Liars and Saints

Saturday afternoon she drove to the bakery in the shopping center. After looking through a loose-leaf binder with photographs of cakes taped onto the pages, she ordered chocolate, the child’s favorite. The cake she chose was decorated with a spaceship and launching pad under a sprinkling of white stars, and a planet made of red frosting at the other end. His name, SCOTTY, would be in green letters beneath the planet. The baker, who was an older man with a thick neck, listened without saying anything when she told him the child would be eight years old next Monday. The baker wore a white apron that looked like a smock. Straps cut under his arms, went around in back and then to the front again, where they were secured under his heavy waist. He wiped his hands on his apron as he listened to her. He kept his eyes down on the photographs and let her talk. He let her take her time. He’d just come to work and he’d be there all night, baking, and he was in no real hurry. Some n...

Everyone is dazzled by "The Other Woman," just as everyone is dazzled by "The Suitcase," and here's why. - The sequel. It seems to me that "The Other Woman" can be viewed as a reprise of "The Suitcase," even though the two episodes are separated by an entire season. "The Suitcase" is a mid-series check-in on Peggy and Don; as others have noted, Peggy is halfway through her climb, and Don is halfway through his ignominious "slide." Throughout "The Suitcase," we see Peggy standing, or in a maternal position, while Don crumbles to the floor or curls up like a small child. "The Other Woman" gives us a bit more of that. Here, Don, sitting, kisses--and kisses, and kisses, and kisses--Peggy's hand, while Peggy remains standing. It's a nice gesture but--as we all know--it's also too little, too late. Peggy will continue to soar. She will leave Don in the dust. - The misunderstandings. Peggy be...

What can we take from "The Suitcase," widely felt to be the single greatest episode in seven celebrated seasons of "Mad Men"? (1) Top spin . Weiner's show (and Weiner wrote this particular episode) was always designed to be a vehicle for "tension and irony." Weiner himself said that before the show ever appeared on-air. A line of dialogue has "top spin" when there's a meaning underneath a literal meaning. Weiner really loves subtext; he loves it almost to a fault. (I am one viewer who desperately wanted a few more sincere, heartfelt conversations in the long history of "Mad Men"--not because I can't tolerate scheming characters, but because I think sincerity and heart do actually exist in the world, and MM became a bit stilted, at times, by seeming not to agree with me!) All that said, the "top spin" in "The Suitcase" is fabulous. "Why is there a dog in the Parthenon?" "You're twe...