Mad Men - "Field Trip"

After the slight glimmer of hope that last weeks' fantastic "A Days' Work" provided us, things are pretty damn grim again on "Field Trip", an episode that doubles down on the two major portions of Don Draper's life - his wife and his job. Both have been hanging by a thread, to say the least, and "Field Trip" brings them seemingly closer to some kind of definitive point. Whether that point is back to where they were before or to an official end...well, we're not quite sure. Both? Neither? Who knows! But whatever it is, it's clear that there's precious few people who don't have Don on their personal shit lists at this point.

One of those people is Roger Sterling, who more or less invites Don back to the agency, half because he's probably pretty drunk when he does so and half because there's a part of him that's willing to forgive Don and believe he deserves some kind of second chance. Roger and Don have had kind of an up-and-down relationship over the course of the series - Roger is Don's kind-of mentor, but he doesn't know nearly as much about Don as he thinks he does, and that fact has always strained their relationship to a point. And yet, it's always been clear that Roger knows Don's potential and how valuable he is to the agency. When Roger blurts out that Don's a "genius' in the meeting that the partners hold to determine Don's fate, it feels like their built up years of rocky friendship and tension-filled admiration finally coming to a crescendo. Roger knows Don is a handful. He also knows that Don is brilliant, and he knows that his skills could be of great use to an agency that is quickly becoming a Chuck Lorre sitcom version of an advertising agency. (Okay, Roger doesn't know who the fuck Chuck Lorre is because Chuck Lorre is not even close to being a thing at this point as he is but a young teenager, probably making lewd comments about his high schools' cheerleading squad to himself, but you get it, okay?).

But is the Chuck Lorre of advertising agencies such a bad thing? The partners are well aware of Don's creative abilities, but as much as we all like to say how innovative and boundary-pushing we all want our work to be, sometimes you don't want to be pushed to the edge of human potential every single goddamn day, especially when doing so requires you to work with a total trainwreck of a man who is not even sure of who he is and now is apparently going to start bursting into crying fits in front of clients about his dumb childhood or whatever. The partners are done. They know Lou Avery isn't going to win them too many Clios, but maybe they'll take a lack of Clios in exchange for a workplace where they generally know what to expect every day and don't have to worry if their creative director is going to have a mental breakdown or not. I've seen a lot of people feel that the workers of Sterling Cooper & Partners were overly harsh on Don, considering he's far better of an adman than Lou Fucking Avery and they should basically be begging him to come back. It's not hard to see that perspective, but can you imagine how hard it must be to put up with Don Draper every single day?

Plus, think of everything Don did to those people over the course of last season. He fired Jaguar despite knowing what Joan had to do to herself to land Jaguar - and he didn't even bother to consult with her, suggesting that all of that sadness and empathy he showed her when she was forced to prostitute herself for a client was a load of hokey shit. He continues to trap Peggy in situations beyond her control - even after she chose to leave him behind and pursue her own opportunists, his force still dragged her right back into his orbit. Then, he had the audacity to meddle in her personal life, sabotaging her relationship with Ted and, consequently, sabotaging her work life. Then, just as SC&P was on the cusp of landing a Hershey account - Hershey! - he completely fucked it up, having a near-breakdown in the middle of his pitch, not even able to finish it. We think we're supposed to root for Don because, well, he's the protagonist and that's how we're trained to interpret stories. But protagonists are people, too - they make mistakes. They do shitty things. Sometimes they do really shitty things. This is all your basic moody anti-hero stuff, but Mad Men has always been an interesting spin on the formula because Don Draper isn't committing the dark, grizzly acts of most anti-hero protagonists. It's not completely out of line to see Don's point of view, really. He's a troubled man who genuinely, at this point, seems to be trying to make the best of things. But the people around Don are people, as well, and they can't be expected to cheer him on just because he's the protagonist and he's trying to make things right. They're fed up. They're pissed. They're done. And it's not hard to see why.

This is true of no one more than Megan, though, and the tragic unraveling of Don and Megan's once-promising marriage has been one of the more devastating aspects of what's been a season with an unlimited stream of despair running through its veins. The early days of Don and Megan's marriage were meant to show a sort of promise, a contrast to the tension-ripe monotone of the Don and Betty marriage. They were always a little mismatched, but that contrast made Don seem alive in a way they never had before. While Don and Betty mostly just seemed to be trying to put up with each other, Don and Megan truly loved each other, even if their love appeared toxic at times. So it's jarring when we fast forward to Season 7 and see the two stuck on opposite coasts and barely even missing each other. If Season 5 Megan had found out that Don lost his job and still chose not to join her in LA, she might have punched him in the face. At least, she would've screamed. But current Megan is barely even surprised. She's hurt, sure. But she's not surprised. In fact, part of her seems like she kind of knew, deep down, all along. "This is how it ends", she says coldly before kicking him out. What is particularly disturbing is how much of this can be compared to the end of the previous Draper marriage. Megan finding out that Don is only visiting Megan because her agent informed him of her fragile mental state is remarkably similar to Betty finding out that Don has been talking to her therapist. The scene where Megan kicks Don out is nauseatingly similar to when Betty kicked Don out back in Season 2. The Don/Megan marriage was supposed to be everything the Don/Betty marriage wasn't. Instead, it's turning into a near parallel.

And hey, we haven't even talked on Betty! Like most Betty plots in recent seasons, I spent most of this episode finding out what the hell the point was, and I still kind of felt that way by the end. But even though the show could lose Betty and be completely unchanged, there's still something interesting about the way she just seems to spectacularly fail at being the perfect mother she feels she's supposed to be. It lines up interestingly with Don's plotline (the show quickly cutting between Don and Betty's plots this week was certainly no accident) - like Don, Betty has pushed away many of the people who are supposed to be there for her, and now she's left wondering if there's any hope for her at all. (Also, while Betty is often cold and unsympathetic, you can't really blame her for being mad at Bobby when he gave away his sandwich. For gum drops, of all things!)

"Field Trip" ends with Don Draper being offered an almost comically reduced role at SC&P. The camera zooms in on Don, as it becomes increasingly unclear as to whether or not he'll accept it. The Don Draper we know would scoff at working directly under someone and having no power of his own. But the Don Draper we know also doesn't do what we think he will. He accepts the job. Maybe to get back at the partners, who were likely banking on him waiving his partnership and being out of their hair for good. Maybe because he genuinely is trying to be a better person (he's not drinking...as much). Maybe because he has so little else going on in his life that he's in no position to turn it down. Whatever it is, he's back. And who knows what the hell is going to happen now.

Season Review: Parks and Recreation - Season 6

Considering Parks & Rec is a show that spent most of its life perpetually on the bubble, it's sort of a miracle that it has lived long enough to feel like it's overstayed it's welcome. But that's how it felt for large parts of its sixth season, a season that felt a little bit like glorified fan fiction in parts. Parks has naturally wrapped up its story so many times at this point - from the Harvest Festival, to Leslie winning the City Council election, to Leslie and Ben's wedding - that it's increasingly feeling like the writers of Parks & Rec are spinning in circles trying to figure out what more they can say about these characters. This became incredibly obvious throughout this season as the show relied on several weary old sitcom chestnuts for its plot developments. The show had three pregnancy plots this year, plus countless plots that felt like a rehash of the "Leslie gets passionate about something, people turn her down, she steamrolls over them but wins them over with her charm" plot structure that the show has done countless times since its conception. There were some highlights over the course of the year - such as the genuinely great season opener in London, and the really sweet farewell to Ann and Chris - but for the most part, Parks Season 6 felt like a show that was around only because it had to be, not because it had anything left to say.

Then, in the last few minutes of the season, everything changed. And now, for the first time, I have no idea where we're going to go next.

I've seen a lot of people take issue with the show jumping ahead three years in the finale. I get it. Time jumps are something I'm always a little uneasy with, for the very reasons that people have pointed out. Yes, it's strange that, after tracking these people so closely over the past 5 years, we're now skipping right over 3 entire years of their lives - lives that include milestone events like new jobs and pregnancies and children. And yes, the show went through some strange hula hoops to get to its desired endpoint. (Having Leslie demand that the National Parks Department set headquarters right up in Pawnee simply because she doesn't feel like moving is just too much, and it feels unnecessary considering they went ahead and rebooted the shows' entire premise anyway). But I kind of love that the show is brave enough to just go ahead and restart its entire premise, and it follows an interesting trend this year of middle-aged sitcoms realizing they need to shake things up and taking bigger-than-usual experiments with their status quo to do so. Parks Season 7 could be a disaster, quite frankly. It has a lot to juggle, and it could just outright fail to do so, in the way that something like Scrubs' final season did. But it could also take the lead of Community and Archer and be a serious breath of fresh air after a season of diminishing returns. And even if it's not, I'd rather see a season that tried and failed than another year that recycled old plots and sitcom tropes over and over again, like the show would likely do if it kept its status quo for another year. Sure, it means we miss out on a few aspects of the characters' lives, but it's a small sacrifice to make for what I think will be ultimately a much more interesting show. (Also, if your idea of a good season is one that includes a Leslie Knope pregnancy plotline, we may have very different views of what a good season of television is). This finale gave was a very nice way to end Parks & Rec as we know it, a show that was once one of the best things on television. But this season has proved that the story of that Parks & Rec is over, and while I'll always treasure the memories I had with that show, I'm excited to see what's next.

Final Grade: B

Veep - "Alicia"

Veep is one of my favorite shows on TV when it's airing and a show I often forget exists when it's not airing. I find it to be an incredibly funny show with some of best crafted insults in the history of the English language, but it's a show that often doesn't really stick with me, for some reason. I think it's because - at least in the first two seasons - Veep made a point to paint everything in its world as inconsequential because the people who inhabit its universe are just so hopelessly shallow. Saying that Veep's characters are shallow isn't really a knock on them, though - they're drawn that way. They're mocking a certain kind of political mindset that's more focused on self-gain and image than anything that's even remotely meaningful, and while that makes it one of the sharpest political satires on TV, it also makes it a show where it's hard to get too invested in anything.

However, Veep has gradually been trying to insert some stakes into its world recently. This was most evident at the end of the second season, when Selena learned the president would not be seeking re-election, thus allowing her to start a presidential campaign. That sense of purpose has tricked into the shows' current third season, which is shaping up to be its best yet. There's a sense that everything matters this time around - not just on a plot level, but on an emotional level. This is best exemplified in the shows' lead character, who started off as an empty shell of a politician who stands for nothing but her own success but is gradually becoming someone who seems to want to use her power to do something. It's an avenue I didn't expect the show to go down based on its sardonic first season, where just about every episode went out of its way to point out how much of a failure Selena was. All of that came to head in Sunday night's "Alicia", a terrific episode of television and easily the shows' best episode yet. "Alicia" is fascinating for many reasons - including how it's the first episode to take an outsiders' perspective on these ridiculous characters - but what fascinates me the most is how successfully it gets us to root for these people in a way we never even thought we should. The premise of "Alicia" centers around Selena's announcement of her presidential campaign, which her team has designed to be a way for her to take "real life" people to demonstrate how much she cares about the issues that most concern them. The episodes' titular character, Alicia, is brought in to help advocate for Selena's universal child care platform, but is cut after some old ass congressman or something (I'm the worst, aren't I?) threatens that if she doesn't replace the child care platform with a seniors-centric platform, he will pull out of her campaign. This is sort of a brilliant plotline, because we get both Alicia's perspective - which finds a citizen genuinely trying to make a difference being shut out for nothing that she did wrong - and Selena's perspective, which finds her political future being dominated just like her entire political past has been. When Selena manages to sneak in an aspect of the child care platform by bringing Alicia's daughter with her on stage, it's perhaps the most victorious moment in the entire series thus far - because it's satisfying both points of view it sets up.

The episodes' level of care even stretched down to Mike, who is strangely becoming the moral center of the show in some ways. Mike is the one brought in to guide Alicia through the process, and he seems truly kind of hurt when Selena is forced to eliminate her. And then....he calls her a cow. But he actually seems truly sorry! The show actually wanted us to empathize with him! And it succeeded! It's not that I don't appreciate a comedy like Season 1/2 Veep that centered around a bunch of people we're supposed to hate all of the time. It was funny! It made me laugh! But a show that actually welcomes us into its characters' world and asks us to sympathize with them even as they're showing us some of the horrible shit they do - that's a much more powerful show that can make a much more interesting statement. And if that's the show Veep is planning on becoming, I'm totally in for the ride. 

Season Review: Archer - Season 5

Archer's fifth season deserves credit for sheer ambition alone. After a fourth season that saw the show spinning its wheels a bit, the show completely rebooted its premise in Season 5, shutting down ISIS and turning the gang into cocaine dealers. They certainly didn't have to do this. While Season 4 was Archer's weakest season, it was still solid enough that it could've easily coasted on that level of ambition for the remainder of its run and still remain FX's biggest comedy hit and a general fan favorite (if less of a critical one). Just look at Modern Family - what was once heralded as a fresh take on the family comedy format is now a hokey stalwart that still manages to beat most shows on TV in the ratings each week. Archer could've spent in its middle age churning out the same tired dynamics that Season 4 beat into the ground and still managed to succeed, and even thrive in some ways. So the fact that Adam Reed rejected this notion, the fact that he wanted Archer to remain a show people actually gave a shit about, is admirable enough, and is, quite honestly, a feat that I hope more showrunners take in the future. Luckily, we don't have to give Archer Vice a participation trophy, though, because it was a pretty great season of television - even if it wasn't the season many were expecting.

I think Archer Vice's greatest misstep, honestly, was that action-packed montage in its premiere episode. It promised a season that was much more of an exciting drug heist than it wound up being, which I think tempered a lot of peoples' excitement and blinded them to the fact that what the show was doing was pretty sensational, even if it wasn't quite what they expected. Admittedly, even I am slightly disappointed that some of those promises in that montage were never fulfilled (where was that tiger on Archer's desk?!), and it took me a few episodes to adjust my expectations for what Archer was doing this year. But at some point - probably around the time that I realized they were going to lose all of the cocaine - I realized that this season was not at all about the drug trade, and was instead about analyzing the relationships between the characters on this show. Just look at how many episodes this season were basically bottle episodes that trapped all of the characters in the Tunt mansion and forced them to interact with each other. And even the action-packed episodes - like the season-ending arc that had the gang trapped in Mexico - sort of confined everyone to one place and forced them to work out their shit, rather than sending them off on crazy missions like past seasons did. Considering the plan all along was apparently to get the gang back to ISIS, I think this was the best decision. Archer Vice put interesting spins on just about every relationship on the show this year - from Archer and Lana's renewed respect for each other (and their DIVE INTO PARENTHOOD), to Archer and Pam's growing compatibility, to Cheryl's realization of her own weird, country singer ambition, Archer Vice put a lot of things together than I didn't expect the show to. Archer is a show that's primarily about the laughs (and some genuinely great cartoon action), but its treatment of its characters and their relationships as real - no matter how fucked up they are - is what keeps it one of the most interesting comedies on TV, as well as one of the funniest. So for all of Archer Vice's missteps and broken promises, it succeeded in keeping Archer fresh and renewing my interest in a lot of these characters - which was, really, all it needed to do.

Final Grade: B+

Mad Men - "A Day's Work"

For the past several seasons, Mad Men has seemingly been pointing to a rather dark ending for its protagonist. Ever since Don and Megan's marriage more or less collapsed (which definitely happened in Season 6 but probably could be traced back to Megan's rejecting of advertising back in "Lady Lazarus"), the show has suggested that Don has pushed away the last person who could possibly put up with his endless stream of issues and ridiculous amounts of baggage. Season 6 told the story of how Don alienated just about everyone who still cared about him, culminating in the tragic "In Care Of", in which Sterling Cooper & Partners decided they finally had enough and (at least temporarily) kicked him to the curb. And yet, that final shot of "In Care Of" - Don revealing his true Dick Whitman past to his children - may turn out to be his saving grace. "A Day's Work" surprised me in that an episode that began as Don Draper in a place of despair ended up being the most hopeful episode the character has had since the early days of his marriage to Megan. "A Day's Work" suggested that Sally Draper might just be the one to save Don after all.

Mad Men is so unique in that it can still completely floor me seven seasons in. In my Community review, I talked about how all shows fall into patterns eventually, and that even the very best shows are shows you can sort of predict by the end of their run. But is Mad Men the antithesis of this? Seven seasons in, I still have no idea where Mad Men is going to go next. Sure, the show has established formula in some ways, and part of Mad Men's statement revolves around people falling back into familiar situations before truly changing. But I genuinely thought I knew how this final season of Mad Men was going to go for Don Draper. I figured it would showcase the final nail in the coffin for Don Draper and his relationships with everyone he knows. And maybe it still could! But "A Day's Work" offers a glimmer of hope, and what a great one it is. Sally Draper has unexpectedly become almost the heart of Mad Men over the past few seasons (all because she managed to convincingly steal money from her grandpa back in Season 3), and her place as the effect of the moral ambiguity of the world of Mad Men has become an important part of its point of view. But the show positioning her as the only one who truly gets Don - sort of his new Anna Draper - makes her an even more essential part of this show and its world. "I'm so many people", Sally remarks glumly to her dad. And apparently one of them is the only thing her father has left.

Things are not looking up quite as much for most of Sterling Cooper & Partners, who are seemingly leaping into the shows' most interesting power struggle this side of "Shut the Door, Have a Seat". Nowhere is this more evident than with Peggy Olson. Peggy has been positioned as the one we're supposed to root for through most of the shows' run, the one who fought the establishment hard to get where she is today. But this episode suggested that Peggy is the establishment. After spending so much time as a lowly secretary and underappreciated copy writer trying to prove herself to a bunch of miserable old men, Peggy undermines her poor secretary Shirley when a bouquet of flowers is sent to her desk and Peggy mistakes them to be hers. Shirley is advised by Dawn to keep her mouth shut, but it becomes increasingly difficult as Peggy continuously acts like a total asshole about the flowers, assuming they're from Ted and responding in humiliatingly high school-esque fashions. Finally, Shirley admits that they're hers, and Peggy totally demeans her in front of the entire office. But the way Peggy goes back into her office afterwards with a look of shame on her face proves to me that she hasn't totally morphed into a complete and utter dick. She's just stuck. She's once again trapped by decisions that weren't made by her, but were instead made by a bunch of dudes who don't really care about her. And unlike in the past, she doesn't have an escape route. She's trapped. And I'm nervously awaiting to see what she does next.

Then there's Pete Campbell and his Betty Clone. (Speaking of which, where IS Betty? I miss not knowing whether to hate her or not!) It only took a week for Pete to recede back into anger and feeling the world is against him - but he's kind of right. Pete and  Roger are both being pushed out of deals they made and pushed out of the world they built. Don's exit seems to have caused a ripple effect in the rest of the agency. They don't know who they are anymore. They're not sure who they stand for. Do they stand for the bland, boring and generally awful Lou Avery style of advertising or are they pushing the edge like they've traditionally been known to? No one knows. But whatever's happening, it's at the expense of Roger and Pete. But not everyone's screwed - in fact, the tension has resulted in promotions for both Joan and Dawn. After Dawn rightly flips her shit at Lou Avery for completely disrespecting the work she puts into her job, she is "demoted" to the front desk (although who honestly could consider no longer working for Lou Avery a demotion?) until Bert Cooper and his casual racism kick in and demand she's taken off the front desk. Finally, Cutler comes, fairly recognizes that Joan is more or less juggling two jobs, and promotes her to the second floor, relieving her of her personal duties. Who picks them up? Dawn.

Dawn has been around for two years now, but this is the first episode where she feels like she's truly starting to come onto her own, and she's doing so pretty spectacularly. She increasingly is becoming the New Peggy Olson, in that she is rising in the ranks through quiet rebellion and total dedication. People have long been calling for Mad Men to better integrate the civil rights movement in its proceedings, which I've never quite agreed with, because Mad Men slow burns its way through all of the social issues of the '60s. It seems we're now starting to see the effects of that slow burn. And, just as I feel about pretty much everything on this show right now, I can't wait to see where it goes.

Season Review: Rick and Morty Season 1

A few posts ago I mentioned that Rick and Morty is one of my favorite shows on TV right now, but that it's a show that I don't know I would like writing about very much. This isn't because Rick and Morty is one of those shows that suffer the more you think about it (also known as "bad shows") - quite the opposite, actually. It's because Rick and Morty, much like Doctor Who (one of its spiritual ancestors), is a show where I just love getting swept up in the fascinating world it presents to me, rather than analyzing every little aspect of it like it's an episode of Mad Men. But before I get on to that, I figured I should give a shout out to what might be the very boldest comedy on TV right now, if not one of the boldest shows.

The truth is, I don't know if I've ever seen a show that is as comfortable with redefining its very existence as much as Rick and Morty is. It's a show that rewrote its entire setting by killing its main characters in their own dimension and transporting them to a new one in the sixth goddamn episode and then actually addressed it a few episodes later! It's a show that introduced an alternate version of Saturday Night Live where Bobby Moynihan gets into a feud with a piece of toast! It's a show that revealed its characters are simply one of millions of identical beings spread across multiple dimensions! This is insane stuff, and the fact that the show even attempts it makes it one of the best shows on television. TV - and TV comedy in general - is a medium that thrives on the familiar. It's why the most popular shows on television are typically shows where every episode looks sort of the same. We sit down to watch an episode of TV, and we expect to know exactly how everything is gong to go, to the point where we could just kind of sit back and enjoy the ride. Granted, many television shows have challenged this ideal (particularly in the past 20 years or so), but even those shows tend to rely on some sort of formula to lean back on. And hey, so does Rick and Morty, probably, but right now, there's no other half-hour comedy where I can sit down and genuinely not know what world I'm going to end up in. The shows' best counterpart is likely Futurama, but that shows' playing with alternate dimensions is baby steps combined to the levels of mindfuck in Rick and Morty.

The thing is, though, Rick and Morty isn't just a bunch of cool concepts. It hangs those concepts around a genuinely hilarious show, one with great jokes and fully-realized characters and even the occasional grounded plotline. In fact, I'd argue that one of Rick and Morty's strengths is that it can make a plotline as done-to-death as a married couple on the brink of divorce or a teenage daughter feeling unwanted and give them giant, world-shattering stakes, making them feel as huge and life-altering as they do when they happen to you. Rick and Morty uses its sense of experimentation not just to be cool (though it is REALLY fucking cool) but to bring a level of pathos to its characters that not many shows can compete with. The fact that the show can be an actually boundary-pushing sci-fi program and a truly compelling family comedy go a long way as to showing just how much the show successfully juggled this season. There have been few first seasons I can think of that were as fresh-feeling and excitingly unique as Rick and Morty's first season, and I'm sincerely looking forward to just what the hell they're going to come up with in Season 2.

Final Grade: A

Season Review: Community Season 5

Every season of Community recently seems like it has some unfortunate circumstances that it has to overcome to prove itself. The third season had to somehow match the amazing and genre-defining second season (which it mostly managed to do, despite inevitably dropping slightly from that seasons' earth-shattering heights). The fourth season had to prove that, without the careful hand of creator Dan Harmon, the show was still Community (which it wasn't, really). And the fifth season had perhaps the hardest task yet. With Harmon back at the helm, Season 5 had to save the show. After the rightly-maligned fourth season, Community was no longer TV's best, most thoughtful, and most unpredictable sitcom like it was during the original Harmon years. Could Season 5 change that? Could it restore the show to being one of the most exciting things in the world of comedy, like it had been before?

Basically, it did as well as it could. While Harmon's return added a jolt of energy to the aging Community, it was still very much a show in its fifth season. A show in its fifth season can't be as surprising and exciting as a show in its first or second season, simply because by this point, we know the show's game. We know what to expect. This is true especially of sitcoms, which can only go so far to change their own status quo out of fear of messing with the formula that makes the show what it is. Even a show as unique as Community relies on some form of formula to keep the engine running, and this was strangely most true in the shows' concept episodes, which felt a bit more rudimentary than they did in the shows' early days. While concept episodes once allowed the show to experiment with new storytelling methods to gain new insight on its characters, the fifth seasons' concept episodes felt like episodes the show was doing because everyone expects them to. There was some gold within them - "Basic Intergluteal Numismatics" was a messy but fascinating endeavor, and "Geothermal Escapism" was a fitting combination of insanity and emotion to send off one the shows' most integral characters, but there were also episodes like "Advanced Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" (which felt like a reheated version of Season 2's Dungeons & Dragons episode, one of the shows' very best) and "G.I. Jeff" (which managed to be a funny send-up that said some interesting things about Jeff but sort of abandoned them by the end of the episode).

Still, it's hard not to call Season 5 an incredibly comeback when it produced episodes like "Cooperative Polygraphy" and "Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality". These two episodes found the characters at the most grounded they've been since arguably the second season, and it managed to dig into the core sadness and longing that drives Community at its best. Both episodes used tactics that worked in the past - getting all of the characters around the study table for the former (used most memorably in the hysterical and weirdly moving "Cooperative Calligraphy"), and taking the characters out of Greendale to analyze who they really are for the latter (used in my personal favorite episode "Mixology Certification" as well as in the gently heartbreaking "Critical Film Studies"). It was in these episodes that Community showcased best how far it had come from the doldrums of the "gas leak year" - while that season only seemed concerned with the characters on a surface level, this season returned to trying to figure out who these people are beneath the surface. I argued in my last Community piece that this side of the show is what makes the show able to pull off its conceptual side, and that was never more true this season. Had this season been an endless march of "G.I. Jeff"s, things would've felt pretty hollow. But episodes like "Polygraphy" and "Bondage" were able to bring a level of insight that both kept the season afloat and gave the concept episodes a much stronger leg to stand on.

So if this season of Community occasionally felt a little tired, it was only because this is a sitcom in its fifth season, and that's natural. For the most part, this was still a show that used some amazing, deeper-rooted character work to pull off some of the more interesting structural experiments you'll ever find in a television comedy. At this point last season, I was desperately hoping Community would get a fifth season not necessarily because I was looking forward to watching it (since I figured it'd be another Harmon-less year) but because I couldn't stand the thought of one of my favorite shows of all-time ending on a season (and an episode) that mostly made me sad and angry. This year, I'm desperately hoping for a sixth season because I genuinely want more of this show that I love again. (And because, you know, #sixseasonsandamovie and all). That alone speaks for how far Community has come back this year, doesn't it?

Now bring on that sixth season. And the movie.

Final Grade: B+
(or, four MeowMeowBeenz)

Things I Feel Like Writing About: Community - "Mixology Certification"

I always feel like I should be writing on this blog, but often times I don't really know what to write about. I love television, but I don't always feel like writing about every episode of television that I watch. (For example, I've been really into Rick and Morty lately, but I'm struggling to find a way to write about it, because it's one of those shows where I just like to turn off my brain and get sucked into the experience). So I decided, hey, why not just choose things I feel like I want to write about and write about them?

The first thing I have decided to write about is "Mixology Certification", the tenth episode of Community's wonderful second season (which is a season of television that I love so much I could probably write eighteen of these posts talking about why it's so incredible). It's not really a secret that Community is a show I've developed a personal connection with over the years, and "Mixology Certification" is one of those rare pieces of art where I watch it and I sort of see my own experiences reflected back at me. There's really not a lot of things out there that do this for me, and for a while, I didn't really know why I had such a connection to this specific episode, I just knew I did. So here we are, my journey into discovering why I love "Mixology Certification" (assisted by some Fishsticks screencaps!).

"Mixology Certification" is an episode centered around Troy's 21st birthday (which he only just realizes is his 21st, due to a lie his mom has been telling him for years). It's probably not the episode that most people think of when they think about Community, in that it's completely grounded - taking place entirely in reality and even being mostly devoid of pop culture references. Community has more of these kinds of episodes than you might expect given its reputation as a highly experimental, genre-defying show, and I've always felt that they were essential to making the higher-concept stuff work. What makes Community more than just a collection of pop culture gags and middle fingers to the fourth wall is the fact that it's rooted in characters we can easily relate to and that we quickly grow to care about, and it's episodes like "Mixology Certification" that cement all of that.

Anyway, the plot of "Mixology" is exceedingly simple. In fact, it's so simple that it's basically an American tradition - the study group learns that it's Troy's 21st birthday, and they decide to celebrate at a nearby bar. Jeff and Britta get into a huge argument over which bar they should go to - Jeff's "douchey" L Street and Britta's "hipster-y" Red Door. But as hilarious as their banter is, this isn't a Jeff and Britta episode. This is an episode about the entire study group, in a way, as it shows them all in their most vulnerable and honest states. But it's mostly an episode that focuses on the two youngest members of the study group - Troy and Annie. I have never really thought of Community as a traditional "college" show since it's mostly not about college-aged people, but "Mixology" and several of the shows' other Troy/Annie plotlines prove that the show could be a great show about college-aged people if it wanted to be.

The central heart of "Mixology" is based on the fact that Troy believes his 21st birthday signifies his becoming a man. Troy's central arc has always been around his maturation, and his maturation has always been largely influenced by the people around him. Yes, much of it is from Abed, who helped Troy crawl out of his "cool guy" high school shell and into the person he really wanted to be, but much of that also comes from the rest of his elders in the study group, who have served as his glimpse into the adult world for the past two years. To Troy, the rest of the study group are the people that he can hopes he can become one day. They hold the keys to the future. They know stuff. When you're young, you assume that there's some point, probably around the time you're 21 or something, where you just start to get it, and you look at people who are older than you and you look forward to the day you can get it like them. Troy certainly believes that the time has finally come for him to get it. "I can't wait to understand these arguments!" he excitedly gloats as Jeff and Britta continue to argue about their favorite bars. Jeff and Britta, of course, gladly take the role as Troy's mentor as they shame him out of buying a 7&7 because they are the ones who know about alcohol and they know it's a lame drink. Jeff and Britta have incredibly bruised egos, and they latch right onto Troy's trust in them and act as the almighty masters of adulthood who know everything there is to know about alcohol and, you know, life. 

But as the night wears on, the people that Troy has looked up to for the past two years begin to slowly melt into embarrassing piles of insecurity. Jeff and Britta's bickering gets increasingly ridiculous to the point of childish, far from the connoisseurs of maturity they were presenting themselves as. Abed is picked up by a young gay man in search of a companion for the night (played by Paul F. Tompkins!) that Abed misinterprets as a guy who wants to talk about Farscape, leaving Abed feeling ashamed and with a bunch of beer in his face. Pierce spends the entire night attempting to maneuver his wheelchair into the bar, only to learn that he's really not doing as well as he thinks he is. And in the episodes' most heartbreaking sequence, the group finds out that Shirley was once a pretty heavy alcoholic after they discover some unflattering pictures from her past in the bar, leaving her storming out angry and ashamed. All of these situations could've easily been played for laughs, but Community digs into the surface of them and exposes the sadness underneath the surface. When Troy looks around and realizes the state of the people he once respected, he begins to realize that a) alcohol makes people sad (because it's the Lifetime Movies of beverages) and b) he's suddenly being left to care for his woefully inebriated friends.

It's here where the Annie storyline makes its impact, which is perhaps the most painfully relatable storyline of the episode for me. Being 19, Annie is the only study group member that can't legally get into the bar and has to use a fake ID (courtesy of Britta). The ID is of Caroline Decker from Corpus Christie, Texas (78418), and Annie insists that she takes on the persona in full, just in case (which, according to Annie, is "someone who has really bad credit and an unfinished Mermaid tattoo"). She takes on a Southern accent at the door to lessen the bouncers' suspicions, and continues to do so in the bar - you know, just in case, because Annie's so uptight and paranoid, right? That's what we think, and it's probably true at first, but it soon becomes clear that Annie has adapted the Caroline Decker persona just for fun. Or at least, it looks like it's just for fun, until Annie begins having a full-on conversation with the bartender where she plays up the Caroline persona by inventing elaborate stories about punching her probation officer and traveling with the band Phish. At some point, Annie becomes Caroline Decker. She begins talking about her uptight friend Annie who has her entire life planned out and isn't like her because she's a floater and doesn't even know what she's going to do next. It's all a little bit silly, but it's rooted in a kind of existential despair, and that all comes to the surface when Annie goes from ordering root beers to ordering screwdrivers. "I ain't got no place to be", she says. "What am I, Annie?". Something about that line just gets me. This storyline - and this episode overall - captures the feeling of being in your early 20s so well. It understands the emotional confusion of the feeling where the person you've always expected yourself to become and the person you're becoming aren't quite lining up, and you're not exactly sure what to do with that. There's a pressure around people my age to live up to expectations, and when you don't, you just want to slip away and be someone else. And maybe sometimes you do. Maybe you don't take on the persona of a fake ID, but maybe you try to look like someone you're not or do things you don't really want to do or tell people you're something you're not. The way the show embraces this emotional truth - something I've never seen portrayed well anywhere else - is what makes it so poignant to me. I guess that's part of why I have such a personal connection to this episode. There's moments where I would love to slip away and be my own Caroline Decker, because sometimes pretending to be someone else is easier than being yourself. 

Troy is facing a similar existential crisis, as a night that was supposed to see him getting legally wasted for the first time ends up with him serving as the designated driver. Pretty much everything that Troy has believed all of his life has just turned out to be a lie, and it all comes to a screeching moment of realization when Jeff and Britta realize that the two bars they've been arguing about all night are the same bar. In a dramatic moment that can rival anything on Mad Men, Troy stops the car in a halt and belts, "THEY'RE THE SAME BAR?!?!". But it's more than just that, as he continues on. "I spent the last two years thinking you guys knew more than me about life, and I just found out that you're just as dumb as me". So what is being a man, then? It's not drinking, because that just makes people sad and childish. It's not being like Jeff and Britta, because they're idiots. The episodes' stance is that adulthood is basically the realization that adults are just as confused about everything as you are, and knowing that no one is ever going to figure any of this out.

It's a damn melancholy message for a network sitcom, but it all ends in an earned moment of sweetness, when both Troy and Annie's insecurities nicely dovetail into each other. Troy drops Annie off at her apartment door, and the two sit and have a conversation about the strange path that the night went down. "I pretended to be a different person tonight", Annie admits. "Because I didn't want to be me. Because I'm not sure who I am". Troy then stops for a moment and re-affirms Annie that she's Annie and she likes puzzles and little monsters on her pencil and some guy named Mark Ruffalo, and that she's a fierce competitor, a sore loser, and always expects everyone to be better than who they are and herself to be better than everyone. Sometimes, you need someone else to remind you that being you isn't so bad. And sometimes you need to make someone else realize that to make yourself realize it. That's what being an adult is. Not drinking alcohol, not having the knowledge of the world at your fingers, not Jeff and Britta. It's not knowing what the hell you're doing, realizing that no one else does either, and trying to get through it together.

Mad Men - "Time Zones"

Despair. That's the word that comes to mind whenever I think about Mad Men's 7th (and final, sort of, not really) season premiere. Complete and utter despair.

Of course, the truth is that despair has been creeping underneath the glossy surface of Mad Men since the very beginning. The entire show, after all, is a study of people who time is about to leave behind. But as the series has progressed, the despair has slowly crept up from underneath the surface to hanging out on top of it. And now, at the start of the 7th season, it's front and center, towering right over the eerie Hollywood hills like Charles Manson is just waiting around the corner. Yes, it's 1969, the year of the Manson murders and Woodstock and the moon landing, events that Mad Men will surely cover sometime between now and its swan song in 2015, but most importantly, it's the end. The end of what? Who knows. Don and Megan's marriage? Probably! Peggy's time at Sterling Cooper & Partners? Maybe! Lou Avery's life? We can only hope! But all through "Time Zones", it's hard to shake the feeling that something is about to come crashing down any minute.

Things were unsettling from the very start, when the season began with Freddy Rumsen - Freddy fucking Rumsen! - addressing the camera directly (an uncharacteristically fourth wall breaking choice for Mad Men) for a special pitch to Peggy. For a split second, we wonder if all has been righted with the world and Peggy has finally been made creative director of SC&P, but our hopes are quickly shattered when we're introduced to the sad, sad man that goes by the name of Lou Avery - SC&P's new Don Draper, except without the charm and talent and creativity and anything that makes Draper who he is. But he also comes without all of that pesky "mental instability due to his stolen identity and traumatic past" baggage that got Draper placed on leave at the end of last season. Quite honestly, watching Peggy play subservient to Lou Goddamn Avery was probably the most upsetting part of a very upsetting hour of television for me. The entire series has led me to believe that it would allow Peggy to be triumphant in the end, and when the end of Season 6 suggested Peggy might be Don's replacement, it seemed like all of those years of feminist struggle and marijuana experimentation and Duck Phillips might finally be paying off. But no. Peggy is right back where she's always been, trapped by the decisions of the many men in her life. I truly hope that Peggy hasn't missed the boat for the next generation and that she gets the hell out of SC&P and into a firm or even a line of work that respects her by seasons' end. I need Peggy Olson to win, guys. I need it. And watching her end the episode sobbing over how little she's progressed in the past few years despite all of her hard work...well, it was tough.

Still, her darkness will have to compete with the darkness of Don Draper, who is still sort of married to Megan even though they're bi-coastal and both pretty much realize that this thing isn't going to last for much longer. The scenes between Don and Megan were tough to watch, especially given that I recently went through Season 5 and was reminded of how much hope there was in their marriage back then. Sure, we all kind of knew it was doomed from the start, but there was a time when we all really thought Don could maybe be a better man and could make things work with Megan, who was pretty much the opposite of Betty and everything she represented. Now? Don and Megan's marriage is nauseatingly similar to Don and Betty's circa Season 3. Don is lying to Megan, yet to reveal that he's not currently working for SC&P and therefore is living across the country from her simply because, well, he doesn't really want to live with her. There's been a ton of speculation that Megan is going to meet a Manson-like fate, given her creepy apartment in the hills and minor television fame. I'd like to believe that Mad Men wouldn't be that cutesy with its history references (it never has been before), and I also would be kind of bummed if Megan met that fate. I'd much prefer seeing Megan taking control of her life in the way Betty mostly but didn't quite do, either by meeting her own Henry Francis or just kicking it on her own. Anyway, we know Don is off his game when he meets a cute airplane passenger played by yet another '90s teen star and doesn't even do anything with her other than let her rest her widowed head on his shoulder. This act of resistance is notably different than the ones Don exerted in Season 5, when he was trying his best to be A Good Husband. This one is more because Don Draper was the one who cheated on his wife, and he's not sure if Don Draper is even here anymore. The revelation that Don was writing his pitches through Freddy was both surprising and a little depressing, knowing that he's been reduced to being a mouthpiece for an infamously alcoholic freelancer. It's no wonder Don ends the episode freezing on his balcony after unsuccessfully trying to fix an unstuck door, and that shot is one of the episodes' most unsettling, as we wonder for a moment whether Weiner actually has what it takes to kill off his protagonist at the start of his shows' final season. He doesn't, because he's not dumb, but he's smart enough to make us think he's going to.

I wish I could say things were looking up for our other friends (and enemies) at SC&P, but then I'd have to ignore an overworked and still eyepatched Ken going off on Joan. Poor Ken. It's obvious that his latest title as Head of Accounts is keeping him from his love of sci-fi writing, and he's taking it out on Joan, who continues to try to prove herself in a company that's kind of tired of people proving themselves. Joan's meeting with Travis from Cougar Town (who, yes, is the new marketing manager of an important client) is another way of showing us how Joan is trying her best to prove that she has what it takes to be a full partner - and doing pretty well at it, too! But pretty much no one - except for maybe Ken - seems to care one way or another. Much like Peggy, Joan is trapped by the men of Sterling Cooper. They need an out. (And maybe they can take poor Ken with them).

The last person I have to get to is, of course, Roger Sterling, who is taking the new sexual revolution up on all of its promises, but doing so in the saddest way possible. Roger might think that his newfound orgy cult is a sign that he's finally free, but the contrast between his time there and brunch with his daughter brings to center just how sad of a man Roger really has become. Brunch is awkward and painful - especially since Margaret seems almost brainwashed when she weirdly tells him that "she forgives him" before going on a laundry list of things that he did wrong - and it's only made moreso when we see Roger returning home to a sweaty-looking threesome. Roger is living his dream, but there's something so damn depressing about it.

Really, the only person who seems content is Pete Campbell. Of all people! This is Pete Campbell we're talking about, so I'm sure he'll wind up complaining that it's too hot before knocking down an elephant or something in the next episode, but it seems significant that the only character who appears to be better off than where we left off last season is the one who is never happy about anything. It also ups the "Pete Campbell is Don Draper" mindset - California used to be Don's happy place. It was the home of Anna and the start of his relationship with Megan. But now even California can't save Don. Maybe it's too soon to tell if it'll save Pete. (Can anyone who cheats on Alison Brie truly be saved?)

So what does this all mean? This is Mad Men, so we might not be sure until the season is said and done. But more than many other Mad Men premieres, "Time Zones" suggests things are in a state of unrest. This is a show about people who find themselves trapped in cycles because they're not ready for real change, but "Time Zones" looks to find many of these characters in their final orbits. Where they'll go next is the question from here on out.