Even the historical events in Mad Men are part of its empty surrealism.
This season’s journey toward the final act of Mad Men’s American epic promises to be its most challenging and rewarding.
Understanding Screenwriting #96: Battleship, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Mad Men, & More
Welcome to another episode of “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
The tension between life and artifice, between being and playing, is blurred in Cindy Sherman’s work.
Don is a character that allows us to safely indulge, with little in the way of moral inconvenience, our vicarious inner amoral shark.
Unwieldiness seems to follow Madonna’s W.E. wherever it goes.
On September 18, Bryan Cranston will not win his fourth trophy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
Bonkers has always been a hat that Beyoncé has worn well.
As it turns out, this low-profile episode is an apt distillation of a largely low-profile season.
Carlos is the exception that proves the rule.
We come to you live this time not from the hollow hall of Grassroots Tavern but downtown Washington, DC.
Addiction has played an important role through most of this season, most explicitly through Don’s struggles with alcoholism.
“Hands and Knees” is very explicitly focused on the theme of secrets.
As in most heist movies, we are sympathetic to the robbers.
Some Mad Men episode titles are more difficult to decipher than others.
Its greatest challenge is usually avoiding becoming muddled and weighed down by its many interwoven thematic threads.
What would you do with head lice?
For the umpteenth time this season, Don has thrown himself into a drinking binge, precipitated by an urgent call from Anna’s family in California that he can’t bring himself to return.
Outside of the flashbacks, Mad Men gets a little meta on Emmy weekend by making Don’s winning an advertising award (a Clio) a major plot point.
As usual, it’s Pete who is most eager to prove that the need to consume crosses all social barriers.