This episode starts off whimsically, with more one-liners
than you can possibly remember (no matter how many times you’ve heard them).
But it takes a decidedly darker turn midway through when Don meets Bobbie
Barrett, wife and manager of comedian Jimmy Barrett. Everyone is going to react
differently to a show, I understand that, but I respond negatively to the entire
Bobbie Barrett storyline that runs throughout Season 2. Couple that with way
too much time spent on Harry Crane along with a dull plot thread about Betty
taking horseback lessons, and this entry ranks toward the bottom of the series
for me.
Worst Scene: The
final minutes of this episode feature the scene I hate the most in the entire
series. It occurs during the “apology dinner,” where Jimmy is supposed to make
amends with the UTZ executive’s wife. Jimmy isn’t behaving, and when Bobbie
leaves the table, Don follows her shortly thereafter. In a back room of the
restaurant, Don gets extremely … aggressive with Bobbie, physically, and tells
her Jimmy must apologize now or the deal’s off. The action Don takes here stands
out in all the wrong ways. Weiner learned at the feet of David Chase, and this
scene to me feels like when Chase would “rub our noses” in the fact that we
liked and rooted for a degenerate criminal like Tony Soprano by having him do
something egregiously horrible. It feels like Weiner is doing the same thing
here, and as a result I’ve always hated this scene. Don is an anti-hero, sure,
but this is out of character even for him—introducing a violent component that
is occasionally revisited in later episodes—and serves only to disturb the
audience with a cheap, easy, baiting tactic. I understand the sex-and-business
power play happening between these two characters, but in this instance the
series lowered itself to trolling for reaction.
Best Line: Bobbie
Barrett: “I like being bad and then going home and being good.”
Grade: D+
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment