ABOUT LAST WEEK'S FORECAST:

IT WAS RAINING BOTH

MYSTERY AND MADNESS !

The MadMen episode that aired 4-19-2015 opened with Don Draper wrapped up in bed sheets, though I suspect his somnolence had less to do with sleep-deprivation than it did a sub-conscious desire not to vacate his residence just yet. He doesn't really want to SELL; the carpeting's still stained (as the realtor maliciously points out) and he's not sure of the future FORECAST. In other words, he knows where he's BEEN, but he's not entirely prepared to say a final adieu to living in the PAST. Later we see him soulfully muse..."A lot of wonderful things happened here".

Furthermore, we cringe as the realtor remarks that the Draper residence "reeks of failure" but this is in starkly explicit juxtaposition to young intern Mathis' subsequent office-rant about "the unfairness of life". He opines that Don had it easy in life because he was handsome. Draper summarily quips, "Everyone has problems...some people just know how to deal with them better". He fires Mathis. Mathis doesn't have half a clue about Draper's REAL past! It's not 1969 anymore (either), I surmise. Moreover, Peggy is no longer acting as a "secretary". Eveyone has to say goodbye to something, don't they?

Though should anyone's GOODBYE necessarily include saying 'HELLO' to Viet Nam? Glen Bishop has returned ... older, but not yet fully mature. He's a boy-man of sorts, like whiskey and milk sharing the very same drinking glass.

I also noticed how many times either buzzers or telephones rang during last week's episode. Several people had to say goodbye in a very metaphorical sense...and hello to something else: those antiquated communication devices drove the message home in case we blinked! The half-way point between the goodbyes and hellos "of life" are unknown, however, all the while everyone's "praying to God" that there's something better on the horizon (e.g., Sally on the bus, Glen off to war, Betty off to college, Joanie in a new relationship).  

Even as Betty tells Sally how she broke 'light-bulbs' on a similar trip when she was her age, I think Sally gets the drift...it wasn't about light-bulbs. Those metaphors again!!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvg4n8Txgdc 

[SIGH] I really thought I guessed what song would be played at last episode's parting shot (particularly because of remarks Sally made about Kent State) ... and I was sooooo wrong. I guessed that ditty about "tin soldiers and Nixon coming [4 dead in OHIO]".So how does one successfully tie that beautifully haunting Roberta Flack melody, the one that DID play, to the FORECAST theme? Here is my best estimate: although we all desire to leave behind something of everlasting value in this world, which requires many to steadily continue on in their journey, it is still so very difficult to stop living in the PAST. Even when given opportunities for "second chances", the known sanctuary of the past forever holds fond memories and, sometimes most of all, a firm measure of SECURITY. And it's the thinking back to those beautiful nostalgic times that evokes a reminiscence of a "first": i.e., actually, a first of "anything"; anything that gave us the warmest of warm fuzzies in earlier times. I think the writers sensed this...and THAT (my friends) is why they chose the song that they did.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9aks4aujM 

ONLY THE [FOR]SHADOW[ING] KNOWS !

            

As a young child, my late father would reenact a radio skit known as The Shadow for my sister Carol and me, often at bedtime. We both pretended to be scared as his voice dropped a few octaves and he sinisterly intoned ..."Only the Shadow knows"!  For reasons that are hard to pin down, I had a restless sense of shadowy foreboding while taking in the latest MadMen installment approximately six days prior. Also, I can never blog  with any authentic gravitas (i.e., about a recent episode) until a requisite amount of time has passed. I kind of like things to coalescence a bit; in other words, to "gel" sufficiently prior to formally penning my very personal after-thoughts. So here it goes:

Where do I even begin? My inner wisdom firstly settles on Mimi Rogers' character  "Pima". {For those who didn't initially recognize this veteran actress, I surely did: her first cousin is a Neuroradiologist under whom I trained at HFH. Actually I knew Eric when Mimi was still Mrs. Tom Cruise!}. Now the name Pima sounds like puma... which makes me think of cougars. And this cougar-gal metaphorically dug her lady-claws into Stanley, didn't she?  Stan Rizzo may have had a creative block going on "upstairs", but definitely not [so] "downstairs".  Moreover, Stan thought he scored BIG in more ways than one, but he was a less nimble dance partner in that dark-room hustle than he ever imagined. 

And then there's Diana. I keep looking for a phi beta kappa key dangling around her neck to suddenly emerge, the perfect juxtaposition to her tawdry waitress ensemble. She obviously represents a combination of opposite sentiments. In Roman mythology, Diana (meaning "heavenly" or "divine")  was equated with the Greek goddess Artemis.  In last Sunday's episode I initially saw her as a subdued Illuminatrix, a Magdalene in search of a Jesus Christ to anoint with spikenard. Her reference to her daughters also evoked a Sophie's choice reaction, as well. Yet, she was so detached at times that it was as if she were dissociating...which also had me seriously wondering if she suffers from BPD.

The latter would make sense  because I intuit that there is a steely but maudlin "intent" coupled to her  robotic affect, one associated with what can only be described as abject nihilism tinged with jaded masochism. You could read it in those far away eyes of hers, "You can't hurt me, no one can hurt me, because I've already experienced the worst that life has to offer... Don't think you'll really get to know me, either, because I won't let you and I don't need you". The problem is, Don is on her level in one sense (i.e., they're both like proverbial rolling stones who've not garnered a thick enough layer of moss), but in another  way he remains totally mind-blind to her darkest angst and sordid sense of destiny. She is NOT Nietzsche's uber-man and doesn't wish to be so... 

Don is not so sure; his wife has cast him as an "aging, sloppy liar",  the very antithesis of esteemed Nietzschean dreams. It's his obstinate vulnerability in assuming  that everyone thinks the same way he does that the preternaturally discerning Diana might  also  subliminally wrestle with. The problem is, his detectable "just always simmering below the surface, even when he acts nice" narcissism mentally horrifies her, for it could lead to the very abandonment she truly fears far more than even death itself.  In her exceptionally stark reality ... she has already dined with death, plastic utensils and all.

O.K., let's talk 'Harry Crane'. Harry is a blend of Big  Bang Theory super nerd-dom and Jack the Ripper. Two seasons prior, he squirmed awkwardly in the Draper living room [in a feathery boa, no less] while flirty chanteuse, Megan Draper, teasingly executed  a bump and grind recital to the coquettish strains of Zou Bisou Bisou. Since she unintentionally overheard his "blue" comments the very next day in the little coffee room at SCDP,   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z47MfkSHX44 and vows to  despise him for all eternity, I was somewhat taken aback that she would put together a career-themed meeting  with HIM (of all people) under any condition! Hence, one deduces that a woman's scorn can somehow thaw into an act of clemency when desperate circumstances  arise. But Harry just can't help himself! He makes a predictable slime-ball move on her and then has to cover his tacky tracks in case she reports back to her soon-to-be ex-husband. Harry actually tells Don that she's 'unstable'. Naturally, this must stir up a whirlwind of complex emotions in the multifarious heart of Don Draper. Roger Sterling likens her to his own ex, Jane, "a consumer". On the one hand, Don is sad to see Megan walk away and would likely wish to punish her financially. However...this is also his chance to be the knight in shining armor. If he can't completely fix his own life, perhaps he can provide a measure of bonhomie toward hers. Money solves everything, doesn't it? Isn't that what this whole existential rat-race is really truly about?  Money buys happiness!...  [But for whom?]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx4rA9i93uQ

Lastly, Marie Calvet and Megan's comely sister, Marie-France: Mrs. Calvet lives through Megan. When Megan is up, she's up; when Megan is down, she's down; and when Megan appears destroyed, SHE'S DESTROYED! Yet, Marie cannot  afford  to be destroyed!! Life has already s*** all over her  via her loveless marriage to Emile. She's still beautiful, well in a way...or at least she imagines herself so. Megan (i.e., well actually Marie) must have ALL the furniture in the Draper home as part of the divorce settlement...that would make Megan (i.e., Marie) so very happy, don't you see?  And to get someone else to pay for the handling and hauling is the quintessential cherry on top. Marie gets to take advantage of someone; isn't that endearing? Gaul can truly be divided into three parts with the Calvet gals: Marie represents covetous sociopathy; Megan's sister, Marie-France, the hypocrisy of religiosity; and Megan, the lucky babe who garnered a cool million without ever really asking. Marie thinks she won the battle; Hah! , it was purely a pyrrhic victory.  When Megan meets up with Marie-France in the final minutes of this episode, she  sports a freshly minted nonchalance that must have her middling convent-school bred sister completely baffled. Who cares that Mama has run off and left Father?  C'est  la vie! Dysfunction sounds so very charming in the Gallic tongue,  but the gaping abyss we dare not peer into widens with each fiery outburst. Though little does the sanctimonious sibling realize, Megan can fiddle (or croon) all she wants right now even while Rome (or New York, for that matter) is engulfed in flammable liquid... hell, she can even do it to the tune of Zou Bisou... she's a millionaire (and this is still 1969!) . 

But somehow I feel a chill coming on... Megan, don't go back to the Hollywood canyons, particularly should this be the beginning of August!    

   There's something shadowy in them there hills!!!

                          [Pssssssst... and we hear his name is Manson] 

                                                [all content written by L.P.-G.]  4/2015

"REVERSE ENGINEERING" ... (as it were)

"REVERSE ENGINEERING" ... 

 (as it were)

If I'm somewhat ahead of myself in concluding that I've successfully disentangled the seemingly incoherent and ostensibly disjointed story line(s) that resounded loudly throughout last Sunday night's opener of MadMen (the 1^st episode appropriately dubbed "Severance" ), it won't be exceptionally long before proof of such speculation is within reach ... will it? That said, I may still have to wait until the very concluding chapter of this rough and tumble ad agency-drama makes its final debut before definitive confirmation a propos my suspicions [about the hidden agendas of Series 7/2015; episode 1] ultimately surfaces. What's more, the last installment of AMC's MadMen might even prove my current hypothesis dead wrong!  Even so, I still believe that well-honed, razor-sharp facets of "reverse engineering" were steadily unfolding "bit by bit" almost the whole time, while thousands watched this hour-long presentation during the late-night interlude of Easter Sunday. I also presume that all figurative loose ends will eventually fall perfectly, flawlessly and entirely into place once we look back from a far more "seasoned" vantage point... i.e., several months from now. Until then, however, what is one to make of the cryptic references, confusing turn of events, and (frankly) "all over the damn place" rhetoric that played across our T.V. screens much like wickedly untamed tresses, several days ago?

   IT HAS TO BE REVERSE 

ENGINEERING AT PLAY!

It's reverse engineering of sorts, I do suspect; in this particular case, a form of roguish fore-shadowing, one wholly sodden with harbingers of every variety and nuance frisking about. Still, I wonder, could the implicit metaphors associated with the connotative irrevocability of SEVERANCE rise up "phoenix-esque" in this series' final chapter; i.e., say, sometime around mid-May? Is Rachel Katz nee Menken vaguely emblematic of the biblical Lazarus? Was the intro episode of season 7-part II surreptitiously crafting a virtual scaffold for a tacit, conciliatory innuendo, one insinuating that 'the first shall be last, and the last shall be first'? Pursuant to the latter, simply look no further than Kenny Cosgrove. And, before I finish this line of inquiry,one synapse of mine makes a formal last request, "IS THAT [really] ALL THERE IS"?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAf7HcK10d0 

These were just some of the questions swirling about my brain's gentle limbic folds following last Sunday's presentation, even as the  season opener appeared a mere introduction to what lay ahead by way of this acclaimed dramatic series' upcoming  sequences. Many a pundit has both acknowledged and frustratingly accepted that the show's creator, Matt Weiner, is a cipher with a quiver of elite secrets. Storylines are held in strict abeyance, temporarily suspended in the hermetically-sealed confines of Mr. Weiner's secure, but all the same "obscure", mental safe. He plays around with our angst and pre-conceived perceptions much like pulp fiction. That said, I'm sticking with my "reverse engineering" theory. Though, who in fact knows? There are 6 episodes in this final series still on the horizon:

    If I'm wrong, I'm wrong!