Articles by Alissa Wilkinson

Is life just a revolving door? Mad Men suggests it is, and it isn’t.

In the Mad Men universe, Shangri-La is what everyone has always been looking for. It is paradise.

This season’s pervasive tone is “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” with characters returning left and right—usually to tie up some loose ends and then untie some others.

I’ve been trying to decide—for years, literally—if Mad Men is a tragedy or a comedy.

Mad Men’s “Severance” is full of quests not taken, questers who have sucked the marrow out of life and yet can’t quite get off the ground and wind up slinging back to earth.

It’s times like these that I wonder, just a little, if the writers are trolling us.

Mad Men shows us how a technology like television can be an isolating force or one that gives us, as a culture, something to talk about and ponder and discuss.

There’s some awfully clear Biblical symbolism in this episode.

Mad Men gives us mirrors of our most basic fears and desires.

You know when Don thinks he’s supposed to be having fun, because he puts on a plaid jacket.

There’s nothing new under the sun—the context just changes a little.

Don’s death stares are in full force this week.

Who would have pegged Freddy—poor Freddy Rumsen—for the most civilized of them all?

Here’s the thing about Peggy…

These characters’ inability to believe in the approval and love of those around them is what dislocates them from a world they used to own.