sorry, no food today, kids. I'm a bit too busy cooking & serving & cleaning & baking to pause long enough to take pictures of either the step-by-step process or even the finished product {talk to Grandpa about this}. However, I did have time to catch two of my all-time favorite shows. This week saw the return of Mad Men and the ending of the beginning of a countdown to the season finale of Justified (just two episodes left!).
I am happy and funny and silly, but I am not constitutionally a "happy" person. I laugh and smile and talk in funny accents, watch Jon Stewart and adore Mel Brooks. I am happy, but I am not a happy person. I like my jokes sarcastic, my life view with a touch of cynicism. As such, I never can quite stick to watching sitcoms on television. I found Community wonderful and hilarious, still watch re-runs of Frasier and Wings on daytime tv channels, but I can't quite seem to remember that x night is Community night. I like my dramas {though I do prefer that they provide at the very least a wry chuckle now and again}. For me, The West Wing exemplifies this sort of television: an hour-long drama about serious things and serious people, but characters who are people who laugh and joke and love and hate each other. Alas, TWW went away at its own perfect moment.
However, there are plenty of those wry chuckles in the dialogue of both MM & Justified. The nearly two year hiatus from Sunday night MM viewing with my mom & my oldest friend, cocktails in hand, was a sad one. We were left wondering what was about to happen: would Joan tell Roger the baby was his? would Don really marry Megan? would Lane manage to keep Sterling Cooper Draper Price afloat without Bert's money? Societally, how would these Korean War vets and their underlings manage to navigate the late-sixties movements for racial equality and against war?
They were all fascinating questions, posed by a fascinating show that never seemed boring and always left us wanting more. Then they left us wanting more for so long we forgot how much more we wanted. I'm not sure if it was the long hiatus or the fact that I became used to my Sunday nights filling with the English accents of Downton Abbey, but I was sorely disappointed in the return of Mad Men. The show seemed a bit flat {well, flat other than Christina Hendricks' bosom}. I simply didn't care what happened as they moved forward. None of the burning, pressing questions made me want to keep watching. I nearly turned it off in the middle of the endless two-hour focus on Don's grumpy mortality. I turned to my mother and informed her that I was giving it the final forty-five minutes and next week's episode, then we were done with the show.
I am no longer impressed by fabulous period set and actor dressing. Matthew Weiner's dialogue was as stellar as ever, the actors' notes were still pitch-perfect, except the song seems to be fading. Only in the final moments, when the not-so-hilarious SCDP joke ad backfired upon them and their lobby filled with African-American job applicants, did I even bother wondering what the next move would be. In the giant game of chess played by historical dramas {bodice ripper or not, MM remains a historical drama in the great British tradition}, we all know what happens, so long as we've read our history books.
The key is whether we care what happens to these particular characters. I suddenly cared again. How would Lane and his ilk {for me, the show is becoming far more about Lane than Don at the moment. The Brit stepped up mightily in comforting Joan and taking charge of the near-disastrous racial issue} bridge the gap to the history we know is coming home faster than Dr. Harris in a body bag? I used to feel I knew these characters. Despite all the subterfuge, the audience knew more about Dick Whitman and all the individual cheating, scheming, and dreaming than anyone else populating Mad Men. That thin veneer of viewer knowledge was shattered when Megan casually informed us that she knew, too. I'm left not wondering where they all go from here but wondering if I even want to watch next week. You know, Great Expectations will begin showing up on PBS Sunday nights soon.
Tuesday nights, though, never fail to disappoint. Justified is both entirely different and exactly the same as MM. Both give us a male protagonist nearing middle age that spends a bit too much time running from himself, screwing around, screwing up, and generally being creative with his stories. The former begins each season essentially as a crime procedural, until a moment hits that brings all the disparate story lines together into a discussion on Raylan Givens' hubris. The ancillary characters and story lines are great, always providing foil, but they are also solid enough to stand on their own.
There is a major difference in comparing a show slowly building from a season premiere to one rushing headlong to a likely chaotic finale. The former will always feel slower, more measured, and rather more boring. The latter holds the promise of finding out that tiny.bit.more. Resolution generally trumps anticipation, except we're still technically in the anticipation stage of Justified. Last night's episode began the gentle and violent weaving of the final threads of this third season together. Dickie got out of jail, the Detroit mob is finally ready to add their names to the long list of people who want to kill Quarles. Boyd Crowder may possibly begin properly making money again {or maybe he'll just blow shit up to get money}. Every moment feels important. Every moment seems to indicate that this might be the last time we see that character alive again.
Part of this dilemma between 60's advertising and current law abiding and law breaking folk does hinge on the violence. People don't die {well, except Mrs. Blankenship} on Mad Men. I'm not sure of the record, but I am pretty sure that at least one minor character dies every single episode on Justified. Meanwhile, the dialogue remains sparkling. The delivery is faithful and true. Nobody does a come-to-Jesus revival meeting preacher at a sheriff's election debate better than Walton Goggins as Boyd. Raylan gets to say things like "I don't care about shitkicker on shitkicker crime." A character we've seen twice {Lindsay the bartender/owner, a bottle blonde as handy with speechmaking as she is a shotgun} gets bon mots including, "I'm sorry you didn't get the chance to fill me in on every moment of your life up to the point where you took my feminine virtue." Adding that Raylan doesn't need to apologize, but she thinks she does,"I feel a little bad for taking advantage of you, but not so bad that I don't plan to do it again."
Of course, I'm also biased. Harlan County, Kentucky is about as similar a place to Jefferson County, Pennsylvania as I will likely ever see on television. We don't have a violent crime in quite the same way {also, we lack a Raylan Givens}, but this is a shitkicker on shitkicker on crime sort of place. The writers and producers of Justified are clever: these are the smartest and truest country people you will find characterized on television. This is what country people look and sound and act like, with some as smart as Boyd and others as dumb as the Bennett boys ever would be.
In the end, I'll be watching both Mad Men and Justified next week. but, I know which one I'll be on the edge of my seat for and which one I'll be watching to play spot the flaws. I can't say for sure, but the worst thing that might have ever happened to Mad Men was too long a wait between seasons. Once we've gotten out of the habit of caring about Don and the rest of the crew, we may not learn to care again.
"Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch." - Garrison Keillor
I am happy and funny and silly, but I am not constitutionally a "happy" person. I laugh and smile and talk in funny accents, watch Jon Stewart and adore Mel Brooks. I am happy, but I am not a happy person. I like my jokes sarcastic, my life view with a touch of cynicism. As such, I never can quite stick to watching sitcoms on television. I found Community wonderful and hilarious, still watch re-runs of Frasier and Wings on daytime tv channels, but I can't quite seem to remember that x night is Community night. I like my dramas {though I do prefer that they provide at the very least a wry chuckle now and again}. For me, The West Wing exemplifies this sort of television: an hour-long drama about serious things and serious people, but characters who are people who laugh and joke and love and hate each other. Alas, TWW went away at its own perfect moment.
However, there are plenty of those wry chuckles in the dialogue of both MM & Justified. The nearly two year hiatus from Sunday night MM viewing with my mom & my oldest friend, cocktails in hand, was a sad one. We were left wondering what was about to happen: would Joan tell Roger the baby was his? would Don really marry Megan? would Lane manage to keep Sterling Cooper Draper Price afloat without Bert's money? Societally, how would these Korean War vets and their underlings manage to navigate the late-sixties movements for racial equality and against war?
They were all fascinating questions, posed by a fascinating show that never seemed boring and always left us wanting more. Then they left us wanting more for so long we forgot how much more we wanted. I'm not sure if it was the long hiatus or the fact that I became used to my Sunday nights filling with the English accents of Downton Abbey, but I was sorely disappointed in the return of Mad Men. The show seemed a bit flat {well, flat other than Christina Hendricks' bosom}. I simply didn't care what happened as they moved forward. None of the burning, pressing questions made me want to keep watching. I nearly turned it off in the middle of the endless two-hour focus on Don's grumpy mortality. I turned to my mother and informed her that I was giving it the final forty-five minutes and next week's episode, then we were done with the show.
I am no longer impressed by fabulous period set and actor dressing. Matthew Weiner's dialogue was as stellar as ever, the actors' notes were still pitch-perfect, except the song seems to be fading. Only in the final moments, when the not-so-hilarious SCDP joke ad backfired upon them and their lobby filled with African-American job applicants, did I even bother wondering what the next move would be. In the giant game of chess played by historical dramas {bodice ripper or not, MM remains a historical drama in the great British tradition}, we all know what happens, so long as we've read our history books.
The key is whether we care what happens to these particular characters. I suddenly cared again. How would Lane and his ilk {for me, the show is becoming far more about Lane than Don at the moment. The Brit stepped up mightily in comforting Joan and taking charge of the near-disastrous racial issue} bridge the gap to the history we know is coming home faster than Dr. Harris in a body bag? I used to feel I knew these characters. Despite all the subterfuge, the audience knew more about Dick Whitman and all the individual cheating, scheming, and dreaming than anyone else populating Mad Men. That thin veneer of viewer knowledge was shattered when Megan casually informed us that she knew, too. I'm left not wondering where they all go from here but wondering if I even want to watch next week. You know, Great Expectations will begin showing up on PBS Sunday nights soon.
Tuesday nights, though, never fail to disappoint. Justified is both entirely different and exactly the same as MM. Both give us a male protagonist nearing middle age that spends a bit too much time running from himself, screwing around, screwing up, and generally being creative with his stories. The former begins each season essentially as a crime procedural, until a moment hits that brings all the disparate story lines together into a discussion on Raylan Givens' hubris. The ancillary characters and story lines are great, always providing foil, but they are also solid enough to stand on their own.
There is a major difference in comparing a show slowly building from a season premiere to one rushing headlong to a likely chaotic finale. The former will always feel slower, more measured, and rather more boring. The latter holds the promise of finding out that tiny.bit.more. Resolution generally trumps anticipation, except we're still technically in the anticipation stage of Justified. Last night's episode began the gentle and violent weaving of the final threads of this third season together. Dickie got out of jail, the Detroit mob is finally ready to add their names to the long list of people who want to kill Quarles. Boyd Crowder may possibly begin properly making money again {or maybe he'll just blow shit up to get money}. Every moment feels important. Every moment seems to indicate that this might be the last time we see that character alive again.
Part of this dilemma between 60's advertising and current law abiding and law breaking folk does hinge on the violence. People don't die {well, except Mrs. Blankenship} on Mad Men. I'm not sure of the record, but I am pretty sure that at least one minor character dies every single episode on Justified. Meanwhile, the dialogue remains sparkling. The delivery is faithful and true. Nobody does a come-to-Jesus revival meeting preacher at a sheriff's election debate better than Walton Goggins as Boyd. Raylan gets to say things like "I don't care about shitkicker on shitkicker crime." A character we've seen twice {Lindsay the bartender/owner, a bottle blonde as handy with speechmaking as she is a shotgun} gets bon mots including, "I'm sorry you didn't get the chance to fill me in on every moment of your life up to the point where you took my feminine virtue." Adding that Raylan doesn't need to apologize, but she thinks she does,"I feel a little bad for taking advantage of you, but not so bad that I don't plan to do it again."
Of course, I'm also biased. Harlan County, Kentucky is about as similar a place to Jefferson County, Pennsylvania as I will likely ever see on television. We don't have a violent crime in quite the same way {also, we lack a Raylan Givens}, but this is a shitkicker on shitkicker on crime sort of place. The writers and producers of Justified are clever: these are the smartest and truest country people you will find characterized on television. This is what country people look and sound and act like, with some as smart as Boyd and others as dumb as the Bennett boys ever would be.
In the end, I'll be watching both Mad Men and Justified next week. but, I know which one I'll be on the edge of my seat for and which one I'll be watching to play spot the flaws. I can't say for sure, but the worst thing that might have ever happened to Mad Men was too long a wait between seasons. Once we've gotten out of the habit of caring about Don and the rest of the crew, we may not learn to care again.
"Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch." - Garrison Keillor
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