Mad Men Returns, Better Call Saul Ends, and I Finally Finished Bloodine *Spoilers*

Mad Men is back and better than ever, well, not really. Personally, and I've read/listened to a lot of different reviews regarding the newest episode "Severance" and a vast majority of them said it felt like it was a premiere. I, however, did not and I think the play that AMC is making in an attempt to get as much money out of this brand as possible, is a bit much.

The episode finds our favorite characters, in many bits of change. Don is rich, Pete is rich, Joan is rich, and Roger is rich and everyone else is just trucking along. Don is divorced, perhaps?, he states it but it may just be a phrase rather than an actuality. It's also the 1970s so nearly every guy that can grow a mustache, does grow one, except for Don because well that would be weird. Don also appears to be right where the audience found him within the first season, lost and seeking others to possibly complete him, although, as everyone knows this doesn't really happen. And that's about it.

The reason why I didn't really find this episode "premiere-esque" was because I didn't think it needed to be. I wanted to be able to recall what happened on the last episode but I wasn't able to do it because, it was months ago. And yes I could have caught up on Netflix, but I had other things to watch and assumed, naively, that I wouldn't be lost. And I wasn't completely lost but this episode just didn't feel like the beginning to something. It felt more like the middle and it kind of is. It's the beginning of the end of this show.

On a similar note, Better Call Saul had its finale and it too didn't feel like a finale, but, it felt more like a finale then "Severance" felt like a premiere.

The episode titled "Marco" was styliscally different than many other Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul episodes and this was shown quite prominently during the con scene. These series of shots, the fade in and out, the different tones, the music all reminded me of one thing, Dick Tracy, and I liked it. Cons are fun and this was shot, to be fun, I imagine. But the fun ends with the death of Marco and Saul must move on. But because of this, because of the fun he had, the fun Marco had, and the fact that Marco died for this, Saul breaks bad. He decides, and proclaims this hilariously to Mike, that he will always take the money on the table. I think the choice to practice law in this way is three-fold.

First, he likes it. You can see it. He's not only good at conning people but he probably enjoys the thrill of it. Secondly, Marco died for this. Jimmy has the ring that Marco's mother gave to him and he will look at it every day, as it sits awkwardly on his pinky, and think about that. Finally, he's also quite good at it, as shown by the cons that he and Marco pulled off in that series of shots. And at the end of it all, Jimmy decides to do something else. Where it's the end for Don, it's the beginning for Jimmy and I want to see where he takes us.

Finally, my girlfriend and I finished Bloodline. Amazing performances by Ben Mendelsohn and Kyle Chandler and the switch that they make in "Chapter 12" was good. Personally, I thought they were going to go ahead with the pier dedication, John was going to shoot Danny, and then drag him onto the boat, hence the outfits and Kevin handing John the gun, but Kessler, Kessler, and Zelman aka KZK, they call themselves that, gave us a nice twist that shot some life within this show.

And that's exactly what this show needs. Attention KZK, if you're going to make a 13 episode hour long drama please, I beg of you, especially when all the episodes are available instantaneously, do not make it plodding. Do not make it dull. Do not make it a chore to watch, which many of the episodes were. Several of the plots were as follows, Danny's bad, oh wait, John's bad, their father is bad, nope wait Danny is really bad, the mom has no idea what's going on, on wait Danny is really bad, but he had a bad childhood so it's okay, oh wait, no it's not, he's really bad.

The episodes that were really moving were the ones in which John was an actual detective because there was a story there other than this family which could only really provide 6 episodes of material on their own and KZK really tried to do that.

And the twist at the end, wasn't really a twist at all. Let me be clear, I didn't see it coming, BUT, I didn't care either. He saw the whole thing with John and Kevin planting the evidence and the next series is going to focus around the fact that the Rayburn family needs to keep this kids mouth shut, which is gripping, it's annoying. He looks like a 15 year old kid who could tell the police what he saw, but would they believe him? Not necessarily if the Rayburn family circle the wagons. The most, and this is the saddest thing about this show, interesting thing that will happen next season is when Momma Rayburn confront her children, but I imagine this will only happen on episode 10. So what other material will fill this void? I have no idea, maybe John being a cop, but honestly I'm not tuning into the next season because I can spend more time on other things.

Next week, I will write about Daredevil premiering and Game of Thrones coming back!