Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

In tuning in to our (totally not stolen) HBO GO account, I stumbled upon Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and decided to give it a whirl. What starts as a comedic, dark tale of a pre-apocalyptic society dealing with the impending arrival of a devastating astroid, quickly dove tails into a rom com right before our very eyes. 

Steve Carell and Kiera Knightley play an odd couple who meet during the last three weeks on earth. It begins much like any dark comedy about the end of the world would: snarky newscasters delivering the traffic report with, "We're fucked, Bob." Radio DJ's reporting the countdown to the end of days, "all while bringing you the hits." It was a perfect blend of Shaun of the Dead meets Zombieland. 

In the wake of devastation, it took an interesting turn in seeing just what people would do with knowing that they're going to die in three weeks time. Some people keep going to work, (with weeping secretaries and announcements of new positions: "Anyone want to be the CFO?"). Some people hire Hit Men to go ahead and kill them when they least expect it, others choose to spend time with family, (and get a chance to tell their dads to go to hell in person). Others riot burning cities while the majority of people simply do what they've always wanted to do: just drink booze, smoke cigars and wait this out.

A cast of surprising characters were sprinkled throughout the movie including Linda Carell, (Steve Carell's real-life wife who ironically plays his fictional wife who immediately leaves him in the opening scene). Rob Heubel, Patton Oswalt, Adam Brody, Rob Corddry and Connie Britton have a few minutes of screen time. Connie Britton wins best line of the movie during a party at her house: "Hey, everybody! Sarah and James brought heroin!" as others shout, "Oo! Bucket list! Bucket list!"

With the world in total chaos, mild mannered Carell and Knightley narrowly escape a riot outside of their apartment building and set off on a buddy road trip with different goals. Carell wants to reconnect with a past love, (who Knightley mistakenly misplaces a letter from her that he was supposed to receive months ago) and Knightley wants to try and make it to England to see her family even though all flights are cancelled. 

The rest of the movie is essentially Knightley being adorable and saying quirky things and Carell falling in love with her. There are moments of humor during which the couple stops at a "Friendzy's" restaurant that appears to be open. The staff is ecstatic to throw an ongoing party, hugging patrons and rolling on Ecstasy, insisting that everyone must try today's Specials because, "the kitchen has gotten really creative lately" before quickly falling into a pile of bodies set to orgi. 

They make their way to a guy Carell used to know with a plane, who turns out to be Martin Sheen, Carell's father. HE HAD DADDY ISSUES?! They share a meal, play harmonica, and then Carell carries a sleeping Knightley onto Sheen's plane and sends her off to England before retuning home to listen to records in her abandoned apartment. Knightley wakes up during flight and insists they return so that Knightley can die beside Carell, a man she just met and has shared one backseat roll in the hay with. 

While I know that this is, obviously, a far fetched premise and we're supposed to laugh throughout all of it and try to blindly accept the story lines, I was really disappointed that it turned heartfelt. These characters didn't mean anything to me and they shouldn't have. If I had to spend my last days on earth with whomever was next to me, I'd probably fall in love with them too. Because what's at stake here? Absolutely nothing. 

Just what would you do if you knew you had three weeks to live? (You can't choose falling in love with Steve Carell, that one is taken.)

"I know how I want you to see me."

This week's Mad Men episode "Field Trip" may have truly made me, (sllliiiigggghtly) more empathetic with Don's plight. While I'm not quite ready to get back on the Don Draper train to Pityville, I will say that I at least stretched my legs at the SorryCharlie Depot.

Poor Don can't get the attention he feels he deserves from his reliable and trusting secretary Dawn. What with her new responsibilities as head of Personnel, her phone is ringing off the hook and Don is no longer at the top of pile of priorities for someone with her schedule to deal with. And speaking as someone who used to be an assistant for a number of years, how infuriated did you get at watching Don pitch a fit for having to dial a number... BY HIMSELF?!

After Don discovered that his wife Megan may possibly be making the wrong impression out in LA and trying a little too hard to nail certain auditions, Don jumps on a plane to go "surprise her." Moments after a post-coital cuddle on the couch with a throughly surprised Megan, the two immediately get into a fight about the real reason why he's out there: to reprimand her for her actions. (And aren't post-coital fights the absolute worst time in the history of time to have a fight? ::zip::)

Megan quickly finds out that Don has been lying to her for several months about his job. He doesn't "not have a job" but is simply collecting a paycheck. (Oh, how Don enjoys at least the appearance of things.) But don't worry, he tells her, there's no one else and he hasn't even been drinking that much. Megan then delivers the best line in the show: "So with a clear head, you got up every day and decided that you didn't want to be with me." BURN. Don, incapable of truly understanding anyone else's reactions to his ridiculous actions, doesn't seem to get the fact that the only reason Megan is out there in the first place is because of him. He was the one who changed his mind in starting over again in LA, leaving her stranded. Once again, he remains the solitary planet in the universe that all objects must gravitate around.

Meanwhile in McMartyrland, my favorite neighbor Francine returns to have lunch with Betty. They discuss Francine's new part time job at a Travel Agency and how challenging yet truly rewarding hard work can be. Betty offers, "I thought children were supposed to be the reward." While it's a lovely sentiment, we all know Betty has already won "Worst Mother of the Year" ten times over. She returns home to find her housekeeper helping Bobby with his homework and quickly agrees to chaperone his field trip to a local farm. (Though quickly cutting off Bobby's excitement over this fact.)

The field trip started out so nicely... Betty and Bobby had a "conversation" on the bus, Betty poisoned Bobby's opinion of his teacher, Betty and another mother poisoned the air with their cigarette smoke and other haughty remarks about the teacher's braless appearance. Betty even took a swig from the bucket to taste the sweet, warm, barfy milk fresh from the cow's teat! Things all went south quickly, when Bobby traded Betty's sandwich for a bag of gum drops. Betty lights up a cigarette and reverts to her icy self, even making Bobby eat the gum drops as a punishment. How ironic was it that Bobby must be throughly confused at seeing his mom actually want to eat lunch after so many years of being overweight, and now he's been punished by being forced to eat his mistake. Oof. "I wish it was yesterday," poor Bobby said later of the field trip. Betty is the worst mother on the planet, yet still takes time out of her day for punishing her children and those around her, for not praising her for being the opposite.

Meanwhile, Don quickly returns to New York to, (finally) try and get his job back. He goes to get an offer at another firm before stopping by Roger's apartment, (pre-BLT/LSD) to shove the offer envelopment in his face. Roger tells him to return on Monday, but fails to let the rest of his partners know that. Whether or not it's just Don being Don, he truly believes that they were going to be seemingly happy to see him return to the office. And of course, they are not.

After a day of waiting around in the creative office, flipping through magazines and pretending that Dawn is still the person responsible for getting his coffee, (did I mention that I used to be an assistant?), he's finally called in to a meeting of the partners to find out what the final verdict is. They'll have him back to work, but under certain rules. #1 No private meetings with clients. #2 No drinking at the office unless it's for client entertainment, and #3 He must report directly to Lou. (Side note: how is Lou still there? With a two year contract, no less!) As much as everyone would be okay with letting Don quietly fade into oblivion, I suppose they realized that he is still under contract and it would be much too expensive to buy him out as a partner. Without so much as a whimper, a hint of ego or dissent, Don simply says, "OK."

FADE TO BLACK.

It will certainly be interesting to see how Don's assimilation back into SCP goes from here. He has quite a few relationships to patch up and quite a few changes to make in his own life. Do I think he can do it? On one hand, I could care less. On the other, well, only time will tell.

A Day's Work

This week's appropriately titled Mad Men episode 'A Day's Work' was successful in illuminating just how difficult it is for our cast to complete a full day's work. How could they, what with bouquets of card-less flowers causing confusion and secretaries who are incapable of being in ten places at once! Even if it wasn't Valentine's Day, it's a wonder anyone gets anything done!

Let's talk about Peggy. Poor, poor, poor Peggy. She's been treated like she's on of the boys for so long that she forgets how girlish she really can be. What started as a normal day in the office, quickly turns after one elevator ride with the guys who tease her about her single and sad status. She exits the elevator, realizing it's Valentine's Day and immediately assumes a card-less bouquet of flowers sitting on her secretary's desk is for her. Not only that, she assumes they're from Ted.

In what should have been a quick answer to the identity of the flowers, Shirley, Peggy's secretary, lets her believe they're for Peggy and goes off to sulk. Throughout the day, Peggy's frustration with the possibility that they really are from Ted gets the best of her. She returns the flowers to Shirley's desk claiming that she doesn't want them in her office anymore only later to come out insisting that they should be thrown away. Only then does Shirley confess that they're actually from Shirley's fiancee. Peggy explodes, claiming that everyone knows Shirley is engaged, why does she need to rub it in everyone's faces with flowers and embarrass Peggy like that. It was mortifying to watch and I was thankful when it was over.

And across the office, another battle of boss vs. secretary brews. Sally Draper, after ditching a funeral in the city for shopping, quickly loses her purse and finds her way to her father's office for help. Only she discovers the despicable Lou sitting in her Dad's office. Confused, she makes her way to her Dad's apartment to wait for him. Dawn returns to her desk from buying perfume for Lou's wife only to get an earful from Lou about how this is all her fault. My favorite scene follows in which Dawn and Joan are called into Lou's office with a request that Dawn be taken off of his desk. I really like the way that Mad Men is handling this issue of race in the workplace because we actually get to see Dawn scream, rather justifiably, at her wretched boss. Joan lets this happen because it's the right thing to do. I guess I enjoyed this scene so much because after so many years of seeing race being handled in the way that, well, race was handled in the 60s during this show, it was refreshing to see this issue changing in the way that it presumably did during this time.

Dawn is moved to reception only for Cooper to wander out and see her, making claims to Joan later that we can't have a "person of color" sitting as the face of their company. "People can see her from the elevator." Maybe it's just me, I never would've pictured Cooper's character saying this. So in an effort to quell the furies of unrelenting bosses, Joan does what any good head of personnel would do: she gives her title and position to Dawn, removing her from reception and rewarding her with a much better job. Joan then takes up Jim's suggestion and rewards herself with a better office, leaving her personnel responsibilities to someone else. I loved how that all played out.

But now to the matter at hand, (ugh), Don Draper. Last week I was frustrated over the fact that I couldn't decide whose story this was anymore. This week I'm going to say that I hope this turns into Sally Draper's story. She has completed her metamorphosis into a full-blown teenager and is walking and talking beyond her years. Realizing that her father has been lying to her about temporarily losing his job, he drives her back to school trying to engage in conversation with her. Sally has become one of the only voices of reason in Don's life, challenging him when he's caught in a lie and forcing him to tell the truth, or at least a version of it. Don has a lot of apologizing to do with Sally and Sally certainly isn't waiting around for her father to magically become a father. But they're trying. The car fight was one of the best father-daughter spats I've seen in some time.

And when Sally finally exits the car at her school, she pauses at the door and says, "Happy Valentine's Day. I love you." Seeing Don's face absorb what just happened as the door closed was both heartwarming and heartbreaking. His daughter has barely expressed anything to him in the past few years and he certainly hasn't earned it. To see his daughter not only tell him that he loved her, but to mean it must have blindsided Don like nothing else could. While I still have ice running through my veins at the mention of Don Draper's name, Sally was able to melt away a few paths with that last line.

And let us sing.

The Crocodile's Dilemma, You Betcha

Recently I listened to several podcasts from TV Critics instructing its listeners on how to view the upcoming pilot of the new FX show Fargo, which is: Whatever you do, don't compare it the movie Fargo. While the Coen brothers sit as two of the show's Executive Producers, the characters and plot loosely rely on the movie's story, and the show itself is set in frozen Minnesota... that's about where it ends.

Jerry Lundegaard, (William H. Macy) is essentially replaced with Lester Nygaard, (played by Martin Freeman) whose plights border only on a few similarities. For one, Jerry Lundegaard, while not the brightest bulb, at least had a direct plan to get out of his present financial predicament. Lester is just unhappy, bad at his job and doesn't claim any responsibilities to the situations he finds himself in. (And may I say, Martin Freeman does a terrible impersonation of a Minnesotan. I thought Southern accents were hard, but c'mon, eh?)

Lester meets Lorne Malvo, (Billy Bob Thornton) who's like a weird hybrid of Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men and some mythic, yet comedic character from an old Looney Toons rerun. You were supposed to fear him, yet be able to laugh with him. I suppose this is a page from the Coen brothers character playbook. Yet I don't believe I, well, believed Lester. (Loved him failing to deliver an eerie and foreboding message to Colin Hanks' character later in Deluth, "Thar be dragons...")

At any rate, Lester and Lorne meet while waiting to be seen in a hospital for different head injuries. Lester relays his reason for sustaining his injury, (an old High School bully still, somehow, tormenting him in his adulthood) and Lorne, being that he's a Hit Man, offers to take care of this situation for him. While no authority was given, Lorne takes it upon himself to complete this job with seemingly no ulterior motive other than, perhaps, he's standing up for the little guy. We see this later as he implores the kid working at the motel to pee in his boss' gas tank, but then immediately gets him in trouble for it. Perhaps we are to believe that Lester is the kid holding the magnifying glass over the anthill.

We meet other characters along the way including the Chief of Police and the other officers working under him. Like Bob Odenkirk, (!!!!) and Molly Solverson, a woman we know will eventually take his job when the time comes. (This is what's called foreshadowing...)

The trouble doesn't stop for Lester, clearly, after his bully is found dead in the local strip club and he'll soon by implicated by the Chief of Police himself. Lester is bullied at home by his unhappy and dissatisfied wife for a great number of things: his inadequacy at work, his inadequacy in bed, his inadequacy at not being able to fix home appliances. And just when I thought this episode was going to pass by with just a few peaks and valleys, Lester totally kills his wife. Not just kills her, beats her body in with a hammer.

The gruesome scenes didn't end there as the first show of this limited season surprised its audience with some hard hits. The likable Chief of Police is shot in the back by Lorne while coming to confront Lester, leaving a pregnant wife at home. Lester, realizing he's about to be in quite a bit of trouble, fakes an accident by ramming his own head into a wall and is knocked out cold next to his brutally murdered wife in the basement.

I don't want to say that the show was made better because they filled it with violence in the third act, but they certainly fooled me in the direction it was going to take. While I wasn't riveted in the pilot by any means, I was impressed with FX taking another chance on a bold idea, (The Americans...). I'm looking forward to the remaining nine episodes in this limited season. And in surveying our vast and countless options in television programming recently, I really would say we're looking at the Golden Age: Pt Deux.

It's Good (the Worst) To Be The King

Remember that time Joffrey totally died?

Everything was going so well there at first. He had just wed a Ms. America contestant...

He then started unfairly picking on his uncle, reminding us why we truly wanted him to die...

And then he totally went and got all dead!

Whose Story is This?

I've started in on Season 7 of Mad Men with one major thought in mind: I'm no longer going to pay any attention to Don Draper's character anymore. It just feels so over, like it's no longer his story anymore. But whose story is it?

The show's premiere, appropriately named 'Time Zones,' was perfect for drawing the comparisons and differences between the East and West coast and our cast of characters strung in between. It's a few months from where we left off after Don was suspended from work, Megan has moved to California along with Ted and Pete Campbell. (PETE! More in a minute on that...) From the time Megan so stylishly steps out of her convertible to pick up her decidedly-the-same handsome husband, my brain switched off and I no longer wanted to pay attention to his side.

You know who I did want to take notice of? PETE CAMPBELL! Oooooh, Pete, how I've missed you so! He came back with flying colors, (speaking of color - that tan! That sweater!). We follow Megan and Don's short-lived trip together as they try and squeeze in a normal husband/wife visit, except it's anything but. (How 'bout Megan's agent? I loved him. "I will not!" (Except, can we talk about Megan's "fixing your teeth" comment from her agent? Eesh.)

Megan is seemingly at home in her newly decorated, newly acquired apartment with a view of the canyon. With coyotes howling in the background, I couldn't help but imagine what will happen later this year for the cast out in LA. It being 1969, I'm assuming they're going to cover the Charles Manson/Sharon Tate murders, conveniently located within close proximity of where I'm imagining Megan is living.

One glaringly uncomfortable blip in Megan and Don's storyline was the fact that Don has Megan convinced that he still has a job. And later, during the meeting with Freddy Rumsen, we learn that Don still truly believes he has his job because he's still getting paid. Don takes the red eye back to New York "to work" and is conveniently sitting next to a charmingly disturbed widow played by Neve Campbell. The two share a dramatic and emotionally bonding experience on this overnight flight, yet he turns down a chance at another fling. Has he changed? Absolutely not. And you know what? I couldn't be less interested.

Back in New York, our East Coasters aren't doing all that well either. Roger, (oh, Roger, I've missed you too) wakes up in a pool of naked bodies after a night of enlightenment. ("I feel like we really got somewhere last night.") Sharing a bed with whomever is welcome and throwing himself down the rabbit hole has his daughter taking notice. Over brunch we see her "forgiving" her father for his transgressions. We get the feeling that she's joined some sort of new age group, (cult?) and provides yet another example of the general storytelling/smattering of what it was like in the year of 1969.

Peggy, nowhere near where I thought she'd be this season, is catering to a new stand-in boss. She's pushed herself into exhaustion and is finding herself overworked and alone, feeling like no one else wants to push themselves to do good work like she does. Seeing her breakdown in her empty apartment in one of the last scenes was truly heartbreaking, if not obvious. I think we're all just waiting for Peggy to take that next step into something truly scary: being okay with normalcy.

And in other news, Joan is still struggling with that last foothold before she really believes she's a part of the upper epsilon at, (what's this agency called again?). And Ken, poor Ken, is starting to sound more and more like the old, disgruntled Pete Campbell, (but with one less eyeball). I'm looking forward to seeing what the Francis family has been up to. What kid is playing Bobby now? And though a few months have passed in the storyline, Sally is what, 27 at this point?

While the premiere of Season 7 did not blow me away, it was nice to meet up with everyone again and see where they've gone. As the 60's draw closer to an end and certain moments have yet to be lived, (Manson! Woodstock! MAN ON THE MOON!), this episode merely served as a jumping off point for what I hope will continue this season: Don Draper being dragged away by wild coyotes.