"I went to a place to eat. It said 'breakfast at any time.' So I ordered french toast during the Renaissance". --Steven Wright ... If you are a devotee of time travel, check out this song...

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Welcome to the Hotel California on Mad Men 2.11

A mind-reeling Episode 2.11 of Mad Men tonight - I can't recall if I've said that about Mad Men before - in which-

Well, let's get to the most important development first:

1. Don's out in Los Angeles (with Pete). He gets picked up a 21-year old bright beauty, Joy - and skips out on a meeting with Pete and aerospace clients, jumps in a car with Joy, and goes to some pad she's staying in with some friends. He passes out - likely not from the heat, as some quack doctor tells him - but seems fine when he wakes up. He makes sweet love with Joy, swims with her in the pool. The next day he's on the phone, telling the person he's talking to that he wants to see him or her, and his name is ... Dick Whitman.

Welcome to the Hotel California, it's a lovely place ... Or maybe The Sopranos once more and Kevin Finnerty. In any case, Joy (appealingly played by Laura Ramsey) is indeed bright and fascinating and looks about 10 years closer to our time than Betty...

2. Now speaking of intelligent beauties, we have Jane - Roger loves and wants to marry her. She says yes. Roger's lawyer tells him it's going to cost him a fortune to get a divorce.

3. Which works well for Duck, who pieces together a plan to get his former employer make an offer to buy Sterling Cooper. Well, Cooper's certainly game, and Roger's not objecting ...

Meanwhile ...

4. One of the new young guys at office invites Peggy to a Dylan concert, and when the guys rib him about him and Betty, he tells them no, he likes men. Everyone except Salvatore is scandalized.

5. But back to Dylan - Peggy says she's heard him on the radio. In 1962, Dylan did have his first album out. Nothing from it was played on WABC or WMCA or any of the rock 'n' roll AM stations in New York. There was no FM as we now know it until 1966. Bob Fass and Radio Unnameable didn't get to WBAI until 1963 ... So where did Peggy hear Dylan on the radio? I can't think of any radio station, but I haven't had a chance to do any research, so I'm all ears...

6. And last but certainly not least - back in California, before Don flips out into Dick, he's at a presentation by an aerospace company talking about MIRVs - multi-warhead nuclear missiles. Those were frightening times, indeed. It reminded me that, as frightened as our present often feels, it's nowhere nearly as bad as it was back then...

I have a feeling that we're just at the beginning of a real magic carpet ride in the rest of this season of Mad Men...

See also: Mad Men Returns with a Xerox and a Call Girl ... 2.2: The Advertising Devil and the Deep Blue Sea ... 2.3 Double-Barreled Power ... 2.4: Betty and Don's Son ... 2.5: Best Montage Since Hitchcock ... 2.6: Jackie, Marilyn, and Liberty Valance ... 2.7: Double Dons ... 2.8: Did Don Get What He Deserved? ... 2.9: Don and Roger ... 2.10: Between Ray Bradbury and Telstar ... 2.12: The Day the Earth Stood Still on Mad Men






And listen to my fabulous 20-minute interview last Fall with Rich Sommer (Harry Crane) at Light On Light Through




The Plot to Save Socrates



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"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

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