The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through mid-August before pausing again, although patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public. There will be spoilers.
• indicates passages added or revised since 2017, if you want to skip directly to fresh material (in this case, just in the "Books" section as well as one "Offscreen" and one "Additional Observation", all near the end); this is a revision of an earlier piece written before the book Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier.
Annie returns to her troubled town, where her trauma began, in order to heal, but her romance with a wise, kind, gentle man puts her in greater danger than ever.
The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday although patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public. There will be spoilers.
• indicates passages added or revised since 2017, if you want to skip directly to fresh material; this is a revision of an earlier piece written before the third season.
•Mike is a follower - whether surly mimic of his best friend or grinning boy toy for a superwoman - but when he thinks he has the upper hand he can be quite assertive.
The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday although patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public. There will be spoilers.
• indicates passages added or revised since 2017, if you want to skip directly to fresh material; this is a revision of an earlier piece written before the third season.
Eileen is a bedrock of attentive comfort in Twin Peaks, until even she is revealed to be hiding something.
The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday although patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public. There will be spoilers. • indicates passages added or revised since 2017, if you want to skip directly to fresh material (in this case, just in the "Books" section near the end); this is a revision of an earlier piece written before the book Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier.
Vivian is crisp, calm, and articulate – she will destroy your confidence with artfully phrased passive aggression rather than overt hostility.
Several months ago, I shared my first "Twin Peaks Cinema" episode, exploring four films by directors of Twin Peaks episodes. The theme continues here with work by Tim Hunter (who directed three episodes), but this time - as I did for co-creator Mark Frost's Storyville - I set aside a full segment for one film; while the previous titles had intriguing whispers of Twin Peaks about them, River's Edge - starring Lynch actors like Dennis Hopper and Crispin Glover - is more deeply tied to the series that followed it four years later. The 1986 film even has the same exact hook as the TV pilot: a teenage girl's dead body appears on the shore of a small town, serving as a narrative gateway to meet eccentric characters, a totem around which the community confronts long-lingering traumas, and a haunting presence for her own friends consumed by an eerie mix of guilt and fascination - although in River's Edge the grief that saturates Lynch's work is far more muted. Indeed, the killer is revealed right away in this film (he's the one who freely shows everyone else the body), and the point is how little everyone seems to care rather than how much. If Twin Peaks roots itself in an out-of-time fifties sensibility, River's Edge is very much an eighties film, catching the already jaded Generation X on the cusp of their rise to cultural centrality.
Stay tuned and bookmark this post for more news and eventually, the next Journey Through Twin Peaks video chapter.
Consider this post both an announcement and a placeholder for the next, long-delayed "missing chapter" of my Twin Peaks video series - about the collaborators on the original series, it's provisionally titled "A Candle in Every Window" (playing on my memory of a quote from the Mark Frost introduction to the re-published Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, the I can't find the actual passage at present). I will update this post with my progress as I go (which I will also be keeping track of on Twitter) and I will cross-post the video here when I'm done.
Though I'm hesitant to proclaim deadlines given how often they get postponed, in this case I can make a commitment as well. All of my available "online project" free time will be devoted to this video from now on - I won't even tackle my monthly patron commitments until the video is uploaded on YouTube (another incentive to get it done by the last week of September if not sooner). [revision 9/18: unfortunately, I quickly discovered that I need to finish a Mark Frost book, thanks to a hard library due date, and complete one more public podcast which I overlooked, but after THAT, no distractions!] Updates begin, hopefully, as soon as tonight...
UPDATES ON THE PROGRESS OF CHAPTER 34:
* * *
September 18: re-wrote the narration after losing the file I recorded in July (this version is shorter, although still too long, and will require less cutting as I tighten the chapter during editing)
September 21: re-recorded the narration, catching up to where I was mid-summer
September 23: although not directly related to this video, I published a tie-in public podcast on films by Twin Peaks episode directors (listen to it here) - this was also the last obstacle in my path to focusing entirely on chapter 34 during my "online work" time
September 26: finally began editing the video - I will now use this post to track, day-by-day, how far this process has progressed so stay tuned and keep checking in
September 27: narration is cut down (some material may be saved for an eventual standalone video) and I've begun choosing clips for the introduction
September 28: continued choosing clips for the introduction - a montage of house/lights footage from different films by episode directors
September 29: finished intro montage and began designing "editors" mosaic sequence (displaying a clip from every original series episode on the same screen)
September 30: continued designing "editors" mosaic sequence (chose clips for each episode and began creating titles/freeze-frames etc
October 1: completed the "editors" mosaic sequence; here is a screenshot:
October 2: created opening of "directors" sequence with clips of directors' credits and juxtapositions with their Mad Men episodes
October 3: continued "directors" sequence with Mad Men episodes and some of their feature films
October 4: finished "directors" sequence including side-by-side montage of episodes and feature films (this was by far my longest day)
October 5: created quick "production designer/cinematographers/composer" sequence and began "writers" sequence - now all that remains is the Harley Peyton/Robert Engels part, which is about half the chapter but much less visually complex than other sequences, and I'll have all day today to work on it
October 6: created the majority of the Harley Peyton/Robert Engels writers sequence (although I spent too much time trying to figure out what clips had been used in past chapters through a more in-the-weeds approach than necessary) and I stopped working at the point where I would cross-reference other Engels work; also, worth noting there will be one coda after Engels is finished, addressing Frost in a way that transitions into the following chapter
As the steady march towards a complete focus on Journey Through Twin Peaks continues, I've been focusing on my Lost in Twin Peaks rewatch podcast, and am now almost done with all the episodes that will come out this winter before Journey. Unfortunately this means I had to postpone many of the features I planned to include in my main Patreon podcast, so expect a mega-episode in January covering multiple films by Twin Peaks episode directors, capsules on most of the movies I watched last year, podcast recommendations, listener feedback, and more. For now I pared "Twin Peaks Cinema" down to a single episode director: Tim Hunter, whose film River's Edge preceded his work on the series by three years, sharing striking similarities with the later show. Most obviously, it features a dead girl found near a body of water, whose murder destabilizes the community (or exposes already existing fissures), particularly effecting a group of teenagers in disparate ways. Elsewhere in this episode, I continue my studies of Peaks characters, locations, and storylines, while kicking off a new "Opening the Archive" reading series on baby boomers, the sixties, and (eventually) The Big Chill and Return of the Secaucus Seven, anticipating my video essay on the subject in a few months.
Here's my latest Lost in Twin Peaks entry (for $5/month patrons) on the first non-Lynch episode of season two...
Welcome to my viewing diary for Mad Men. Every Monday I will review an episode of season two, possibly followed by each episode of season three. Later seasons will be covered at another time. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.
Story (aired on August 24, 2008/written by Andre & Maria Jacquemetton; directed by Tim Hunter): "Three Sundays" not only unfolds over three Christian sabbaths (as well as a few days in between), on each Sunday - well, the first two Sundays anyway - it flips between three perspectives. On Passion Sunday (the kickoff to the final two weeks of Lent, stripped from the Catholic calendar seven years after this episode takes place), Peggy is in Brooklyn, Don is in Westchester, and Roger is in Manhattan. On Palm Sunday, all three are forced to come together to work on the American Airlines campaign, since the executives of that company have decided to come calling on Good Friday rather than later, as originally planned. And on Easter, we stick with just Peggy at the Brooklyn church whose pews provide the backdrop for each Wes Anderson-esque opening to the various Sundays. On the first Sunday, Peggy meets the church's new pastor, the young Father John Gill (Colin Hanks). He seems to take a fancy to her, leaving her family's luncheon (held in his honor) once she's left, and even soliciting advice for his Palm Sunday sermon after learning that she's an advertising copywriter (a scene in which he suggests a certain Pete Campbell-esque diffidence). He's disappointed by her absence for that sermon a week later, and Peggy's sister Anita picks up on these irritating signs. Before the next Mass, Anita goes to confession and conveniently - if also perhaps sincerely - tells the priest all about her sister's sins as well as her own. On Easter, a muted Father Gill watches a child toddle around and then hands Peggy a painted egg "for the little one." Her face sinks as she realizes what he must know.
Roger's arc is the most limited of the three characters, although it wouldn't be a Tim Hunter episode without him, would it? He goes out to dinner with his family and grimaces as his daughter puts off her wedding (and his wife reminds him of theirs), runs into a call girl at lunch with several of his employees and a client (whom she claims is her husband), is mildly disappointed when Pete has to break the news of her real identity to him, and finally procures her services which she unceasingly reminds him are indeed services, and well-compensated ones at that. Don, meanwhile, observes Passion Sunday without much passion - awakening from an erotic dream, he's interrupted by his children before he can make love to Betty and later in the day little Bobby gets into trouble for touching a record on the family stereo. On Palm Sunday, Bobby burns his tongue on the pancake griddle just as Don gets a call from the city and is forced to bring his daughter with him to the office where the whole Sterling Cooper crew gathers in their Sunday casual best (Pete's golfing gear is especially noteworthy). It's all for naught on Good Friday when Duck, Easter egg splattered all over his face a few days ahead of schedule, informs the gathered admen (and women - both Peggy and Joan are present) that his inside man at American was just fired, and the deal is almost certainly off even though the execs are still attending. That night, a pissed-off Don rejects Betty's admonitions to discipline his son, shoves her, and then admits that his own father beat him mercilessly. "All it did was make me fantasize about the day I could murder him."
Welcome to my viewing diary for Mad Men. Every Monday I will review an episode of season two, possibly followed by each episode of season three. Later seasons will be covered at another time. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.
Story (aired on July 27, 2008/written by Matthew Weiner; directed by Tim Hunter): Having left off on one holiday, we resume on another - but far longer than two and a half months have passed between that Thanksgiving and this Valentine's Day. The series has jumped a year forward and signs of change are everywhere: the clothes and decoration are subtly different, more in that early sixties brownish-checked look than the lingering lushness of the late fifties. It's a style that initially seemed fresh and modern but might later ring a little kitschy (if still charming, especially from a glamorized forty-years-later vantage point). Most of all, it's exciting to see one of the series' central conceits (the evolving nature of the sixties) kick in as it only could in a second season. The Kennedy influence is everywhere, not just on the TV sets - every character watches Jackie Kennedy's tour of the White House - but also in a particular zeitgeist. Betty certainly channels the First Lady's upper echelon grace and independence as she strides into her redecorated home from a riding session, still wearing her high boots and posh equestrian outfit; no more domestic duties for the demure housewife of season one, who has housekeeper Carla (Deborah Lacey) working in the kitchen.
Indeed the marital dynamic of the previous season feels subtly reversed. If the pretty but childlike Betty was in over her head alongside her smooth, assured husband, Don now appears slightly schlubby and tired compared to the confident, glamorous Betty. Her entrance into a swanky hotel lobby for a dinner date is shot like the introduction of a movie star in a Hollywood melodrama, in which the earthy antihero is smitten by a cool high society blonde; when their date night turns out to be a dud, Don's status falls even further. This steady approach toward middle aged impotence is reinforced by Duck's push for younger recruits and a doctor's stern lecture at an insurance-mandated physical...no wonder his approach to an airline campaign shifts mid-episode, from skirt-chasing wanderlust to patriarchal beneficence. Don may feel like the rumpled sturdiness of fatherhood is all he has left now - see also his speech to Peggy (who comes up with the line, "What did you bring me, Daddy?"). If Don's relevance and virility are in question, however, he still retains a certain worldliness that Betty lacks. He (and we) are reminded of her naivitee when she runs into an old friend and doesn't immediately recognize her as a call girl; when she later flirts with a mechanic helping her out of a jam, she seems both newly cognizant of her potential sexual power and slightly, nervously in over her head.
Peggy's newfound confidence, gained under very different circumstances, is also on shakier ground than it may initially appear. She's no longer a fish out of water in the all-male conference room although still very much the exception to their rule. She may have established a tentative toehold in the male world of Sterling Cooper, but she's more at odds than ever with the other women. After Peggy has a snippy exchange with Don's receptionist Lois, Peggy's old rival Joan sticks up for her while scolding Lois (or rather, uses "Miss Olson"'s authority as a cudgel against this weak target)...but by the end of the episode, Joan has stuck the newfangled fax machine inside Peggy's office, a power play against one of the few women to escape the secretarial pool ghetto.
These short Twin Peaks episode responses are spoiler-free for upcoming episodes, presented here for first-time viewers who want to read a veteran viewer's perspective on each entry while remaining in the dark about what's to come. They were first published as comments on a Reddit rewatch in 2016.
This episode is nothing if not diligent: I don't think there's a single plot point missed as it marches towards the climax. Although intended as a standalone when it was written, shot, and edited, it ended up being reconfigured as the first part of a 2-hour TV movie. That Monday movie of the week (which came in a distant third in the ratings, beaten by reruns of lighter fare on the other two networks) aired in June when the previous episode was a distant memory (having aired in mid-April), sweeps month was safely past, and the show itself had been officially cancelled several weeks earlier. As such the catching-up feel, the dutiful clearing of a path for the final hour, may serve a purpose but it's a bit uninspiring to revisit.
I was ready to give this one another chance and while I tolerated it more than usual on this viewing, it still strikes me as one of the weakest episode. It's not weak because it's irrelevant - far from it, as already noted (in that sense, this is the opposite of those controversial mid-season episodes). It's weak because there is so little energy. Tim Hunter, returning to direct for the first time since Leland's death, was eager to revisit the cast and crew he'd relished collaborating with twice before. To his surprise, he found a listless, dispirited ensemble, resigned to the series' cancellation and angry about how it had gotten there. (It's worth noting that given when Lynch shot the finale, Hunter must have been working during the earlier February/March hiatus, when it was possible ABC wouldn't even air this episode.)
Hunter has observed in particular that the cameraman was working at a snail's pace, forcing him to scrap many of his planned shots, and that MacLachlan was particularly bitter about where the show had gone. There are some wonderful bits, like Windom's white face and blue teeth (inspired by Mizoguchi films, though the look also ties in to early Lynch shorts like The Alphabet and The Grandmother and was later adopted/modified by Lynch himself for Twin Peaks). But the lack of enthusiasm can be felt onscreen most of the time, in a way that hasn't been true for a long time, maybe ever.
The biggest issue with the episode is the Miss Twin Peaks pageant. It's been a focal point for four episodes now, and has served its purpose well, drawing characters together and creating a sense of anticipation. Now that it has finally arrived it feels corny and forced, and there's a complete lack of suspense given how frequently Annie's kidnap (and thus victory) has been foreshadowed. I enjoy Lucy's dance quite a bit, but boy does Lana's shimmy do nothing for me. How exactly we wound up here from the naturalistic, moody pilot is the story of the show's unwinding, and for the most part it's a fascinating if troubling tale: but now this terminal point is interminable. There are many plot points that make no sense except in a must-get-from-A-to-B way, but I've described those elsewhere so I'll be brief. For the record, Coop and Truman can't prevent the crowning to stop Windom's plan, and Andy can't find Cooper in the Road House? Really??
Still, the episode does the trick and positions us for an explosive finale...albeit not the one the writers had planned. Really, the most enjoyable thing about the episode on first watch is the knowledge that we are approaching a big conclusion; on rewatch it's the anticipation of revisiting a conclusion that feels like night and day with this "part one".
This is the last piece of Twin Peaks in existence (including the new series, which has already been completely shot) that is not directed by Lynch, and it is almost certain to remain that way forever. As such, there's a poignancy upon reflection. Twin Peaks was many things, but for the bulk of its original run it attempted to hew to a conventional TV format even as it experimented and pushed boundaries. It told a story week to week, hitting necessary character and plot moments, making room for regular commercial breaks, responding to the pace of production and outside influences. A collaborative team scrambled to get it done on time. It belonged to the same cultural tradition as everything from The Honeymooners to Law & Order: a creative effort, but also an industrial product. This necessary duality was part of its charm and part of its limitation despite occasional moments of utter transcendence (like Cooper's dream or Maddy's murder).
Those days are now over. Like Pandora's mystery box opened up in Mulholland Dr, Twin Peaks is about to explode outside the boundaries imposed upon it.
*NOTE: It occurs to me that when Nadine snaps Mike's left hand, she's injuring him in the same way the OTHER Mike (the spirit Mike) was injured. If that seems a bit far-out, get ready; that's the sort of theorizing the remaining four and a half hours (including the Missing Pieces) will inspire.
Want more? Here's my other coverage of the episode:
More for first-time viewers (SPOILER-FREE)
(but be careful of video recommendations at the end of YouTube videos and image/link recommendations at the end of Tumblr posts)
+ My "Journey Through Twin Peaks" chapter on the mythology up to this episode, from 2014 (includes discussion of the original scripted climax for the next episode, which was thrown out):
These short Twin Peaks episode responses are spoiler-free for upcoming episodes, presented here for first-time viewers who want to read a veteran viewer's perspective on each entry while remaining in the dark about what's to come. They were first published as comments on a Reddit rewatch in 2016.
This is a misfire in many ways, though I can't help but like it in spite of myself. Not everyone agrees of course. I've seen it ranked among the top Twin Peaks episodes, even the very top one itself. You can see why: it hums with an energy and forward momentum like no other, nearly (or actually) tripping over itself in a race to the finish. There's something both admirable and clumsy in the episode's eagerness to address everything, to touch all the bases and give us a resolution to the mystery. So (aside from maybe the Catherine-Ben jail visit), there's hardly a boring moment. Director Tim Hunter's go-for-broke direction, with his canted angles, warm glow (is there a more California looking episode?), and lip-smacking performances (particularly Ray Wise, who almost deserves co-director credit for his contributions), brings a flavor all his own. If you've seen his 1986 film River's Edge you'll recognize the enthusiastic, cagily compassionate quirk on display here. It isn't exactly Twin Peaks-y, but it kind of works if you go with it.
But it's often hard, for me at least, to go with. As others have noted, the pace feels closer to Law & Order than Twin Peaks. Cooper's "let's all gather in the parlor and announce the killer" routine is surprisingly conventional, with the supernatural decoration more arbitrary than enlightening. The "clever" device of Leland being invited to the station as Ben's attorney makes less sense the more you think about it, Cooper's explanation of the dream clues is both a stretch (Leland's hair is white, not gray) AND disappointingly mundane, and when the big moment comes and Bob is unmasked the show barrels its way past all the uncomfortable implications to emphasize the demonic-possession angle almost exclusively. It's like we've been lost on a road trip, pleasantly lost but worried we might not reach our destination. A new driver takes over and barrels across lawns and around corners and against traffic, banging up the car but finally getting us to where we were going. We've made it, but at what cost?
The appropriately (if unofficially) named "Arbitrary Law" screeches many of the series' promising, teasing directions to a dead halt, while also kicking open a number of doors that we hadn't even known were there. In subtle ways, it enables later developments that initially seem contradictory. It's also a shocking far cry from the mood, texture, and flavor of the pilot. That's what strikes me the most on every rewatch. Yes, Ray Wise is amazing and Cooper's Tibet speech is poignant. Yes, there's an excitement to be had in breathlessly tying everything together. Yes, the giant's appearance in the Road House is iconic, and it's a pleasure to glimpse the Red Room once again in this climactic moment. But when the Log Lady says, in the intro recorded a few years later, "There is a depression after an answer is given," she isn't just speaking generally.
Think back to the quiet, desperate, bittersweet atmosphere of the pilot. The ambiguous certainty that there's some dark force out there (and in here), unnameable but palpable. Picture Leland, the grieving father sitting on his daughter's bed and clutching her pillow; or Sarah growing more nervous as she runs up the stairs and down the hallway, still dark and gloomy, hidden away from the morning light; or Donna gasping in fright and choking on her tears as a banshee-like wail rises from the enclosed courtyard several feet away. And then flash forward to this episode, to not just the comfortable familiarity of the characters and the places, but the blunt discussions of good and evil, demons and insanity, in a sun-dappled woodland. And linger for a moment over Bob's and then Leland's matter-of-fact otherworldly explanations and marvel how something so overtly magical could feel so meager compared to the uncanny unease of the pilot. It IS possible to fulfill the whispered, discomforting promise of that pilot - to explain the mystery without betraying it. Something, I won't yet say what, does just that. But this episode, for all its positive qualities, does not. To my eyes, it makes the mystery feel smaller, more disconnected from its recognizable if heightened beginnings, and leaves me feeling I've woken up from a dream. The dream suddenly seems lackluster and trivial in retrospect, though a part of me knows that it wasn't, that its significance remains buried in sleep, untouched, awaiting its true discovery when night comes again.
"But there is still the question, why? And this question will go on and on until the final answer comes. Then the knowing is so full there is no room for questions."
These short Twin Peaks episode responses are spoiler-free for upcoming episodes, presented here for first-time viewers who want to read a veteran viewer's perspective on each entry while remaining in the dark about what's to come. They were first published as comments on a Reddit rewatch in 2016. (This is referred to as "Episode 4" in some places, including the DVD/blu-ray, but is "S1E5" on Netflix.)
I've always really liked this episode - it's easily the most underrated of the season. I can kind of see why; there isn't a big sequence like the dream or funeral, and it has a quiet vibe to it. Yet in fact if you look closely, this is where things really start to buzz. The stories are getting more and more interesting as the momentum accelerates and different characters begin to cross paths for the first time (James & Maddy, Ben & Leo, Josie & Hank). We're getting the sense that maybe everyone in town is part of the same puzzle with Laura as the central piece.
I also like the new locations we visit in this episode, some of which (won't say which) we don't even see again. Yet they create the sense of Twin Peaks as a real community with many little corners to explore. And as the characters become more complex, we feel that we can endlessly explore them too. They aren't just the eccentric archetypes we might have initially suspected (in both sense of the word). The Audrey-Ben scene is particularly good for this. Their scene together a few episodes earlier did a good job establishing the template for their relationship but here they are both more multidimensional. And the placement of Laura's picture on the table (and her mystery as a motivation for Audrey - both openly and surreptitiously) reminds us that her mystery exists not only to lead us to her secrets but to help illustrate all the other townspeople as well.
I'm curious, for those watching for the first time, how do you feel the show has changed (or do you) in just five episodes? Did you foresee it heading in this direction - tonally, narratively, otherwise - since the pilot or are you surprised at where it is right now? Has your perception of any of the characters or situations changed? Who (and what storyline) are you most/least invested in right now? And if you had to guess, where do you think the story and characters might be in another five episodes?
Welcome to my viewing diary for Mad Men. Most days (except Saturday) I am offering a short review of another episode until concluding the first season. Later seasons will be covered at another time. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.
Story (aired on October 4, 2007/written by Tom Palmer & Matthew Weiner; directed by Tim Hunter): A few episodes ago, when Don opened his briefcase and presented his half-brother with a wad of cash instead of a deadly pistol, I wrote, "This may not be a physical assassination but it is an emotional one...or perhaps suicide is a better analogy." I was referring to Don's resolute erasure of his alternate identity, Dick Whitman - but as it turns out my analogy was more prescient than I realized. "Indian Summer" opens with Adam Whitman mailing a box to Mr. "Draper," leaving the money on a table that says "Enjoy," and hanging himself with his own belt from a pipe in the ceiling. Did Don's plan backfire? Or, on some terrible, subconscious level, did it actually succeed? We won't hear or see anything of Adam again until the end of the episode, when Pete fantasizes about taking over Don's office (after Don's own promotion) and, finding the package on the desk, takes it home. This is just another turn in the identity/mis-identity carousel of the main character's life.
Ironically or not, Don is thriving at Sterling Cooper. Just a few months after considering a move, his decision to stick with the safe place pays off when Roger is invited back for a meeting with the American Spirit executives. They are nervous about his health and the status of the company, but Bert's risky gambit backfires when Roger collapses again. He is carted out of the office a second time as his furious wife tells off the owner and client who put a price on her husband's life. Swallowing hard, Bert makes Don a partner and at least temporarily hands him Roger's office. With her boss in a new position, Peggy is on the rise (including a raise she pushes for, and gets)...but she's also rising of her own accord. Freddy tasks her with another product - a mysterious, electrified "weight loss" garter that turns out to be an elaborate vibrator. It takes a woman to suss this out, and figure out how to get across this appeal without, of course, being explicit. Meanwhile, in a complementary subplot, a frustrated, lonely Betty (Don's not only working overtime in Manhattan but head over heels for Rachel) is stirred by an air-conditioning salesman; she almost invites him upstairs, reconsiders, is reprimanded by Don, and finally fantasizes about him while leaning against a thrumming washing machine, turned on by a Relax-a-Cizor all her own.
Welcome to my viewing diary for Mad Men. Most days (except Saturday) I am offering a short review of another episode until concluding the first season. Later seasons will be covered at another time. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.
Story (aired on September 27, 2007/written by Bridget Bedard, Andre & Maria Jacquemetton, & Matthew Weiner; directed by Tim Hunter): Don is frustrated by losing a client, embarrassed by Roger's attempt to rope him into an orgy, and ultimately haunted by the boss' post-heart attack "what is it all about" anxiety. Betty is revolted by her father Gene's (Ryan Cutrona's) new girlfriend Gloria (Darcy Shean), with whom she's forced to share a small cabin over Labor Day weekend. Peggy is infuriated by Pete's smug fluctuation between "nice" and "cruel." Joan (fresh from a viewing of The Apartment) is fed up with Roger's needy manipulation. Joan's friend and roommate Carol McCardy (Kate Norby), reeling from a humiliating job loss, is burning with desire for the woman she's longed for since college ("pretend like I'm a boy," she pleads), an admission Joan refuses, point-blank, to digest. One of the two men Joan and Carol land that night (Scott Michael Morgan) is bummed to play wingman and make out with Carol (who's none too thrilled to be saddled with him), while the other man (John Walcutt) is flustered when his tryst with Joan is interrupted by a work emergency in the middle of the night.
The young - are they really twenty? - twins (Alexis and Megan Stier) whom Roger picks up from a casting call are vaguely uncomfortable with his creepy, leering come-ons (he even asks them to kiss) - reminiscent of another white-haired, well-groomed man getting too close to the teenage Donna in Twin Peaks (a moment also directed by Hunter). Roger lies in a hospital bed at the end of his dangerous night, weeping as he embraces his wife Mona (Talia Balsam) and daughter Margaret (Elizabeth Rice), moments after telling Don, "I've been living the last twenty years like I was on shore leave." Even Nixon looks miserable (as do the admen tasked with selling his dour mug to the public), complaining about high taxes and enduring the humiliation of Eisenhower's infamous "Maybe if you give me a week..." snub. Rachel's father Abraham (Allan Miller) is annoyed by Sterling Cooper's dismissive attitude toward his life work, although he agrees to go along with their re-design of Menken's, and Rachel herself is distraught when Don shows up at her door and presses himself upon her (although ultimately she tells him to continue when he hesitates).
Post-coitus, mid-cigarette, he tells her everything about Dick Whitman (except Dick Whitman's name): his mother was a prostitute who died in childbirth, his father was a drunk kicked to death by a horse when he was ten, and his "sorry" stepparents raised him from then on. There's something cathartic about the confession, but both characters seem depleted and depressed, despite the comfort they take in one another's arms. Nobody in this episode has much to be happy about - sometimes it's just like that.
Welcome to my viewing diary for Mad Men. Most days (except Saturday) I am offering a short review of another episode until concluding the first season. Later seasons will be covered at another time. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.
Story (aired on August 30, 2007/written by Bridget Bedard; directed by Tim Hunter): This episode is red all over: Roger's endless soliloquies on redheads, redhead Joan turning him away for a weekend plan, Betty (red-faced from shame) smacking redhead Helen (red-faced from the slap), and much talk of Red-baiting (this is a very Russia-focused episode, between talk of vodka, anti-communist smear campaigns, and martyr cosmonaut Laika). The Sterling-Cooper crew plans to work for notoriously anti-Red Nixon against the Catholic "boy" Kennedy (whose dismissal by the older generation unites the subtly peeved but otherwise mutually antagonistic Pete and Don). Finally Don's elaborate prank on Roger forces him to climb twenty-three flights of stairs, after a lunch loaded with alcohol and oysters, until the older man is red in the face from exhaustion, puking on the carpet in front of the shocked, uptight Nixon team. This is revenge for Roger making a pass at Betty after subtly finagling an invitation for a late-night dinner (never has the slick boss-man seemed so pathetic). Pete, meanwhile, makes a far less clever/successful attempt to compensate for his own emasculation. After a degrading encounter with an indifferent customer service employee, in which his attempts to return a domestic indulgence from his wedding are interrupted by an old pal's far more successful attempt at flirtation, Pete randomly buys a rifle and carries it around the office. This infuriates his wife, bemuses his peers, and spooks Peggy. If Roger flounders with his boorish, undisciplined behavior and Don stews silently under Roger's thumb before calculating a nasty comeuppance, a brooding Pete both rejects and implicitly accepts his own inability, fantasizing with the full knowledge that both it and he are completely ludicrious.
Welcome to my viewing diary for Mad Men. Most days (except Saturday) I am offering a short review of another episode until concluding the first season. Later seasons will be covered at another time. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.
Story (aired on August 9, 2007/written by Lisa Albert; directed by Tim Hunter): For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain an apartment and lose his own job? Not that Pete's soul doesn't feel a bit crushed by the situation too. His literal honeymoon ended before the last episode, but now it looks like his "honeymoon" period is fading too. As his wife Trudy (Alison Brie) pressures him into buying an expensive unit in a high-rise, embarrasses him by soliciting her parents' financial support when his parents won't deliver, and annoys him with her chatty, slightly claustrophobic devotion, Pete can barely disguise how perturbed he feels. Gone is the smug twerp from previous episodes, except for a fleeting moment or two of deserved, and sympathetically defiant, pride in an advertising pitch he came up with. Ironically, this is exactly the gesture that will nearly annihilate his position at Sterling Cooper. Both Don and Roger are insistent that sockless big boss Bert Cooper (Robert Morse) fire Pete but the deceptively casual half of the company name demurs. The Campbells, or rather the Dykemans (Pete's mother's family) are among the tiptop social elite of Manhattan, tracing their lineage back to hardy pioneers who farmed alongside the Roosevelts centuries ago. They could close too many doors, so Pete gets to stay (although Roger tries to save face by telling the trembling young man that it was Don who ultimately saved his job). On the home front, despite her hesitance (but fueled by her curiosity), Betty draws closer to Helen's dysfunctional world, meeting Mr. Bishop (Stephen Jordan) when he angrily knocks on his ex-wife's door and then asks Betty to use her phone (she declines). Later she babysits for the offbeat family while Helen volunteers at the Kennedy campaign's headquarters. She scolds the young Bishop boy, Glen (Marten Holden Weiner - the creator's son) when he walks in on her in the bathroom and stares instead of closing the door. When he cries and compliments her beauty, she allows him to cradle a lock of her hair. As she muses to her therapist Dr. Arnold Wayne (Andy Umberger), the child isn't getting what he needs from his family...something Betty herself knows about, of course.
Welcome to my viewing diary for Breaking Bad. Each day (except Saturday) I am offering a short review of another episode until concluding the first season. Later seasons will be covered at another time. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.
Story (aired on March 9, 2008/written by Peter Gould; directed by Tim Hunter): Although producing the two pounds he promised Tuco last episode (let alone the two additional pounds he promises this episode) is definitely a big challenge, the big turning point and climax in Walter's first season journey occurred last week. At least as far as meth is concerned, anyway; his battle with cancer was emphasized in the episode before that. This leaves us with a finale that consolidates the accomplishments of the season and offers a peek into season two. Walter...er, Heisenberg, finally dons the pork pie hat that completes his iconic look (if I remember correctly, though I recall seeing about as many images of him bareheaded), and - after orchestrating a quasi-comical robbery of much-needed supplies and cooking meth while Jesse absentmindedly permits an open house in his previously "for sale" home - the last scene solidifies his lucrative business deal with Tuco. Walter's cathartic release and easement of his anxiety finds release in, as Skyler herself puts it, an open "friskiness" with his wife. In case we miss the connection, the pre-credits teaser concludes with Skyler asking why their parking lot sex (following an uptight drug scare meeting at the school) feels so good and Walter responds, as much to himself as to her, "Because it's illegal." From the earliest episode, Breaking Bad has hinted at a psychosexual charge to the protagonist's titular turn to the dark side and "A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal" confirms that the milquetoast man's criminal path affirms his potency as much as pays the bills.
*A revised entry will be published separately in 2024 or 2025 for an updated character series (which will be collected here). This is the original entry written before The Return.
The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys eighty-two characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91) and the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) as well as The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. There will be spoilers for the original series and film.
ORIGINAL ANNOUNCEMENT: The character series is pausing for at least a month and will resume in the midst of Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), although its focus will remain the older material. [Update: This plan was revised; see above.] I will be reviewing the new episodes of the Showtime series every Sunday night/Monday morning starting May 21, 2017.
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What their sound and fury signify is difficult to apprehend from appearance alone, but something is happening, isn't it?
*A revised entry will be published separately in 2024 or 2025 for an updated character series (which will be collected here). This is the original entry written before The Return.
The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys eighty-two characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91) and the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) as well as The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every weekday morning until the premiere of Showtime's new season of Twin Peaks on May 21, 2017. There will be spoilers for the original series and film.
Major Briggs explores the depth of the woods and the distance of the stars, yet he keeps his feet on solid ground.
