Last Night's TV Was MUCH Weirder Than Usual

Seriously, things got weird last night on Game of Thrones and Mad Men. From the innocence of LSD to the violent squalor of King Joffrey's First Time, I could not get a grip on things. This is an attempt to get that grip.

First of all, here are the new locations added to the Game of Thrones map:

Harrenhal

 and Qarth

Westerosi Psycho
I can't explain anything that happened during last night's "Garden of Bones." Clearly Bret Easton Ellis has moved to Winterfell and is now writing the most screwed up medieval things he can imagine. Things as screwy as:

1. The Lannisters at Harrenhal torture young, clueless boys for information about "the Brotherhood" (?) by putting a hungry rat in a bucket, strapping the bucket to a boy, and lighting the bucket so the rat goes crazy and looks for any exit he and his teeth may make.
2. Joffrey has a guard beat up and strip Sansa.
3. When Tyrion buys Joffrey two prostitutes to help him lighten up, Joffrey has one beat the other very hard, eventually with a spiky antlered scepter (and yet, just being BEATEN by the scepter was MUCH more merciful than what we all thought was coming). 
4. Robb's in love with a girl who saws people's legs off.
5. Tone Loc's Tim Curry's character from Fern Gully just goes on ahead and slithers out of Melisandre as a fully grown skeleton made of smoke like that's totally fine.

Ok now that we have all the facts down, everything oughta make sense...ohhh wait, no, not at all. I will now go down the list and try to figure out what's going on.

1. As Tywin notes when he finally gets to Harrenhal (just in time to save Gendry from being rat-eaten), torturing prisoners is STUPID. If you have bodies, you should make them work for your benefit, not pile up a ton of carcasses that you will have to clean up later. And it's not like Tywin avoids violence; I'm pretty sure he loves it. But not when it's stupid. PS: Now that Tywin has seen Arya and identified her as a girl, he's made her his cupbearer. How long will it take before he realizes who she is?
2. Clearly Sansa is in it to win it. I wish there'd been a scene between her and Shae after the public humiliation, just to comfort her a little. Just, you know, for my peace of mind.
3. Assuming Joffrey hasn't had sex yet, this his first encounter. The things that happen during a first anything typically get rehashed with every recurrence, like how serial killers try to recreate their first kill. So I'm fairly certain that Joffrey, who already leans on violence as a coping mechanism, will only be repeating and worsening this scene with every future sex act. Might I add, he never did get the led out. 

5. Oh jeez, Robb, just don't.
6. I don't understand Melisandre or her gestational periods or her sexuality or her allegiance to anything. So obviously that would be the baby that she and Stannis made just two weeks ago.
7. I didn't mention Qarth up there, but rest assured, Qarth will also turn out to be exceptionally weird. I feel very confident of this.

In conclusion: Joffrey Bad Man.

Three Short Weird Stories
Mad Men followed the tangents of our three favorite advertisers in last night's "Far Away Places."  Peggy gave an HJ, Roger tried LSD, and Don nearly lost his MRS. Those letters are not helping me be less confused.

Peggy: Matt Zoller Seitz suggests that Peggy's day looks a lot like one of Don's season 1 days: she naps on his couch, chastises advertisers, and goes to a movie at 1 in the afternoon. Dear lord am I glad I didn't have to go to movies in the 60s. No matter where you look, some dude has his deumer hanging out, waiting for you to look at it. And for some reason, Peggy reacts positively to it. I thought dating Abe was her way of sticking it to traditional sexuality - he's a commie for God's sake!!! But nope, it has to get even weirder than that, doesn't it, Peg. To break free from the bonds of female sexuality, she must j-o some a-h. Cool.

Roger: Roger and his wife doing LSD is the best thing that could ever happen to anyone. May we all one day be lucky enough to have a trip like Roger's. He opens a vodka bottle and a symphony comes out. He takes a drag on his cigarette and it crumples like an accordion. Speaking of accordions, Roger and his wife come to a very honest understanding that their marriage is over (the accordion is Joan). Hopefully soon they will get married and raise their son together ha-ha-ha-ha that will not happen bc Mad Men doesn't do things to make you happy. It only does things to satisfy your hunger for period melodrama. And even then, not if it makes you too happy.

Don: Don convinces Megan to drive up to some Ho Jo to scope it out for business, I gather, though that seems wrong. What could he not already know about Howard Johnson? Why would he go there for a vacation? I guess in the end he takes Megan there so he can force-feed her orange sherbert and abandon her in the parking lot. Could you imagine if he pulled that crap with Sally? She'd be on her second dose of LSD before he found her up some tree with two Cornell boys. But he does it to Megan, and she flips out about how she doesn't know when to be his wife and when to be his employee, and she's right. But then when they're both at home again and Don chases her around the apartment like a mad man (get it), they both seem wrong. Is this their foreplay? Is this how it happened the first time? Because they do it a lot. Megan says something like all their fighting weakens their relationship. Oh Megan. Fighting and making up can strengthen a relationship. It's this Chase Me I'm A Haughty Baby dynamic that weakens things, mainly because healthy adults don't like to have sex with babies they just chased around. Or so I gather, as Dr. Ruth's [platonic] assistant.

Weirdness, A Summary
What ties Game of Thrones to Mad Men this week, other than everyone being a freaking weirdo? I guess in the end, it's about taking a walk on the wild side. When Joffrey gets wild, he's a fucking psychopath. When Peggy gets wild, she's a movie theater fluffer. When Melisandre gets wild, she's an oily, nasty conduit to hell. When Roger gets wild, he's a drinker of singing vodka. In everyone's case but Roger's, maybe it's better to go back to the old straight 'n' narrow for a while. There isn't enough room in the sky for everyone's freak flag to go up all at once.



photos courtesy AMCtv.com, HBO, or otherwise from sources hyperlinked to photos