This time last week we were watching the tides lap onto the coast at Surfside and Galveston, wondering what the night held in store for us. We fared much, much better than many. Some of my coworkers are still without power, some have serious damage to their homes to contend with. People in the area had cars and homes flattened by falling trees. Others have flooding. Some have both. And that’s just up here, well away from the coastal deluge that has people wondering what they have to return to, if they’re ever allowed to return.
I watched the last two episodes of this season of Burn Notice last night. I have to say that I liked the individual episodes of season two, but I wasn’t impressed with the somewhat teasing vector of the season. Last season ended with the promise of information about the burn, but season two didn’t deliver at all. Instead, we had two mysterious characters who puppeted Michael around while he simultaneously handled matters for everyone he knows. His relationship with Fee percolated but didn’t evolve, despite significant glances in the finale. It’s a show with a difficult premise to handle, ultimately. Sort of like the upcoming The Ex-list. Unless the protagonist had hundreds of lovers, it’s hard to see how the show can last for long without outliving its premise. How many years can they drag us around with Michael as he searches for the reason why he was burned? Still, it’s a great show on an episode-by-episode basis.
Mad Men is all over the map. This week’s episode had three parallel plots that involved the lack of power of women. Don’s wife is trying to figure out what to do about her suspicions that Don has been unfaithful (if she only knew the magnitude of his infidelity). Peggy got co-opted into working for the parish priest, trying to counter the rigidity of the old guard while attempting to appeal to the youth and fend off the priest’s nosiness. And, finally, Joan was given a chance to excel at a new task only to have it ripped out of her hands and passed on to some yokel.
