You can get chubby in a year, easy. His exponential hairloss is a little more dubious, but that's probably a gypsy curse.

I was wondering why Homer was looking so dapper!

Was this episode resolution, though? We learned that Megan is now pissed at Don and now has lots of money and incoming divorce papers. I'm glad her family came back because it makes all of her screen time in Season 5 feel a little more relevant, but if this was supposed to be the last Megan hurrah then it left me cold.

What's up with Megan? I guess, off-screen, she went from at peace with a soft break from Don to angry and resentful. But is that the best storytelling the show can do? I feel like I don't know who Megan is anymore.

Props to Dowd for this very thorough review! It has that old Ebert trick of letting the reader know exactly what they're getting into. Personally, a somewhat directionless collage of great arthouse directors sounds pretty fun. It's pieces like these that makes the C+'s sing.

Thanks, that makes sense. Though it does make the California storyline seem a little abortive in retrospect.

http://www.presidency.ucsb….

Can someone remind me why there's no longer a California office? That might have been addressed in the show but Roger's mustache has wiped my memory of everything but him singing Frere Jacques.

Goddamn, if I have one wish for these last few episodes it's more Ginsberg. HE HAD ALL OF THESE PROMISING STORY ARCS! WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS CREATIVE TALENT AND HIS OVERPROTECTIVE JEWISH DAD AND HIS CRIPPLING SENSE OF ISOLATION? FUCK YOU SCHIZO COMPUTER!

Well, Mad Men does have a lot of subtlety, but it also isn't afraid to be blunt. I think people just pick up on the bluntness and ignore all of the subtlety surrounding it (y'know, exactly what makes the blunt moments so powerful).

California Doofus Pete didn't have nearly enough screen time for my taste, but he would indisputably make for the best action figure.

Season 5 is my favorite MM season. Roger's arc is just so excellently done both from a character perspective and a THE 60'S perspective ("I guess it wore off"). And it has record amounts of Sad Pete, my favorite Pete.

I should really stop listening to this album in public because it makes me full-on silently weep

I hardly think that an isolated instance of gullibility is grounds to dismiss an inspirational and thoughtful figure in anthropology and storytelling as "middling!" But I'm a big Campbell fan, so your casual demarcation of him as mediocre stings more than any big insult could.

JOSHEPH CAMPBELL IS NOT MIDDLING

You just know that he's full Dong Draper when he's making a great pitch

Well that's not fair! This poor fella is trying to be reasonable and not fall into the overly defensive "white male's rights" trap and you're sticking him right into it!

I actually think it's a fine comparison — it's not just that they're white men and therefore more similar on a surface level, it's that their characters come from a place of privilege, AKA they wouldn't be the same character if they weren't white. It's super clear with Don that being a white man in the 60's is the…

Yeah, I think it works well in the context of the album. It also has the secondary benefit of making the album more accessible to people who might get frustrated by it. I was just responding to the review's argument — it does connect the dots, and that's okay.

I'd be tempted to say replace Complexion (A Zulu Love) with it, which is a hard cut to make, but I just like the Colbert track better and think it would fit there.