Conversations About Mad Men

6.7: I Hope You Can Still Look Up To Me

elisehu — Sun, 12 May 2013 23:57:44 -0400

Much like Dan, I like Mad Men best when our characters are in the office and doing whatever is considered “work” in the booze-and-weed-filled advertising world of the 1960’s. And while we ventured out to see Joan and Pete’s deteriorating domestic situations, it fit in the context of their unsteady situation at work, so this follow up to last week’s reset felt satisfying, and fun to watch. (Sometimes we get satisfying episodes that are no fun at all.)

On with Episode Seven. So many opening and closing doors. The offices of SCDPCCG (or whatever it’s called now). Elevators. Room 503.

And so many death references. A season that opened heavy on the death theme continues, with its symbolism is too on-the-nose: Those nervous moments with Ted Chaough piloting a plane, Gleason on his death bed, Pete’s mom has dementia or Alzheimers, Joan is wondering what will happen to Kevin when she’s “gone.” The more I watch this show, the more I wonder when, not if, someone is going to jump out the window. (No, I haven’t forgotten they already dealt with a suicide in the office last season.)

And since this season takes place in the bloody, chaotic confusion that was 1968, it does seem at times that the ailing Mrs. Dyckman, Pete’s mother, is making the most sense. “I don’t understand what’s going on. They’re shooting everybody,” she says. Not a bad sum-up of 1968. And winter 2012/2013, for that matter.

I’m still waiting for Bob to cut someone from the back. Contrary to what Joanie’s mother said, every good deed of Bob the Kiss Ass Benson IS part of a plan. We knew Bob was a fraud way back when he was introduced carrying two coffees and said he always had an “extra” one. (The first one went to Don, the second, to Pete.) But the writers made his lying explicit when he helped Joan get into see the doctor. And as we saw by the episode’s end, his Machiavellian games saved his ass when he almost lost his job in the merger.

My husband thought Don turned a creepy, dark corner, locking Sylvia up and turning her into his whore for a few days. But this is just a more explicit expression of Don’s ongoing power issues with women, right? No one can forget that scene with Bobbi Barrett in the lobby of that restaurant while her husband and Betty Draper in the next room. But there was something tender about Don’s affair with Sylvia: that it was quite literally under Megan’s nose, that it was his first (and maybe only) extramarital affair during his second (technically third) marriage, that he respects and admires Dr. Rosen, that he started to care for her in a more real way. His brief desperation at the end actually took me back to Season 1, when he wanted Rachel Menken to run away with him. Don didn’t display the same kind of tenderness at the end of his affairs with Midge, Sally’s teacher, Bobbi, and definitely not when he dumped his actual girlfriend, Faye, in order to run off with Megan.

Poor Peterson. Remember when Burt Peterson last got fired from Sterling Cooper in the wake of its takeover by the British agency? His wigging out was one for the ages. (Something about “YOU’RE the dying empire!” to the Englishman Lane Pryce.) And just when I was thinking of that moment while watching the beginning of this episode, he walks into Roger’s office and Roger says, “I’m letting you go again.” That scene was amazing.

So much to look forward to now that we’re in. The competitive frenemy situation between Don and Teddy. Watching Peggy reorient herself and stand up for herself while working with her mentor again. Bob the kiss ass revealing himself as a secret agent man for the Russians… ??? I’m TORMENTED by the surprise that Bob will shock and awe us with. Y’all know it’s coming. You know it.

In closing,

Elise

6.6: SCDPGGC

elisehu — Sun, 05 May 2013 23:36:18 -0400

Plot! Creative agency capers! Hilarious non sequitirs! (“Each one with its own nipple! // Gosh, I love puppies.”) This episode had all my favorite Mad Men episode elements, plus the awkward — and layered — reunion of Don and Peggy.

It’s not quite believable that suddenly these longtime rivals — and polar opposite personalities — would decide on a whim to combine agencies and that it would be THAT easy, but it does extend the theme that Joan so poignantly hit on when learning that Don told Jaguar to pack it up: It’s Don’s world, and everyone else is just living in it.

Even the-one-we-thought-broke-through, Megan, has become a bit player in the great lie of Don’s life, her short dresses and feminine wiles not withstanding. But it’s Don’s true partner, Peggy, who is most affected (again) by Don’s desperate and clever maneuver to keep his agency relevant. I can’t say I’m not excited about the dramatic consequences of this rather implausible merger. For a season that some of us found plodding, we get a reset halfway through. Where are our central relationships? Let’s assess:

Don and Megan: To borrow from Magic 8 Ball, “Cannot predict now”

Don and Joan: Probably repairable

Pete and Trudie: Dunzo

SCDP and Vicks: Dunzo

On running into your father-in-law-at-a- brothel: Stiles said, “It’s like when you’re a kid, and you saw someone you knew from school at Walmart. Same thing.” We thought it was mutually assured destruction, when in reality, Trudy’s dad didn’t see much downside in dropping the son-in-law he never did like.

Marie and Roger: Dunzo

That woman was hilarious — hilarious — during the awful dinner with Herb and his wife. But for her to punish Roger for it and foreclose his chance to communicate an important business matter, even more awesome.

Roger and powerful flight attendants: Flying High

That whole storyline made me long for the days of the old first class airport lounges. Because in today’s “lounges,” unless you’re in Tokyo or Dubai, you’re lucky to get some free yogurt covered peanuts and individually wrapped cheeses. On Roger, he seems to have renewed interest in closing deals. All last season and into this one, we saw Roger basically become a more dapper and glib version of Bert Cooper: Office furniture with an important title. I’d love to see what’s responsible for his interest in work again, and it sets up a promising tension now that both agencies’ accounts sides are gonna have to merge.

Loose Ends

- So many animated gifs are going to emerge from this episode. There’s Peggy’s boyfriend Abe and whatever happened with him and the wall, Pete slipping down the stairs (great physical comedy from Vincent Kartheiser), and maybe brown nose Bob with his two coffees again. I feel like I’m forgetting an obvious Peggy-related gif… help me out, folks.

- We’re heading for a reckoning with that kiss-ass Bob. Is he gonna turn out to be a Russian or Chinese spy?

- Pancreatic cancer doesn’t have a good survival rate even today. I can’t imagine ol’ Gleason is gonna be around much longer. What are the business implications with the buyout of Gleason plus merger?

Everyone loves astronauts,

Elise

6.5: Heart Exploding Love and Awkward Hugs

elisehu — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 23:36:09 -0400

Just last week we were lamenting how this show emphasized a stagnant Don Draper over the other compelling characters. This week, not only did Don immediately get more compelling when placed against the backdrop of the MLK assassination and paired with his young son, Bobby, but the other characters got some important screen time, as well.

I have been wanting Mad Men to tackle the riveting racial flashpoints in the late 1960s, and finally the show got to it. The reactions:

Joan: “We are all so sorry,” to Don’s black secretary, Dawn, followed by an awkward side hug.

Don: Here’s a man who pretends everything, even his “love” for his children. But in the aftermath of the assassination, when he takes Bobby to his favorite sanctuary, the movies, Don feels real love for his son. His heart is gonna explode. He has to drink through it. An amazing monologue performed by Jon Hamm, as a new parent I “got” what he was saying even without having a “difficult childhood” like Don’s. If love were plotted on a line chart of your child’s life, the moment he or she is born is not likely the point where the line is at its highest. You do find your love grows deeper and fuller even though you can’t imagine it getting any more intense. And it’s wonderful. Don’s issue, of course, is that feeling anything at all, especially something so authentic and powerful, nearly wrecks him.

Pete: As slimy as he is, has long been the most socially progressive of the account men. Even in the halcyon days of Season 2, it was Pete who was pushing the agency to do work in “the Negro markets.” The argument between “old” world mentality (represented by a different-kind-of-slimy Harry) and Pete’s worldview seemed a little heavy handed in the way the director framed that shot. But how about that Bert Cooper stepping in to broker peace, eh?

In general, I thought the writers handled the sense of tension and the rush to find out more information in a time way before Twitter quite well, in that it didn’t totally overtake the episode. It originally got laid out much as they depicted the Kennedy assassination, but obviously the reactions to MLK were and continue to be far more complex.

Loose Ends

- We were treated with more Michael Ginsberg, whose own position as a bridge between old world (his dad, devout Judaism) and new world (the Mad Ave life, creative bohos) creates a real point of friction for him as he wrestles with growing up and — who knew — virginity. More Michael, please.

- Don’s so great at exploiting loopholes. Young Bobby is not allowed to watch TV for a week, but Betty didn’t mention movies. Planet of the Apes. “Jesus.”

- “I was trying to communicate without words, but it’s not working.” That was one of many gems from Randy the creepy insurance guy (and also the crazy guy from Lost). Roger mentioned Randy “talked me off a roof once,” which leads me to believe Roger has continued his LSD trips.

- What was going on in Washington? The killing of MLK led to a series of dark, dangerous riots in the U Street neighborhood, which finally started revitalizing around the 2008 election of Barack Obama. Read more about the riots from The Washingtonian magazine, which did a look back.

- Harry Hamlin is a long way from his days on LA Law.

Megan winning the award for advertising after all, Betty’s identity crisis and Peggy’s effort to buy her own apartment as a single woman, are additional themes I also want to explore but this episode was so packed that I hope one of you other bloggers can take on those stories.

As Tecumseh said, Heya ho, ho, ho, heya huh huh ho,

Elise

6.4: Has The Don Draper Character Arc Run Its Course?

elisehu — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:24:00 -0400

Jason, when I read your post following Sunday night’s episode, it hit on a theme that I think many of us Mad Men fans have been feeling this season: That we’ve already seen this sad sack of a man before… in season three. Homeboy is still gorgeous and troubled and in possession of all the complexities that made him compelling in the first place. But where is this going? It’s not that the Draper storyline is bad this season. It’s that it’s BORING. And in my mind, the only thing worse than bad is boring.

Tahenisi Coates wrote much better on this topic for The Atlantic today:

“Don is a beautiful philandering stud. That was always there but it was wrapped in so much more—his role as father to a young daughter (gone thus far), his role as a kind of father to Peggy (gone by necessity of plot), his relationship with Roger as some future image of himself (also gone), his relationship with Anna (gone to the grave), his fear of unmasking (seemingly also gone.) What’s left is a dude who makes adultery look beautiful. My impulse is to say that this Don Draper is lot less interesting.

Who knows. But I’d rather see the camera shift, and Don Draper give some scenes away to those characters who really are changing, not just relapsing.”

Maybe all our whining is going to be for naught when Matt Weiner throws us a curve ball and brings Peggy back into the fray in a major way. Or brings Anna back from the dead. It is entirely possible this obsessive episode-by-episode analysis of each segment in the larger story is preventing us from seeing the full picture the writers are presenting over the course of the season and series.

What do y’all think?

It’s always darkest before the dawn,

Elise

6.4: Ugh

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:51:50 -0400

Watching Don Draper this season is like watching a once-great baseball player become mediocre. He looks the same in his gray uniform, but he’s lost his swing. His dalliances, his hypocrisies, and even his pitches are faint imitations of the player he used to be. It’s just no fun, and worse, it’s disappointing.

-Jason

6.3: It's All About What It Looks Like, Isn't It

elisehu — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:46:27 -0400

Every time I think of you
I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue
It’s no problem of mine
But it’s a problem I find

-New Order

I named this post after a line from Pete Campbell, since it seemed to sum up the theme of the episode — appearances. Marriages seem to look good and the war looks like it’s being won, at least if you’re sitting in that New York restaurant.

Last week’s two-hour season premiere gave us a lot to think about, but let’s face it, it wasn’t thick on plot. So I am glad that in this episode, more plot developments got set into motion (and in some cases, called back upon) but as is true for many Mad Men seasons, it’s clear we’re still building, building.

Bizarre Love Triangle(s)

We were treated to the visual gags and total awkwardness of love triangle after another, in this episode: Pete and Trudy plus neighbor, Don and Megan plus neighbor, Megan and neighbor plus Don.

Don’s cheating on Megan despite being honest with her about his past. Don separates the women in his life. They are either the madonna and the whore (interestingly, his actual mother, who died in childbirth, was both). I’d wondered whether Megan played both roles for him in the way that Betty did not. But this season’s reveal of his infidelity, plus Megan’s admission of her fleeting pregnancy puts her in a clear classification.

All Men Are Liars?

This episode, if nothing else, reminds us of adultery’s slippery slope: it does lead to pregnancies or breakups or beatings or more. While Don cheats because he can’t stop himself even when he wants to, Pete seems like he does it to fit in, or because Don does it. The Campbell situation is less a character study for me than a society study.

America, despite a culturally progressive shift when it comes to homosexuality and women’s rights in the last fifty years, is still pretty buttoned-up about infidelity. Trudy and Pete’s situation, in which she got him a New York apartment so he could have his flings out of her sight, seems like something more accepted back then than it would be today. “She lives on our BLOCK,” Trudy said. She was more mad about Pete mucking up the appearance of their “blissful” union than the actual contract.

“Compared to the citizens of just about every other nation, Americans are the least adept at having affairs, have the most trouble enjoying them, and suffer the most in their aftermath,” Pamela Druckerman found, while researching her book, Lust in Translation. Should we be cooler about cheating?

I’m interested in what you guys, er men, think about the Pete and Don situations and what Weiner is trying to say about infidelity. I wonder how much my point of view is colored by the fact I’m a married woman, and I know some of you fellow Mad Men Convo bloggers are single dudes.

Questions About The Flashback

So the woman Dick Whitman was with in the flashback was Abigail, the stepmom who took him in after his real dad died in that horse kicking accident. We learn here that Abigail clearly had to turn to prostitution to keep food on the table, even while she was pregnant with Dick’s half-brother Adam. (You recall he hanged himself in Season 1 and was about a decade younger than Don/Dick.) That means both Dick’s real mom and his stepmom were prostitutes. That’s gotta really have an impact on how you think about women and relationships. And sex.

Loose Ends

Joan’s comeback about creepy Jaguar guy’s penis was friggin brilliant, I should have written it down. Something about “I know there’s a part of you you haven’t seen in years…” I laughed out loud.

More doorways. The season premiere was called The Doorway, and we see Episode 3 continue on that theme, especially with the gorgeous final shot of Don sitting outside his doorway on the floor. Our characters are each in their own little purgatories, uncertain where they’ll wind up.

Peggy trying to be nice was more wonderfulness from actor Elisabeth Olsen.

OK that’s all the stream of consciousness from me for now. Men, what did you think?

It’s the Coca-Cola of condiments,

Elise

6.1/6.2: On That Inscribed Zippo Lighter

elisehu — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 07:22:10 -0400

Dan, to your question about the inscribed Zippo — Slate found a photo of a similar Vietmam era Zippo with the “not our bag” inscription. Some more background, by David Haglund:

“In life we often have to do things that just are not our bag.” That’s the inscription on the Zippo that Don Draper inadvertently takes from a soldier on leave in Hawaii. Inscribed Zippos were popular among American soldiers in Vietnam; a few years ago the University of Chicago Press published a whole book about them. And the phrase that Don finds on the back of Pfc. Dinkins’ lighter appears on at least a few such artifacts. Zippos lit more than cigarettes in Vietnam; at an early meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, soldiers spoke of “Zippo inspections,” “preparation for burning villages.” After that meeting, John Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that soldiers in Vietnam “shot cattle and dogs for fun.” Pfc. Dinkins asks Don if he’s ever seen what serious artillery can do to a water buffalo.

Dinkins talks as though he conducted such experiments for fun, but he is not convincing. He’s death-haunted, like everyone else in this episode. Just before Don picks up the Times and reads the real-life headline, “World Bids Adieu To a Violent Year; City Gets Snowfall,” the doctor who lives in the Drapers’ building offers him some thematically convenient wisdom. Don’s job, he says, is to “think about things” that people “don’t want to think about” (i.e., death), while his, as a doctor, is not to think about them. All so people can “alleviate their anxiety.” If the rest of the season premiere is any guide, the source of that anxiety is not some vague force like “social change” or “the ’60s.” It’s the war in Vietnam.

-Elise

6.1 I solved Don's problem

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 06:56:35 -0400

No, I can’t make Don stop cheating on his awesome wife. No, I can’t make him live his life instead of escaping from anxiety. No, I can’t make him wake up and remember that he has children who need him.

But last night I solved his Royal Hawaiian problem. Two sets of clothes, a suit and a dress. Two sets of footprints, his and hers. Then we’re not thinking about death. Then we’re thinking about happy naked people having sex on the beach. The tagline: Feel new again. Don’s revised spiel: You will feel reborn. You’ll shed your skin from the other world and remember what it felt like to be so young all you wanted was the sun on your skin, to be happy on the beach.

Yes, the season opener was a moody meditation on death. It was brilliant. Those who wanted more snap, crackle and pop were probably the same Twitter whiners who complained about last season’s Zou Bisou Bisou. Let it play out, people. Let’s see how Don blows up his life. Let’s see if he realizes his wife’s true merit. Let’s see if he can face why he needed to get so drunk (bored? freaked out about death?) before the funeral of his buddy’s mother. Let’s see.

-Jason

6.1: Infernal affairs

leyendecker — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:07:00 -0400

As I post just outside the 24-hour review cycle, I imagine that last night’s two-hour premiere has already been combed over like Roger Sterling’s silver swoop. Like you, Elise, I tried my best to keep away from reviews, but Sepinwall’s recap roped me in as usual. I will offer up a few outside observations, and I’d love to see if any of them resonate with you as they do with me.

Technicolor Hawaiian opening

Maybe it was the humid Pacific air, but Megan seemed a little more ready to rock-and-roll than we saw for most of last season. The dancing scene with the luau instructor (as Don looked on, both befuddled and attracted) was a nice throwback to the Zou Bisou Bisou fiasco. Don and Megan’s age-gap is the most ripe area for conflict. I hope Matthew Weiner chooses to go that direction as Megan’s acting aspirations bore the hell out of me.

PFC. Dinkins, with all his boozy exuberance, reminded me a lot of a young Roger Sterling. Roger would definitely marry a foreign bride on a whim, try to crack up a square stranger (or business partner), and Dinkins even showed some strain of that philosophical bent that Roger has always struggled with. It’s a shame that Don can’t step in and be a best man of sorts for Roger, instead of embarrassing himself (and everyone) at Roger’s mother’s funeral. But I enjoyed the fact that Dinkins convinced Don to stand in, and that Megan came outside at just the right time to capture it.

Betty’s still bizarre

I wondered if Baby Jack had turned into an awkward adolescent girl during that first panning shot at the movies, which started with Henry Francis’ mother and ended with the violinist-turned-bohemian Sandy. Each member of the Francis household seemed happy after getting off the hook with that police officer, and the relaxed mood made Betty’s pedophile-y comments to Henry even more jarring. When Henry said he wanted to ‘spice things up,’ he probably meant heading down to a roasted pig luau.

Though I thought/hoped Betty might be written out completely in this season, Betty’s mission to find Sandy in the city made sense. Betty has a tendency to make weird attachments with children not her own (see: Creepy Glen). We’ll see this season that Sandy’s anger at being stuck in the suburbs stirred something within Betty.

The office

This is where the good stuff is for me. I can’t help but think that Weiner was stringing us along a little bit by alternating between Hawaii and Poughkeepsie. Probably the greatest moment of the episode arrived when we caught Pete posing on the staircase like the President of the Howdy Doody Circus Army, with his hairline evaporating and settling below his ears.

But nothing really “happened” in my favorite scene, where the camera just frames Don on his couch as the sound of waves encircles him. It looked precisely like the show’s title card, which is too fitting. Hasn’t he been doing this for the entire five seasons? It’s a testament to the show’s foundation that ruminative moments like that remain so powerful.

Other good scenes/minutiae:

Don’s drunken, desperate giddiness when begging the doorman for answers. Roger having a breakdown over his friend’s shoeshine kit. Peggy finally coming into her own and not acting surprised by it on New Year’s Eve.

I’m still curious about little things — what was engraved on Dinkins’ lighter—“In life we often do things that just aren’t our bag” ? Was Megan using the same kind of camera that Don gives to Dr. Rosen much later in the episode? How does that fantastic footprint ad relate to the Lucky Strike death wish in Season 1 — and does that mean another huge account is on the way?

Best line:

Tie between Sterling’s “What’s the difference between a husband knocking at the door and a sailor getting off a ship? About 10,000 volts.” and, Sterling (of course) to an elderly smartass, “Why don’t you roll on over here!”

For twenty years I’ve been saying this is my last Christmas,

Dan

6.1: I Don't Feel Anything/It Makes Me Feel So Much

elisehu — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 21:44:00 -0400

(Note: I apologize for the later-than-usual posting since I usually try to write some thoughts immediately after the East coast airing. But I was traveling and missed it, so I spent all day avoiding all tweets or writeups about the episode so I could watch it fresh and unaffected by what the critics saw/noticed. Now that I’m done I can’t wait to hear/read your takes, and the professional ones…)

“All Im going to be doing from here on is losing everything.” -Roger Sterling

Call me dark, but when I first saw this show’s iconic falling man opening sequence, I wondered whether it was foreshadowing the way the series would end — with the suicide of our leading man, Don Draper. You know, one of those situations where the end was always at the beginning.

The sixth season opener made me think my notion might actually play out, though that’s probably too obvious a move for Matt Weiner. We’ve already dealt with a SCDP suicide recently, as Lane Pryce did just off himself last season. But no matter how Don meets his end, I’m certainly not the only one who can’t imagine Don Draper in the seventies. Or beyond.

(All the rest of the characters seem to be growing out their sideburns, and in Roger Sterling’s case, a Zach Morris hair wave, quite nicely. I could do without all the facial hair but it is 1968, after all.)

Back to mortality. This episode felt like we were all temporarily forced into Don and Roger and Betty’s various purgatories — the sense of in betweeness and uncertainty about where they are and where they’d wind up. The motifs were obvious and everywhere: Don in elevators, Dante’s Inferno, the Sheraton pitch of the empty suit and the missing man, the funeral, talk of footprints and shoes, the “lost” kids who lived in The Village, We have arrived at the jumping off points of our main characters. Aloha means hello and goodbye.

And what a great point in the larger narrative of Mad Men for us to be confronted with these deeper questions about what it all means. This is the penultimate season — the showrunner says Mad Men will end after seven — which means the show’s arc could climax in important ways in the coming 12 episodes.

Don Wants to Shed HIs Skin

Clearly sick of the skin he’s in, his Hawaii encounters perhaps stirred a desire in him to peel off the layers of the fake persona he’s worn for so long that he’s become it. But what happens if he takes off his finely pressed suits? Is there a core of a person underneath?

“There is no man. Just his footprints.” Sounds like someone we know. I imagine emptiness creates anxiety, too, and that’s not only evident in Don’s existence but in Roger’s, since even though he professes to have become the Camus of 1968, none of us get to escape from being human.

Meanwhile, The Ladies ‘Lean In’

The only really bright spots for this episode for me were the Peggy scenes. Peggy telling the client to trust her in that cool confidence her mentor used to exhibit, but clearly no longer does. Peggy dressing down her staff for three plays on one idea. Peggy and her old colleague Stan burning the midnight oil in their separate offices but keeping one another on the phone line. Peggy getting an attaboy from her cheesy boss/SCDP nemesis, Ted Chaough. Peggy’s contentment with her journo-boyfriend/product tester. Her breakup with Don was so wrenching for us to watch last season. But this episode convinces me she made the right choice.

Megan, with thanks to Don casting her commercial beginnings at the end of season five, is on her way to soap opera stardom and whatever else may come of that. That shot of Don, watching his wife projected on screen, mirrored the one we saw of him doing the same thing in the Season Five finale.

We’d been wondering whether Megan would no longer be attractive to Don if she became self-realized instead of his assistant or his housewife. While he’s still sexually attracted to her, he returned to his cheating ways as we expected and with a particularly risky choice — his downstairs neighbor’s wife. So much web copy has been spilled about cheating and cheaters, and one recurring notion has to do with the cheater at some level WANTING to get caught. Don’s current choice is nothing if not a blatant cry for help.

Loose Ends

Betty: “Why don’t you go in there and rape her?” Ummmm, were child sexual assault jokes a thing in the late 1960s? I did not think those jokes were funny. In fact, I need one of you to explain to me what the point of that whole exchange was.

That shot of Roger comforting his secretary while double fisting the vodka was pretty awesome.

That violin piece that Sandy performed is actually originally written for piano. I played it as a child myself. It’s a Nocturne in E flat major by Polish composer Frederic Chopin. Fun fact: Chopin was once played in a movie by actor Hugh Grant.

Is it just me, or have Joan’s boobs somehow gotten even bigger?

Defcon 4 is better than Defcon 3,

Elise

5.13: Temporary Bandage on a Permanent Wound

elisehu — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 23:48:00 -0400

“Not every girl can do what she wants.” -Megan Calvet’s Mother

In the finale to a melancholy season five, showrunner Matthew Weiner writes and directs an episode in which business is doing better than ever, but that’s about the only thing looking up.

The times change, but do people ever change? Weiner was a head writer on The Sopranos, the sweeping mob drama whose primary premise was that we never do change. And in this season finale’s final set piece, which puts Don Draper back into the Chinese-themed bar of the pilot episode, Don’s on the precipice of proving that despite his yearlong stint as a happily married, successful man, he’s ultimately a self-loathing skirt-chaser that can’t be reformed.

He gives Megan what she wants, even though Don’s principled stand about how she should be discovered by someone rather than get a job because she’s someone powerful’s wife was correct. Here, he had a chance to wind up with a woman who waited for him to come home, just as Megan’s mother told him. But instead, he demonstrated how much he really does care for his wife’s happiness (in a way he did not care about Betty’s) by helping her realize her dream … of being a commercial actress? Methinks that’s not really her dream, just as Don pointed out. But she did seem happy.

“I don’t know you. And you don’t know me. We just happen to have the same problem.” Perhaps the only way we can divorce ourselves from the past, the episode surmises, is by erasing our brains. But as other art (read: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and this episode’s own example (Beth has been shocked before) show us, the deepest imprints of dissatisfaction, or the opposite, love-filled bliss, can’t be electro-shocked out of us. So Beth will likely become “blue” again, Pete comes to terms with his permanent wound, and Don may forever be haunted by his mistakes — little brother Adam, who killed himself in Season 1, Lane Pryce and the bitter sacrifices he made for SCDP, and the cascading casualties of living a lie for so long. On the flip side, we chase after, perhaps in vain, some sort of ingrained notion of how things should be better and we should be happier than we are.

…Which can drive drug use. Roger’s LSD trip earlier this season was so life-altering that he’s chasing after whatever honesty he encountered before. That shot of naked Roger was about the only thing that made me smile in a finale montage that otherwise felt so blue.

Loose Ends

- Nice shot of the five partners in the empty office space at the end. So well composed and cinematic.

- Good to see Peggy, and to have the two kindred spirits of Peggy and Don run into each other at an afternoon movie, which is perfectly in line with both their characters. I was wondering whether Elisabeth Moss’ exit two episodes ago was a permanent goodbye.

- I wanted to see more of Joan, but I suppose they rounded out her character arc pretty well by making her a partner after she essentially had to whore herself out. And it hurt when she said that she should have done the same for Lane, as if that would have stopped him.

- Looks like Bert Cooper will finally have an office again. Maybe he will purchase another Rothko for it.

To presidents of the Howdy Doody Circus Armies,

NYT: ‘Mad Men’ Creator Matthew Weiner Reflects on the Season So Far

elisehu — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 21:17:30 -0400

NYT: ‘Mad Men’ Creator Matthew Weiner Reflects on the Season So Far:

On Sunday afternoon, he spoke to ArtsBeat about everything that’s happened on the series this season prior to the finale. (And he has sworn on a box of Bugles that he’ll call us back on Monday to talk about the finale itself.) These are excerpts from that conversation.

5.12: Bert Checked The Books?!

elisehu — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 23:33:00 -0400

“What is happiness? It’s a moment before you need more happiness.” -Don

As his young daughter becomes a woman, Don mans up to Dow, and Lane mans up in the way he knows how. And the macabre irony there — that Lane wanted to go peacefully but he couldn’t because the unreliable Jag wouldn’t start — that is some heavy shit.

And of course, it’s all ultimately about happiness, and how society and our lives change to give us different messages about what it takes to be happy or feel accepted. As Glen and Sally grow older, they want social acceptance. Lane is several decades older, but he wants the same acceptance, be it by the 4A club or the partners, and to save himself humiliation he commits the offenses that lead to his ultimate sacrifice.

But how much does it take to really be satisfied and happy? Here we are on a journey with ad men, the very people who sell the messages to you that you need a Jaguar to be happy. Or that you won’t be safe without napalm to protect your country. How much is our happiness a condition of what some combo or Roger Sterling, Don Draper and Ed Baxter tells us we need? Does Glen actually want to have sex, or does he just “want to” have sex because society tells him to? What do we really want?

Maybe it’s to drive a nice Cadillac with a zoned out Don Draper helping guide you. Or just some understanding and tenderness from your mother as you go through, uh, changes. Or maybe all the striving for happiness becomes too difficult to bear.

Loose Ends

- I’m curious how much this suicide will affect the firm’s business (bad PR perhaps?) but I’m more interested in how this will affect the psyche of Don, who knows more about Lane’s untimely demise than the rest of the group. He looked positively stricken when Sterling announced the resignation letter was boilerplate.

- Meanwhile, things don’t look so sturdy on the home front with Megan, even though she’s nice about it. Will the real Megan Calvet Draper please stand up? We’ve seen so many versions of her — the one who absolutely does not want orange sherbert, the one who placates Don and his family (as she did in this episode), the one who wants to put her career on equal footing but also demands her husband eat the dinner she cooks when he gets home…

- Seriously, is Bert on some sort of new meds? A season or two ago he was the absent-minded professor who would walk in with totally off-base “Happy Birthday” greetings, or be found sitting in the lobby without shoes on, reading a newspaper all day. Now Bert Cooper has spent the season as the show’s conscience and inadvertently driving the plot forward, telling Don to return from love leave, okaying Joan’s selling out, and CHECKING THE BOOKS to discover Lane’s embezzlement?

If he baits you, punch him in the balls,

Elise

NPR: 'Mad Men': Ruminations On The Buying And Selling Of Something Beautiful

elisehu — Tue, 29 May 2012 23:08:00 -0400

NPR: 'Mad Men': Ruminations On The Buying And Selling Of Something Beautiful:

“The Joan storyline, that was a failure for me.”

I totally agree with my NPR colleague Linda Holmes on the incredulity of the Joan storyline, reasons for which she outlines quite well in this blog post. So I don’t even need to go there. But I’m still waiting for you boys to weigh in with what YOU thought of this girl-centric episode.

-Elise

5.11 Some things aren't for sale

Tue, 29 May 2012 13:50:00 -0400

I can’t write anything about that episode that Elise and Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker haven’t said better, though I lean heavily toward Nussbaum’s thesis that prostitution has always been a theme of Mad Men. What struck me was how normal the proposition sounded inside the office. In the bar, the request to have the B-52 sent to his love shack came across as an affront. Inside SCDP (initials that have forever ruined the South Carolina Democratic Party for me), only Don reacted badly, knowing as a whore’s son what you lose in such a trade. It was, to them, just business, though I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to look Roger Sterling in the eyes again no matter how charming he pretends to be.

What wasn’t for sale? Peggy and her pride that reaches into envy with both hands. The glass wall separating her from the silver trays of lobster was a bit heavy-handed, and there was a whiny, immature touch to her reason for leaving. But her decision to leave — to say no to Don Draper — seemed to require more guts than did Joan’s decision to take off her dress for Mr. Jaguar.

It was a shocking episode, grueling to watch. But the decision to whore out their officer mother did not seem to wreck their day.

-Jason

5.11: Girls Just Wanna Have...

elisehu — Tue, 29 May 2012 10:58:05 -0400

Team, I’m going to ignore the fact that I find the Joan storyline to be incredulous for a second to focus on Peggy, who has been, for the length of this show, both a protege and a female mirror of Don. Last season’s “The Suitcase,” when Don really hit the bottom of the Plath Bell Jar and found himself sleeping on Peggy’s lap after losing Anna Draper is one of the best Mad Men episodes of all time, and it’s largely because of the strength of the bond between those two characters (and actors).

She told Don, in that heavy goodbye scene, that he’d probably do the same. Maybe. And he said he would ignore the fact that he’s responsible for everything good that’s happened to her. There’s an argument I don’t buy, and I’ll use Jay-Z to explain myself. In “Lost One”, a track off of 2006’s Kingdom Come, the HOVA opens with this:

“It’s not a diss song, it’s just a real song / Feel me? // I heard motherfuckers saying they made Hov / Made Hov say, “Okay so, make another Hov”

The HOVA explains it the lyric this way:

“I owe a lot of my success to a lot of people, but ultimately, no one made me. This is the kind of lie that people get told all the time, sometimes in romantic relationships, sometimes in their professional lives: that somehow who they are is a result of other people’s investment in them. It’s vital to resist that or you risk losing yourself; as I say in another song, Remind yourself / nobody built like you / you design yourself.”

It is without question that Don changed Peggy’s life (hiding her big Pete baby secret not withstanding) but they are different people, different sexes, on different tracks and she’s been a victim of bad timing with him one time too many. Why is it Peggy who always walks in to his office when he’s in the worst possible mood for a totally unrelated reason? Ugh.

Just as Jay says, Peggy is now reminding herself that she designs herself. And that look of excitement and relief as she prepared to step in the elevator was uplifting for me, because she’s been in a rut all season.

So it seems like Don’s losing grasp on all the women who matter to him most. Megan isn’t going to be controlled like a 1966 Jag. “She just comes and goes as she pleases,” Ginsberg observed about her, or no one in particular. And the out-of-chronology reveal of Don’s too-late plea to stop Joan broke my heart. I started tearing up at that scene, but by the time he was bidding adieu to Peggy, the tears were full-on running down my face.

So I’ve left a lot unsaid here. Mainly about Joan. But I want you men to weigh in first. Over to you, boys.

You’ll like it when you’re in it,

Elise

5.10: Hare Hare, Hare Krishna

elisehu — Sun, 20 May 2012 23:51:44 -0400

Ugh, this is the 10th episode of the season already? I can’t believe we have so few episodes left. But these seasons tend to work like Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit — build, build, build, climax somewhere in the third act (or the penultimate episode), bring on the resolution in the very end (or the season finale.)

Lane Skimmin’

How many storylines do I say “This isn’t going to end well” about? But this really isn’t going to end well. But, this season’s theme is “every man for himself,” right? His pride keeps him from going to the partners honestly and saying he’s in a tough spot and needs some cash. (Clearly Roger has enough to buy off his copy writers as needed and to give his ex wife a new apartment.) Borrowing $50,000 on behalf of the firm, money that is GOING TO HAVE TO BE PAID BACK … and then paying himself with a fraudulent check … this has future-JP Morgan/Chase written all over it. Doesn’t Future Lane ever meet present-day Jamie Dimon in the Negron Complex?

Joan and Don

Their mutual respect and rapport was obvious in the hospital after Guy got his foot chopped off with a lawnmower in Episode 3.6. They truly seemed to understand each other at this point in their lives. Joan is asking herself where she’s going, because she feels she has nothing. Don is asking himself where he is going, because he has everything.

Critics and fans have said Don and Joan are meant to be together, but maybe because they are, they’ll never be together. Such are the rules of television, right?

The bar scene reminded me a bit of Don’s bar scene with Peggy in one of the best episodes of Mad Men ever, Season Four’s “Suitcase” (4.7):

“Don shares with Peggy that he watched his father get killed by a horse when he was only 11; Peggy (in keeping with the reflexivity of their characters) reveals she too watched her father die in front of her when she was also a child. They both avoid what’s in their suitcases by giving everything they have to their work. I wonder, in fact, whether their personality types are somehow well-suited for advertising because of the way their brains can imagine another reality… or something… ?”

But Don and Peggy are soul mates in that they are mirrors of one another. It’s different than he and Joan, who complement one other.

The Return of Paul Kinsey

That was rad. This is the same former Sterling Cooper writer who briefly became a Freedom Rider in order to be part of something, anything. The latest place he’s playing poser is among the Hare Krishnas, which I suppose I’m not that surprised about, now that I think about it. The guy is a fake human being, though so is Harry, but they went on quite different paths. I suppose this is why Harry feels empathetic toward Paul — they are in many ways the same posers, only Harry got lucky.

“What ghost visited you, Ebenezer?” Don then reminds Pete that Pete instructed him to intervene the next time a boxing match was possible. Pete and Lane found some sort of civility. But these financial tricks wind up getting discovered, so we’re probably set up for another Pete-Lane showdown.

Loose Ends

-I’ve ignored Roger in discussing Joan and Don. But his efforts to try and pay for Kevin are noble, and that line after he dropped off flowers — how many times have I left you with a card from another man — was quietly heartbreaking.

-Meanwhile, it seems Don is starting to care about work again, just as Megan cares more about acting, which is a totally different direction. This is a fissure that’s NOT caused by Betty from 50 miles away.

-“It feels like Joan’s breasts are getting bigger and bigger.” -Matty

-What did y’all think? I found the episode to be pretty uneven compared to others … but maybe I’m missing something.

Surprise, there’s an AIRPLANE here to see you,

Elise

5.9: Weights and Measures

elisehu — Sun, 13 May 2012 23:54:45 -0400

“I’m thankful that I have everything I want. And that no one else has anything better.” -Betty

On this Mother’s Day, we pause in our celebration of loving moms to watch perhaps the most irritating television mother of all time, Betty Draper Francis.

What’s the measure of a man? His professional life, we think. What’s the measure of a woman in the sixties — or today, for that matter? Her appearance? It was just last week when Hillary Clinton got pilloried for not wearing makeup and she had to tell the world she didn’t care … because a woman shouldn’t be defined, or define themselves, by appearances.

But for our characters, perhaps more important than appearances is how we measure up against one another. That final, searing quote from Betty said it all. It’s not enough to have everything you want (or maintain your weight for a week in Weight Watchers). You have to be better than everyone else, if you’re Betty Draper. All that competition can be quite toxic, indeed.

Don’s love leave is over and he’s feeling the competitive heat in the workplace, which has long been his proving ground. It was nice to Ol’ Don back in his office late at night, snowballing, er, spitballing some ideas. When he played off his “snowball’s idea in hell” notion as something he just came up with in the office pitch session, the reliably filterless Ginsberg said, “It’s impressive that you could not write for so long and come up with that. That’s good to know.” We, of course, know better.

And here I was feeling bad about Betty’s situation for most of the episode until she pulls a TOTAL Betty with the Anna Draper move. WTF, BETTY? Seriously? Props to Sally Draper for turning that back around on her mother later — “He showed us pictures and they spoke very fondly of her” — but what a way to deal with heavy topics, Betty.

It’s easy just to hate on her, and I remain unconvinced that ANYTHING could make her happy. But when Henry Francis talked about having bet on the wrong horse politically, there was a tender moment there between he and Betty, even though Betty was probably wondering whether she bet on the wrong man. That note about the lightbulb was pretty endearing, after all.

Loose Ends

“You know Don. Tall guy (gesture) short temper (gesture).” - Ginsberg

- After weeks of us joking around about all the walking around money Roger has, he finally says what the audience has been saying — “I gotta start carrying around less cash.” In the Season 5 opener, “the roll of walking-around money in his pocket would purchase, in 2012 terms, $7,000 worth of goods, services, favors, or indulgences.” Then, in “Mystery Date” (Episode 5.4) Peggy managed to get $400 out of Roger to do the campaign he forgot, which works out to $3000 in today’s money. Poor Ginsberg gets obviously shorted with only $200 in 1966, or $1500 in 2012 terms.

- Roger’s mojo is back, but we got a glimpse of the wreckage of his second marriage. I can’t muster up that much pity for Jane because I remember how wily and manipulative and bitchy she was to Joan when she worked at Sterling Cooper and snatched Roger in the first place. So, uh, whatever. I don’t feel terrible that Roger had sex with his wife in the apartment that he bought for her.

- Pete’s general desperation as a human being: Pretty hilarious this episode.

- I have to admit after the Megan/Sally scene I sat there for a few moments keeping my eyes wide open to see if I could make myself cry.

Am I the only one who can work and drink around here at the same time?

Elise

5.8: In Which I Had To Look Up Modernism Versus Post-Modernism

elisehu — Thu, 10 May 2012 16:41:00 -0400

After our resident professor-blogger Walton expounded on Pete Campbell’s reading of Thomas Pynchon and suggested that Pete’s ethos is a hybrid of modern and post-modern, I looked up the differences and found a handy chart.

So, modernism aligns with realism and post-modernism is literature that’s aware it’s literature, or art that’s aware it’s art. You could argue any advertising creative is post-modern, because advertising by the sixties was all about using language and art to control consumer behavior. But our characters, in this decade of great evolution, are in very different places on that spectrum.

Walton, on Peggy’s post-modernism:

When Peggy rages on Don, in Don Draper style, she’s dazzling. She exacts an ability to control the messages around Don. Peggy is able to do what Campbell can’t: power and language control. As she explains to Megan: I cannot lie to him. Peggy may have become a postmodern already. But when Don toes the edge of the abyss, the open elevator shaft, he pulls back, unwilling to plunge.

Phillip, in his recent post, touched on the same themes, maybe without knowing it: How much do we control the messages we send to others, and by extension, how they react?

But I’m not sure I agree with you, Phil, about Pete being backward. From Phil’s post:

Pete is as backward-looking as Peggy is forward-looking. Pete is still trying to find acceptance from some father figure, and has chosen to make himself out to be like Don. Whether it is wanting a bigger office, wanting praise for clients, wanting to sleep with hookers, wanting to cheat on his wife, or just wanting to act lost and desperate, Pete has metamorphosed into Don.

Pete’s always seemed raised by wolves; so uncertain of his identity that he has had to model himself after other people. After Don rejected him in Season 2, Pete clung to Duck Phillips, for example.

But I do think he has been on the right side of history and creative culture even though he doesn’t get much credit for it. In Season 3, Episode 5’s “The Fog,” Pete lobbies for integrated advertising — trying to sell the untapped “negro” market. The client hated it, Sterling joked, “Well, if it isn’t Martin Luther King,” but Pete was looking forward when everyone else in his universe wasn’t.

Similarly, in Season 1, Episode 10, “Long Weekend,” the firm watches Nixon and Kennedy TV ads and the old guard, which obviously backs Nixon, laments “it should never have been this close.” Pete sees what the others don’t: “The president is a product, don’t forget that,” he says. That was 1960, and Pete was arguably post-modern even then.

I point this out to say that while yes, Pete seems to want a life like Don’s, his frustration in not succeeding suggests that he is actually not backward, but ahead of his time. I’m with Walton on this one: “Pete is bridge character: he is both the last modern and the first postmodern character on the show.”

And I’d definitely put Don behind Pete in the race to the future.

Y’all are everything I hoped you’d be,

Elise

5.8 - It Is Knowing, It Is Knowing...

myfriendsontwitter — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:38:00 -0400

“People want to be told what to do so badly that they’ll listen to anyone.”

In Season 1, Episode 6 (“Babylon”), Don Draper visits the Village to check out some beatnik poetry. During an exchange with an artist, Don finds himself coolly and confidently defending his profession. He says to the artist, “people want to be told what to do so badly that they’ll listen to anyone.” After the poet pronounces that she wants to make love to Fidel Castro, Don smirks, “Too much art for me.”

Six years later (in the Mad Men timeline), we arrive in Season 5, Episode 8’s world of Lady Lazarus. Much has been made of the use of The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows in the final scene, from the cost ($250,000) to total disbelief that Don wouldn’t have loved the song (NPR). Here’s what Weiner said about the song:

The thing about that song in particular was, the Beatles are, throughout their intense existence, constantly pushing the envelope, and I really wanted to show how far ahead of the culture they were. That song to me is revolutionary, as is that album.

The song is not supposed to be in Don’s wheelhouse; he still hasn’t gone rock, which I define as being able to rise above the advertising man he has become. The song is used as a cultural marker against which we’re to evaluate the other characters. In the final scene, the montage runs over Don, Peggy, Pete, Megan, and finally back to Don for the cut:

Peggy - I’m not well-versed on the dynamics of modern vs. post-modern, but I sense that I agree with Walton. Peggy is the one most willing to challenge paradigms in the show, whether it is working topless in a hotel room, working stoned, or just moving into an apartment with her boyfriend. If anyone is going to surrender to the void, it is her. She is forward-looking and inclusive.
Pete - Pete is as backward-looking as Peggy is forward-looking. Pete is still trying to find acceptance from some father figure, and has chosen to make himself out to be like Don. Whether it is wanting a bigger office, wanting praise for clients, wanting to sleep with hookers, wanting to cheat on his wife, or just wanting to act lost and desperate, Pete has metamorphosed into Don. Maybe Pete really is suicidal, but I just don’t know what he’s running or hiding from, or what he’s scared of when he goes home. Whatever the case, he is definitely not advancing with the culture.
Megan - Don used to think that all people really want is to be told what to do. All signs point to that not being true with Megan. She has dreams, she has a purpose, and though timid about expressing them she still does express them. And she is happier for it, as she tells Don when she confesses that he is everything she had hoped he would be. Megan is pushing the envelope, too, right with the Beatles. So naturally…
Don - …that scares Don. And at least irritates, if not angers, him as well. Earlier in the episode, when they were trying to find the perfect song to fit the television ad, he told everyone not to worry because Megan was perfect at that kind of stuff. Just like she was perfect at the Cool Whip pitch. But she didn’t want to do advertising, and her choice of what all the kids are listening to is not “I Want to Hold Your Hand” — the song Don sang to her in his flashback a couple episodes back.

If love is the apex of enlightenment, as the Beatles sing, then Don is left to ask if he is in love. The woman he married worked with him in his office. As Elise and Jason have already said, husband and wives have to navigate their work identity with their couples identity. There wasn’t a lot of common ground Don and Megan shared: he’s old and she’s young, he has no parents and she has two, he has kids and she’d never want more, he loves advertising and she loves art. Don probably wanted to have Megan play a song more like this. Did anyone expect Don, who could barely sit in a beatnik coffee shop, to really go for this?

Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream
It is not dying, it is not dying
Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void
It is shining, it is shining
Yet you may see the meaning of within
It is being, it is being
Love is all and love is everyone
It is knowing, it is knowing
And ignorance and hate they mourn the dead
It is believing, it is believing
But listen to the color of your dreams
It is not leaving, it is not leaving
So play the game “Existence” to the end
Of the beginning, of the beginning

I don’t think Megan was trying to insult Don in any way. I think she genuinely wanted to let him know what the latest thing in music was. But he didn’t want the latest thing. He wanted the safest thing.

—Phillip