BLOGGING MAD MEN, Season 7 Episode 2: The War Of The Roses

Everybody on this show is at their funniest and best when they're on a crazy warpath. Remember Pete tumbling down the stairs in fury last season? Remember how great that was? Now imagine if a character was falling down those stairs repeatedly, in slow motion, for an entire episode. That is what is happening to Peggy, and it's amazing.

The parade of indignities begins on the elevator, where Ginsberg tricks Peggy into revealing that she has no plans for this evening, which is Valentine's Day. She takes roses off of her secretary's desk, mistakenly believing they are intended for her, then double-mistakenly decides they've been sent by Ted. AND THEN she triple-mistakenly decides to rebuff Ted's (imagined) advances with a (rather thickly) veiled missive about an angry client, which ripples confusedly throughout the office. It's an A-bomb of embarrassment, and Peggy's poor secretary Shirley, who loses her flowers, is just the first casualty of war. Everything else just dies slower.

Don is still putting the "under" in "underemployed," sleeping in until noon and then eating Ritz Crackers in a bathrobe, which is the precise image in which he most resembles my own father, and probably yours as well. It's total #Dadcore, and it's the first of many Don moments in this episode that hits unexpectedly, and hard. He's drawing lines on his liquor bottles and there are roaches in his apartment. ("That's a little much."-Franz Kafka)

Sally Draper and her friends are cool. Is Sally Draper the hero of this show? She might be. Remember when we thought it was Ginsberg? Sally Draper misses a train back to Hailsham after a classmate's mother's funeral and goes to SCetc to find her father. But of course, her father isn't in his office. It's Evil Mr. Rogers, and turning the corner and running into that motherfucker is scarier than the last shot of Enemy.

Elsewhere, the adventures of California Pete continue. It's funny, but Pete's growth on this show actually tracks--you just have to subtract 18-20 years from his real age to get whatever his emotional age is now. Here, he's finally in college. Pete Campbell is in a state school of the mind, and Ted is his nervous roommate, mopey yet again because Pete forgot to leave a sock on the door.

Roger is delighted that an old woman called him a kike and disappointed that Evil Mr. Rogers isn't as amused. You can read that as just another hint of the divided leadership of SCetc., but I prefer to imagine that it's literally where all the trouble stems from. Roger just wants to laugh about racist old ladies, and Mr. Rogers just wants to frown! The conflict continues from there to a deal Pete is finalizing with a CA dealership association: Tim Gunn wants Bob Benson involved, Roger doesn't, Pete wants all the glory, Ted wants mom and dad to stop fighting, and Zac really wants any excuse for Bob Benson to show up again. The fight is partially exacerbated by shoddy conference call technology in a scene which which is, along with other scenes in this episode, an editing marvel.

Don is taking lunch meetings and pretending he still has a job. Pro-tip, Don: people who still have jobs don't say, "I still have a job!" like every other sentence. That's a serious tactical error! He comes home to find Sally in his living room and the clumsy ass-covering game begins. Don's gotten so bad at this over the years, huh? He finally fesses up, in a ferociously truth-telling car ride which once again strikes some kind of neurological funny bone for me that I won't be exploring until I can afford a therapist. To do otherwise would just be a waste of money, right?

At SC&c, Dawn is dismayed by Evil Mr. Rogers's handling of the Sally situation, and Evil Mr. Rogers turns out to be dismayed that she is black. It's another scrap of kindling on the slowly burning racial bonfire of the vanities that has been threatening to swallow SC&c whole for years, but this one results in a game of career-advancing (racist) musical chairs: Dawn eventually ends up taking over for Joan, and Joan solidifies her position as a partner and Accountswoman. It's a complicated victory, though still a point we can post on the scoreboard for our team. But as MC Skat Kat so artfully once observed--it's always two steps forward and one step back with this shit. Roger calls California Pete to let him know he rolled over on the dealership issue; Gunn won. Pete, perhaps speaking in the voice of the same teasing meta-poltergeist that led to Romneygate 2012, says that sometimes he feels like he is living in some kind of sun-bleached purgatory. LIKE MEGAN!? OMGGGGGGG. "Just cash the checks," Ted tells him. "You're gonna die one day." (Like the Sopranos before it, Mad Men is hands-down the funniest show on TV.)

As Don drops Sally off at school, she steps out of his car and says, simply, "Happy Valentine's Day. I love you." It hits Don like a truck, and the great Zombie's song "This Will Be Our Year" starts playing as he sits there and absorbs the moment. It's beautiful. I love this god damn show. -ZL

BLOGGING MAD MEN, Season 7 Episode 1: On A Balcony

MAD MEN! The drama of our time, which is yet not of our time! The deepest and most reflective show since The Sopranos, going out with no clear successor trailing behind it! The most ridiculously-speculated-about show since, well, ever! SPOILER ALERT: NOBODY IS SECRETLY DEAD!

I have always loved this show, and thought it would be fun to recap the first seven episodes of season seven as we rapidly approach the premiere of the second set of seven episodes, just seven days away! Seven save us! (If you're here looking for Game Of Thrones stuff, I'll get back to that soon.)

So what's happening, as we begin this round? What's everybody been up to since Don bared his tarnished heart and whisky-soaked soul in a meeting with Hershey's and was immediately thrown out on his ass for doing so? Which characters will inexplicably have dropped off the face of the earth? (As long as Bob Benson is still alive and well, I don't really care!)

Freddy Rumsen is back, and boy is he suddenly talented! It's almost literally impossible to imagine that this regressive recovering alcoholic could pitch a spectacular commercial for a watch company, and yet here he is in Peggy's office, killing it! Peggy is somewhere so firmly between impressed and incredulous (incredupressed) that Freddy is just like, "Thanks, you asshole." Peggy is still an asshole, by the way, but she remains our asshole. There's a good way to say that, and then there's the way I just said it.

Meanwhile, Roger's life has clearly become even more awesome than it was before, with naked folks lying around in the darkness like the right-hand third of The Garden Of Earthly Delights. Roger rules. That is all. Ginsburg is still raging against the system and Stan is still just crashing on the system's couch for a spell, but they're doing it with different facial hair now. And who is in Don's office these days, but EVIL MR. ROGERS!?

What about Kenny Cosgrove, AKA Ben Hargrove (sci-fi stories), AKA Jen Margrove (romance novels), AKA Len Mossgrowth (nature and travel guides)? Well, see, men react to power vacuums differently; some of them rise to the occasion and seize what's ripe for the plucking, and others shirk from the spotlight, their lack of ambition fully realized. And some men go a third way: totally gosh-dang fucknuts. Crazy Ken, screaming with his eyepatch practically popping off of his head, is great fun to watch. He's all pissy about the prospect of having to meet with a perceived underling from Butler Shoes, and so he dumps it on Joan's desk. Now, Joan has always been the kind of person who reacts to a power vacuum by stumbling into it half-informed and half-lucky, and we'll see how the formula works out for her this time.

Peggy blows Freddy's pitch in a meeting, mangling "It's not a time piece, it's a conversation piece" into "It's time for a conversation."

"You will feel relieved when you plop it into your drink!" Peggy Olson for Alka-Seltzer

"Think in a different, better way." Peggy Olson for Apple

"They'll think maybe you were born with that Mabeliene look!" Peggy Olson for Mabeliene

But I'm not sure that Evil Mr. Rogers would have cared either way. This guy kind of sucks! Where's Don? And then he finally appears: Don Draper, shit-canned Man's Man, stepping out into the California sun in a deeply weird, speed-ramped sequence that feels like a real editing misfire. Megan's picking him up at the airport, and Don has to sit in the passenger seat because Megan "can't move the seat."

"I can't move the seat, there's a big clunky visual metaphor stuck in the way."-Megan 'driver's seat' Draper.

Back at SC&etc., Ted Chaough, a sad cartoon puppy brought to life by a wizard, turns up after presumably a long cooling-off period in California. Peggy has no time for his bullshit, a point that she will make abundantly, excessively clear in the coming weeks. (Don't worry, she doesn't stab anybody else. YET.)

Don meets Megan's agent--Tobias Funke's brother Frankie--and Frankie Funke has good news: a callback audition! Since Megan's plotlines are just increasingly broad parodies of showbiz arcs, I suppose we should start taking bets on whether or not we'll get to "Megan The Porn Star" by the close of business on this show. Only classy adult films, of course. What attracts her to it will be the scripts. 

Joan meets the shoe man, who despite all evidence to the contrary is not played by a grown-up AJ Soprano, and he informs her that he's using his new position as a shoe company's head of advertising to drop SCetc. as a client and take over. Remember what I said about power vacuums? Joan is like, "Well, fuck!" Ersatz AJ leaves, and Joan is like, "Fuck fuck fuck!"

Megan shows Don her apartment, a creepy little coke den in the Hollywood Hills. They're pretending to be married and Don is pretending to still have a job. Remember how weird it was when you realized Megan knew all about Dick Whitman? How strange and refreshing honesty felt? Now honesty is back to feeling like an alien concept. Honesty is Pete Campbell in a Polo shirt.

That's right folks! Our old pal Pete Campbell is taking to La-La-Land like a fly on a monolith in outer space, which is to say it's bizarre and ill-fitting, but he likes it. Or likes hating it. Who knows with that guy? California Pete is great fun, and so is Real Estate Barbie!

Don buys Megan a TV, and she gets mad because all of her actor friends are the starving artist type and she'd like to pretend to be one, too. Don thinks this is stupid, and wants Megan to have a big TV so she can be bombarded with endless ominous omens In Living Color like he is all day long. "Hey, what's this, a TV show about The Fountain Of Youth? Oh, who's that, President Nixon? Cool! This all bodes well!" Don and Megan go to bed and begin the most bloodless coital initiation since Rosemary's Baby (the first time, on the floor. Not the time where she fucks the devil.) Remember when it was hot between these two? Of course, Megan continues her reign as the undisputed sideboob queen of Mad Men.

Elsewhere, Peggy is an apartment super now, or something. Abrupt super plotlines were very hot in 2014. Shoutout to Sarah Braverman!

Roger emerges from his sex palace to visit his daughter, Minnie Mouse, who tells him about her next beach party which is of course scheduled at Chappaquiddick Island on July 19th, and her dinner plans with Sharon Tate on August 10th. Not really--she's like, a Unitarian now or something. Whatever.

Don sits down on a plane next to a good-looking woman, and notes out loud how you want to sit next to a woman like that, but instead it's "a man in a hairpiece eating a banana." Don has a gift for painting a picture, huh? The woman, who just took a sleeping pill and should maybe be alarmed, instead comments that he should blame Madison Avenue for his expectations. Which could either be unsettling for Don or an exciting recognition over his God-like cultural sway. 

"Now I am become Sex, destroyer of dreams." -J. Donald Drapenheimer

Peggy tries to re-do her botched watch pitch (say that five times fast!) but Evil Mr. Rogers ain't hearing it. His approach to creativity is a little more workman-like and steady than Don's, and the whole staff is learning to walk on that treadmill after years of Moon Shoes. Meanwhile, Joan calls up the Shoe Bomber again and manages to suck his balls straight through the phone line in ten seconds flat. The only frustrating thing is that nobody else is in the room! When Joan cuts down patriarchy trees in the woods and nobody is there to see it, does it make a sound?

On the plane, Don and his seatmate/angel of death discuss her husband, who died of alcoholism. Don has trouble hearing her over all the bells tolling for him. She keeps piling on the bad vibes to make sure we have plenty for the season--remember when Don was reading Dante's Inferno on the beach? This woman doesn't have a tattoo that says Purgatario on her ass, but she might as well. In fact, she might! But we'll never know, since Don turns down her offer for dark, morbid sex and goes home alone to watch Nixon being inaugurated. Like I said: BAD FUCKING VIBES.

He's joined by Freddy Rumsen, who, surprise surprise, isn't getting his ideas on his own after all. But what he's giving Don in exchange is rather surprising: lessons in sobriety. What a twist! (Yes, this is what passes for a twist on Mad Men, WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOUR FIRST INDICATION THAT NO ONE WAS SECRETLY DEAD YOU IDIOTS.) But don't let that hopeful thought steer you away from the gloom and doom--our parting image is Don trying to close the door to his balcony, finding himself unable to close that door, and crossing the threshold to the balcony to sit down and drink as a cold wind blows. Fun! See you tomorrow! -ZL

BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S4E10: True North

Well, my swords-and-sandals-loving friends, my brothers and sisters of the Sunday Night's Watch--we have come again to that fork in the road, that boat leaving the harbor, that Gendry in the waters. All men must die, and all seasons of Game Of Thrones must end. (In Braavosi, that phrase is pronounced "Julianna Margulies"). So how did it all go down? Was that the best episode of Game Of Thrones of all time? Did you yelp with glee like I did when Brienne crested the hill and came face to face with Arya?

I was surprised that last week’s episode was not the end of Jon Snow’s story for this season. I mean, he crossed a threshold into pure white! That usually doesn’t mean, “See you next week immediately following this moment” but that’s what we got. But in the end, I was pleased. Our boy J has a tense but complicated meeting with Mance Rayder (whose name looks to me like a Decepticon every time I write it out), who reminds us (after last week’s rather black-and-white tale of Night’s Watch heroism) that he isn’t really a villain. He’s trying to protect his people from the true enemy: the ice zombies, the ice babies, and the pirates of the Caribbean cursed by the black pearl. Of course, Jon Snow is there on a heartbroken suicide mission, not for reasonable diplomacy. And just when shit’s about to go down, the weirdest fucking thing in the world happens: Stannis shows up! I mean, technically we knew Stannis was coming, he’s been saying so since the end of last season. But it’s still really weird to see him there. Really, really weird.

The state of Dany’s union is as weak as it has ever been, and an old former slave shows up to tell her that “for those too old to change, there is only fear,” which feels a little like the showrunners giving Barack Obama a hug over the airwaves. She ends up permitting what amounts basically to sharecropping jobs in Mereen, a compromise that Ser Barista observes will probably be the start of a very long backslide ("No doy"-Dany). And as if Our Lady D wasn’t like a modern, compromised politician enough already, she then has to fire her closest advisors--her dragons--after one of them makes an (understandable) gaffe by cooking and eating a small child. Look, that’s governance! It happens! But the media won’t let you get away with it these days. So she locks them in a dungeon, tears streaming down her face. I don’t like leaving Dany in such a bad place. At least let her fuck Daario one more time before we break for the year, right? I only want to see Dany’s face smeared with either the blood or ash or jizz of triumph, and nothing else.

Back above the wall, Bran and his crew journey from a headshop sweatshirt to Carcosa itself after a prolonged battle with some gnarly skeletons which results in the death of Jojen Reed. Jojen seemed to always know he wasn’t going to survive this journey, which makes you wonder what else he knew, and what will happen to Bran under the tutelage of the Giving Tree. But we don’t get much on that front. Just some creepy ass kids throwing weird exploding snowballs like some kind of Donkey Kong shit. It’s cool, though. Shoutout to Ray Harryhausen.

Arya sails away with the episode, of course. See, Brienne and Podrick are on their way to the Vale when they run into our girl A, doing tai-chi on top of a hill. It’s wildly fun to see these characters, who we’ve known for years, finally start to meet each other. Can you believe it took this long? When you think about who could meet who next, don’t the possibilities thrill you? Isn’t it weird how exciting something as simple as that could be? (What kind of withholding mind-game are these fuckers playing on us?) After recognizing something kindred in Arya, Brienne states her mission and asks Arya to come with her. But The Hound is distrustful of her Lannister weaponry, and Arya is dubious as to what being rescued would even mean at this point. So Brienne and The Hound get down to a-fightin’,and it’s a wild, crotch-kicking affair. In the end, Brienne knocks the Hound off a cliff, but is evaded by Arya. Later, Arya finds the Hound dying, and rather cruelly denies him the mercy of a quick death. Is this the end of the storied Clegane family? Or will Maester Demento succeed in turning The Mountain into some kind of Frankenstein? Tune in next year to find out (or not)!

And then, oh my god, and then: it finally happens. Arya finds a ship bound for Braavos, presents her coin to the captain, and says the magic words. The look on his face when she says it—man! That’s another moment we’ve been waiting for so long that I almost forgot we were waiting. Arya rides off, away from the continental clusterfuck she’s been trapped on for years, and it’s a beautiful note to end on.

I’ve been summarizing all the other stuff a lot because you probably have already read thirty articles about what happens in King’s Landing. Jaime, fresh from some redemptive consensual incest, abruptly frees Tyrion, who sneaks through the castle to his father’s bedroom, where he finds—seven shit us—Lisbeth Salander! In rage and self-defense, he strangles her to death. And then he sees a crossbow on the wall, and the wheels start turning on my Chekov joke generating machine. But before it even has time to finish calibrating, he’s confronting Tywin in the bathroom, both of them hurling the word “son” back and forth like an exploding Donkey Kong snowball. But since Tyrion is the only one with an actual weapon, he shoots Tywin dead. There's a lot of hand-wringing online about "what this makes Tyrion now" and whether or not we can still root for him and Arya now that they've broken so bad. That is a ridiculous question. If you want straightforward heroism, go watch episode nine again and pretend that's all Game Of Thrones ever had to say. As for me, I'm going to keep hanging out with the kinslayers and sisterfuckers, the ice kings and fire queens, and the children of the sun and the moon and the forest. This has been Game Of Thrones, and I have been Zac Little, and for now my watch has ended. See you next year. For the night is dark, and full of terrors, or like, Halt And Catch Fire, I guess.

BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S4E09: Chaos Is A Ladder, Love Is A Battlefield

What a fantastic episode. From the sweeping, heroic long takes, the dozens of well-earned character moments, and the lasting images rich with metaphorical resonance. And no, I'm not just talking about Jon giving Sam the Birds And Bees talk while walking through the vaginal tunnels of Castle Black. But that was certainly something. So: as many predicted, we are at Castle Black from start to finish. (In honor of the show's meta-gesture, and also because there wasn't much to joke about, today's post is presented as a single, impenetrable block of text.) It’s an echo of the Blackwater Bay episode from season 2, except with like, five million extra dollars this time around. The Wildlings attack from above and below, and the men of the Night’s Watch hold them back at great cost. That’s all that happens! End of episode summary! But let’s talk about some characters. Obviously the most satisfying arc was the arc of that giant’s arrow as it send a random Night’s Watchman into the air (!!!), but there were other satisfying arcs, too. Jon Snow is officially our show’s most obvious and clear hero, now. There was no moral ambiguity or melancholy about him putting that hammer through Styr's head; it was uncut badassery. And now he even has a tragic anchor to his hero’s journey, with Ygritte getting Kenarded right in front of him. But if it wasn’t clear enough, his crossing a threshold into literal pure white at the end should clue you in. Hero status! Meanwhile, Sam is tougher than ever (nerds might say “Stout of heart.” I might steal their lunch money if they did). He is resolute when Gilly tries to Bella Swan him into sitting out the battle, and never wavers in the face of all those gorgeously rendered fire arrows etc. His delightful trash-talk (“Oh, is the battle over? No? I guess you should keep shooting then!”) was undercut a little by the fact that he gets Pip killed, but a guy named Pip is going to get killed every time out no matter what. (I was the most bummed out about Grenn, who nonetheless goes out in probably the most baller way ever on the show. That scene! The reciting of the vows! It was so simple that it shouldn’t have even worked, but it SO DID.) And I love the moment where, triumphant and battle-flushed, Sam finds Slynt hiding in the castle. It would have been funnier if Sam had literally handed him a torch, right? “There can only be one lowlander, and now it is you, my child.” Speaking of Slynt—he and Thorne finally distinguish themselves from each other. They might both be assholes, but one is a distinctly more respectable asshole than the other. Thorne is Bill O’Reilly, and Slynt is Glenn Beck. (Slynt’s Fox Newsiest moment is when he denies the existence of giants while looking directly at them.) After admitting to Jon Snow that he should have listened to him, Thorne makes (arguably too many) motivational speeches to his troops before finally valiantly (probably) dying in a battle against Big Red. When those two faced off, and I knew Thorne was going to bite it, I was honestly a little sad. Respect. There is no death too bloody for that Slynt motherfucker, though. How about that grand long take around the battle? I’m only going to dock it two points because Jon Snow and Big Red both appear to be too obviously waiting for their cues to start moving as the camera pans over to them (Jon Snow almost looks right at the camera, while Big Red is just shuffling in place like a Mortal Kombat character waiting to be selected). But it’s obvious realness still qualifies it to rank OVER the similar, digitally-stitched shot in The Avengers. (So on the overall power rankings, it is second only to True Detective’s still utterly-brain-rattling six minute shot from earlier this year. And before you ask: Gravity disqualified Alfonso Cuaron from the contest forever.) I’m also really happy to see random battle deaths more creative than the usual “back tap” you see in most of Game Of Thrones. (Pour one out for the Wildling who gets stomped by the mammoth. That’s gotta hurt!) And just generally, it was kind of amazing and beautiful to see something so refreshingly straightforward on this show, which so often muddles and twists its own lessons into meaninglessness. This was an episode about duty, and battle, and how people react in the face of adversity, and about the transcendent, all-consuming and all-important power of love. I would imagine that we’re done with the story of the men of the Night’s Watch for this season, if only because I don’t think there’s enough money left in the coffee can to bring in Ciaran Hinds this season. But I can’t wait to see more.

BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S4E08: I've Got A Name

There are two songs in Westeros, and they are always competing for the number one slot on the Billboard Two. Sometimes, in darker seasons, "The Rains Of Castamere" holds the top slot. But most of the time, it's "The Bear And The Maiden Fair." Bestiality is just more palatable to most Westerosi than having to contemplate Tywin Lannister's increasingly mottled skin for six and half minutes.

So OK, was that the most delightful episode of Game Of Thrones of all time? Other than the absolutely gut-wrenching, sickening, gory conclusion, I mean? Let's table the skull-crushing for just a moment or two and talk about the good stuff. There was so much to celebrate:

• Grey Worm and Missandei! GREY WORM AND MISSANDEI FOREVER!
• Evil Sansa! EVIL SANSA FOREVER!
• Jaime's coinage of the phrase "Who gives a dusty fuck?"
• Dany failing to understand why anyone would be ashamed of public nudity, as well as the way she wonders aloud whether Grey Worm still at least has his grey worm, if not his grey...balls. Sorry, there's just not a metaphorical other half, there.
• Tyrion's long, Spaulding Gray-like monologue about his mentally disabled cousin. So out of character for this show, and yet so welcome!
• Arya's howl of laughter when she reaches yet another family member just after their death--See, that was the kind of black-comic atmosphere that should have accompanied Lysa's fall last week. Arya just gets it, okay?

At the top of the episode, Ygritte and her gang, never the most inconspicuous of sleeper cells anyway, announce their presence to the Night's Watch by invading a nearby town and severely reducing the world's population of sarcastic prostitutes. Shoutout to that shot of blood raining down through the floorboards. Quentin Tarantino saw that and he was like "Fuck!"

Ramsay Bolton (née Snow) uses Theon as bait to lure a bunch of Ironmen to slaughter and win his daddy another Northern castle. Theon's Stockholm syndrome is pretty bad, but I'm also a little worried about my own, y'all. Iwan Rheon is a very compelling actor, and when his father Michael officially welcomes him to the Bolton family, I was really happy for him! Meanwhile, in Nightvale, Littlefinger and Sansa are amping up the weird, manipulative sexual tension. Who is the dom and who is the sub anymore? Can either of them even tell? Is that what makes it hot for them? What happens is, Sansa saves Littlefinger by unveiling a spectacular gift for doubletalk, telling the elders of The Vale a lot of truth about herself while claiming that Lysa committed suicide. They buy it, and pretty soon she and Petyr and prepping to drag Lil' Tigermilk out into the world, where they can hopefully shove him into a pond or something and be done with it.

Mereenwhile, Missandei and Grey Worm are making a play for Best Couple In Westeros, but coming in close behind them is the spectacular union of Dany and Pure Icy Hatred. Remember how, long ago, Jorah was selling trade secrets to Varys? Remember also how that fact pops up every five or six episodes like the plot equivalent of a snooze button? Well they finally, and for no particular reason, pull the trigger. Dany finds out and banishes Jorah, and even though it's a bummer, it's also kind of rad. Angry Dany is worth celebrating in any and all contexts. Isn't it cool how contained and laser-focused Dany's rage and contempt has become over the years? She's doing some fucking prescription-strength hissing these days. Respect.

Finally, the trial by combat for the head of Tyrion Lannister begins, and ends, and ends very badly. Ricky Martell overplays his hand, and after Inigo Montoya-ing the Mountain almost to death (to the visible delight of Jaime, who needs a better poker face. "Poker? I'm not even related to her!"-Jaime) instead gets his skull gorily crushed. A major character hasn't died that explosively since like, Viserys. And that guy deserved it way more! Pour one out for Ricky Martell tonight, gang. Not so much living la vida loca so much as la vida Lorca. What the hell am I even saying anymore? This has been a long season.