Reviews – Page 47 – Simon’s Incoherent Blog

Mad Men: Season 5, Episode 6–Far Away Places

“I have an announcement to make. It’s going to be a beautiful day.”

After the last couple of weeks tight focus, this week’s Mad Men continued the trend with yet another episode of detailed character study. It’s a Peggy episode… No wait, it’s a Roger and Jane episode… Hang on, it’s actually a Don and Megan episode… I can’t stand the confusion in my mind!

Actually, it was all three of these, cleverly interweaved in a Robert Altman/Quentin Tarantino non-linear narrative to take place over roughly the space of the same day. Mad Men has played with dramatic form before, but never, I think, so boldly. Series creator Matthew Weiner has said that the tricksy structure of this episode was inspired by French anthology films, but I suspect like most people of my generation, the first thing I thought when I realised what was going on was, “oh, it’s Pulp Fiction.”

And it did take me a little while to realise what was going on. Not until we were some way into the Don/Megan narrative and I saw the same moment of them telling Peggy they were off to Howard Johnson’s, in fact. In retrospect, I was being pretty dumb – though I did wonder why Roger turned up in Don’s office proposing a trip to Howard Johnson’s when I thought he and Megan had just been there. And I did expect that, when Peggy was called by an obviously flustered Don from a call box in the first story, there’d be some payoff to explain his consternation. So, dumb old me was being less than perceptive this week – ironic, in an episode so concerned with people’s perceptions that it featured at its centre Roger Sterling tripping on acid.

But I’m getting ahead of myself (much like the story structure of this episode). In many ways, we were in familiar Mad Men territory here; the script dealt yet again with the relationships between the male and female characters, with a dose of reminding us how difficult it could be to balance those relationships with a professional career. Especially for Peggy, who’s still struggling to be taken seriously in the man’s world of copywriting.

Peggy’s relationship was the first to be subjected to what I suppose would be appropriate to call an acid test. She started her narrative in bed with her on/off boyfriend Abe (and who would have thought he looked so good clad only in a pair of white briefs?). Bur she couldn’t concern herself with such niceties as going to the movies or having sex – she had her long-awaited Heinz pitch to think about.

In many ways, this scene was an amusing gender reversal of common Mad Men moments, particularly from when Don and Betty were still together. In this case, Peggy was, revealingly, basically a female Don – so preoccupied with work that her frustrated partner eventually angrily asked her if it was over between them. And just like Don, Peggy was too deep in thought about work to even give him a proper answer. No wonder he ended up storming out after saying that he wasn’t like most men in that regard.

The Heinz pitch didn’t go well, with bean supremo Raymond less than impressed with Peggy’s idea even though he’d asked for precisely what he got. The heavy implication, of course, was that he couldn’t take Peggy as seriously as he would Don; he even asked if Don had signed off on the proposal. All credit to Elisabeth Moss for this scene – you could actually see the moment when Peggy reached the end of her tether, and just let Raymond have it in a tirade that was either bold or suicidal – we’ve yet to see which.

And of course, Raymond responded not with the respect he’d have given Don, but by likening Peggy to his teenage daughter. I’m not surprised she was frustrated enough to go and get stoned and give a strange man a handjob in a movie theater. Odd choice of movie though; Born Free has certainly made me crave the former activity, but never the latter…

But the most significant aspect of the Peggy narrative was what she – and we – began to learn about eccentric newcomer Ginsberg. He’s fiercely protective of his privacy, and seems to want to keep his father hidden away, even though his father seems quite a likeable guy. Quizzing Ginsberg on this, Peggy was first told that he was actually a Martian – solemn but eccentric, we thought. Then he revealed that he’d actually been born in a concentration camp, never knew his mother, and was adopted from a Swedish orphanage.

Hard to know if that was trademark eccentricity too, but it had the ring of truth about it. It certainly unsettled Peggy; enough that she had to call Abe over in the middle of the night, like a resource she could summon at a moment’s notice. I wonder if her thing with Abe really is coming to an end – because it looks like there might be something brewing between her and the enigmatic, quirky Ginsberg. If so, good. He seems very interesting. And it shows that Peggy may have a recurring taste in Jewish intellectuals, something I can empathise with.

Roger too was dealing with intellectuals, in the most out-and-out funny section of the episode, which nevertheless was still fraught with significance for his increasingly moribund relationship with trophy wife Jane. In her previous (infrequent) appearances, Jane has shown urges to be taken seriously as an intellectual, much to Roger’s amusement. Now we saw him indulging her with a trip to a very pseudo, middle class dinner party, which took an unexpected turn when the host suggested they leave a discussion until after they “turned on.”

No surprise in retrospect – if I caught the host’s name correctly, he was Dr Timothy Leary. Certainly his obsession with the Tibetan Book of the Dead would fit with that being the case. When it became clear that Roger was grudgingly going to experiment with hallucinogenic drugs, I was – like last week – eagerly leaning forward murmuring, “I really want to see this!”

I also had a moment of dread that Mad Men would lose its usual subtle restraint, and we’d be presented with the usual audio-visual headfuck that most shows seem to think best represents an acid trip. But no – in typical Mad Men style, the trip (shown exclusively from Roger’s POV) was handled with intelligence and subtlety. No swirling colours and Grateful Dead soundtrack here. Instead, we got the Beach Boys and laugh-out-loud moments as the drug took hold.

First, Roger had a few weird auditory hallucinations – a vodka bottle played Russian classical music at him when he opened it, causing him to open and close it over and over again to repeat the effect. Just when I couldn’t stop laughing at that, he got fixated on a hair colour ad with half a man’s grey hair recoloured to black, then took the unfortunate step of glancing at himself in the mirror:

After I stopped laughing at his resemblance to Two-Face, the trip took a turn for the significant, as Leary, advising him not to look at his reflection, suddenly turned into a calm, authoritative Don Draper. Trip-Don advised Roger to go to his wife, which he duly did, and after a bit of dancing which Roger viewed as out of his body, he and Jane took a cab to continue their trip at home. The sight of the two of them utterly spaced in the back of a NYC taxi was funny enough to start me laughing all over again.

But back at home, the trip took a more serious turn and Roger and Jane ended up having one of those deeply profound conversations you only seem to have when you’re really out of it. And with almost Zen-like calm on both their parts, they came to an amicable agreement that their relationship was over – a firm decision, unlike Peggy’s prevarication on the same issue earlier. It’s just a shame that Jane didn’t remember any of it on waking! Still, she took it well, and it looks like Roger’s footloose and fancy free again (not that he ever let marriage restrain him anyway). Perhaps he’ll finally get together with Joan – she’s the only woman in five seasons he’s ever had any real chemistry with, presumably intentionally.

As the newly Zen Roger arrived at work and suggested a trip to Howard Johnson’s with Don, we were into the final thread of the script (and back to the scene that the Roger narrative had started with – I didn’t realise until then that the LSD party had been a flashback to the night before). Don, who seems to have finally grown up with regards to women this year, eschewed Roger’s suggestion of a weekend of debauchery in favour of a trip with Megan. In hindsight, Roger’s suggestion might have been better.

For yet again, the tempestuous Draper marriage flared up into a dramatic fight. Megan, not too happy at being peremptorily dragged out of work for a trip to a glorified diner, used the ultimate weapon on Don – reminding him that he has no mother. As far as Don’s psyche goes, this is the nuclear option, and he stormed out in his car, leaving Megan in the parking lot.

Of course he calmed down and came back, but by then Megan was long gone, possibly with some reprobates she’d met in the parking lot. Cue a long night of worry for an increasingly frantic Don as he tried to locate her to no avail, even calling her mother; and along the way, making that flustered call to Peggy we’d seen earlier during her section of the episode.

Finally returning to New York, Don was none too happy to find Megan already at home – and with the chain on the door. So he did what any red-blooded alpha male would do – kicked the door in, chased her round the apartment and finally caught her up in a kiss she couldn’t help but respond to. Yep, he’s still got it.

But it’s still not clear how their relationship stands. The frustrated Megan had earlier said that, as far as she was concerned, it was over. That kiss seems to have changed her mind; well, Don is a very attractive man! Still, it’s looking increasingly like he needs her far more than she needs him, yet another indication of the growing change in the formerly dominant Don. Earlier, Roger had wondered if Jane, twenty years his junior, had cheated on him with a younger man. I wonder if, where Megan is concerned, this might become an inevitability – in keeping with the theme that Don isn’t the young man he was, and is becoming more and more conscious of it.

As if to remind him, the all-too-infrequently seen Bert Cooper was waiting to give him a good bollocking at work: “You’ve been on love leave. It’s amazing things are going as well as they with as little as you’ve been doing.” In earlier years, Don could party hard, have a major existential crisis, stare moodily through a haze of cigarette smoke and still turn up at work on top of his game. No longer, it seems…

This was a brilliant episode, I thought, with the usual high class soap opera of Mad Men taken up a dramatic notch by the clever use of the interweaved non-linear narratives. As a former film student, I’m a sucker for that kind of thing, especially when welded to drama this good.

As always, the performances were impeccable, with as much told by facial expression and body language as by dialogue. There was also some excellent direction that brought home the similarities of each main character’s dilemmas – particularly notable was the fact that Don and Megan ended up collapsed on the floor discussing their relationship in exactly the same position as Roger and Jane had been earlier. And of course, as a diehard Roger fan, how could I not love an episode with the great man tripping his nuts off with Timothy Leary? ‘Sterling’ stuff, up there with the classic Suitcase episode, and it’s going to be hard to top this one this year.

Game of Thrones: Season 2, Episode 4–Garden of Bones

SPOILER WARNING – THIS IS FROM LAST NIGHT’S US BROADCAST, AND MAJOR PLOT POINTS ARE DISCUSSED. DON’T READ AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN EPISODE 4 YET.

“You’re fighting to overthrow a king, yet you have no plan for what happens afterwards?”

After last week’s tight focus on a handful of characters and plotlines, this week’s episode of Game of Thrones widened its scope to include almost every one of the series’ increasingly complex web of subplots. As a result, it moved like a rollercoaster; but the detailed character development explored in depth last week was necessarily absent. What we got instead was more like snapshots, brief but revealing sketches of characters as the action rattled along at lightning speed.

None of this is necessarily a bad thing. This second season has a hell of a lot to pack in in terms of plot; as the War of the Five Kings gathers pace, there’s a lot more to keep up with than there was in the relatively straightforward first season. It follows that you can’t have every episode scrutinising little details when there’s simply so much plot to move along. Still, while we didn’t really learn anything new about the people in the show this week (with a couple of notable exceptions), there were plenty of telling character points amidst the breathless action.

The episode opened with an almost Shakespearean scene of a couple of Lannister spear carriers gossiping about the best fighters in the realm, unaware that Robb Stark’s army is about to fall on them like wolves. It was a nice intake of breath before the action began in earnest, seeing these two lowly soldiers, the most ordinary of people, and getting to know them a bit before they ended up ripped to pieces by Robb’s direwolf. The ensuing battle, as previously, wasn’t actually shown – possibly an indication of budgetary restrictions even on a show this expensive. Equally probably though, it simply wasn’t considered important enough with so much plot to get through. We need to know that Robb won the battle; showing the spectacle is really incidental.

The aftermath was predictably bloody, with eviscerated bodies scattered hither and yon. It gave some real sense of how it must have been after a medieval battle, as the victors looted their fallen foes for their boots, coup de graces were delivered to the mortally wounded, and grisly impromptu amputations were carried out.

The amputation we saw was performed by a pretty young nurse called Talisa, with Robb’s stoic help. There was clearly a spark between them, and I’m guessing she’s going to take the place of another character from the books who served as Robb’s love interest. It’s a little uninspiring to see the cliched approach whereby she is a stern critic of what he’s up to but you could cut the romantic tension with a knife; but their little scene, as she poured scorn on his lack of an endgame plan to justify the slaughter, was still rather good. Her comment about him not knowing what he’ll do after overthrowing Joffrey felt pointed, but hopefully it wasn’t yet another example of a TV show trying to comment on current events in the Middle East. Mind you, there’ve been so many of those recently that I might be seeing such allusions where none are intended!

But there wasn’t time to linger on the theme of ordinary people caught up in a war of their rulers’ choosing. There was far too much to pack in. Aside from the continuing intrigue in King’s Landing, this episode caught us up with Dany Targaryen in the desert; Arya and Gendry at Harrenhal; both Renly Baratheon and his brother Stannis’ war efforts; and the machinations of Stannis’ sinister Red Priestess, Melisandre.

It was all well done, but we found ourselves racing from place to place with dizzying speed as the plot and events interweaved to affect each other. At King’s Landing, Joffrey was continuing his descent into full-on cruel tyrant mode, much to Tyrion’s consternation. With so much authority vested unquestioningly in the King, Tyrion showed quite some nerve remonstrating with him after he had Sansa beaten in retaliation for her brother’s actions. He got away with it though, with the ever-sardonic Bronn to back him up. It’s always good to see those two on screen as a double act; discussing whether a bit of sex would cure Joffrey of his sadistic tendencies, Bronn pithily opined, “there’s no cure for being a cunt.”

Perhaps Tyrion should have listened. This week’s only sex scene was a revealing glimpse of quite how twisted Joffrey was, as we saw how he planned to enjoy himself with the two whores Tyrion had sent him. It was a nice bit of continuity to see Ros again; but her involvement in every scene involving the local prostitutes does make it seem like King’s Landing has a rather limited supply.

Still, she might reconsider her profession after Joffrey had her first beat fellow whore Daisy then violate her with an eye-wateringly jagged and wide royal sceptre, Joffrey’s intent being to get his sadistic jollies then send the result to Tyrion as an object lesson. Whether this actually killed Daisy was unclear, as even this show wasn’t going to put sexual violence of that level on the screen. It was a genuinely nasty scene to watch; Esme Bianco as Ros conveying the terror of having to obey the hideous orders of the capricious king, and Jack Gleeson being every bit the salivating monster as the spoiled boy king.

With so much to pack in, the script didn’t follow up by showing Tyrion’s reaction to Joffrey’s ‘message’. Perhaps it’ll be followed up on next week; but then, I suppose both we and Tyrion already know what a monster Joffrey is, and reminders aren’t really needed. Besides, Tyrion was busy intimidating his cousin Lancel, who turned up with an order from Cersei to release the imprisoned Grand Maester Pycelle. Lancel was really no challenge for Tyrion, who’s dealt with far more sophisticated operators than this dim prettyboy. Once Tyrion revealed that he knew (and might tell) of Lancel’s dalliances with the Queen, Lancel was putty in his hands, easily malleable into a useful little informant.

It was another scene dominated by Peter Dinklage as Tyrion, who pretty much steals every scene he’s in. Eugene Simon is pretty enough as Lancel, but the boy is, basically, an idiot. He’s obviously a poor replacement for the Queen’s real lover, her brother Jaime.

And it was negotiating for Jaime’s release that brought Littlefinger to Renly’s camp this week, where Catelyn Stark is still hanging out trying to negotiate an alliance with Robb. We saw tow sides to Lord Baelish this week; his usual smooth political facade crumbling as he impulsively tried to grab Catelyn, confessing his long term love for her. It was just a moment, and he soon regained his composure, but it was a revealing glimpse into Littlefinger’s insecurity beneath that controlled veneer. It was another great little scene, well played by Aidan Gillen and Michelle Fairley; the latter’s warrior queen facade cracking too when presented with the bones of her dead husband.

Outside, Littlefinger was back to his usual smooth self in a heavily freighted discussion with Renly’s wife Margery Tyrell. His thinly veiled comments made it clear that Renly’s relationship with her brother Loras is very much an open secret about court; but Margery, as shown in the series, is a canny political operator herself, and was giving nothing away. As a fan of The Tudors, it’s hard to see Natalie Dormer in a bodice and not think of her turn on that show as Anne Boleyn, but Margery Tyrell is a far cleverer woman than Henry VIIII’s doomed lust object.

Over the Narrow Sea, we caught up with Dany Targaryen and her starving Dothraki followers as they finally reached civilisation in the form of the city of Qarth. This led to a brief vignette as Dany was faced with the ruling Thirteen of the city, who were less than keen to let her and her “Dothraki horde” in. But Dany showed some real fire (appropriate for the ‘”Mother of Dragons”) as she boldly stood up to them. Emilia Clarke was as impressive as ever, as was Nonso Anozie as her eventual guarantor Xara Xhoan Daxos, and the gates of Qarth eventually opened to display a breathtaking CG vista of a releif from the baking desert. Still, as CG vistas go, I’m not sure Qarth (either its interior or its high walls) is up there with the best the show’s done.

Rather better was the realisation of Harrenhal, where Arya and Gendry found themselves imprisoned this week. A grim, forbidding half-ruined giant castle, Harrenhal was a place of terror where prisoners were taken one by one to be sadistically tortured to no real purpose other than their captors’ sadistic satisfaction. The torture was imaginatively nasty; the prisoners had a rat in a bucket strapped to their chests, whereupon the bucket was heated and the maddened rat would have to chew its way out through the terrified torturees’ bodies.

It all looked bleakly nasty, with Arya and Gendry held ina cold, wet cage outdorrs, awaiting their turn for torture. But just as Gendry’s turn came, they were saved by the unexpected arrival of Tywin Lannister, making a welcome first appearance this year. Charles Dance is magnetic in the role of the Lannister patriarch, and I must admit I’ve missed him onscreen so far this season, so it was as much a relief for me to see him as it was for the prisoners.

Tywin may not be a very nice man, but he’s not wilfully cruel. To him, it makes far more sense to put the prisoners to work than sadistically torture them to death. He’s also not stupid; he spotted immediately that Arya wasn’t a boy, and she found herself appointed as his cupbearer – an ironic place for Ned Stark’s heir to be. Tywin might have recognised her to be a girl, but not which girl. That could be interesting…

Just when you thought the episode couldn’t pack in any more plotlines, up popped Stannis, having arrived at Renly’s camp in a futile attempt to get his little brother to abandon his claim to the throne. Renly, who’s got a nice big army, was having none of this, so it was time for Stannis’ back up plan – Melisandre and her tricks from the Red God.

After Liam Cunningham got to fill in Davos Seaworth’s back story in another revealing vignette aboard Stannis’ ship, he was sent off to row Melisandre into a handy nearby cave, and it was time for one of the show’s rare depictions of actual magic in its fantasy universe. It seems that the queasily uncomfortable coupling between her and Stannis has indeed borne fruit. Carice van Houten, a veteran of Paul Verhoeven movies, got to do yet another full frontal nude scene as she shed her robe to reveal that she was about as pregnant as you can get. But it wasn’t a baby she moaningly gave birth to; it was a scary looking smoke monster that kept taking and then losing human form. As Davos cowered against the wall, it was an excellent place for this week’s cliffhanger.

There was so much packed into this episode (admittedly of necessity) that, while it was breathtakingly exciting, it was actually a bit hard to keep up with. About the only plotlines not covered this week were events north of the Wall, and what the Greyjoys are getting up to on the Iron Islands. The twists and turns of the intricate, interweaving subplots were great, but I have to say, I missed the longer, more detailed skulduggery so much in evidence last week. Still, from memory of the book, there’s still a heck of a lot to pack in in the remaining six episodes, so this breakneck pace may be more of the norm as the season progresses. If so, it’ll be a shame to lose so many of the thoughtful, lengthy character scenes, but a necessary progression of pace for the story. Still, excitement is always good, right?

Mad Men: Season 5, Episode 5 – Signal 30

“Things seem so… random, all of a sudden. And time feels like it’s speeding up.”

Poor old Pete Campbell. It’s easy to dislike the obnoxious little toe rag – and kudos to the likeable Vincent Kartheiser for achieving that – but you can’t help feeling sorry for him. Maybe it’s karma, but nothing, absolutely nothing in his life ever works out the way he wants it to – chiefly, of course, his rather sad desire to be just like Don. Pete was front and centre in this episode – shamefacedly attending a stereotypically gruesome Driver’s Ed film at the opening, perhaps feeling like getting his drivers license would make him feel more of a man; and crying in a lift before crawling into bed with his unsatisfying wife at the end. In between, as usual, Pete’s life was a symphony of chaos as he tried and failed to be more of ‘a man’ than he is.

Not that it was all about Pete, though we’ll come back to his catalogue of disasters in a while. Like last week, the episode kept a focus on just a few of the characters, and what they had in common; their jobs and their seemingly empty marriages.If last week’s theme was The Long Dark Night Of The Soul, this week’s was Great Men (and Pete) And Their Wives. As Rod Serling might have put it, “Picture a series of hollow men… their lives unfulfilled at home, seeking empty solace in their work. Portraits of marriages on their way to Signal 30… in The Twilight Zone.”

The marriages in question were those of Pete, Don, Lane, Ken (nice to see him getting something to do again) and even, tangentially, Roger. Along the way, we learned some surprising things about a few of them, impressive for characters we thought we’d known for nearly five years. Ken, it turns out, has been quietly keeping up with his stories and making a bit of a (false) name for himself as a writer of pulp sci fi (hence the Twilight Zone reference). Now a publisher wants to collect twenty of his stories into an anthology, something he’d rather keep quiet.

Unfortunately for him, his proud but unthinking wife Cynthia had to go and blurt it out in front of Don and Pete at an uncomfortable soiree in Pete’s suburban home. And when Roger hears about it, he’s none too pleased about one of his best men moonlighting. After all, for Roger, the job is enough; but as Don tells Pete later, “Roger’s unhappy. You’re not.”

Still, Ken’s marriage to Cynthia seems pleasant enough compared to the hidden emptiness his coworkers are feeling. We know about Don, of course; yet again here, he seemed like yesterday’s man in his relationship with Megan. She wants to go out and have fun with their (read, “her”) friends; he wants, as he admits in a drunken moment of honesty, to “have babies”, something she’s plainly not ready for.

Lane, on the other hand, was finally letting his rather stereotypical English reserve slip to reveal the bottled up passion underneath. It started as he unwillingly let his wife drag him to a Manhattan ‘English pub’ to watch the 1966 World Cup Final (historical references abounded this week). Presently, we were subjected to the rather astonishing sight of Lane, roaringly drunk, cheering the winning England team and slurring his way through “God Save the Queen”.

Bizarre enough, but more was to come, as we saw Lane attempting to woo (in a business sense) the CEO of Jaguar US, who’d offered to bring his business to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. I must confess, as an Englishman used to seeing American TV misconceptions of my culture, I was watching all of these scenes like a hawk, just waiting for the usual slips in dialogue or setting. But no, all was pretty accurate, as you’d expect from a show as meticulous about its detail as Mad Men. The pie and mushy peas in the pub looked real enough, the English accents sounded real, and even Lane’s statement about Jaguar’s imminent merger with the British Motor Corporation was spot on. Well done, Mr Weiner!

Lane’s unexpected snagging of a major advertising account threaded through the episode, entwining the scripts’ examination of our heroes’ professional lives. Roger in particular got a great scene in which we were reminded that he’s far more than a boorish, drunken buffoon; he’s actually a master at his work. The scene in which he educated Lane about his technique of faking drunkenness and using psychological tactics to win over clients showed why he’s a partner in the agency, and revealed him to be far more clever and subtle than we’ve seen of late. Intriguing that this should come up in an episode directed by John Slattery, the man whose portrayal of Roger makes him quite my favourite character.

The other side of the story, our heroes’ marriages, was encapsulated in the centrepiece of the episode, a magnificently strained social evening at Pete and Trudi’s Cos Cob home as he tried vainly to demonstrate to Don and Ken (his former rival) that he was “the man with everything”.The infighting for the position of alpha male began almost immediately, with Pete vainly trying the tactic of showing off his giant radiogram: “It’s like having a miniature orchestra”. Then Don turned up, and it became a contest for who could wear the most eye-burningly hideous checked sport coat (another continuing theme this year):

Plainly, Don won that one.

Amusingly, neither Don nor Megan could remember the name of Ken’s wife (causing a laugh out loud moment as she realised and involuntarily exclaimed “Cynthia!”). But Trudi was at her most charming, despite Pete’s drunkenly obnoxious ‘gracious host’ turn. Conversation at the dinner table took a gruesome turn as Pete took some relish in discussing Texas sniper Charles Whitman’s university tower shootings.

Then Ken unwillingly told a story that seemed (in a way that wasn’t entirely clear) to sum up the episode’s themes with a sci fi story: ‘The Punishment of X-4’, about a powerless robot whose only means of asserting himself was to remove a vital bolt in a bridge, killing everyone on it. The conversation turned wistful as all discussed what they’d wanted to be whn they grew up, a theme of missed opportunity that also suffused the episode. As Don said, “No one grows up wanting to be an advertiser”. It was a theme we’d return to later.

But the musing didn’t last long, as Pete’s first setback of the episode commenced. His surprising success at mending a leaky tap earlier turned inevitably to humiliation as it burst all over the kitchen, leaving (inevitably, again) the ever-manly Don to do the manly thing that Pete just couldn’t. Ken’s obviously not so worried; he just stood and smirked.

But it was the first in a long line of humiliations for Pete this week, as the script seemed determined to compress all his usual bad luck into a much shorter (and blackly funny) timeframe. His American Beauty-style fixation with a high school girl at his Driver’s Ed class seemed to be going so well… But things don’t go well for Pete, and he was left seething as she spurned him for a beefy high school jock with the all-too-accurate nickname ‘handsome’.

Later, as our heroes helped out with Lane’s recalcitrant Jaguar client, they found themselves in a high class brothel (typically, taken there by Roger), and we got an inkling of what’s really seething in Pete’s rancid little core. Humiliated once again by a prostitute’s faint praise of his biceps, he waited wearily while she tried various turn on techniques; the only one to which he eventually responded was, “you’re my king”.

There’s something desperately sad about Pete and his desire to be, basically, Don Draper; which was reiterated as he turned on a reproachful Don in the taxi home reminding Don of his own former infidelities. And unsurprisingly, given his growing guilt, Don was quick to agree, stating that he’d had everything (like Pete) and let it slip through his fingers. Together with his mellowing towards his ex-wife, this made it clear that he’s more than aware where he went wrong.

But fate (and the scriptwriter’s cruel word processor) hadn’t finished with Pete yet. It turned out that the brothel trip had cost them the Jaguar account; the CEO’s wife had found chewing gum “on his pubis”. Even Pete found that pretty funny, but Lane didn’t, leading to a slanging match (“all the hours I’ve spent on you to make you the monster you are”) and the surprising development of Lane challenging Pete to a fistfight.

Lane might be a steely businessman, but we’ve never had the impression that he was in any way physically tough. Clearly neither did Pete, who ended up on the floor with a bloody nose and a face full of bruises. It was an uncomfortable but irresistibly funny scene; I was with Roger when he commented, “I know cooler heads should prevail, but I really want to see this.”

While Lane celebrated his manliness with an embarrassing attempt to kiss Joan (and thank God she’s back at the office), Pete was reduced to sobbing in the lift. “I have nothing,” he wept at an embarrassed-looking Don. The irony being, of course, that it’s only true because he thinks so. He was summed up by Ken, off screen, narrating a story called ‘The Man with the Miniature Orchestra’, and sounding uncannily like Rod Serling.

This was a blackly brilliant episode. Less dark and intense than last week, it managed to interweave theme, character, and plot in some moments of desperate sadness and laugh-out-loud comedy. Particularly, it was nice to have some focus on Jared Harris as the prissy Lane, and Aaron Staton as the impossible to dislike Ken Cosgrove – the very antithesis of Pete Campbell.

If I have any complaints, it’s just that two episodes in a row with such a narrow character focus felt like the wider ensemble of the show was being neglected somewhat. Still, if Matthew Weiner keeps taking this approach, he could end up with, week by week, some acutely observed character pieces about everyone at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. My only request – please, more focus on Roger, and what’s happening with him and Joan.

Game of Thrones: Season 2, Episode 3–What is Dead May Never Die

“Power resides where men believe it resides. It’s a trick. A shadow. And a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”

Wow. I swear, it seems like this show gets better every week. With the plot well and truly motoring along now, this third episode of Game of Thrones seemed the best yet, for a variety of reasons. Yes, it had the requisite amount of impeccable dialogue, gory battles and gratuitous sex and nudity to liven up exposition that we’ve come to expect from the show. But best of all, it served up a monster portion of what I like best about the show – portraits of Westeros’ devious, Machiavellian characters in all their scheming glory. For that, it’s up there with another favourite of mine, I, Claudius, which I wouldn’t be surprised to find is one of George RR Martin’s inspirations for the books.

King of the schemers this week – taking the crown from Varys – was undoubtedly Tyrion. Having flexed his muscles as proxy Hand of the King last week, with his exile of Janos Slynt, this week he was clearly in his element among the slimy, untrustworthy denizens of the Small Council. In a cleverly scripted and edited scene, we saw him testing,one after the other, Grand Maester Pycelle, Varys and Littlefinger as to their trustworthiness. They’re all veteran schemers too, of course, but this was Tyrion’s chance to hoodwink them before they’d got his measure as every bit their equal.

And it worked, too. Having fed each of them separate stories about who he was planning to marry off Princess Myrcella to, then stressed that “the Queen mustn’t know”, all he had to do was sit back and wait to see which story she went ballistic over. In hindsight, it was perhaps no surprise that it turned out to be Pycelle who went running to her; much as I love genre veteran Julian Glover in the role, the character is far less interesting than either Varys or Littlefinger and thus more expendable.

All of this was played beautifully by the actors concerned. Peter Dinklage continues to be masterful as the irreverent, sardonic Tyrion, and Conleth Hill is more than a match for him as sly spymaster Varys. Their scene together, in which Varys smoothly compliments the newcomer (“nicely played".) was one of the highlights in an episode full of memorable scenes. I’ve seen some sceptical reviews of Aidan Gillen’s performance as Littlefinger, but I have to say that he too worked well for me in the scene where he realised he’d been had, only for Tyrion to hook him all over again with the promise of Catelyn Stark.

Lady Stark was back herself this week, and with her we finally caught up with the last – and perhaps least – of the pretenders to the throne, Robert Baratheon’s youngest brother Renly. Renly’s been busy between seasons; not only has he grown a beard, he’s married one – Margery Tyrell, sister of his true lover Loras. Slipping smoothly into a bodice yet again after The Tudors, Natalie Dormer was surprisingly good as Margery. The script here made her out to be a another astute political operator, far more so than in the book. She knows that the true way to cement their alliance, and Renly’s power, is for him to get her pregnant asap.

Unfortunately that may be harder than she thinks. She’s perfectly aware of her husband’s dalliances with her brother – and ruthless enough to suggest he join them in bed, if that’s what it takes – but Renly just can’t get it up for her. Indeed, poor old Renly got most of the gratuitous nudity this week, but was perpetually thwarted when it came to actual sex. He can’t get it up with Margery (is there a Westerosi equivalent of Viagra, I wonder?), and pretty young Loras is in a snit with him. Not that this stopped Gethin Anthony and Finn Jones having some pretty raunchy semi-clad foreplay, ticking a box for those like me who enjoy a bit of man on man action.

The reason Loras is in a snit is his humiliation at the hands of another fan favourite from the books. Yes, Brienne of Tarth – Brienne the Beauty – has finally arrived, clobbering the Knight of Flowers but good in a playful tournament (nobody died). Gwendoline Christie certainly looks the part as Brienne – apparently she took on a monster training regimen to bulk up suitably. But even her almost defensive fearlessness can’t disguise that she’s got the hots for the King she’s meant to be serving. Shame, she’s barking up the wrong tree there.

With all that going on, Catelyn barely got much of a look in, dramatically. But when she did, she was as dour and grim as you’d expect from a woman who’s already lost one fiance and one husband to war. "It’s just a game to you, isn’t it?” she bitterly asked the affable Renly, before commenting on his youthful army, “I pity them… They are the knights of summer. And winter is coming.”

She wasn’t the only one quoting the Words of her House; this week we also got to hear those of House Greyjoy (“We do not sow”), as Theon was faced with a very hard choice by his unyielding father. Would he continue to help Robb Stark, son of the man who’d thwarted his father’s rebellion and held him captive for his entire childhood? Or would he prize his true family over his adoptive one?

It’s a measure of how surprisingly good Alfie Allen is as Theon that I truly felt for him as he first swallowed his pride then betrayed his honour, siding with the bitter, twisted father he’d never truly known, all in the hope of glory. It was another nice visual touch from director Alik Sakharov as the decision was shown without words; Theon, a lone point of light in a vast darkness, choosing to burn the warning letter he might have sent to Robb.

Patrick Malahide is his usual chilly self (albeit more unkempt) as Lord Balon Greyjoy, a hard man shaped by the culture Theon was taken away from. Still, good though he is, I couldn’t help thinking that, visually and in personality, he seems very similar to David Bradley as Walder Frey last season. We haven’t seen Walder yet this year, but when/if we do, hopefully the producers will be able to clearly differentiate the two…

With the focus of the episode firmly on these three plotlines, the script still found time for some vignettes from elsewhere in the Seven Kingdoms, and even these were replete with rich character detail. North of the Wall, we found out the resolution to last week’s cliffhanger, as Jon Snow, having been bashed about the head by Craster, was dragged bloody to the loathsome wildling’s hall.

Lord Commander Mormont was none too happy, after last week’s lecture about learning how to follow; and Jon himself got a Star Trek Prime Directive-alike lesson from Mormont, who turned out to be all too knowledgeable about what Craster did with his unwanted son’s. “The wildings pray to crueller gods,” he muttered darkly, and Jon replied that he’d seen one – that dark figure taking the baby in the wood had been one of the mysterious and deadly White Walkers after all, unseen since the prologue of the show’s very first episode. They’re plainly the greatest of the threats facing Westeros, but as yet they’re in the shadows – perhaps a good thing, as a Sauron-like unstoppable magical threat is less interesting than all the political wrangling going on all over the Seven Kingdoms.

Back at Winterfell, we’re seeing more of the crippled Bran’s mysterious ability to ‘green dream’ himself into the bodies of animals; yet again, his direwolf hunting in the night. Isaac Hempstead-Wright as Bran got a short but effective scene with Donald Sumpter as the sceptical Maester Luwin. “My dreams are different,” Bran protested. “Mine are true.” But Luwin’s had a go at magic, as an impressionable student, and like Arthur C Clarke with his Mysterious World, doesn’t believe in any of it: “Maybe magic was once a mighty force in this world. But not any more.”

The equally compelling Maisie Williams got a bit of the action too, as Arya heard the backstory of Ranger Yoren. His brother had been killed in front of him when he was a boy, and every night after he’d repeated the name of the killer like a prayer – until one day the killer returned and Yoren butchered him with an axe, fleeing to the Wall. You could see Arya mulling this over thoughtfully…

But not for long. Like in a classic war film, Yoren’s revelation of his hard life was an obvious prelude to him getting brutally killed, as Lannister thug Amory Lorch turned up to assist with the search for Gendry. Yoren took some killing though; even after a crossbow bolt in the chest and a spear through the back, he still managed to take down a few thugs before a sword in the spine felled him for good. Francis Magee turned in another of the show’s great performances as Yoren, and he’ll be missed.

Still, this sequence usefully compressed a much longer – perhaps unnecessarily so – plotline from the book, omitting the escape and subsequent wanderings of Arya, Gendry and a couple of the other recruits. Here, they went straight into captivity, heading for Harrenhaal Castle – but not before Arya, smartly, led the thugs to believe that the hapless boy they’d already killed was Gendry, the conveniently placed bull’s head helmet lending her story credence.

This is epic stuff, but with the fate of kingdoms depending on the whims of treacherous backstabbers, it doesn’t stint on the character portrayal either. Obviously it has excellent source material, but this week’s writer Bryan Cogman expanded it well, with acres of quotable dialogue. It could be argued, again, that making some of the book’s more implicit plots explicit – Renly and Loras’ affair, Margery’s political cunning – was unnecessary for a show with this much intelligence; but I think the overt scheming displayed as a result makes for some hugely entertaining scenes. With all the pretenders to the Iron Throne now in place, and the plot already speeding along, I can’t wait for next week!

Mad Men: Season 5, Episode 4–Mystery Date

“You were never a good man. Even before we were married. You know what I’m talking about.”

In this week’s Mad Men, Don Draper had a cold.

This is a first. As a larger than life character who bestrides the show like a colossus, Don has previously only fallen prey to Big Dramatic Ailments. We’ve seen him struggle with depression and alcoholism, and by extension the terminal cancer of Anna Draper, wife of the real Don, whose identity he stole. But never before have we seen Don brought low by something as mundane as a cold. Not that it stops him from valiantly smoking through it, despite his uncontrollable cough.

It’s yet another chip in Don’s armour, an example of human frailty that’s becoming more and more common in the former king of Madison Avenue. As if to underline the increasing sense that Don’s day in the sun is winding down, he has to cope with a brilliant presentation to some important clients by new boy Michael Ginsberg – the sort of presentation that Don himself used to carry off effortlessly. Obviously shaken, Don is furious, and Ginsberg is almost fired immediately: “Everything I’m about to say to you is followed by ‘or else’… Never do that again.”

Of course, the reason for Don’s discomfiture is that Ginsberg is brilliant, just like Don used to be. He may not have Don’s effortless skill at seduction, but he certainly has an insight into women’s psyches, vital for the shoe campaign he’s working on. But as a more liberal product of the enlightened 60s, he has more morality than we usually see from Don; he’s sickened by the other copywriters’ (including Peggy) ghoulish fascination with the crime scene photos from the Richard Speck murders.

In fact, what with his sensitivity, single status and professed lack of knowledge of women, I wonder if Ginsberg is going to turn out to be gay? If so, it would be an interesting angle to explore in times that have become a little more enlightened since the departure of the show’s only previous gay character, Sal Romano; but times that are still not that enlightened if you’re Jewish, never mind homosexual.

Be that as it may, Ginsberg actually didn’t feature much here, except insofar as piquing Don’s insecurities. The core of the episode was a long dark night of the soul for several of the characters, the sort of thing the show has done before and is very good at. Variously, Joan had to deal with a shocking surprise from her none too nice husband when he returned from Vietnam; Sally had to cope with being babysat by her stepfather’s dragon of a mother; Peggy spent a revealing evening with Don’s new secretary Dawn; and Don himself, being incapable of just having a simple cold, struggled with (apparent) fever dreams in which his guilty history of infidelities returned to haunt him.

That all kicked off with a light and funny scene in the elevator, as a coughing Don and new wife Megan encountered Andrea, one of his old conquests. This led a frustrated Megan to acidly enquire how often this was going to happen, which was amusing; but later it turned very dark as Don was visited at his swanky apartment by Andrea. At first he hustled her out in fear of Megan seeing her; later, after a manful struggle with his conscience, he couldn’t stop himself from having sex with her again. Afterwards, his guilt plainly driving him wild, he sprang out of bed and in a truly shocking moment, strangled her to death before carelessly shoving her body under the bed.

It was a jaw-dropping moment. Obviously it came as no particular surprise when Megan came in the next morning, and told Don of the feverish delirium in which he’d spent the previous night – the whole thing had been nothing more than a fever dream. But that scene felt so shockingly real that, in the moment, you believed it had really happened, just like Don when he checked under his bed the next morning. Of course, if it had happened, the show would probably have turned into The Fugitive, so with hindsight it was obvious that it hadn’t. But it’s still a revealing glimpse into Don’s demon-driven psyche, particularly where his relationships with women are concerned; and a glimpse that he too was privy to.

The other major plot strand concerned Joan dealing with the much-anticipated return of her sexually violent husband Greg from Vietnam. Greg’s obviously under the impression that the baby fathered by Roger is his, but even that’s not enough to keep him by Joan’s side. Like all husbands of the 60s, he expects his faithful, obedient wife to deal with raising the kid, and he’s decided to sign on for another year in the army, much to Joan’s horror.

Not that he has the guts to tell her that, insinuating that it was an order he had no choice in. The truth came out at a supremely awkward dinner with his parents, as even his own mother couldn’t stand his lying to Joan and told her that his return to the army was entirely his choice.

This was a moment of decision for Joan, always one of the show’s strongest characters. She may not be subverting career expectations like Peggy, but she’s always plainly been stronger than the men around her. She showed that here by offering Greg an ultimatum; if he returns to Vietnam, he can’t come home again. It’s no surprise that when he decides just that, Joan seems perfectly happy. She even takes the chance to remind him of his own failings as a husband, his history of marital rape. No wonder she’s happy to be rid of him. But where does this leave her in terms of returning to work at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce? She still has her catty mother to help with baby Kevin, but it’s looking like her return to the office has just been postponed a bit longer.

Back at that office, Peggy was working late on a piece for Roger, part of his ongoing attempt to subvert Pete Campbell on the Mohawk Airlines account. Satisfied at having forced Roger to part with $400 in return for her secrecy on that, she was about to go home when she discovered (in a scene worthy of a horror movie) that the creepy sounds in the deserted office were actually caused by Don’s new secretary Dawn sleeping there.

This led to Peggy offering Dawn a room for the night, and a revealing (for both) open chat about their work. With the increasing focus on racial liberation this year, we got to see a side of the avowedly liberal Peggy that was (unthinkingly) patronising and a bit offensive. She hadn’t figured out that Dawn couldn’t go home because no cabbie would go to Harlem after dark, and that Dawn was worried about riots and racist police rather than being murdered by the nurse killer in Chicago.

They did bond over a few beers back at Peggy’s apartment, with Peggy drunkenly empathising that she knew what it was like to be the only one of her kind at the office. But she was plainly a little surprised that Dawn didn’t want to take the same path and become a copywriter; she’s perfectly happy with the job she has.

And then all their bonding was totally undone by the awkward moment when Peggy, glancing at her purse, hesitated over whether to pick it up and take it with her into the bedroom. To do so, after the obvious pause, would be tantamount to showing that she assumed a black person would obviously steal from her; to not do so would look condescending, as though she was offering some sort of trust exercise. It was another supremely awkward moment, portrayed (as is so common in Mad Men) entirely without words – just a series of glances, close-ups and revealing expressions. Another gem of a scene, it was played to perfection by Elisabeth Moss and Teyonah Parris. Peggy’s crestfallen expression as she found the neatly stacked sheets and terse thank you note from Dawn the next morning was priceless.

The final characters living through this dark, dark night were Sally Draper and Henry Francis’ battleaxe of a mother Pauline. Sally’s been one of the most tormented characters in the show, having to deal with the onset of puberty amidst her parents’ messy divorce and her own mother’s obvious inability to cope with children. It was good to see her to the front of an episode again, as actress Kiernan Shipka has consistently delivered an amazingly mature, wise beyond her years performance.

She was on top form here as usual, showing how Betty has virtually abandoned her into the care of step-grandmother Pauline. Always a little spoiled by Don, she’s now playing Pauline off against Betty, claiming that her mother lets her basically get away with almost no rules.

But Pauline’s no slouch, with her old-fashioned and perhaps not entirely suitable approach to childcare. Admittedly, dealing with Sally’s constant demands must have been wearing. But whether it was out of frustration or a total lack of awareness, Pauline’s way of dealing with Sally’s fears over the Speck murders – telling her every ghoulish detail then revealing that there was a great big knife handy if the likes of Speck should turn up – was probably not the wisest course. Inevitably, that scared Sally even more than the news article did, so Pauline took the interesting choice of feeding her sleeping pills. The episode ended with her huddled – asleep, unconscious or perhaps even dead – beneath the sofa, while the returning Betty called her name.

Dark stuff indeed, this episode, as over the course of one traumatic night a handful of the show’s characters were brought shockingly face to face with their failings in relationships, their attitudes to race and gender, and in Sally’s case even her own mortality. It was a better script even than usual in its tight focus on a small group of the show’s large ensemble; the events may be game-changing for some of the characters, but knowing Mad Men, they may be slow to learn their lessons.

Game of Thrones: Season 2, Episode 2–The Night Lands

“Another king. How many is that now?”

With the season premiere having firmly planted the pieces in place, Game of Thrones’ second episode sees the plot beginning to really move. Taking in fewer of the players than last week, series creators David Benioff and DB Weiss were able to focus more closely on those we did see, giving us some meaty conflict between the well-drawn characters, and giving depth to some of those who’d previously had little attention.

Most notable of those was Theon Greyjoy, who had so little to do last year that you could have been forgiven for wondering why he was there. Having been held hostage since childhood by Ned Stark against his rebellious father’s good conduct, this episode saw him returning to his ancestral home of Pyke on the Iron Islands, introducing yet another player into the game.

But before we reached the Iron Islands, the viewer would need some instruction as to the culture of yet another region of Westeros. How best to explain the Ironborn’s rugged, seafaring ways? Ah yes, the show’s tried and trusted ‘sexposition’ tactic. Lest we get bored with Theon’s explanation of how his culture works, it was delivered while he was busy having sex with the daughter of the captain of the boat taking him there. You had to admire Theon’s power of concentration at being able to deliver a sociological lecture while having some pretty vigorous sex.

It’s easy to have a teenage smirk whenever the show does one of these scenes, and they certainly do seem like titillation, but they’re very much part of the show’s established style now. The main problem, I suppose, is that the more frequent they are, the more the show runs the risk of slipping into self-parody. It’s not there yet, though, and this viewer at least was happy to be titillated by the surprisingly buff Alfie Allen as Theon. I seem to recall that last year, he was one of the only main male cast members to appear full frontal nude. Which was nice, given that the other one was Hodor.

Anyway, having arrived at the Iron Islands, we got some faithfully recreated scenes from the book as Theon was reunited with his family – in the case of his sister, quite unknowingly. Yara Greyjoy (renamed from the book’s ‘Asha’ lest she be confused with wildling Osha) is plainly another formidable player in the game, and not above some fairly dirty ttactics. Having been flirting unwittingly with her as they rode to the castle, to the extent of having a hand in her pants, Theon looked pretty queasy when he realised who she was. It was blackly amusing, as if Luke and Leia from Star Wars had done far more than kiss before realising they were siblings.

We also met Theon’s father, the bitter and formerly rebellious Lord Balon Greyjoy. As played by Patrick Malahide, Balon’s an unforgiving, harsh, proud man, who’s less than happy with the seemingly soft, spoiled boy Ned Stark has turned his son into. It’s clear that (unsurprisingly) Balon Greyjoy is not going to forget the past and ally with Robb Stark, the son of the man who ruthlessly crushed his rebellion and killed Theon’s brothers. Catelyn’s advice to Robb in that regard was spot on. What’s less clear is exactly what Balon is intending to do with the fleet that Yara’s been put in command of…

Over at Dragonstone, ships were also much in the minds of Stannis Baratheon and Davos Seaworth. As in the books, Stannis is a cold, remote figure, and hard to empathise with. This is why his more moderate, sensible aide Davos is more usually given screen time, and Liam Cunningham has already established him as a much more likeable character.

Davos and his son Matthos (Kerr Logan) meet with flamboyant pirate Salladhor Saan, in the hope of gaining his ships’ support for an attack on King’s Landing. Salladhor is one of the book’s most memorable characters, despite being fairly minor, so it was nice to see the writers giving him a pretty good amount of screen time as he declared that his condition for agreeing was to be allowed to “fuck the queen”. Not ‘rape’ – actor Lucian Msamati made it clear that this likeable rogue believes he can charm anyone into sex. As he remarks to the uptight, unconvinced Matthos, “I haven’t tried to fuck you yet.”

It was a good scene, that did much to establish the history and nature of the relationship between Davos and Stannis, despite the latter’s absence; but I did think the sudden switch from the bleak seaside locale of Pyke to the bleak seaside locale of Dragonstone was potentially a little confusing for viewers. The locations were so similar that it only remembering which characters were based where made the distinction clear.

Not much scope was given this week to Daenerys Targaryen and her small tribe of Dothraki over the Narrow Sea, but their one scene continued to show their privations in the Red Waste. Dany was dismayed to receive the severed head of the faithful Rakharo, which caused much lamenting from her handmaids that the manner of his death barred his entry from the Dothraki afterlife – the Night Lands, from which the episode’s title was drawn. Rakharo’s death is a significant deviation from the books, where he lasts a good deal longer; but it works because he’s made a much more significant character here, so his death has a lot more resonance. As he plays no particularly notable part in any of the books’ plots, it’s a good gambit for the screenwriters to build him up and then kill him off, yet another sign that nobody is safe in this game.

Given similarly short shrift were the Night’s Watch, still quartered with the loathsome Craster in the North beyond the Wall. Deftly signposted last week, this episode showed us more of Craster’s fearful daughter Gilly, and her fear as to what would become of her soon-to-be-born baby if it was a boy. Gilly is played by Skins’ Hannah Murray, who I’m glad to see back on the screen after a long absence to, presumably, finish her education. There’s the beginning of a nice relationship between her and loveable ‘coward’ Sam Tarly, as he first rescues her from Jon’s impressively realised direwolf Ghost then lends a sympathetic ear to her troubles.

The normally heroic (but fallible) Jon is less than eager to help, presumably remembering the earful he got from the Lord Commander last week about pissing off Craster, but it doesn’t take long before he’s reverted to heroic type and off to nose around the woods as Gilly’s baby is born, getting clobbered by Craster for his pains. This is a small but important plotline in the book, so it’s good to see it getting a fair shake of screen time – even if viewers might be impatient for the Night’s Watch to get a move on with their mission of investigating the sinister happenings in the snowy North.

Those concerns are also echoed in King’s Landing, as Cersei summarily dismisses an urgent message from Lord Commander Mormont, pleading for more men to help with the cold, blue-eyed walking dead. She thinks it’s all just superstition, and Tyrion must be a fool for giving it any credence.

But Tyrion’s no fool, as this episode again makes clear. We got a terrific scene between him and Varys (Conleth Hill), as the softly spoken spymaster implicitly threatens to reveal the presence of Tyrion’s whore Shae to his disapproving father. As Tyrion reminds Varys (and us), unlike Ned Stark he is no honourable man, and smart enough to see how the game is being played. Having already banished City Watch commander Janos Slynt for his part in Joffrey’s slaughter of the innocents, Tyrion makes it clear that if Varys threatens him, he can expect something similar or worse. Varys, typically, is unfazed, and points out his continued survival when so many more visible players in the game have fallen. It was a powerful scene between these two most devious, cynical men, reminiscent of Varys’ more veiled exchanges with Petyr Baelish last year.

Lord Baelish himself got one of the episode’s other great scenes, as he dealt with young Ros’ grief over last week’s slaughter of one of the brothel’s babies. At first seeming uncharacteristically sympathetic, his soft tones belied the increasing harshness of the story he told; of how an unhappy whore is, for him, a pretty bad investment, and one that can be easily disposed of by pandering to some of the clients’ scarier sexual peccadilloes. No fool herself, Ros got the message. She’d get a day off to grieve, and then be back at work – and happy. It was a cracking scene, one of those created solely for the screen version of the story that work so well; a similar highlight last year was the temporary truce and neutral discussion of their relationship by Robert and Cersei.

Arya Stark, meanwhile, was still headed north with Yoren’s Night’s Watch recruits, and we got to see her first encounter with the mysterious Jaqen H’gar, a caged charmer played by German actor Tom Wlaschiha. As Arya, Maisie Williams is one of the show’s best child actors, and it’s god to see her continuing to have such a prominent role. We also got to see more of Gendry, the fugitive bastard son of the dead king, who’s realised his travelling companion Arya is really a girl – and is soon informed that she’s a noble to boot. Not that being addressed as “my lady” pleases her very much. Arya and Gendry look to be shaping up into another of the show’s effective double acts, and it’s nice to see another Skins alumnus, Joe Dempsie, getting more to do as Gendry than he did last year.

It was another great episode from a show that shows no sign of flagging in quality. The pacing is excellent, with the plot beginning to move but still not too fast; there’s still plenty of time for the character building scenes that Benioff and Weiss do so well. The writers have also taken it upon themselves, as last year, to take some of the books’ more implicit plots and make them explicit; last year, it was the relationship between Renly Baratheon and Loras Tyrell, this year it’s the sexual coupling of Stannis and Melisandre. This has been a divisive tactic for some of the books’ fans, but I think it works well and is justified in this different medium of storytelling. Check back next week for, likely, more fulsome praise.

Mad Men: Season 5, Episode 3–Tea Leaves

“When’s everything going to get back to normal?”

Such was Roger’s plaintive plea towards the end of this week’s Mad Men, after having (yet again) been stitched up by Pete Campbell in their continuing struggle for one-upmanship. It’s a telling line. Things aren’t going to get back to ‘normal’ for the generation represented by Roger Sterling and Don Draper; their ‘normal’ is long gone. Times are changing fast, a point perhaps underlined by references to the Rolling Stones song ‘Time is On My Side’. For Roger and Don, time switched sides a while ago.

It’s looking very much like that’s going to be one of the biggest themes of this season as it goes on. Don, once so effortlessly cool with his smooth charm and ability to blend in with beatniks as well as businessmen, is beginning to look like yesterday’s news, and he knows it. Nowhere was this better shown than in his abortive backstage trip with Harry to try and entice the Stones into advertising baked beans. Still immaculately suited like a member of the Rat Pack, Don stood out like a sore thumb among the crowds of eager teenagers waiting to see their idols.

Tellingly, the younger Harry, with his black polo neck sweater and checked sports jacket, seemed to get much closer to the Stones than Don could hope. Don was left with an impatient teenage girl to whom he’d previously had to prove he wasn’t a cop, with his neat tie and buttoned down suit. Where the Don of previous years might have tried to party with her and perhaps even seduce her, the Don of 1966 treats her the way a protective father might; projecting his own daughter on to her, perhaps? She, in turn, is impatient with Don’s ‘old-fashioned’ manners, though he’s still a good-looking man. I’m pretty sure her theft of his tie was a gauche attempt at flirting.

Still, Don got the last laugh when it turned out that it wasn’t the Stones Harry had been taken to meet after all – they turned up as Harry was emerging from the room. “So who you were you talking to then?” smirked Don, as Harry spluttered, “they sounded just like them… they even sang to me!” It was a laugh out loud moment, but the whole scenario served to underline Don’s growing sense of obsolescence. His somewhat dismissive, cold attitude towards Harry says it all. Harry is the future, having had the foresight to set up the agency’s vital TV advertising department. For all his talent, Don is from a time when advertising was on billboards and in magazines.

In the constant chess game between Roger and Pete, Roger too was feeling like he was being bested by the younger man. Having scored a cheap shot early on by winning the lead on the new Mohawk Airlines contract, Roger gloated by switching the meeting venue to his office without telling Pete and Lane. But Pete got the last laugh. Holding a daytime champagne reception to celebrate the contract, he told the assembled masses that Roger would be “in charge of the day to day operations, but I’ll always have sight of everything”.

After silently fuming at the back for a moment, Roger stalked out for a rant at Don about Pete: “I’m tired of hanging onto a ledge with the kid standing on my fingers”. But as Don pointed out, Pete had grown up; and like so much around them, what he’d grown into wasn’t necessarily what they’d like.

This week’s other main thread was catching us up with Betty. After her absence last week, this was no particular surprise. What was a surprise was her appearance; in the seven months since we last saw her, Betty has, to put it kindly, got a bit larger. Bravely clad in a convincing fat suit like the one sported by Jamie Bamber in season three of Battlestar Galactica, the actually pregnant January Jones put in a convincing performance of depression and self-loathing. Stuck at home munching potato chips in front of the TV, it’s clear that Betty is at a pretty low ebb. Just to make that worse, on going to the doctor in a vain attempt to procure diet pills, she discovers she has a sinister lump in her thyroid gland.

Betty’s been, intentionally, a pretty dislikeable character over the last few seasons, so there was initially a sense of schadenfreud to see her like this. But whatever she’s done, she’s still desperately unhappy, and her plight caused quite a bit of sympathy. Time is passing her by too; she’s visibly taken aback when the doctor mentions how “middle-aged women” often put on weight. And faced with her own mortality for, perhaps, the first time, it’s notable that she’s straight on the phone to a disconcerted Don, begging him to tell her that everything’s going to be all right.

However unpleasant she may be (especially to her own daughter), it’s hard not to feel sorry for Betty. Every choice she’s made has led her down a pretty unsatisfying path. After finally ditching the lying, cheating Don, she’s ended up with a political minnow and mother’s boy who plainly makes her no happier. The antithesis of the bright, challenging Peggy, Betty too belongs to a world that no longer exists – a world where strong, trustworthy men provide for her and take care of her. It’s easy to dismiss that as an unrealistic fantasy, but the constant shattering of her illusions makes for uncomfortable viewing.

And since it turns out that the lump in her neck is benign after all (a fact that she fails to let Don know), it’s clear that Betty’s piling on weight is nothing to do with any medical condition. Not a physical one, anyway. Perhaps she’ll go back to that staple of coping with depression in the 60s – a neverending series of tranquilliser prescriptions. In the mean time, she has a disturbing encounter with a fortune teller, while her friend Joyce calmly describes how she’s become reconciled to the fact of her own imminent death. This leads to one of Mad Men’s few, occasional dream sequences as she visualises haunting her grieving family like a plump, pink-clad ghost.

Back at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, the grapple with the ongoing civil rights struggle continues, clearly another theme of the season. After last week’s accidental callout to potential black employees, Don now has a black secretary, the apparently capable Dawn (Teyonah Parris). Dawn is bright and good at her job, none of which stops Harry patronising her (“It must be very confusing here.”) or Roger making sneering racist jokes (“It’s always darkest before the Dawn.”). As the single black face in the agency, I wonder if more will be made of Dawn’s character as the season progresses?

Institutionally racist though he may be, Roger is mindful of the need for inclusiveness. When Peggy, tasked with hiring a dedicated copywriter for Mohawk Airlines, proposes taking on young Jewish guy Michael Ginsberg, Roger reassures the Mohawk board that it’s a good thing to employ a Jew – “everybody’s got one now, apparently”. Ginsberg, played by the cute and younger than he looks Ben Feldman (he’s actually 31) is a ball of hyperactive, youthful energy, and so deliberately eccentric that even Peggy is surprised – “My stomach rumbles and sometimes it sounds like the f-word.” Clearly, he’s yet another face of youth around the office, with his jeans and checked sport coat, and even Peggy seems to find him disconcertingly young in comparison.

Ginsberg demonstrates another eye-watering 60s jacket.

It was, on the surface, a fairly light and inconsequential episode, though as ever with Mad Men, what was beneath the surface was far from light. Capably directed by Jon Hamm himself, it yet again forefronted the issue that times are changing and the likes of Don and Roger have reached an age where they can’t change with them. As usual, period detail was immaculate but understated, though the smirk-making reference to “that clown Romney” (Mitt’s father George, the governor of Michigan at the time) seemed a teeny bit forced. Still, as the forces of youth marshal against Don and Roger, it’s clear that they’re faced with a choice – will the future be like Pete Campbell, or like the Rolling Stones?

Game of Thrones: Season 2, Episode 1–The North Remembers

SPOILER WARNING – I’M GOING TO TRY TO REVIEW EACH EPISODE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AFTER ITS U.S. BROADCAST. IF YOU’RE IN THE U.K., AND WATCHING THE SKY ATLANTIC SHOWING THE NEXT EVENING, DON’T READ THIS REVIEW UNTIL AFTER SEEING IT, AS MAJOR PLOT POINTS WILL BE DISCUSSED.

“There’s a king in every corner now.”

After Mad Men last week comes the return of another much-anticipated, highly acclaimed show – HBO’s Game of Thrones, based on George RR Martin’s massive, convoluted fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, is back. It’s got a lot to live up to; its first season was widely touted as the latest contender in legitimising genre television as serious drama, after the likes of Battlestar Galactica and The Walking Dead.

HBO is used to critical acclaim and viewer respect, but I wonder if even they were quite prepared for the smash hit of Game of Thrones’ first season. Fantasy is generally the most looked down on of genres, after even science fiction and horror. The problem really is that JRR Tolkien set the standard with Lord of the Rings, and so many fantasy novels written after that are perceived as pale imitations. Cheap fantasy B-movies (often made by Italians) compounded the problem, with the genre becoming disparagingly known as ‘sword and sorcery’.

I have to admit, I felt much the same. I tuned in to the first episode of Game of Thrones expecting little, and having not read a fantasy novel for years, for exactly these reasons. Ten gripping, complex and violent episodes later, I picked up Martin’s books and devoured all five within a space of months. The TV series is a very faithful adaptation, as the books (at least the early ones) come fully formed as thrilling stories of political intrigue, backstabbing and internecine warfare.

Significantly, the overtly fantastic elements are used very sparingly. There is magic, but not much. There are dragons, but they don’t even hatch until the climax of the first season. And the dead walk, which is a signifier of the real danger hanging over the inhabitants of Westeros – but not often. Instead, the story focuses much more on the feuding Houses of Westeros, in their struggle to gain the upper hand and win outright rule of the country’s Seven Kingdoms. It’s heavily influenced by the English Wars of the Roses – the leading Houses even have names reminiscent of that struggle’s combatants. The more sympathetic, aggressively northern ones are the Starks (York), and the sneering, coldhearted rich southerners are the Lannisters (Lancaster).

The season 2 opener has a lot to catch up on, establishing where all the major players are now after the tumultuous events of season 1, and introducing a few new ones along the way. This opening episode manages that surprisingly well. We get to see what’s happening with almost every main character, along with introducing the oft-heard of but never seen brother of dead king Robert, Stannis Baratheon – technically the true heir to the throne.

Queen Cersei’s incestuous son Joffrey is still ruling at King’s Landing, his capricious madness an uncontrollable factor in her Machiavellian schemes. His hostage bride-to-be Sansa Stark is already learning how best to deal with his unpredictable cruelty, manipulating him into sparing hopeless chubby knight Ser Dontos, who he was about to have killed on a whim. Cersei, used to having control over her spoiled son, has not learned the lesson so well; slapping him for impudence, she’s genuinely frightened as he coldly reminds her that he could have her executed for it. Jack Gleeson is a really nasty piece of work as young Joffrey, with the impulsive nastiness of a Caligula in training.

Thankfully, his uncle Tyrion has turned up at King’s Landing to deputise as Hand of the King in his father Tywin’s absence, and may be able to keep Joffrey in line. Instantly the fan favourite after season 1, Peter Dinklage is still superb as Tyrion, and gets rather more screen time this week than a lot of others. His dry, barbed wit is still very much in evidence, never more so than in the Small Council scene as he takes his place with his outraged sister, Cersei.

In the North, Robb Stark is still waging war for northern independence, with Cersei’s brother (and lover) Jaime as his captive. Obviously heir to the same dry wit as Tyrion, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau continues to make Jaime an intriguing character, and more sympathetic than the standard villain. He’s actually rather more interesting than the conventionally heroic Robb, though Richard Madden is certainly very nice to look at. Robb’s direwolf has grown too; after criticisms that the direwolves in season 1 looked a bit too much like cuddly dogs, this time we see a genuinely huge beastie menace Jaime. It’s presumably a product of the same very impressive CG that realises so many of the series’ settings, but it’s so well done you could really believe it’s actually there.

More CG is to be found across the Narrow Sea, where last Targaryen (and another claimant to the throne of Westeros) Daenerys is trekking across the desert with her newly-hatched dragons. Again, the dragons are used sparingly, in fact we only see one of the three, perched cutely on Daenerys’ shoulder before being locked in a little cage.

What remains of Dany’s Dothraki tribe are struggling through the Red Waste, a parched piece of desert with seemingly no end (actually Malta). As she sends her riders off to search for some sign of life, she reaffirms her friendship with exiled knight Ser Jorah. Seemingly hard to connect to the events across the sea in the first season, this narrative thread is one of my favourites. As a little-experienced actor, Emilia Clarke is stunning as Daenerys, and Iain Glen is reliably good as Jorah. I was a little sad, therefore, that this plot strand only got one scene this week; but with so much to cram in, it’s hardly surprising that some characters get little more than a cursory nod.

Given similarly short shrift, sadly, were Conleth Hill as oily spymaster Lord Varys, and Jerome Flynn as Tyrion’s mercenary bodyguard Bronn – again a shame, as these too were fan favourites last year. Varys barely gets one line, and Bronn no more than that either. But I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of them as the year goes on. Robb Stark’s mother Catelyn at least gets a whole scene, with actress Michelle Fairley making the most of her limited screen time.

A little more time was devoted to events beyond the Wall, as Jon Snow and the Night’s Watch trekked into the icy wilderness to discover why dead men are walking and attacking people. Robert Pugh popped up as nasty piece of work Craster, who marries his daughters then impregnates them to give him more daughters to marry, and so on. This led to some tense scenes as Craster took an instant dislike to pretty boy Jon (well, to be fair, Kit Harington is pretty).

As Craster, the usually aggressively Welsh Pugh was affecting no less a convincing Northern English accent than the rest of the Watch. More thought has clearly gone into the accents than simply allowing the actors to use their own; aside from Pugh, Night’s Watch Commander Mormont is played by the very Scottish James Cosmo, and he still sounds like he’s from Yorkshire. The more posh Lannisters have cut glass south eastern accents, and would sound quite at home on the current Conservative Party front bench – aside from, perhaps, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion, who for all the excellence of his performance, hasn’t quite mastered a consistent English accent.

Elsewhere, we were introduced to a new set of players, as we cut to the castle of Dragonstone, home to another contender for the crown – Robert Baratheon’s elder brother Stannis. As portrayed by Stephen Dillane, Stannis is a stern, unyielding man, as in the books. We establish this pretty early on with his overly literal pedantry about the propaganda letter to be sent out to Westeros – “strike out ‘beloved brother’. It’s not true.”

Stannis is accompanied by the sinister priestess Melisandre, devotee to a new, fierce religion worshipping the Lord of Light. We first encounter them both symbolically burning the idols of traditional gods the Seven, to the consternation of Stannis’ Maester, who then perishes in a futile attempt to poison the priestess – both drink from the same glass, but only the Maester dies. Incarnated by Dutch actress Carice van Houten (previously seen in Paul Verhoeven’s wartime thriller Black Book), Melisandre is clearly a force to be reckoned with, and has Stannis in her thrall. His more reasonable adviser Davos, played by the reliable Liam Cunningham, is clearly going to have a fight on his hands to moderate her influence.

The usual massively graphic violence was present and correct from the outset, as tournament knights cheerfully slaughtered each other for Joffrey’s entertainment. Also predictably present was the gratuitous sex and nudity for which the show has become
(in)famous. A tour of one of Lord Baelish’s brothels was introduced by yet more instruction in the art of shagging for money, with the participants very much in the forefront of the frame.

This scene led to into the episode’s climactic montage, as Joffrey, concerned by the possibility of the late King Robert’s bastards laying claim to the throne, started his own slaughter of the innocents. It was a genuinely shocking moment when the King’s Guard slashed the throat of that young whore’s baby, one even this series had to leave offscreen. But the mother’s reaction was shocking enough. This was followed by yet more scenes of children being violently killed; proof, if you still needed it, that this is not fantasy for the faint at heart.

But Joffrey can’t get them all. As we saw at the end of last year, blacksmith’s apprentice (and unknowing heir to the throne) Gendry has headed off north to join the Night’s Watch. Gendry is incarnated by the very attractive and personable Joe Dempsie, late of Skins and The Fades; unfortunately, he doesn’t get so much as a line this week. But it’s a good cliffhanger as we see him, together with Ned Stark’s other daughter Arya, heading away from the city amid a stream of refugees.

A sterling season opener this, written by series creators David Benioff and D B Weiss. It hits the ground running, with all the quality, thrills and sometime flaws of the first season. My only complaint would be that perhaps it tries to take in too much, with various characters left virtually mute even if we see them. There again, I was a little disappointed not to see Charles Dance pop up as the arrogant Lord Tywin Lannister, or Gethin Anthony as the pretty (and gay) pretender Renly Baratheon. So clearly, even the writers thought it was biting off more than they could chew to fit in every major character.

I have a bit of a dilemma reviewing this series episode by episode. Because I’ve now read all the books in the series that Martin has written (so far), I obviously know what’s going to happen, since the show is almost completely faithful to the source material. So my solution is this: I’m going to review each episode as though I didn’t know, trying to see it as someone who was seeing the story for the first time. Equally, I’m going to avoid referring to anything that happens in the books after the point the series has reached; I don’t want to spoiler anyone, as I know many people are watching this show having never read the books. It’s going to be an interesting exercise in self-discipline – check back in coming weeks to see how it works out!

Mad Men: Season 5, Episodes 1 & 2–A Little Kiss

“Something always happens. Things are different.”

Rejoice, for finally Mad Men is back! After 17 months of alleged behind the scenes wrangling at AMC TV, thankfully everything was settled in terms of writers, producers, cast and budget (that latter at the expense of The Walking Dead, reportedly). The men and women of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce showed up for business on Sunday night in the US, and straight away we were immersed in the show’s trademark subtle vision of the 60s.

So subtle in fact that, as usual, I couldn’t immediately tell what year they’d moved on to this time. Mad Men is like that; it doesn’t do exposition. You have to work at it as a viewer, because none of the answers are spelled out in dialogue. This is never more true than in a season premiere, where the timescale between seasons can range from months to years, with the concomitant change in the characters’ circumstances. Part of the fun is working it out, and the show doesn’t give an inch. After all, why have a line of dialogue when meaning can be conveyed by Don Draper staring moodily into the middle distance through a haze of cigarette smoke?

Anyway, it’s 1966 (I eventually discovered), and I guess it’s about nine months after the end of the previous season. I know this because Joan has actually gone ahead and had the baby fathered by Roger after their illicit post-mugging liaison in an alley. As she was a couple of months pregnant last time, and her baby looks a couple of months old here, I think an intervening time of about 9 months is the right area.

Thankfully Don has moved on from the dark place in which he spent most of last season, when he lived in a tiny apartment and struggled with depression and alcoholism. Initially he seemed quite happy with new French-Canadian wife Megan, who seemed to have an inhuman level of tolerance with his grumpiness. Said grumpiness was brought on by her staging of a surprise birthday party for his fortieth in their swanky new pad, a surprise that was (typically) blown by Roger turning up with a bottle of champagne just as Don and Megan reached their door.

This season premiere was basically two episodes glued together, and the first concerned itself largely with the party. Don doesn’t like birthdays; he never celebrated them when he was Dick Whitman and he doesn’t want to now. Megan can’t grasp that, and Don ends up fidgeting uncomfortably through what looks like rather a good party.

As the centrepiece of the episode, the party was staged very well. All the major characters were there, together with a lot of young people who were presumably friends of Megan’s. Straight away, Don’s obvious discomfort pointed up what his problem was – he’s getting old. Or at least he feels he is, particularly when surrounded by modern, with-it people almost twenty years his junior, like his new wife. I think this is a theme we’re going to be returning to quite a bit this year.

Meanwhile, we got a flavour of the times as people at the party discussed current events, a good way of setting the scene. Vietnam is just getting into full swing, and already Bert Cooper and Peggy’s beatnik boyfriend Abe are discussing it as an unnecessary war run for profit which maims and kills young men (much to the discomfort of the young sailor standing next to them; “I thought there’d be women here,” he muttered).

Vietnam is presumably going to be a recurring theme this year. Joan’s abusive doctor husband is at Fort Dixie, presumably about to be transferred there. As a result, an unusually flustered Joan is being helped by her acid-tongued mother with caring for the baby. Their bitchy bickering is hugely entertaining, and hopefully we’ll see more of her.

Joan is actually stuck there with no certain knowledge she can go back to her job, as the limited women’s rights of the 60s didn’t include maternity leave. Indeed, the challenge for women’s rights was implicit throughout, catching up with the struggle Peggy’s had since the outset of the show. Don still expects his new young wife to be obedient and submissive, which she’s having none of. He’s plainly forgotten that attitude was instrumental in losing him his last wife (well, that and the constant infidelity and lying). And Joan’s mother is startled that Joan might defy her husband and return to work rather than care for her child full time. Peggy might have got in early, but by 1966 Women’s Lib was getting into full swing, and I imagine it’s a theme the show will return to frequently.

I suspect another driving theme of the times is going to be the Civil Rights movement. We were plunged into this straight away, as some foolish young execs from rival ad firm Y & R got into racial trouble by water bombing a protest march from their office window. This led to an amusing sniping war, as Roger took out a gloating ad for SCDP in the paper calling them an “equal opportunity” firm. The joke backfired towards the end of the episode, as it had been misinterpreted as a vacancy ad, and suddenly the all-white Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was besieged with eager black job applicants. “Why is the office full of Negroes?” enquired a flustered Roger.

Indeed, Roger’s racial attitude summed up the time period. When it was suggested they take one of the black girls on as a receptionist, he snapped, “we don’t want one of them out there!” The all-pervading racism of the 60s has been an ongoing subtle theme in the series, and it looks like this year it’s going to be pushed more to the front. It even hangs over little moments; why else would Lane, having discovered a lost wallet in a taxi, not trust the (black) driver to return it to its owner?

The wallet, in fact, led to another amusing subplot that may or may not be continued. Discovering a picture of a beautiful young lady in it, Lane called her to enquire about returning the wallet (which belonged to her boyfriend), and ended up flirting outrageously with her on the phone. It was a funny scene, well-played by Jared Harris. But it might spin out into something more serious. Plainly Lane’s marriage is not going that well; beneath their English reserve, you can tell that neither he nor his wife are happy. He was disappointed when it was the wallet’s owner who turned up at the office to collect it rather than the beautiful Dolores. But since the wallet’s owner had an Italian surname and was almost a stereotypical Mob hood, Lane may be getting himself into trouble if he goes after Dolores.

Elsewhere, the ever-uptight Pete is as unhappy as ever, and the script chose to emphasise that he has dandruff and is starting to go bald. I’m glad the dialogue spelled that one out, as actor Vincent Kartheiser seems to have a perfectly full head of hair. But he was as excellent as ever as the perpetually unsuccessful Pete, whose rivalry with Roger has been stepped up a notch for some more humorous scenes. Roger has taken to sneaking glances at his calendar to steal his leads; so Pete responds by setting up a fake meeting with a big client at 6am, which Roger gullibly goes off to.

Harry Crane is unhappy too, having expressed his lust for Don’s wife while the lady was actually standing right behind him. This led to one of the funniest scenes in the episode, as Harry was carpeted by Roger and immediately assumed he was being fired for the incident. But all Roger wanted to do was convince him to trade offices with Pete, whose tiny cupboard of an office had a big post in the middle of it that Pete managed to walk into hard enough to make his nose bleed. Pete had made a fuss about wanting a better office, but he was still furious; as Roger had correctly worked out, it was Roger’s office he really wanted.

All this, as usual, moved at a pretty leisurely pace. In terms of actual plot, not a great deal happened. But then, in Mad Men, plot has a way of creeping up on you incrementally. At the end of the day, even with a period setting, it’s basically a very classy soap opera, which depends on you being invested with the fates of its characters. This opening instalment set out its stall very well for the coming year in that regard. Interestingly, while watching I tried to imagine what it would be like if this was the first episode I’d seen, with no knowledge of the characters’ tortuous back stories. And I was surprised to decide that it was actually still just as accessible as a jumping in point. Only the business about Don’s former identity, knowledge of which he’s entrusted to his new wife, might have confused fresh viewers.

Again as usual, it looked great; it’s almost worth the frustration of The Walking Dead being stuck on a farm all year to justify the expense in bringing this to the screen. Don and Megan’s new apartment is the height of 60s chic (though its white carpet can’t stand up to an eventful birthday party). The clothes, too, are as well observed as ever. Don, Roger and the old guard remain as impeccably suited as ever, but the younger guys are wearing casual clothes in the office; and Pete turns up at Don’s party sporting a jacket that’s surely a crime against the eyes of humanity.

So, the stage is set. We know where most of the characters are, and where they’re trying to go. No sign of Don’s cold ex-wife Betty yet, but I’m guessing she’ll show up next week. On the evidence of this opener, it was worth the 17 month wait to have the show back. Creator Matthew Weiner’s writing is as sharp, subtle and humorous as ever, and the top notch cast are still superb at the subtle acting style the show demands (though my absolute favourite is John Slattery as Roger, who’s often far from subtle). Over the next few months, I’m fully expecting Mad Men to be as compelling a drama as it always has been.

Skins–the party’s over

“Everything’s ending. And it’s fucking scary.”

So farewell then Skins, which wound to a largely unheralded end on E4 last night. It’s not completely the end – there’ll be a coda of three ‘mini movies’ next year which promise to catch us up with the doings of some of the shows previous characters since they left. But Skins as we know it, the teen drama/comedy composed of hour long episodes which changes its cast every two years, really is over.

When it began, Skins was in many ways a groundbreaking show. Its unconventional approach was to tell a teen drama story with none of the compromises that usually bedevil such a show; swearing was allowed, and sex, and enjoyable, consequence-free drug use. In short, it treated teen drama like adult drama, which was reflected in its late night timeslot.

It also took the unconventional approach of employing actors who really were teenagers, unlike so many US teen dramas where the high schoolers are plainly in their twenties. And it went further, with teen writers added into the mix along with series creators Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain. Consistent with its cutting edge ‘yoof’ approach was an aggressive online marketing campaign on the likes of Facebook and Twitter, with the characters receiving their own pages and interacting with the show’s fans.

It seems old hat now, but back in 2007 this all felt startlingly fresh. The result was a teen drama (with a lot of comedy) that purported to be a truly realistic depiction of what modern teenagers get up to. In this it did itself something of a disservice; given that episode one featured the gang trashing a posh house party, stealing a Mercedes and then crashing it into a river causing the loss of a huge bag of weed, it’s fair to say that its portrayal of teenage life was more than a little exaggerated.

This aspect of the show has always polarised opinion among viewers, whether they be teens or not. Some (noticeably those from large cities) tend to say, “yes, things like that have happened to me”, while others (seemingly from suburban and provincial towns) think it’s glamorised wish fulfilment. A common criticism in latter years has been that teen comedy The Inbetweeners, with its hopelessly awkward quartet of teenage boys, was a far more accurate representation of teenage life past and present than Skins with its impossibly good looking cast, hedonistic sexuality and mad, drug-fuelled parties.

And yet Skins did catch some of that feeling of what it’s like to be a teenager. All the way through, there’s that air of self-doubt, insecurity masquerading as confidence and a mixture of anticipation and fear about what the future holds as you begin to move into the ‘real world’. For me, it always caught that atmosphere really accurately; certainly well enough for me to forgive the show its many other excesses.

And excessive it certainly seemed, at the beginning. It was trailed with some well-remembered promo shoots of an insane party at which gorgeous, scantily clad teenagers shagged, boozed and did drugs while trashing what looked like an ordinary house. This led to a minor craze of ‘Skins parties’ publicised on Facebook and later by the Daily Mail as they invariably led to the near-destruction of whichever hapless teenager’s house they were held at.

Initially, I expected the show to be like that all the time. I must admit, I tuned in initially out of titillation; those were some very nice looking boys I’d seen in the trails for the show, and it looked like they wouldn’t be wearing much. But I stayed because I got sucked into the drama and became emotionally attached to the characters, even when (as in the Russian school trip episode) the comedy was sometimes so puerile as to be a turnoff.

And it really surprised me with its second series, as much of the comedy was toned down and it became one of the most thoughtful, perceptive dramas around at that point. This was best exemplified by Nicholas Hoult’s beautiful but manipulative and unlikeable Tony Stonem, who basically spent the entire first series having his selfish cockiness demolished until he was ultimately run over by a bus. For him, the second series was all about rebuilding his life, and he became so much more likeable as a result.

The other characters too spent the second series dealing with the consequences of the events in the first. Geeky Sid (Mike Bailey) abandoned his on-off relationship with flaky but fun Cassie (Hannah Murray) to fulfil his longstanding crush on Tony’s girlfriend Michelle (April Pearson). Anwar (Dev Patel) was having a hard job reconciling his Muslim faith with his best friend Maxxie’s homosexuality. All of this was written and acted with amazing sensitivity. For me, the emotional high point was the death of Sid’s dad (a terrific sweary turn from Peter Capaldi), and his final reconciliation with his former best friend Tony; as both embraced, weeping, it was hard to keep a dry eye. Though running it a close second was the unexpected death of loveable party animal Chris (Joe Dempsie).

At the end of that second year, fans were surprised to learn of the bold but logical decision that the entire cast were to be replaced by a new gang of sixth formers at the college. This was a risky step but made sense; when a group of friends finish their A Levels, they do tend to go off into the world in their own separate ways, and keeping the gang together would have been ridiculously contrived. The loss of characters the audience had come to love was offset by the freshness of a bunch of new ones – it was like Grange Hill without the casts overlapping (much).

Each successive ‘generation’ followed the two-series template laid down by the first. Their initial series would be comparatively light, but with the drama ratcheting up throughout; the next series would be much heavier stuff, usually involving the shock death of one of the major characters.

The problem with this approach was that, by the just-departed third generation, it had come to seem pretty formulaic. And the heightened drama was becoming increasingly implausible, even for Skins; the nadir, most fans agree, was the bizarre ending to the second generation’s time as Effy’s (Kaya Scodelario) love-crazed psychiatrist beat her boyfriend Freddie (Luke Pasqualino) to death with a baseball bat.

And while (some of) the later characters were undoubtedly likeable, for me they never quite reached the level of emotional investment I got from the first gang. Generation 2’s love story between emergent lesbians Naomi (Lily Loveless) and Emily (Kathryn Prescott) was heartwarming and touching; but the tedious love triangle between Effy, Freddie and the charismatic but obnoxious Cook (Jack O’Connell) quickly became annoying. It also recalled, unnecessarily, the love triangle between Tony, Michelle and Sid from the first generation, and the fact that this plotline recently got yet another rerun with the third crew was perhaps one of the clearest signs that the show really had run its course.

The third generation at least toned down some of the increased madness of the previous plotlines with some much more low key drama. More than ever before, it focussed on the misfits; with androgynous Frankie (Dakota Blue Richards) as its lead character, and even its seemingly brainless ‘popular’ characters like Mini (Freya Mavor) and Nick (Sean Teale) being unravelled to become more complex and insecure than they at first seemed.

But it’s difficult to keep something so immediate and vital fresh for long, and the show was starting to look tired with its formulaic approach. It didn’t help that its undoubtedly deep influence on youth drama was spawning fresher competitors; it’s probably fair to say that without Skins, we wouldn’t have Misfits or The Fades, which take the Skins formula and graft elements of the fantastic onto it. It was no real surprise then to learn that this third generation would be the last. Skins, once so original, was now old hat, and was being retired.

It’s always been patchy, but never less than compellingly watchable; for me anyway. And along the way, its casting technique of mixing professionals with untried members of the public has launched the careers of some terrific young actors. Nicholas Hoult has gone on to use those gorgeous cheekbones in movies like A Single Man and X Men: First Class; Dev Patel did rather well with Slumdog Millionaire; Jack O’Connell has been in acclaimed TV dramas like Dive and United; and recent superb BBC3 fantasy The Fades boasted no less than three Skins alumni: Daniel Kaluuya, Lily Loveless and Joe Dempsie.

It also had a peculiar but successful stunt casting approach to the adults, with most of them being played by comedians or comic actors. As a result, we’ve seen some surprisingly good performances from the likes of Harry Enfield, Morwenna Banks, John Bishop, Ronni Ancona, Ardal O’Hanlon, Chris Addison, and even, amazingly, Danny Dyer. Enfield even went on to direct two episodes, including the excellent, hallucinatory second series one with the convalescing Tony attending a surreal opening day at a university.

Last night’s finale, unlike the previous two generations, felt like a proper ending. Frankie, thankfully decided that she wanted neither of the two insipid brothers who’d been chasing her all year, who then reconciled their rivalry. Mini settled down to have her baby with unexpected love interest Alo. And sweet-natured metalhead Rich finally seemed at peace with the death of his beloved Grace. It all climaxed, in true Skins style, at a big, hedonistic party; but it was as the party wound down that it ended. And the series finished with Rich, for me the most likeable of this bunch, looking straight up to the camera and simply saying, “bye”. Ostensibly it was to the now departed Grace; but also, perhaps cheesily, it felt like it was to all of us too. And I couldn’t help but well up a bit. It’s been a great party, with some good people, but now it’s over.

And now, in memoriam, I’m going to indulgently list my fave characters through the years:

Sid Jenkins (Mike Bailey)
Obviously. I have a huge thing about cute, geeky guys with glasses. But Sid was also sweet, insecure, and the voice of reason. In many ways he was the heart and soul of Skins’ first generation.

Cassie Ainsworth (Hannah Murray)
Flaky, bright and cursed with a variety of mental issues like depression and eating disorders, Cassie was the perfect love interest for Sid.

Chris Miles (Joe Dempsie)
Because you can’t not like Chris. Unflappably cheerful and likeable even when his world is falling down around him, you have to feel for him as every decision he makes ends up disastrous. Sleeping with his teacher: mistake. Opening his house to a party full of destructive strangers: mistake. Attempting to pee while still dosed up on Viagra: big mistake!

Naomi Campbell (Lily Loveless)
Incredibly smart but seemingly humourless at first, Naomi was the dry wit of the second generation. It helped that Lily Loveless is an incredibly charismatic screen presence. Her blooming relationship with Emily was the best plot that gang had.

Freddie McLair (Luke Pasqualino)
Because I also have a thing about skater boys and stoners. Freddie was the sweet, sensitive one of the second generation boys, and I liked his insecurity despite being incredibly good looking.

Kieran MacFoeinaiugh (Ardal O’Hanlon)
Naomi’s ‘mentor’ at Roundview College. Initially almost unrecognisable as the guy who was Father Dougal, O’Hanlon made Kieran funny, fallible but still somehow profound.

Rich Hardbeck (Alexander Arnold) and Alo Creevey (Will Merrick)
Together because they’re basically a double act. These two music loving potheads and outcasts were the most likeable of the boys in the third generation. Rich’s metal snobbery and Alo’s bizarrely tasteless outfits were highlights for me.

Shelley McGuinness (Clare Grogan)
Because it’s always great to see the real Kochanski out of Red Dwarf in anything. Grogan was brilliantly feisty as Mini’s take-no-prisoners mum.

Alex Henley (Sam Jackson)
Actually Alex was a bit annoying, with his pretentious dice-decision-making affectation and shallow sex life. But my goodness, I could look at him all day.

So fare thee well boys and girls – till we meet again…