustration, lust, until someone else comes along to give them meaning.

In other words, we see what we want to see. Just as Don's competitor Ted Chaough believes that he sees Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce breaking the rules and shooting a commercial in order to land the lucrative Honda account, Roger sees not dollar signs but dead army buddies, not businessmen but ruthless Japanese villains, and Betty sees not her own childhood reflected back at her but evidence of her own imperfections.

In an interesting twist, it's Henry who seems to be the sole carrier of parental knowledge here, able to see much of Sally's behavior as not abnormal but completely normal. "Little girls do this," he says to Betty after Sally chops off her hair, "even those not from broken homes." Henry, as the parent of a now-grown daughter, has seen all this and more. Despite their physical similarities, Sally is not Betty, though the latter seems to want to place her on a similar path, lying to her about her own girlhood tendencies and threatening to cut off her fingers, just as her mother did to her.

The lines have been drawn in the former Draper household: while Bobby runs to his mother and throws her arms around her, Sally is withdrawn, aloof. There has always been a simpatico spirit between Don and Sally and Betty goes so far as to push the two of them into the same category, into being recipients of her somewhat sublimated rage. Rather than console and confront her daughter rationally, Betty acts out irrationally, slapping Sally in the hallway simply because she cannot slap Don. While it's supposedly Sally she's furious with, Betty moans, "I want him dead" as soon as Don leaves. The mark she leaves on Sally's cheek is meant to ricochet to the girl's father, really.

For her part, Sally Draper is attempting to find her own way in the world. The doll's house she once lived in has been knocked on its side. In attempting to make herself over, she's attempting to thwart her mother's expectations for her and to attract her father's attention. Sally first expresses disapproval that Don is going to meet Bethany for dinner at Benihana and leave her with neighbor Phoebe. Later, she hacks off her hair in an effort to transform herself, to feel "pretty." She assumes--incorrectly--that something is going on between Don and Phoebe and then attempts to remake herself in the nurse's image, scissoring off her locks to give herself short hair. ("You have short hair and Daddy likes it," she says.)

Betty's response is to punish Sally, even as Henry advises rewarding her. In other words: paying attention to her and giving her encouragement, transforming the situation into something positive (a trip together to the hair salon) rather than something negative. But Betty, for all of the change in her life, can't transform her rage and frustration into something pleasant; it's been so deeply sublimated her entire life that it erupts into inappropriate behavior. (Like mother, like daughter.)

Sally is curious about sex and sexuality. We see this both from her questioning of Phoebe and to her response to watching The Man From U.N.C.L.E. but no one is guiding her or talking to her. And she can't talk to Betty about it because Betty won't confront these touchy subjects, even though she herself went through just what Sally is going through. ("You don't do those things," Betty screams. "You especially don't do them in public.") Don's question to Betty--"boy or girl?"--is a valid one but Betty fails to see the distinction. Sally's curiosity was inward rather than external; Betty sees only whores and fast girls.

But Betty also can't see herself. It's fitting in a way that it's a child's psychiatrist who finally gets Betty to open up, not only about Sally, but about the pain and loss in her life, about the breakdown of her marriage and the death of her father. Both Sally and Betty were deeply affected by Gene's death, though it takes the gentle coaxing of Dr. Edna to allow Betty to admit it openly.

In going to consult Dr. Edna, Betty sees the woman as a possible cure for Sally's abnormal conditions, rather than as a sounding board for herself as well. Witness how easily Edna is able to get Betty commit to coming to see her--in the guise about talking about Sally--whereas she fails in getting her to see a psychiatrist of her own. (Betty is, however, put at ease knowing that Edna will keep both sides of the ongoing conversation private from the other party.)

"I feel like Sally did this to punish me," she tells Dr. Edna. But that in itself is a symbol of misplaced anger too; Betty's reading of Sally's behavior fails to take into account her own punishment of Sally to get at Don. A misplaced slap, a cool attitude. Their every interaction is a bitter reminder to one another of what they've lost.

In a room full of toys, it's the first time Betty can be honest and it's the first time we see the ice thaw in a long while. She admits to masturbating as a girl, she admits to feeling the agony of her father's death, and--though she doesn't say it out loud--she admits that her life hasn't turned out how she imagined it. It was never as easily as moving those dolls around that open house, after all.

Roger, for his part, can't let go of his own past. His anger at the partners for even considering doing business with the Japanese speaks volumes about his anger at his World War II adversaries and in himself. While his rage is directed at the Honda executives, it takes Pete to see what's really going on here: the negotiations are symbolic of a larger issue at play. Should Pete have successfully brought in this account, the agency is less dependent on Lucky Strike... and therefore less dependent on Roger himself.

While Roger lunges at Pete for having the temerity to suggest such a thing, Don intervenes... and agrees with Pete. His efforts to wrap himself in the American flag was a smokescreen to divert from the true issue. Just as later his story to Joan about his dead war buddies is an effort to make Joan feel sorry for him, despite the fact that her husband is about to ship out to Vietnam. She urges him to let go, reminding him that he made the world a better and safer place through the sacrifices he and his friends made twenty years earlier.

She has to believe that, after all, because her husband is standing on the same precipice that Roger had all of those years before. While he attempts to engage her sympathies, Joan urges him to stop feeling sorry for himself. The scene in beautifully shot by Glatter, as Joan and Roger are positioned in front of the window, two vertical lines dissecting their tableau, depicting the separation between them, a chasm that widens even more as Joan steps out of the scene.

Don, meanwhile, fails to see that Lane has given his little "stunt" his blessing, preferring to see that they acted without the partners' knowledge, though Lane makes it clear that he had to have allowed Joan to book studio time (at which Peggy drove around an empty set in circles). But Don's stunt does work: not only is CGC put out of the running but SCDP lands the Honda account (or at least the future Honda automobile account) because Don played up the sense of honor that the Japanese hold so dearly. By failing to hold up their own rules, they invited dishonor. Don's understanding of the symbolism land them the account. It's a matter of deciphering the meaning behind the shifting symbols.

Likewise, Faye admits to Don that she uses a fake wedding band in order to discourage "distracting conversations" from men at work. The ring is a symbol of attachment; by using it she wards off prospective admirers without uttering a word. But while Faye comes clean to Don, he too opens up to her. Her psychiatrist's couch is the narrow break room at SCDP; her notepad a bottle of sake left as a joke. But Don unveils a harrowing truth about his relationship with his children: that they are intense when he watches them, that he is relieved when he drops them off, and that he then misses them. The cycle repeats itself over and over. He does love his children but can't express it; what Betty sees as disinterest and irresponsibility is a host of conflicting emotions.

Emotions that all of them either bottle up or turn to the bottle to avoid facing. It's the chrysanthemum in the room, the specter of death, the symbology that they can't quite face up to. The call to California goes unanswered, hair once shorn can't be immediately repaired, and the hard truths of life can't always be confronted. One can only hope that Sally Draper finds solace in talk therapy and that she, as the symbol of a new generation, finds herself able to discuss the things that her parents are unable--or unwilling--to say aloud.

Next week on Mad Men ("Waldorf Stories"), Peggy clashes with her new creative partner; Don pitches under unusual circumstances.

The Daily Beast: "2010 Emmys: Who Will Win This Year?"

With the 2010 Emmy Awards less than a week away, it's time to take a look at this year's front-runners and weigh the major races that are already underway.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "2010 Emmys: Who Will Win This Year?" in which I take a look (via a visual gallery) at who will win the top spots this year and who should be taking home those statuettes come August 29th.

Do you agree with my assessments? Think Julianna Margulies is a lock? Or do you think that I'm wrong and Aaron Paul won't get overlooked for a Best Supporting Actor award? Head to the comments section to discuss and debate and post your take on the major categories.

The 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards will air live coast to coast on Sunday, August 29th on NBC.

Counter-Culture Blues: The Rejected on Mad Men

It was only a matter of time before Peggy Olson found the counter-culture. Or, one supposes, the counter-culture of the mid-1960s found Peggy Olson.

Rejection seemed to be on the minds of everyone in this week's "swell-egant" episode of Mad Men ("The Rejected"), written by Keith Huff and Matthew Weiner and directed by John Slattery, which revolved around the generational gap and in the transition of old ideas to new ones. Is it that young women want to find themselves beautiful, to partake in rituals of feminine beauty, or is that they're only looking to snag a husband? Is matrimony the expected outcome of any encounter?

The rejections experienced weren't just romantic ones--though they threaded through this week's installment--but also intellectual ones, that Peggy could chose to align herself not with the aged men in the lobby of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce but with the vibrancy of youth, with a generation of forward-thinking individuals--artists, rebels, drug-users--who were defying their parents' ideals, rejecting the notions that womanhood meant subservience, that marriage was the ultimate destination, that everything comes down to commerce in one form or another.

In Joyce, Peggy encounters someone rather like her: an ambitious woman who wields more power than most women at the office but without turning on the charm like Joan Harris. No, Joyce is a pretentious intellectual, which makes Peggy smile all the more, a free-thinker who is shocked to discover that a copywriter like Peggy would admire the nudes that have been rejected by Life magazine. In a way, they're kindred spirits, though not quite in the way that Joyce would hope, given the way that she is herself rejected by Peggy after attempting to kiss her at the downtown party she invites Peggy to.

While I was surprised that Peggy would be so down to earth about advances from a woman, I was glad to see that that wasn't the end of this storyline, which was more about Joyce giving Peggy access to a world she knew nothing about--a world filled with arrogant artists, police-raided parties, and possibilities (notice that Peggy didn't hesitate when Abe kissed her)--than in a sexual encounter between the two. Joyce's knowledge of this world and her handing Peggy and entry card to this demi-monde pull Peggy off of the path she's been on. It's an eye-opening experience that separates Peggy all the more from the world she's been inhabiting, an ad agency filled with men who have chosen their parents' values rather than their own.

That Peggy and Joyce's group should walk by a collection of old men and ad executives in the lobby of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is an intentional juxtaposition, a visual reminder of the generation gap that existed at the time. The look that passes between Pete and Peggy as she waits for the elevator expresses the wide chasm between them, between their choices, their past indiscretion, and in the rejection that Peggy faced at his hands and in her own rejection of his belief structure. (The distance between the generations is made all the more apparent this week in the hiring of the elderly Miss Blankenship as Alison's replacement.)

For all of his pluck, Pete Campbell has made his alliance with the establishment. Pete has been promoted; he's a partner and a father-to-be now. His efforts to seize control of his destiny lead him to wrest control of his father-in-law's company and bring the entire Vicks Chemical line to the agency. He's playing an old game and his company here, the old men, the boys' club, signals an era that's soon to be ending. He might be building his dynasty, but Pete is missing out on the true revolution happening on the other side of those glass doors. (It's interesting too that much of what Pete allegedly accused Kenny of is true of him as well. He's leveraging his wife's family for financial gain.)

It's interesting too that Alison, Don's jilted secretary, attempts to form a rapport with Peggy after she tearfully flees the Pond's focus group. Alison sees her and Peggy as one in the same, both rejected women who have been forced to deal with Don's grabby hands and mercurial nature. But that's not the case, Peggy angrily insists; Alison's problems are not hers. It's a reminder that just about everyone still believes that Peggy's position of power at the agency is due to her sleeping with Don. It's a slap in the face to Peggy, an assumption of the highest order.

Yet Peggy too makes that assumption of Joyce in the elevator, seeing her as a pink-slipped secretary rather than the one doing the firing, a photo editor for a national magazine. And, though there wasn't anything sexual between Don and Peggy, she too made a bad decision and had an indiscretion with someone she shouldn't. While she bore Pete's child and gave it up for adoption, the parallels between Alison's plight and her own can't be avoided.

Though she angrily tells Alison to grow up and deal with the consequences, it's clear that Peggy can't truly let go either. Her bonk against the desk with her head recalls Pete's own head-banging earlier in the episode. They're joined in ways that can't be overlooked but Pete, like Don with Alison, has made his decision and it didn't include Peggy. He may have seen her but that made it all the worse. As Dottie said in the focus group, "I gave him everything and I got nothing."

Still, I admire Peggy for going to see Pete and for congratulating him on Trudy's pregnancy; it's a big step for her to make, particularly after last season's admission that she had had his child and gave it away. Peggy's decision not to sign the card but to see Pete in person express her own conflicted feelings. It would have been disingenuous to sign the card but it's harder still to dredge up the past between them, the child they had together, and the fact that Pete will now be a father in more ways than just one.

By saying things aloud (or even writing them), we give them power. It takes courage to admit the truth, which is something that Don can't do. Hell, he can't even take the time to write Alison an actual letter of reference when she decides to leave (likely for that job at Life that became available), leading her to throw a paperweight at Don. (Ouch.)

But it's even harder for him to admit the truth of his situation: that he's in a dark place right now, a time where his life and his expectations of how it would turn out have been brutally thwarted. He's a lone man, sitting in the dark at the typewriter (his hat still on his head, a symbol of enforced formality), but he can't bring himself to even write the truth in a letter to Alison he'll never send.

Don might have chided Faye for using outmoded ideas when she suggests that they reject Peggy's hypothesis and stick with the link between using Pond's cold cream and matrimony, to which Don replies, "Hell, 1925." While he admonishes her for attempting to bury a new way of thinking, it's clear that Don too has already committed to those old ways in his own life.

That elderly couple in his apartment building hallway represents that outmoded way of thinking too, in a way. His life has gone a different direction; he and Betty will never be that couple discussing groceries in a too-loud voice in front of a stranger. ("We'll discuss it inside," the woman says.) He's entering his own home alone, sitting in the dark with the truth. They might be arguing about pears but they might as well be arguing about "pairs" really.

Next week on Mad Men ("The Chrysanthemum and the Sword"), Don and Pete go against Roger in efforts to win a new account.

We'll Take a Cup of Kindness Yet: Welcome Distractions on Mad Men

At the end of it all, sometimes all we leave behind is a mark on the wall.

That seemed to be the message behind this week's beautiful and lyrical episode of Mad Men ("The Good News"), written by Jonathan Abrahams and Matthew Weiner and directed by Jennifer Getzinger, which seemed to offer the suggestion that just about everything in life--whether that be beer and abalone at the beach, an afternoon movie, or a rendezvous with a call girl--are in themselves welcome distractions from the true issues at hand, from the omnipresent threat of death and loss.

It's only fitting then that the distractions faced by Don Draper, Lane Pryce, and Joan Harris, are offered up as the calendar pages flit from one year to the next. New Year's Eve and New Year's Day represent the alpha and omega of the neverending cycle of life, the passage of time. It's only fitting that January should be named for the Roman god Janus, whose two heads looked in either direction and so too that "The Good News" should itself be set in the liminal period between 1964 and 1965.

It's also, for Don, mostly set in the space between destinations, between the workplace intrigue of Manhattan and the promise of relaxation in Acapulco, in California, where Don can truly be himself. Not the Don Draper of Wall Street Journal profiles or the recent divorcee, but his true self, Dick Whitman.

Throughout the series, the presence of Anna Draper has been keenly felt, both in terms of Dick's own usurping of her husband's identity but also for the relationship Dick forged with the real Don Draper's widow, a relationship with a woman that wasn't based on sex or marriage, that was void of power games or artifice. It was, really, the one true relationship in his life that was built upon honesty, even as it was borne from the biggest lie Dick/Don had ever told.

It's only fitting then that Don would go to see Anna now, his life in tatters after the destruction of his marriage, that he would seek to reconnect with one of the few positive influences on his life. When Anna tells Don that she's sorry that Betty broke his heart, the depth of that sympathy is palpable. "I know everything about you," Anna tells him later. "And I still love you."

The same can't be said about Betty, who left Don shortly after he came clean to her about his past and his real identity. The foundation of their marriage was built on quicksand, whereas he's been open and honest to Anna about who he really is, about his dreams, his fears, his failures, and his successes. More than his wife or children, Anna Draper knows Don more than any person ever has. Really, Anna is the only one qualified to answer the question raised in the season opener: "Who is Don Draper?"

It's said that we're alive so long as those who knew us carry us in their memories. The impending death of Anna Draper--to a cancer that she doesn't even know she carries in her bones--isn't just the passing of a confidante and friend. It's the passing of Dick Whitman, of the one person who knew just who Don Draper was and who loved him all the more for it. When she tells him that she's proud of him, it's more than just hollow words or an empty sentiment. Anna's love is a validation of the man Don can--and could--be, of his full potential and promise.

But nothing lasts forever, sadly. Anna's already polio-ravaged body is further invaded, the cancer eating away at her from the inside, just as her picture-perfect home is stained by water damage, a reminder of an invader that can't be kept out. Don's efforts to distract Anna, to conceal the truth from her about her condition are in keeping with his handling of the water stain: he applies a fresh coat of paint to make things appear to be fine. But underneath it all, the stain is still there. It might be hidden for now, but Don knows it's there, just beneath the surface.

Likewise, Don discovers that he can't stay in California; he can't keep applying coats of paint to something that he cherishes more than anything. If he stays, he'd have to tell her the truth and he leaves, promising to bring Sally and Bobby at Easter time, but not knowing truly if he'll ever see Anna again. Their goodbye, as Don chokes back tears, is likely the final one they'll share.

It's all the more gutting then just what Don chooses to leave on the wall. As Anna paints a flower--a symbol of a too-short life--Don inscribes something at the bottom of the wall ("Dick and Anna, '64"). It's a reminder that they were there, they shared a part of their lives, however brief, together and that they existed. It's more than many of us get and it's all the more heartbreaking to realize that soon, that too, will be painted over.

(It's also fitting that Don should learn of Anna's death after making a move on her niece Stephanie--who is "young and beautiful"--but not only are his advances rebuffed but he learns from Stephanie that Anna has terminal cancer and that the last few months of her life this is to be kept from her. Personally, I'm glad that Stephanie and Don didn't end up in bed together and that Stephanie didn't want to keep Anna's condition from him. However, Stephanie's mom, Patty, sees things different. Don is just "a man in a room with a checkbook." He has no say over Anna's life or her death.)

Rather than vacation in Acapulco, Don returns to New York, where he encounters Lane Pryce, himself attempting to find a welcome distraction from his own marital problems. A clerical error--an almost comical exchange of a bouquet of flowers meant for Joan--compounds the already perilous condition of his marriage and Lane is told not to fly to London and that his family won't be returning to the U.S.

The two men--both divorcees now--end up spending the day and the evening together, taking in a Godzilla movie, a steak dinner, a raunchy stand-up show, and two call girls. It's meant to be a welcome distraction for them both but the alcohol-fueled excursion and debauchery--from monster movies and masturbation jokes to oversized steaks and call girls Candace and Janine--turns into a morning of sobering recriminations. Their boys' night out now seems tawdry and sad the following day, as Lane settles up with Don over a glass of water, handing him $30 to take care of Janine, the hooker whose company he enjoyed.

It may have been a "magnificent year," but things are still precarious. The good news may never come for either of the men. Don's vacation turned into something heartbreaking. Lane's night of excess was a reminder of what he's lost. No matter how hard you try, some things can't be retrieved. And some things once lost, are gone forever.

For Joan, it's that fear that's almost paralyzing. The Joan we see on New Year's Eve, flower lei around her neck is vastly different than the headstrong and powerful woman who throws Lane's flowers at him and fires his incompetent secretary after she fails to admit responsibility for the "egregious" screw-up. Her attempts to salvage the holiday, to celebrate the turning over of the year as it happens in Hawaii, is an effort to hold onto Greg and to push the uncertainty that 1965 brings to the back of her mind. But, unfortunately, it's just a coat of paint.

As Joan cuts her finger attempting to make Greg freshly squeezed orange juice, he takes the opportunity to stitch her up. But in order to do so, he attempts to distract her as well, pretending there is a bird's nest on the ceiling, as one would a child. But rather than feel that he is patronizing her (as Joan assumed Lane was from his card and admonishment not to go cry), there's a tenderness here that's at odds with Greg's treatment of Joan last season and his rape of his wife. "I can't fix anything else," he tells her, "but I can fix this." Despite what has passed between them, I do believe he loves her.

It's a small moment of domesticity that conceals the true terror that Joan feels: that her husband will go off to war and will die in Vietnam. Even as she hopes to plan for the birth of a child (plans for which, fortunately, an illicit abortion from a "midwife," did not derail), the presence of death sits uncomfortably between them. Greg might be able to fix her cut but it's a painful reminder of just how little time they have been them as well as how unknown the coming year will be. Will he be gone in three months' time? Or six? Will he come back to her?

Ultimately, distractions are just that: distractions. In the cold light of morning, Don is still alone, Lane is still estranged from his wife, Greg will still go off to war and Joan may wind up a widow. All three attempt to take their minds off their troubles by escaping reality but life has a way of catching up with you. At the office, the conference table has finally arrived as the staffers of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce gather around to begin to plan the coming year.

It's a scene that's full of possibility for them all. Just what 1965 will bring none of them know but it's an effort to face the future head-on. Distractions past, they can get down to the business at hand. It may not be easy, it may be filled with loss, but they've turned over that calendar page and, like any of us, are taking it one day at a time.

Next week on Mad Men ("The Rejected"), an edict from Roger and Lane puts Pete in a personal dilemma.

Glad Tidings of Great Joy: Christmas Comes But Once a Year on Mad Men

If this is Christmas, we should be glad that it only comes once a year.

On this week's episode of Mad Men ("Christmas Comes But Once a Year"), written by Tracy McMillan and Matthew Weiner and directed by Michael Uppendahl, the holiday season is in full swing at the offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Or at least as much as they can be when Lane is clutching the purse strings and the company is teetering on the edge of fiscal disaster.

Yet, the entire company is forced to put on a brave face--as do many of the series' individual characters this week--when Lucky Strike's Lee Garner Jr. demands an invitation for the company Christmas party and throws everything--from the festivities to the company's future--into chaos.

Meanwhile, Don attempts to come to terms with the fact that he'll be spending Christmas away from his children, Sally makes friends with a sociopath, Peggy contemplates giving herself to boyfriend Mark (Lost's Blake Bashoff), a familiar face returns bearing gifts, and things get even more awkward around the office.

So what did I think of this week's sensational episode? Pick out a Christmas tree, dump some eggs in Bobby's bed, pour yourself a stiff drink, and let's discuss "Christmas Comes But Once a Year."

Don Draper is unraveling before our eyes, really. The once stoic ad man has become, post-divorce, a shadow of his former self, a man heading towards becoming a drunk who can barely unlock the door to his sad bachelor pad and who beds his secretary simply because she's there with two aspirin and a sympathetic expression. That this depiction of Don is so at odds with the variations we've seen in the past--the grimly resolute Don who stole another man's identity, the doggedly optimistic Don who proposes to Betty, the vengeful man who drinks and screws his way around town--is the point. This is a new Don, one whose life has split open at the seams and who is so decidedly lonely, so terrifically isolated that he can't bear to discuss his life on a questionnaire or spend the evening alone.

That he tries and fails to bed his neighbor Phoebe (Nora Zehetner) should be an indication of where things are heading for Don, even as she informs him that she has experience taking men's shoes off because her father was a drunk. But as awkward as it would have been running into Phoebe on the building's landing, it's far worse that Don drunkenly takes advantage of the good nature of his secretary. Having struck out with Faye Miller (Cara Buono), who comes into his office not to flirt but to fight, Don's efforts to have some sort of companionship lead him to make an advance at Allison, a woman who is so enamored of her boss that she anticipates his every move and buys his children Christmas presents without asking any questions.

It's a mistake from the start. Despite his dalliances with Bobbi Barrett and Rachel Katz, Don has managed to largely keep his romantic life separate from his professional one. In pulling Allison down onto the couch, Don not only threads together those two distinct arenas of his life but makes a shockingly powerful call for help. Their act of coitus isn't just sex but an appeal for companionship that connects sharply with last week's slap across the face. Don is desperate to feel something, anything, to experience emotion or pleasure of some kind. That he asks Allison to stay afterwards (something the old Don would never have done) underlines this further. The empty apartment, the half-empty bed, the shoe polishing kit on the floor, they're all a reminder of just how desolate and vacant his life has become.

When Faye tells him that he'll be married again in a year, it's yet another slap. While Don might be furious with Betty, it seems that he too believes that this is just temporary. He's not ready to move on to a new relationship (hence, he doesn't call Bethany) nor is he ready to contemplate another marriage. (His third, if you count the sham marriage to Anna.)

But Don makes the situation between him and Allison even more painful by not directly addressing what had happened the night before and instead being all business... and then, after noticing the gift-wrapped presents she procured for his children, gives her a present of his own: two fifty dollar bills inside a card, her bonus. For all his charm and poise, Don can be monumentally blind when it comes to women. "I just wanted to say thank you for bringing my keys," he says without any real emotion.

Allison's smiles and warm manner indicate that she did think that this would turn into something more than just a professional relationship between boss and secretary, and yet Don seems to push her into the role of prostitute, acknowledging that he took advantage of her kindness yet paying her for her "services." The look of shame and horror as she returns to her desk and reads the card ("Thanks for all your hard work"), before she begins typing a letter (her resignation?), are more cutting than any dialogue.

Freddy Rumsen's return kicks up feelings that have lain dormant within Peggy Olsen as well. Bringing a $2 million Ponds account with him, Freddy rejoins the firm but finds himself enmeshed in conflict with Peggy from the start as he pushes her back into the role of the "office girl" and she accuses him of being "old fashioned." But their arguments--and the subsequent reconciliation--do kick up some issues for Peggy, who is attempting to wait to have sex with her boyfriend Mark.

While Mark reads her hesitation as Peggy being, yes, "old fashioned," the truth couldn't be further from that fact. Mark wants to be Peggy's first, unaware that she has not only slept with Pete and Duck but bore Pete's child. Peggy wants to be taken seriously, both as a prospective mate and as a career woman. If she gives herself to him, will he lose interest? Or, conversely, can she take control of her own destiny by having sex with him on her own terms?

In the end, Peggy realizes that she can have it all in a way that women of Freddy's generation couldn't; he sees young women as "angry" and that their sole desire is to get married. Peggy finally admits to him that she does want to be married some day. Her move to take her relationship with Mark to the next level underscores her own internal debate about value. As he asks her whether she feels different, the answer is clear: she does but not for the reasons he believes.

Elsewhere, Roger was forced--possibly for the first time in his life--into playing the part of the sycophant, into bending over backwards to please the client because without Lee's continued support of the agency, they'll have to close their doors. This means being forced into donning a Santa suit, handing out presents, and smiling glibly when Lee cracks jokes about Roger's history of heart attacks and gets a little too close to Jane. His reaction is at odds with Joan's, as the office manager dons a costume of her own--that red dress with the bow on the back that Roger loved so much--and plays hostess (or Mrs. Claus, one imagines) for Lee, organizing a game of pass the orange and upping the party quotient by about a hundred in order to keep up appearances.

The scene with the Polaroid camera, as Lee snaps picture after picture of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce staffers sitting on Roger's knee, underscores just how much he's toying with them and putting them in their place. I half-wondered if whether Lee would can the agency at the end of the night but he wanders off, a placated and spoiled child who received everything they wanted at Christmas.

But Lee's mind games are child's play compared to the complex plots unleashed by the mentally unstable Glen Bishop, whom Sally runs into at the Christmas tree lot. Joined by their shared experiences of divorce, Sally and Glen form a tentative friendship that is based on lies and half-truths. But it's Glen's Christmas present to Sally--the destruction of the home she so bitterly hates (a place where she believes she can turn the corner and see Don) and the piece of twine he leaves for her--that really shows off his skills as a future sociopath. Breaking into the family's Ossining home, Glen and a friend trash the entire house, dumping eggs into Bobby's bed, emptying the fridge, and generally making a mess everywhere, except for Sally's bedroom, which remains untouched.

The entire affair--and the twine left for her atop her pillow--remind me of a dead bird or mouse that a cat might bring its owner. It's a present of sorts, borne of out of an innate need to destroy, but it's horrific rather than pleasurable. Still, it's a reminder to Sally that there is someone who understands what she's going through, someone who would do something spectacular in order to shake up her new reality. I just worry just what plans Glen might have for young Sally, who, after all, is the spitting image of Betty Draper herself. Might this develop into a friendship or something more worrisome? Hmmm...

But while Sally might not feel quite so alone, that's not true for her father. The final scene of the episode depicts Don leaving the now-empty office alone, his briefcase and those Christmas presents clutched tightly to him. For all the glitter and shine of the wrapping, they might as well be a life preserver that he holds to his chest. I just hope that Don, alone once again, chooses to swim rather than sink.

Next week on Mad Men ("The Good News"), Don heads off to Acapulco; back at the office, Joan and Lane fight.

The Daily Beast: "Mad Men's Slap-Happy Return"

Looking to process last night's sensational season premiere of Mad Men?

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my interview with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner about the fourth season premiere ("Public Relations"), entitled "Mad Men's Slap-Happy Return," in which we discuss Sunday’s Season Four opener, Don and Betty Draper, the return of Joan (Christina Hendricks), and, yes, that slap.

Be sure to head over to the comments section as well to share your thoughts on Weiner's answers, your reactions to the fourth season premiere, and just where you think this season will lead.