"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 1st 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"?
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: