Everybody knows that Christina Hendricks ‘ massive sweater mounds are one of the biggest reasons that Mad Men is the best show on TV these days. And the second-biggest are those Johnnie Walker ads starring Christina and her famous pair that they run during every single commercial break. It’s the first time I ever considered fast-forwarding through the show just to get to the ads. Anyway, here’s my favorite whisky spokeswoman helping the company launch its new Platinum label, which is just one more pricey bottle of booze that I can’t afford on my blogger salary. So if they really wanted to rub something in my face like that, I would’ve preferred Christina’s funbags. Photos: WENN.com
Since Mad Men’s sixth season drawing to a close this weekend, let’s count down the babes of Mad Men, past and present, who’ve shown their Mad Mams on screen. When babes like Jessica Pare and January Jones are getting un-Drapered, things always look Sterling!
Sexellent news from Netflix this week with Jessica Pare of Mad Men fame getting Lost and Delirious (2001) with Piper Perabo in the lesbian boarding school drama. B-movie babe Jennifer Rubin gives plenty of peeks at her puffies in Saints and Sinners (1994), and Cheerleader Ninjas (1998) has some cunt-fu from Kira Reed . Candace McKenzie will have more than your nose growing long in Pinocchio’s Revenge (1996), and a very young Melanie Griffith shows off her headlights in Joyride (1977). See pics after the jump!
Plenty of favors, both formal and sexual—but mostly sexual—are exchanged in this week’s Mad Men , lending the episode its title: “Favors.” Don does all he can to help the Rosens’ son Mitchell from entering prison for draft evasion. All in the hopes, of course, of Syliva returning the favor. Ted ends up doing the bulk of the favor, asking a friend to give Mitchell a relatively harmless pilot position. Mrs. Campbell’s male caretaker may or may not be offering her some sexual favors of his own. And of course…Sylvia returns the favor. But “Favors” is less about the favors themselves, and more about the motives behind the favors. So many of our favorite Mad Men characters are supremely selfish, with only brief moments of compassion or consideration. It makes us wonder what’s in it for them. We’ve already discussed Don’s motives. He’s clearly not over Sylvia. He wants to help Mitchell so that he can get her to talk to him again; so that he’ll be seen as the hero. Ted is one of the only “compassionate by default” characters on the show, making his favor more of a reflex than a cunning strategy. He agrees to help Don help Mitchell with very little hesitation—and this, after Don nearly destroyed a dinner with Chevy by “testing the waters” on their willingness to help, given their large military contract. Only after his initial willingness does Ted realize he can use the situation to get a little something out of Don. What does he want out of Don? Just for him to be a better partner; pay attention, stop subtly competing. The most interesting motive reveal of all this episode comes from the frustratingly enigmatic Bob. We get our first real glimpse into who Bob is and what he’s after with a perplexing scene between him and Pete. After hearing that the caretaker may be taking advantage of Pete’s Mom, Bob, who recommended him, gives a long impassioned speech about how loving a man can make you feel lively, ending with a subtle-ish come-on to Pete. That Bob is homosexual would not be particularly shocking or groundbreaking—especially given Salvatore’s storyline over the first three seasons—but that he is interested in Pete certainly would be. It seems a tad asynchronous, so we’ll see how it pans out. Hopefully this isn’t the last of the Bob-related reveals, as his odd nature seems to be leading up to something big. Bob isn’t the only one with some Pete-related chemistry this week. Signs that were pointing to something between Peggy and Stan, and then Peggy and Ted, are now inching ever-so slightly towards Peggy and Pete. Beginning with Pete’s mom mistaking Peggy for Trudy—complete with an accidental reference to their child together—and ending with parallels between their lonely isolated home lives (Peggy seems to be searching for someone that can be there to kill rats—and it won’t be Stan, who adamantly proclaimed “I’m not your boyfriend), it seems Peggy and Pete may soon find themselves settling for each other out of sheer convenience. The biggest moment of the episode came, however, when Sally walks in on Don collecting his “favor” from Sylvia. Tensions have been rising all season long, and we knew Don’s affair would come back to bite him in the ass. Despite Sally seemingly coming to a reluctant surrender of her panicked disgust over discovering her father cheating, the event may just have irreparably damaged her and her relationship to Don. As soon as Sally saw Don and Sylvia together, the act became so, so real. The affair between Sylvia and Don may just be the crashing-down of Don’s world that the entire season has been pointing to. We’ll see if Sally lets it slip. RATING: 3/5
Revolution is on the move. Michael J. Fox is on the way. And Community is on the bench… again. NBC has unveiled its 2013-2014 schedule, with a bevy of new shows the network hopes can rescue it from last place. Check out the listings below and visit our friends at TV Fanatic for all your Upfront Presentation news, trailers and scoops throughout the week… MONDAY 8-10 p.m. – “The Voice” 10-11 p.m. – “THE BLACKLIST” (Pictured above) TUESDAY 8-9 p.m. – “The Biggest Loser” (New Day and Time) 9-10 p.m. – “The Voice” (New time) 10-11 p.m. – “Chicago Fire” (New Day and Time) WEDNESDAY 8-9 p.m. – “Revolution” (New Day and Time) 9-10 p.m. – ”Law & Order: SVU” 10-11 p.m. – “IRONSIDE” THURSDAY 8-8:30 p.m. – “Parks and Recreation” (New time) 8:30-9 p.m. – “WELCOME TO THE FAMILY” 9-9:30 p.m. – “SEAN SAVES THE WORLD” 9:30-10 p.m. – “THE MICHAEL J. FOX SHOW” 10-11 p.m. – “Parenthood” (New Day and Time) FRIDAY 8-9 p.m. – “Dateline NBC” 9-10 p.m. – “Grimm” 10-11 p.m. – “DRACULA” SUNDAY 7:00-8:15 p.m. – “Football Night in America” 8:15-11:30 p.m. – “NBC Sunday Night Football” NBC MIDSEASON 2013-14 SCHEDULE (New programs in UPPER CASE; all times EST) MONDAY 8-10 p.m. – “The Voice” 10-11 p.m. – “THE BLACKLIST” TUESDAY 8-9 p.m. – “The Voice” 9-9:30 p.m. – “ABOUT A BOY” 9:30-10 p.m. – “THE FAMILY GUIDE” 10-11 p.m. – “Chicago Fire” WEDNESDAY 8-9 p.m. – “Revolution” 9-10 p.m. – ”Law & Order: SVU” 10-11 p.m. – “IRONSIDE” THURSDAY 8-8:30 p.m. – “Parks and Recreation” 8:30-9 p.m. – “WELCOME TO THE FAMILY” 9-9:30 p.m. – “SEAN SAVES THE WORLD” 9:30-10 p.m. – “THE MICHAEL J. FOX SHOW” 10-11 p.m. – “Parenthood” FRIDAY 8-9 p.m. – “Dateline NBC” 9-10 p.m. – “Grimm” 10-11 p.m. – “CROSSBONES” SUNDAY 7-8 p.m. – “Dateline NBC” 8-9 p.m. – “AMERICAN DREAM BUILDERS” 9-10 p.m. – “BELIEVE” 10-11 p.m. – “CRISIS”
Tonight’s Mad Men was an exploration of the Supreme Television Court case of Don-v.-Pete. Why do we love Don so much and hate Pete so much, when they are so similar in so many ways? Tonight’s episode answered that question more clearly that perhaps any episode in the show’s history. Because Pete gives a f**k, and Don doesn’t. Because Pete tries to be successful. He tries to be powerful. He tries to live like a playboy. He tries so so hard. Don, on the other hand, tries to screw everything up, and he doesn’t even try very hard. They’re both babies. They both display the emotional maturity of a 4 year old. They’re petty, narcissistic, fragile men. But whereas Pete’s every move is to turn himself into Don, Don barely has any moves, and the few moves he does have are positively destructive. Which is probably why when Pete fails—and he always fails—we get such a darn kick out of it. The guy is so freaking driven , and in such a distasteful way. With Pete’s life already in the dumps, the new merger between SCDP and CGC puts him in a state of panicked paranoia as he feels he’s being iced out of the company. There’s no chair for him at the conference table. And when the new girl offers him her chair, he accepts without so much as twitching an eye, let alone batting it. Meanwhile, his senile mother interrupts his already disastrous life, making him face the fact that no, he can’t take her in with Trudy and the kid because he doesn’t live with Trudy and the kid. Because he’s a garbage person and she kicked him out. And his attitude is so epically unsavory. His senile pain in the neck of a mother is preventing him from doing damage control at the office he’s trying to be king of. It’s like a classic sitcom premise, if all the characters were the worst. Don, however, decides to skip work on the most important day SCDP has had since SCDP became SCDP—a day that he himself made happen—because a woman revealed to him that she was under his spell hard. “I need you and nothing else will do,” Syliva said. And he makes her repeat it. This flips a switch in Don’s head, and in his mind, it grants him permission to be Sylvia’s master. Old sexually dominant Don is back. Whereas mindlessly promiscuous Don is depressing, sexually dominant Don is exciting. For the woman, and the audience. Until tonight, that is, when it became utterly humiliating. Because Don is not in control of anything. After playing the Sex Master for a few days, Sylvia realizes that Don just oozes destruction. If she isn’t careful, her normal metropolitan life will become his next victim. And when she tells him as much, his world shatters, because the philandering, inattentive, womanizing cocksman is actually at the mercy of the attention these women pay him. Who could have guess it? Don’s destruction is felt at work too. After he gets Ted sloppy drunk at work, Peggy has to lecture him that Ted needs to rub off on him, not the other way around. “He’s a grown man” is response. Because why would he care? He doesn’t care about much of anything. OTHER NOTES: Bob finally proved himself useful for something, and a relationship between him and Joan may be on the horizon. Betty and Francis were thankfully absent from another episode! Automatic points. The episode closed with Bobby Kennedy being shot—as was inevitable after the Martin Luther King, Jr. episode —with a lot less fanfare than other famous assassinations have been given in Mad Men ’s past. The 60’s are coming to a close, reality is smashing the hell out of the shiny veneer, and things are looking more and more hopeless. Tiny planes are terrifying. RATING: 4/5
Premium cable sure knows how to make history fun, with period pieces bringing us 100% of the TV T&A this week. First up we had Laura Haddock continuing her reign of rackage with the fourth sighting of her stiff-tipped swingers on Da Vinci’s Demons . Holliday Grainger ’s glutes made another sweet appearance on Showtime’s The Borgias , and Mad Men pushed the limit of side-boob once again with a great shot of the overhead compartments on stewardess Danielle Panabaker . That’s a lot better than free peanuts! See pics after the jump!
Premium cable sure knows how to make history fun, with period pieces bringing us 100% of the TV T&A this week. First up we had Laura Haddock continuing her reign of rackage with the fourth sighting of her stiff-tipped swingers on Da Vinci’s Demons . Holliday Grainger ’s glutes made another sweet appearance on Showtime’s The Borgias , and Mad Men pushed the limit of side-boob once again with a great shot of the overhead compartments on stewardess Danielle Panabaker . That’s a lot better than free peanuts! See pics after the jump!
Mad Men has always been uncomfortable about race—rather intentionally, one could presume, given that the show is all about keeping up appearances while everything falls apart. The “white picket fence” imagery was hugely important for the show’s first few seasons, but now, as Mad Men’s characters have moved into the city (and into ugly apartments with weird recessed living rooms) so too have the stuffy edifices of the suburbs disappeared. So while ‘The Flood,’ which takes place on the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, echoes the season 3 episode ‘The Grown-Ups,’ which centered on the Kennedy Assassination, the subtext is entirely different. Both Kennedy and King represented hope; both were profoundly eminent and meaningful figures from the 60’s. But King’s assassination signifies the coming-to-a-head of all the brushed-aside racial conditions of the 1960s. While in the context of Mad Men , Kennedy’s death was a confirmation that, no, everything was not okay just because it looked pretty, this episode was about the fear of confronting one’s demons. America confronts its demons as New York and DC erupt in riots over the death of an African American hero. Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce confronts its demons as gluttonous upper-middle class business-as-usual is thrust into the terrifying social context of “much bigger picture-dom.” When Pete accuses Harry of racism for concerning himself with adjusted TV schedules in the wake of this tragedy, the response in the air is “but…this is what we do.” The border of social responsibility and the flashy business of Madison Avenue is further breached when a very bizarre insurance man comes to SCDP pitching an ad that evokes Dr. King’s death. Of course they’re not going to produce that ad. That would be blatant. But on a different day? When the expectation to be sad and outraged isn’t as high? It could be conceivable. Pete confronts the demons of his loneliness, embarrassment, and anger, when he tries to chat up the Chinese delivery guy, bringing food to his sad, sad closet of a Manhattan apartment, only to learn the guy can’t speak a word of English. The way Pete slaps down his bag of food in defeat is so satisfying. This is what happens when you try to be Don, Pete. This is what Don feels like. Ginsberg’s father tries to break him out of his shell, for fear that he won’t have anyone to share his life with. After all, when the biblical flood came, two of every animal got on the ark. He asks his son, “You gonna get on the ark with your father?” Then, Don confronts his own personal demons with the monumental confession to Megan that he doesn’t love his kids. At least, not until they impress him. All the main characters are trying to tackle the tragedy, and are genuinely affected by it. But they are all very much outsiders. They’ve rarely confronted race before, so it feels foreign that they should all be so emotional. When the white characters have to deal with their expectations about African American characters in the wake of Dr. King’s death, it gets uncomfortable. Don and Joan simply assume that Don’s black secretary Dawn wouldn’t be coming in. So when she shows up, she’s greeted by looks of shock and a painfully awkward hug from Joan. “You should go home,” says Don, fully expecting her to be grateful for his understanding. But her response is “I’d rather be here.” Then, at the movies, Don expects Bobby’s exchange with a black usher to go poorly. But he ends up, well, being impressed by his son (and thus feeling love for him), when he remarks that “everyone goes to the movies when they feel sad.” ‘The Flood’ is ultimately about confronting what was previously unspoken. It’s about the floodgates opening, and everyone bracing themselves for what’s about to come. The season is progressing nicely, and it’s always hard to tell what the first few Episodes in a Mad Men season are leading to. But it’s looking like veneers are going to be shed. That will likely include the truth coming out about Don’s affair with the neighbor. We all know Don’s got plenty of conversations that need to be had. So does the SCDP office. So does 1960s America. Everything’s been unraveling for 5 1/2 seasons. Now it’s time to air it all out. EPISODE RATING: 4/5
