The Inheritance (S2x10)

Airdate: 5 October 2008

Written by: Lisa Albert, Marti Noxon and Matthew Weiner Directed by: Andrew Bernstein

Running Time: 48 minutes

Following the momentous, office-upending events of ?Six Month Leave*, the subsequent instalment, The Inheritance, feels deliberately subdued. In typical Mad Men fashion, the episode favours slow, methodical character exposition over grand plot developments, allowing the lingering aftershocks of the previous week to settle into the background. Yet, to dismiss it as mere narrative marking time would be to misunderstand its purpose. “The Inheritance” is an episode profoundly concerned with change, but of a peculiarly intimate and inexorable kind. The changes it charts are the grand, historical processes of ageing, decay, familial obligation, and societal shift that occur just beyond the immediate sightlines of its characters. It is a piece of television that holds a mirror to the slow erosion of certainties, both personal and national, and while it is often beautifully observed, it ultimately suffers from a frustrating lack of thematic focus, burying its most potent insights under a meandering pace and a scattering of undercooked subplots.

The most dramatic event within the episode’s confines is a family crisis that temporarily reunites Don and Betty Draper. When Betty receives word that her father, Gene, has suffered a stroke, Don volunteers to accompany her to her childhood home, the two agreeing to maintain the facade of a functioning marriage for the sake of appearances. This sets the stage for the episode’s most powerful and uncomfortable sequences. Upon arrival, Betty learns that Gene has been suffering minor strokes for some time, resulting in a creeping dementia. His condition is rendered with painful clarity when he mistakes Betty for his late wife, Ruth, and in a moment of profound awkwardness, attempts to grope her. This violation, born of confusion rather than malice, forces Betty into a wrenching confrontation with her father’s deterioration and her own role within the family history. Her conversation with the longtime family maid, Viola (a wonderfully grounded Aloma Wright), who advises her to focus on her husband and children, underscores the traditional scripts that Betty feels both compelled by and trapped within. The enforced proximity with Don—sharing a bedroom, with Don sleeping on the floor—leads to a moment of strained, desperate intimacy. Betty initiates sex, a complex act that seems equal parts comfort, habit, and a fleeting attempt to grasp the ghost of their former union. Yet, upon their return home, she firmly re-establishes the boundary, insisting they remain separate.

While her children are away, Betty’s quiet despair finds a strange echo in the form of Glen Bishop, the unsettling neighbourhood boy who harbours a crush on her. Discovering him hiding in the family’s playhouse after he has run away from home, Betty is presented with a figure of adolescent misery, unhappy with his father, his new stepmother, and feeling ignored by his own mother, Helen. The scene walks a fine line. Betty, in her own emotionally vulnerable state, might be momentarily impressed by this boy’s dramatic, self-deluded gesture. However, the episode wisely has her do the unequivocally correct thing: she calls Helen Bishop to collect him. This leads to a subtle moment of reconciliation between the two women, a small grace note of adult responsibility amidst the surrounding dysfunction. Yet, this subplot, while thematically linked to ideas of neglected children and failed paternal figures, feels somewhat contrived and tonally adrift, an example of the episode’s occasional lack of discipline.

Parallel familial strife afflicts Pete Campbell, whose narrative provides a counterpoint to the Drapers’. Trudy’s inability to conceive and her desire to adopt meets with Pete’s reluctance and his mother’s outright hostility. The formidable Mrs. Campbell threatens disinheritance should they pursue adoption, a bluff Pete and his brother, Bud (Ritch Hutchman), are forced to call when they confront her with the dire financial mess left by their late father. This storyline efficiently explores the Campbells’ toxic dynastic politics, where children are viewed as heirs to a legacy (or debt) rather than individuals. Pete’s attendance at Harry Crane’s baby shower—a scene the episode oddly underutilises—serves as a piece of symbolic irony, highlighting the familial fulfilment that eludes him due to pride and patriarchal pressure.

The professional sphere at Sterling Cooper offers little respite. Don, learning of a major aerospace convention in Pasadena, seizes on it as an opportunity to forge connections with industry figures and, more importantly, the congressmen who could direct lucrative government contracts. He dispatches Pete and Paul Kinsey on this mission. For Paul, the assignment represents a thrilling, all-expenses-paid jet trip to the futuristic promised land of California, and a perfect excuse to avoid accompanying his Black girlfriend, Sheila, on a voting registration drive in Mississippi. This dichotomy is where the episode finds its most coherent thematic thread. Paul embodies the dual, often hypocritical, faces of Kennedy’s “New Frontier”: the glamorous, technologically optimistic space-age future, and the gritty, dangerous struggle for civil rights unfolding in the present. In a last-minute decision, drained by the familial drama and craving escape, Don decides to go to California himself, displacing a bitterly disappointed Paul. This pivot forces Paul off the sidelines and onto the bus to Mississippi, a neat, if slightly schematic, narrative irony that ties his personal cowardice to a larger historical reckoning.

The episode, a writing debut for Marti Noxon (previously famed for her work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer), who co-wrote with Lisa and Matthew Gilbert, is undeniably well-crafted and superbly acted. January Jones and Jon Hamm go through the Draper sequences with a heartbreaking, repressed precision. However, it suffers from a lack of clear, driving focus. Its various elements—Betty’s paternal crisis, Pete’s inheritance drama, Paul’s moral quandary—feel like distinct short stories bundled together, connected more by the vague theme of “legacy” than by any compelling narrative interplay. The attempts at symbolic irony, such as Gene’s dementia-addled distrust of Don (“You don’t have people”), which inadvertently hits upon the truth of Don’s rootless, fraudulent identity, are potent but feel isolated, buried by the slow pace.

The episode is saved from being merely a collection of vignettes by its magnificent final beat. As Don flies to California, leaving his fractured life behind for the sun-drenched promise of the West, the soundtrack swells with The Tornados’ 1962 instrumental “Telstar.” The choice is inspired. With its futuristic, otherworldly electronic melody, the song perfectly captures the optimistic, forward-thrusting spirit of the age—a spirit Don is desperately trying to latch onto. It symbolises the brave new world of satellites and jets, a clean technological future that seems to offer an escape from the messy, decaying inheritances of the past. In this moment, The Inheritance crystallises its central tension: the relentless pull of the future against the dead weight of the past. It’s a brilliant, evocative conclusion that almost, but not quite, compensates for the meandering journey that precedes it.

Ultimately, The Inheritance is a respectable, often thoughtful entry in the Mad Men canon, but it stands as an example of the show’s occasional tendency to prioritise mood and character nuance over narrative momentum and tight thematic cohesion. It deals with profound material—ageing, dementia, infertility, financial ruin, racial awakening—but spreads its attention so thinly that none of these threads achieves the devastating impact of the series’ very best episodes.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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Hello, anime fans. Today we’re back with more hidden gems that aired late last year. One of the ones I’ve come to love the most is the anime I’m bringing you today, which features a unique blend of drama with supernatural elements and quite heavy themes like depression and death. Based on the manga series of the same name written and illustrated by Sai Naekawa, This Monster Wants to Eat Me is an animated adaptation produced by Studio Lings. Discover the anime about the girl who hopes a monster will devour her whole.

Hola, fanáticos del anime. Hoy regresamos con más joyas escondidas que se emitieron a finales del año pasado. Uno de los que más me llegaron a gustar es el anime que les traigo hoy, el cual posee una mezcla única de drama con elementos sobrenaturales y temas bastante densos como la depresión y la muerte. Basada en la serie de manga homónima escrita e ilustrada por Sai Naekawa, This Monster Wants to Eat Me es una adaptación animada producida por Studio Lings. Conoce el anime de la chica que espera que un monstruo la devore por completo.

Source: FilmAffinity.

Plot

The anime begins by introducing us to Hinako Yaotose, a teenager who has suffered from depression ever since she lost her parents and older brother in a car accident when she was just a little girl. Although she constantly wishes for death, she cannot bring herself to take her own life. While attending high school, Hinako feels constantly drawn to the vast ocean that surrounds her. One day, she encounters a beautiful girl with long, flowing hair and blue eyes who warns her not to get too close to the beach. Despite the warning, Hinako gets carried away and stands gazing at the ocean when something grabs her and drags her down into the depths of the water.

Trama

El anime inicia presentándonos a Hinako Yaotose, una adolescente que sufre de depresión desde que perdió a sus padres y su hermano mayor en un incidente de automóvil cuando apenas era una niña. A pesar de desear la muerte constantemente, no puede quitarse la vida ella misma. Mientras va a la secundaria, Hinako se siente atraída constantemente por el enorme océano que la rodea. Un día, se encuentra con una hermosa chica de cabello abundantemente largo y con ojos azules que la advierte de no acercarse mucho a la playa. A pesar de la advertencia, Hinako se deja llevar y se queda viendo el océano mientras algo la atrapa y se la lleva al fondo del agua.

Trailer & Review

A continuación, les dejaré el trailer del anime:

By: Crunchyroll

All the best.

By: Nattosheru.

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Six Month Leave (S2x09)

Airdate: 28 September 2008

Written by: Matthew Weiner, Andre Jacquemott and Maria Jacquemott Directed by: Michael Uppendahl

Running Time: 48 minutes

The world of Mad Men differs from our own in many details, but one of the most conspicuous is in the different standards and social mores towards drinking, especially drinking on the job. To say that people in the early 1960s were more tolerant towards mixing work and booze would be an understatement; in practice, many offices were manned by what would, in the best-case scenario, be termed functioning alcoholics. What happens when one such alcoholic stops being functional serves as the major storyline in Season 2’s ninth episode, Six Month Leave. It is another “wham” episode in the series, although not in the way the audience might have expected, delivering its blows not through external catastrophe but through the quiet, humiliating unravelling of a man and the seismic ripples it sends through the fragile ecosystem of Sterling Cooper.

The episode begins in the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, where Don Draper has been residing since being chased from his home by Betty. There, he picks up a newspaper and reads the headline about Marilyn Monroe’s suicide, anchoring the plot firmly in 7 August 1962 and the few days that follow. The news proves devastating for the female staff of Sterling Cooper, many of whom are visibly emotional. Even the usually unflappable Joan Holloway shows a rare vulnerability during a chance encounter with Roger Sterling. This historical anchor does more than just provide a date; it casts a pall of melancholy and lost innocence over the entire episode, framing the personal crises to come within a broader cultural moment of disillusionment.

The central crisis, however, is decidedly less glamorous. In his office, Freddy Rumsen has gathered Pete Campbell, Salvatore Romano, and Peggy Olson to discuss a presentation for their Samsonite clients. In that moment, years of excessive drinking take their final, humiliating toll: Freddy loses control of his bladder and, unaware he has wet his trousers, simply passes out. The reactions are telling: Salvatore is amused, Pete seems aghast, but Peggy is temporarily tasked with the presentation whilst Freddy’s condition is hidden. Peggy handles the pitch with her now-characteristic competence, but the news spreads, partly due to Pete, who sees a chance to advance at Freddy’s expense. In a meeting called by Roger, and despite Don’s initial opposition, it is decided that Freddy in such a condition is too great a liability. The episode’s title is thus revealed as a corporate euphemism: a “six months’ leave of absence” with full pay, which everyone present understands is merely a sweetened firing.

The subsequent evening out, where Freddy is told his fate by Don and Roger, is a brilliant example of period detail and masculine stoicism. Freddy accepts his superiors’ decision with a weary dignity, knowing he cannot argue. The trio then proceeds to an underground gambling club, where Freddy’s luck turns and he keeps winning at the table. It is here that Don, spotting the comedian Jimmy Barrett, punches him in the face, blaming him for the collapse of his marriage. The scene is a burst of raw violence in an otherwise tightly controlled episode, a reminder of Don’s simmering rage. Afterwards, Roger and Don discuss their lives, with Roger realising Don’s marriage is on the rocks—a situation he admits to having experienced himself. Don’s advice to “move forward” becomes the episode’s most consequential, and most carelessly delivered, piece of philosophy.

The next day, Don promotes Peggy, giving her all of Freddy’s accounts. In a fine moment of moral clarity, Peggy chastises Pete for engineering Freddy’s downfall, noting she liked the affable alcoholic and owed him her copywriting career. This subplot works well, showcasing Peggy’s ascent and her retention of a moral compass in an amoral environment.

However, the episode’s greatest shock arrives from the reception desk. Mona Sterling storms into the office and confronts Don over his “move forward” advice, which has apparently led Roger to end their twenty-five-year marriage for Don’s young secretary, Jane Siegel. Don, disgusted by the consequence of his own glib counsel, demands Roger move Jane out of her position. This revelation is the episode’s second “wham” moment, and it is here that the script, co-written by Matthew Weiner and André and Maria Jacquemetton, begins to show signs of strain.

Whilst the main storyline involving Freddy’s departure is handled with a superb mix of horror and black humour—his “mishap” is both cringe-inducing and darkly funny—the subplot dealing with Betty Draper feels like an uninspired filler. Depressed and adrift in her empty house, she is observed by her concerned housekeeper, Carla, but even in this state, she manipulatively orchestrates a lunch date between her friend Sarah Beth Carson and the man Sarah Beth secretly desires. It adds little to the episode’s thematic weight and seems a perfunctory check-in on a character whose own narrative is treading water.

The use of Marilyn Monroe as a narrative frame is, however, deftly handled. Her rendition of “Down with Love” over the closing credits provides a poignant, ironic commentary on the episode’s events. Furthermore, the continuity detail—where Peggy notes that Sterling Cooper must scrap their “Jackie vs. Marilyn” conceptual art for Playtex bras in light of Monroe’s death—is a clever, meta-textual nod to the series’ own earlier episode, Maidenform, and the fragile nature of the icons it sells.

The episode’s most significant problem lies in its final twist. The revelation that Roger has begun a full-blown affair with Jane and is willing to blow up his marriage for it comes almost completely out of left field. Whilst something was hinted at in the previous episode (The Gold Violin), the development feels dramatically unjustified. It lacks the meticulous build-up that Mad Men usually affords such seismic shifts in relationships. Instead, it plays as a “shock for the shock’s sake”, a contrivance designed to inject melodrama into an episode otherwise concerned with slow, pathetic decline. It undermines the more nuanced tragedy of Freddy’s exit by pairing it with a sudsy, impulsive betrayal that the series hasn’t earned at this juncture.

This episode represented the directorial debut of Michael Uppendahl, who would go on to direct seven more episodes of the series. His work here is assured, balancing the claustrophobic office scenes with the more expansive, shadowy atmosphere of the gambling club. He handles the delicate tone of Freddy’s storyline with particular skill, ensuring it never tips into outright farce or maudlin sentiment.

Six Month Leave is a powerfully acted and often brilliantly observed episode that stumbles in its final act. It excels in its unflinching portrayal of professional oblivion and the cruel euphemisms of corporate culture, using Freddy Rumsen’s downfall to expose the rot beneath the polished surface of Sterling Cooper. The anchoring of Monroe’s death provides a resonant backdrop. Yet, by grafting on a hastily conceived marital implosion for Roger Sterling, it seeks to deliver a second shock that feels unearned and disruptive to the episode’s otherwise finely calibrated study of failure. It remains a strong, memorable instalment, but one that ultimately lacks the narrative discipline of the series’ very best, falling prey to the very kind of impulsive, messy decision-making its characters would condemn.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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Back in the day, I knew of many movies and series that I didn't like from the beginning, but they later became my favorites. In those days, I would watch a few scenes and when I didn't find them interesting, I would push them aside for a later try. But now the story has changed for me, whenever I don't find a movie interesting, I must have given it enough time to align with my brain before hitting the "stop" button.

DARK, yeah the series. It has been on my list for a long time to watch. I've read a lot of reviews about the series especially how it relates very well to the Title. However, some reviews also suggest that one should have a book where they jot down the names of the characters and give a good mark on their faces for recognition.

I began to watch this series about two weeks ago. I wanted to get the excitement people said about it. I struggled for about two weeks with just the first episode.

Even after that, the whole thing was still not direct, with many confusing faces and names just as I read in the reviews. Yeah, a kidnapping is happening to Children of a school and the people are trying to find who and what is causing the children to miss. The story is straightforward, right? It sounds like that but it's not straightforward at all. I kept seeing different and confusing characters and many scenes that are not relatable at all.
I struggled to watch till episode two and just yesterday, I gave up. I can't keep watching and struggling to understand what the movie is all about.
No doubt, it'll become clearer in the subsequent episodes but at that junction, I had to put a stop to it and save stressing my brain.

Why can't some series and movies just be straightforward? The idea of movie producers twisting a story isn't a good thing as far as I'm concerned!

I just stopped at episode two and for now, I can't give it a rating with the few scenes I have watched. Or should I give it a rating? Okay then, I will give it 1/10. Lol

Thanks for reading.

Photo

Recently, I watched the movie titled made in Korea about a young Indian girl whose dream all along has been to travel to Korea when she's old enough. Apparently she fell in love with their culture and had it in mind to travel to the Country so as to experience it in reality. She had to do everything in our power to learn the language, the culture, eating etiquette and everything.

Along the line after she finished from High School and graduated from school her boyfriend assured her that she would travel to Korea and it would make sure you happen but unfortunately they were supposed to travel together but the boy scammed her father of his hard earned savings.

Out of this savings the boy made sure she traveled to the country of her dreams but he also traveled to another country which is Mumbai to start up his life. The girl was devastated to the extent that she cried a lot because of the hurt and disappointment she felt.

In the end however she traveled to the country and started life afresh she got a job of taking care of an elderly woman who was supposed to be sick and cannot move our body but reverse was the case as the woman was only pretending to gain her son's attention.

So far so good the movie is interesting with great cinematic view and I can recommend it to people to watch as it blends two cultures of Indian and Korea together.

Note: images used here were obtained as screenshots from the downloaded movie...

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In the contemporary digital landscape, where recent estimates suggest that approximately ten percent of all American women between the ages of 18 and 24 earn their primary income as content creators on platforms like OnlyFans, it is increasingly difficult to recall a time when such work resided firmly in the shadows. Not so long ago, participation in the sex industry—even its newer, internet-adjacent forms—was considered a subject not for polite conversation, let alone serious cinematic examination. When the film industry did deign to address it, the approach typically vacillated between cheap sensationalism and predictable moralising, often combining the worst aspects of both in a prurient package disguised as social commentary. This tradition is evident even in projects that purported to offer a more nuanced perspective, such as the 2015 documentary Hot Girls Wanted, directed by journalists Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus. The film reveals a work caught between a genuine desire to understand a burgeoning subculture and an ingrained tendency to frame its subjects through a lens of implicit judgement, ultimately compromising its potential as a definitive study of the amateur pornographic milieu.

Bauer and Gradus, who had previously touched upon the intersection of technology and sexuality in their 2012 film Sexy Baby, initially conceived Hot Girls Wanted as an investigation into the predominantly male consumers of online pornography. However, the cultural landscape shifted dramatically in 2014 with the public outing of Miriam Elizabeth Weeks, a Duke University student who performed under the pseudonym “Belle Knox”. The ensuing media circus, which focused relentlessly on the scandal of a so-called “porn star” at an elite institution, provided Bauer and Gradus with a new, more commercially viable angle. They pivoted their focus to the young women entering the industry, a decision that simultaneously granted the film its relevance and planted the seeds for its conflicted perspective. The documentary narrows its gaze specifically to the world of “pro-am” pornography, a genre designed to simulate amateur authenticity while being produced by professional outfits. It is a sphere populated overwhelmingly by very young women, often lured by the twin promises of easy money and a thrilling escape from mundane provincial lives.

The film’s narrative engine is the experiences of six such women, aged 18 to 21, who responded to an advertisement posted by Riley, a Miami-based agent and part-time performer. In exchange for ten percent of their earnings, Riley provides them with accommodation in his home and schedules their shoots. The central arc follows Tressa, known professionally as Stella May, a 19-year-old high school graduate from Arlington, Texas, who moves to Miami to pursue this career instead of attending college as her family expected. The documentary traces a familiar trajectory: initial euphoria and excitement, fuelled by growing social media followings and a sense of newfound autonomy, followed by a rapid disillusionment. As the market’s appetite for fresh faces proves fickle, Tressa is pressured into accepting increasingly niche and extreme performances. The film documents her physical and emotional strain, culminating in health issues and the eventual intervention of her mother and initially supportive boyfriend, Kendall. Her decision to quit, erase her online presence, and return home to work as a restaurant manager is presented not merely as a personal choice but as the logical, morally correct conclusion to her story.

Hot Girls Wanted premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, garnering attention not only for its provocative subject matter but also for its association with producer Rashida Jones, whose involvement lent it a veneer of Hollywood legitimacy. Its subsequent distribution on Netflix guaranteed it a wide audience. On the surface, the film avoids the trappings of a simplistic, radical feminist critique. Bauer and Gradus largely refrain from portraying their subjects as helpless victims coerced by economic desperation or physical force. Instead, the women are presented as individuals with distinct, sometimes defiant, personalities—young adults who may be guilty of poor judgement or self-delusion but who occasionally offer sharp, perceptive commentary on their circumstances. The film even includes a fascinating segment on Belle Knox, whom the subjects view with a mixture of resentment and recognition, noting she began in similarly extreme content and has merely been more adept at leveraging her notoriety. Riley, the agent, is afforded moments of brutal honesty about the fleeting shelf-life of the performers, complicating any straightforward reading of him as a mere predator. By the documentary’s end, the attrition rate speaks volumes: of the six women followed, only two remain in the industry, with the others having quit or moved to other sectors of the sex trade.

Yet, this apparent nuance is systematically undermined by the film’s formal and editorial choices. Throughout, stark intertitles flash statistics about the prevalence of violent pornography, the youth of performers, and the alleged psychological harms of consumption. These inserts, devoid of contextual analysis or sourcing, echo the language of anti-pornography moral panics and implicitly frame the entire enterprise as a social pathology. This creates a profound dissonance: while the footage shows complex individuals making active choices, the textual commentary insists on a narrative of corruption and victimhood. Tressa’s exit is thus edited and scored to feel like a triumphant escape, a redemption arc that validates the filmmakers’ unspoken bias. The objectivity promised by the vérité style is ultimately sacrificed to a more traditional, cautionary tale structure.

This compromised stance drew mixed criticism upon release. Some praised its unflinching access, while others, particularly those within or sympathetic to the sex industry, accused it of being manipulative and inherently hostile. The criticism evidently resonated with Bauer and Gradus, who addressed it indirectly with their 2017 sequel series, Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On, which broadened the scope to explore technology’s impact on dating and intimacy. The shift suggests an awareness of the original film’s limitations.

In the end, Hot Girls Wanted is a document of a specific moment in the evolution of internet-era sex work, valuable for its raw footage and intimate access. However, its critical failure lies in its inability to fully commit to its own most interesting insights. It glimpses the nuanced reality of its subjects—their ambition, their naivety, their resilience—but repeatedly retreats into the comforting, editorialising framework of a social problem film. A decade on, as the mainstreaming of content creation has forced a more pragmatic, less hysterical public conversation, the documentary feels increasingly like a product of an older, more anxious morality. It captures the dawn of a revolution in adult entertainment but views it through the tinted lens of a past that could not quite imagine, or accept, the complex professional landscape these women were inadvertently helping to build.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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Released in 1985 and directed by Mark L. Lester, Commando has become one of the defining action movies of the decade, mostly because it embraces excess without hesitation. It is loud, ridiculous, and built almost entirely around Arnold Schwarzenegger mowing through an army of villains. That kind of unapologetic action has its charm, but it also means the film lacks the depth and polish of Arnold’s stronger work.

Arnold stars as Colonel John Matrix, a retired Special Forces soldier living quietly with his daughter Jenny until she is kidnapped by mercenaries. They want him to assassinate a foreign leader, and naturally Matrix decides instead to destroy everyone involved. The setup is simple, almost too simple, and while that keeps the pace moving, it also makes the story feel thin compared to films like Predator or The Terminator.

Schwarzenegger is still the main reason the movie works. His physical presence alone sells John Matrix as a one man army, and his confidence makes even the most ridiculous moments entertaining. He delivers the one liners exactly the way audiences wanted in the eighties, and that charisma carries scenes that otherwise would have very little weight.

The problem is that Matrix himself is not a particularly layered character. Unlike Dutch in Predator or even the machine like mystery of The Terminator, there is not much complexity here. He is basically a force of destruction with a daughter to rescue. That is enough for an action film, but it keeps Commando from reaching something greater.

Alyssa Milano plays Jenny, and while her role gives Matrix emotional motivation, she mostly exists as the plot device that keeps the movie moving. Rae Dawn Chong as Cindy adds some humor and energy, but again, the supporting characters are functional rather than memorable.

The villains are a mixed bag. Dan Hedaya as Arius is forgettable, but Vernon Wells as Bennett is impossible to ignore. Bennett is bizarre, over the top, and somehow both ridiculous and memorable at once. He feels like a comic book villain dropped into a military action movie, and while that makes him entertaining, it also adds to the film’s strange uneven tone.

Director Mark L. Lester keeps the pacing fast, which is probably the smartest choice. The movie barely stops to breathe, and if it did, the weaknesses in the writing would become even more obvious. Instead, it races from one action sequence to the next, relying on momentum to keep the audience engaged.

The final assault sequence is where the film fully becomes what people remember. Matrix storms an island compound and basically turns into a one man war machine. It is absurd, unrealistic, and undeniably fun, but it also crosses into cartoon territory. Whether that works depends entirely on what you want from an action movie.

Compared to Arnold’s best films, Commando feels more like a pure guilty pleasure than a true classic. Predator had tension and atmosphere. The Terminator had originality and menace. Total Recall had ambition and weirdness. Commando mostly has explosions and one liners.

That does not make it bad. In fact, it is very entertaining if you accept it for what it is. It understands that the audience came to watch Arnold break things and throw out memorable lines, and it delivers exactly that without apology.

The issue is that it rarely tries to be more than that. There is very little suspense because Matrix feels unstoppable from the beginning. There is little emotional depth because the relationships are mostly surface level. The film is fun, but it is never truly gripping.

Over time, Commando has earned cult status because it represents eighties action at its most exaggerated. It is a time capsule of that era, where bigger explosions and bigger muscles were often enough. That gives it nostalgic value, even if it does not make it great cinema.

In the end, Commando is definitely worth watching, especially for fans of Arnold and old school action movies. It is entertaining, fast, and full of memorable absurdity. But it sits well below Schwarzenegger’s best work because it never rises above its own simplicity.

It is a fun ride, not a masterpiece. Sometimes that is enough, but it is important to recognize the difference.

A Night to Remember (S2x08)

Airdate: 14 September 2008

Written by: Robin Veith & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Leslie Glinka Glatter

Running Time: 48 minutes

One of the perennial challenges for a television series of Mad Men’s calibre is the inevitable narrative ebb and flow; a towering, brilliant episode often casts a long shadow over its immediate successor, making a merely competent instalment appear wan and uninspired by comparison. This dynamic is starkly evident in the second season’s sequencing. The narrative and thematic brilliance of The Gold Violin (S2E07), an episode that masterfully deconstructed the American Dream through the purchase of a Cadillac and the devastating Stork Club confrontation, is followed by the decidedly pedestrian affair of A Night to Remember (S2E08). Despite the show’s unwavering technical polish—the impeccable period design, the subtle cinematography, the restrained acting—this episode cannot shake the aura of uninspired filler, a necessary but clumsily executed piece of plot machinery designed to formalise a marital rupture that the previous episode had already devastatingly implied.

The episode’s title, ‘A Night to Remember’, deliberately evokes Walter Lord’s seminal 1955 book on the sinking of the RMS Titanic, for decades the definitive account of that disaster. Here, the disaster is domestic. The metaphorical iceberg was struck in ‘The Gold Violin’, when Jimmy Barrett’s vicious revelation at the Stork Club left Betty Draper humiliated and physically sickened. In this episode, what begins to sink is the Draper’s previously picture-perfect marriage.

The psychological toll of that night is the episode’s central, albeit unevenly handled, concern. Betty, portrayed with brittle precision by January Jones, initially attempts to maintain the facade of the impeccable suburban housewife. She goes through the motions, even seeking release through horse riding—a classic symbol of repressed passion and frustration. Yet, the facade cannot hold. The cracks appear in a series of telling, unconscious lapses: she accidentally destroys a side table, and later, in a moment of distracted carelessness, injures her foot. These are subtle, effective touches that show a mind and spirit coming undone under the strain of knowledge she cannot yet openly acknowledge. She is a vase developing hairline fractures before the final shatter.

The shattering force is the ill-fated dinner party. In a bid to impress Roger Sterling, Duck Phillips, and the acquintance Crab Colson and his wife Petra (Amy Landecker), Betty plans an elaborate ‘around the world’ menu. The centrepiece, Heineken beer, becomes the instrument of her humiliation. She learns, to her horror, that Heineken is the subject of Sterling Cooper’s new campaign and that Don had manipulated her into featuring it. This public revelation—that her domestic sphere has been co-opted by her husband’s professional deceit—is the final insult. The evening is a great example of a quiet agony, with Betty’s smile growing ever more strained. Afterwards, she confronts Don about his affair with Bobbie Barrett. Jon Hamm plays Don’s denial with practised, weary defiance, but Betty is now adamant. Her frantic, almost pathetic search for evidence—rummaging through his desk and clothes—yields nothing tangible, yet her conviction is absolute. The next day, she delivers the coup de grâce in a chillingly calm phone call to his office: “Don’t come home.” The image of Don, the master of appearances, reduced to spending the night in his office with a bottle of Heineken as his sole comfort, is a potent irony. The product he sold has become the symbol of his exile.

Unfortunately, the compelling gravity of the Draper’s collapse is diluted by two undercooked and largely inconsequential subplots. At Sterling Cooper, Harry Crane, the perpetually overwhelmed head of television, is chastised by Duck Phillips for a disastrous ad placement for Maytag, washing machine manufacturer. The ad aired during a drama about Communist agitators, risking the association of Maytag with May Day. Harry’s plea of being overworked leads to Joan Holloway being temporarily assigned to assist him. Christina Hendricks brings her usual commanding presence to scenes where Joan efficiently manages the crisis, highlighting the show’s recurring theme of capable women propping up incompetent men. Yet, this promising thread is abruptly severed when Roger hires a man, Daniel Lindstrom (Jonathan Runyon), for the role. Joan’s disappointment is palpable but unexplored. This storyline is told from Harry’s perspective, but its true protagonist is Joan, who once again performs essential labour only to be sidelined when a man is available. The opportunity to deepen this through the context of her engagement to Greg Harris (Sam Wise) is missed, rendering it a frustrating narrative cul-de-sac.

Similarly, the continuation of Peggy Olson’s interactions with Father Gill feels like wheel-spinning. The young priest again seeks her professional help, this time for posters promoting a church dance. Peggy delivers copy with the slogan “A Night to Remember,” which Father Gill approves, only for old parish committee women to reject it, forcing a revision. The scenes are well-acted by Elisabeth Moss and Colin Hanks, but they reveal nothing new about Peggy’s complex relationship with faith, career, and her secret pregnancy. They function as filler, a lightweight counterpoint to the Draper heaviness that fails to resonate. The subplot’s sole interesting beat is its coda: after a montage of characters retiring for the night, we see Father Gill, stripped of his clerical collar and in casual clothes, strumming a folk song on a guitar. It’s a brief, evocative glimpse of the burgeoning folk music trend and a reminder of the personal identities hidden beneath societal roles—a theme the episode elsewhere handles with less finesse.

Written by Matthew Weiner and Robin Veith, A Night to Remember is, in essence, a solid episode of television that fails spectacularly to live up to its potential. Its core function is to deliver the ‘wham’ event of Betty finally voicing her knowledge and ejecting Don—a necessary narrative pivot. However, it executes this pivot in an unremarkable, almost anticlimactic manner. The dinner party, while tense, lacks the raw, visceral power of the Stork Club confrontation; the final phone call feels like a foregone conclusion rather than a dramatic peak. The episode’s crucial flaw is its lack of focus. The Draper disaster, a seismic event for the series, shares space with two minor subplots that are neither properly integrated nor meaningfully explored.

This lack of focus extends to a missed meta-textual layer. The episode was reportedly the source of off-camera controversy due to the inclusion of Heineken. It was not a creative decision but the result of a sponsorship deal between Heineken and AMC, a cost-cutting measure insisted upon against Matthew Weiner’s wishes. This behind-the-scenes reality adds a layer of unintended irony to the narrative: the very product that betrays Betty in her home is itself an intrusion of corporate compromise into the artistic fabric of the show. The advert has literally invaded the drama.

In the end, A Night to Remember is the narrative equivalent of tidying up after a brilliant party. The real event—the catastrophic humiliation, the shattered illusions—happened the night before. This episode is necessary housekeeping, executed with professional skill, but it lacks the inspiration, thematic depth, and dramatic force that define Mad Men at its best.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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