WORDS Cailan O’Connell
Last month saw the conclusion of two of AMC and HBO’s most controversial seasons of two of their most successful shows. Both networks have gained a reputation in recent years for handling gritty, often hard to stomach subject material – from Breaking Bad’s downhill-spiralling character study to Deadwood and The Wire’s crushing overviews of a community in decay – these are networks that are unafraid to show highly cinematic and often gruesome character studies placed amongst distinctly serialized and drawn out narratives. Over the last few months, Mad Men and Game of Thrones have brought all of this to bear like never before. Spoilers aplenty ahead so fans of the shows who are not yet up to speed should beware.
These are networks that are unafraid to show highly cinematic and often gruesome character studies placed amongst distinctly serialized and drawn out narratives.
Game of Thrones was first to wrap up. After a season of building expectations and escalating tensions a stark rise (no pun intended) was cut off just before coming to a head in episode nine’s Red Wedding sequence. With this episode, the show made a point of reminding those among us who had forgotten, the fact that it is unafraid to challenge our expectations. One would not be amiss in saying that George RR Martin (and by extension, seemingly the show runners as well) appear to have a penchant for scenes of gruesome mutilation and violent death. From Jamie Lannister’s separation from the former “hand of the king” to the upbeat sounds of The Hold Steady all the way to Theon being deprived of his “favorite toy” at the hands of Roose Bolton’s “bastard” son – the show has had some fairly gruesome moments to say the least. The Red Wedding took the biscuit however, without ever letting us forget why the show does what it does. Probably a full minute before the main event of the night took place, it would have been near impossible for any audience member to deny what was about to happen – such was the extent to which the show set it up. In respect of that, by the time half the guests are dead the final cut throat is almost a release – not simply to the tensions built up across the scene but to the misguided path of the Stark family from the word go. This is a show where death is a cruel fact of life and one that often takes more heroic characters than villainous ones.
After episode nine, many people felt that the show ended on a low note – while they’re not wrong about the absence of the Tyrell family or a failure to wrap up the Jamie/Brienne storyline – for the most part I would respectfully disagree. Obviously episode ten could never have packed the same high-octane punch of the Red Wedding. That said, the episode quite successfully built anticipation for the season to come. We saw a glimpse of Arya’s growing dark side manifest, Bran begin a frightening journey North of The Wall, The Ironborn were reintroduced for a journey south to rescue Theon, Tywin reminded us just how committed to the image of family he is and always has been and most importantly – we were left with an image of everyone’s favorite “mother of dragons” being hoisted towards Westeros on the arms of her adoring freedman disciples – somewhat risqué but powerful imagery nonetheless. This is a show that has been snowballing since the end of the first season and to my mind it’s currently at its best, but can only improve in the season to come.
This season of Mad Men has been the source of even more controversy due to a harsh change in tone. While the first half of the season certainly had it’s dismal points as Don spiraled through depression and substance abuse without any notion of a way out of the storm, the season really picked up with episode eight, becoming (retrospectively at least) to my mind one of the show’s stronger seasons to date. While he’s been fumbling about in the territory of depression and self loathing for quite some time, Don has finally had to look his past in the face and consolidate who he is. For the first time, he’s not a split identity as Dick Whitman and Don Draper charting two separate and opposing courses; but rather both characters, simultaneously and in unison. Some of the most powerful moments this season included his drug experience which brought to bare a lot of his childhood issues including his sexual abuse at the hands of a caretaker figure, Sally’s painful recognition of the flawed adults that both her parents are, and the Rosemary’s Baby thread which ran throughout – really pushing the theme of loss that connected with all of the major characters this season as well as the “devil inside” motif that stalks Don throughout.
For the first time, he’s not a split identity as Dick Whitman and Don Draper charting two separate and opposing courses; but both characters, simultaneously and in unison.
Don Draper is a character who’s so far ingrained in a lie that more often than not he finds it difficult to know who he actually is. This season brought him to a breaking point. It pushed him to the edge and forced him to be honest about who he is and what he wants. We have seen the return of a Don Draper we knew and loved with his Hershey pitch, and yet marred by a recognition of other people’s suffering and his own personal flaws. That said, Don seems on the path to rebirth and in advertising, as perhaps in life, for the first time in a while he is on the up. I for one am waiting in anticipation to see where the last season will take him, if one thing is certain it looks poised to be one of the best seasons of television we have seen yet.
In some sense, that in itself is the crux of this article. Over the last two years shows like Mad Men and Game of Thrones alongside Breaking Bad, Homeland and a host of others have been consistently challenging our perceptions of contemporary television content. With the conclusion of these two seasons – this shift has become more tangible than ever before. We are living in a golden age of television, where serialized TV based content has become a new breeding ground for radical evolution in media production. In short, what is to come in the next year is a very exciting prospect, which should be extremely exciting to watch as it unfolds and we look forward to covering it here at TN2.
