BREAKING BAD - "Say My Name"

Welcome to a roundtable discussion of this week's episode of Breaking Bad from your friendly neighborhood LowBrowMedia savants.

This is a spoiler-heavy zone. You have been warned.

Jon: Okay, first things first. This episode will be etched in my memory forever. I've never thought I could be so moved by a television show. But, OMG, you guys! Bacon-banana cookies? GOOD LAWRD, those sound delicious! How have I lived life for this long and never been mentally stimulated by such wonderment?!?! Oh, yeah. There was that other thing -- our favorite hitman, Mike, went to the big meth lab in the sky (c'mon, there's a freaking spoiler warning right at the top; don't complain). More about that in a bit.

Mike and I have talking a lot these past few weeks about just how downright unlikable Walter White has become this season. He's manipulated Jesse for his own gains at every turn. He seems not to have anything beyond superficial remorse for the death of the young 14-year-old dirtbike kid two episodes past.
He's essentially imprisoned Skyler in their home. He made poor Saul cower in fear in his own awesome office! And while blowing up a druglord of the level of Gustavo Fring is easily viewed as a triumph on Walt's part, firing a gut shot at an unsuspecting man in moment of blind fury is hardly anything to gloat over.

But in my view, his impromptu assassination of Mike Ehrmantraut was not when Walt blossomed into a straight-up villain. No, that happened during the cold open of this very episode, as he brazenly battled wits in a desert showdown with Declan, the Phoenix-based meth dealer we met last week and who was illustrated to be anything but a pushover (all that was missing was a backing score from Ennio Morricone). That was not Declan going up against Walter White, however. As he made clear to everyone present, Walt was in full-blown Hiesenberg mode. And what made this edition of his Hiesenberg persona so interesting was he wasn't wearing his patented black porkpie hat, which I believe was a first. In earlier seasons, Walt has don the hat whenever he needed an extra little spark to psych himself up through whatever crazy situation he was diving into. This season he's been wearing it much more frequently, often while doing little more than strolling in or out of the lab to get his cook on. In other words he's basically been master physicist Hiesenberg more often than cancer survivor Walt White lately. And now he's become so comfortable in that guise, he no longer requires the porkpie hat to thrust himself into character. He is Hiesenberg now, pure villain. And with LowBrowMedia's roots being a comic book review site, I'd argue that he's now transformed himself into a supervillain. We've seen what that manic mentality has wrought when Mike pushed him too far. There's no telling what atrocity he commits next. And I sincerely doubt he'll be using that massive machine gun we got a glimpse of in the cold open of the season premiere for good. It shall be interesting what unfolds next.

Anyway, plenty of other stuff happened in "Say My Name," but I think you'll find Mike C's recap of events below to be plenty thorough in this post and I'd really just like to get back to Mike E. It was a tragic, furious end to an existence predicated upon detailed planning, calculated action and measured patience, but you'll go up in flames if you allow a supernova like Walt soar into your orbit. Admittedly, Mike's ending was a little obvious once Walt peered into Mike's go-bag and found the gun, but that final sequence was so expertly executed, I have no complaints on how events unfolded. It was beautifully filmed, near-perfect send-off for a beloved character. His blunt one-liners and usually stoic demeanor were a welcome presence any time he appeared on screen ever since. Jonathan Banks' performance of the hitman for hire was masterful ever since we were introduced to him at the tail end of season 2, but I'm not sure he had a more powerful moment on the show than when he had to decide between leaving his granddaughter alone on the playground in order to save himself from assured doom.

RIP, Mr. Ehrmantraut. Breaking Bad won't be the same without you.

Mike: Now, here's what I thought!  I'll more or less keep it sequential:

- So, that was Walt's big plan?  Actually, it was a pretty good one.  Using pure ballsy chutzpah, and costing him only 35% of the take, Walt took care of the business end so he can focus on the science and cooking and manipulation and lying.  After all, Mike's retirement was impending, and they needed a new business partner.  (Little did we know that the aforementioned retirement was going to be so permanent.  Well, we had suspicions at least.)  And Mike even got a severance package to help keep the Gus Fring Nine out of the DEA office confessional for at least a little while longer.  If I were Walt, I'd be careful not to play the "I killed Gus" card too often, or else he's going to find himself with an identical target on his back.  He'll probably need some pretty heavy artillery to back himself up in that kind of situation, huh?



- Walt being so dismissive of Jesse at every turn this episode was just awful.  For one thing, Jesse is the closest thing that he has to a friend -- that is to say, he is a good friend to Walt, not the other way around.  If you allow a friend's girlfriend to choke to death, guilt them into breaking up with their next girlfriend, force them to kill, and otherwise constantly put their life and livelihood at risk.  Jesse, to a dangerous degree, has forgiven Walt every time he has pushed his luck too far.  After all, we need to remember that Jesse's family has disowned him, especially after the whole buying his aunt's house out from under them thing.  So, his heartfelt, familial respect for "Mr. White" and "Mrs. White" as well is one of the only assets that Walt has to work with these days.  But as is typical for Walt, there is a line, and he pushes Jesse right past that like when be brushes aside Jesse's wishes to get out of the meth business one too many times.  What could possibly bring them back together?  It doesn't take long.  It's probably the only thing that could do it, and that's Mike Ehrmantraut needing something.


- But first, how about that burgeoning meth chef, Todd?  I knew that Walt either can't or won't cook alone.  And by all appearances, Todd seems to be an eager, bright young man who has a good head for the amphetamine biz.  He even refuses to be paid until he gets it right!  Walt is eating this up, and even tries to share his delight with this new team-up at the dinner table with Skyler.  (She leaves the table in the middle of his sentence, huge glass of wine in tow.)  I keep going back to Todd's comment last week about his relative in prison for some reason, though.  It was probably nothing, but really, Walt doesn't even know this kid.  He's only training him because he has no partners left.  They didn't come up through chemistry class together like he and Jesse.  Todd doesn't have a firmly developed criminal code like Mike.  He's a cipher so far.  A cipher with a little notepad that contains the instructions on how to cook 99% pure blue meth.  We'll see if Todd ends up helping or hurting Walt in the end.  For now, though, he's been extremely useful in at least three situations that I can think of.

- I'm loving that every time we listen in to Hank's office bug, he's dealing with the boring minutiae of high-level police work that isn't often glorified -- filling out forms, making fundraiser calls, griping about food.  It was too bad that Walt had to pull the weepy brother-in-law act again and remove the tap from the office.  At which point he witnesses something that is probably the beginning of the end: Gomie telling Hank that they flipped Mike's lawyer.

- Losing millions of dollars to the DEA once has got to sting.  Twice, though?  OUCH!
 

- Jon's covered Mike's death pretty well already.  I'll just say this -- Mike was dead the moment he threw his hat in the ring with Walt.  At first it was definitely for a better cause, but as time went on, he had to know that he was just digging his own grave.  I guess this can be a lesson for all of us.  Especially when embarking upon criminal avenues, but also in other situations too, I guess, stay true to your hard-fought and long-held principles or that piece of garbage you aligned yourself with will put a bullet in your gut and leave you to die semi-peacefully along a river.

- Walt stalking back into the frame and across the screen, gun in hand, towards Mike's car was pathetic but also chilling.  These are not the actions of a criminal mastermind.  These are the actions of a child who has not gotten their way.  There aren't too many drug lords out there who engage in this type of behavior.  The reason for that is, they are all either in jail or dead in the desert somewhere.


- I am fascinated to see Walt's followup to this in next week's finale.  Will he take responsibility for what he has done?  Probably not.  But did he have an actual self-realization at the water's edge?  I'm sure he'll find some way to top his actions this week.  Either way, we are going to have a really unhappy Jesse on our hands.  Perhaps we will see a Jesse/Skyler team-up as a result.  Only one way to tell -- see you next week!

Previous Breaking Bad season 5 roundtables: 
Week 1 - "Live Free Or Die"
Week 2 - "Madrigal"
Week 3 - "Hazard Pay"
Week 4 - "Fifty-One"
Week 5 - "Dead Freight"
Week 6 - "Buyout"

BREAKING BAD - "Buyout"

Welcome to a roundtable discussion of this week's episode of Breaking Bad from your friendly neighborhood LowBrowMedia savants.

This is a spoiler-heavy zone. You have been warned.

Jon: After the shock that "Dead Freight" ended on last week, it was fitting that we began with a wordless, really creepy scene to open this week's episode of Breaking Bad. The atmosphere surrounding Walt, Mike and Todd as they barrel-ized the poor 14-year-old and his dirtbike was somber and complimented by a excellently crafted piece of droning music to emphasize the dreary business they had to complete. Meanwhile, Jesse is outside the garage having a smoke, presumably still so shaken from the shooting that he's excused from clean-up duty. Eventually Todd joins him, and acts like murdering a kid is no big whoop. He promptly gets clocked in the eye by Jesse and elicited a fist pump from me (fuck you, Landry!). When we come back, Todd's pleading his case to still be a part of the team. It's no surprise that Jesse wants him gone, but for once Mike and Walt agree on something and vote that he stay since he knows too much and they're not too keen on killing anyone else that night. So, we haven't seen the last of  psychopath Todd or the kid's taranchula in a jar that he's now claimed, probably as a memento of a productive day (and only a bit incriminating with it still being covered in the kid's prints).

Meanwhile, the next day Mike hilariously spots and loses another tail by Gomey and a DEA grunt. He checks in on the bug still broadcasting from Hank's office and realizes there's still a lot of heat on him, channel's Danny Glover, and decides to arrange a buyout of his share of the methylamine by a rival from the Phoenix area to get out of the business all together with a cool $5 million. He gets Jesse on board with his plan and the two try to talk Walt into joining them, but predictably he stubbornly refuses (more on that below). Mike and Jesse have one of those middle-of-the-desert business meetings Breaking Bad loves so much with this new drug lord. He quickly susses out that they have a third partner who isn't selling his share of the 1,000 gallons of methylamine, which means the infamous blue meth will still be out on the streets. This guy is no pushover and only has an interest in purchasing this stuff to get the blue meth out of circulation, so there's no deal until Jesse and Mike can get Walt to sell as well.


Jesse seems to be completely finished with the meth biz at all costs at this point, and goes over to Walt's house in an attempt to change his mind about selling. Now, all this season Walt has been manipulating Jesse into doing what he wants seemingly at will. But not this time. No, he just guilts him into it.

You see, Walt has been highly distressed by this whole methlymine-selling scenario, reduced to sulking in his living room easy chair with little more than a glass of scotch, a houseful of silence and a lifetime of regrets. And those regrets have manifested themselves into where we are today. Walt is haunted by the buyout he took for Gray Matter decades ago; you know, the company he started with Elliot and Gretchen Schwartz, who we met way back in season one. You might remember them as the billionaire scientists who offered to pay for his chemo treatments? Well, the details are still unclear but we now know Walt left the partnership for personal reasons. The short-term financial gain then pales in comparison to the torment he puts himself through each week by forcing himself to look at Gray Matter's worth each week. Walt doesn't want to make the same mistake again. Plus, it's become more than that now. Since his family is broken (and that was the whole reason he started down this path in the first place), he claims his motivation to continue cooking is not financial. So if he's not in the money business and not in the meth business (per se), what the hell is he doing it all for? In a bold speech, Walt proclaims he's actually in the EMPIRE business, aka the power biz as we discussed last week. He is trying to build an empire that would rival the one he presumes he would have had if he hadn't taken that buyout all those years ago. The man is going to overdose on power quicker than Jane OD'd on their blue meth.

But then Skyler walks in through the front door, and we're quickly treated to what turned into an awkward dinner of epic proportions. For all the heaviness this episode waded through, this scene was a welcome sight and a great reminder at just how hilarious it can be when it chooses. At the close of the dinner, Walt reveals to Jesse just how bad his home life has become. He knows that's a sad tale but it might not be enough to sway Jesse back to his side, so tells him, "This business is all I have left. And you want to take it away from me." That's probably enough for the good-hearted Jesse, who thinks so highly of Walt still, to get back on his side.

Later, Walt arrives at the gang's headquarters to swipe his share (if not all) of the methylamine. Mike anticipates this and holds him hostage in the office for the rest of that night. However, Mike has an appointment with Saul and Hank at the DEA and leaves Walt zip-tied to an old-school radiator while he attends it. This gives Vince Gilligan and company another opportunity to flex their creative science muscles as Walt hatches an escape plan by using the live wires from a coffee pot to melt the plastic cuff holding him down. (A quick side note: I usually am all for the utilization of crazy science to help Breaking Bad characters get in and out of their pickles, but this time the lack of common sense in lieu of creating drama bothered me a bit. I'd think placing the wire on the other side of the zip tie against the radiator would be the safer option, preventing him from burning himself. But electrocuting plastic that also will hurt your main character exemplifies just how desperate he was to free himself, so for drama purposes, the higher stakes made sense. The only reason I can come up with as to why this wouldn't have worked is the metal coils would have conducted the electricity and thus become an even greater hazard than the severe burn on Walt's wrist. Obviously, I have no idea if this is the case, and the show made no attempt to explain Walt's decision, so all I'm left with is speculation.) And just like that, Walt is back on the streets causing mayhem once more.


So while we watched Saul work his magic on Hank and Gomey, our newly freed Walt managed to move all the methylamine in addition to talking Jesse into backing him up once all is revealed to Mike. And we'll just have to tune in next week to see if everyone wins, as Walt asserts with Mike's pistol pressed against his temple.

All relatively straight-forward stuff, don't 'cha think? Speaking of which, that's been one thing I've noticed this year -- there's not much to analyze on this show. Maybe I just got spoiled with Mad Men a few months ago, but I really expected to be able to delve into BB with more gusto. Obviously this is our first crack at examining the show week by week here at LowBrowMedia, but I've always felt previous seasons were overloaded with talking points. This being the final season may explain that since everything has to start coming to a conclusion, but everyone's motives are basically laid out for us right now and I'm finding it difficult to drum up subjects worthy of great discussion. It's still an excellent show, but perhaps it's not rife for deep analysis as I had led myself to believe it to be.

So, what say you, Mike (and fellow blue-meth heads)? Is everything merely as it seems, or is your old pal Jon just missing something incredibly obvious in these first eight eps?

Mike: Well, in answer to your last paragraph, I think a lot of the problem lies in the fact that, although they do have certain things in common, in that they are both extremely high quality shows on the same network, "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad" are two completely different shows.  I think the case could be made that "MM" is more of an English major's paradise, pregnant with undercurrent and symbolism, while "BB" is a little more of an open book.


That said, as I often say, I hope I never have to choose, at gunpoint, whether "MM" or "BB" is the better show.  For as much as I love the unpredictable, black-humored, breakneck crime noir that "BB" has become, I also hesitate to say that I enjoy it more than the pointillist, character-focused short story narrative that is "MM" at its best.

Which also isn't to say that I don't enjoy writing about both shows!  Speaking of, here goes for episode six of this season:

- I agree, it was a great cold open this week.  I knew what was going to happen next, but I still gasped a little bit as the small, cold hand was uncovered in the dirt.  That's some pretty great all-purpose acid they've got access to, huh?  Disposes of a metal and plastic dirt bike just as cleanly and completely as human remains. 


- Todd, Todd, Todd.  What are we going to do with you?  Oh, cool.  Sure, that works -- we'll just keep you on.  Yeah, he deserved that punch from Jesse, and also that neck grab from Mike, but I still maintain that he made the best, most pragmatic, business-positive decision last episode.  (What I should probably underscore is that, of course, it really doesn't make it morally right in my book.)  But that's not the business they're in.  Every stage of this thing, from precursor fluid to blue meth in some poor junkie's bloodstream is based on hurting someone.  There are no winners here, as Walt is getting closer and closer to finding out.  I mean, he is, right?  That's the only way that we can interpret the opening sequence from the season premiere?  Right?

- Okay, a pretty obvious thing I'm going to say anyway: I think this meth competitor/precursor buyer is going to be nothing but trouble.  And would it have killed Mike to doctor the numbers a bit so that it wasn't so obvious that Walt was being a stick in the mud?  Well, it will probably end up killing Mike in the end, one way or the other.  I hope it doesn't happen, but I have had a theory since the season premiere that Mike won't survive this half-season.  He had a good run.

- I agree with Walt.  I think a year, maybe a year and a half is a reasonable amount of time before doing any soul-searching.



- Some great Skyler stuff this episode, which also continued to make my stomach ache for all the tension in just about every scene she's in.  I mean, can't she just chill out for one minute?  Yeah, it made for some pretty impressive, and -- again, agreed! -- much-needed comedy during the meeting Jesse again for the first time and dinner party scenes.  Was the last time Jesse was even on Skyler's radar when she came over to his house and yelled at him for being Walt's pot dealer in the first season?  Either way, I just loved when Jesse was bug-eyed, taking the longest sip of water ever captured on film.  And whatever DID happen to truth in advertising?  It's interesting to see that, as I've mentioned before, Walt is essentially living a lie in most aspects of his life, which is in turn enabling him to be more truthful in his relationships with Skyler and Jesse, however painful that might be.

- Speaking of the lines he's feeding Jesse about building his empire, as I've just implied, I think he's being more or less completely truthful for perhaps the first time with Jesse.  (It just hit me -- in a reversal of the usual scenario, it's Jesse that needs to convince Walt to do something that he wants.)  I wonder when the not-so-subtle shift from simply providing for his family to nascent emperor Walt happened.  If I had to hazard a guess, it would probably be around the time the last emperor had half his face blown off and this kind of thing became even a distant possibility.



- Jon, if memory serves, I'm pretty sure in the episodes with Gretchen had at least a pretty heavy implication that she left a personal relationship with Walt for one with their business partner, and that was what resulted in him leaving the company.  So, of course, it wasn't quite as cut-and-dry as he's making it seem to be here, but just using a bit of the truth to make Jesse second-guess himself.  A classic Walter White-brand manipulation!

- I also loved the interaction between Mike and Walt at the end of the episode, and then Walt's "MacGyver"-esque escape from radiator confinement.  Though it was on a much smaller scale than last week, I was left just as breathless after this scene, and winced right along with Walt as he singed his wrist with arcing electricity.  After yet another hilarious meeting with Saul, Gomie, and Hank, Mike has 24 hours with the law off his tail, so he can get out of this mess for good.  What excellent timing that the now free, and now-precursor possessing Walt has a plan to get everyone their money and also keep everyone happy.  What could possibly go wrong?


- Favorite one-liner of the week: "I've never seen anybody work so hard not to get five million dollars."

See you next time!

Previous Breaking Bad season 5 roundtables: 
Week 1 - "Live Free Or Die"
Week 2 - "Madrigal"
Week 3 - "Hazard Pay"
Week 4 - "Fifty-One"
Week 5 - "Dead Freight"

MAD MEN Partners' Meeting - "Far Away Places"

Welcome to the Mad Men Partners' Meeting -- a roundtable discussion of this week's episode from your friendly neighborhood LowBrowMedia savants.
This is a spoiler-heavy zone. You have been warned.

"Far Away Places"

Season 5, Episode 6

airdate: April 22nd, 2012

Jon: Mark, I completely agree with your assessment of "Signal 30" last week being the best installment of the season thus far. Because of that, I was expecting "Far Away Places" to feel a little flat in comparison. But that wasn't the case at all, as there were plenty of great moments once again. This was a week filled with high-level stress, experimentation and fear culminating in big changes for a trio of our principal characters as they went off to new, very different destinations.

Forgive me if I've forgotten a past episode that has done this before, but I'm fairly certain this is the first time Matthew Weiner and company have played with how time operates within the structure of an episode. Sure, they've given us flashbacks and dream sequences before, but I believe showing us the diversions of three characters took from a seemingly random suggestion of playing hookie between Roger and Don one morning and rewinding to that moment each time to that point to follow a different character's day was entirely new. And what makes "Far Away Places" all the more impressive is each are entirely different vignettes and yet are somehow complimentary when strung together.

First up was Peggy, who had a rough start to a trying day when the boyfriend fails to understand the pressure she's under at work. And that stress is only exacerbated by Don's removal of Megan before the team can review the latest beans pitch for Heinz. With Don headed to upstate New York, Peggy is left to take the lead of the meeting with the Heinz executives, and well... she simply lacks that Draper magic touch we've come to know in previous seasons in presentations like this. I don't remember Don criticizing the client after the Carousel speech, which this was pretty clearly modeled after. Following the disastrous pitch, Peggy takes off for an afternoon matinee (an idea she spurned the boyfriend on that morning) to blow off some steam. There, she smokes a joint with a stranger and, for good measure, dishes out a handy. She then returns to the office, sobers up and eventually calls up the boyfriend in an attempt to salvage whatever it is they have left together. Typical day for anyone, really.

Next comes Roger's day, where he was forced to attend a dinner party thrown by friends of his trophy wife, Jane, after Don swooped away with his plan to go on a business daytrip to a Howard Johnson hotel. Roger's unhappiness with his marriage has been hinted at all season and explicitly expressed by Don to Pete in the cab last week, and feelings between the two (or lack thereof) came to a head in "Far Away Places." Now, this turned out to be a far different dinner party than we saw at the Campbell's house last week. Jane's friends were a collection of snooty, outwardly drab intellectuals who "businessman" Roger who discusses Frank Lloyd Rice in order to fit in, much to their dismay. But no sooner was Mr. Sterling was ready to hit the road when a plate of sugarcubes laced with lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD, was placed before him. (Btw, if you only associate acid with hippies, Badass Digest wrote a great piece this week on the drug before it was outlawed. In fact, B.A.D. has posted fantastic Mad Men-related articles each week based on the historical aspects of each episode's background plot threads this year.) Aided by some wonderfully fun camerawork, Roger's trip was fascinating and, at times, hilarious to watch. And because I adore Pet Sounds, I was so, so, so, so happy to be reminded of "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" as soon as Timothy Leary's wife (or was Roger joking?) hit play on the reel-to-reel as it resonated marvelously with the episode. Ultimately, Jane and Roger get alone in the truth together, reveal their respective boredom and unfulfillment with their marriage to one another, and agree to separate. It was probably the most pleasant breakup in television history. And at that point, he no longer needed his note to get home because it was a beautiful day indeed for him.

While Roger ended "Far Away Places" on cloud nine after starting out miserable as ever, Don went on exactly the opposite trek. After hijacking Roger's hookie plan as an excuse for he and Megan to escape the office for the day. He's giddy as can be at the prospect of showing off HoJo's orange sherbet to her. However, she's still trying to earn her place at SCDP, so the idea of blowing off her share of the work for an important meeting with Heinz to eat dessert on the other side of the state is not a top priority of hers. She tries to express this to Don, but his insistence to recreate their California excursion from close of last season only elicits a childlike tantrum from Megan in order to get his attention. This reaction forces Don to engage in his own overreaction, leaving Megan standing alone watching his car pull away. I have no doubt the Don of past seasons really would have left her there, but a short while later on the highway, he realizes his mistake and returns to the hotel. But... dun-dun DUN! Megan's long gone, save for her discarded sunglasses in the parking lot with word from the HoJo staff that she hitched a ride with some random dudes. Guilt consumes Don, not just for his parts in that argument, but maybe you've noticed every episode has had talk of a serial killer this year? Yeah, he's fearing the worst while spending the night in the the hotel's restaurant desperately hoping for her return. (Man, how did people then do anything without cellphones?) Eventually Don drives back to their apartment, where he finds Megan. (Surprise! She wasn't murdered.) They reconcile, but I think it's safe to say the honeymoon is officially over.

So, we have Peggy and Megan lashing out, Roger finally free of his languid marriage, and the veneer of the Draper marriage cracking a bit more. Brian Wilson might as well have been talking about these characters when he composed that Beach Boys' song the Sterlings tripped to. Not too shabby of a week, eh? I didn't even bring up Ginsberg's Martian story or how frickin' awesome Bert is. Will he swoop in again soon with yet another an amazing one-liner, or was this week his "she was an astronaut" of season 5? Tell me what you thought, brothers!

Mark: Damn, Jon. I think saying the honeymoon is over is the understatement of the century. After that extremely disturbing display of Don chasing Megan through the apartment and knocking her to the ground like a serial killer, it's clear that those fucked up power dynamics we were talking about back in the season premiere are growing more wildly out of control. Sure, they seem to have reconciled for now, but that reconciliation was like putting a band aid on a severed limb. I hate to say it, Jon, but I think the "Don's a changed man" theory is officially kaput. I think he's been keeping things pretty well in line, but if his tranquility is shaken so easily by one fight, causing him to instantly revert to Don Draper Classic and leave Megan in the lurch at the HoJos, then I think things don't bode well for these two. You can only have creepy-sexy underwear fights for so long. Eventually the new car smell wears off and you're left to sort out the fact that you have two profoundly different worldviews. Then it's just a hop, skip and a jump to chasing your significant other around like Jason Voorhees.

It is interesting that serial killers have been mentioned so often this season. Perhaps it's a metaphor for the creeping dread these characters feel as they become increasingly confused and disoriented with where the world is headed. Don is stuck in the past and disconnected from how his business and society at large are changing, and he's trying to force Megan into the role of the subservient wife who shouldn't have any use for work when he wants to rush off to Howard Johnsons to recreate their Disneyland trip. At work, Don has been a mentor to Peggy, and he certainly trusts her ability, but I don't think he left her alone to run the Heinz pitch because he believes in her. The Heinz rep was a dickhead, but still Peggy isn't ready to do this on her own. She needs more experience and guidance before she'll be able to pull off her own Carousel pitch, but Don just doesn't care anymore. The fact that he had to be called on this by shoeless Bert Cooper was just a nice surprise. Don's dazed moment in the boardroom as he watched the young faces of SCDP literally pass him by was a great closer. This season's (nay, series) recurring theme of time passing people by was made literal in many ways in this episode. Time was all over the place in "Far Away Places", mostly because everyone seemed to be getting high (What, no shrooms for Don and Megan? That would have tied the episode together, and I hear they go great with orange sherbet and clams). Between Don and Peggy's blackout naps and Roger's disappearing cigarette, the loose sense of time gave the whole affair a druggy vibe. Drug experiences are hard to capture on screen, though, and honestly I didn't care for a lot of the Roger moments, except for his two-tone hair which was a nice visual metaphor for the duality of Mr. Sterling.

With Joan and Greg calling it quits and now Jane and Roger having the most existential break-up imaginable (I thought you were supposed to impulsively get married when you're under the influence?), could it be that Weiner and co. are setting the table for the big Draper divorce? Eh, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but Don and Megan have a lot of tests coming their way and I think they're both too immature to handle them.

I love Peggy. She's so earnest, and Elisabeth Moss' line reading of "It was the beans that brought them together on that cool summer night" delighted me to no end. I hope she and her Trotskyite fella can work it out. To be honest, I liked the non-linear structure of the episode. It played into the definition of Mad Men as being a televisual short story collection, and it continued this season's streak of interesting technical exercises. But I have to be real, I was slightly disappointed that Peggy's story was cut short a third of the way into the show. Part of me didn't want it to end after that superb scene between Peggy and Ginsberg in the darkened office. Beautifully shot, beautifully acted. After his reaction to the Richard Speck pictures a couple of episodes ago, I knew something was up with Michael, and my mind went to the obvious: he was in some way effected by the holocaust. Then I thought maybe the timeline didn't match up. But the fact that he was born and orphaned in a concentration camp just blew my mind, and the way he presented that information to Peggy through his story of being a Martian was the perfect blend of disorienting and deeply sad. Come on, Jon and Mike, you guys have been strangely silent on Ginsberg. I love this guy. Am I alone?

Overall, I liked this episode a lot. It took some chances, provided some great period detail and in its own weird way kicked the story of this season into gear. Mike will be back next week, so we'll see the rest of you then!

Previously:
Episodes 1&2 - "A Little Kiss"
Episode 3 - "Tea Leaves"
Episode 4 - "Mystery Date"
Episode 5 - "Signal 30"