Here's What I Love: Enlightened

I was talking about Enlightened (the Laura Dern/Mike White HBO dramedy now in its second season) with a friend the other day and she said, "Oh yeah, I have HBO Go now, I should watch that."  And I immediately shouted at her, "YOU SHOULD!  IT IS GREAT!"

I haven't really talked about it before (except in this post about the awards' tendency to undervalue comedy) and there's a reason for that:  literally no one I know watches it or talks about it or is even aware of its existence.  But I've been watching steadily and if you are into incredibly good actors being very raw and vulnerable and dealing with some very intense yet universal aspects of being human, then you will definitely enjoy Enlightened.  The first season MAY leave you feeling empty and hopeless and full of despair, but know that the second season moves in a more optimistic direction without sacrificing any of the tumultuous emotion or complex characterization of the first.

This is gonna be a short post because I don't want to ruin any of it for all of you who almost certainly haven't watched the show, but here are some basic highlights:

Boardwalk Empire: Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

After every episode of Boardwalk Empire this season, I've thought, "Should I write about it now?"  And the answer has always been no, because the show has been leading to something big, but until these last few episodes I had no idea what it was.  Maybe I should've waited a few more weeks until after the season finale, but the time finally felt right.  We found out where Nucky's path this season is taking him, and it looks pretty grim.  I've actually been working on this piece for a couple weeks now because most of my time has been consumed with applying to grad school, and then I had a personal tragedy that didn't inspire a desire to watch people get beat to death or shot to shit.  I'm still dealing with that loss, but this piece has been eating away at me and it's finally time to finish it.

I'm going to backtrack for just a second and explain my feelings about Boardwalk Empire previous to this season.  I've watched it since the beginning, and enjoyed the performances and the beautiful set design, costume design, direction, and cinematography enough to keep coming back to the show, but it wasn't until last season when I really began to FEEL for the characters.  Much of this has to do with my current favorite dramatic character, Richard Harrow AKA Sexy Richard Half-Face, but not all.  As the stakes became higher and important character information like Jimmy and Gillian's fucked-up history was revealed, the show became imminently more fascinating.  The season two finale proved that Terence Winter and the rest of the writers aren't afraid to make big sacrifices for the sake of valuable plot and character arcs.  Ok, I was trying to avoid it, but we're gonna get all sorts of spoilery up in here now.  Join me after the jump!

New Drama Showdown: "Last Resort" vs "Revolution"

As we all know, the networks have been searching for the next Lost for some time.  There was The Event, Persons Unknown, V, Alcatraz, and a whole bunch of other short-lived shows I can't even remember that failed to hook and capture the public in the immediate, visceral way that Lost did.  I was reading an interview with Zeljko Ivanek where he was talking about being bummed he didn't get to work with Blair Underwood more on The Event, and while I love Zeljko and I love Blair Underwood, the sad truth is that The Event was terrible.  Just really, really bad.

My love of Lost got me into a quandary with some of my best friends when the sixth season aired.  I had been pretty obsessed with Lost since about mid-way through the second season, when I watched the first season DVDs and then went off to a new college and realized I could buy episodes on iTunes.  That shit hooked me pretty hard.  After I graduated and moved back home, I made a bunch of people start watching. I swore to them that the writers knew what they were doing and all the loose ends would be neatly tied up if they would just be patient.  Now, I still maintain that Lost was, for the most part, a great show, and after careful consideration, I even became a fan of the finale.  But fuck, the writers really dropped the ball during season six.  The episodes aren't all terrible and we do get some satisfying answers, but they spent WAY too much time introducing unnecessary new characters, faffing around with Charles Widmore, and getting to the heart of the Jacob/Smoke Monster thing and not enough time wrapping things up satisfactorily with the original cast and some of the mysteries they'd been developing for years.  Don't even get me started on the alternate reality/limbo thing - while I do like the finale, the build-up to it was frustratingly dumb.  Anyway, this is all to say that Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof robbed me of some of my well-earned reviewer credentials and to this day, my friends still give me shit when I recommend a mysterious drama.

Well, I'm hoping that I can redeem myself now.  There are two new dramas this year that have already found some success with the Lost style of a large, diverse ensemble cast and gradually-revealed mysteries, and it turns out that they're both pretty good.  One is already pulling ahead of the other in my book, though.

The Newsroom Is Bad

Ok, to start out with, I know I've been AWOL for a while.  Well, only a couple weeks, but it feels like a long time.  And the truth of the matter is I just haven't been watching TV lately.  *GASP*  Oh, I watched Mad Men, and I caught up on Veep over the weekend, but mostly my pop culture time (which hasn't been much, since I've started a new, full-time job) has been consumed with reading the Game Of Thrones books. They are just SO GOOD!  I could read them forever!  And I pretty much have been, to the exclusion of almost everything else.  I'm gearing up to start doing Dawson's Creek recaps pretty soon, but I've got to finish Storm Of Swords first.  SORRY!  But some things take precedence in life, and amazing books are one of them.

It's no surprise, then, that I slept a little on the premiere of Aaron Sorkin's new drama, The Newsroom.  And  then when I saw pictures of Kristin Davis macking on Sorkin, I remembered OH!  This show!  I am excited about it!  So I took a break from Arya and Jon Snow to check it out.

And....oh.  This face. :/

By now you've probably seen the opening speech that Jeff Daniels makes, where he talks about how America ISN'T the best country in the world:



It's wonderful and honest and informed and really great and exactly what I hoped this show would be.  But then...he says this (italics mine):

"But [America] sure used to be [the best] (ed: REALLY?  IT DID? SINCE WHEN???).  We used to stand up for what's right (again: REALLY? SINCE WHEN???).  We fought for moral reasons (like all those Native Americans we killed for 'moral reasons'?), we passed laws for moral reasons (like all those laws to keep black and white people from getting married?), we waged wars on poverty, not poor people (REALLY? Like all that help we've given poor people during the decades-long War On Drugs?).  We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were and we never beat our chests (AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA).  We built great big things (Congratulations, America, on building big things.), we made amazing technological advances, explored the universe, cured disease, we cultivated the world's greatest artists (okaaaaay) AND the world's greatest economy (ummmmmm).  We reached for the STARS (vom).  We acted like men (VOM).  We aspired to intelligence, we didn't belittle it, it didn't make us feel inferior (If that is what you'd like to believe, Sorkin).  We didn't identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election and we didn't...we didn't scare so easy.  We were able to do all these things and be all these things because we were informed.  By great men, men who were revered (Yup, W.R. Hearst was super great and kept us EXTRA informed).  First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one.  America isn't the greatest country in the world anymore."

So, as you can probably tell, I've got some problems with this speech.  America isn't the greatest country in the world ANYMORE?  So when was it?  When we had slaves?  When we shoved our immigrants into tenements to die of tuberculosis and starvation and factory fires?  Was it during the Trail Of Tears?  When we outlawed alcohol?  When we lynched black people?  When we put Japanese-Americans into internment camps?  Was it when we put "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance or when we continually denied equal rights to women, and gays, and racial and ethnic and religious minorities?  When we entered in to multiple wars and armed confrontations against small countries because we disagreed with their ultimately ineffective and self-defeating ideologies? When we watched our citizens ravaged by AIDS and did so little to help?  When we freely armed horrible, genocidal people around the world?  When we allowed the Supreme Court to elect a president?  When we put our money where our mouth was and never beat our chests on Imaginary Island in Never Never Land?  Tell me, Aaron Sorkin, precisely WHEN America was the greatest country in the world.  Because by my count, that was NEVER.

At Last! The Triumphant Return Of Mad Men

Mad Men! So incredibly great to have Mad Men back.  And such a fun episode!  I can't wait to see where the season goes from here.  We'll leave the heavy-handed textual analysis for others; here are my notes and quotes.

Dramedy Awards?

I know, it's been FOREVER. And it's not even that I've been doing anything (though I kind of have), but there just hasn't been too much to write about. And now! There's SO MUCH! So let's get to it.

Reading over the Golden Globe winners from last night, I've finally realized why I get crazy annoyed when actors from drama-driven, possibly-slightly-humorous shows win comedy awards. It's not just that these shows shouldn't be considered "comedies" since their main goal isn't humor - I fully think shows like Nurse Jackie, The Big C, Breaking Bad, and Enlightened should be considered dramas, regardless of their running time. And then, sure, if those actors stand up to the actors in the drama category (and they will, since they are all highly regarded actors and those shows are all great), then give them all of those awards. But to give an award for comedic acting to, say, Laura Dern for her role as Amy Jellicoe in Enlightened where she is many, many things - cruel, crazy, introspective, pained, blithe, and lazy being just a few - but is not and is not meant to be particularly funny...that straight-up devalues the art of comedy.

Parenthood & Reality

No Glee recap this week - it was a pretty terrible episode, but not in the funny-terrible way, in the this-is-boring-and-makes-no-sense-like-Season-2 kind of way. Even though Puck is the most adorable and I could listen to him sing Melissa Etheridge and tell Quinn off any day, the rest of the episode was a return to the Season 2 strategy of shoehorning characters' actions in to fit the plot and I won't even talk about the Santana thing because it just didn't make enough sense to really care about.

Anyway, I was just watching last night's Parenthood and thinking again about how much I like that show! It really is just super-excellent. Well-acted, well-written, emotional without being hokey...it's just great. And in last night's episode in particular I was struck by how realistic the characters are. There is absolutely NONE of that Glee bullshit (and bullshit used by countless other shows) where complex characterizations are thrown out the window in favor of some exciting plot. These are people with REAL reactions to REAL situations, and even though they're not always what we, as an audience, might hope for from the characters that we love, because we love them we are able to understand why they have those reactions. Take Crosby and Jasmine. Oh man I would love for Crosby and Jasmine to get together and be together forever and make more beautiful babies, but I also absolutely understand why that might not be the right thing for them right now. On a lesser show, their dalliance would have had huge dramatic repercussions, but on Parenthood, it is simply an opportunity to demonstrate the ways in which Crosby continues to mature.

I have two big issues with many television characters: (1) that they don't communicate in a normal, helpful way; and (2) that they often seem to have no capacity for forgiveness. TV can often be a world of black and white, where a thing is just WRONG and totally unforgivable. But that's not how the world works! People change, people have great capacity for contrition AND for forgiveness, and I really love that Parenthood shows this. It doesn't demonize characters simply because they make a wrong decision; in fact, almost all of the many characters on the show have made awful mistakes in the past. But the Bravermans, like a real family, are able to communicate and apologize and forgive and try to move forward from a better place. Watching Parenthood is like watching a reality show where the stars don't know they're being filmed - making it greatly superior, at least where authenticity is concerned, than those often boring, fake, narcissistic day-in-a-life reality shows.

If you're looking for a show that has drama but also humor and nuanced, relatable characters, than I can't recommend Parenthood highly enough. Plus, the cast really is phenomenal. How adorable was that scene with Mark and Sarah? SO ADORABLE. I hope that Parenthood has found a strong enough audience to be renewed for another year, because I can't think of another network drama that is as good as this one. Good watching for the holiday season if you need to be reminded that other families are just as crazy as your own. Go forth and watch!

Wherein The Wire Crushes All Hope

Oh, jesus. This blog. I love it so much, but sometimes it's hard to decide what to put here. Television hasn't been that great in the past week - I mean, sure, Bored To Death has been fantastic, you should all watch Bored To Death. Boardwalk Empire is having a much better season, due entirely to the awesomeness of Sexy Richard Half-Face. I watched the first episode of Downton Abbey Season 2, which was beautiful and amazing and everything I wanted it to be and I will post on it very soon but I don't want to ruin it for those people who don't watch all their tv on the internet and actually wait for things to air on a regular television set. All I'll say is that the Dowager Countess does NOT disappoint. I was going to write about Up All Night and how it is definitely the best new comedy of the season but then time got away from me and all of a sudden it is Wednesday and I decided I can write about that tonight or tomorrow but just saw there's no new episode this week. Speaking of lack of newness, I finally decided I was gonna do Glee recaps and then stupid baseball happened and is still happening and hopefully there will be a new episode to make fun of very very soon. And then I WAS going to write about How I Met Your Mother but this week's episode was decidedly lack-luster and oh man do I hate Nora but I hate even more the implication that Robin and Ted might get back together because ugh, let's leave that dead horse to be dead on the ground without beating it any more, shall we? So - now you can imagine all the alternate timelines wherein I actually wrote about those things, and we'll move on from there in this, the best and most real timeline (the evil version of me definitely lives in the HIMYM one).

I'm almost certain that part of what has been causing my blogger's ennui is that I've been watching a lot of The Wire. It took me a really long time to actually want to watch the show, because I have issues with anxiety and depression and mostly The Wire looked like an incredibly dark and depressing show about drugs and corruption. And guess what? Turns out The Wire is an incredibly dark and depressing show about drugs and corruption. That's not to say it's not good. Obviously it's good. But I don't think it's so much for people like me who lovelovelove comedy and think that every great drama should include a little levity (remember when Ms. Blankenship died and they had to wheel her out of the office without the clients seeing and Harry is all "My mother made that afghan!"? That's what I'm talking about.), and those who are also just naturally anxious people. WARNING: do not read any further if you have not seen The Wire and think that you might someday want to, because I'm about to get all kinds of spoiler-y up in here.

"It's an awful waste of a lot of good tablecloths"

Man, so that was actually an awesome episode of Boardwalk Empire. I mean, this is what they did last year - started out strong and then quickly got slow and boring and kind of lame. But the premiere episode opened up a lot of promising new storylines, and I'm actually excited to see where they take us, which is a nice surprise.

Let's tackle them one by one, shall we?

Well, Omar AKA Chalky got hit by the KKK (I know a call a lot of things The Worst on here, but let's face it, the KKK is actually THE WORST hands down), which appears to be orchestrated by Jimmy's dad (The Commodore? The Commander? Something like that.) This is the one piece that doesn't sit well with me because Chalky is my all-time fave on this show and this development seems to hint towards less Chalky and less of the black perspective in general, which is not good. More Chalky! Let my Chalky go! Anyway, this is part of Jimmy's dad's plan with Eli and Jimmy to edge out Nucky and take back Atlantic City. Good luck old man. There was a real creepy scene in his game room where he talks about how the bear thought he didn't have to be afraid of him and then he shot him in the stomach. Not a big stretch to realize that Nucky is the bear.

Jimmy married his baby mama and they are living in a creepy Oedipal house with Jimmy's mom, who admitted that she used to kiss his "winky" when she changed his diaper. (A) Gross, and (B) GROOOSSSSSSSSSSS. Jimmy's wife (Amelia or something? I can never remember these people's names) is understandably skeeved. I am rooting for Sexy Half-Face and her to get together; that scene of him gluing the pictures of families, lovers, and children into the bible was my favorite scene of the whole episode - so poignantly tragic and beautiful. That actor, whoever he is, is incredible. More Sexy Half-Face! Meanwhile, Jimmy continues to reject Nucky for reasons that aren't entirely clear, possibly because I kind of stopped paying attention to this show halfway through last season. Did Nucky try to kill him? Or is it just because he wouldn't give him enough responsibility? I've not no idea, but it doesn't really matter. Nucky is hurt because he pretty much raised Jimmy and cares for him, but Jimmy is selfish and also clearly has HUGE parental issues being that his mom is a creepy whore who is only 13 years older than him and his dad is The Worst. So Jimmy puts Nucky's gift of the statue of the man and the boy bonding over a dead deer in the closet and symbolically turns out the light.

"Sometimes goodness attracts its own temptations"

At first I thought Luther was a show about Martin Luther, in the vein of The Tudors or The Borgias (Man, I watched an episode and a half of The Borgias, that shit was AWFUL. No offense, Jeremy Irons, but you are terrible in pretty much everything except The Lion King. Actually, offense.). So how pleasantly surprised was I to learn that it is nothing of the sort, but instead an incredibly intense but awesome crime procedural starring Idris Elba as a mentally unstable DCI named John Luther? Quite pleasantly, I can assure you. Now Luther quite clearly owes a lot to Vincent D'Onofrio's Detective Bobby Goran on Law & Order: Criminal Intent (which sadly just ended its 10-season-long run with quiet, understated elegance and some great guest stars); they both have mental health and anger issues and they both have a strange, quasi-sexual relationship with female sociopaths. But since Luther is Luther and Bobby's story was part of a Law & Order franchise, much more weight is given to John Luther's personal life and motivations.

The series opens with Luther allowing a serial killer and pedophile to fall to his death. However, he doesn't die, and his coma hangs like a threat over the show. Seven months pass and soon we learn that Luther's part in the fall has been seriously questioned but found to be ok or by the book or whatever, and that he is estranged from his wife, whom he loves passionately. And that's all I'm going to give away. This is a show that builds, sometimes delicately and sometimes quickly and furiously, but there is always an emotional payoff, even if it isn't quite where you think it'll be.

The crimes they work on are usually incredibly violent and gory. The first episode has about five scenes where we are shown a dog with its face shot off, which is five scenes over my threshold for seeing murdered dogs; but the violence isn't gratuitous, it is used carefully to provoke your emotions or to further the story. Yes, sometimes I have to hide my face in my hands, but the rest of the show makes it totally worth it. The crimes take unexpected turns, and often say more about the detectives solving them than about the criminals themselves. And we are constantly reminded of Luther's own murderous impulse and left to guess as to what his exact capacity for violence is. However, even when beating a door to splinters in his ex-wife's home, Luther remains a sympathetic character.

RuPaul's Drag Race...Chanté You Stay (In My Heart, Forever)

On my way home today, while walking to get a burrito for dinner, I couldn't get the RuPaul's Drag Race theme song out of my head. The episode was calling to me, but more than that, I was calling out for the episode. RuPaul's Drag Race is the only thing that takes my Tuesdays from ok to !Echa pa lante!, and I often feel physically better inside after watching it. It makes me laugh, and puts a smile on my face, and mostly improves my outlook on the world in general. We'll get to this week's awesomefest, "Jocks In Frocks", in a minute, but I want to expand on RPDR first.

Let's go way back for a minute. I was a young child, 7 or 8, and I had taken to watching some show with the most incredible, inspiring performer. But I was so confused and confounded by it! Finally, I asked my mom: how does that black lady have such amazing, blonde hair? After explaining that it was a wig, she began to teach me about drag queens. When she told me that RuPaul was a man, I didn't connect it with being gay or weird or whatever, I was just jaw-droppingly astonished in that wondrous way only a child could be. I continued to watch RuPaul's show, searching for any hint that she wasn't a biological woman and finding none. I wanted to be RuPaul SO HARD and to magically transform myself into a tall, leggy, black woman with a huge head of curly blonde hair. It is fair to say that I wanted to be RuPaul when I grew up, and that many of my life choices my have been affected by that desire, something that I am just realizing RIGHT NOW. Writing = therapy.

I also watched To Wong Foo about a thousand times in, like, 5th grade, and I was OBSESSED with Noxema's fringe dress, so...yeah. Me and drag queens. We go way back.

I wish I had scanned a copy of the photo I took when I was 15 and visited Madame Tussaud's in New York. The first room is the "celebrity room" and it's supposed to be like, some weird Hollywood party where Patrick Stewart and Martin Short and Goldie Hawn are all talking in a group by a column. But OBVIOUSLY the best part is the first thing you see when you walk in the room which is RuPaul in a sparkly lavender bikini, dripping with rhinestones, wearing a Vegas-dancer feather headdress. Oh, and standing ON TOP OF A HUGE FUCKING FOUNTAIN. Clearly she has continued to make an impression.

Anyway, what all of this backstory tells you is that when you let drag queens into your heart, they become like real-life fairies. They have the magical power to lift your spirits and soothe your soul and turn a bad day into a fierce one. They can teach you about pride and loving yourself and loving others and the power of self-expression. Not to mention what they can teach you about dancing, makeup, lip synching, walking in heels, working it, reading a bitch, and the perfect combination of Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent. RuPaul's Drag Race is, at heart, a joyful show, unlike so much of the reality tv garbage that is just terrible people pulling out each other's weaves and whatnot.

Detroit 1-8-7: More Than Just Crime And Procedure

Usually I don't talk about crime procedurals on here. There's a simple reason for that: they're all basically the same, following very similar formats with very similar characters. The exception is a show like Psych, which isn't really like any other show out there and deals much more with comedy than the drama of the murders they investigate. The other, more personal reason, is that I am a weirdo. Back in, like, 2005, before I got a handle on my anxiety and insomnia, I would fall asleep on the couch watching reruns of Law & Order on USA. A lot. This lead to Law & Order, and SVU and Criminal Intent in particular, becoming a sort of soporific comfort to me. I know all of the character's voices by heart and it gives my brain something predictable to focus on that isn't my own anxious thoughts. Since then (yeah, six years now) my preferred way of falling asleep is with some sort of crime procedural in the background. Some are better than others (Numb3rs, House [totally a crime procedural but with diseases], Without A Trace, any version of L&O) and the CSIs are pretty useless because of their screaming theme songs and the fact that there will be long, stupid interludes when no one says anything because they're using a mass spectrometer or whatever. This doesn't mean I love all CPs - I hate Bones, tried and failed to get into Hawaii 5-0, and can only stand OG CSI (unless I'm drunk, in which case bring on the Horatio Cane!). But it does mean that I'm more willing to give them a chance to be included in my detective-themed lullaby roster than your average television connoisseur.

Last week a friend requested that I write about Damages and Detroit 1-8-7 on here. Now, I love Damages but going back and watching all of those really intense episodes sounds, well, intense. Sounds like a good project for the summer hiatus months. But I figured, hey, here's a crime procedural I haven't seen - at the very least it might be nice to have something new to fall asleep too. I remember hearing about it back at the beginning of premiere season - it didn't get very good reviews, everyone seemed to think it was pretty boilerplate and then dismissed it. But as it turns out, Detroit 1-8-7 is not only a great CP, it's also a show that's good enough to warrant a post from me.

Wherein We Find Ourselves In Treatment

I was going to use this opportunity to write a Motherboy post (don't worry Alia, it's coming!) but I figured it'd be better if I wrote it at actual Motherboy time. So this post is going to be all about my TV therapist.

My mom, who is herself a therapist (and not a psychologist or an analyst, which I think has been greatly beneficial to my personal well-being), turned me on to In Treatment. I mean, I had obviously heard about it, but the whole concept sounded a little intense and not really something I could get into. But then, with the Netflix DVD laying around on Thanksgiving break, I watched the first few episodes and immediately moved on to the rest.

In Treatment is a fascinating character study. It's a telling testament to the immense skills of Gabriel Byrne that he is able to carry every single episode of this show on his back. Even when his patients lose my interest, I'm still invested in how Paul will be affected by them.

Let's back up a little. For those of you who don't know, In Treatment is about a psychologist, Paul Weston, who, when the series begins, is treating patients out of his home office in Baltimore, MD. Part of the fun of this show is getting a glimpse of something that is normally considered forbidden, even illegal to disclose: private therapy sessions. The first client we see is a trainwreck of a woman named Laura, who is clearly suffering from a terrible case of transference that Paul doesn't seem to know how to handle. From there we see that each of his following patients are reflective of a part of Paul's own life as he struggles to keep his family together and maintain some sanity for himself.

The last episode of each week is devoted to Paul's own therapy sessions, beginning with Gina (Dianne Weist) and, in the recently completed third season, moving on to Adele (played by the incomparable Amy Ryan). In these sessions we get to see Paul removed from the position of evaluative power that he usually assumes and put into a place of vulnerability. He clearly isn't very comfortable with such a position, and his relationships with Gina (who used to be his supervisor, which those familiar with the study of psychology will know is quite unusual and probably problematic) and Adele showcase that discomfort. The Paul who appears in his own therapy sessions is quite different from the capable Dr. Weston we usually see, easily helping his own patients.

And he is, in all honestly, quite a capable psychotherapist. He truly does connect with and help most of his patients, when he's not crossing boundaries or trying to solve his own problems through the treatment of others. As anyone who went to college or has spent any time studying psychology knows, psychologists are often just as crazy as any of their patients, and Paul is no different. But some of the most moving contrasts in the show are between the way he relates to his patients versus the way he relates to his friends and family. Especially since he does such a great job with all of his child/teenage patients (in fact, in each respective season, Sophie/Oliver/Jesse have all been my favorites) it is very tough to watch him try to carry on those skills and relate to his own children, because he simply doesn't know how to be a good dad without also being his childrens' therapist. Again, boundary issues arise.

"I'm fine! Just staying at home...chillaxing."

Now for the dramatic equivalent of a rundown.

Fringe

If you're not watching Fringe, and you like SciFi...why are you not watching Fringe? It's really developed into a great, compelling show after the first part of the first season started off a little weak and slow. Now in its third season, Fringe has found an audience and a pacing and a story that works quite well, in addition to some truly unexpected twists and turns. I'm not going to say anything else here in fear of ruining it for you, but suffice to say it's awesome, entertaining, and sexy. You should really be watching it.

Bonus: Hot Joshua Jackson is Hot.

Shades Of Grey And Mad Men's Moral Ambiguities

After spending the last week or so re-watching the first three seasons of Mad Men, something about the characterizations really struck me. Unlike 95% of all other television, the characters on Mad Men live in a world where doing a bad thing doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad person...meaning they live in the same world as the rest of us.

Let's talk for a little about Pete Campbell, Greg Harris, and then we'll get on to Don and Betty Draper.

Pete was introduced as a man you love to hate. He's short-sighted, narcissistic, greedy, full of hubris, and most of all, entitled. He does some things that we (the audience) think of as cruel, but shows strength of character through his relations with Trudy, his progressive and positive views on race and integration, and his eventual ability to have a respectful, appreciative, and collaborative relationship with Peggy Olsen. In the 3rd season episode, Souvenir, we see Pete missing his wife, and coming upon an opportunity to do a nice favor for a poor German au pair. He's quite the gentlemen, right up until he shows up drunk and pretty much saying that she owes him some use of her body in return for his magnanimous favor. She does kiss him back, but later we learn that she's been crying all day because he forced himself on her.

In this day and age, as a twentysomething feminist, I'm conditioned to believe that rape is never ok. But we live in a world that purports to educate its young men on these things (although whether or not it actually does is unclear) - and Mad Men takes place in a world where men were expected and encouraged to go after what they wanted. Of course, what Pete does to the au pair is not ok. We, the 21st century audience, know that. But I have to admit that I didn't hate him after this episode. Pete finds redemption when his wife returns and you can see how pained he is that he got drunk and weak and fucked somebody else. He doesn't even need to say anything and she knows - that's how in sync they are. The next day, his apology is both typically-60s-male yet also very sweet: he tells her, "I don't want you to go away without me. Ever." while he is somewhat placing the blame for his indiscretion on her absence, he's also acknowledging his own weakness and promising to never put himself in a position where he can hurt her again. I know I said earlier that I keep hoping for Pete and Peggy to have a torrid affair, but it is more clear to me than ever how perfect Pete and Trudy are together. More than perhaps any other couple on the show, they are honest with each other and accept each other for themselves - because a good marriage has got give some room for people to make mistakes.

Moving on to Greg Harris, the more famous Mad Men rapist. Because he raped Joan, people, and that isn't as easily forgivable.

That scene in Don's office is so painful, because it demonstrates something that I'm sure happened a lot back then - men taking what they wanted, because they wanted it. Men slut-shaming their wives/girlfriends and using their sexuality as justification to be sexually aggressive. I think Dr. Harris is incidental to this scene - he represents a larger problem, not only in society but also in the relationship with Joan. He wants to to be able to give her what she wants on his own terms, but is ultimately unable to. In later scenes, we see that he truly does love and value her, but that their relationship is always doomed because neither is able to live up to the others' high expectations.

He probably is going to go die in Vietnam, but I no longer think he's a terrible person (and I hope he gives Joanie a baby first!).  He tried to be a good husband, and failed, but if Joan can forgive him, then so can I. Now, if that had happened in 2010, I'm sure she would have kicked him to the curb after kneeing him in the balls and fleeing and perhaps calling the cops and then putting "Greg Harris is a skeezy turd" on Facebook - but we can't apply modern social mores to these situations, it simply doesn't make sense. We have to be more forgiving, and look at the characters as nuanced and complex and fallible human beings, not representations of good or evil.

As I went from episode to episode, I wondered: what makes me able to understand and forgive Don's lying, philandering and occasional cruelty? And the answer is that he is a good man (no matter what Allison says). I can see that in his passions and his instincts and in the way he opened himself to everyone in the Season 3 finale. He is a good father (well, as good as he can be, given the circumstances). He lies about his past because he's afraid of losing the life he's built...and how do you explain something like that to a spoiled Mainline brat? He cheated on Betty because, well, he's fucked up and she's terrible...and he probably shouldn't have married Betty in the first place. In trying to create this life for himself, it seems he bought in to what society (and advertising) was telling him he needed: a perfect blonde housewife, two kids, house in the suburbs, etc. I doubt that Don Draper has ever asked himself what he really, truly wants because half of his problems come from trying to fit himself into a life that doesn't fit him.

He really is a good father. I cried last night watching the scene where they tell Bobby and Sally about the divorce - Sally asks her mother, "Did you make him leave?" and I want to scream YES OF COURSE THIS IS ALL HER FAULT. Because it is so heartbreaking to see Don, in the days after The Shoebox Conversation, look at Betty like she really knows him and loves him - and all the while she's plotting her escape route. You can see that he's relieved that he doesn't have to hide himself any more - and he's shocked when she rejects him. Don's ultimate motivation is to be loved for who he really is, whatever his name or his past. Betty holds that hope up to the sun and then crushes it underfoot.

This is because Betty is a horrible succubus. Every time I think i'm starting to feel sorry for her - as she goes through the birthing scene in The Fog, for example - she turns around and does something awful - naming her child after her father who died like, three weeks ago and whom her husband hated, for example. Betty, as has been noted many times before, is a child. Everything about her is childish and ultimately selfish. She is, like her "friend" Sara Beth says, "a horrible woman". And she is just a terrible fucking mother. Like, the worst mother ever. That, ultimately, is why Don ends up on higher moral ground then she does - her reaction to Sally regarding Gene Sr.'s death makes me want to slap her face. And yes, I know that things were tough for women and housewives in the 60's - but even my grandma, who could be a bitter and often difficult mother, did better than Betty. Though she occasionally does something right, it's never enough to push her character into gray ambiguity. Sorry, Betty Draper Francis, but if we're looking at black and white and gray...you are definitely in the black.

See? There are reasons to tune in besides all the pretty clothes and places and people. Mad Men (through the writing, acting, and directing) gives the audience complex and intimate moments with its characters and trusts us to makes the connections ourselves. I feel like television often assumes its viewer is stupid and needs gentle hand-holding through the story - Mad Men knows that the opposite is true.

I'm really looking forward to things continuing to develop over this season, but I hope they give Don a little hope. He's definitely stuck in The Swamps of Sadness (and bourbon) right now, but he's got to leave the past and Artax behind and save himself. And while he's at it, he should get a house and save those kids from the succubus. And BTW, what the hell is going on with Baby Gene? He's Don's baby, we all know that - is he going to be raised as Henry's?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Betty is the worst.

Images via NYMag, nj.com, Daily Mail