It’s Thanksgiving in May on this week’s Mad Men (one of the show’s startling similarities with Cougar Town, more of which you can see if you look closely\) and there’s a toxic smog covering both New York and the attitudes of a lot of characters. But that doesn’t stop Cory Barker, Andy Daglas and myself from strapping on some gas masks and getting into the details of “Dark Shadows.”

Advance warning: this one might be even more rambling than you’re accustomed to, as our schedules didn’t permit usual flow of conversation. Cory had to leave midway through the discussion to take a business trip to Howard Johnson’s, Andy was struck with an illness in which he hallucinated killing his former mistress, and I’ve had to do a lot of extra work that sadly wasn’t bankrolled by Roger Sterling’s money clip.

With that out of the way, let’s pound some Reddi Whip and get into it.

Les: I have to admit, on seeing the title of this week’s Mad Men I was fairly confused. I know Matt Weiner’s a very demanding showrunner, but opting to have us watch the latest Tim Burton film instead of a typical episode seems outlandish even for him. But I gave in, and to be honest I can see where he was going with this. The struggles of the vampire Barnabas Collins to understand the oddities of 1970s society parallel the struggles of SCDP’s partners to orient around changing social norms, and the relationships formed between angelic Josette and spiteful witch Angelique are nothing if not a reflection of Don’s connection to wives past and present. And if you tilt your head to just the right angle, Barnabas’ confusion at the music of Alice Cooper (“The ugliest woman I’ve ever seen!”) is much like the brick wall Don hit last week after trying to comprehend the last track of Revolver.

Perhaps the message Weiner was trying to get across by changing our viewing patterns is to see that the problems faced by Don, Peggy and the rest are so universal they can be seen anywhere, even in a remake of a supernatural soap opera… Wait. You mean there actually was an episode of Mad Men this week called “Dark Shadows,” released the same weekend as a film of the same name? Do they not see how confusing this gets?!

Okay, I think I’m done milking that joke. So, “Dark Shadows,” an episode which was light on vampire-related drama but which was heavy on spite from a lot of people. Don sees his ideas encroached on by the rising star of Mike Ginsberg, so he abandons that art in the cab to sell his own idea – a move that leaves Peggy feeling smug in turn. Betty’s so jealous of Don and Megan’s happiness that she drops a mention of Anna Draper to Sally, only for Sally to turn around and drive that knife through the extra layers Betty still can’t manage to shed. And Roger extends the olive branch to Jane and asks her to be his date for a potential client meal, but fixates so closely on her flirtation with the client’s son that he rekindles their relationship for the sole purpose of having sex in the new apartment she wanted for a fresh start.

So, a lot of nastiness going on from a lot of people. Andy, who wins the Most Unnecessarily Cruel title in your book?

Andy: So, what you’re saying is, I came to this roundtable in my Barnabas Collins cosplay for nothing? Have you any idea how long it takes to iron a damn cape?!

I’ll add one more name to your roll call of malice, albeit one with an asterisk. Pete’s sunken into a funk so deep that he can’t even spite someone without winding up a chump. Twice he tries to twist the knife in a rival—first by touting himself as the face of SCDP to the New York Times, later by rubbing Howard’s face in his cuckoldry—and twice his efforts backfire because nobody takes him seriously. I suppose we should take it as a good sign that he’s still fantasizing about Naughty Dream Rory*, and not about, say, shooting everyone he knows in the face.

 *Am I crazy, or for just a second did that strategically worn coat cross the line of what’s allowed on basic cable in the 9 p.m. hour? In other news, no I do not still have eye strain.

 I’m ambivalent about “Dark Shadows” overall. While it had a ton of wonderful scenes (including the triumphant return of Roger Sterling Bribery Theater!), something about the whole felt off. Not that the moments didn’t hang together, but rather that they hung together a bit too snugly. Instead of weaving two or three emotional threads through the episode, as the best Mad Mens do, everything this week was driven by the same one. Each character’s particular story was appropriately gut-wrenching and well-tailored to his or her psyche. But packed all into the same hour, the effect was like a theme episode of Glee, with “Jealousy!” standing in for “Madonna!”

 Now that I’ve invoked an unholy comparison that will get me viciously stoned, I’d better throw it to you, Cory. Did this episode hit you in the face like a snowball?

Cory: Andy, your point about the obvious connections between each story is a solid one, but that snugness didn’t take away from a series of really great sequences. Although themes were so clearly on the table this week, I found that each story was tremendously well-performed. “Dark Shadows” features my favorite Jon Hamm performance of the season, perhaps only because it is nice to see him flex some different acting muscles outside of anger, disappointment and dejected sadness. Don’s reignited competitive fire is something that the three of us have been waiting for all season and it makes a boat-load of sense that Ginsberg* is the one to push him to be better and/or just pull rank like the asshole he is. I love that the series finally gave us what we wanted in a renewed Don, but then immediately undercut it by having him suck at copy and ultimately (and weakly) push Mike’s idea down. How’d you guys feel about that story in relationship to Don’s arc this season?

*Ginsberg has quickly become one of my favorite characters and I think we need to give Weiner and company credit for methodically establishing his skills so that we actually believe he can out-do Don.

And before we get going too far here, let me just say this: I thought January Jones was really, really good in this episode. This was certainly her finest work since the tail-end of season three (from episodes I enjoyed more than most, I think), and a fine reminder that despite all the hate, she can do a few things other than look cold, pretty or fat/pregnant, or some combination of the three. I know I’m out on an island with my sympathy for one Pete Campbell, but you two felt at least a little sympathy for Betty here, right? She reacted like a child when she saw the note from Don to Megan, but I don’t really expect much else.

Les: Cory, I’m in complete agreement with you on January Jones being very good in this installment. As I said back when we discussed “Tea Leaves” my issues with Betty are more about the usefulness of character than the performance, and if they can find some way to use her well I have no problem when she shows up. And I think this episode they found an interesting use of the character, turning her into something of an antagonist to our heroes Don and Sally. With one offhand comment about Don’s “first wife” she puts another dent in the Draper marriage (albeit an apparently minor one given Megan already knew about Anna), and gives Sally another harsh lesson in how difficult the adult world can be. Perhaps this is the character’s new role? If so I like it. I can just picture Betty in the tower of the castle-like Francis residence, plotting Don’s downfall a la the Evil Queen in Once Upon a Time, quietly smiling to herself as Sally impotently slams doors in rage.

If that metaphor didn’t give it away, sympathy was not something I found myself feeling for Betty in this instance. Yes, the scene where she’s walking through the Draper apartment to see just how well everything fits together and how much younger her successor* was very meaningful, and her reaction of cramming her face full of whipped cream** was startling in how desperate it made the character seem. But once her trigger was tripped by Don’s note to Megan, sympathy went out the window to be replaced by admiration at her idea to set off the truth bomb of Don’s “first wife” to Sally. That was almost sociopathic in its efficiency: she didn’t care how Sally would react or what it could do to Don’s personal life, she simply didn’t want Megan to be happy, and this was a very easy way to ensure that.

*I’m pretty sure if Betty were a more empathetic person, she’d have seen that Megan’s rapid dressing betrayed she was as nervous about this meeting as Betty was.

**In a sign all’s right with the Internet, a gif of that was up not five minutes after the scene aired.

You could write this off as part of Betty’s childish reaction to things, but I think the episode also subverted that with the scene where she talks to Henry about Lindsay’s lack of presidential ambitions. She doesn’t freak out about his career being in jeopardy or adopt the bland Stepford facade she had so often with Don, she legitimately listened to him and was supportive in a manner that was completely mature. (Though that was offset slightly by him feeding her a bite of steak that begged for an “Open up for the airplane!” voiceover.) Betty can be reasonable about things when necessary, but in the case of Don and Megan? She chooses not to.

Andy, which side of the fence are you on? (And as Howard mused to Pete, is the grass greener there?)

Andy: As a character, Betty still leaves me cold (though I will agree that January Jones played her scenes with precise aplomb this week). She was largely effective as a plot instigator though, and I did get a kick out of how Sally, Megan, and Don in turn reacted to her attempt at sabotage. Sally’s stroke of verbal jujitsu, using Betty’s little scheme against her, was particularly awesome.*

*And gives further weight to my insistence that Sally and Arya Stark need to team up and form a detective agency.

If this is the incarnation of Betty going forward, a petty villain concocting poisoned apples and generally Iago-ing things up, then I’m cool with an episode or two along these lines every season. Between her undermining the tranquility of the Draper homestead and Ginsberg gobbling up creative accolades at work, Don’s fighting a war against his considerable ego on two fronts. It’s exciting to see him energized again, though it remains to be seen whether that rejuvenation will last or whether it was merely a way of reasserting his alpha status. However much interest he’s lost in his work up til now, he’s not willing to let anyone usurp his position either.

Roger views his soon-to-be-ex-wife the same way, resenting her interest in the flirtatious heir to the Manischewitz crown. I must admit, I wasn’t totally sure whether he consciously chose to sleep with Jane at her new apartment in order to taint it, as Les asserted. I was even more uncertain about his post-coital apology. Was that genuine remorse, or his way of letting her know that he knew exactly what he was doing?

Cory: I think I interpreted Roger’s actions somewhere in between how the two of you responded to it. I don’t think the whole night was planned so that he can ruin the apartment. His jealously certainly spurred him to find Jane attractive again. But after she mentioned the consequences of his actions, I think Roger got at least a little kick out of it. Because of that, I’d say that the apology was probably only three-fourths earnest, at best. The typical Roger Sterling smirk was certainly there.

Les, you mention that you’d prefer Betty to show up occasionally and cause a little ruckus and while that makes sense to me, it also makes me wonder what the point is. As I said, I like Betty, I think she’s a more interesting character that people give her credit for. But if this is going to be the norm from here on out — and maybe it won’t be once January Jones isn’t preggers in real life — I’m not really sure why Weiner even makes an effort. Sometimes, it feels like he keeps Betty around just to spite the loud portion of the audience who hates her. She’s always been detached from the majority of the stories and perhaps there is no real way to solve that problem without bringing her and Don back together (which would be a terrible idea).

In any event, it’s pretty telling that Betty’s place in this episode basically exists to give Megan even more time to shine. Betty’s actions are selfish and childish enough in their own right, but when lined up with Megan’s measured response to them, the second Mrs. Draper just looks sad. Megan calmly handled Sally’s frantic outburst and did even better with Don’s angry rant. There was a lot of discussion over the weekend about Jessica Pare entering herself into the Lead Actress category at the Emmys and as far as I’m concerned, she should. This episode only further confirms that Megan is the most prominent (and perhaps dominant) character of season five. At this point, are there any questions about Megan’s maturity or Jessica Pare’s performance for that matter?

Les: To clarify, I don’t think that the entire Manischewitz dinner was an elaborate scheme of Roger’s to sabotage Jane’s happiness in the same way that Betty was trying to sabotage Don and Megan. It wasn’t malicious, just Roger being Roger. I paraphrased Roger back in “At the Codfish Ball” that he wants what he wants when he wants it, and while I don’t dispute the acid may have made him more empathetic after the fact, in the moment Roger never gives a damn for the consequences of his actions.

As to Megan, I am completely in support of both the character and the performance – there was a fantastic article on Grantland late last week that made the argument Megan is the Galactus of this season, an analogy I completely support for her upheaval of Don’s normal practice and her general awesomeness. I don’t think given the quality of Mad Men anyone would say it was in need of fresh blood, but she’s broadened the show’s perspective considerably, which I think was necessary both to symbolize the changing societal roles and give Don romantic/creative opposites to further his midlife crisis.

Do I think she’s Emmy-worthy? Not quite, but only because she hasn’t been given the right kind of material (“Far Away Places” came close but isn’t quite there) and because when it comes to considering lead actress nominations I give the nod to Elisabeth Moss immediately. I would put her ahead of both Jones and Christina Hendricks in the running, given how based on how little those two have comparatively had to do this season, but still in second place. If Weiner created a very Megan-centric episode – say an installment where she tries to get back into the acting community and finds that with her new Park Avenue lifestyle, she’s as alien there now as Don was among Midge’s bohemian circle – she’s certainly proven talented enough to rise to the occasion.

But I want to talk a bit about the alien presence still in SCDP, that of Mr. Ginsberg, who has encountered Don’s dark side for the first time as the devil on Don’s shoulder literally replaces his ad campaign. (How brutally terrific was that exchange between them in the elevator? “I feel bad for you.” “I don’t think about you at all.”) Ginsberg’s talked a mean game all season and likes having the ability to out-talk both Don and Peggy: do you think he takes this lying down or goes on the offense? And if this is the first shot in a creative war, care to pick sides?

Andy: One thing about Don’s big-timing of Ginsberg that I haven’t heard so far: Could he, in the back of his mind, be getting some payback for the Cinderella switcheroo in “Mystery Date”?

Here’s a half-baked theory for you: Ginsberg shares some of Pete’s DNA -antagonism towards his boss, unrelenting need for validation, hair-trigger petulance – and the two characters have had little (no?) time together on-screen. If their respective tensions within SCDP come to a head, what’s to stop the two from striking out on their own and forming a rival agency, in a dark echo of the season three finale? Given their success relative to Roger and Don this year, that upstart firm could pose a legitimate threat to the Mad Men establishment by the time 1968 rolls around.

Les: Campbell and Ginsberg forming their own agency? I like it. Hell, have them join up with Teddy Chaoug-guh-guh and Duck Philips, find a way to work Betty in there and you’ve got Mad Men‘s Legion of Doom!

We’ll have to see if that’s where they choose to take things next week. Until then!

Friend of the blog Phoebe Raven is on a well-deserved vacation from her duties as CC2K’s TV editor, and following my column on the virtues of Revenge she asked if I wanted to fill in for her for a couple weeks. For my first entry I decided to revisit FOX’s New Girl, which wrapped its first season last week and continued on course to become one of the season’s most entertaining sitcoms. You can find the piece live over at CC2K.

(For additional context, my review of the New Girl pilot is here and my “televitmus test” of the first four episodes is here.)

Check back in next week, when I’ll be talking at great length about upfront week and the new schedules/new shows ordered by the networks.

It’s time for a crisis of faith on The Borgias, as the lightning strike of last week’s episode has pushed Alexander into repentance mode. But is it legitimate, or is this one of his brief moments of morality aside from full-bore conspiracy mode? “Day Of Ashes” leads me to ask that question, and balances it with some good old-fashioned condotierri action. Last night’s review as always is up at The A.V. Club.

One of the reasons I gravitated to The Borgias as a TV show was largely that in addition to liking Jeremy Irons and Colm Feore, the Renaissance setting is one I’ve had a particular fondness for for years. I took several courses on the subject in high school and college, read many pieces of literature from then, and at one point was able to quote The Prince in appropriate context during a party. (Benefits of a classical education, as Hans Gruber would say.)

As such, I knew who Niccolo Machiavelli, Caterina Sforza and Giralomo Savonarola were before the show introduced them last year, and was very pleased at the rendition of all three. Last night’s episode “The Choice,” my review of which is now up at The A.V. Club, had all three in the same episode for the first time. If you’re a fan of the show or a Renaissance history wonk, check it out.

After last week’s legitimately tense and compelling episode of The Borgias, the show continues its upward swing with the introduction of a pack of killers who finally give weight to some of the Assassin’s Creed jokes leveled at the show. My review of “Stray Dogs” is up at The A.V. Club, check it out and share in my hope that at least one character will be supporting a hidden wrist blade by the end of the season.

Every so often Mad Men likes to throw out convention and see just what it can do in the hour-long drama format, and last Sunday’s episode “Far Away Places ” was this season’s first full-bore experimental episode – in addition to being one of the show’s best installments yet. With three stories that take its characters to deeper and darker places it’s an episode that similarly demands three reviewers; which coincidentally, the Barker Chappell Daglas reviewing agency is able to provide. Cory Barker of TV Surveillance, Andy Daglas of The Vast Wasteland and myself are here to be your guides on this trip Mad Men takes us with its sixth episode.

Let the sugar cube melt on your tongue, chase it with some orange sherbet, cue up Pet Sounds to be perfectly in sync with The Naked Prey, and let’s begin the roundtable on “Far Away Places.”

Les: Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream, it is not dying, it is not dying, lay down all thought, surrender to the void…

Oh, sorry – got caught up in the atmosphere of things. Well, what an episode of Mad Men this was, eh? Big cracks forming in everyone’s relationships. Don takes a road trip with Megan to capture the spirit of their earlier California sojourn, only for him to realize that she’s more interested in work than he is, setting off an argument that leads him to abandon her in a Howard Johnson’s parking lot. Roger Sterling takes acid in the presence of none other than Timothy Leary (maybe), and awakens from the 1919 World Series to realize it’s been over with Jane for ages. And Peggy, frustrated by both Abe and the implacability of the Heinz client, takes out her frustrations by deciding she’s Peggy Olson and wants to smoke some marijuana again, and also give a handjob to a random beatnik in the theater.

But before we get into the actions and consequences, I have a question to ask, gentlemen: what the fuck is going on this season of Mad Men? I mentioned this briefly when we talked about the dreamy atmosphere of “Mystery Date,” but it’s starting to seem more and more like the show has been taking sections out of the David Lynch playbook. Megan’s “Zou Bisou Bisou” song, the extended dream where Don throttles his personal demon, the darkened scenes of Pete in a driver’s ed class – every episode has a moment where I stare dumbfounded at the screen at the sheer strangeness of it. And this episode in particular felt unstuck in time (“Poo-tee-weet?”) as we bounced between the three stories, to the point that I was legitimately confused for ten minutes before I figured out what their game was. Mad Men‘s always been a show with a hint of the surreal to it, willing to push the envelope in regards to use of dreams and dark comedy, but they’re getting to a point where I half-expect red curtains in the conference room as Cooper talks backwards, or Megan to whisper “Silencio” in the darkened apartment.

This isn’t so much a complaint as I appreciate art that does that sort of thing – and I did really, really like this episode – but it feels so alien compared to what’s come before. What do you think? Do you think this season has been appreciably weirder than the previous ones?

Cory: Hold on. Did everyone write down the pertinent information on their notecard: My name is Cory Barker. I live on the internet. I have just taken LSD, and watched an episode of television that might make more sense on said LSD. Wait, why does Andy holding a pitchfork? My keyboard keys are in Italian.

Seriously though, our buddy Ryan McGee tweeted last night that this episode was simply Matt Weiner daring his favorite people, television critics, to make sense of events in the typical recap/review form.* Needling aside, I actually believe Weiner is that wrapped up in derailing popular interpretation of his story that he would do something like this. And as you said Les, this isn’t just a single episode occurrence. This whole season has filled with dream sequences, dream-like states and now a whole lot of drug use. Now, I don’t actually think Weiner is writing his series simply to troll Myles McNutt (though he should), but it certainly feels like this season of Mad Men is unlike anything we’ve seen before. Perhaps you could argue that the dreaming and the drugging are all part of a larger allusion to “the times,” or that these scenes are here to evoke the transitory nature of these characters lives at this very moment. Both could be correct, both could be wrong. Or, if you’re on LSD, both could be correct and wrong. On that note, I’m curious what we think it might “mean” that the only episode to not include a dream sequence was last week’s Pete-centric affair. In five weeks, Don, Betty, Roger and Peggy have all had “different experiences,” but Pete’s just stuck in his awesome/shitty life, eh?

*I guess it’s a good thing we eschew those typical patterns. HOW ABOUT THAT, WEINER?

We obviously recognize that this is a different version of the series, so I guess my question is this: Do all the dream sequences and “drug sequences” help or harm Mad Men, or at least your perception of what it is? I know folks often got up in arms about all the dream sequences on The Sopranos, and again, it somehow feels like Weiner remembers that and is now doing them just to troll us. Andy, what do you think?

Andy: And I suppose you’d have me fight off this rabid platypus-bear without the help of my trusty trident? Yeah, it’s a trident by the way, not some hick pitchfork, you unlettered nitwit. You’ve always had it in for me, Barker. And how do you know your keys are in Italian? THEY USE THE SAME LETTERS AS WE DO, THOSE THIEVING BASTARDS.

In case it was not obvious, I think Les is on to something that this season is distinctly trippier than previous ones. It seems more violent, as well: Don chasing Megan through the apartment in a frenzy (again hearkening back to “Mystery Date”) might be the scariest scene the show has ever done. But it’s 1966, and as Cory pointed out last week with the frequent allusions to the news, we’re entering a trippier and more violent era.

In some ways, the characters are confronting those shifting landscapes directly: Roger parties with Timothy Leary! (Tune in next week when Bert Cooper chills with Ravi Shankar!) In other ways, their internal breakdowns are simply accelerated by the years of subtly accumulating cultural tensions. Don is wounded by his much younger wife’s failure to appreciate the touchstones of his nostalgia. Raymond from Heinz fears that the young bean consumers of America will have a similar disconnect to Peggy’s memory-lane campaign. She hits the nadir of her terrible horrible no good very bad day when she pitches a Draperian hissy-fit in response—and finds that even though six years of professional advancement have made her Don’s creative equal, six years of societal advancement isn’t nearly enough for a woman’s arrogance to be given the same latitude as a man’s.

Cory, you asked about how the frequent use of drug/dream sequences evoke those moments from The Sopranos. It could be that I haven’t watched the latter show in many years, but I feel like it handled these sequences in a totally different way than Mad Men does. One reason why dream sequences are so polarizing is because there are basically two ways to do them: Make them obvious as hell, laying bare a character’s subconscious; or make them dizzingly oblique, subtext wrapped in metaphor seasoned with freakiness. Real dreams tend to follow one pattern or the other, but either approach can feel like a crutch or a cop-out in a dramatic context. 

The Sopranos tended to favor the loopy, quasi-Jungian approach. On the other hands, Mad Men‘s forays into para-reality this season have been pretty damn direct. Even Roger’s trip was generally straightforward, apart from a few loopy moments (and hilarious ones—that musical bottle was like a vintage Looney Tunes gag). The soul-baring conversation it triggered between Roger and Jane was effectively bittersweet, even though I’ve seldom had any investment at all in that marriage.

The morning after, I’m still not totally sure how I feel about this episode. I know I loved everything going on in Peggy’s portion of the triptych (more on that later), but I’m ambivalent about the other two-thirds. Which leads me to ask if either of you have any thoughts on the episode’s time-loop/anthology-esque structure?

(Heh. I do love the idea that Pete’s the only one who doesn’t get to play with cool narrative twists this season though, Cory. Because OF COURSE he’d be the kid who everyone ditches when they find a cool new place to hang out.)

Les: I think they should be inviting Pete along on these trips, if only because it would give us an excuse to have more Trudy. But then again she’s plenty busy in the Dreamatorium these days, fighting off Blorgons and the like. I’d like to see Pete have his own awakening dark night of the soul, but I think his arc’s more centered on his own self-loathing than it is any moment of realization.

As to the triptych structure, once I figured out what their tactic was – I think it hit me comparatively late, at the moment where we’re Don’s heading to get Megan and we see Roger at Dawn’s desk for the second time saying “It was a dumb idea” – I was more impressed by their willingness to experiment than I was irritated by the fact they were subverting our expectations of what the show’s supposed to be. Mad Men‘s usual structure is to be very linear with the passage of time, save the occasional flashback to Dick Whitman’s past: it’s always implied that even if we jump between departments and houses, what we see is taking place immediately after the scene we just saw. Here, we were still getting that linear structure, it just had two instances where they hit rewind and showed us another side of that story. (It’s not like we were creating three different timelines dependent on who did and didn’t go to Howard Johnson’s.)

I do think that I’m going to need to watch this episode again to determine how much I think it worked, but the more I think about it the more I think it was the right decision. All three of these stories were particularly important ones for all three of the central characters, and they each had a focus that would have been broken up had Weiner and company kept shifting back and forth between them. Roger’s acid trip for instance felt like a real acid trip: when you’re on LSD, you can’t suddenly decide to not be on LSD, you’re locked in for the full eight to twelve hours, and coming to that realization is one of the most important parts of doing the trip right. Had his increasingly accentuated reality been broken up by cutting to Peggy in the theater watching The Naked Prey or Megan shoveling sherbet down in a petulant gesture, it would have undercut the build of his visual hallucinations and the gear-shift into deep introspection. And to that end, I think it also made us care far more about the dissolution of the Sterling marriage – a relationship which like you Andy, I’ve never been very invested in – because it gave us an unbroken sequence of the problems they have and the resignation both felt at the end. (“This will be very expensive” is all Jane has left to say.)

Cory, I’m sure you have thoughts about the structure, but I’d like to turn to the actual plots by asking where this leaves Roger on the start of this “beautiful day.” We’ve talked about Roger feeling useless at the firm and surviving only by virtue of his money clip, and now he’s not only single again but the first to take the plunge into psychedelia. I doubt he’s tie-dying his vests anytime soon, but do we think this heralds the character’s reawakening?

Cory: I’m a storytelling structure mark, so it’s likely no surprise that I loved the playful, but I think purposeful, nature of this episode. As you mentioned Les, the almost “separate” structure for each of the three characters resulted in some fine and interrupted stories. I would agree that Roger’s LSD-enabled journey to realization was the most effective, for a number of reasons. Not only was the LSD trip an opportunity for the director Scott Hornbacher and John Slattery to let loose (even more so than normal in the latter’s case), but it does feel like a pivot point for the character. I don’t think Roger is going to descend into drugged debauchery like some period-piece cliche, nor am I sure that this means he’s immediately going for Joan. Yet, this might be the awakening Roger needs to feel more motivated, at least at work. Jane was something of an albatross around his neck, basically since the moment they got married, and that new-found freedom could mean all sorts of compelling things for the character moving forward.

Peggy’s segment was evocative, but less successful.* Her single-minded desire to nail the Heinz account was a bit one-note, and I’m still unclear how I feel about her journey to the movie theater. Though, to be fair, I immediately started making the connections between her actions here and the number of times skipped out on the office to go fool around with randos as well. Much has been written and said about the comparisons between Peggy and Don, but I’m not sure we were ready for them to manifest in this way. Her lack of satisfaction with her current situation plays right into the season’s larger themes, as does her directed attempt to step outside of that current situation. But just like Pete last week, trying something different just to feel or to get closer to something you think want doesn’t always result in what you think it will. Neither Pete nor Peggy were especially ashamed of their respective actions, but they certainly weren’t proud either.

*Though it’s possible that the charm of Roger’s segment and the intensity of Don’s made Peggy’s look less successful in retrospect. A second viewing is likely in order.

The final third of the episode was really tremendous to my mind. We’ve sort of been waiting for the top to blow off of the new Draper marriage and it finally did so here, and in magnificent (-ly awful) fashion. The three of us have constantly discussed Don’s disinterest in his work (more on that in a second) and I loved how this episode addressed that by having Megan suggest that she actually likes and wants to work. It’s not that I don’t believe Megan, but I think I’m sort of like Don with this issue: Megan might think she wants to work, and might like it, but she hasn’t really done anything to earn it. As a viewer, we can slightly scoff, and as her husband, Don can just disregard it because he doesn’t give a damn about the work anyway. But again, the tension that’s been there all season between Don’s come-what-may borderline “happiness” and Megan’s burgeoning desire for independence made for an entertaining argument. Clearly, Don picturing the journey back from Disneyland evokes a sense that the happiness Don assumes he has (and wants so badly) with Megan isn’t actually there at all.

There’s more to get to with Don in particular, but I’ll just say this: The one thing I didn’t like about the episode was the conclusion, which felt a bit cute for my tastes. The suggestion that much of this episode’s events were caused mostly by Don’s disinterest in anything not-Megan was already there, I didn’t really need the slow-motion walking. Ultimately, it took away from what was already apparent, at least to me. Andy, how did you feel about each “segment” and that ending?

Andy: We disagree to varying degrees here. To me, Peggy’s story clicked as a manifestation of the career fears she expressed to Dawn in “Mystery Date.” At the same time she’s questioning whether she has the fortitude to continue in this world, Don’s absence is heaping greater responsibility on her. She’s tired of having to “act like a man,” and though it’s gotten her far, she can still be penalized for doing just that in the wrong context. Her (not irrational) frustration with Heinz could be seen as the sort of ballsy client contempt her mentor perfected, or it could be seen as a masterpiece of self-sabotage. When she’s presented with the chance to regain some measure of control – first by ditching work for the movies, then by serving up some unorthodox concessions – it’s no wonder she seizes it.*

*PHRASING.

Roger’s story was charming, no doubt. The dissolution of his marriage was well-handled, but I didn’t register it on any emotional level. Jane’s never been a particularly well-developed character, and I’ve always felt a bit detached from Roger’s personal-life stories (the ones that don’t involve Joan, that is). So while the levity was squarely in Weiner’s and John Slattery’s wheelhouses (“It’s the 1919 Series!”), the stakes just weren’t there.

My reservations about Don’s and Megan’s story were just the opposite. I was heavily invested in those stakes, and put off by the execution. This is more an emotional response than a critical one, but I’ve been a fan of their relationship this season. I’m not naive enough to believe it would mosey along all sweetness and chanteuses. Still, I was holding out hope for more of a gradual crumbling rather than a volatile, frightful implosion. The segment was tense and powerful, and mostly hard to watch. It didn’t work for me because it worked so well.**

**It’s also possible that my viewing experience was colored by dejection from the start, having watched this episode right on the heels of the grimmest Game of Thrones yet.

As far as the Drapers’ respective work ethics go, I’m on Team Megan. We’ve seen that she takes pride in her career (although we don’t really know how good she is at it), and that she values being part of the team. I completely buy that she would want to be in the trenches with Peggy and Stan at a critical moment, even if that means missing out on a weekend of travel lodge sherbet.*** It underscored again the central conflict that was bound to eat away at this marriage: He’s ready to rest on his laurels; she’s still trying to accumulate hers. This window of time during which they see eye to eye, from “Tomorrowland” on through this week, represents the intersection of two lines traveling in opposite directions. Sort of like Benjamin Button, but with ambition instead of physical aging.

***I, too, pronounce it like it rhymes with Herbert, and I will never spell it correctly on the first try as long as I live. And this is coming from a guy who loves to use pretentious French expressions!

I also dug that final shot. Sure, it was a bit obvious. But it was also a perfect stroke of the soothingly precise mise-en-scène**** at which Mad Men excels.

****See what I mean?

Les: I don’t think I was as moved by the ending sequence as some were in either direction (appreciation of the Godfather-esque scoring aside), chiefly because my attention was still fixed on the welcome return of a Bert Cooper who actually commands influence and respect at the firm. His astute observation that Don’s been on “love leave” and that it’s been costing the firm was spot on, and brought back some very pleasant memories of the time he used his knowledge of Dick Whitman to force Don into a contract. (“Would you say I know something about you?”) Seeing Bert, who’s so irrelevant to the firm’s day-to-day he doesn’t even have an office on site, say to Don’s face what everyone else has been saying behind his back seemed to knock away what little facade of normalcy Don put up after his fight.

And yes, what an ugly fight that was – it seems that Don’s actions in “Mystery Date” weren’t enough to kill his personal demons, as that chase scene in the apartment showed just how ugly Don can be underneath his well-tailored exterior. Mad Men moves so slowly that when we get to such a kinetic scene it’s jarring, particularly because those scenes usually tend to augur some sort of unpleasantness. Andy, I agree that I was expecting more of a slow burn to the serious conflicts of that relationship, but the escalation made perfect sense to me since Megan hit the one trigger that you can’t come back from: to invoke Don’s mother is to invoke his past as a “whore-child.” He can mention that in casual conversation with a madam if he’s controlling the information, but anyone who throws that in his face has woken the dragon.

So it’s almost unquestionable at this point that the honeymoon’s over for Mr. and Mrs. Draper. Are we heading for another Roger and Jane meltdown? It can’t be a coincidence that the image of Megan and Don on the floor post-chase mirrors the Sterlings at the very end of their trip (pink towels aside), right down to the tragic Cassandra phrases each wife offers.

Jane: “I knew we were going somewhere and I didn’t want it to be here.”
Megan: “Every time we fight, it just diminishes this.”

But I think unlike the Sterlings, Don and Megan have a potential way out. Both of you discussed how this episode proved that Megan wants to work, wants to build something of her own, and I think with this clear break between her and Don she’s going to throw herself into the business more and more to prove something. What if she’s actually good enough to distinguish herself, even more than Ginsberg has so far? Would Don feel more respect for her as a peer, or feel as threatened by a mature and independent woman as he did by Dr. Faye? (Who, by the way, I was half-convinced was one of the people at Leary’s* party and had to double-check the credits to make sure.) And if she fails, does Don try to force her into a more docile role (bearing him another child perhaps as he suggested after the Campbells’ dinner party) or does she strike out on her own?

*If that was Timothy Leary after all – I couldn’t find any credits to confirm or deny. For now I’m going to say it was.

Whichever way it shakes out though, I’m almost positive that this will come at the expense of poor Peggy – I’d bet Sterling’s money clip that Don’s going to take it out on her for not handling business in his absence, even with the obstacle of Cooper and Heinz execs seeing her as just a “little girl.” I think it’s going to be a bad couple of episodes coming up for Peggy.

Speaking of Ms. Olson, while I agree hers was the weaker of the three stories next to Don and Roger, she had two very interesting interactions that have stuck with me twenty-four hours later (sharing the milk of human kindness in a theater aside). First, Dawn wakes her up on Don’s couch, in an almost mirror image of how the two almost had a bonding experience in “Mystery Date.” Then, Mike Ginsberg relates to her that his father is actually his adopted father, and in a story so hard to believe it could have sprung from Dave Algonquin’s pen, we learn that he was born in a concentration camp. How’d you feel about either of those moments?

Andy: Ginsberg’s story unsettled me – not just the truth of his back story, but also the fantastical fiction it’s couched in. I’m unsure how the show wants us to take this, honestly. It makes sense that an adopted child born in a concentration camp would convince himself of an entirely different personal history. But to devise so outlandish a story suggests a more worrisome disconnect from reality. And if he’s insincere, either about his whole history or about the extent to which he believes his alternate version, then he’s fucking with Peggy in a truly dark way. Ginsberg has been all over the map in these few episodes, but each new facet of his characterization so far has seemed to suggest some degree of sociopathy. I’m curious to see where the show takes him, but right now it’s hard for me to foresee anything but problems.

Cory: You both make some great points about all these stories, which leaves me to pose a few questions. First of all, with minutia in mind: Do we think what Don did, sort of grabbing Megan to stop her from running, constitutes domestic abuse? I saw some people talking about it on Twitter and I’m not sure exactly how I feel about it. That’s not something we should take lightly, but the episode didn’t linger on it at all (not that makes it okay, of course) and we’ve certainly seen worse transgressions like that before. I don’t think Don intended to harm Megan in that instance, and I certainly felt like Weiner and Hornbacher were trying to evoke the physical scene from the premiere as a way to show how the relationship has changed, but I’m curious to see what you guys think.

On a larger level, I’ve been thinking a lot about this episode and the “revelations” it brought these characters. There’s a sense here that each character reached a “truth” about themselves or a relationship, but what happens when you reach that point because of an external force (like drugs or a physical[ish] altercation)? Are these three people any different than they were before these experiences? Are they just fooling themselves into thinking change has occurred because the experience was so intense? So, I’m wondering what sort of consequences will result from the events of this episode, if any. Is this episode a turning point for the season?

Les: I’ve often called Don Draper a “magnificent bastard,” but in his treatment of women I regularly drop the “magnificent.” For all his charm and worldliness, women bring out the darkest parts of his psyche: Leaving Bobbie Barrett tied to the bed, grabbing Betty and calling her a whore when she says she’s going to Reno for a divorce, and of course his dominating reaction to Megan’s striptease maid service in the premiere. As you say Cory, we’ve seen much worse over the course of the show, but I think this one felt particularly worrisome coming so closely on the heels of his homicidal fever dream. I don’t doubt Don’s breakdown at the end of it was sincere, but after seeing what happened in the other instance where a woman defied him? Well, let’s just say I’m to the point where I’m not ruling out actions just because they don’t fit in the story.

Your question of it being a turning point has me thinking back to the near-flawless “The Suitcase” from season four, which was unquestionably the high point and turning point of that season as Don started pulling himself out of his half-drunk divorced stupor. Is this a similar instance? I don’t think so. Don seems jarred by Cooper’s accusations, but nowhere near the point he was then (granted Anna’s loss was far more devastating) and I didn’t get the impression he was prepared to come out of this and start swimming laps. And Peggy’s clearly feeling a bit more adrift for succeeding at all the wrong parts of being Don Draper – and closer to the mysterious Mr. Ginsberg – but as I said above, I think any thoughts of change in her mind are going to get pushed to the side as she bears the brunt of Don’s frustration. Both have been through much darker nights than these, and sadly I think both have further to fall.

I will however be very interested to see how much the acid has changed Roger’s worldview, either in terms of his feud with Pete or his malaise over getting work done. He’s fooled himself on being able to change before, but he’s also the only one in that office saying “it’s a beautiful day,” and (as Don proved) temporary happiness does strange things to people.

And given that next week’s episode is called “At the Codfish Ball,” named after a song from a Shirley Temple musical, I’m sure everything’s going to be bright and shiny ! Right? … Well, at least there’s apparently more Joan and Sally. Until next week then!

I’ve been saying since I first started watching The Borgias that I could see a better show underneath all the trappings and soap opera drama, and kept watching in the hopes that show would reveal itself. I just never expected it to happen so soon in this second season, or how satisfying it would be when it finally arrived. But it has, and you can read all about in my review of “The Beautiful Deception” over at The A.V. Club. Please read and join the comments – am I crazy to think the show’s gotten better, or do you share my newfound enthusiasm for the next seven episodes?

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that NBC’s Grimm is one of my pet shows, a program that I stick with despite its missteps because there’s a few things at its core I think are good bordering on great. I had another chance to check in on it this weekend – with regular reviewer Kevin McFarland off on vacation, the powers that be at The A.V. Club asked me to step in to cover Friday’s episode. I hadn’t written about it since my mid-season check-in back in January, but I’ve kept up with it and have been encouraged by some moves it made on the plotting side.

You can find my review of “Cat And Mouse” at The A.V. Club - stop by and keep us company, and join in the long chat on the show’s improvements and/or mangled use of German.

In this corner, Les Chappell of A Helpless Compiler! In this corner, Cory Barker of TV Surveillance! In this corner, Andy Daglas of The Vast Wasteland! And in this corner, the fifth episode of Mad Men‘s fifth season! Queensberry rules apply here, gentlemen!

Okay, not as punchy as that, but I can never pass up the chance to throw out my old-timey radio announcer voice. We’re all in a good mood at the Barker Chappell Daglas reviewing agency this week, as last Sunday’s Mad Men was the best episode of the season to date and we had a lot of fun talking over the fisticuffs and emotional turmoil plaguing the men and women of SCDP. Cory’s hosting the discussion this week, so head over to TV Surveillance for our take on “Signal 30.” (And as always, links to our previous installments are available here.)

Due to a mix of obligations personal and professional, I didn’t have a chance to write about FX’s Justified as much as I wanted to this season. I checked in after a few episodes to note approvingly that the characters and dialogue were as sharp as ever, but wasn’t able to come back and write regular installments as I had during the second season.  It remained appointment TV for me every week however, and I didn’t want to let its third season go by without full analysis, especially given some rumblings about its overarching plot on Twitter and a finale with an impressive amount of “holy shit” moments.

Given that I hadn’t written about it for two-thirds of the season I was worried some things would slip through the cracks in a more traditional analysis, so I decided this merited a long conversation with a fellow critic. Joining me on this endeavor is friend of the blog Greg Boyd, who writes a mix of TV and film criticism over at Screen Ramblings (where next month he’ll start an ambitious classic TV project to review every episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show). Like me, Greg offered some thoughts about the first few episodes but wasn’t able to recap the whole thing regularly, so we’re in a similar headspace to talk over the season’s progression.

Greg, let me start off with a simple question. Now that Justified’s third season has wrapped, where would you rank it compared to the heavily acclaimed season two?

Greg: I think it’s pretty safe to say that most people would rank it a fair bit behind season two in terms of quality. That’s where I’m at as well, but I also don’t think the gap is as large as it’s been made out to be by some. This is despite the fact that I’m apparently one of the few who didn’t completely love the finale, which was for the most part excellent but featured a handful of moments that either didn’t ring true or else just didn’t carry the weight they were meant to. It was a strong conclusion, but not quite at the level of “Bloody Harlan”.

I’m sure we’ll get back to that at some point. But as to the question at hand… one of the few edges season three has over season two is its overall consistency. Season two’s stretch run was phenomenal television, but its first half left a bit to be desired, featuring one too many solid but unmemorable case of the week installments for my taste. Season three obviously had a few of these episodes as well, but outside of “The Devil You Know” (which felt a bit generic to me) they were much crisper and more unique than last year’s. I’d go so far as to name one of them, the brilliant “Thick as Mud”, as my favorite of the season. So there’s been definite progress in that area, which is something that will hopefully continue into season four.

However, that can’t entirely overcome the overall lack of cohesion that began about two-thirds of the way through this run of episodes, as well as the constant feeling that they were missing something: a theme, a sense of place, or maybe just the sense of purpose contained in every episode from “The Spoil” onwards last season. Take Limehouse and Quarles, both of whom seemed like extremely promising characters early on. The former wound up not getting enough to do, and the latter’s story basically petered out towards the end as he slowly went on a downward spiral after his plans went awry: a development that never felt earned to me despite how good Neal McDonough was in this role. In the end, nothing here was as strong in any way as the arc involving Mags. (Regarding Limehouse, I’m hopeful he’ll get more screen time next season, and that we’ll also get to see quite a bit more of Noble’s Holler.)

Okay, I’ve talked enough for now. Les, I know you had some issues with certain aspects of the season as well, and one of the possible explanations that has been bandied about is the idea that maybe there were just a few too many things going on. We had Quarles coming in from Detroit, the search for the Bennett money, the introduction of Limehouse, Raylan and Winona’s breakup, Boyd’s attempts to gain control over Harlan’s criminal business, and so much more. It felt like a little much, and while I personally feel most of the problems (which I think we both agree are minor compared to a majority of other shows) were related to the execution of these various storylines rather than the set-up, one can’t help but wonder if they would have been handled a bit better had there been more time to devote to them.

What do you think? Did the desire to include so many characters and plots ensure from the start that the season was “doomed” to not being quite as good (or at least not as deep) as season two, or is it almost entirely due to the ultimate follow-through?

Les: I’m in the same boat with you regarding the fact that while I felt the season’s individual parts were much stronger – and I still get more joy out of an hour of Justified than most anything else on television – the overall whole wasn’t as strong. Now, obviously the death of Mags Bennett left a big hole in the middle of the show’s world, so we were always going to view this season through that lens, but I think what a lot of us missed when considering that was how important she was to the show structurally. What made Mags such a potent force in the season (aside from of course the terrific performance of Margo Martindale) was that she was a deeply established central figure around whom all of the plots revolved. Raylan had the family history with her clan, Boyd had to lock horns with her to cement his empire, her sons were the major secondary antagonists, and it was her overarching plan for the mining deal that drove the action of the season even when it was still vague in early episodes.

Here, Robert Quarles failed to be as unifying a force to drive the story, when it really did seem in the first third he was being set up as such. It looked like his partnership with Wyn Duffy and his efforts to set up an Oxycontin empire with Detroit muscle at his back was going to bring him into serious conflict with Raylan and Boyd and force the two to join forces – especially after that “carpetbagger” speech Boyd made in the bar. But once it turned out he wasn’t a vanguard but an exile, and he kept falling apart whenever any of his schemes were cornered, it made the character less centralized even as McDonough was excellent at playing this much more unhinged version of the character. I don’t know if that was a problem with their plotting or with audience expectations, but there could have been a center and there wasn’t.

In terms of plotting, looking back over the episodes I still think there was a lot of great stuff going on, but I think the quest for the Bennett money should have been cut entirely after its first appearance. Bringing Dickie Bennett back into the mix of the last third of the season just distracted from the feuds between Limehouse, Quarles, Duffy, Raylan and Boyd, and turned into a somewhat convoluted scheme for the three to cross each other, and felt on the whole like padding. This was no strike against Jeremy Davies – who was appropriately twitchy and rattlesnake-mean – but he should have been sent back to prison after “Thick as Mud” for the rest of the season, to come out at an appropriate time. As it stands now, I’m actually hoping Raylan put him down for good in “Coalition” because I honestly don’t think there’s anything to do with that character.

And speaking of Raylan, this was a pretty rocky season for our hero both personally and professionally: pregnant wife leaves him again, living above a bar, pinned as a dirty cop by the FBI, and learning his father would have shot him to save his arch-nemesis. How’d you feel about the character arcs of Marshal Givens this year?

Greg: Raylan was a character who occasionally got lost in the shuffle this season: something that probably contributed to the lack of a center you mention. That’s not necessarily a result of a lack of screen time, as it didn’t seem like he was on screen that much less than he was in season two. But in season three he sometimes felt less like a character integral to the season and more like a figure trailing the action, at least until the finale. Is this an inherently bad thing? I don’t think so, because the rest of Justified’s ensemble is so capable. But coupled with the other issues we’ve both noted, it did wind up hurting the show just a bit this year.

What’s interesting about all of this is that, as with Quarles, it didn’t seem to be a concern early in the season. But as time wore on both he and his relationships to some (though not all) of the other characters began to feel slightly marginalized. His and Winona’s break-up, for instance, wasn’t given nearly enough screen time to truly resonate, and while the final scene in “Slaughterhouse” was incredibly powerful it also felt kind of jarring given how little we’d seen of both Raylan and Arlo – together or apart – over the course of the episodes preceding it. Sure, we knew their history, but it was still enormous jolt given the way the two were often sidelined in favor of Quarles, Boyd, Limehouse, and others. That was probably the point, but I would have appreciated more of a buildup.

Though they weren’t especially great for him, many of the other events in his professional life certainly fared better from a dramatic standpoint. Obviously the multiple attempts to frame him in “Watching the Detectives” made for one of the season’s strongest hours. But there was plenty of other good stuff. I loved his interactions with Boyd all season, although there seemed to be less of them as we got further into the season. The brief glimpses we received of his deepening relationship with Art were also pretty nice in showing how Art’s become arguably Raylan’s closest friend. And though he did often wind up feeling like someone watching the action rather than taking part in it, there was still plenty of brilliance to be found in this rather different role: most notably in his conversations with Limehouse. Overall, I’d say Raylan Givens remains both a highly entertaining personality and a deeply compelling person on this series.

However, I definitely think other characters actually had even more to do this year. I’m speaking of course about Rachel and Tim, who arguably played an even more vital role than they did in either of the first two seasons. What was your reaction to the vast range of interesting storylines involving them?

I’d ask you about Ava and Boyd, but so far the show still hasn’t given either of them any real development of note. Perhaps you have a few comments you’d like to make about these two as well, though.

Les: Not much else to add to what you said about Raylan. I think you’re spot-on that while he does feel less integral at times, he’s still the core of the show in terms of his worldview and actions, and you couldn’t do it without him.

As to the other marshals, while your comment was meant in jest I do think they’re slowly getting better at incorporating them. Tim I would say certainly got more time, and used it to his benefit – I like how it’s pretty much established that he’s annoyed by Raylan’s cowboy attitude and his continually pumping him for information. And yet at the same time, there’s still the indication that they’re both still marshals, and if Raylan starts being straight with him he’ll return the favor. That little moment in “Watching the Detectives” where Raylan tells him “I think Quarles planted a murder weapon in my car,” and Tim pauses for a minute and lets him get off the elevator, was a great character moment for the both. Rachel on the other hand only seemed to get little pieces here and there: the shootout with the WITSEC episode, an early conversation with Limehouse about where she was from, the strong-arm of the Memphis drug kingpin.

That said, in my opinion they’re still not giving enough material to justify Jacob Pitts or Erica Tazel getting billed in the opening credits. Rather than bringing in another rotation of bad guys next season, they should have more story lines like they did in “Coalition” when they seized Dickie’s money. Both of them have been sobered by having to kill people, and I think if they can touch on that – and also recapture moments like the one in season two where all four marshals are drinking in Art’s office – it’ll give the show a stronger base.

Onto the other side of the tracks, I don’t think it’s necessarily right to say there wasn’t as much development this season. Certainly Boyd didn’t have the moral debates with himself he had in seasons one and two where he seesawed between being a neo-Nazi, a born-again Christian, a powder man and a crime boss, but he seems past the point of being conflicted about that dichotomy. As he told Devil early on, he’s realized he can have been all of those things once upon a time and still be them in some way. We saw him draw from all of those sides of his personality: his Mags-channeling moment at the debate, his Hail Mary pass to swing the election for his candidate, his careful parrying around Limehouse, and his silent blinding rage as Dickie walked into the bar. Boyd’s just Boyd, and with Quarles taken down and the murder charges cleared he’s primed to finally start building a Harlan empire.

I’m also not sure if we saw as much of a conversion in Ava this season as we did the last one, we just saw her committing more heavily to taking her role as Boyd’s Lady Macbeth. I really enjoyed her arc in “Loose Ends” where she protects the prostitute, then executes Delroy for his crimes, only to then turn around and decide she wants to take over as Harlan madam. We’ve always known she was violent, but it looks like more and more her darker impulses are going to take over, which hopefully gives Joelle Carter more range of material.

Phew – I’m exhausted writing all this stuff out, which just underlines our point that the season felt a bit too stuffed in comparison to the second. That raises an important question though: do you think maybe we’re in a Sons of Anarchy-type situation where the second season’s focus might have wrongly raised our expectations of what the show was? I think Justified is a superior show to Sons of Anarchy, but save not sending Raylan Givens to Belfast for six episodes a lot of the complaints on spreading things too thin could easily be applied to both shows. And with Graham Yost on record in some interviews saying that he wants to move off “big bads” and towards three or four-episode arcs, do you think this formlessness is what Justified is?

Greg: I agree with pretty much everything you said here. Unfortunately, I doubt the amount of material Pitts and Tazel are given will ever increase all that dramatically, which is kind of a shame considering how good they are in the small amount of screen time they get. Like you, I always enjoy the Tim-Raylan interactions, and the few Rachel stories we’ve gotten have been pretty solid. But I want more. At the same time, I also always want more Raylan, more Boyd, more Ava, and now more Limehouse. At a certain point something has to give, doesn’t it? Otherwise you wind up with a season that’s just too packed, like this one.

I actually think this might have been the strongest season for both Boyd and Ava to date, and you nicely articulate some of the key reasons why. So I’ll basically leave it at that. The only thing that didn’t work was Ava taking out her anger about Boyd’s arrest on Ellen May in the finale, for the simple reason that it didn’t fit with anything we’d seen from the character before. Part of the reason she took over the prostitution business was to make money while also protecting the women from thugs like Delroy. And now she’s viciously attacking one of them based on the rather far-fetched possibility that she was responsible in some small way for what happened to Boyd? Sorry, I don’t buy it. I agree that she’s truly embraced being a member of a criminal organization, but for now she still has some morals: and there’s no way those morals would allow her to do something like this without proof.. So that struck me as a bit of a false note.

As far as the Sons of Anarchy comparison goes, there are certainly similarities to be found. But I don’t think it’s fair to make the statement that season two overinflated expectations for Justified the way it did for FX’s other major drama quite yet. Both shows did indeed have brilliant and tightly focused second seasons. And both had third seasons that, though still good, weren’t as strong or as cohesive. However, I would submit that the fourth season of Sons of Anarchy saw the show regain the focus of season two, and I expect the same thing to happen to Justified. But that otherwise superb fourth season was undermined by a finale that refused to follow through on the consequences of the events leading up to it.

So far, this hasn’t been an issue for Justified. Sure, it’s kept to the status quo in a lot of ways. But it’s done so organically (a critical distinction between the two shows and one of the main reasons why I agree that this one is better), and there have been enough shifts with each passing season to keep things interesting. If the show can get back to the type of storytelling it did so well last year while avoiding the pitfalls of Sons of Anarchy’s fourth season, there’s no reason why it can’t equal or even surpass what season two achieved. We’ll have to reevaluate this comparison then, but for now one flawed but still pretty good season of television doesn’t seem like a reason to worry too much about Justified having peaked. This is still a very young show, and contrary to popular belief many TV dramas actually wind up delivering their strongest material late in their runs.

As for the possibility of shorter arcs, I’m really not that concerned about it. There’s nothing wrong with trying a different format, even if I do generally prefer heavily serialized television. It could work by preventing things from feeling as overstuffed as they did this year, or it could backfire and cause the storytelling to be all over the map. As with longer-term storytelling, it all depends on both the concept and the execution. That will determine whether the formlessness of this season is the show’s future (in which case I’m sure I’ll still enjoy it), or simply a slight bump in the road on the way to greater things. I’m leaning towards the latter. Or at least I’m hoping for it.

Lost in all this abstract analysis, however, are the actual stories that will continue to carry this series going forward. New characters will likely get introduced again next year, of course, but among existing ones many things were left very open ended by this finale.  What did you think about the potential conflicts and plots that will likely play a role in season four? And do you believe Justified did a good job of setting a few of them up amidst all the resolution in “Slaughterhouse”?

Les: Greg, I think the word “organic” is the best indicator of why I’m not terribly concerned about the show’s direction going forward. Few shows are better than Justified at building a world and dealing with what that world means to the characters who live in it (or disrupt it as in the case of Quarles), and I don’t think they’ve in any way exhausted the story potential of Harlan County. The show knows what elements of the county are ready to bring out and power a story arc, or when to reintroduce elements here and there so we’re reminded they exist and could be a storyline in future episodes. We saw that this year as bit player Wyn Duffy was brought out to become a key part of Quarles’ organization, or when U.S. Attorney Vasquez had to bring out the file of Raylan’s multiple indiscretions when the FBI thought he was on the take. Whatever structure they choose to take for the fourth season, it’s not like they don’t have an idea of how handle it.

As to what storylines we’ll be seeing more of next season, I think “Slaughterhouse” did a good job of keeping doors open to play with. For starters, I’m thrilled Limehouse survived the showdown with Quarles and Raylan and will be coming back in some capacity, as otherwise I’d feel this season had been largely a waste of Myketi Williamson. The introduction of Noble’s Holler feels like a part of the world that was only tangentially touched on this season with Mags’ money and Raylan’s family history, and I feel like with how close to the vest Limehouse plays things there’s many other aspects of his organization and character we haven’t even begun to see. He’s also tied to the most obvious powder keg left unlit in the finale – that Johnny conspired to send Boyd to prison – and given that he and Boyd have to operate in the same spheres we’ll have to see if they go with an uneasy peace or right back to war.

But there’s also a lot of scattered plot threads the show can pull at any time, helped by the show’s trend of bringing very talented character actors into the fold. Jim Beaver’s mine security operator Shelby had only been seen in passing in season two, and now wound up a key part of Boyd’s strategy to undercut Quarles. Now sheriff – and apparently feeling he owes Boyd no more favors – how will he deal with the Crowder/Limehouse operations? Stephen Toblowsky as a pretentious FBI agent was a great foil to both Raylan and Art, and given how Raylan’s certain not to stop poking hornets’ nests how soon is it until he targets him again? Wyn Duffy’s also still floating around, and in “Coalition” was in direct contact with Adam Arkin’s* Detroit mob boss Theo Tonin. Does he try to take credit for Quarles’ death and collect the bounty, and parlay that “success” into running Quarles’ proposed Oxy operation with more support than the latter man had?

*Getting back to our SAMCRO comparisons, Arkin was of course stellar on Sons of Anarchy‘s second season as white supremacist Ethan Zobelle.

Whatever shakes out though, it’s certainly going to involve some big things for Raylan Givens, who (as we said) has taken more knocks this year than he’s taken in a long time. Those last few minutes of the pilot, where he explains to Winona that Arlo just wanted to shoot the man in a hat pointing a gun at Boyd, were as jarring as the “disarming” of Quarles, and far deeper emotionally than I think the show’s been all season. He’s had to face the hard truths that his father hates him enough to kill him, that he can’t be with the woman carrying his child for good, and that the longer he lives the way he does the more of a toll it takes on him. He’s not a healthy or happy individual – is season four where he tries to make some serious changes? Or does he go to darker and darker places, to the point where he’s playing Harlan roulette with every bad guy in front of him? Honestly, I don’t know, and I think it’s a testament to Justified they could go either way and sell it.

I think we’ve covered most of the bases of what we agree was still an excellent season, so let’s close with the positive: what’re your picks for top moments of the season? What scenes were the funniest, most dramatic, or both at once?

Greg: I think we covered a lot of the best moments in our other comments about the season, but there are a couple of additional ones that stand out to me. Let’s start with the season premiere. Fletcher Nix was one of the best one-off villains the show ever had, and he was involved in two masterful scenes. The first is an unbelievably tense sequence where he offers a man he’s holding captive a chance to reach for a gun on the table. The suspense arises from our intuitive knowledge that something’s wrong, and it builds and builds until the moment when the man reaches: only to have Nix to stab him in the hand with an ice pick, take the gun, and kill him. It’s every bit as harrowing and well-executed as anything on Breaking Bad. Later in the episode, however, he tries to pull the same trick on the much smarter Raylan, who realizes that it must be a ruse. This scene isn’t as suspenseful because we know that Justified isn’t about to kill off Raylan Givens. But the way it unfolds is still absolutely brilliant, as the man known for his quick draw wins a gunfight by simply pulling a tablecloth a few inches.

Everything in “Watching the Detectives” was great, of course. There’s a short scene near the end of that episode that I especially loved, though: Raylan going to see Wyn after finally escaping the legal troubles Quarles had thrown his way. It’s no secret that Justified’s dialogue is frequently flat out brilliant, and this exchange was arguably that element of the series at its absolute finest. Seriously, it managed to have a character use the word ”taupe” and reference Mythbusters in the same scene: something only a few other shows – none of them currently airing - could have pulled off. It’s almost impossible not to love a series that’s this confident in its writing, whatever other issues it may have from time to time. (In a related observation, giving Wyn Duffy more screen time this season was a great decision. He’s become one of the better villains on any series in recent memory, as well as one of the best supporting characters on TV right now.)

And in the end, it’s these types of little conversations (with similarly great lines in each one) that made this season quite good in spite of its flaws. It doesn’t come close to season two in terms of big scenes, and certainly nothing here rivaled Raylan and Mags’s final moments in “Bloody Harlan” or the stunning events of “Brother’s Keeper”. Rather, the season relied a lot on characters simply interacting with each other. If it all felt a bit scattered, at least it had great writing to go along with that feeling and keep it from overwhelming the plethora of good material these thirteen episodes offered. From the phone conversation between Wyn and Boyd to close out “Measures” (I loved how they both figured out each other’s identities within seconds) to Raylan suddenly realizing he’s been outsmarted by Limehouse in “Slaughterhouse” and now has about twenty guns pointed at him, there was almost always something compelling going on. The end product may not have been as satisfying as the previous year’s was, but that Justified was still able to keep us riveted most of the time shows why it remains one of TV’s finest dramas. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to season four.

Les: Couldn’t have said it better myself. A hour of Justified remains more fun than anything else on TV, big picture be damned, and I’ll be thrilled to see it come back next year.