Pan Am – These ladies are no jelly doughnuts

Was the Pam Am uniform the all access pass that it seemed to be in this week’s episode? While it was eventually Captain Dean that got the ladies into President Kennedy’s party, the Pan Am blue certainly helped. I doubt that we have seen the last of 1960’s history weaving its way into the Pan Am story, but this week’s episode proved that the show can invoke history beyond the show’s current time period.

Colette has become so much more of an interesting character in the last two episodes than she was originally. I didn’t like how she was characterized in the pilot, as just an adjunct of the married man she’d been seeing previously. Since then, she has developed an interesting relationship with Dean, and experienced Berlin in her own, very unique, way. I can only imagine what someone who lived through the German occupation of France would be thinking walking through the streets of a celebratory West Germany (It somehow makes last week’s uproar about Hank Williams Jr.’s Hitler analogy seem secondary in comparison). I like how she tried to experience Berlin, but couldn’t manage her disdain while in the American Mission. Between her conversation with the German official, and her rendition of Deutschlandlied, it was apparent that she was unable to forgive as easily as President Kennedy urged in his speech. The final scene, when she shared her story with Kate, was heartbreaking.

Is it just me, or has Kate become the character most central to the plot of the show? She’s connected to the most story lines, be it her family drama with Laura in last week’s installment, the espionage arc(s), or even the day-to-day connecting with her fellow crew mates. She carries it well, too, evidenced by her efforts to assist her German counterpart’s defection. It begs the question, though: Did Bridget help recruit Kate because she saw a similar rebellious streak in her? Kate was needed to replace Bridget because she went off book (or so we are led to believe), but did the CIA end up with another troublemaker?

It was great to see Maggie get a bigger story this time around. Christina Ricci hasn’t yet had much to work with, but this episode changed that. She is headstrong in ways incomparable to her crew mates. So much so that I was surprised that she settled for a distant wave from the President from the steps of Air Force One. This episode was placed in the summer of 1963, so I hope that she has another chance to meet Kennedy before the show deals with his assassination.

Is it too early to read much into Ted’s flirting with Laura? I’m not sure just yet, but I do like that whomever he might be paired with will instigate some change in him. He comes across as a bit too much of a caricature of the misogyny of the time. As much as I hate to say it (and make the comparison, lest I be criticized for devolving to cliche), Don Draper and the rest of his Mad Men compadres are much more fully developed. I also get that you bring in an actor like Michael Mosley for his comedic talents, but I hope that the character will evolve past that.

There was no movement on the Dean and Bridget story line, which is good direction. He learned, quite falsely, that she was married last week, which allows him to move on. I doubt we have seen the end of this particular arc, but it isn’t something that we should see develop each week.

Notes & Quotes

• Is the British guy from MI-6 going to be a regular fill-in for his CIA counterpart when it is convenient?

Clacked by Ivey West
on Oct 10, 2011 @ 12:25 EST5EDT