The assassination of JFK on Sunday's episode of Mad Men may have been the catalyst for Betty Draper's "awakening," but it's been a long time coming.
Here comes my rant: I, for one, am sick and tired of seeing the women in this show get walked all over! I know it's the way things were back then, but the times they are a changin', so I'm hoping we'll get to see more women stand up and take charge of their lives.
I was cheering when Betty stood up to her lying, cheating, skank of a husband Don and told him she didn't love him anymore. Bonus points for driving off to meet your lover, Betty. Hopefully, he won't cheat on you.
Now if Joan would leave her loser fiance who raped her at the office and then went about his business like nothing happened -- that'd be the icing on this women's movement cake. I'd say that she and Roger Sterling belong together, but she's too good for him.
One of the things I love (out of many, many things) about Mad Men is the advertising, business, and social history that serves as a background to much of what goes on in the lives of the characters on the show. For example, Conrad Hilton has been a character on the show this season, hiring Don and Sterling Cooper as an ad agency. I assumed that Matt Weiner and his writers approached the Hilton family and/or the Hilton chain about using him on the show. But that's not what happened.
I had been expecting the JFK assassination to become part of the Mad Men storyline from the moment they showed us the invitation for Margaret Sterling's wedding on November 23, 1963. Expectations are one thing. Watching the way the national tragedy was depicted was quite another. As I watched the scenes unfold, I was riveted to the screen – and that was a surprise to me because on Fox the Yankees and the Phillies were locked in a very tight World Series game, and I cared about the outcome.
But I found myself unable to turn away from Mad Men. It wasn't pleasant to watch those black and white images of anchormen Walter Cronkite and Chet Huntley. The moment I saw the flickering images behind Harry and Pete in the Sterling-Cooper office, I knew what was happening. It was terrific storytelling, by the way, for the viewer to know, but for Pete and Harry to be oblivious.
(S03E12) "The whole country's drinking." - Pete, to Trudy
When Joel talked to Mad Men creator and writer Matthew Weiner last month, he wouldn't say when or how the show would deal with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. We all knew it was coming, since last week's episode was set on Halloween, but I actually thought it would happen in the season finale. But they addressed it tonight.
They say November 22, 1963 is the day America changed, and I would say that the lives of the people in and around Sterling Cooper changed too, in various ways and for various reasons.
Today I made an executive decision and gave the podcast an oh-so-creative name: "The TV Squad Podcast." This was after we recorded it on Tuesday, so I still refer to it by its old APB name. If you have any suggestions, let me know at tvsquad [at] gmail [dot] com.
In this episode, Late Show writer Bill Scheft joins me, Danny Gallagher and Kona Gallagher to talk about his new book Everything Hurts. Of course, there's lots of good behind-the-scenes info about what it was like to work at The Late Show, especially on how the events of the past month affected the staff and the show's writing, including the monologue.
He also tells some funny stories about being canned from Sports Illustrated (and spawns a new catchphrase), feeding lines to the guy who played Mike Singletary and more. It's 45 minutes of fun.
After the interview, Kona, Danny and I give our picks of the week. Run time is 1:03:02.
Rules are meant to be broken... especially for these ten television characters. For them, the rest of the world has one standard to live by and they have another. It makes them interesting and fun to watch... you just wouldn't necessarily want to be the person having to deal with them because they could drive you to distraction. Here's my ten pack of characters who live in a world of their own, according to no rules except their own. From the not-too-bad to the really bad.
10. Patrick Jane, The Mentalist
You would think that as a consultant to the CBI -- California Bureau of Investigation -- Patrick Jane would be compelled to uphold the rules and regulations of the department. However, Jane is a free spirit when it comes to office protocol. He does his own thing. For instance, bugging the office of a CBI higher-up is definitely not kosher. Jane doesn't care; he did it anyway and will probably get away with it.
I'll admit it: I like Martha (the show and the person). Unlike a lot of daytime shows that feature cooking and other how-to segments, it's not so heavily tilted towards women that men can't get into it. Unlike Rachael Ray, which has way too many segments on makeovers, relationships, and what shoes you should wear.
Today she has Mad Men's Joan Holloway herself, Christina Hendricks. It says in the summary for the episode that Hendricks is going to mix Halloween cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. Whenever someone from Mad Men is on Martha they make cocktails. Last season Bryan Batt (Sal Romano) was on and made Manhattans and Rob Roys.
Here's a sneak peek. It doesn't really show too much, except that most of the episode is all about spiders. I hate spiders.
I continue to be amazed by Mad Men. I don't mean the overall quality of the writing, the acting, the direction, the production. It's easy to be amazed by all that. I'm talking about where Matthew Weiner and his writing staff are taking us.
I think we can all agree that, beyond the bigger picture of how the 1960s changed America, the big story on the show has been "Who is Don Draper?" It's the big secret that he's been keeping since episode one and it has really been the driving force of the show. But last night Weiner and Co. blew the show wide open by having Betty confront Don about the box in the drawer. And when she did, Don actually told the truth! And this wasn't even the season finale!
(S03E11) Autumn in New York, why does it feel so inviting... That's a great song, and I thought of it while watching the opening of this episode, with the Draper kids all excited about Halloween. And there was also that chill in the air between Don and Betty. Actually, the icy glare was all Betts. She was off to see her brother about selling their father's home, but what was really on Betty's mind was the contents of Don's desk drawer. More on that and gypsy and the hobo, after the jump. By the way, this was a great Mad Men episode.
So ... Betty Draper is starting to get an inkling of Don's dark and secret past on Mad Men. In Sunday's episode, she found the box with all his secret things. Really, you'd think he would keep it in a safety deposit box or something. You can't just leave that stuff lying around the house, even in a locked desk drawer. Someone's bound to find it, just as Betty did.
My question is what will Betty do with this important information? She' s already been stung by Don's affairs, and now she's got this to contend with.
Reading the plot description for this week's Mad Men, "The Gypsy and the Hobo," and it says that a former client returns to Sterling Cooper and Betty takes the kids on a trip. I'm assuming the trip is without Don/Dick. I wonder if she'll return.
Here's a sneak peek of the episode, and I think it shows the client in question. Not sure who the gypsy refers to or the hobo (perhaps the one Dick met as a kid?).
(S03E10) "We don't need to go every week." - Betty, about church
I once had a boss, a rather bad guy, who used to brag that he was a good person because he went to church every Sunday. I used to say to myself, "yeah, because you have to go to church every Sunday." I thought of that after Betty said that above quote to Sally. I'm not very religious, but if people have to go to church every week because of the bad things they do, then Betty and Don are two people who should be going.
The assassination of JFK on Sunday's episode of Mad Men may have been the catalyst for Betty Draper's "awakening," but it's been a long time coming. 
Syfy is showing V: The Final Battle all night.
Today I made an executive decision and gave the podcast an oh-so-creative name: "The TV Squad Podcast." This was after we recorded it on Tuesday, so I still refer to it by its old APB name. If you have any suggestions, let me know at tvsquad [at] gmail [dot] com.
Nickelodeon has a marathon of The Nanny all night.
So ... Betty Draper is starting to get an inkling of Don's dark and secret past on 
At 7, ABC has a new America's Funniest Home Videos, followed by new episodes of Extreme Makeover, Desperate Housewives, and Brothers & Sisters.
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