Making needlepoint with TV drama

Reading time: Less than 1 minute

I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a metaphor from Logan Hill.

I started watching the TV show Mad Men rather late — at least a year after the series had begun in 2007. Impressed by the acting, the set design, the costumes and the story, I never wanted to watch it “out of order” for fear of missing some key junction in the story.

Thus, it remains on my Netflix list, where I’m watching it ever so slowly. I’ve halfheartedly tried to keep my eyes closed to the foofaraw surrounding the series’ ending show earlier this week, but I couldn’t resist a piece in the May 18 New York Times.

Headlined: ‘Mad Men’ Series Finale Recap: The Door Closes, The Light Goes Off  and written by Logan Hill, the article contains some amusing writing and some “spoilers” that really didn’t spoil anything for me. Here was my favourite line that Hill used:

Let’s get into the finale, which was an almost entirely unambiguous piece of closure, frequently verging on fan fiction, with a script that tied up so many loose threads it was practically needlepoint. 

I particularly like the way he takes a tired cliché — loose ends in a plot — and freshens it with extraordinary exaggeration. Isn’t that clever?

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