The last half of Mad Men’s final season premiered last night on AMC. And if you were hoping for some huge change, we didn’t get it. But we did get several surreal moments that made everything seem off-kilter, tenuous, Twilight Zone-esque. Matthew Weiner spoke to Vanity Fair about the premiere here, and he uses “Twilight Zone” as a reference too. Anyway, I just had some random thoughts…

The Waitress. She was played by Elizabeth Reaser, although the way she was shot at first gave the impression that she was some kind of hybrid of actresses Maggie Siff (who played Rachel Menken) and Rosemarie DeWitt (who played Don’s mistress Midge in the first season). That’s Don’s old type – sort of mysterious, brunette, intelligent eyes. But… I loathe Elizabeth Reaser. I think she’s a terrible actress every time I see her. Once I realized it was her, I was all, “Seriously? Her?”

The Fur. That was one of the best and weirdest episode openings ever, Don telling that pretty girl what to do with the fur coat. Even Ted Olsen seems to have perked up because of the casting sessions for the fur campaign.

Don’s Single Life. I’m fine with him having a little black book full of the phone numbers of stewardesses, models, actresses, waitresses and whoever else. I just hope he doesn’t marry any of those silly women.

Rachel Menken/Rachel Katz. Don’t first great love affair from Season 1 passed away. He dreamt of her just a few days after she died of lukemia. His reaction – and Hamm’s acting as he entered the apartment where Rachel’s family was sitting shiva – was particularly emotional and moving. It’s the same kind of deep grief he had when Anna Draper passed away.

The ‘Staches. The episode apparently took place in April 1970, less than a year since the last episode of Part 1. Why are there suddenly so many ‘staches?

Pete Campbell. I know he’s no one’s favorite character, but I adore the evolution of Pete. He was so happy and sunny in California and but now that he’s back in New York, parts of the old Pete have returned. But he’s still figuring out a way to be nicer to his coworkers.

Peggy Goes On A Date. Is that supposed to be some kind of signal that the people around Peggy are worried that she’s in her early 30s and still not married? Is she the poor single girl who gets set up on blind dates by her subordinates? Is she prickly about it? She loved being described as “fearless” – because who doesn’t want to see themselves that way? – but in reality and in the cold, hungover morning, we see who she really is: a cynic.

Joan Is Rich. Joan is also the victim of some really awful sexual harassment. I was waiting for her to strike back in classic Joan Holloway style. I wanted her to slap those McCann douchebros in their bro-faces. Instead, Joan took it out on Peggy (to be fair, Peggy absolutely said the wrong thing) and then drowned her sorrows in shopping. Because Joan is too rich to care about douchebros, right?

Ken Cosgrove Gets Fired. I actually really like the Ken Cosgrove character and I like that there’s someone in that office who really doesn’t have major issues with women in general or the women in his life. Ken gets along with people, he’s a glad-hander, he’s pretty good at his job, although not very imaginative. But Ken still got fired. And then Ken got his in a big way. I enjoyed that storyline a lot. I felt like that was a great way to deal with Ken’s storyline.

Stan Rizzo Is Still Peggy’s Work-Husband. I love Stan. I love that Stan came into Peggy’s office and got all up in her business about her date. Those two characters – Peggy and Stan, played by Moss and Jay R. Ferguson – have so much chemistry together.

No Megan Draper. Thank God. All we got was a reference to her when Don told Rachel’s sister that he was getting divorced again.

Dawn the Secretary. Where is she? I forget what happened exactly and how Don ended up with that somewhat flaky blonde secretary, but I miss Dawn.

Peggy Lee. That was the song used at the beginning and end of the episode, Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is?”

Photos courtesy of WENN.

The title of this post is somewhat misleading because Rihanna doesn’t write most of her songs. She claims occasional co-writing credit, but she’s usually the voice and face for other people’s lyrics, which is fine. Rihanna’s doing well for herself and bringing in money regardless (although other disgruntled artists have tossed shade about her not being a real “artist“). Rih’s latest single, “Bitch Better Have My Money,” was written by Bibi Bourelly. Kanye West helped produce.

About a week ago, Rihanna dressed up like a Muppet to perform the song at the iHeartRadio awards. “BBHMM” has created an enormous amount of dialogue for what could be considered a simple club tune. Rihanna pranked Jimmy Kimmel (by waking him up on April Fool’s Day) and said her video explain the meaning of the song. Vulture described it as “a slice of rachet heaven.” Lainey called it an “equality anthem“. A columnist (and Yale grad student) named Barbara Sostaita at HuffPo wonders if it’s a call for reparations that carries far-reaching implications. All of these theories are interesting to consider.

There’s more scrutiny, some of the not-so-positive variety. Some people wonder if Rihanna (by way of songwriter Bourelly) plagiarized this catchy tune. Fans of rapper Just Brittany noticed that Rih’s song sounds a lot like JB’s 2014 “Betta Have My Money.” Brittany’s song can be heard here; and for comparison’s sake, Rihanna’s song is here. Both songs reportedly took inspiration from a monologue by Fly Guy from the I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (a blaxploitation parody film). The similarities between Rihanna and Just Brittany’s songs are undeniable. But as Styleite notes, AMG, Drake, and Tyga have all sang or rapped similar lyrics that reference the same movie. So did Rihanna’s songwriter plagiarize, or are all of these songs simply paying homage to the same source?

Here are photos of Rihanna looking gorgeous during her Kimmel visit last Friday.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet & WENN

It’s been a while since we’ve had any new pap shots of Michael Fassbender. When he shows up though, he doesn’t disappoint. Here he is in New York on Saturday with Alicia Vikander. They fell in love last year in Australia while shooting The Light Between Oceans. As you can see, that hasn’t changed…      

Mindy Kaling has a younger brother, Vijay. If you’ve read her book, you probably already know that because Vijay gets several shout-outs throughout the memoir. His full name is Vijay Jojo Chokal-Ingam, apparently, and he’s a medical school dropout. Now he’s a part-time blogger who created the site almostblack.com. Seriously, that’s the name of his site. Vijay is stirring the pot and causing controversy because he tried to game the system (??) by applying to medical schools pretending to black instead of acknowledging that he was and is Indian-American. The whole rationale is very convoluted and it’s like “you guys are the real racists, reverse discrimination against Indians!” Or something.

The big brother of Fox sitcom star Mindy Kaling reveals that he got into medical school by pretending to be African American. Fifteen years ago, Vijay Chokal-Ingam shaved off his straight black hair, trimmed what he calls his “long Indian eyelashes” and started checking off the “black” box for race on his med-school applications. Before long, the Asian Indian American was interviewing at Harvard and Columbia, and found himself on wait lists at the University of Pennsylvania, Washington University and Mt. Sinai — despite his relatively mediocre 3.1 GPA and his family’s considerable wealth.

“I love my sister to death,” Chokal-Ingam, 38, told The Post in a telephone interview from Los Angeles, where he and his comedienne sibling both live. But they’re fighting over his revelation. “She says this will bring shame on the family.”

Chokal-Ingam wound up dropping out of St. Louis University Medical School two years after he got in under false pretenses. He eventually was accepted at, and graduated from, UCLA Anderson’s MBA program — as an Asian Indian-American. Chokal-Ingam says he’s revealing his race ruse now because he heard that UCLA is considering strengthening its affirmative-action admissions policies. He says it’s a myth that affirmative action benefits the underprivileged. He plans to write a memoir about his experiences, to be titled ­“Almost Black.”

Chokal-Ingam said he came up with the idea of self-identifying as “black” after seeing fellow Asian Indian Americans with better grades than he had struggle to get into med school. “I disclosed that I grew up in one of the wealthiest towns in Massachusetts, that my mother was a doctor, and that my father was an architect,” he said Saturday, describing his med-school applications. “I disclosed that I didn’t receive financial aid from the University of Chicago, and that I had a nice car,” he said. “I was the campus rich kid, let’s just put it on the table. And yet they considered me an affirmative-action applicant.”

On affirmative action in general, Chokal-Ingam said, “Racism is not the answer…. It also promotes negative stereotypes about the competency of minority Americans by making it seem like they need special treatment.”

[From Page Six]

If you check out almostblack.com, Vijay says that the only thing he lied about was his race and, on some applications, he used his middle name (Jojo). But here’s the thing… even going by Jojo Chokal-Ingam, it’s still pretty obvious that Vijay is Indian. It’s not really an “experiment” if all of your school transcripts include your full (Indian) name and the fact that in high school and undergraduate college, your race was “Asian” or “East Indian” or whatever else you checked off.

Oh, and as Gawker points out, during Vijay’s “experiment,” he was only ever accepted into one medical college after applying to more than a dozen as an African-American. I really don’t understand this mind-set at all? Oh, and I perused the Almost Black’s site other posts, and Vijay’s political views on other subjects leave something to be desired. Ugh. Mindy, come get your brother.

Photos courtesy of Vijay’s social media, WENN.

Mad Men Season 7 Episode 8 recap

You know, every Mad Men has a tenor. There’s always a tension as you wonder what’s going to happen next, and a general unease. But this was the first episode in a long time where it felt straight-up sinister. There’s no longer any hiding or pretending about wh…      

Dear Gossips,

Whether it was deliberate or by accident, my favourite detail about the Saturday Night Live Neurotology video this weekend was that in 1990, Nicole Kidman is what Kate McKinnon looked like in the sketch. It’s all in the hair. And the profile shot of Kyle Mooney, as he’s sitting …      

Full disclosure: I haven’t been inside a church in decades. And I’m fine with that. But if I needed to go to church for some reason (beyond wedding/funeral), I would like to think that I would at least show the proper respect to “going to church” with my style. I live in sweatpants and jeans for the most part, but I have some nice business-wear slacks and blouses and I’d probably bust out something clean, presentable and covered-up for church. Maybe it’s because I live in the South, but I believe you should do conservative, business-type looks for A) church or B) court. Church is not the time to do ripped jeans and a matching ripped t-shirt.

So, with all that mind, here are the photos from the Kardashians’ visit to church yesterday for Easter. Kim Kardashian, Kanye West and North coordinated their all-white looks. I have to give it to Kim – despite the fact that her ensemble is at least one size too small and utterly unflattering, she looks perfectly acceptable for church. North’s church clothes are fine too (baby’s first sack dress), and I even like her little flower wreath. But Kanye? Ripped jeans AND a holey t-shirt? Nope.

Oh, and I don’t know why I found this so charming – maybe because I actually believe she did this – but Kim posted an Instagram of her “Easter prep” – go here to see. I think she was making Easter baskets for North and for her nieces and nephew. I really do believe that she sat there and put those baskets together for whatever reason.

What else? Kendall’s church ensemble left something to be desired. Gaucho-skirt and wrap halter top revealing your midriff? Not in the house of God, girl! Khloe looks okay, meaning she’s reasonably covered up. Although the dress is much too tight, but whatever. This family… ugh.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

Here are some photos of the royal family going to Easter church service yesterday at Windsor Castle. Missing from the group: Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince William, Prince Harry and Duchess Kate. I don’t see Princess Anne or Prince Philip either (update: Anne was there, I missed her). But Queen Elizabeth was joined by her youngest sons, the Duke of York and the Earl of Wessex (Andrew and Edward). The Queen was also joined by Peter Phillips, who is Anne’s son, and Peter’s wife Autumn. Autumn is very pretty!

Who else? Princess Beatrice of York was there, as was the Countess of Wessex and her daughter Lady Louise Windsor. Quick question: why isn’t Louise a princess? And why is she a Windsor rather than a Wessex? Surely her title should be Princess Louise of Wessex? Andrew’s daughters are princesses, and they go by “York,” his ducal title. I’m fascinated by titles and who gets to be called what. I still maintain that Kate is not now and has never been a princess, other than “Princess William of Wales.”

There’s also an interesting update on the Beatrice situation. Back in February of this year, the British papers began to note that Beatrice, 26, seemed to be on some kind of extended holiday following her exit from a cushy job at Sony in London. She quit working back in December, and then spent two months going on endless vacations and partying up a storm (or as Will and Kate call it, “business as usual”).

When she was criticized for her seeming aimlessness, Beatrice’s people quickly announced that she had just started a dodgy-sounding “finance” program in America. In the middle of February. Which made no real sense. Anyway, the UK papers now say that Beatrice is “considering” a permanent relocation to America, specifically to NYC. Which is weird, right? Because we were told in February that she had already moved to America. As it turns out, Beatrice “recently completed a finance course at a university in San Francisco” (there’s a B.S. University in San Fran?) and now she’s interviewing for some financial positions in NYC, hoping to move there permanently. True story though: I have no idea when her San Francisco finance course was supposed to happen, because she was photographed in and around London throughout March. Very fishy.

Photos courtesy of Pacific Coast News.

View image | gettyimages.com

People Magazine is squeezing as many stories out of their exclusive interview with Giuliana Rancic as possible. I can’t blame them, she’s a controversial figure who gets a lot of interest. So far they’re published no less than four stories on Giuliana, by my count, in the past week. Two of those posts were justifications for her tiny frame, with Giuliana blaming her low weight on a common cancer treatment drug in one story (some of you assumed it was Tamoxifen, although that hasn’t been confirmed) and then claiming, in a roundabout way, that childhood scoliosis contributed to her appearance. In that story, Giuliana said that recent criticism of her weight was “very hurtful to me” and that “even if I gained 20 pounds, my bones would still look the way they do.” It sounded like a lot of justification with some denial mixed in, but I don’t know her and she’s a cancer survivor. It’s possible there’s something going on with her health that even she doesn’t know about.

In a new interview with Giuliana, she reveals that she’s moving to Chicago for the foreseeable future.

The beleaguered Rancic is ready for a fresh start, in a new zip code. In August, the E! News host, her husband Bill and their 2-year-old son Duke will move full-time from Los Angeles to Chicago.

“Up until now, Duke’s been on our schedule,” Rancic says. “But he starts school at the end of summer and we want him to have a connection with schoolmates and not be going from city to city.”

And a bonus: The Rancics, who have lived part-time in Chicago (Bill’s hometown) and commuted back and forth for work and their E! reality show, Giuliana and Bill, just finished construction on their dream home. “Bill and I both grew up in the suburbs,” Rancic says. “We love that sense of community. And I have loved Chicago ever since we started dating nine years ago.”

And thankfully for Rancic, her job in front of the camera won’t be affected. “I won’t be in LA on set as much,” she explains. “But there’s a lot of work in New York and Chicago too. I don’t have to pick one or the other.”

Summertime in the city might be the perfect antidote to recent dark times. “I’m really looking forward to the move,” says Rancic. “I’m excited!”

[From People]

Does this mean that E! News is gradually letting Giuliana go or phasing back her role? If so, was this Giuliana’s choice? (I would doubt it.) I haven’t watched the show regularly, but whenever I’ve tuned in she’s been there. If she’s moving to Chicago at the end of the summer I would assume that she’s leaving E! News as a nightly reporter. Maybe she’ll still do weekend and/or special event coverage. We’ll have to see how they address it.

Meanwhile Fashion Police isn’t coming back until September, and that’s filmed so infrequently that Giuliana can fly out to do the segment and then fly back to Chicago. In another recent article on People, Giuliana explained that the joke she made about Zendaya’s dreadlocks (and apologized for twice) was “edited” and “taken out of context.” The article reiterates Kathy Griffin’s point that Giuliana didn’t write the joke. Giuliana adds that “On set, I made peace signs and I said boho twice… if I thought this joke could be interpreted another way, I never would have done it.” Giuliana also said that she received death threats on social media afterwards, which is despicable but sadly typical. (Twitter needs to take more responsibility and mete out swifter punishments for users who threaten and troll.)

It’s probably for the best that Giuliana is moving, both for her health and peace of mind. Chicago is such a great city and the people are really nice. I wouldn’t mind living there. I hope she’ll be happy but I get the sense she really loves LA and the spotlight.

Giuliana and Bill own a high end restaurant in Chicago called RPM Steak. Here’s a photo she recently posted with Bill’s parents. They spent Easter in Chicago.

Lunch…Chicago style ???? Having so much fun with @billrancic and Mama & Papa DePandi at @rpmsteakchi Best.Lunch.Ever

A photo posted by Giuliana Rancic (@giulianarancic) on Apr 3, 2015 at 12:44pm PDT

Mornings with the duke ????

A photo posted by Giuliana Rancic (@giulianarancic) on Mar 25, 2015 at 9:53am PDT

View image | gettyimages.com

View image | gettyimages.com

photo credit: Getty Images and Instagram

Making MAGiC w/ KYLiZZLE. PEEPS BE GETTING TURNT UP ON THIS SKIN SITCH. BLACK LIGHTS & NEON. Does no body know about lighting ?? #CALMitDOWN #ChrisDylanHair #makeupbyJOYCE #StillOnTour #KylieJenner ???? #Repost @kyliejenner
???What I wish I looked like all the time thank you @marcelocantuphoto

A photo posted by CELEBRITY HAIR STYLIST (@chrisdylanhair) on Apr 4, 2015 at 4:03pm PDT

Kylie Jenner scores an amazing amount of magazine photoshoots for a 17-year-old girl. The latest entry in Kylie’s portfolio created quite a stir. This picture is actually one that Kylie deleted, but her hairdresser posted it too. Kylie’s caption was, “What I wish I looked like all the time.” Her hairdresser thought it was hilarious that “peeps be getting turnt up on this skin sitch.” The controversy is that the shoot looks like Kylie did blackface.

Kylie went to church with her family yesterday, and Tyga was there too. Before church, she checked in on Twitter to explain the photos.

so just got the time to head on social media lol.. The photographer used a black light & neon lights for those photos.

— Kylie Jenner (@KylieJenner) April 5, 2015

Yes, In another world I wish I could have pink hair & blue eyes & covered in sparkles.

— Kylie Jenner (@KylieJenner) April 5, 2015

But in this world I’m happy w the way God created me. Happy Easter everybody

— Kylie Jenner (@KylieJenner) April 5, 2015

That last tweet is interesting, considering how the Kardashian women go to great lengths to modify their original bods. Kylie’s defense is that she was not wearing makeup to make her skin look darker, and it was all a visual lighting trick. But look at the top photo again. Her scalp isn’t as dark as the rest of her skin, so there was definitely some makeup involved in this transformation.

One more thing. Zendaya Coleman “liked” Kylie’s original (now-deleted) photo, and people asked her about it on Twitter. Zendaya rethought the shoot and then tweeted, “My baaaaadddd.” She added, “At first, I saw more of an avatar look but thank y’all for keepin me on point …. we all gotta stay aware of what image we project #lessons.”

Even though Kylie deleted the photo that showed her scalp, she did post another picture on Instagram asking everyone to “calm down.”

This is a black light and neon lights people lets all calm down @marcelocantuphoto @joycebonelli @chrisdylanhair @hubblestudio

A photo posted by Kylizzle (@kyliejenner) on Apr 4, 2015 at 3:48pm PDT

Here are some photos of Kylie out for lunch and shopping at Fred Segal last week.

Photos courtesy of Chris Dylan Hair/Kylie Jenner on Instagram & WENN