Super 8: Flock of Butterflies on The Killing

"The girl who made that wasn't the pink-bedroom type." - Sarah Linden

How well do we know anyone? Can we ever truly know our spouses, our children? The Rosie Larsen that we seen illuminated in her bedroom--the pink walls, that butterfly motif--is dramatically at odds with the Rosie who shot the Super 8 video that Bennet Ahmed shares with Linden and Holder: it's a much darker Rosie, a truer Rosie. This isn't a little girl capturing the easiness of carefree youth. She sees the skull beneath the skin, even as we see a flock of butterflies connect with Rosie as one of their own.

In this week's episode of The Killing ("Super 8"), written by Jeremy Doner and directed by Phil Abraham, we begin to see that Rosie may not have been as innocent and wholesome as her parents believe her to be. While her teacher Bennet maintains that their relationship wasn't sexual, that the letters were an "intellectual discourse," the possibility that Rosie may have been involved with him skews our image of the victim.

And then there's Bennet. He maintains his own innocence in Rosie's death and in their relationship, which he says was purely professional. But he also doesn't have an alibi for the night of Rosie's death: he tells the cops that he returned home after the dance and his pregnant wife was staying with her sister as their floors were being refinished. (He claims that the company canceled the installation at the last minute.) Bennet is being very helpful--he gives them the Super 8 film Rosie shot--but is he being a little too helpful? Is he trying to distance himself from the frame? After all, he did have access to the Richmond campaign cars...

And then there's the final act reveal that links Rosie to Bennet once more, courtesy of the ammonium hydroxide found in her system. Rosie's toxology came back without signs of drugs or alcohol in her system but did show the presence of ammonium hydroxide, which could account for the lack of evidence of sexual assault and lack of any fibers, tissue, or blood under her nails if she fought her attacker.

And who just happens to have a stash of ammonium hydroxide laying around? Bennet Ahmed, as the substance is used in flooring installation. So is Bennet a pro, as Linden suggests? Or is it an unhappy coincidence? Did he use the stuff to cover up his crime? Or was Rosie there at the apartment, helping him install the floor? And why did Bennet cancel the appointment for the following day? Curious...

And then there's Bennet's wife Amber, pregnant with his child. Intriguingly, Amber was once one of Bennet's students and she has a strange and slight similarity, in terms of appearance, to Rosie. Amber says that Bennet often wrote her letters, encouraging her to achieve her dreams. But while that's innocent enough--she claims nothing untoward occurred between them--there's something odd about history repeating itself. He married one of his former students, so why couldn't he have designs on Rosie as well?

This week's episode also continued to show the effect that Rosie's death has had on her family. While we don't have Rosie narrating the plot from beyond the grave, a la The Lovely Bones, her presence--or lack thereof--is keenly felt in everything the family does from Denny's pyjama-clad trip to the store t get some milk to Tommy's bed-wetting incident, as he conceals his urine-soaked pyjamas and sheets in the trash. (I loved the scene where Belko found proof of Tommy's incident and, rather than take it to Stan, furtively bed Tommy's bed with fresh sheets and revealed that he had a bed-wetting problem well into his teens.)

Stan had a breakdown in a garage bathroom, leaving Mitch alone in the car as he let his emotions overwhelm him for a brief moment. He's trying so hard to be strong and unyielding that it was only a matter of time before his true feelings bubbled up to the surface and exploded. Between Rosie's death and Belko's offer to take care of Rosie's killer, he can't escape the truth of his altered existence, post-Rosie. Not surprising that he takes Belko up on his offer to talk to his friend at Rosie's school and find out what the police are investigating over there. (Nothing good can come from this.)

Mitch, meanwhile, experiences a terrible sense of frisson when she sees Denny in the bath, his hair dripping onto the floor. It's a reminder of not only Rosie's horrific end but also that scene in the morgue where she and Stan had to identify their daughter's corpse, her hair streaming out underneath her, rivulets of water dripping into a puddle on the floor. Mitch's freak-out is indicative of psychic damage of the highest order, an inability to separate Rosie's death from their quotidian lives: everything has new meaning, new symbolism now.

What is up with Holder? While he claims he won at gambling, there's something shady about that envelope of cash he receives on the street... and which he places in the mailbox of a house. Are those his wife and kids inside? And why won't he go in or say anything to them? Is our copper sidekick a junkie who is supporting his family from afar? Hmmm...

The various storyline threads also came together a bit this week as Darren Richmond and Mitch Larsen crossed paths in the grocery store. While Darren makes it seem as though this was a chance encounter, it's anything but that, an engineered effort to contain the Rosie Larsen story, which is damaging Darren's campaign chances. But Richmond refuses to use Mitch for his own political ends. He understands the depths of grief and despair, from his own experiences with his wife's death. When a cereal box reminds Mitch acutely of her daughter's passing, Darren assures her that it gets better.

Elsewhere in the political sphere, we learn that Yitanes herself had engineered the leak within the campaign, planting a spy within the organization, and had used Darren's communications director, Nathan, to leak details from the campaign from within... and likely sow discontent among Darren's aides. It's Jamie who learns of this from Lesley Adams, whom he believed to be the one pulling the strings. (Interestingly, I thought Jamie may have been an alcoholic from his choice of bottled water at the bar, but here Jamie pukes his guts up after drinking too much with Adams and Abani, claiming that he's not used to drinking.) And Gwen seems to have a few secrets of her own: she slept with the commercial director whom she wants to use for Richmond's latest television ad... and she used to work for Yitanes. Plus, there's her powerful Senator father who has an agenda of his own.

Who to trust? No one it seems. The closer Linden and Holder to unmasking Rosie's killer, the more secrets they kick up... and these two have skeletons of their own to contend with, making The Killing even more twisty and revealing as the episodes go on.

Next week on The Killing ("What You Have Left"), Sarah questions a suspect's family; tensions mount between Richmond and Gwen, his campaign advisor.

End of the Line: A Soundless Echo on The Killing

"You said she didn't suffer."

Rule Number One among homicide detectives: don't make promises you can't keep. Sarah Linden knows this, which is why she doesn't offer the Larsens the false hope that they'll catch whoever slayed their beloved teenage daughter Rosie. (In fact, it's Holder who makes that promise.) But Linden's seemingly innocuous white lie--telling Mitch and Stan that Rosie didn't suffer--was itself intended to assuage the consciences of the grieving parents. When they come face to face with proof to the opposite, it's as much a shock to the system, a jolt of brutal realization, as the news that their daughter was dead.

In this week's episode of The Killing ("A Soundless Echo"), written by Soo Hugh and directed by Jennifer Getzinger, Mitch and Stan grapple with funeral arrangements for Rosie--the minutiae of grief and loss--as the investigators make some shocking new discoveries about Rosie's secret life and that video they discovered, and the Richmond campaign strives to stay in the mayoral race.

The concentric circles of the narrative of The Killing are keenly felt here: the political, the personal, the inner lives of people we think we know. So many secrets swirl around these characters just four episodes into the series' run: Just what did happen to Darren's wife? Who was the "dead girl" that Sarah Linden chased after last time? What is Sterling so afraid of? And over it all hovers the spirit of Rosie Larsen, the hungry ghost whose presence is itself a soundless echo of a life lived.

First things first: the video. It turns out that it wasn't Rosie we were seeing with Jasper and Kris, but her supposed BFF Sterling, who went down to The Cage with Rosie's ex-boyfriend and his friend during the Halloween dance wearing Rosie's witch's costume--which explains the pink wig covered in blood, those bloody handprints (thanks to Sterling's chronic nosebleeds), and the witch's hat down there, but the girl in the homemade video isn't Rosie. Which means that conjectures about how Rosie got from there to the lake are all incorrect: Rosie was never there...

I loved the scene in which Linden and Holder silently fix Kris in their shared gaze, offering not threats or encouragement, just the righteous anger of the silent. Playing a video of Rosie before her death--a Rosie that's full of life and promise for the future--they force him to tell the dead girl that he didn't kill her. But, given what we learn from Jasper, it seems like these two could be out of the frame altogether now. Rosie left the school dance and Sterling headed to the basement with Kris and Jasper. So where did Rosie go?

There's the mystery of the 108 bus, which Holder learns is Rosie's public transit option of choice. And we learn what lies at the end of the line for Rosie: a rendezvous spot with her teacher, Bennet, with whom Rosie appears to have been having a romantic relationship with. But hold that thought for one second...

First, the discovery of just what was at the end of the line is interesting for several reasons. While it gives the police a connection between Rosie and Bennet--the two were spotted together there on multiple occasions--there's another connection being forged here. The basketball program is one of Darren Richmond's anti-gang intitiatives and the presence of those Darren Richmond for Mayor posters in the locker room serve a bigger purpose: they establish a connection between Rosie Larsen and the Richmond campaign. However insubstantial it might seem, however flimsy and paper-thin, it's the first sign that Rosie and Darren may have moved in a similar circle, or that his campaign aides may have crossed paths with the dead girl.

And then there's Bennet. As soon as he sat down with Mitch in the hallway, I knew that his relationship with Rosie was more than just professional. Hell, even Holder suspects this in the pilot episode, implying that Bennet may have been attracted to Rosie. But before our imaginations run wild, let's explore the fact that Bennet and Rosie didn't have a sexual relationship. Sure, it seems as though the writers want to point us towards the possibility that they did, but that's what makes me leery.

Yes, Rosie "wanted the world," and Linden discovers Bennet's letters to Rosie concealed in her globe, letters that mention Rosie being "an old soul" wise beyond her years. While this seems pretty incriminating, it doesn't mean that their relationship was sexual. The fact that Bennet is so gentle with Mitch, so willing to share with her about her daughter's gift for learning, makes me believe that he wasn't sexually involved with her, as he'd be more likely to distance himself from her family than become entangled with her grieving mother. He makes a gift of Rosie's favorite novel (oddly not named here), discussing the "soundless echo" mentioned within. Was he in love with her? Were they just friends? What was she doing in such a rough neighborhood? And was that where she went the night of her death?

This week, we also caught a glimpse into the hidden lives of the Larsens, learning some key details about the behaviors and actions before Rosie's death. While Mitch is still in a deep state of shock, an emotionally numb zombie staggering through the day, it's Stan who seems to be reacting to the loss in interesting ways. We learn that he had purchased a house for his family before Rosie died but he'll have to sell it now amid everything that's happened. While Stan has seemed a more or less "good guy," there's darkness in him and clues to a past that may not have been as tranquil as he would have us believe.

Just what did Belko mean about taking care of Darren Richmond? And what was Stan's role in, uh, taking care of things for local mobster Janek he meets up with after many years of estrangement? What did "old times" involve exactly? Could it be that Stan was a mob enforcer? And what if Rosie's murder is in fact payback for something he did in his "past life"? Hmmm... Stan, meanwhile, does take the cash that's offered to him by Janek, placing it in a ledger in his office desk. Interesting that he doesn't put it in the bank or pay off some of his bills. So what does he want with the cash exactly?

Mitch, meanwhile, asks some tough questions of the priest who is overseeing Rosie's funeral arrangements. Where was God when Rosie's lungs were filling with water, as she tried to claw her way out of that trunk? The cold comfort offered here is just that, and Mitch can't stomach the sanctimonious religious treacle that's being offered here perfunctorally. Why isn't Rosie with HER, after all? What sort of deity can do such a thing to a mother? She looks at Christ on the cross and sees her daughter reflected back at her, the bound wrists, the bloody eyes, echoed back from the crucifix.

Her quest for answers leads her to Rosie's school, where she experiences a true moment of communion with Sterling, a beautiful scene that radiated loss, connection, and love. And then leads her on a collision course with Bennet, as described above. The questions that Mitch has knocking about inside of her require some form of answer. The questions the cops keep asking--do you recognize this key? what about these shoes? was Rosie seeing an adult?--need context. The moment she spends with Bennet connect her to a Rosie who isn't dead, but who had her whole life ahead of her. A girl who thought about books and not coffins, who dreamed of the future and not of burial.

Rosie's death has kicked everything out of orbit, from the Larsens' life to the political aspirations of Darren Richmond. This week, Gwen sought assistance from her father, Senator Eaton (played, of course, by Alan Dale), urging him to arrange a meeting between Darren and local hotshot Drexler, whose antics are lapped up by Seattle's well-heeled set but who seems like little more than an unlikable kid who struck it rich and uses his money to lord it over everyone around him. While Darren doesn't want to cut any deals with Drexler, he reluctantly takes a $50,000 check from him, using it to pay for a new billboard and cover other campaign costs. (He's unaware that it was Gwen that made the meet possible, even as she's chided by her father for sleeping with her candidate.)

It certainly seems as though Gwen is on the up-and-up, but then again so is Jamie, who we learn is secretly working for Darren. In a very Damages-like twist, Jamie is spying on Lesley Adams for Darren, ingratiating himself to the incumbent and hoping to learn who in the Richmond campaign is the saboteur. After all, as Darren and Jamie both acknowledge, if Jamie wanted to screw over Darren, he would have been smarter about it. Which begs the question: if it's not Jamie, just who is leaking information? Hmmm... (And I'm chuffed that it means Jamie is sticking around, as his deviousness and ambition make for good character qualities in a political thriller.)

And then there's Sarah Linden herself. She blows off trying out wedding cake samples with Rick for examining Rosie's room one last time. Is she getting too close to this case? Is she stuck in a repeating pattern once more? She's drawn to that drawing from the pilot episode again, its eerie sketch of trees, the silent scene less pleasant and more disturbing, another soundless echo of another dead girl...

Next week on The Killing ("Super 8"), Richmond and his team plan an anti-crime commercial; Stan turns to a work colleague for help in finding Rosie's killer.

The Devil's Due: A Hole in the Wall on The Killing

"Assumptions are your enemy, detective." - Sarah Linden

What were Rosie Larsen's final minutes on earth like? As the trunk of the car filled with water and the darkness closed in around her, Rosie fought for life, attempting to claw her way out of her watery grave. Her mother Mitch (Michelle Forbes, whose performance just becomes more and more emotionally wrenching each week) attempts to experience those final moments, slipping underneath the surface of the water in her bathtub, her eyes open, her heart pounding. It's a moment of attempted rapport between mother and dead child, a heartbreaking effort to know, to understand, to vicariously put herself into Rosie's end in those murky waters.

Continuing last week's strong start for The Killing, this week's episode ("El Diablo"), written by Dawn Prestwich and Nicole Yorkin and directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton, found Linden and Holder attempting to unravel the mystery of The Cage, the Larsens grappled with life without their daughter, and the Richmond campaign discovered the leak within their rank. Or did they? Hmmm...

This week's episode was another edge-of-your-seat thrill ride, another televisual page-turner, in which we received some more clues about what happened to Rosie and some brutally unexpected twists. Throughout it all, the specter of "El Diablo" lurked just underneath the surface, while that bloody palm print and the grisly scene in the school basement proved impossible to shake.

So what did I think of "El Diablo"? Let's discuss...

At the end of last week's two-hour premiere, Holder discovered The Cage in the basement of the Fort Washington high school that Rosie attended. The episode begins just a few minutes later, the grungy subterranean room now crawling with the forensics team. Amid the drugs and the blood, the gruesomeness of the scene, there's a purple metallic streamer hanging in the corner, its curlicue shape echoing both the dangling tendril of Linden's hair and the windchime in Rosie's bedroom.

But it's the hole in the wall that Linden discovers that gives the detectives their first lead, taking them to the home of school custodian Lynden Johnson Rosales. Unfortunately, after stabbing Linden in the arm, he exits through a nearby window and ends up in critical condition. However, he's able to identify just who Rosie was with in the basement, Kris... whom he refers to as "El Diablo."

What we learn later is just who else was down in the Cage, thanks to an incriminating video on Jasper's phone, seized in class by their teacher, Bennet. What it depicts: Jasper and Kris taking turns with Rosie as they film their sexual three-way on Halloween night. Bennet turns the phone over to the police, even as Kris begins to break, angrily confronting Jasper at school, saying "they know, they know!" While it's the devil's mask that allowed Kris to mingle with his former classmates at the school dance, the video depicts Jasper wearing the mask as he, uh, has his way with Rosie, her pink wig bobbing sadly.

It's a reveal that makes sense, given what the detectives already know. Linden believes that Rosie would only have gone down to the Cage with someone she trusted and not Kris; she would have gone down there with Jasper, though. The video evidence puts all three at the scene, but there are still several questions remaining: What caused the blood on the wall? Was it Rosie's? And how did she get from the school basement to the woods, where we know that she was killed? Interesting...

Meanwhile, Linden had to break the cause of death to the Larsens. Stan is furious about the front page newspaper story linking Rosie's death to the Richmond campaign and demands to know if the police have made an arrest. While Linden is perfunctory, she does also express compassion for their grief-striven parents. When Mitch asks if Rosie suffered, Linden doesn't hesitate to lie, telling Rosie's parents that their beloved daughter didn't suffer, that she was unconscious when the car went into the water. It's a white lie, designed to spare their feelings and not make this experience even more difficult for the two of them, but it's a lie nonetheless. And it's this lie that leads Mitch to try and experience what it would be like to drown. What she doesn't know is that Rosie broke off her fingernails trying to get out of that trunk, that her final moments were filled with anguish, terror, and pain.

Holder, meanwhile, is proving to be even more shifty than I previously thought. Just who was he talking to on the phone at the hospital? He quickly hangs up when Linden approaches and seems flustered when she asks what's going on. Meanwhile, we learn that he's kept some of his narcotics squad tricks up his sleeve. The pot he offered Rosie's classmates last week--and a teen runaway here--are in fact "narc scent." (Or as Holder describes it, "It smells like weed, it tastes like weed, but it's not weed.") Which does clear up some of the swirling uncertainty around Holder, but makes me question what he's hiding. Just how deep into the narcotics world did Holder get? Hmmm...

On the campaign end of things, Darren Richmond has a tense scene with the incumbent mayor (a scene that was in the original pilot, but which was shifted here, likely for time), but he also has other issues on his mind besides the rivalry with the mayor. There's the damage done from the link to Rosie's death and the campaign car and the fact that someone within his camp leaked news of Yaitanes' endorsement to the press... and all signs--namely, a super-incriminating email--point to Jamie. Richmond's sense of betrayal is palpable here, but it's actually Gwen who confronts Jamie about the leak, and Jamie denies it, pretty convincingly.

I don't think Jamie did it, despite what the email might say and he makes his exit from the campaign ("Screw you! Screw both of you!") with a good deal of enmity. He's not someone you want on your bad side, really... especially with the election in just 23 days. (Hey, just in time for the Season Two finale, in fact, if the narrative calendar holds true!)

Darren does get his endorsement from Yaitanes, even as Jamie is seen slinking away with his stuff in a cardboard box. Which makes me wonder: who benefits from the leak? And who benefits from Jamie exiting the campaign? I don't trust Gwen at all, in fact. While she's Darren's girlfriend, she's also Jamie's rival as well, and it's a little too perfect that the leak was discovered in Jamie's email account. How very pat.

(Aside: just what is the connection between this case and Darren's wife's death? Just how DID she die exactly? And what are the similarities between her demise and Rosie's?)

I love the small moments in this show, both humorous and heartbreaking: Linden referring to Holder as Justin Bieber and his retort that he and her son share the some of the same characteristics; Tommy setting a place at the table for Rosie; the nicotine gum that Linden frustratingly chews at the end of the day, the way she sadly looks over the ingredients in a bag of junk food; and the outgoing answering machine message that Mitch listens to over and over again, hearing the life that's in her daughter's voice, even as its very message is--in the context of her death--so troubling. ("We don't know where we are.")

All in all, another sensational installment that had me riveted. The horrific reveal of that cell phone video--Jasper and Kris grinning as they share Rosie--was a brutal way to end the installment and sets up a series of new questions for next week. Just how much does Rosie's friend Sterling know? Why did she run out of class like that? And what secrets is she keeping?

What did you think about this week's episode? Who has entered the frame now as the most likely suspect? Head to the comments section to discuss, analyze the clues, and debate.

Next week on The Killing "A Soundless Echo," the Larsens plan their daughter's funeral; Rosie's friend Sterling unveils surprises about her life.

Butterfly Effect: The Series Premiere of The Killing

In my review of AMC's addictive new mystery drama The Killing, I compared the new series, which premiered last night with a two-hour episode, both to Twin Peaks in some of its underpinnings (save the presence of the supernatural) and to the work of mystery novelist Ruth Rendell.

The comparison to Rendell--whose family, like Forbrydelsen, the series on which The Killing is based, hails from Denmark--is quite apt in certain respects. While some of Rendell's novels--particularly her Inspector Wexford installments--deal with crime investigation, the majority of them either delve into the pathology of the killer, exploring just what makes a person kill, or the way in which crime, particularly murder, affects everyone both before and after the perpetration of the crime. Of all crimes, murder is the one with the largest emotional fallout: not just to the victims but everyone the victim leaves behind; their secrets and those of the dead are forcibly brought out into the light. There is no such thing as privacy in a murder investigation, no secret unearthed, no feeling unrecorded.

In The Killing's first two episodes ("Pilot" and "The Cage"), written by Veena Sud (the first was directed by Patty Jenkins, the second by Ed Bianchi), we see the detritus left behind by the disappearance--make that death--of teenager Rosie Larsen: a butterfly collage on the wall, a pink sweater in a desolate field, a blood-stained wig in a dumpster, a name scratched into a high school bathroom mirror. These are the pieces that we leave behind, flotsam and jetsam clues for someone to piece together. But Rosie's family has their own emblems to hold onto, sources of guilt or horror: the ripped fingernails of the victim, a missed chance to say goodbye, the puddle made by her dripping hair, the way a broken vase can set off a indicting conversation about blame.

The discovery of Rosie's body, found in the trunk of a car belonging to the Richmond campaign, a car that was sunk at the bottom of a lake, has its own butterfly effect: the injustice of such a crime has ripples that affect everyone even tangentially influenced by Rosie Larsen: the girl's family, grieving for their slain daughter, her teenage friends, the police detective trapped in Seattle by the case, and a political campaign seemingly shocked that they've become entangled in a murder investigation.

That paper mosaic butterfly in Rosie's room, its double echoing, painfully, on the dead girl's neck, says so much about Rosie's life, her dreams, her loves, her optimism and buoyant spirit. But Rosie Larsen is dead. She will never again play with her little brothers, never kiss her father good-bye, never attend another dance. Her passing is keenly felt by everyone, their reactions raging from numbness to rage, from palpable loss to the desire to make sense of it somehow. (Even if that means, in the case of Terry, to blame the girl's mother for not calling her daughter all weekend.)

For Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos), there's an inherent sadness in seeing that paper butterfly on Rosie's wall, even as the siren song of personal happiness beckons to her in Sonoma. The dreary, rain-slicked streets and fields of Seattle seem miles away from a wedding and a future in Sonoma. Juggling her engagement to Rick (Callum Keith Rennie), her sullen teenage son Jack, and her desire to move on from this cold city, Linden is instantly connected with the teenage girl. While every fiber of her being is telling her to leave, to get on that flight, the universe is conspiring to keep her in Seattle.

(Enos' physical slightness here serves her character well. There's an aura of bruised vulnerability surrounding her, even as she stares upwards at the faces of men far taller than her. She's tiny but a giant in her own right and Enos plays her, her ponytail swinging as she walks, as a woman in a man's world who is still very much a woman, even one who "shops at Ross.")

It's Linden's intuition that leads her to discover Rosie's body in the trunk of the car, a gruesome and heartbreaking reveal made all the more disturbing when the audience learns that Rosie ripped off her own fingernails attempting to free herself as the trunk filled up with water. Linden's insight, her quiet nature, make her perfectly suited for this investigation, even as she's saddled with a new partner in unorthodox ex-narcotics squad member Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman), a shifty copper who has more in common with Linden's young son than he does with her. (Witness the vending machine food conversation, a favorite from the first two episodes.)

But Holder's instincts are just as solid as Linden's, even if they require some, uh, distinct methodologies. He tempts two teenage girls with pot and an invitation to party, only to turn around and use the information they provide him with a the first real clue they receive since the discovery of Rosie's corpse, locating "The Cage" in the high school's basement, a sordid and squalid hideaway with a bed on the floor and blood on the walls.

Was Rosie held here after the dance? Just what happened here and whose blood is that on the walls, a grisly handprint in crimson? And if something did befall Rosie here, how did she get from the school to the lake, where she met her fate?

Questions abound here and that's only natural in a murder investigation. The connection between Councilman Darren Richmond (Billy Campbell) and Rosie remains tantalizingly unclear. Why was she found in one of the campaign's cars? Did the killer mean for Rosie to never be found... or did they want the body found in order to cast suspicion on Richmond himself? Curious, that. Meanwhile, the good councilman has a leak within his office and all signs point to one of his deputies: ambitious Jamie (Eric Ladin) and smooth-as-silk Gwen (Kristin Lehman). Did one of them leak the Yitanes endorsement? Who tipped the press off about the connection to the vehicle? And just what did happen to Darren's dead wife Lily? And what "trips" has he been taking? Why is Gwen so willing to out herself as Darren's lover and provide him with an alibi?

Even as the investigation circles the political world, The Killing charts several other spheres, delving into the domestic front as Rosie's grief-striven mother Mitch (Michelle Forbes) and father Stanley (Brent Sexton) have to tell her brothers about their sister's death. In my advance review, I praised Forbes' searing performance, which reminded me of Grace Zabriskie's in Twin Peaks. Watching the first episode for what must be the fifth or sixth time, it doesn't lose any of its emotional impact. Raw and filled with unimaginable loss, it's a staggering performance that gives me chills each and every time I see it. Sexton's quivering lip and stammer as he tells his son that they're going to be okay is so overflowing with loss and love that it's impossible not to see the breaking heart inside his barrel chest.

And then there's the scholastic world that Rosie inhabited. Just what is Rosie's friend Sterling (Kacey Rohl) so terrified of? Her nose bleeds when she's questioned by her teacher about Rosie's whereabouts and she jumps inside her skin when she's confronted by Stanley. Why is she so ill at ease and scared all of the time? What's the connection between Rosie and bad boy Jasper (Richard Harmon) and druggie burnout Kris (Gharrett Paon)? Just what bad things has Jasper done in the past? And what is Jasper's wealthy father Michael Ames (Barclay Hope) concealing from the police about his errant son? Harmon's Jasper seems to be the prime suspect here: a brooding, spoilt rich kid who seems to only care about servicing his desires and wreaking havoc in his wake.

These two episodes provide a strong foundation for the future episodes to come, establishing the world and the various players in this investigation, showing us the personal cost to everyone and the quest for justice that lies ahead for our intrepid detectives. Holder makes a terrible error when he tells Rosie's parents that they will catch whoever did this to Rosie. Linden knows from personal experience that you can't make promises you can't keep. But Holder's effort to offer Mitch and Stanley a champion for Rosie might just make them villains if they can't deliver their daughter's killer. Even as Linden puts everything on the line--her role as fiancee, as mother--for this case, there's the feeling that unmasking this killer may prove far more difficult and deadly than Holder realizes.

All in all, there's a strong undercurrent here of dread and loss, one that doesn't let go from the opening moments (including that haunting credit sequence) to the very end of the second episode, when Linden surveys the gruesome scene inside the cage. There's something very wrong about those bloodstains on the wall and the juxtaposition of the witch's hat that Rosie wore at the dance, a sign of the horrors to come. A sign that very bad things are on the horizon...

What did you think of The Killing? Are you caught up in the investigation and the mystery surrounding Rosie's death? And, most importantly, will you watch again next week? Head to the comments section to discuss.

Next week on The Killing ("El Diablo"), Councilman Richmond suspects a leak within his team; Sarah tracks down a witness and is led to a suspect.

The Skull Beneath the Skin: An Advance Review of the First Three Episodes of AMC's The Killing

Of John Webster (who wrote "The Duchess of Malta"), poet T.S. Eliot said that he was "much possessed by death" and "saw the skull beneath the skin."

Eliot's quotation would equally apply to the writing team--overseen by executive producer Veena Sud (Cold Case)--of AMC's newest drama, taut and suspenseful murder mystery The Killing (based on hit Danish drama Forbrydelsen, or "The Crime"), which launches this Sunday. In exploring the disappearance (and, yes, death) of a Seattle teenager, the detectives in this slow-burn but addictive series are themselves seeing what lies beneath the surface of the seemingly placid individuals they encounter in the course of their investigation.

"Who Killed Rosie Larsen?" is the question hovering over the action here, but it's matters of mortality that link each of the characters in this whip-smart and absorbing drama. While this is first and foremost a whodunit, what's being dramatized here isn't just the murder investigation, but the emotional impact of a young girl's death and the ways in which murder--more than any crime--rip away any semblance of privacy from the victims and those around them.

That includes the dead girl herself, a Laura Palmer-esque teenager concealing a secret life from her family, and her parents, loving-but-brittle mother Mitch Larsen (Michelle Forbes) and gruff Stanley (Brent Sexton). The two took their sons camping for the weekend, leaving Rosie on her own and never thought twice about the fact that they didn't hear from her all weekend long. An oversight? A damning mistake that will remain with them for the rest of their lives?

Detective Sarah Linden (Big Love's always phenomenal Mireille Enos) is herself haunted by the case, which she lands just as she's got one foot out the door. Linden is meant to be trading the rainy gloom of Seattle (itself a co-star in the show) for Sonoma, moving her young son and planning a wedding in three weeks to her fiancee Rick (Callum Keith Rennie of Battlestar Galactica). No other actress does haunted quite like Enos, whose wounded baby doll face conceals all manner of secrets of her own. Does she want to leave her job? Does she love Rick? In staying on to solve this murder is she trading personal happiness for professional duty?

It's clear that Sarah has a emotional connection to Rosie Larsen; witness the way she sadly surveys the detritus Rosie leaves behind in her wake, the little girl's room with its butterfly motif on the way, emblems in their own way of a short life lived. But is Sarah forging ahead with the investigation because she can't let go of the dead girl... or of her own life in Seattle? Does she feel something deeper for the victim here than she does for the living, breathing man who intends to marry her?

Linden is saddled with a new partner working his first murder investigation, ex-narcotics squad member Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman), whose methodologies couldn't be more removed from Sarah's by-the-book mentality. Holder's a slick grifter when it comes to the lowlifes, sexed-up teens, and druggies that they encounter in the process of their inquiries, but he's got no sense of compassion or subtlety when it comes to questioning those who might be at all prickly about his bluntness. But where Linden manages to put people at ease, Holden thrives at knocking people off-balance. And he has no qualms about bending the law to do so, engaging in some shady tactics that do pay off in their own way.

Across town, while Rosie's family awaits word of their daughter's fate and Linden and Holden uncover clues to Rosie's disappearance, Darren Richmond (Billy Campbell) pursues his mayoral campaign while several skeletons knock together in his closet. There's a dead wife, the nature of her demise tantalizingly unclear, and there's a unexpected connection between his campaign and Rosie's death, as well as rumblings that someone close to him is leaking information to the press and possibly the incumbent mayor as well.

But Richmond has surrounded himself by those he trusts: Jamie Dempsey (Mad Men's Eric Ladin), a consummate strategist and campaign golden boy, and Gwen Eaton (Drive's Kristin Lehman), Darren's well-heeled campaign adviser and lover. Did one of them betray him? And just how far are they willing to go in order to sabotage his campaign? Or is Darren Richmond, white knight politician, not as squeaky-clean as he appears? Do we relish seeing a good man pulled down off of his pedestal... or is someone looking to drag him through the muck?

These are just some of the questions that swirl around the characters in the initial installments, which depict the early stages of the investigation as Linden and Holden begin to mine Rosie's life for possible suspects and spread their inquires further afield. The show creates several overlapping, concentric spheres of society around which the action moves; one could draw a Venn diagram depicting these areas of inquiry: the domestic sphere of Rosie's family; the teen demi-monde of high school; the political campaign; the police. Throughout the series, I'm expecting that we see these spheres overlap in new and unexpected ways as the detectives uncover just what happened to Rosie.

It's impossible not to get caught up in the action of these early episodes, each clue that Linden and Holden uncover explodes a new series of questions. A devil's mask becomes a crucial piece of evidence, a home-made video, a hole in the wall; each clue is just another link in a never-ending chain, twisting its way around the lives of these individuals. Their lives, all of them, have become about death in their own ways.

Enos' performance is a standout as she grapples with the investigation and the internal tug-of-war happening within her heart. As incandescent as ever, she has an easy femininity to her, a rare vulnerability that's at odds with her profession. Is she good at her job because she cares too much? Campbell manages to be magnetic and sympathetic, while also tugging the rug out from underneath us. Is he a good man? Ladin and Lehman sparkle in their unspoken rivalry and the eternal game of one-up-manship taking place between them. ("The knives of jealousy," wrote crime novelist Ruth Rendell, "are honed on details.")

But the moment that gets me every time is when Forbes' Mitch learns the fate of daughter Rosie over the telephone. Her breakdown, on the floor of the kitchen, listening to a scene unfold but being unable to see it with her own eyes is the stuff of legend, recalling a similar moment in the pilot of Twin Peaks, where Grace Zabriskie's Sarah Palmer has to listen to Sheriff Truman (Michael Ontkean) tell her husband (Ray Wise) that the body of their daughter has been discovered. Gut-wrenching in its emotional truth, it's an explosive scene whose shrapnel is keenly felt, her mother's cry of loss and grief becoming an overwhelming keening.

As I mentioned in my feature on The Killing over at The Daily Beast, this gripping and brutal drama has a very different take on murder and victimization than most American crime dramas. The handling of the corpse is a breathtaking and heartbreaking moment, courtesy of director Patty Jenkins (Monster), rather than the "murder porn" that shows like CSI and Criminal Minds have become.

We see firsthand the damage done to Rosie, to her family, and to everyone around her. The fear, the humiliation, the grief, the rage, the unbearable weight of it is depicted in a sensitive and intelligent fashion. But the mystery of who did this to her, of what drives people to kill, gives this drama a sharp undercurrent, a nerve-jangling tension that drives the plot of The Killing forward.

Ultimately, The Killing is a rare beast: spellbinding, introspective, and addictive, all at once. It should not, for any reason, be missed.

The Killing premieres Sunday evening at 9 pm ET/PT (with a special two-hour debut) on AMC.

Mad Men Deal Closed: Matthew Weiner to Stick Around for Potentially Three More Seasons

We can all exhale now.

While the the ad men of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce won't be back on the airwaves until March 2012 now, creator/executive producer Matthew Weiner will be returning to the 1960s, having successfully closed a deal with AMC and Lionsgate that will keep him around for Seasons Five and Six, and a potential seventh season.

“I want to thank all of our wonderful fans for their support," said Weiner in a prepared statement. "I also want to thank AMC and Lionsgate for agreeing to support the artistic freedom of myself, the cast and the crew so that we can continue to make the show exactly as we have from the beginning. I'm excited to get started on the next chapter of our story.”

“AMC’s original programming began with a mission to create bold storytelling of the highest quality, and Mad Men was the perfect expression of that commitment. We've been proud to support this show from the day we read Matt's ground-breaking pilot script and have loved building it with Matt and Lionsgate into the cultural phenomenon it has become,” said AMC president Charlie Collier. “For everyone involved in the show and its passionate fans, we are thrilled to announce that the series will continue on AMC under the exceptional vision of Matt Weiner.”

(UPDATE: It now seems clear, based on comments made by Weiner, that Season Seven of Mad Men would likely be its last.)

The full press release, announcing the deal, can be found below.

AMC AND LIONSGATE ANNOUNCE MULTIPLE SEASON DEAL FOR ‘MAD MEN’ WITH
MATTHEW WEINER SIGNING LONG-TERM AGREEMENT TO CONTINUE AS SHOWRUNNER

New York - March 31, 2011 - AMC and Lionsgate today announced the
return of the iconic series "Mad Men" for seasons five and six with
series creator Matthew Weiner back on board as showrunner.
Concurrently, it was announced that Weiner has signed a new long-term
deal with Lionsgate, extending into a possible seventh season. The
announcements were made by Charlie Collier, president of AMC, and Kevin
Beggs, president of Lionsgate Television Group.

When AMC debuted “Mad Men” in July 2007 it quickly became one of
the most talked about series on television. Set in 1960s New York,
“Mad Men” is a sexy and provocative original drama that follows
the lives of the ruthlessly competitive men and women of Madison Avenue
advertising. Produced by Lionsgate, “Mad Men” has made television
history as the only cable series to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding
Drama and the Golden Globe for Best Television Series-Drama for three
consecutive years.

“I want to thank all of our wonderful fans for their support." said
Weiner. "I also want to thank AMC and Lionsgate for agreeing to support
the artistic freedom of myself, the cast and the crew so that we can
continue to make the show exactly as we have from the beginning. I'm
excited to get started on the next chapter of our story.”

“AMC’s original programming began with a mission to create bold
storytelling of the highest quality, and ‘Mad Men’ was the perfect
expression of that commitment. We've been proud to support this show
from the day we read Matt's ground-breaking pilot script and have loved
building it with Matt and Lionsgate into the cultural phenomenon it has
become,” said Collier. “For everyone involved in the show and its
passionate fans, we are thrilled to announce that the series will
continue on AMC under the exceptional vision of Matt Weiner.”

“We are proud to continue our successful relationships with AMC and
the brilliantly talented Matt Weiner, whose vision has created one of
the most distinguished series on television,” said Beggs. “We also
appreciate the passion and patience of ‘Mad Men’ fans around the
world who have been awaiting this good news, and we believe they will be
rewarded with many more seasons of this extraordinary and groundbreaking
series.”

Mad Men’s award-winning ensemble cast includes: Golden Globe-winner
Jon Hamm, January Jones, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, Christina
Hendricks, John Slattery, Jared Harris, Rich Sommer, Aaron Staton,
Robert Morse and Kiernan Shipka.

The Daily Beast: AMC's New Killer Drama, The Killing

Every now and then comes along a supremely smart, compulsively addictive serialized drama series that hooks you from the very first moments.

Welcome to The Killing, AMC's newest drama offering, which begins on Sunday evening (look for a review of the first three episodes before then) and is based on the hit Danish series Forbrydelsen.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, in which I talk to executive producer Veena Sud and cast members Mireille Enos (Big Love) and Billy Campbell (The 4400) and explore the show's thematic similarities to another addictive mystery, Twin Peaks, and compare it to the disturbing trend of "murder porn" in most American television crime procedurals.

The Killing premieres with a special two-hour launch on Sunday at 9 pm ET/PT on AMC. You do not want to miss out on this remarkable new series!

Press Release: AMC Announces Launch Date for The Killing

AMC ANNOUNCES NEXT ORIGINAL SERIES, “THE KILLING”
TO PREMIERE SUNDAY, APRIL 3rd AT 10PM/ET

From Writer and Executive Producer Veena Sud

Starring Mireille Enos, Billy Campbell, Joel Kinnaman,
Michelle Forbes and Brent Sexton

Pasadena, CA – January 7, 2010 – AMC announced today, from the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, California, the premiere of AMC’s next original series, “The Killing,” on Sunday, April 3rd at 10pm ET/PT. From writer, executive producer and series’ showrunner Veena Sud (“Cold Case”), “The Killing” is based on the wildly successful Danish television series “Forbrydelsen.” It tells the story of the murder of a young girl in Seattle and the subsequent police investigation. Season one consists of thirteen, one-hour episodes.

“The Killing” ties together three distinct stories around a single murder including the detectives assigned to the case, the victim’s grieving family and the suspects. Set in Seattle, the story also explores local politics as it follows politicians connected to the case. As the series unfolds, it becomes clear that there are no accidents; everyone has a secret, and while the characters think they’ve moved on, their past isn’t done with them.

Online at AMCtv.com, fans can access the series' trailer, an exclusive behind-the-scenes video, first-look photos, and read the latest news and information about the series through an updated blog. Users can also participate in a community talk forum. Then, throughout the month of April, “The Killing’s” site expands to include games, downloads, and cast and character profiles. Following the premiere, each week AMCtv.com will feature new episodic and behind-the-scenes videos, exclusive Q&As with the cast and crew, trivia games, and more. The site also introduces a customized feature entitled, “Rosie’s Room,” which is an exclusive interactive experience that allows users to enter and explore the bedroom of the teenage murder victim Rosie Larsen to learn more about her life and uncover clues about what may have led to her untimely death.

“The Killing” stars Mireille Enos (“Big Love”) as Sarah Linden, the lead homicide detective that investigates the death of Rosie Larsen; Billy Campbell (“Once and Again”) as Darren Richmond, Seattle’s City Council President, running for Mayor; Joel Kinnaman (Snabba Cash) as Stephen Holder, an ex-narc cop who joins the homicide division in the investigation to find Rosie’s killer; Michelle Forbes (“True Blood”) as Rosie’s mother, Mitch Larsen; and Brent Sexton (W., In the Valley of Elah) as Rosie’s father, Stan Larsen.

Filmed in Vancouver, “The Killing” is produced by Fox Television Studios and executive produced by Mikkel Bondesen (“Burn Notice”) for Fuse Entertainment. Fuse’s Kristen Campo co-produces. AMC’s Joel Stillerman, senior vice president of original programming, production and digital content, Susie Fitzgerald, senior vice president of scripted development and current programming and Jason Fisher, senior vice president of production oversee production of the series for the network.

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.

Mermaid's Tale: The Mausoleum of All Hope and Desire on The Walking Dead

"I remember my dream now." - Jim

Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I've been watching screeners of AMC's zombie apocalypse drama The Walking Dead but haven't been as captivated as I was with the pilot episode. However, I watched the fourth and fifth episodes of the series over the weekend and found both of them to be on par with the harrowing atmosphere of the pilot, giving viewers an intense experience that shows the gripping struggle for and by humanity.

In a land beset by demons, can the survivors of a global apocalypse retain their humanity? Or does killing monsters make you a monster yourself? Once you cross that moral line, can you step back over it?

This week's sensational episode of The Walking Dead ("Vatos"), written by Robert Kirkman (who created the series' underlying material) and directed by Johan Renck, put the focus back on the human aspect of the drama, giving us an installment that largely revolved around familial bonds, starting with that gorgeous scene in the boat between Andrea (Laurie Holden) and Amy (Emma Bell) in which they reminisced about their father, likely dead, and their own childhoods, the way in which their father taught them to fish using different methods.

He understood that the two girls, separated by twelve years, needed different things: that Andrea needed to catch fish to feed the family and that Amy needed the throw them back into the water. Two very different women joined by the unbreakable bond of blood.

But, even amid the madness of the helter-skelter world they live in, Andrea's focus wasn't just on survival by on Amy's birthday and she wanted to make it as special as possible, looking everywhere for something to wrap up the mermaid necklace she took from the department store back in "Guts." A birthday present, a charm, for a smiling girl.

It was not to be.

I want to commend Laurie Holden for her breathtaking performance in this episode, for both the love and loss that she conjured out of thin air and for the heartbreak she displayed upon Amy's death at the hands of a walker. Her eternal concern for her younger sister--evidenced by when Amy got up to go to the bathroom--transforming itself into a keen grief when she sees her ripped into my a walker upon emerging from the RV in search of toilet paper.

Such a human dilemma, really: her final words, her last thought on this earth, being something so trivial and so universal. A flicker of normalcy in a world gone mad. The horror that Holden's Andrea displayed filled me with dread, so connected as it was with Jim's own history: his own experience of seeing his family ripped apart by walkers, unable to save them, unable to do anything. Amy's fate decided while Andrea sat not 30 feet away with the others.

If Merle hadn't have taken the van, it's possible that Rick and the others could have saved more of the group. As it were, they arrive just as the walkers attack the camp and are able to save the majority of refugees. But if they hadn't gone back for Merle in the first place--or that bag of guns (or gotten diverted by the vatos who kidnapped Glenn), Amy's death could have been prevented.

Instead, a few hours shy of her birthday, Amy bleeds to death in front of the RV, her broken body cradled by her sister Andrea. "I don't know what to do," Andrea cries out, guilt and her confusion coursing through her veins as her sister dies in her arms.

The fragility of human life, the transience of all things, are only too fitting when juxtaposed with Dale's concerns with time, his insistence on winding his watch, his belief in the importance of keeping time. The watch itself emblematic of Faulkner's line about "the mausoleum of all hope and desire."

The horror of Amy's death is at odds with that beautiful scene at the beginning, two sisters in a boat on a cerulean blue lake. What's left of that bond leaks out onto the ground. But the terror is not just of a woman passing, it's that death isn't the end anymore. In this new world, the dead walk again, demons in human form, all teeth and nails and insatiable hunger. Is this what time holds for Amy? For all of them? Is there any place of safety remaining in this world?

There's something to be said for the vatos' philosophy. They closed themselves in, barricaded the doors and looked after the elderly that were left behind. Their aggression a front for something else. While I wasn't crazy about the vatos storyline--thugs with hearts of gold! a factory concealing an old folks' home--it showed that there is still humanity in the midst of savagery and there are other bands of survivors just like our central group.

But surviving is a relative term. Jim survived the zombie attack that killed his family. He escaped at the price of their deaths but he's haunted by what he experienced. How does one go on with that rambling through your head? His dream, the reason for digging those graves, tenuously out of grasp until he glimpses the carnage around the campfire. He now knows why he was digging those holes. He knows for whom he was digging them. But is it a sign of prescience? Or of inevitability? That death would claim those close to them, breaking their charmed circle?

"Wildfire," next week's episode--which I watched yesterday--continues the threads here, exploring the aftermath of the attacks and giving Holden another incredible opportunity to soar as an actor. (The teaser scene below gives you a taste of her agony.) It's an episode that sets up the final act of the season and offers a few intriguing questions as well as some potential answers.

While it might strike fans of British drama series Survivors as somewhat familiar (and seemed to jump over some key points along the way), the episode plays out with a tremendous amount of tension and dread, a riveting installment that refuses to let go of your attention. It's both harrowing and heartbreaking, gruesome and gripping. And I can't wait to see just what happens next...

Next week on The Walking Dead ("Wildfire"), Rick leads the group to the CDC after the attack; Jim must make a terrible life and death decision.

Not So Lucky Four-Leaf Clover: AMC Cancels Rubicon

It's official: AMC has announced that they will not be renewing Rubicon for a second season. The series, produced by Warner Horizon Television, premiered in early August on AMC.

AMC made the following statement about the cancellation:

"Rubicon gave us an opportunity to tell a rich and compelling story, and we're proud of the series. This was not an easy decision, but we are grateful to have had the opportunity to work with such a phenomenally talented and dedicated team."

I do have to say that I'm surprised by the decision, given that when I met with AMC President and General Manager Charlie Collier and Joel Stillerman, senior vice president of original programming, a few weeks back for a feature for The Daily Beast, they seemed more positive about a possible pickup, telling me that a decision would be reached in the next few weeks.

It was.

Rubicon, despite its much publicized launch numbers (at the time the highest rated original series launch for the network), ended with relatively low numbers, even for AMC. (The first and only season ended with just with 1.04 million viewers overall.)

What do you think of the news? Has AMC made a mistake ending Rubicon? Or did you tune out along the way? Head to the comments section to discuss.

No-Brainer: AMC Renews The Walking Dead for Second Season

No surprise that AMC is gearing up for another invasion of The Walking Dead.

Just a day after airing the series' second episode, the cable network announced officially that The Walking Dead would return for a second season of thirteen episodes. (Yes, thirteen episodes this time, as was rumored a while back.)

The renewal shouldn't be a shock to anyone watching the numbers as the launch of The Walking Dead broke cable records, as it reached more of the key demographic than any other series in history. (I'll let that sink in for a second.) While the second episode dipped slightly in overall viewers, it saw an uptick in men 18-49.

“The Dead has spread!” said Charlie Collier, President, AMC, in a statement. “No other cable series has ever attracted as many Adults 18-49 as The Walking Dead. This reaffirms viewers’ hunger for premium television on basic cable. We are so proud to be bringing back The Dead again, across the globe.”

That worldwide reach is due to AMC's partnership with Fox International Channels, which rolled out the series to 120 countries as part of an unprecedented global launch for The Walking Dead.

The full press release from AMC announcing the renewal can be found below.

AMC RESURRECTS “THE WALKING DEAD”
FOR A SECOND SEASON

BIGGEST SERIES IN CABLE HISTORY
AMONG ADULTS 18-49

Network Greenlights 13-Episode Season of Original Hit Series

Biggest Global Original Series Debut on Fox International Channels
(New York, NY – November 8, 2010) AMC announced today the renewal of “The Walking Dead” for a 13-episode second season. Since debuting Sunday, October 31, “The Walking Dead” has broken ratings records, with the series reaching more Adults 18-49 than any other show in the history of cable television.

Today’s announcement also includes Fox International Channels’ (FIC) global renewal for a second season, following record-breaking premiere ratings in 120 countries in Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. “The Walking Dead” was the highest-rated original series premiere ever to air on FIC simultaneously worldwide.

“The ‘Dead’ has spread!” said Charlie Collier, President, AMC. “No other cable series has ever attracted as many Adults 18-49 as ‘The Walking Dead.’ This reaffirms viewers’ hunger for premium television on basic cable. We are so proud to be bringing back ‘The Dead’ again, across the globe.”

Ratings Highlights for The Walking Dead - Episode 2, which premiered on AMC Sunday, 11/7:

10pm airing – 3.1 HH rating with over 4.7 million viewers;
Adults 18-49 – 3.3 million viewers;
Adults 25-54 – 2.8 million viewers;
Men 18-49 – 2.1 million viewers.

Ratings Highlights for the The Walking Dead - Episode 1, which premiered on AMC Sunday, 10/31:

10pm airing – 3.7 HH rating with over 5.3 million total viewers;
Adults 18-49 – 3.6 million viewers;
Adults 25-54 – 3.1 million viewers;
Men 18-49 – 2.0 million viewers;

“I wish all programming decisions were no brainers like this one,” said Sharon Tal Yguado, SVP Scripted Programming. “‘The Walking Dead’ is a TV masterpiece on so many levels. We want at least 10 seasons, if not more. Kudos to AMC!”

AMC’s “The Walking Dead” is based on the comic book series written by Robert Kirkman and published by Image Comics. Kirkman serves as an executive producer on the project and three-time Academy Award-nominee Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) serves as writer, director and executive producer. Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator, Aliens, Armageddon, The Incredible Hulk), chairman of Valhalla Motion Pictures, serves as Executive Producer. David Alpert from Circle of Confusion and Charles “Chic” Eglee (Dexter, The Shield, Dark Angel) serve as Executive Producers.

“The Walking Dead” tells the story of the months and years that follow after a zombie apocalypse. It follows a group of survivors, led by police officer Rick Grimes, who travel in search of a safe and secure home. The comic goes on to explore the challenges of life in a world overrun by zombies who take a toll on the survivors, and sometimes the interpersonal conflicts present a greater danger to their continuing survival than the zombies that roam the country. Over time, the characters are changed by the constant exposure to death and some grow willing to do anything to survive.

Shot on location in Atlanta, “The Walking Dead” is led by a cast that includes Lincoln (“Teachers,” Love Actually) as Rick Grimes, Jon Bernthal (“The Pacific,” The Ghost Writer) as Shane Walsh, Sarah Wayne Callies (“Prison Break”) as Lori Grimes, Laurie Holden (“The Shield,” Stephen King’s The Mist) as Andrea, Jeffrey DeMunn (Stephen King’s The Mist, The Green Mile) as Dale, Steven Yeun (“The Big Bang Theory”) as Glen, Emma Bell (The Bedford Diaries) as Amy and Chandler Riggs (Get Low) as Carl Grimes.

About AMC
AMC reigns as the only cable network in history to ever win the Emmy® Award for Outstanding Drama Series three years in a row, as well as the Golden Globe® Award for Best Television Series - Drama for three consecutive years. Whether commemorating favorite films from every genre and decade or creating acclaimed original programming, the AMC experience is an uncompromising celebration of great stories. AMC's original stories include the Emmy® Award-winning dramas Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and entertaining non-scripted programming such as AMC News. AMC further demonstrates its commitment to the art of storytelling with curated movie franchises like AMC Hollywood Icon and AMC Complete Collection. Available in more than 96 million homes (Source: Nielsen Media Research), AMC is a subsidiary of Rainbow Media Holdings LLC, which includes sister networks IFC, Sundance Channel, WE tv and Wedding Central. AMC is available across all platforms, including on-air, online, on demand and mobile. AMC: Story Matters HereSM.

About FOX International Channels
FOX International Channels (FIC) is News Corporation’s international multi-media business. We develop, produce and distribute 183 wholly- and majority-owned entertainment, factual, sports and movie channels across Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa, in 35 languages. These networks and their related mobile, non-linear and high-definition extensions, reach over 300 million subscribing households (875 million cumulative) worldwide. We also operate a global online advertising unit, .FOX (pronounced “dot-fox”) specialized in online video and display, and four TV production houses. In operation since: August 14, 1993.

Talk Back: The Series Premiere of AMC's The Walking Dead

Here's to hoping you did more on Halloween than just go trick-or-treating.

Last night marked the series premiere of AMC's new horror series The Walking Dead. While you already read my advance review of the first three episodes here, now that TWD has premiered, I'm curious to know just what you thought about the zombie apocalypse drama.

Were you put off by the gore and violence? Or was it just the right amount of muck and mayhem for you? Did you believe British actor Andrew Lincoln as a Southern cop? Were you on the edge of your seat the entire time? Watch through clenched fingers? Unable to look away? Did the pilot episode linger with you the rest of the evening?

Also, were you struck by similarities to both 28 Days Later and Survivors? Did you feel it advanced zombie mythology or, er, regurgitated it?

And, most importantly, will you tune in again to The Walking Dead next week?

Talk back here.

Next week on The Walking Dead ("Guts"), Rick unknowingly causes a group of survivors to be trapped by walkers; as the group dynamic devolves from accusations to violence, Rick must confront an enemy far more dangerous than the undead.

Death Goes Walking: An Advance Review of AMC's The Walking Dead

Zombies represent a real nexus of fear for me, something approaching an all-out phobia.

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that zombies--unlike, say, other horror-based characters like vampires or werewolves--are brought about by something uncontrollable like a virus. They become a faceless mob, hell-bent on feasting on human flesh, transmitting the virus as it takes over the world. Unlike vampires (whose hunger is based upon something entirely different and inimical), zombies have no intellect. Rather they represent something alien, chaotic, and unstoppable, a walking virus in rags and bones that doesn't realize that it has shed its last vestiges of humanity.

One of the most eagerly anticipated new series this fall is AMC's The Walking Dead, a horror drama based on the ongoing comic book series by Robert Kirkman that's executive produced by Frank Darabont and Gale Anne Hurd. The six-episode first season launches on Sunday, bringing a horror series to basic cable fittingly on Halloween night.

In the hands of Darabont and his team, that central notion of humanity is explored through the nightmare situation that unfolds. What makes us essentially human? If we become monsters in the name of survival, do we lose that inherent humanity? How does one live when surrounded with so much death? Is there any possibility of happiness to be wrung out of this new hell? What happens when we're alive but dead inside?

The answers to those very questions are at the heart of this gripping, ultra-violent series, which follows the survivors of a full-on zombie apocalypse. Whether they're shooting or beheading zombies, those ragtag humans remaining are holding on dearly for survival and the series explores the unbreakable nature of the human spirit. Simple pleasures--a hot shower, a fast car, the sight of a loved one--take on monumental weight in the face of such horrific adversity.

British actor Andrew Lincoln (This Life, Love Actually) stars as Officer Rick Grimes, a local deputy sheriff who is in a coma at the time of the zombie uprising and awakens in a deserted hospital to a world that's very different than the one he left behind, a dark mirror image of where the familiar and comforting have turned topsy-turvy. (The comparisons to 28 Days Later are inevitable.) A vase of fresh flowers is long dead, its petals crushed and dried. A nurse's station becomes an ominous place, the creaking doors, chained and padlocked, containing the dead who continue to walk.

Rick provides a natural entry point to the series for the viewer, his disorientation ours as he attempts to find his bearings in these new circumstances. Where are his wife and son? What has happened to the world while he was sleeping? His journey will take him back to their house and ultimately out into the world, on a mad quest to reunite his family.

But this is a horror drama, after all, and the stakes are high, as is the mounting body count. Rick's journey towards Atlanta becomes a path of destruction and the pilot episode ("Days Gone Bye") is one of the most tension-ridden episodes of television you'll ever see, a white-knuckle thrill-ride that had me breathless with anticipation and dread. The ominous tone and foreboding atmosphere is ably assisted by cinematic-level visuals, sweeping shots of emptiness that signal the isolation and fear gripping Rick while rendering the swarms of zombies, their teeth and nails and rotting flesh, all the more terrifying.

As I mentioned earlier, I have a real fear of zombies that's almost paralyzing in its severity, but I couldn't help but fall under the spell of The Walking Dead's opening salvo. The plot is arranged in such a way that it becomes impossible to look away, dragging you along with its breakneck pacing and overwhelming horror. Its more philosophical questions remind of the short-lived British television drama Survivors, which also explored the ways in which we hold onto--or discard--our humanity in the face of cataclysmic change. The empty streets of Atlanta, however, hold nothing but death at the hands of the savage mob, just as in Survivors it contained a viral death warrant.

I will say that I was slightly let down by the series' second episode ("Guts"), which pushed it into far more prototypical horror territory, negating some of the moral importance of the pilot episode. Rather than continue to mine those themes, the episode focuses much more heavily on the logistics and terror aspect of the zombies as Rick finds himself in an impossible situation and then goes from the frying pan into the fire. (Lest I spoil plot particulars, I'm being intentionally vague here.) Still intense, but the violence begins to grate rather than engage after a while.

Additionally, the dialogue in the second installment felt particularly stilted in this episode and unrealistic and certain characters--again, I won't say who--behaved in manners that seemed to shout out that they had never seen Scream or any other horror movie and didn't know the "rules." (Stupid behavior, after all, gets you killed.) Rather than feel panic for these individuals, I actually found myself feeling that it would be justified for them to get eaten after behaving so idiotically. (Which is a bit of a problem in a series about survival and humanity.)

Fortunately, the third episode ("Tell It to the Frogs") put the series back on track in my opinion, better balancing the horror and dread with humanity and hope, zombies with matters of the heart and soul. It also delves into the makeshift community established by the survivors of the zombie storm, a place where members attempt to recreate society anew with rules, chores, regulations, and lookout duty. It's a place where a string of tin cans becomes an early warning system, where clothes are washed by hand, and the simple pleasure of fishing for frogs becomes a wish fulfillment fantasy.

The Walking Dead's cast is top-notch. Lincoln simmers with intensity, his honor and duty as affixed to him as his deputy sheriff's uniform. (I can't get one particular scene, in which he solemnly apologizes to a female zombie before ending her, out of my mind.) Jon Bernthal, who plays Rick's partner Shane, exudes a hard sadness. Former Prison Break star Sarah Wayne Callies plays Rick's wife Lori, a woman who is determined to keep her son Carl (Chandler Riggs) safe. Look for Steven Yeun to break out as Glenn, whose irrepressible nature is at odds with the horror witnessed around him. Michael Rooker and Norman Reedus are terrifically terrifying as redneck brothers Merle and Daryl Dixon.

I'm intrigued to see just where The Walking Dead is going and how long it can sustain its tension and horror in the long run. But despite some bumps in the road (particularly, again, in that second episode), even this zombie-phobe is along for the ride. Though I might just be watching with my hands half-over my eyes.



The Walking Dead premieres Sunday evening at 10 pm ET/PT on AMC.

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.

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.