*

A disturbing trend has swept the Mad Men fandom. Maybe it’s because the show’s been on for five seasons, I don’t know, but at some point, fans decided it was time to start making predictions. Apparently, someone is about to die. But who?

Hint #1: Doll hands. Creepy little doll hands.

“Pete Campbell will die,” the fandom says with authority.

“Wow,” says me, “that’s heavy-duty. What’s your evidence?”

“Well, foreshadowing!” they say. As if the show is suddenly nothing more than a Fair Play Whodunnit. “The clues are all there. Pete’s rifle! He has to kill himself. Or shoot someone. ‘Cause Chekhov’s Gun, right? They wouldn’t show us the rifle or mention it, if it wasn’t going to be important!”

“Oh, really?” I say. “And what else?”

“Well, he’s so depressed, and… We just know they’re gonna do something, right?”

Well, no. Not right. Wrong, in fact. Just because a book or TV show mentions something a few times, doesn’t mean it’ll be important to the plot. Sometimes a sock is just a sock, and if you’re gonna be junior sleuths, at some point you have to apply reason to your hypothesis. I’m not out to insult people for guessing — I know this generation of fandom is very genre savvy. They grew up on Harry Potter, they know all about foreshadowing. But there’s a big difference between being clever and just being well-trained. You kids are so used to every detail given becoming important, you can’t be shown anything without suspecting it, especially if it’s as dramatic as a gun.

Now, I’m not saying all the internet detectives are wrong. But if you are right, it’ll be in spite of yourselves. Question 1, “Who else on Mad Men has a gun?”

"You see this? This is my boomstick."

“Uh, Betty. But that one doesn’t count.”

“Why not?”

“She already shot stuff with it.”

Question 2, “Why would a man who has probably never fired a gun before be more likely to do so than a woman we’ve already seen calmly blasting her neighbor’s harmless pet birds out of the sky just to prove she wouldn’t be pushed around?” I don’t care if it’s a potato gun and she traded it to Indians for nail polish. Firing a gun once does not make you less likely to do it again.

Okay, let’s move past the rifle. Let’s look at Pete. He’s unhappy, right? And everyone thinks that means he’ll use the gun, either on himself or someone else. Now, if you were arguing that Pete would shoot something because he’s angry, I’d see that. He reacts to anger quickly and physically. But is he angry? No, he’s very depressed. So….

Question 3, “How does Pete react to being sad?” If you can’t think of a good answer, it’s because Pete can’t, either. Bruce Wayne was a poor little rich kid, too, but he had Alfred to show him how not to suck balls. Pete was raised by spoiled, narcissistic idiots who didn’t teach him to cope with set-backs, or pick himself up when he fell. He doesn’t know how to be a man, or how to handle his emotions. He can’t even fix a sink. He’s practically helpless.

The opposite of Batman.

So when adversity rears it’s ugly head, Pete searches for something or some one to lead him through it, usually the wrong someone. When the pain and anxiety from his father’s death finally broke over him, Pete practically bolted to Don Draper’s office. And, as we all expected, Don fumbled the shit out of it, so Pete handled it on his own.

Nah, I’m just kidding. He went to Duck Phillips, of all people. So to me, it stands to reason that while Angry!Pete acts out, Sad!Pete reaches out. You see him trying to do this with Don in “Signal 30″. He’s bitterly disappointed that Don didn’t step in and…. Do I gotta be the asshole who says it? Fine: Pete wanted Don to protect him from Lane. Really, Pete? Don Draper, the guy who abandoned you in California so he could nail that orange hippy he just met? The jealous bastard who’s been sending hate-rays at you since season one because you’re from money? No matter how bad Don is at comforting people, no matter how obvious it is that Don doesn’t have friends at the office, Pete just keeps looking to him as a role model and running to him for help. The whole thing reminds me of the scene in At World’s End when Jack Sparrow hid from Sao Feng behind Barbossa. All I could think was, “Honey,… no.”

"What? No good?"

But maybe it doesn’t matter to you that it’s pretty unlikely Pete will shoot himself or others in a fit of despair. “Then he’ll be mad instead of sad,” you tell yourself. “So it’ll happen anyway. Because the rifle has to be used. Why else would they keep bringing it up?”

On to Question 4, “Are there any other ways for the show to use the rifle?” I shouldn’t have to walk you through this one. Hells yes, there are:

• The gun could be fired in self defense or in defense of others. Remember, things are getting pretty dangerous in NYC. We don’t know that the office is going to stay a safe place.
• The rifle could be brandished, but not used. Personally, I can’t even see Pete getting this far.
• It could be fired by someone other than Pete. Everyone at SCDP knows Pete has a rifle in his office.
• It could go off by accident. There are occasionally kids on the show, but if it had to happen, my money is on one of the guys shooting himself in the foot. This show isn’t exactly foot-friendly.
• Or it could just be symbolic of how immature and controlling Pete continues to be.

I’m just gonna make a projection now: everyone’s fucking wrong about this; none of us knows what’s gonna happen. I know it’s dumb to publicly make such a long-shot prediction, and I’m sure I’ll regret it in a few weeks, but I don’t see this playing out the way we think it will. Beside, what can they do to me if I’m wrong? Shoot me?

Oh, shit, that’s what’s gonna happen, isn’t it?! Fuck!

"... So I locked everyone else out of the van and drove away. Then the tornado came! And now we're all Christians, The End."

But in the West, it seems to have also been accidentally inspired by people who write books, movies and TV shows (even awesome ones, like Xena and that Merlin miniseries) that take advantage of pagan mythology and it’s wealth of epic drama and potential for cool special effects, but believe that magic, mystery and beauty died a long time ago and now Christianity and stale toast is all there is. And so many people who self-identify as Christians (but don’t actively study any religion or it’s history) believe it. It’s how they explain the sovereignty of their god.

After all, everything revolves aroung us, right? And we don’t witness godly power or miracles at work. (Except from Jesus, of course.) And if there are gods, why don’t they demonstrate their power by helping us through natural disasters or answering our prayers in a crisis? (Jesus would love to, but the civil rights movement happened, so we’re being punished.) So myths and legends are fine for fairy tales, but we’ll believe in the existence of gods when we can see their power with our own eyes. (Unless it’s Jesus, because if we can’t see His glory, we need to look harder and have more faith. And redefine the words “see” and “glory”.)

If Wikipedia has taught us anything, it’s that the world is shaped by our perception of it. Which means if we boycott the gods, they will go out of business. There were no Crusades, no Inquisition, no mass and enduring persecution and indoctrination of non-Christians. Christianity only spread because Jesus put out a better product. It’s logic!

For all the people who buy this crap and don’t believe in the history of forced conversion, I would just like to say this: Cultures pledging loyalty and devotion to their gods, then renouncing them, then noticing they stopped getting miracles from their old gods, then assuming it’s because their old gods stopped existing, and then deciding the gods ceased to exist because people don’t worship them anymore? That’d be like if a guy promised his girlfriend he’d be faithful and kind, but after they married, he turned into a cheating, obnoxious, shameless douche, declared his love for another woman, got divorced and re-married, then finally noticed his ex-wife left and assumed it must be because she died or something. And then justified this assumption by the fact that he can’t remember the last time she sucked his dick.

Your ex is still alive, honey. You’re just un-fuckable.

Part Two:

Part Three:

You’re job description: to do as you’re bid
To feed my addiction, and never give me lip, just
My brandy in the morning
And whiskey in the night

Those wedded slobs will sigh and bicker
So getting tied down, it can’t be good
Without the benefit of liquor
Oh, I’m afraid it can’t be stood

It isn’t regal, but with a wedding ring
It’s lawful, it’s legal to give you everything from
My car keys in the morning, to
My checkbook in the night

Picking on party clowns is just cruel. That’s why I always did it when I was little girl. Lucky for me, none of the clowns I picked on could turn me into a blueberry.