How I Met Your Mother - “The Bro Mitzvah” - Review

How long can How I Met Your Mother sustain itself on twists? Many of the show’s most recent episodes have only been elevated above their shortcomings by some reveal that forces us to reconsider everything we’ve watched prior. “The Bro Mitzvah” is another example of this and besides its reveal it's a very middling episode.  

Part of the problem is that it’s just not a very funny episode. At times the laugh track would play and I would find myself saying, “But that’s not funny!” That’s not to say none of this is amusing. Ralph Machio’s appearance is a well-chosen if underutilized cameo. The clown jokes provide some chuckles. Even the misunderstanding of Robin being a virgin is sort of smile inducing.

The actors do their best to sell lines and gags. Alyson Hannigan is stuck in a really inane joke about her obsessing over Ralph Machio and it’s only funny because Hannigan is selling the hell out of it. 

But the episode suffers from being yet another effort to stall once more before the series can get to the wedding.

I also don’t know how long the series can continue to reconcile Barney’s dickish ways with his choice to settle down. The events of the episode only occur because Barney is such a total asshole that he’d unknowingly fall into this trap set by his friends. 

There’s no way around it. This is just a truly disappointing effort from the show.

Grade: C+

Game of Thrones - "Kissed By Fire" - Review

 

“Kissed By Fire” is a lot less explosive and propulsive than last week’s installment, but it’s none-the-less another great episode from the series. There are moments in the episode that are as compulsively watchable as Dany’s city sacking and the mutiny at Craster’s, but there are also a lot of the quieter moments that make Game of Thrones so much more than a fun, action-packed fantasy romp. There are plenty of political machinations for every epic trial by combat, and there are a number of great character moments for every holy shit moment. And on the whole, this is another episode that does what Game of Thrones does best, it engrosses you in its storytelling so much and so thoroughly that it’s almost like watching magician doing a magic trick. It distracts you from all the manipulations (and scattered plot strands) with some deft sleight of hand.

This is all helped by the fact that a number of major plots are suddenly in full motion. Jon is finally given the first big test of his commitment to his current double agent status. Jaimie and Brienne get to the destination they’ve been heading towards since the second episode (and their relationship advances even further to a mutual understanding and respect). Littlefinger continues his scheming and continues to push for Sansa to leave with him for the Vale. Stannis is made to feel a little guilty about imprisoning Davos (due to his daughter Shereen – man this show’s casting is phenomenal, but if you want to really see just how good it is look no further than the child actors). Robb makes a questionable decision to kill one of his lieutenants and it forces him to make a bold, possibly foolish decision to court the Frey’s favor. Arya is forced to confront all the increasingly tragic crap that’s been thrown at her. 

Now I could go on and on about the Hound’s trial by combat (which was very, very cool), but for a moment I’d like to talk about some of the smaller moments of the show. Big moments are cool in of themselves but what really sells them is having a reason to care about the characters that they’re happening to. Take Jaimie telling Brienne about how he got the nick name “Kingslayer” and the absolute burden he carries for killing the Mad King Aerys. This is the moment where I really started sympathizing with the show version of Jaimie (it’s also a great moment for evolving the relationship of Jaimie where Brienne isn’t just sympathizing with him because his hand got cut off but because it’s one more damn insult to the life he’s living). It’s also a really good way that the series takes things, in the book, that would typically be learned largely through inner monologues and finds way to elaborate on it that are just as interesting and just as telling.

This is all posturing on Jaimie’s part. He accepts the hatred of everyone around him for breaking his oath because it was a necessary evil. The king would have killed thousands, and so Jaimie killed the king and took the flack that came with it. Posturing takes place all throughout the episode. Jon acts tough in front of the wildlings, but we can see it’s only a thinly veiled disguise. He’s suppressing his actual feelings (he clearly still supports the Night’s Watch – just look how incredibly hesitant he is to give up the details of the Watch's defense). Stannis acts like he can never forgive Davos but he knows that Davos is too loyal of a supporter and friend and too good of an advisor to give him up so nonchalantly (it also doesn’t help that adorable kids are questioning his decision making). Robb gives off the appearance that he’s in control, killing Lord Karstark so he doesn’t look weak, but he’s increasingly desperate in his war efforts. Tyrion is masking his true self all the time; he hides behind wit and barbed jests, but it’s all to hide his inward self-loathing and his hatred towards all the constant judgments he receives. 

Not everyone is posturing. Olenna has long since stopped caring for what others believe about her, and immediately gets straight to the point. We see this when she cuts to the chase as Tyrion asks for help financing the upcoming royal wedding. Cersei acts rather giddy as Tywin gives the news about Tyrion’s new betrothal to Sansa (a nice oh shit episode coda). But she’s quickly put a façade back on the moment Tywin notes that she’s to marry Loras. Tywin rarely postures and he retorts coldly, “My children: you’ve disgraced the Lannister name for far too long”. 

This brings me back to the trial by combat. Arya is a character who is almost always trying to convince other people that she’s somebody that deep down she’s not (in the books this is even more explicit as she adopts new identity after new identity). Arya is a tomboy and she pretends she’s much fiercer and stronger than she is. But deep down she’s a troubled little girl who misses her dad. The fight between the Hound and Beric Dondaron is thrilling, but what’s exceptional about it is how little it often has to do with these two warriors. If anything, the fight is more about Arya. The scene is constantly being framed from her perspective as she barely avoids getting caught be some side blow from the swords. Aray watches the whole fight with a feverish intensity and when the Hound survives, she rushes out to stab him with a dagger, barely failing to get the knife in him. The fight scene works because we know what’s at stake for everyone involved, for the Hound, for the Brotherhood With Banners, and especially for Arya. 

It’s only after the fight that we see the true colors of Arya. She wishes for her father’s life back and tearfully yells at Gendry for choosing to leave her (When she cries out, “I could be your family!”, you have to be dead inside not to get a little teary eyed).

People rarely get what they want in Game of Thrones though and it’s why there’s such a large desire for creating a persona to hide behind. Anytime you try to be yourself, say to be the good guy who saves the day (Ned Stark) or  the young, naïve maiden (Sansa), you get seriously screwed over. Davos shouldn’t be in a prison sell (his assassination attempt on Melisandre is one of the boldest things he’s done to date), and Arya should get justice, and Tyrion shouldn’t have to marry Sansa or be the Master of Coin. But that’s what life has dealt them, and in Game of Thrones you accept your lot in life with a brave face or a quick jest and hope no one sees through the act.

This may have been less high octane than last week's episode, but it was just as compelling and gripping. This series has become first and foremost about its characters, and this was a really good episode for economically and memorably exploring and moving these characters forward.

Stray Observations:

-New location on the map: Yunkhai.

-Flaming swords are never not awesome. Also, the chants of “guilty” during the fight formed this wonderful, dark atmosphere to the fight.

-On the whole, this was a fantastic episode for Maisie Williams. The range of emotions she had to play was really diverse and yet she was great in all of the scenes (this is an angry, sad and confused kid who has come to believe violence is the only solution to her problems now).  

-“You swore some vows. I want you to break them”

-Roose Bolton is a maniacal one; when he makes Jaimie squirm by temporarily convincing him that Cersei died in the Battle of the Blackwater, it’s an all-around dick move. But it’s a nice little piece of character information; Roose is conniving, cold individual.

-Olenna is disappointed that Tyrion is a clever individual.

-“It took five of you to kill two unarmed squires?”

-“Hang him last so he can watch the others die first”

-Berric Dondaron has now died and come back to life six times. Also, the Brotherhood worships the Lord of Light (aka Melisandre’s god)  

-So Stannis’s wife is crazy (the stillborns preserved in jars – What in Seven Hells?) and a devout follower of Melisandre. She won’t accept Stannis’s apology for cheating on her because Melsandre says it was god’s will.

-Littlefinger sends one of his spies to sleep with Loras to acquire information. Thankfully it wasn’t just another random sex scene.
-Brienne standing up in the tub was a a nice, defiant moment.

Grade: A

The Office - "Paper Airplane" - Review

One of the greatest assets and also biggest weaknesses to television as a medium is longevity. Sometimes we wish a film had a few more hours to tell its stories. There might be some aspect we would have liked it to play up but it had to cut down on for time constraints or maybe we just want to inhabit that world for a little while longer. Television, on the other hand, has time to spare. But the downside of television having all this time to tell its story is that it sometimes overstayed its welcome. Films might under stay their welcome but they often don’t have enough time to feel as if they’ve expired countless hours earlier.

Everyone has a different point where The Office began to feel like a stale but comfortable show (it was starting it for me somewhere around the fifth or sixth season). You knew what you were getting and it was perhaps a safer bet to watch The Office than take up a new show that might get canceled or whose lack of familiarity made it difficult to get into. The series was clearly declining before that point but you got trapped in the series like a security blanket. Longevity does that. It builds up a connection between you and the show, and that’s one of the crucial aspects of television, but it also allows television to get lazy and stop trying as hard to be appealing. 

There’s nothing wrong about a show acting as comfort food. Some of the best television has been purely about creating a nice little space to kill a half-hour or so. But The Office has increasingly become a show without a rudder. There are a lot of the same characters and there’s a lot of the same style and outwardly it looks much the same as ever (minus a Michael Scott and a Kelly Kippur). But often times I’ll be watching and asking myself, “What am I watching?” This season and recent seasons have felt like Office-lite. It’s similar jokes and occasionally similar scenarios but they don’t make me laugh as often or consistently and sometimes the jokes and the plots have me raising an eyebrow and actively questioning my viewing experience. 

Final seasons have a harder time than almost any other season of a series (besides may be the first season). A good final season has to achieve closure. The finale in particular needs to do this but on the whole if a final season isn’t doing something where there’s a sense that you know what happened to these characters and this world beyond the series end point than the show has failed. And right now besides a very, very small number of characters, I’m incredibly nervous that The Office is oblivious as to what it’s seeking to do with these characters. What is the show doing with these characters? Angela and Dwight are … skirting coupling. I think; it’s honestly hard to tell if that’s just a plot point to kill time in this episode or if that will go somewhere down the road. Andy is getting into acting, which has no real end goal in sight other than to keep being used as a gag. Erin and Pete are dating and it’s mostly cute, but there’s nowhere for that to go if they just stay together or if it doesn’t take a step further, which is doubtful.  What else from this episode has any potential to go anywhere? Kevin sucks at making paper airplanes as only Kevin can. Nellie is oblivious and apparently likes refereeing events. Toby is generally awkward and gets his eye temporarily eye patched – None of these stories have the ability to grow into something where we might be pleased to see the show expand upon it and use it to tell some final story about the characters. 

Take what they’re doing with Andy. Now Andy is a character this season has dropped the ball on. A show doesn’t need to have real characters, but The Office has led us to believe that it exists in a world that’s mostly very close to our own (though it’s lost that sense in recent seasons). And yet I have no idea what is going on with Andy. Granted, sometimes Michael Scott’s antics were so goofy and outlandish that they could take you out of the moment, but for the most part they kept him likable and believable enough that you were willing to put up with his craziness. There’s a type of logic that many individuals abide by and I’m a strong supporter of it. It has many names but the common one is “Fridge Logic”. In essence, it’s the notion that if you didn’t question the logic or the plotting of something in the moment you were watching it, you can’t really have qualms with it. If a tv show or a film engrossed you enough to convince you that its logic and storytelling was sound, it doesn’t matter that that in hindsight there might be problems with the plot or logical inconsistencies. It succeeded. The Office lately hasn’t been winning in the Fridge Logic department. Andy is prime example where the show is failing at this. I can roll with the idea that Andy would want to get into acting (even if I think it’s a pretty useless storyline) but the way Andy treats his acting gig is so completely strange and so completely unreal that it was hard to buy the way Andy was behaving. 

Now I don’t really give a fuck about Andy anymore. I could probably list the handful of characters that interest me on this show and Andy isn’t one of them. Kevin occasionally makes me grin, mainly due to Brian Baumgartner’s commitment to the performance. Erin is a tall glass of whimsical cutesy and Ellie Kemper is admittedly delightful at times due to her abundant enthusiasm. Other bit players still make me chuckle here and there such as Stanley, Phyllis, Darryl, and Creed. But on the whole, I just don’t care what happens to these people. We had a vested interest in Michael Scott’s story and it paid off really well. Now the only story we still have a vested interest in is Jim and Pam.

Because we have a vested interest in this story and the writers recognize this fact, Jim and Pam’s story remains to be really, really good. When Pam runs to Jim and then Jim can’t even begin to find the words to express how sorry he is and simply hugs her, it’s spine tingling. 

It’s almost as if the series knows this is technically the only story it really needs to tell in full at this point and everything else is merely filler to fill up the edges of the rest of the half-hour. I perk up in my seat when I see Jim and Pam on screen, but I slouch down immediately after the story cuts to anyone else. The moment it pops in on any other character I know it will at best be mildly amusing and at worst disappointing. When a show goes on as long as The Office has, it reminds us of the downside of the television medium. Television has always been given flack for creating content that’s passable but not great because television’s real goal is to sell ad space and last as long as it possibly can to do that. Television was created with the mindset of appealing to the broadest base of individuals to sell ads and NBC will keep on a sizable hit like The Office on long after its expiration date if we’ll tune and drop out for a little while longer; even if we’re mostly only doing it out of a desire for completism and a vague hope of closure. 

Grade: C+

"Blue Valentine" - Film Review

There’s a soul aching pain that pervades Blue Valentine. The film contrasts the breakdown of a married couple’s relationship with their initial meeting and courtship. In the present, they have fallen out of love with each other and there’s a world weary, sad, and unnerving tone to the story. This is made all the bleaker by how sweet the flashbacks are. It’s observing two people unexpectedly being swept up in romantic spontaneity. But now they have a kid (who as it turns out isn’t the husbands, which complicates matters further) and they’ve become bitter and resentful.

The film owes much of its power to its cinema-verite style. The docu-realistic take on the subject matter leads to some truly chilling moments. There is an emotional intensity that it hard to sit through at times. The film has a shaggy quality, letting moments linger just a little longer than the typical film might which makes the impact of the scenes even stronger. This is particularly true in the more uncomfortable and claustrophobic moments in the film. 

This is notably the case in a number of sex scenes in the film. These scenes are some incredibly honest and intimate depictions of sex. They’re painful and awkward at times; one scene gets uncomfortably close towards being a rape scene. But they’re also, in a separate instance, tender and sweet (the sex scene when they’re younger is fun and hot, and yet completely advances the story of the characters and never feels like it’s there merely for the sake of having a sex scene). 

Much of the film’s realism stems from the improvisational, raw performances of Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. Watching the relationship unravel is as upsetting and affecting as it is due to Gosling and Williams. Not only do they have great chemistry, but, more importantly, they also make the jumps between the past and present carry the weight of change and time. The contrast between the past and present gives it all a terrible bittersweetness. Switching back and forth between the two times, it’s almost like seeing a different set of individuals, and the the youthful love affair is simultaneously all the more joyous and yet all the sadder due to this. 

It’s at once painful and sad, but also at times sweet and funny. Williams and Gosling create fully formed characters, which makes the relationship’s break down all the more disheartening and harrowing. The film’s intimate, personal portrait of a couple is powerful and poignant.  

Grade: A-

Patrick Vs. "A Woman Is A Woman" (Thoughts on "A Woman Is A Woman")

Patrick Versus A Woman Is A Woman 

In this week's episode: Patrick takes on one of the slighter efforts of director Jean-Luc Godard

I don't have time for a complete review so here are some random thoughts:

-Very colorful, light and fun. It would have been nice if it were more substantial but the film generally has enough charm that it doesn't matter.
-Slightly pretentious at times. Jean-Luc Godard at times seems really self-aware that he's being completely flippant and unconventional and that becomes distracting and frustrating at times.
-Though typically classified as a homage to American musicals, it has very little in the way of music. The sound is unnecessarily experimental at times. Music plays in synch with people's talking at times, and, in one instance, Anna Karina does actually sing, but the music is almost besides the point.
-Anna Karina is a lot of fun; she's young and vibrant and it's pleasant to watch her coo or play coy, but overall Angela is a less of a character and more of a delivery system for whatever Godard wants her to say. The same is true of most of the characters.
-Did Angela need to be a stripper? It almost seems pointless, and that sure is a tame strip club.
-Angela's desire to get pregnant is also totally unexplained. Although it does lead to a great ending.
-I guess the real problem is nobody's motivation for anything is clear and the plot doesn't have a strong enough sense of forward momentum to overcome this. (For instance, the love triangle almost seems to exist solely for the sake of existing rather than because these people actually have a genuine interest in one another)
-The scene where Angela and Emile use book titles to express themselves is really cute and funny.

Consensus: Overall it's all very light and the film jumps around a lot, uncertain as to what it wants to be. It's amusing but forgettable, and Godard produced better works.

Grade: B-

"The Red Balloon" - Film Review

You know when you feel really good; you’re all giddy and smiley and exuding a bubbliness. Well, that feeling is pretty comparable to The Red Balloon, which is a straight shot of pure unadulterated good to God happiness.  

It’s so fucking twee that you might think it’s exuberance of positiveness and colorfulness and general cuteness might be overwhelming and excessive. But it’s not. It’s charming and delightful from start to finish, and your soul has to be pretty black and empty not to smile.

A boy (Pascal Lamorisse) finds a balloon of the red persuasion and soon grows rather attached to the big shiny ball of helium. He begins taking it everywhere with him. 

What quickly becomes clear is that the balloon has a sort of consciousness to it. It moves by its own freewill as it damn well pleases. 

The boy tells the balloon to stay put but it just can’t help itself and follows the boy around. Some Looney Toons-esque classical music plays as the balloon sneaks behind the boys back and hides in doorways to avoid him looking back in time to see him. It’s adorable; actually correction: it’s the most adorable thing I’ve seen in a long, long time. 

The boy goes to school and he’s forced to leave the balloon outside. When the schoolmaster puts the boy into detention, the balloon follows the man outside of the school and taunts and harasses him to highly amusing effect. 

The red balloon sees a girl (Sabine Lamorisse) holding a blue balloon. Ah, it’s destiny! The two balloons attempt to escape their owner’s clutches to be together, but the kids are too young to get the heads up and keep moving along. 

A gang of kids keep chasing after the boy. They want the balloon, but the boy won’t let them get it. He outruns them for a while but inevitably they catch up. A rock hits the balloon and it deflates, collapsing to the ground. The boy is forced to euthanize his friend by stomping on it. And damn if it isn’t the most oddly moving thing you’ve ever seen put to celluloid. The balloon has become a character in its own right, if not the outright protagonist of the film. The film has just killed its main character!

Suddenly, in the film’s most effervescent moment yet, every balloon in the city, as if immediately aware of the balloon’s death, swarms to the boy and he finds himself lifted up by countless balloons. He’s flying high above the city. 

The film is at times like a silent film. It tells most of its story through eye catching and vivid visuals that are highly effective and leaves the sound to a minimum. This is actually a really great decision. The film doesn’t need much dialogue to impact us; it’s visuals are so wonderfully pleasing and simple that they do the job just fine on their own. 

This short film pops. The colors are bright and a whimsical, child-like wonder pervades it at every turn. Fun, charming, and utterly feel-good, it’s an absolute joy. 

Grade: B+    

Mad Men - "To Have and To Hold" - Review

One thing Mad Men does almost better than any other television series is letting its stories carefully unfold and trusting its audience to be patient enough to let the stories go where they may go. Many stories will feel as if nothing is happening and then suddenly everything will be happening all at once. The show is also great at having characters whose stories in a given episode were separate suddenly find their stories collide and, granted Mad Men isn’t explosive, but in those moments there’s a strange thrill to it all. The pleasures of Mad Men aren’t just the moments that cut across everything (that are hugely funny or deeply moving or unexpectedly powerful), but these moments when it needs to do them work incredibly well.  

A number of characters who typically don’t receive a lot of screen time in Mad Men are suddenly given a huge amount of story time in “To Have and To Hold”. Harry Crane every now and again will receive a plot, but perhaps even more unexpectedly is how Don’s secretary Dawn is given her first major story ever. Another thing Mad Men does so well is its ability to lean on supporting characters for large amounts of story time without it losing any of its storytelling capabilities. Harry isn’t the character we necessarily care the most about, but when he’s given his own plot it can be just as entertaining and interesting as anything we might see major players like Don or Pete or Peggy do.  

Which brings me back to my first point made in the opening paragraph, Harry’s story is less interesting for what it tells us about Harry (who has become a total useless asshole by this point in the series) and more for what it tells us about Joan (and it's in one of those "explosive" moments that this is really true, but more on that in a little bit). When Ken complains about his father-in-law, Harry comes up with an idea to help Ken soften his insufferable in-law. They help get Dow Chemical, Ken’s father-in-law’s company, ad space for a variety hour. But the best part of Harry’s story is the point where it starts to reveal its true motives in the moment it collides with Joan’s plot. Harry is so happy after the success of this sales pitch that when he returns to the office to find his secretary Scarlett fired by Joan he flips out. 

Joan has been in the background for the most part this season. There have been occasional reminders of what she did to gain her partnership (which comes up again in this episode as well) but she’s mainly been there as a reminder of her existence. And for a while it seems as if Joan isn’t going to have much to do in this episode once again. But suddenly she fires Harry’s secretary and her story really begins to pick up unexpectedly (but totally wonderfully). 

The third story of the episode intersects with these first two in interesting ways. Dawn doesn’t really enjoy her job at SCDP, but, as the animals in the Flintstones might say, it’s a living. Apparently she’s the maid of honor in a friend’s wedding, a task she’s neglecting due to her heavy work load. Dawn covers for Harry’s secretary (who I’m assuming has been there the whole time, but I couldn’t say for sure) by clocking in her time while she’s away. She’s reluctant to do it, but she doesn’t want to displease anyone. Now I really like the expansion of Dawn’s character, and it’s a surprising and bold choice that largely works. But my real problem is that the show doesn’t go far enough with this. The most interesting part of Dawn’s story and the one most underplayed is that fact that she’s African American and the only black worker at SCDP.  Mad Men has uneasily skirted around race, mainly giving it the good old college try, but never taking it to the level that it arguably should be for a show about 1960’s America. Granted, the show likes to show history through the experiences of characters rather than by blatantly shoving a historical event down our throat, but it still feels very surface level for a show that examines other things very well. 

So getting back to Joan (because this is her episode really in my eyes), the best scene of the episode comes after Joan and Harry have their confrontation (which is another excellent scene – that’s uncomfortable, sad, perfectly setup and equally well-executed). Harry looks in on the partners meeting, envying the position that Joan is in and wishing he were there (although as Roger and Bert note later in the episode, there’s no way in hell spineless Harry Crane is ever going to be a partner). He storms in and argues that he’s done more for the company than Joan (which really isn’t at all true, and this is all further shaded by the fact that Joan proved herself to better at Harry’s job in television back in season three before getting cut out due to being a woman). Then he goes one step too far and reminds everyone of how the company prostituted Joan out to Jaguar (they all sit in awkward silence and the camera lingers for just the right amount of time). It’s a sickening, sad, pathetic moment spurred by a desperate, narcissistic man who thinks he deserves more merely because he’s a man. 

This is capped by a great but slightly on the nose moment (Mad Men does this more times than you’d think); Joan is talking with her friend Kate who is in the city on a visit. They’ve just had a carefree, drunken night where they hooked up with random strangers. Her friend wants to do it just to try out the experience, but she says she couldn’t live this life Joan does. “I’m not you, aren’t I?” “Why would you want to be,” Joan replies, “I’ve been working there for fifteen years and they still treat me like I’m a secretary”.  To Harry, Joan has it all, but she sadly still doesn't.

Meanwhile, Don leaves a pitch to Heinz to find his protégée ready to make a sales pitch. He listens in and he’s simultaneously frustrated and pleased. Peggy has learned well, even stealing mantras that Don provided her such as “If you don’t like what they’re saying, change the conversation”. Metaphorically Peggy is cheating on Don by attempting to steal away this client. (A point made all the more explicit by the fact that SCDP paid for use of the hotel room - But then again Don is doing a very similar thing to Raymond of Heinz Beans that Peggy is doing to him).

Don is none too pleased to learn that Meghan’s career is advancing, especially when she’s been written into an affair storyline in her soap opera. Don watches as the scene is filmed and sees his wife pretending to have an affair, all the while knowing he’s having an affair for real, and he hates himself all the more. The only time Meghan would dare consider “having an affair” is all an act for a television show.   

No one gets what they think they deserve. Harry isn’t made a partner. Dawn isn’t fired but is put in charge of the keys for the time cards and supply closet. Joan isn’t given the respect she deserves. Meghan doesn’t get the support of her husband. And, well, Don still doesn’t get his piece of mind he so longs for.

Stray Observations:

-Are the Vietnam War and pot smoking references too on the nose?

-Meghan’s bosses Mel and Arlene are swingers. Not sure why this happens, but it’s really funny.

-The way Joan is shot in the scenes with Kate show how totally disconnected she is from all that’s going on.

-“I was different from you in every way Mr. Crane” – How awesome is Bert Cooper?

-Stan flipping Peggy off in a wonderful, nicely paid off moment.

-They’re really playing up the prostitution theme this season.

-Lisa Cardellini is a great actress but Sylvia can’t help but feel like she’s a plot device. -Ginsberg and the spy joke just didn’t work for me. Felt like it tried too hard and was too out of place

Grade: B+