Monsters of Television

“Last night never happened.”

What this show is all about: schemes, remembering, sleuthing, modesty.

You know, maybe people would stop calling you liars if you stopped doing shady crap.

It’s been five months since these attractive diminutive fibbers unmAsked and committed their bully to Rosewood’s Arkham Asylum but none of them have really learned anything from their trials. Nothing’s really changed for them, other than attempting to convince each other of safety. But not one of them has been able to let go of the trauma and detective work that dominated the last year (it’s only been a story world year?) of their lives.

Well, maybe Aria. But we’ll get to her grossness.

The season premiere is all about the difference between what people say to each other and what they actual think and do. The girls present with the illusion of safety while constantly investigating everything that undermines that illusion. Sadly, their investigations are about the modern-day equivalent of a Scooby-Doo operation.

And something tells me that the new attacks aren’t coming from a person that will blow up in a self-righteous, self-important rage that reveals all the secrets. The girls will actually have to do something this time.

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“No, I don’t want to be a partner. I’ve seen what’s involved.”

Lane in his usual pose of World's Most Pathetic.

I didn’t expect to see it.

Everything about Lane since getting into bed with S, C, and D has been hard to watch, like watching someone voluntarily get hit in the stomach after asking for another. He’s not like the others when they make their mistakes. Pete’s humiliations, Don’s scrapes with being discovered, Roger’s conjugal buffoonery — they’re easier to watch because you know they’ll bounce back. Maybe they won’t be the same or they’ll lower their own expectations for themselves but they bounce back. Lane never seemed to have the constitution to be one of those people.

And so, this season, he sinks lower and lower. His wife goes from homesick harpie to ever-supportive which makes the unfortunate series of bad decisions by Lane so much more awful. He doesn’t have the charisma, the stamina, the wherewithal that the other partners have and season 5 for Lane Pryce is about how, while others flourish in the chaos of a fledgling enterprise, he flounders but is too prideful to admit he can’t keep up.

I just didn’t expect to actually see it.

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“You’ve just seen that unattainable object speed by, just out of reach. Because they do that, don’t they? Beautiful things.”

These two are really into hands.

Ah, remember the halcyon days when Pete had even some tattered shreds of redeeming qualities? Did those days ever exist?

Pete’s cartoonish villainy aside (seriously, when the facial hair boom of the ’70s hits, he’s the only one that’s going to be sporting a Snidely Whiplash), the title of this episode harkens back to last season’s “The Beautiful Girls.” While we don’t have Ms. Blankenship (God rest her soul), Dr Faye (understandably), and Sally Draper (not understandably), we focus on the women at SCDP that represent the “mistress,” literally and figuratively, and catch up with some of the ladies we last saw in positions of upward mobility. And they still are. Depending on how you look at it.

And sometimes that filter has to be pretty disgusting to see it.

Did I mention that Pete is the living worst? Because he is.

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Or how Community will be your new Sugar Ray

Oh noooooooooooo!

I promise this won’t be another blog post about the rise and fall of Dan Harmon or one that bemoans the death of greatness at the hands of an industry that can’t appreciate talent or one that demands Dan Harmon be installed as supreme leader of Must-See TV or I WILL BURN THIS PLACE TO THE GROUND. We here at Monsters of Television tend to have a more sober approach to television scandals and news (sometimes to our own Google-Analytical demise, see the low statistics for our thoughts on Girls) and the same will be said for a look at the changing of the guard on one of our favorite shows. I won’t speak for Noel (I’m sure he’ll have his own addendum or companion piece [dissenting opinion?] if this doesn’t line up precisely with his thoughts) but here’s my take on everything, based on the last twenty-four hours of the Twitter news cycle.

It’ll be fine. It won’t be the same. But it’ll be — fine.

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“I don’t think about you at all.”

Betty remembers when everyone thought of her as a sex symbol and not the resident fatty.

Regrets abound for not having the time to do a Mad Men review last week. So many opportunities for pop culture references and snark, from Rory Gilmore making another mistake with an old-money douchebag to Don almost getting Drake Ramorayed. I assure you, all the quips I had planned were hilarious.

This week it’s all about violating the sanctity of homes, both physical and physical (if you know what I mean). And physical because Betty could probably eat a Thanksgiving dinner if she’d hop on a treadmill. It is the invasion of privacy and shattering the safety of so many people, whether they know it or not.

Also, Betty reprises her role as being the worst.

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“For all we know, Jesus was trying to get the fishes and loaves account.”

Times are tough.

Not a hook in sight.

There’s so much disappointment in this week’s episode of Mad Men it’s hard to even collect it in one room, even when that room is a ball room. That’s not to say Mad Men doesn’t have its share of shame/disappointment themes throughout the series but this week’s makes you feel particularly sorry for just about everyone, even Don. It was, like, a contagion brought down from Montreal by Megan’s parents.

With how humbling the season has been for so many characters, you get the sense that this year is about one man, the only dude that’s been on the top the whole time. There is no humbling him because he is so humble. There is no backstabbing him because he doesn’t care. Episode after episode, there is one man that always comes out smelling like a rose. This is the year of Ken Cosgrove.

Everyone else: you’re screwed.

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“I’m gonna eat ’til I’m belly full!”

"Jimmy, I can hear you breaking from here."

This week’s Saturday Night Live is hosted by Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin with musical guest the SNL house band. And it aired on Thursday.

30 Rock has always had sketch comedy in its genes, from the series’ meta-show premise to its producers (like Lorne Micheals) and figurehead (Tina Fey) pedigrees to it’s ever-shifting balance of actual show plot and cut-aways. In fact, the cut-aways are really just nano-sketches in the way that Twitter is nano-blogging, short bursts of non-sequitor entertainment.

But the “live” episode of 30 Rock feels especially sketch-like and I’m not sure if it’s intentional or not. Perhaps the format is made that way since that’s the way those producing the show know how to run live television. Or maybe it’s a brilliant way of executing something incredibly complicated: transforming a single-camera sit-com that leans heavily on editing into a multi-cam with comparatively few edits and fewer places for actors to hide before a live studio audience.

Whatever the case, I was reminded of SNL so let’s break it down the way I would’ve for an episode late-night weekend topical sketch comedy. Here are the good, the meh, and the ugly sketches. Read more »

“Well, Dr Leary, I find your product boring.”

What a grown man hissy fit looks like in the 60s.

Knowing Don will turn your life into hot garbage.

Last week, we explored how knowing Don has ruined Pete’s life as he tries to chase an ideal that ultimately will lead to emotional ruin despite the outward appearance of success. Even Don tells him that his track is not a joyful or smart journey. But Pete isn’t the only one sucked into the Don Draper Mystique.

The same personality that gives us deeply-capitalist GIFs and helps us hit on girls is what dominates and affects the lives of everyone on the show. They’re all just orbiting Don’s cult of personality and, while he is a good example of someone chasing that Draper ideal, Pete’s not even the most obviously affected.

As the show turns to more classic format gimmicks this season (a fever dream episode?), “Far Away Places” is told in parts that chronologically overlap as we follow three different characters and how Don ruins their lives: Peggy, Roger, and Dick Whitman. I know, I know. Don’s purpose is to ruin Dick Whitman. But stick with me.

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“I know cooler heads should prevail but am I the only one that wants to see this?”

In a different time, this would've been the best wet t-shirt contest.

Pete is a monster.

He’s always been unlikeable. He’s overly-competitive, backstabbish, conniving, rude, bitchfacey, and somehow more self-entitled than Hannah on Girls (which seems impossible). But this season has shown him making some moves and gaining some traction with those moves, particularly in respect to gaining ground on Roger. As the gray guard scrambles to keep relevant, it’s Pete that chases him all over the place, finding every way he can to erode Roger’s standing.

Becoming partner has inflated his ego to a level where he’s no longer just an annoyance or minor antagonist. He’s a full-on radioactive monster trampling through the city. He is the Game of Thrones Joffery before and after usurping the kingdom. He is the person for whom you are begging comeuppance.

He’s also the saddest guy on the show. This is an episode dedicated Pete’s treachery and to his continual emasculation. But that’s his own fault for stepping out on Alison Brie. The universe will not stand for that.

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“The easiest person to hate right now is you.”

"This was my worst idea since those chops in the '70s. Maybe even that mustache in the '20s. I can't be trusted with facial hair."

The best times on this show are the morning roundtables. Aidan sucks down blood from a coffee mug like a cup of joe. Josh rifles through the paper and eats breakfast as the only patron of the house who eats his food with a fork or spoon. Sally kicks up on the counter or in one of the chairs, watching the corporeal exist. They laugh, they chide, they discuss the things in their lives as if those things only ever happened to them.

And this good humor between monsters was the point of Aidan and Josh moving into the house in the first place: to have a corner of the world away from the horror of their other-worldly existences where they can commune with their inner human. While last season included only minor intrusions on that happy home (Rebecca’s occasional appearances, Josh’s maker hanging out), the season one finale obliterated their home’s hide-and-seek base quality.

Bishop’s flaming charge into unwelcome turf shattered a window and shattered their beautiful dream. This season has marked several instances where their domestic pursuit has been tread upon, maimed, bled, and haunted. If the first season was about protecting their home from the truth of their natures, this second season has been about exposing the fantasy as impossible when the house is infested with repressed nightmares.

The house has become more nest than home. But, by the end of this season finale, we see the house as more happy than it has been in some time.

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