Mad Game

Some interesting doings on Game Of Thrones and Mad Men this week as both approach their finales.  The odd thing is though we've known where GOT is going from the start, there was little forward motion this week, while MM may have finally given us a glimpse of this season's endpoint.

Game Of Thrones, "The Prince Of Winterfell":

As the ironic title indicates, we're going to see Theon. We start with him, still holding Winterfell, after having allegedly killed and burned Bran and Rickon.  His sister rides in and isn't happy.  She killed the boys--his main bargaining chips--and is holding a castle over a hundred miles inland.  They're islanders.  He needs to come home, not stay and die there.  It's hard to see how things will end well for Theon.

Meanwhile, Jon Snow is bring brought to Mance Rayder.Turns out thanks to Jon's screwing around with Ygritte, his whole patrol was captured and killed but one, their leader.  Ygritte at least speaks up for him and saves his life, but Jon must not be feeling too great.

Robb and Lady Talisa walk through a lovely forest and make googly-eyes at each other.  They're both so noble they make a pretty dull couple, but at least we know there's trouble in Robb's camp.  Turns out--as we expected last week--his mom freed Jaimie Lannister (though how she did this without being seen I'm not sure).  He rushes back to camp and makes his mom a prisoner.

Meanwhile, Brienne escorts a tied up Jaime...somewhere.  Not clear what the plan is, but I assume this is the deal Littlefinger has worked out for a trade.  Still, how does it work?  I might add that as tough as Brienne is, is she a match for Jaime, tied up or not?

Back at Harrenhal, Tywin knows Stannis will soon be at King's Landing.  Tywin decides there's no time to lose, and gets his troops moving again.  He's been at Harrenhal a long time--not sure why it took him so long to get going.  All this gets Arya, who's been listening in, to spring into action.  She rushes to find Jaqen for one last kill, but Tywin is gone before anything happens.

Snow is being marched to Mance, and his former leader makes a show of fighting him so they might trust Jon, and have this crow become an insider with the Wildlings.  Jon obviously has great things ahead of him, though it's not clear for which side.

At King's Landing, Tyrion and Bronn, soon joined by Varys, try to figure out how to deal with Stannis's soon-to-be siege.  There's no easy answer, though at least Bronn has practical experience.  His solution (seconded quietly by Varys) has been to round up all known thieves and kill them, so they can't make trouble when food becomes more valuable than gold.  Tyrion at least knows they have the "pig shit" fire available, and it looks like he'll use it.

Back beyond the Wall, Jon's old buddies are digging snow trenches.  They discover an old cloak left by a Night's Watchman filled with interesting stuff.  More on this later, presumably.

Arya finds Jaqen, too late.  Tywin seems impossible, so Arya names Jaqen.  This displeases him, so she unnames him if he promises to help her and her friends to escape.  He agrees.

Cersei and Tyrion have a talk.  For the first time in a while, she has the upper hand.  She believes Tyrion wants Joffrey to die in battle.  Turns out she's captured Tyrion's "whore" and if Joffrey dies, she'll die even more painfully.  The woman is brought in, but it's not Shae, it's poor Ros. Tyrion doesn't let on, but he is shaken. He goes to his quarters to see her.  (How is it Cersei can't find Shae?  All you need to do is set up someone to watch Tyrion's door.)

Robb Stark talks to his advisor about Theon.  He'll let the Iron Islanders go if they leave Winterfell--except for Theon.  If Theon's men don't respect him--and they don't--why not just turn him in?  Next Talisa comes in and tells a long dull story about why she became so decent.  Then she and Robb strip and do the nasty.  This is Game Of Thrones, after all.

At Harrenhal, Arya, Gendry and the fat boy escape by walking right through the gates, as Jaqen told her.  Turns out he's killed the men who seem to be standing guard.  So Arya's on the road again.  Can Gendry protect her?  Is Jaqen gone as a character?

We check in quickly with Stannis, whom we haven't seen for a while.  Like Bronn, he tells a story of a siege. This one he had to deal with while brother Robert and Ned Stark were out being heroes.  Davos the smuggler brought in food and saved the day.  Now he promises lowborn Davos will be King's Hand when he takes King's Landing.

Vayrs and Tyrion are at the walls with Joffrey, who's in a cocky mood.  He actually thinks he can take Stannis.  Varys and Tyrion, the two wiliest men around (with Baelish gone) have a talk. They both plan to stay in power, but have to deal with the Stannis threat one way or another.

Interestingly, Varys has gotten word from Qarth (can ravens fly that far?) that Daenerys is still around and has three dragons.  But as the Imp notes, "one game at a time."  I guess Dany won't be in the battle royale this season.  Still, we cut to her and Jorah.  He wants to get out of Qarth on the ship he's procured, but she won't abandon her dragons.  She gets all high and mighty, as she does once a show--she's a real Targaryen.  She wants to go to the House of the Undying, but Jorah fears she won't come back. But he's pledged to her (and loves her) and will stick with her.  And that's all from Qarth this week.

Back at Winterfell, we see that Osha doubled back and brought the boys and Hodor back.  They're hiding, with the help of the maester, underground.  This solves where the mystery of where they are--no one was fooled by those charred bodies.  Bran does overhear the unpleasant fate of the two farmboys, however.  Heavy lies the crown and all that.

So only two episodes left.  This episode was a little more listless than most, but we checked in with almost everyone and know Stannis will be at Winterfell in about 24 hours.  Also, there are a lot of loose baragining chips out there--Sansa is firmly ensconced in King's Landing, but Jaime and Arya are floating around while Bran and Rickon are hiding.

Mad Men, "Christmas Waltz":

A waltz has three beats, and the three beats of this story concentrate on character who sometimes don't even show up--Lane, Harry and Joan.  (Last week I wondered why Harry was getting so little to do.)

We start with Lane, taking a secret call from a man in England.  Turns out the tax collector is demanding about $8000 in 1960s money from Lane.  (Matt Weiner couldn't have planned the timing better, with Facebook's Eduardo Severin renouncing his citizenship for tax reasons while some American politicians wish to chase him to the ends of the earth to collect the money.)

Meanwhile, Harry gets a call from Paul Kinsey.  Of all the characters who have fallen by the wayside, Kinsey may have been the most interesting.  He was always a loser with a highly inflated opinion of himself, and when much of the original firm was raptured away, he got left behind.  What's been going on with him?

Lane comes in to see next year's projections.  He wants good news so he can get more money now and stay out of prison.  (It's not entirely clear what Lane does for this firm. He seemed so competent when we first met him, but does he have a place now?  Harry may not be much, but he has a job to do.  What does Lane do that Joan can't already do better? But then, Joan could do Harry's job better, too.)  Anyway, Lane goes to the banker to get $50,000 more for the firm, no doubt planning to cut himself a check.

Pete thinks he might have gotten Jaguar back now that they've replaced the firm's old contact.  It's still a bit of a dream, though, and Don isn't impressed.  Though Don and Pete essentially run the firm, they're still pretty snippy with each other.

Harry meets Paul who's now part of the Krishna consciousness movement.  Late '66, Kinsey was fast to jump on this trend, but then, that was one thing he was always good at. Kinsey and his new haircut says how he's got his life together.  Thought it may be he's more after the delectable Mother Lakshmi.  Paul, Lakshmi and square Harry chant for what seems like hours. Harry seems to be getting into it--and into Mother Lakshmi.

Lane calls a meeting (without Joan) and announces they've got a surplus of--surprise!--$50,000, so let's cut some bonus checks right now.  Don says wait till the Christmas party.  Pete agrees. Sorry, Lane.  Meanwhile, Pete is still unhappy that people aren't thrilled with what he's done about Jaguar.  Cooper doesn't even like the car.

It's Pearl Harbor Day so Roger is wearing an Hawaiian shirt.  Joan isn't happy.  Roger is giving her money to raise "their" kid, but it's not how Joan wants to play it.  She's not sure if she even wants Roger in his life.

Paul and Harry go out to eat.  Turns out his commitment to Krishna isn't as great as his desire for Lakshmi.  He wants to take her away. But Harry has no job for him.  No, he doesn't want that. Instead, he pulls out a script for this new TV show Star Trek.  Harry, to his credit, knows the show's ratings aren't great and it may not be coming back next season, but Paul insists.  He can't clear his head like others (including Harry) while chanting, he needs this.  Harry has connections, he can show it to someone.  Paul is still petty, and a whiner, but Harry takes pity on him.

Meanwhile, Don and Megan attend a somewhat avant-garde play that attacks consumer society and the corpulent swine who run advertising.  The play's dialogue is a bit heavy-handed even as a parody of such work.  D and M get back to their pad and Don is a bit miffed. It might not be a great work, but Megan tries to defend it.  Don reminds her that she's made a bigger stance against advertising than the play ever did.  Trouble seems to be brewing, but I've never got why Don needed her at the office.  Because Wife #2 was supposed to be different?  Well, she is, but not always how you want.

Lane sneaks into the office and cuts himself a check to cover his debts.  You can never be sure with this show, but it looks like we can start to see where this season is going, finally, and Lane may not be with the firm much longer.

Harry comes into the office next morning and asks Peggy to read the script.  He wants to know if it's as bad as he thinks it is.  It's a heavy handed parable about racism and here's the twist--the oppressed people are white!  (Actually, this sounds like the kind of stuff Roddenberry would love.)  We do discover at this point that Kinsey has been falling lower and lower in the ad world until he was pretty much out of it.

Pete tested a Jaguar and wants Don to go--with Megan if possible. Don doubts that'll happen.  Joan is told to meet someone n the lobby and is served with divorce papers. She loses it--rare for her.  Don sees her distress and decides to take her out to test Jaguars. (Is this a job or what?)

I like Don and Joan scenes. Joan is like the female version of Don--amazingly sexy and super-competent at her job.  It's fun when they acknowledge each other, but it's hard to have regular scenes with them because they fit together too well.

At the dealership they pretend to be married.  They want to drive one model together but the salesman can't let it leave without him.  So Don casually writes him a $6000 check and says if they don't return it consider it bought.  (The play Don saw was about comment on materialism, but so is this episode, with Jaguar dangled in front of everyone, Roger offering money for his kid, Paul wanting to sell a teleplay despite his religion and Lane trying to buy his way out of trouble with a fake Christmas bonus.)

Don and Joan go to a bar--plenty busy in the middle of the day, because this is Manhattan in the 60s--and discuss how their marriages fell apart and where they're at now.  Then he leaves her behind so he can drive home drunk while she can pick up someone.

Lakshmi comes to Harry's office, and unlike Pete's daydream, it's real.  She burns for Harry. Hard to believe, but with Don missing in action, it's good to see someone getting something. Harry betrays Paul and his wife (he's had trouble there before) and has her on his desk.  Turns out to be a trick.  She's had a tough life and played the only card she felt she had, though it's hard to understand how this will help, since she can't blackmail him over it.  Anyway, her plan is he tell Paul how bad the script is and keep him with the Krishna people where he belongs, and where he's a pretty good recruiter. (Guess even a bad adman is better at that than most people.)

Done comes home late and drunk, and Megan isn't pleased.  Where has he been?  He tells her, but she's still not happy.  Why didn't he call her?  Megan is clearly not Betty.  She won't play the long-suffering wife who waits with a cold dinner.  (Not that Betty didn't try to get her way, she just had different expectations.)

Meanwhile, Lane lies to his wife and says his needed in the office to land the Jaguar account, so they can't travel over the holiday.

In the biggest moral moment of the show comes up when Harry meets Paul again at a diner.  He says he showed the script to a reader who loved it but for legal reasons they can't ever ever meet and Paul can't talk about the script with anyone.  But he does give Paul a check for $500 to go to Los Angeles and try to make it.  You can never guess with Harry, but he does feel for his friend, and wants him to escape from the cult. Paul is moved. No one likes him, and here's finally someone who's doing something for him.

Before the big meeting at the office, Pete discovers Mohawk is on strike and suspending their ad budget.  This screws things up for the firm, but especially for Lane, who needs to cover with Christmas bonuses.  But the partners decide not to take anything. (Lane tries to explain this at the meeting, but it takes Rogers clarifying statements--don't worry, you employees are all getting bonuses.)

Then, to everyone's surprise, Don wants to speak. It's rare enough that he even shows up to meetings.  This whole season he's been in the doldrums, but has he finally snapped out of it.  Megan has noted how he loved his job, even before she was there.  He seems to be on fire again, and gives an inspirational speech to the gang, saying how they're going to work through Christmas to get Jaguar, and how they'll be big soon.  Will this be their first car or another American Airlines?  And more important, is the old Don back? He seems to be.

There are three episode left.  The firm isn't teetering on the brink, exactly, but where is it going, with a reenergized Don (whom a lot of people don't want to work with) and an account to win?  Also, as we see flashes of the old Don, does that come with the old philandering? We've also got Lane's money problems, which it doesn't seem he can keep hidden. For all we know, the firm will be flying high at the end of the season, or falling apart.  Same with Don's marriage.

PS  What to do in a few weeks when these shows are over?  Help is on the way.  AMC has officially announced the final season of Breaking Bad will start its run on July 15th.