The Slow Burn
Warning: spoilers for the current seasons of True Blood and Mad Men follow. Don’t read if you care about such things and are not up-to-date on your viewing!
Sundays this summer have been pretty awesome for me. Now that we have cable, Jordan and I spend every Sunday night watching two of my three favorite TV series True Blood and Mad Men back-to-back (in case you were wondering, my third favorite is Doctor Who). There wasn’t any True Blood this week, as it seems HBO is giving us a week off before the finale. We hadn’t realized that last night, but to my surprise, I wasn’t so disappointed to skip an episode.
That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy True Blood. I do–though sometimes I wonder how much of my continued fondness for the show is because of my concurrent fondness for really any male member of the Skarsgard family. But frankly, it’s just been such a mess over the past few weeks–and Mad Men has just been so, so good. I know the series seem to share little in common besides their Sunday night timeslot, but it’s difficult not to compare them when they’re held up against one another like that. And apparently, I’m not the only one who does so. After last night’s absolutely phenomenal, why-aren’t-you-watching-this episode, I started looking around on the internet for reviews–and I came across a blog comment bemoaning the fact that True Blood gets passed up for the Emmy accolades that Mad Men gets. “It must be genre prejudice!” the nerdy commenter opined. “Because so much more happens in one episode of True Blood than in an entire season of Mad Men!”
Which was funny because, you see, I thought that was precisely True Blood‘s problem.
I might be speaking from a position of prejudice. If you read through my reviews, you’ll see that I’m generally more of a fan of character-driven, rather than plot-driven, works. But honestly, I can’t help but feel that True Blood consistently fails when looked at through either lens. The series’ first three seasons have only taken place over a handful of months, and already there have been more plot points than I can honestly count. It’s really difficult to view the action through a macro lens, and easier to see the problems on a micro-basis: in this season alone, secondary character Tara has mourned one boyfriend, had a one-night stand with a vampire, been raped and kid-napped by said vampire, killed the vampire, tried to deal with the ordeal, been attacked by the vampire again, gone back to mourning her first boyfriend, and started sleeping with her boss. Again. Don’t even get me started about romantic-lead vamp Bill Compton’s muddled motivations. He changes his mind more than (insert folksy Southern idiom here). I’ve seen every episode and I have no idea what he wants.
My big problem with this is that it’s relentless, and not in a good way–the viewer has no breathing room to muse over what are supposed to be big revelations. Every secret that’s been revealed this season–and there have been quite a few–falls flat. I’m thinking of the revelation of Sookie’s true nature, the existence of werewolves, our first meeting with Nan Flanagan, the fact that Crystal is a panther (God, does anyone care about this character?), how Sam used to be and is now a jerk . . . I’m certain there are more, but I just can’t think of them–which shows how emotionally involved I am, I suppose. I would say that these pacing problems are part of what makes True Blood‘s cliff hanger endings so integral to the series. All of the scenes with the greatest emotional impact have come right before the close of the episode. These twists are often better executed, sure, but the audience also has time to mull over them. Head-twisting sex, Russell Edgington’s television appearance, the sexy murder of Talbot, Pam’s expression as her maker sacrifices himself–these are the scenes that will stick with me this season. They also all happened in the final ten minutes of their respective episodes.
Generally, I just don’t have faith in True Blood‘s writers anymore to have any restraint when it comes to story development or pacing. It’s as if they think “action” is synonymous for “story”–but the truth is, falling action and respite between suspenseful moments is just as important to a long-form story as the rising tension and the ultimate reveal. It’s what gives big twists their impact. It allows viewers to see how all the pieces fit into place, how the story makes sense. It lets us feel for the characters. A good story shouldn’t be an onslaught. It doesn’t need to be relentless. Less really can be more.
Case in point, last night’s Mad Men episode, “The Suitcase.”
Yes, it’s true–often very little happens in any episode of Mad Men, much less in any season. Last night’s was no exception. This was a bottle episode, set almost entirely in the SCDP offices after everyone’s gone home. The plot could be summarized thusly: on her birthday, Peggy’s alcoholic boss makes her work late.
And yet this episode was undeniably and clearly important. The forward momentum of the series, and the season, has long been working up to this. Don Draper’s drinking has slowly escalated. Over the past season, he’s gone from a celebrated businessman to someone who is largely pitied by those working below him. Divorced, embittered, he’s started to lose whole days to drinking. The facade of his life has begun to crack, such as when he gave a waitress he bedded his real name in the episode that aired two weeks ago.
And Peggy’s relationship with him has long been complicated. For three seasons, we’ve watched them dance around one another, indelibly connected through similar creative personalities and career-minded natures while keeping one another at arms’ length. Don and Peggy know some of one another’s secrets, but not most of them–and they certainly don’t talk about it. As Don tells her in the first season, certain events “never happened,” a sentiment echoed by Peggy last night when she said that they don’t talk about things and that’s the way both parties prefer it. Of course, we, as the viewers, know better–we know how hungry Peggy is for Don’s approval, and how desperate Don’s become for a confidant now that Anna Draper is out of the picture.
But unlike True Blood, Mad Men doesn’t go for cheap thrills. On almost any other show on television, last night’s climax would have been a sexual one–as the office population dwindled down to two, that certainly seemed like the way things were going. Instead, we got arguments about their working relationship (“All couples fight,” Peggy’s mother told her now ex-fiance last night. If only Peggy had been there to hear her!), conversations about suitcase advertising, and still-veiled references to their personal lives. Peggy and Don are still keeping one another at a distance, rendering those few small references to Don’s childhood as Dick Whitman, and to Peggy’s pregnancy, that much more meaningful. Even Don’s swing at Duck Philips at the climax of last night’s episode missed the mark–and yet it meant so much.
Don and Peggy didn’t screw last night. They didn’t even kiss. But when they held hands in the morning, hardly even looking one another in the eye, it meant something–so much more than the violent, explosive, and gory sex on True Blood. It was satisfying in a deeply emotional way. It was what television should be.
Again, I don’t hate True Blood. But I think we’re living in a golden age of TV right now–a time when writers are beginning to exploit its narrative potential, starting to respect its viewing audience and trust that they’re emotionally invested in the characters. And when you trust in that, and have a format as sweeping as a multi-season television show, then you can do a lot more than create something episodic and relentless. You can illuminate truths in fits and starts, give your audience–and your characters–time to rest and time to breathe. You can let your story slowly burn.
Phoebe
Phoebe is a 20-something writer who lives in New York State with her husband and cat. She is a dork, not a geek or a nerd.
Her debut novel, Starglass, will be released from Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers in Summer 2013.
6 comments
Mmm, yes. Between Breaking Bad and Mad Men, I worship at AMC's feet. Their tagline says it: "Story matters here."
I've actually never seen Breaking Bad (I know, I know), but there are times when I can't believe AMC is basic cable in light of Mad Men–who would have thought that one of the most innovative series of our time is on the channel that used to show old movies all the time?
Channel creep's real. AMC used to be old movies, commercial free; Bravo used to be a pay channel for opera and art movies; A&E used to focus on televising theater.
For some reason, I only ever made it through half of the first season of Mad Men. Something about way those early episodes were strung together irritated me – it felt as if some scenes were inserted at random for no real reason. (Case in point: That office guy who had that short story published brags for a while and is confronted by the other writer guy. Other writer guy rips the story out of a copy of the magazine, trying to humiliate the guy who got published. Later in the same episode he apologizes and is rebuked…and as far as I could see, none of that meant anything. I may not have watched far enough, though, and I intend to give it another shot.)
I also enjoy True Blood, but like you I'm starting to get tired of the manic pacing. Tara's character has been more or less ruined (hey, remember when she was being set up as some sort of intellectual in the first season?), I couldn't care less about either Sookie or Bill and Eric had his most interesting plot arc with the whole Godric thing. Honestly, at this point I keep hoping they'll change the show's name to Here's an Hour of Hoyt and Jessica and just write out most of the other characters.
I would SO watch Here's an Hour of Hoyt and Jessica.
When the show started, I loved how Tara seemed like a subversion of the angry black woman trope. And she's become even more of a stereotype as time's gone on–broken, bitchy. It's a shame. You'd think three seasons would give us more nuance, not less.
And I hear you about Sookie and Bill. And Eric's probably peaked as well, but I tolerate more than I probably should from him due to hotness.
You should def. try Mad Men again. It's slow, and takes patience–a lot of patience. There have been jokes that have taken a solid handful of episodes to get to the punch line. But I really do think it's worth the pay out in the end.
I saw my first episode of True Blood two weeks ago, the season finale. Maybe that's the wrong place to start, but I have a deep residual love for all the All My Children episodes I watched as a kid with my mom, so medium felt similar — declarative soap opera.
So, for me, thinking of it as a plot or character-driven show seemed like it was beside the question. True Blood seemed to me to function as a sub-text driven show, where each scene seemed written to work more as allegory (sometimes ham-handed) than advancing the serial plot or developing characters. I never felt like there was any internal context that would really resolve the wild plot holes and campy acting.