Don't Care If It's Wrong Or If It's Right

• Random Pop Culture:
• There has been one pretty bad episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm this season, but there have also been three all-time greats, including yesterday's epic tale of murder and conspiracy in the country club. The additional tip line, which is indeed a total travesty. "It may have been an accident, but you're a murderer." The Derek Jeter argument. "To: Larry David Subject: Swan Killing" "Mother of Larry, A**hole and Swan Killer" These and much more in yet another classic episode.
• What do you think of this week's The Amazing Race? I've read people claiming that the Detour was inherently unfair to the girls. I'm not sure; it looks like Tiffany came close to hitting the bell and they should have been successful at golf if it weren't for the weather or their own inability.
• I am often critical of How I Met Your Mother because of the laugh track and the very uneven writing. Tonight's episode was really funny. They didn't beat the bagpipe gag into the ground and they had just enough of everyone, with just enough more Marshall and Barney, to get the right mix working.
• I love this movie poster.
• Man, the Falcons and Saints are fun to watch.
• Phillies survive. Their only hope is that Pettitte is weak on three days' rest and Pedro can take care of business. Not impossible, but very difficult.
• Mad Men Thoughts:
• Last week, after Don finally came clean to Betty, I said that it was the first time I could remember seeing love in their marriage. Well, I guess I was wrong, huh? Turns out I was only seeing it from Don's perspective.
• Speaking of, I'm struggling with the idea that Don is now Dick whenever he's with Betty. I think we watch it assuming that he's only Draper now, but that's not the case when Betty looks at him.
• What happens to Betty if she leaves him? I can't imagine her still being a major character on the show if she's out of his life.
• Two best scenes of the episode: 1) when Don kisses Betty on the dance floor and tells her everything will be okay; 2) that fantastic shot when Betty walks out of the ladies' room and sees both Don and Henry while we wonder, briefly, which one she's going to approach.
• Betty referenced Singin' In The Rain as her favorite movie. I think you can take that as pretty good symbolism, considering she's doing everything she can to be happy in the midst of everything in her life and the world falling down around her.
• How skeevy was Duck? Turning off Cronkite reporting Kennedy's assassination to sleep with Peggy and then turning it back on afterwards so that she found out. Ick.
• Which of course brings us to the big event of the first fifty-five or so minutes of the episode, the assassination and how it affected everyone in various ways. The way it hit in the episode was great, with Harry watching As The World Turns in the background as he and Pete talk, and then you see the special report break in and you can faintly hear the word Dallas. A real nice job of playing foreground/background with both the video and audio. Then, the rest of the staff, knowing the TV was in Crane's office, rushed in to watch and the phones started ringing off the hook. This rang so true to me, since it echoes pretty closely how I found out about 9/11. I was at work on that Tuesday morning and, upon arriving, had heard from someone that a plane had crashed into one of the towers. Thinking it was an unfortunate accident, I went outside to talk with a co-worker as he took a smoke break. As we mulled it over, someone from the next office over ran out and told us that a second plane had hit. We rushed back inside to see people scrambling to find portable TVs, radios, and new websites. Not knowing what was going on, I still tried to get some work done because it was impossible to really grasp everything. Eventually, someone turned on a TV in the conference room and we all sat there in shock, watching. By the end of the day, I was engrossed in the BBC news and CNN and did nothing at home but watch news coverage the rest of the week, much like Pete and Trudy Campbell. Very true-to-life writing, in my experience.
• Random TV Scene:
• Off of the album Outlandos d'Amour, released thirty-one years ago today. Andy Summers on guitar, Stuart Copeland on drums, Gordon Sumner on bass and lead vocals.