Domestic Assassin

Given Oleg's conversation with that woman in the rezidentura (is it Tatiana?) hinting around about maybe having an agent pretend to defect, she should be able to piece it together pretty quickly.

She was in a season 2 episode, "The Inheritance". I think that was the last of her.

Didn't the first Halloween episode have an Amy and Charles story? (I agree, I'd like to see those characters together more).

From the Severance thread: I honestly think that was just a coincidence. I'm not positive if this is how it started, but I think some people wildly misinterpreted a point that Tom & Lorenzo made on one of their Mad Style posts (noting Megan's red star t-shirt was one that Sharon Tate once wore, and noting it was like a visual call-back to Abe getting stabbed by Peggy earlier in the episode and that perhaps it was foreshadowing the possible end to Don & Megan's relationship -- but some people took it to mean foreshadowing a violent death like Sharon Tate's or even that she was somehow Sharon Tate herself). Anyway, after all that blew up, anytime the show had any slight hint of a hippie, lots of people insisted in could only mean Manson, despite the fact that hippies abounded in the late sixties and only a teeny-tiny fraction of them had any remote connection to Manson.

Yes, he did. Amy was excited to find out what shows he watched so she could bond with him.

John Cheever was also a major influence on Mad Men. He lived in Ossining, and set many of his stories there. I believe Don and Betty lived on Bullet Park Road, named after one of Cheever's novels. I devoured his stories in high school. I think I'm going to read them again.

I don't think the fact that Jerry has an ideal home life redeems anything. To me, it just makes the rest of the characters seem like even bigger assholes for choosing to ignore the things that make him loveable to his family. It's not like he seems like a different person at home than he does at work. He's still just a genuinely nice guy trying to get through his day.

Since it was Peggy that looked out her window and saw the dogs, I'm inclined to think it's about her, not Don. I think it's just that she was so excited to be on her first work trip and having taken a plane for the first time, but it was just a trip to some unglamorous place with dogs humping in the parking lot.

I think this is the most overrated episode. And I found Irene Adler a major disappointment.

Kenneth: I'm a real good sex person. I do it all the different ways.

From the Stan Rizzo thread: When I hear people writing off Mad Men (and similar shows, like Six Feet Under) as just a soap opera, I think many of them are just minimizing the value of shows that explore more traditionally feminine issues such as gender roles and work/life balance and family/marriage issues. It's like another way of saying that women's interests aren't as significant as men's interests. Even though shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad have the same serialized and romantic structure, they have more cops-and-robbers themes and gratuitous violence which is seen as more masculine and therefore more valid to certain segments of the audience. Yes, Peggy's blocked-out pregnancy was more like a traditional soap opera, but so was Livia manipulating her brother-in-law to murder her son (first season of The Sopranos), yet few people put down The Sopranos as just a soap opera.

I don't think the "Romney's a clown" was necessarily meant as a dig at Mitt. I think it was a name that would be recognizable to a modern audience, but would also be someone that a Republican operative working for Rockefeller would legitimately see as a rival. I think it fit into the story naturally.

Jimmy James!! (And the blind radio station owner from O Brother Where Art Thou? But he'll always be Jimmy James! to me).

My season rankings would change based on the day you ask me, but today I'd go with 2>1>3>7a>5>4>6. The first half of season 4 would rank higher than season 5, but I felt the second half of season 4 didn't live up to the first half. And although I didn't like the overarching storyline of season 5, it has probably more of my favorite standalone episodes than anything since the first 3 seasons.

I can't help thinking there has to be more to him not believing Lester can be guilty than we know. It seems like he's deliberately protecting him. I can't figure out why, though.

Apparently, that will never happen.

I think it was a "Welcome to Bemidji" sign.

I don't know when Better Call Saul is scheduled to air, but I don't think that Bob Odenkirk being on Fargo will have any affect on that. I think this season of Fargo has finished filming, and if there's another season, it will have an all new cast.

I think it's one of those that if there are additional seasons, they will each be new stories with new casts.

It was Behind the Green Door, but I think we were still supposed to make that connection.

Here are some new trailers. I haven't been this excited for a new show in a long time.

So, is John Boy leaving the show? I noticed he's still listed in the guest credits, not the main credits.