Just When Mad Men Gets Boring It Gets Interesting Again

Lost Bette gets some help and more from an unexpected source.

Let's admit, season 6 has been less than stellar and more than predictable. I think it's like the whole cast is starting to get sick of it all and when your party host is tired themselves and passing out on the couch it's time to leave the party. But this last episode had so many unexpected turns that I think it was a last try to get this show back to up and running status rather than dead in the water status. Adding so many new characters and neglecting the base ones was clearly not a good strategy so they decided to go back to basics. 

They must have noticed that even the most die-hard Mad Mennies were starting to despise Don Draper, and without him, there is no show, so enough with him being a totally sadistic borderline rapist romantic novel villain and just mellow him out why don't ya. Which is what they did, the episode wasn't exactly about him, all of the main characters had an interesting arc this time. Through the filter of unseen and unexpected desire, they explored many of the characters' primal vices. 

tension brews between the not so happy couple.

Maybe it was a desperate attempt to recapture the magic of the first few seasons, but it worked. Peggy and her scruffy leftist, marxist scribbler boyfriend Abe are at odds like an old married couple because basically she won't let him be a man. All of the decisions run through her, and she doesn't even let him to house renovation work. It's like working in advertising and having to compete with Don for so long has made her grown a penis. This tension comes to a shocking climax when the unsafe neighborhood that they live in (the upper west side, oh my god scariest place on earth) makes her so paranoid that she accidentally stabs him right in the stomach with I think the end of a lamp or something I don't know, I just know I hadn't had this much exhilarating fun watching a show since that poor Brit had his foot run over with a lawn mower at Sterling Cooper. 

Peggy and Abe go through some serious shit, had they stayed together afterwards, and it's not clear if they do, it would make for a great story to tell at parties.

There's also lesbian tension between Megan and her agent/costar who is clearly crushing on her, but she's brutally rebuffed, like Megan is Garbo or somebody. That other woman could get anyone she wants. Don just happens to be away getting his son Bobby ready for camp and guess who's there to surprise him, the character we all love to hate and cringe at the mere sound of her voice; Bette (forget what her current last name is). And what ends up happening? Well you guess. It has been a while since they've done nothing but fight, and she has lost all that weird weight and dyed her hair back to blonde. She looks almost exactly the same as she did when the series started and can't help being irresistible to men again. Her husband isn't there, and his wife is at home, perfect timing, and you know what? As sick as it is to think of Don and Bette in bed again I actually enjoyed it. I was glad it happened. It made us understand how lonely Don actually is because he spent his entire adult life pushing people away. Anyway, I was satisfied after watching this, and I haven't been able to say that about Mad Men in a while, so Bravo!

Hey Everybody It's Ok to Make Fun of Fat People Again!

The new Betty Draper which launched a million OMFG's

Against my wishes, they decided to thrust Betty Draper back into our faces, fat first. I don't know if you've noticed or anything but she's kind of put on some weight since last we saw her. And apparently, we as the public cannot get enough of making fun of it, myself included. In this day and age where rapid escalation in bullying has become a serious life-threatening issue, it's nice that we can still sit anonymously behind our computers and ridicule chunky people in the media with impunity. 

Now I'm sure that when we all tuned into the second episode of the 5th season of Mad Men (2007 - present) we were all 'how did Paula Deen finagle her way to AMC?'
You see what I did there? I'm speaking out against internet ridicule and simultaneously engaging in it. That makes me a very special type of hypocrite.

It probably has a lot to do with the fact that none of us really like Betty Draper, in fact she's one of those women we love to hate. My office was agog with comments around the water cooler about how gross she looked. When honestly, it's about time that girl put on a few. We as the public love to see seemingly flawless people be given their comeuppance for being so apologetically hot and better than the rest of us, so when they're taken down a few pegs (i.e. fat-suit and body double) then there's no better schadenfreude.

We can all sleep soundly knowing that even Betty porcelain-doll Draper is not above getting old and getting fat like the rest of us. 

Excuuuuuuuuuse me for having tits. J-Law's new spread in Glamour magazine. Take that skinny bitches!

This is coming off the heels of internet outrage about Jennifer Lawrence being too 'supple' to play a starving teenager in The Hunger Games (2012), which basically translates into people thinking she's a fatty just because she has a normal female form and her rib cage isn't protruding out of her chest. I thought we were over the whole women have to look like they're in the terminal stages of heroin addiction a long time ago, and all of a sudden we can't embrace a full-bodied figure because we all want to fit into Ellen Page's jeans? Um, I'll call BS. 

Remember when heroin chic was a thing? I blame all of my body issues on it to this day.