The following were on my mind between Monday, October18th and Thursday, October 21st:
- My five favorite baseball stadiums to watch a game at night:
1. Fenway Park
2. AT&T Park
3. The New Yankee Stadium
4. Busch Stadium
5. Coors Field
- Best internet .gif ever? Best Internet .gif ever.
- James Harrison is a drama queen. Like he would really retire from the sport and football league that has made him famous, earned him accolades and earned him millions of dollars just because they fined him less than $100,000 for injuring a player and will continue to from now on. In the words of Seth Myers: "really?"
- What's with ESPN.com adding more videos on their front page? It's as if they decided that their website isn't already clogged up and longer to load, so they needed to add more stuff to it.
- Doctober? Lincecumtober? More like HalloLEEn, am I right? (http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2010/10/18/rangers-vs-yankees-cliff-lee-dominates-again-in-game-3-gives/)
- Shame on you, America for giving Jackass 3-D over $50 million in the box office! You're much better then this.
- So many thoughts about the season four finale of "Mad Men" this past Sunday that I couldn't possibly put it all together in one coherent review. So, instead, I'm going to do just what I did after the season three finale last year and just list them all. Here we go.
1. So the big storyline in the episode was Don proposing to his French-Canadian secretary Megan (or is it Meghan? Screw it, I'm just going to go with Megan!). To be honest, I wasn't all that surprised. Megan just seemed like the right kind of girl for Don. She's young, sweet, innocent, charming and uncomplicated. She was one of the few people in the office who actually appreciated Don's ad last week. But most importantly, she's the anti-Betty and anti-Faye when it comes to kids in that she actually acts caring and compassionate to them instead of a ruthless dictator or someone who doesn't know how to talk to them. You saw it earlier in the season when she hugged Sally in the "The Beautiful Girls" episode and on Sunday in the scene in her diner where Sally spilled the milkshake. Had it been Betty in that situation, she would have gone berserk at Sally for spilling it as she usually did. Instead, she calmly cleaned up the mess and said to Don to calm down and that "it was just a milkshake." Don's children is really important to him, and seeing someone act such nicely to them really made up his mind that Megan was his girl.
2. Poor, poor Faye. She was the perfect girlfriend to Don (thoughtful, understanding) and she ended up being dumped in favor of his secretary. I wonder if Dr. Faye will use the secret information that Don gave to her about his Dick Whitman/ Korean war past as a way to get revenge at him for the break up. After all, Faye isn't the type of gal who handles break-ups well (you might remember earlier in the season where she angrily told a person she was breaking up with over the phone to go eat a bag of feces). Besides, to we really expect someone like her to just keep Don's secret for the rest of her life? I don't buy that.
3. I was dead wrong about Joan having an abortion of Roger's child. I thought that when she said "we avoided a tragedy" to Roger the day after the appointment that she really went through it. Boy, was I done! Anyways, I think that this was the right decision for Joan. After all, this is probably her last chance to have a child with her getting older. Besides, with the possibility of Greg dying in Vietnam, who knows if she will get a chance to be pregnant in the future or have another companion in her home every day.
4. One of my favorite parts of the episode was the part where Megan acknowledges her bad teeth. It's as if Matt Weiner knew that this was going to be an issue for the fans and the people watching it once the episodes start airing, so he acknowledges the fact by poking fun at it.
5. Poor Peggy. She and Ken helped land SCDP's first new client since they got dropped by Lucky Strike and she got upstaged by Don's announcement that he was getting engaged. Will she ever get appreciated for her work in this agency?
6. I'm not Matthew Weiner's mind reader, but I'm pretty sure that the marriage of Betty and Henry Francis will be in great turmoil once season five kicks off.
7. I loved the four years in the making scene with Joan and Peggy smoking and talking to each other at the end of episode. Here are two very different women with two very different philosophies on the workplace, finally sitting down with each other to have a smoke together and have a conversation about how their recent accomplishments in the workplace (Peggy getting SCDP's first client in 10 weeks, Joan getting promoted) got upstaged by come marriage announcement. Hopefully the agency downsizing could finally turn these two into good friends in the future, which is something they have yet to be in this series.
8. I found it interesting that this was the first time that Matt Weiner didn't involve some big historical event into the final episodes of a season. In season one, they used the Nixon/JFK assassination. In season two, they used the Cuban Missile Crisis in the final episode. And, of course, they had the JFK assassination in season three's penultimate episode. Two things must have gone through his mind while making up this decision: either he just didn't find any big event from the fall of 1965 to use for the show, or he just realized that the show didn't need to use a historical event for the end of this season.
9. Look not further to an example of the complicated mind of Don Draper than when he he asks a stunned Megan after he proposes to her "did you ever think of the number of things that had happen to me to get to know you?" In the other words, he looked at all these deaths, firings and bad things that have happened in the past year and saw it as fate bringing these two together.
10. The season began with the question of "Who is Don Draper?" Well, thirteen episodes later and I don't think the question has been answered just yet. But, as Keith Phipps on AV Club mentioned, we at least got to know who Don Draper WANTS to be:
"He wants to be an ordinary guy. Or at least a highly successful variation of an ordinary guy. He doesn’t want to be someone haunted by a Eugene O’Neil childhood or by his decision to trade identities with a
fallen soldier in Korea. He wants to be someone who doesn’t drink to excess. Who doesn’t wake up next to diner waitresses. Someone who doesn’t lie to his kids and live in fear of discovery. I don’t know if he can get there. But I think, when controlled by his better angels, he spent this season trying. And he ends it thinking he’s getting where he wants to be."
11. Season four= best season in the show's history. From Don's downfall and slight comeback to the comedic styling of the now late Miss Blankenship to the maturations of Peggy Olsen, Pete Campbell (whom I sure will be the new C in SCDP now that Bert Cooper left) and, in a pleasant surprise, Sally Draper, the season had it all. Plus, it provided the viewers with one of the show's greatest episode, "The Suitcase," which was near perfect. It should be interesting to see how next season could possibly top this one.
12. Emmy predictions time! If I were to make some at this point, the first one I would go with would be Jon Hamm winning his first Outstanding Actor victory victory for his work in "The Suitcase" and because Bryan Cranston is not eligible this year. Speaking of that terrific episode, I do believe that the episode should also land Elisabeth Moss an award for Outstanding Actress and Matthew Weiner the award for "Outstanding Writing." I'm also predicting another Outstanding Supporting Actress nomination for Christina Hendricks as well as a first Outstanding Supporting Actor nomination for Vincent Kartheiser.Oh, and I do think they are also the front-runners once again for Outstanding Drama along with newcomer "Boardwalk Empire."
13. Only nine months left until season five! I'm already glowing with anticipation!
And there you have it. Now, if you want to read some smarter and much more professional opinions and thoughts on the episode and on season four itself, just click on these reviews from various writers and from the hundreds, if not thousands, of commenters who post comments on these reviews:
HitFix.com's Alan Sepinwall
Maureen Ryan
SF Gate's Tim Goodman
Gawker's Brian Moylan
AV Club's Keith Phillips
Ken Levine
Well, this was fun a fun post to write. See you tomorrow, everyone!
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you just have any suggestions or
tips for my next blog entry, e-mail me at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are
greatly appreciated.
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