Ep. 11, ‘The Suitecase’, on Mad Men – Season 4, Episode 7

Dave and Steve are joined by a very special guest to discuss yet another HBO hit series that they didn’t watch when it was popular. That seems to be a trend with these guys. Steve claims to have seen Deadwood when it was on television, but that may never be verified.

iTunes description for this week: “A deadline disrupts Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce”.

• “The Suitcase” is available on iTunes.
• Bathroom talk. Deal with it.
• Dom’s innocence is precious.
• Bad improv remains bad improv even when done by good actors.
• Dom doesn’t like antisemitism.
• Dave and Dom think they’d make better ad men than Don Draper; Steve doesn’t take a stance.
• “Every human emotion”, Dave? Every.
• Don Draper sees dead people.
• The trio speculate about the events of prior episodes.
• Steve wants to be yelled at.
• That last link is also an unintended pun about the special guest.
• Walter White needed a business manager.
• Dom accuses Dave of breaking the One Off rules.
• Dave and Dom would not make better ad men than Don Draper.

Hush little Dave and Steve, don’t say a word, because this One Off takes you back to a time before Joss Whedon was writing and directing blockbuster superhero movies. Sharpen your stakes and peel some garlic, because, it’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer time, folks.

iTunes has this to say about the episode: “From out of a fairy tale comes a group of murderous creatures known as The Gentlemen: first they steal everyone’s voices, then they begin to collect human hearts.”

• Joss Whedon had some good villains.
• Dave says “jump” and Steve asks a series of questions about how high Dave would like him to jump.
• Did Steve make an Ani DiFranco reference? Or was he just trying to sound poetic?
• Dave thinks Steve communicates better when he’s not allowed to speak.
• Steve and Dave have no idea how people get into relationships.
• As it turns out, Dave can’t save a conversation.
• Everybody Poops.
• Dave and Steve are not doctors.
• #TeamAngel
• Steve does not supply the editor with a photo that he seems to imply that he is going to.
• Neither does Dave.
• Frasier reference.
• Speaking of wasted material…
• Does anyone like hairspray, Dave? Or do you mean Hairspray.
• There is more singing in this episode than anyone wants.
• Dave goes to his usual stand-by, the Bible.
• Steve has clearly been listening to the West Wing Weekly.

Apparently The Sopranos is one of the greatest shows of all time. Dave and Steve didn’t know this when they sat down to watch it and they’re not sure they’d agree with the sentiment, but boy did they ever have feelings about the world of Tony and his band of merry men. Other things they had feelings about: Scrabble,

iTunes description for this week: “Paulie and Christopher are engulfed in a nightmarish journey into the South Jersey woods while trying to collect a debt from a Russian mobster. Meanwhile, Meadow is suspicious that Jackie Jr. is two-timing her, and Tony finds that family demands are jeopardizing his romance with Gloria.”

• “Pine Barrens” is available on iTunes.
• The editor feels obligated to mention that there is a very mild spoiler for Breaking Bad in this episode.
• Dave and Steve wish that the “nightmarish journey” had been more nightmarish.
• Dave is worried about Sylvester Stallone and copyright.
• Steve was okay with Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal flirting in a doctor-patient relationship, but for some reason isn’t okay with James Gandolfini and Lorraine Bracco.
• Dave and Steve have opinions about Scrabble.
• Steve has been listening to too much Hamilton.
• Steve succumbs to peer pressure.
• Steve doesn’t know his HBO history.
• Dave kind of wants to be a mobster.
• The dream of the 90s is alive in The Sopranos.
• Dave spells swear words. Steve says them.
• Steve asks an interesting question just shy of the thirty minute mark, so they never get around to answering it.

Dave and Steve put on their detective badges for Brooklyn 99 Season 2, Episode 22, ‘The Chopper’. Oddly enough, they spend no time at all talking about how confusing it is that “chopper” could refer to either a motorcycle or a helicopter, but they do find delve into Dave’s weird nicknames.

Netflix tells us that, in this episode, “Holt worries Jake is being set up to fail when Wuntch green lights his dream assignment, and Terry hosts a field trip for a magnet school.”

• ‘The Chopper’ is available on Netflix.
• Steve makes a rookie mistake and confuses Community and 30 Rock. Specifically, this. Dave blames himself.
• Shoutout to all the magicians in the audience.
• Jane Seymour ≠ Angela Lansbury
• Nobody knows what a “pre show stinger” is.
• Dave subtly makes a book recommendation: The Eight Characters of Comedy.
• Dave and Steve have clearly forgotten the names of the characters.
• Steve says “tight little episode” twice — and it sounds weird both times.
• Could Steve go one episode without referencing Frasier?
• Every now and then, worlds collide when Steve and Dave make the same bad joke at the same time.
• Dave refers to Andre Braugher as “just an actor” which… uh… is accurate?

Your intrepid hosts just can’t help themselves this week as they dive into Star Trek: Discovery with Season 1, Episode 4, ‘The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not for the Lamb’s Cry’. They go overtime, because of course they do. Nerds. This episode title is so long the podcast is half over by the time they get through saying it.

CBS summarizes the episode thusly: “With tensions and stakes high as Starfleet continues in their efforts to end the war with Klingons, Burnham begins to settle in to her new position aboard the U.S.S. Discovery.”

• ‘The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not for the Lamb’s Cry’ is available on CraveTV in Canada. It’s proving to be a hard show to pay money for.
• Dave and Steve accidentally make a statement about gun regulation.
• This seems apropos.
• Star Trek: Discovery: It’s what’s new!
• Discovery is about making discoveries; Voyager was about the voyage home; and Enterprise was about trying to win lotteries and raffles.
• Dave, as the podcast’s resident old man, is an expert in what makes things old.
• Steve makes an entirely expected 90s reference.
• It is unclear whether Steve understands the difference between subtitles and closed captioning.
• Dave says some pretty racist stuff about Klingons.
• Steve briefly forgets Patrick Stewart’s name and hopes nobody noticed. We noticed, Steve. We all noticed.
• Warning: there are puns in this episode.
• Dave’s love of Whoopi Goldberg strikes again.
• Dave and Steve tread carefully so as to make an important point — and, surprisingly, nobody puts their foot in their mouth.
• … Except when he starts talking about the Scottish.

Just in time for the new season of Riverdale that starts on Wednesday, this week’s One Off goes back to Season 1, Episode 7, ‘In A Lonely Place’. Listen along as Steve and Dave share uninformed opinions about popular teen dramas from the 00s. Also of note: nobody uses the term “on fleek”.

According to Netflix’s summary, this week’s episode is as follows: “Amid harsh rumors about Polly, Alice goes public with family secrets, making Betty and Cheryl uneasy allies. Jughead helps his dad reclaim his life.”

• ‘In A Lonely Place’ is available on Netflix and iTunes.
• As usual, Dave and Steve avoid recapping/deconstructing the episode, but if that’s your thing, Mikey Neumann and Jon Risinger’s Cry Me A Riverdale might be your jam.
• Does anyone else think the Riverdale theme song reminds them of Friday Night Lights?
• Steve appalled that people like things that he doesn’t like.
• As usual, your hosts have their finger on the pulse with their discussion of milk caps.
• Dave, as it turns out, is either remembering his bubble gum comic history correctly or has stumbled onto a delightful coincidence.
• “It’s not real life… It’s high school.”
• Do your research, guys: The O.C. was on Fox and Riverdale is on the CW; Warner Bros. is the one of the production companies for both.
• Steve seems like more of a Dawson’s Creek kind of guy.
• If you were thinking about catching the Scream movies any time soon, you might want to skip this episode because Dave and Steve spoil the first one. Granted, it’s a spoiler that is old enough to vote in Singapore.
• Dave and Steve are old men yelling at clouds.
• Endings. How do they work?

This week’s One Off is all about showing you how the sausage gets made, where the sausage is Dave and Steve’s creative processes. To get there, they watched Abstract: The Art of Design Season 1, Episode 6, ‘Paula Scher: Graphic Design’. Hold onto your pocket protectors, because it’s about to get awfully nerdy up in here.

According to Netflix’s summary, this is “Graphic designer Paula Scher paints with words, developing the visual language of iconic brands and institutions around the world.”

• ‘Paula Scher: Graphic Design’ is available on Netflix.
• Dave struggles to say the episode title.
• Maybe Dave and Steve’s next podcast will be entirely framed around trying to read each other’s minds.
• Dave did a TEDx talk?
• Steve pumps Dave’s tires.
• Apparently Dave’s been seeing other podcasts.
• Much like small dogs, Dave and Steve understand what a door does, but they don’t seem to understand how to operate them.
• Steve wishes he was Aaron Sorkin.
• What margins does Steve use for his papers? What margins does Steve want his students to use for their papers? Answers to these enthralling questions and more await you, Constant Listener.
• As it turns out, Dave is not a bath-man.
• This podcast brought to you by Apple.
• The correct answer to, “Which version of Helvetica Neue do you prefer?” is “Stuff it, nerds”.
• Get thee to a topiary!
• Steve does his best to right the ship…
• … and fails.
• <Insert another plug for something else that Dave does>
• On top of everything, Steve is a fountain pen junkie. Because of course he is.
• Dave seems like he is going to tell a story about the Red Light District.
• He does not.
• Dave really has internalized the Fields Notes slogan.

While it isn’t the future, you’ll be able to replay this One Off again and again until it makes you want to rip your earbuds out of your head. That’s right, this week Dave and Steve are watching Black Mirror Season 1, Episode 3: ‘The Entire History of You’. They vaguely remember 60’s era television and Dave makes fun of how Steve’s brain works. What more could you ask for?

As Netflix reminds us, thie episode is summarized thusly, “In the near future, everyone has access to a memory implant that records everything humans do, see and hear”. Which, of course, raises the question: why would you say ‘humans’ do? Is it an attempt to clarify that we’re not putting these implants in frogs? Now that’d be a strange future: in a world where every toad is recording your every move, one human gets hopping mad in an attempt to be frogotten.

• “Black Mirror” is available on Netflix.
• While Dave and Steve aren’t recapping ‘The Entire History of You’, they are apparently happy to summarize their favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone.
• Without knowing it, Dave and Steve accidentally choose episodes of The Twilight Zone that are linked through the same child actor: Bill Mumy.
• Steve just wanted an excuse to say “godking”.
• Steve has trouble with empathy.
• Dave and Steve would make terrible relationship counsellors…
• … But great sociopaths.
• Steve is, indeed, aphantastic.
• This podcast might be evidence in a retrial sometime down the road.
• Dave accuses Steve of thoughtcrime, which is probably true, but there’s no need to call him out on it.
• Steve has memory envy.
• Steve swears more than once, creating work for the editor. Thanks Steve.

As is befitting of the end of summer, this week’s One Off has Dave and Steve watching a Christmas episode of The West Wing: Season 2, Episode 10. They talk about songs that make them nostalgic, the pitfalls of Christmas episodes, and end with a discussion that Steve should probably share with his therapist.

iTunes’ overly wordy description for this episode is, “At Christmas time, Leo hires a traumatologist to force Josh to confront his unacknowledged stress resulting from when he was shot. Josh initially denies his recent erratic emotions as he recounts the events of the last few weeks. Sam deals with an errant energy secretary who contradicts Bartlet. Meanwhile, C.J. helps a tourist who becomes agitated after seeing a painting that was stolen from her family by the Nazi-controlled French government. And Charlie must persuade a stubborn Bartlet that the President cannot possibly personally sign more than one million White House Christmas cards.”

• “The West Wing” is available on iTunes.
• As per the rules of One Offs club, Dave and Steve don’t recap the episode they watched, but if you’re looking for that kind of thing, check out the West Wing Weekly for a great recap of “Noël”.
• The editor felt obligated to include the entire opening theme of The West Wing. You’re welcome.
• Steve says an emphatic “no” to Dave’s call to adventure. It will be a rift in their friendship for years to come.
• Much like Steve’s inability to do accents, Dave’s slang terminology for Canadian cities is going to get the podcast in trouble.
• This week’s episode has an Apple Music playlist to go with it.
• Apropos of something: “Death Cab have become emblematic of a certain brand of mainstream indie-pop, what might be termed Grey’s Anatomy music – melodic and heartfelt, if relatively bland.”
• Nobody is shocked to learn that Steve is a grinch.
• Holidays at Dave’s house sound like an absolute riot.
• Steve mistakenly refers to Leo McGarry as Jewish. While Leo “is the most Jewish man most of us have ever met” (See: “The Red Mass”), the show makes pretty clear that he is a lapsed Catholic.
• Dave is unintentionally punny.
• As it turns out, there was a National Lampoon’s Thanksgiving Family Reunion. It starred Bryan Cranston in the role that probably got him Breaking Bad.
• Dave sounds like he has a camera set up in Aaron Sorkin’s living room.
• Steve probably shouldn’t be allowed to go Christmas carolling anymore.
• In retrospect, perhaps Dave and Steve should have saved their Christmas episode for… you know… Christmas. Merry 28th of August, everyone!

In this One Off, Dave and Steve delve into DC’s darkest detective, with Season 2, Episode 18 of Batman: The Animated Series. Come to hear them talk about the value of framed narratives and why Dave hates live action superheroes, stay for the fight they get into about toys. iTunes’ description for this episode is, “While hiding from the police, Batman’s deadliest enemies exchange stories about their mutual nemesis–Batman.”

• “Almost Got ‘Im” is available on iTunes
• While One Offs is bound to respect the grammar and punctuation choices of television shows, let the record state that the editor firmly believes this episode should be titled “Almost Got ‘Em”.
• Steve answers a question that Dave didn’t ask, proving that he wasn’t listening in the first place.
• Dave says something ridiculous and then makes fun of Steve for saying something ridiculous.
• Dave thinks Steve likes bad television.
• Dave is one-face ableist.
• Steve talks about effective units.
• Steve doesn’t mind if people call him simple.
• Just to be clear, Steve, your biggest conceptual problem with Batman is that the Batmobile is self-driving?
• Neither Dave nor Steve can remember the details of the 1966 Batman film. For shame, you two. For shame.
• Steve thinks Dave is being insulting to our vast contingent of Australian listeners, but it might be Steve who is the insulting one.
• Raise your hand if you come to One Offs for diuscussions of German expressionism in cinema.
• The moral of superhero cartoons is obviously “crime never pays — unless your crime is being a vigilante”.
• Dave’s pronunciation of Harley Quinn is absolutely absurd.