SterlingCooperDraperPryce: Mad Men Season 4

Seems like the thread from last summer is uncomfortably long already. (Yeah, I'm new here, but I googled the thread just in case it would've been good form to bump it.) Who's excited for tomorrow? Where are we going to be in the timeline? Will the Most Beautiful Woman In The World get enough screen time? How am I going to decide whether to watch Mad Men or True Blood first? What are you going to wear?

One might presume spoilers will lie herein at some point soon.

WO!

Betts divorces her Rockefeller supporter after realizing that Nixon's got sexier stubble.

hooray, this is my first season watching it live! i can't wait to be annoyed by the "previously on MAD MEN" bumpers before each episode.

Me too! I'm going to watch it in DVR real time!

HAs this been on yet? I'm confused by international timelines.

it's starting right now!!

Joan: "I won't even tell anyone after it airs."

despite having not yet seen most of s1 and all of seasons 2-3, i am watching this. who's the cute guy in the sweater vest who works with peggy? (when i started watching, i always thought pete was a lot more interesting than don. will have to catch up asap..)

ooooooh this starts tomorrow? i thought i would carry on waiting forever.

tonight? omg tomorrow download fest :)

HOLY SHIT @ the last 2 mins of the episode!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08T8Dt9tnFk

who's the cute guy in the sweater vest who works with peggy?

He's a new hire. He wasn't there before.

HOLY SHIT @ the last 2 mins of the episode!

totally

what was it about the last 2 min?

squealsquealsqueal

gooood episode

what was it about the last 2 min?

Don Draper, gunslinger.

Yeah, I'm psyched. Great episode.

"we all know this is temporary, henry." burn!

rubicon seems sorta x-filesy so far

Oh, that reminds me... Sally Draper regurgitating her sweet potatoes FTW.

I'm waiting on Rubicon so I can see all two hours at once.

(xpost) i don't blame her. although i liked henry's mom calling betty trash.

Yeah, Henry's mom is on point.

anti-betty zing best part of a very good episode

lol @ bobby really hamming it up once sally left the table, that poor kid deserves his chance to shine

that was so funny!

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/07/25/mad-men-a-conversation-season-4-episode-1/
^^^ wsj blogging about this, i was reading thinking it was just a review and then he's like "toril what do you think" and i wondered.. is that toril moi? in the wsj? it is! this group is going to discuss every episode..

Fantastic episode. The Betty/Henry burn, Kiernan Shipka being all grown up (and main cast!), delicious bits of the all-too-infrequently-shown Don/Peggy relationship. Not enough Joan, no Pete and Trudy Time yet...but the time will come.

omg u guyz i luv this show

yeah great episode!

lol at Harry Crane's sunburn!

delicious bits of the all-too-infrequently-shown Don/Peggy relationship

yes, he paid for the ham ladies' bail! quid pro quo for peggy getting him out of jail.

that one line about two of the four test-market stores for the ham being in jewish neighborhoods = classic

lol @ bobby really hamming it up once sally left the table, that poor kid deserves his chance to shine

hamming it up
jon hamm
the ham fight
harry coming back looking like a ham

ham goin ham

or rather, hamm going ham

hammacher schlemmer

ham conspiracy

liked the british invasion music at the end. what song/band was it?

in any case, perfect way to underscore the emergence of the NEW DON

Using Google I've discovered it was "Tobacco Road" by The Nashville Teens, who upon closer inspection seem to have been neither teens nor from Nashville.

the boards of canada/of montreal of the 60s

really love how mad men always introduces me to strange/entertaining 1960s cultural detrius

Is it weird to be proud of a TV show getting better all the time just because you happen to have been watching it from ep 1?

was don's date the preacher's wife from true blood?

"believe me, henry, everybody thinks this is temporary"

~ice cold~

That was the True Blood girl, can't wait to see her slap Don.

The best thing about Mad Men is watching the women go at it like crabs in a barrel - I've said before that the way they check each other is the most interesting thing about the series.

great episode, anyway, I thought

Great opener, the new agency is bringing a genuinely different atmosphere to the show, it seems lighter, snappier and somehow younger. I adored Peggy in this one. Any hints as to what year we're in?

Line of the episode: "We can charge them to my expense account if I say they're whores."

Thanksgiving, 1964.

The pace did seem so much faster than anything in previous seasons. What a great start!

it's 64 and not 65? betty and dude married that quickly?

Line of the episode: "We can charge them to my expense account if I say they're whores."

I enjoyed how no one even blinked an eye. I almost wished that Peggy had, but if anything, it's pretty obvious that she's able to hold her own now, even in that obnoxious interaction outside Don's door.

This whole Don Draper: Gunslinger thing is kind of new for him, isn't it? He's always been the guy to stick to his business principles and get things done, but he's always been modest. Or at the least, had a lack of confidence that made it seem like he's constantly proving himself. I feel like Don is somehow more adult now, although that might not mean much.

I don't know if it's sad or responsible that he's calling hookers.

Yeah, but remember Roger and Jane also got married v. fast. And the comment about the Rockefellers when Happy had only been divorced a few months. (xpost)

better a call girl than that 25 year old friend of Jane, imo.

it's 64 and not 65? betty and dude married that quickly?

Betty and Henry went to Reno in Nov or Dec 63, whichever month Shut the Door technically took place, specifically so she could get divorced and then they could marry as quickly as possible. (Part of it was possibly motivated by Rockefeller campaign commitments in 64 for Henry...? Dramatically it moved the action forward asap, and now put Henry in his spot: He didn't have time to consider he was making a mistake, which he already seems to realize.)

huh i hadn't worked out the dates -- i was hoping the rockefeller defeat would play into the plot somehow. it seemed ominous to me in s3 that henry is presented as a man on his way up, considering we know all along how that turned out. by thanksgiving all that would be over with, even the general. rockefeller was gov for like forever so how he's just another guy with a job. maybe that's a little too nerdy to be intentional.

i got a hint of meta about the scenario of this ep: a franchise that's made its mark, a new star, really can't consider itself a scrappy upstart anymore, the "mystery man" angle is played out...

great episode - was dying when Sally spit out her sweet potato. and yeah great finish with Don firing his clients + self-mythologizing. also great to see Peggy so assertive/comfortable

i got a hint of meta about the scenario of this ep: a franchise that's made its mark, a new star, really can't consider itself a scrappy upstart anymore, the "mystery man" angle is played out...

oh absolutely, that's a great take on it.

so how long before Don's into full on S&M bondage gear

I figured out the date at the end when Don was talking to the WSJ guy. "A year ago, we..."

this was also like the 3rd or 4th time they used some civil rights milestone as a time marker

they seemed to be trying very hard to work that in.

i got my year of kennedy assassination confused in my head, was thinking last year was 64 and this was only like a few weeks later.

I hope they keep making references to the "second floor"and never actually show it. "we can't show you the second floor"

i think that's going to be a running thing. like the (lol) table.

maybe they have a storage room/locker on another floor?

They don't really have a second floor. They just tell people they do.

oh! did they say that? i thought they had a technical reason that allowed some of them to claim a second floor.

the new agency is bringing a genuinely different atmosphere to the show, it seems lighter, snappier and somehow younger.

Did you notice that Don's new apartment is smack in the middle of Greenwich Village, at Waverly and 6th Ave? Hell of a place to be in 1964.

great how the last line was don advertising that second floor lie.

i'm also wondering if ep 2 is going to start with Don catching hell for going overboard in his interview 2.0.

They don't really have a second floor. They just tell people they do.

Right, and listen to Don at the end of the episode. "Within a year, we had taken over two floors of the Time Life building." He's reinventing himself again.

Crackling ending.

xp Yeah

i've noticed the ties changing actually!

xposts

i thought onion av rvwer dude was astute in pointing out the contrast of all the snappy new stuff to don's fusty antiquey "bachelor pad" complete with doting mother to cold shoulder.

Come again?

i'm also wondering if ep 2 is going to start with Don catching hell for going overboard in his interview 2.0.

No way. They wanted him to go overboard the first time.

so how long before Don's into full on S&M bondage gear

I think the ending implies that he's done punishing himself.

Did you notice that Don's new apartment is smack in the middle of Greenwich Village, at Waverly and 6th Ave? Hell of a place to be in 1964.

I don't know my individual streets of America in history - want to go into detail?

i dunno if it was just the dramatizing of don's inner psychosis or whatever but from that episode i got the impression of a new kind of misogynistic slant more on the show's part than from the characters... like all the female roles in their social progress seemed linked to everything that don is corrupted by and succumbs to by the end

the Village in '64: folk scene still booming post-Dylan, comedy galore (Cosby, Lenny Bruce), jazz (hello Village Vanguard) . . . really hopping then

this ep was kind of boring

lots of writers too
xp

i thought onion av rvwer dude was astute in pointing out the contrast of all the snappy new stuff to don's fusty antiquey "bachelor pad" complete with doting mother to cold shoulder.

first shot of interior of Don's apt prompted my wife to note: "Don sure loves living in the Depression"

and maybe he'll hang out with jane jacobs in the village

the Village in '64: folk scene still booming post-Dylan, comedy galore (Cosby, Lenny Bruce), jazz (hello Village Vanguard) . . . really hopping then

And right around the corner from Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground, artists galore, and on and on. The Village was the center of the American cultural universe in the 60's.

Right, and listen to Don at the end of the episode. "Within a year, we had taken over two floors of the Time Life building." He's reinventing himself again.

could've sworn Don went even farther and said THREE floors

xp

could've sworn Don went even farther and said THREE floors

Nah. I downloaded it, and just reviewed. He just says two. Which is lie enough, really.

i was really struck by how dark the cinematography/lighting was in the don's bachelor pad scenes. (though the emotional effect/link they were going felt just-this-side of too-obvious.) (maybe i just got used to mad men being kinda bright and snazzy even during the nighttime scenes.)

I realized a moment ago that I should have said "The Village was the center of the American COUNTERcultural universe in the 60's."

wasnt it really dark in the restaurant on his date too? like when she gets up to show him her dress?

agree that this ep was kinda boring...idk i might not care abt this show anymore, too?

like when she gets up to show him her dress?

furry boobs are never a good look

Nice detail I just noticed: when Don slams the door at the end of the ep, you can see the whole cheap makeshift wall shake.

I used to get this from mininova or ninjavideo. Now that both are kaput, I'm lost. Where are dudes getting this?

P1r4t3 b4y

http://watch-series.com/

eztv

all mad men episodes are 'boring' except the lawnmower one. stop being a child.

is it me or did don's date look remarkably like jan jones?

just you?

Yeah def going with "just you" on that one.

is it me or did don's date look remarkably like jan jones?

I got that too. I kept thinking, 'Enough with the blonde society chicks! Go find Midge again - she's probably your neighbor.'

Ha, for real. I miss Midge.

don's bachelor pad scenes. (though the emotional effect/link they were going felt just-this-side of too-obvious.)

― strongohulkingtonsghost, Monday, 26 July 2010 20:12 (57 minutes ago)

haha i always feel a little like "too-obvious" is this constant minor personal game to play with mad men (partly to do w/ trying to self-limit how much of a 60s retro twerp you're unconsciously being too i guess) -- but yeah when they brought in the s&m femme-control-issues don development i thought that was a little broad and lol, though effective

and also really is that stuff any less obvious than don's "the boy behind bars" successful ad metaphor, or the wooden leg of korean loss or whatever

any MORE obvious rather, soz

what about the wooden leg?
i thought it was really weird no one mentioned Don's being in the war at all after that thing with the leg.

the wooden leg of Korean loss was great I thought, worked on a few different levels (set-up for Sterling joke, highlights the cruelty/missed opportunity of Don's denials at the interview, etc.)

like Don could've swapped war stories with the guy except OH SHIT NO HE COULDN'T lol

i guess (and esp in comparison to the braggin 2nd interview later) the wooden leg is like the sudden dick whitman reminder in that scene; maybe also in its stumble representing the awkwardness/emotional disabliity of the current don situation - also in roger's reaction the callousness of the backlash to come, i dunno

i read it like this: sterling cracks some gruesome jokes about it cos that's what soldiers do, and it keeps anyone from getting weepy about it, plus since he was in "the big one" he gets to be a dick to korea vets (remember the dinner scene). don doesn't say anything cos he's not much of a soldier and doesn't have the right thing to say. pete is a blueblood dickhead so he gladhands the guy.

that reminds me, when is joan's useless hub going to die in vietnam?

highlights the cruelty/missed opportunity of Don's denials at the interview, etc.)

― Moshy Star (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 26 July 2010 21:26 (1 minute ago)

i get the impression (from this and other comments) ppl weren't too sympathetic to don before he switches it up at the end? i kind of saw the denouement as him falling to other people's level - not that he's an angel to begin with but still he stood for nobler things than the changing tide around him. i feel the awful brash carelessness of his pitch to the family swimsuit company at the end bears this out

and how he ends up playing the same trashy game as peggy's staged ham fight after dresssing her down for it earlier - great scene with her saying the image of the company's "where he left it" when he hadn't really done anything wrong in the first place originally

...though it do have to remind myself that dick whitman's time in korea wasn't a complete fraud -- he did get shelled for chrissake, that's plenty real.

xp lol i kept myself up half the night with this imagined scenario where don does a (tm) off-the-cuff pitch and gets the swimsuit dudes to get over their virgin-whore problems and just sell the bikinis to the fully alive american woman. or something. with joan as prop, humiliatingly.

but no, he just bails on the whole thing...

i have to say if this whole season is about don draper just letting shit rip, bro!!! i'm going to be a mite dissappointed

that reminds me, when is joan's useless hub going to die in vietnam?

yeah looking forward to this episode lol

i get the impression (from this and other comments) ppl weren't too sympathetic to don before he switches it up at the end? i kind of saw the denouement as him falling to other people's level - not that he's an angel to begin with but still he stood for nobler things than the changing tide around him. i feel the awful brash carelessness of his pitch to the family swimsuit company at the end bears this out

sympathy for Don from the viewers here always seems muted/clouded by other things, unless I'm misreading people...? Sometimes he seems noble and creative and you wanna root for him, other times he's a complete asshole. As far as the denouement goes I didn't see him firing a client (!) as being sinking to others' level, obviously that was something only Don would do and everyone else at the agency was mortified by it. But it was immediately followed by him heeding everyone's instructions to clean up his mess and take control. And it's usually pretty exciting to watch Don take control.

Don firing the client and doing the second interview are both part of him exerting control over the image of the company - but the former is rooted in the narcissism of his creativity, and the latter in his pragmatism/need to please his father figures

Don "pitching" a fit when the swimsuit guys didn't like his concept was some bush league antics there. they were very clear about what they wanted and without any apparently research he decided that they were doomed if they didn't all ignore everything they'd just said the day before.
i saw it as a creative failure, really - that he couldn't manage to muster anything within the parameters they'd laid out - or even had any sort of back-up plan when he decided he knew better than the client.

well, losing your shit at a client like that Is Not Done, right? that's kind of creative, in a way...

he didn't just fail, he told them to TAKE THEIR THINGS AND GET OUT. made a sandwich out of the hand that feeds, basically

i've heard of firing clients before, but never for not agreeing on creative direction. that was indeed pure narcissism pretty much.

xpost - ha ha exactly

Didn't realise I'd missed this show until I watched this episode.

Given their reliance on Lucky Strike + the business clearly not doing that well, not sure how long Don Draper the primadonna is going to last.

Or going to be allowed to last anyway.

if they're going to pay you either way - you do what you're asked and take the money. if you're going to blow off everything they said they stand for/wanted - you better have a back-up plan, mister.

i think Don was taking out his frustrations on anyone he could. if he'd been in a better headspace he might have stuck to the plan the client had laid out.

xpost - was wondering that too. i thought it was pretty obv that the second interview was to try to make up for blowing his top there.

Don firing the client and doing the second interview are both part of him exerting control over the image of the company - but the former is rooted in the narcissism of his creativity, and the latter in his pragmatism/need to please his father figures

The former is Don doing what he wanted to do to Betty. The client meeting started with the whole, can I put my foot on your coffee table and Sterling saying 'sure, treat this place like your living room' etc. Don's "get out of here, get your things and leave" could have been word for word a blow-up with Betty at the house.

Worth noting: guy puts his feet up, "make yourself at home"-- don's anger is surely partially directed at Betty and new husband

huh i didn't even put that together. duh.

sounds like they also have staffing issues...? like part of the reason he didn't bother coming up with any backup plan was because he didn't have Sal and co. to rely on and all he had was this one thing he knew would work if they would just accept it.

good pts about Betty/domestic scene being mirrored in the workplace

xp

Crap. xpost!

So, yeah, it's him taking bck control but he took control of the office via WSJ; he became determined to take eventual control in his personal life with the clients, presumably.

sal didn't really come up with ideas, right? he just did the art. the new guy who hangs out with peggy is his replacement.
but they mentioned not having the staff to do what they could do at the old sterling cooper.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4WCJ9W3Y-L8/S82Gmve0fJI/AAAAAAAACFU/1L6Qr55D_xg/s400/christina_hendricks.jpg

MAD MEN on AMC S4 << REAL THREAD

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MAD MEN on AMC S4 << REAL THREAD

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MAD MEN on AMC S4 << REAL THREAD

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MAD MEN on AMC S4 << REAL THREAD

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MAD MEN on AMC S4 << REAL THREAD

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MAD MEN on AMC S4 << REAL THREAD

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MAD MEN on AMC S4 << REAL THREAD

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MAD MEN on AMC S4 << REAL THREAD

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MAD MEN on AMC S4 << REAL THREAD

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MAD MEN on AMC S4 << REAL THREAD

just to let everyone know, im gonna post goatse in this thread at some point so i wouldnt open it again unless youre into that sort of thing

nah i dunno, i saw the snapping and the subsequent interview as part of one instinctive survival movement, like this big clearing of the old-way-of-doing-things decks and lunge into everything he'd resisted - in a typical don way i expect he will have perfectly caught the zeitgeist with it and business is gonna go through the roof now, but he will be even more hollow a man than ever and he will slowly unravel over the series

my theory anyway

suggest banning everyone posting in here

So, am I the only one who, when Don brought the kids back home to the empty house, said "Oh hey, was the car running when Henry pounced?", and hoped they'd be conveniently dead in the garage?

i thought the other thread was pointing at this one for a reason

where is plaxico i want to read his captain save-a-betts take on events

WHICH MAD MEN S4 THREAD YOU LIEK BETTER??

i approve of that sort of pretty image bombing

would bomb

just realized the second floor image was in the jantzen ad as well. clever.

jaq i totally thought that abt dead in the garage thing. i thought we saw don break through a series of depressing events and emerge with a new attitude typified by that whole fuck you you're wrong in fact you're everything that's wrong with my job and get the fuck out of the way cuz we runnin this shit thing put forth by him maniacly ousting them from the office. i can dig that the frustration of many of these depressing events needed a catalyst and perhaps some of the anger displayed was displaced from that. but in another way the whole world is embarking on this cultural awakening the likes of which had never been seen, and arguably hasn't since. don is like part of that and has a intuition about it and knows that the way to move forward is by being cutting edge and not traditional.

i remember thinking in previous seasons that he was going to be in trouble by the late 60's. i honestly can't remember what instances made me think that - but he seemed to be dismissive of several things he'd need to accept to get by. never thought of Don being at the fore of anything cultural really!

dude was scoffing at shitty beatnik bar antics in season 1, I think he's gonna be allright. at least professionally.

Yeah but the whole point is that Don can just rip up his previous position and start again. He's sort of ambivalent and adaptable in a way that, say, Bert Cooper isn't. There's totally going to be a standoff between those two at some point.

very true, Shakey.

The mystery that remains is what exactly Don Draper's values ARE.

flexible

Ok, but are there any nouns?

http://cdn.fd.uproxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Hot-Fuzz.gif

oh no I caused a thread priority throwdown, my googles were weak

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l66fe6TVPz1qa5ff2o1_500.gif

nice

I didn't care for this episode. The mood was just too different. I know it's supposed to be, with the new agency and all, but I don't like change. Its like the camera work was very different as well. Seemed to be a lot more close ups and moving camera shots??? (I have know idea what the technical terms are for what I am trying to describe). It felt like a movie instead of a tv show.

So, am I the only one who, when Don brought the kids back home to the empty house, said "Oh hey, was the car running when Henry pounced?", and hoped they'd be conveniently dead in the garage?

― Jaq, Monday, July 26, 2010 2:28 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

at least the depression-era whitman dream sequence/flashback stuff was gone...

I'd be curious to hear of anyone else who ever worked as a peon in advertising who can't make it through 2 minutes of this show.

The mystery that remains is what exactly Don Draper's values ARE.

lol, he's an ad exec, do the math

i thought it was a great opener. A++++

awesome ep

http://i38.tinypic.com/307p7bb.gif

this was mad tite

felt hamm was going places different

end of the ep 'owyousay 'knocked it out the park'

nashville teens' follow-up to 'tobacco road' was called 'google eye' lol

lol, he's an ad exec, do the math

You really have only watched two minutes of this show.

Wonder if we're going to see Kinsey and Cosgrove and so forth at any point this season or if they're done with. I suspect Pete will go pissing it up with them at some point.

the in-ep cast lists have spoilers

I wonder if sal will come back

I think I've heard that he won't, which makes me think that Cosgrove and Kinsey may be left for dead as characters, as well.

aaron staton is still listed on the cast iirc

I should have a look at that.

I didn't care for this episode. The mood was just too different. I know it's supposed to be, with the new agency and all, but I don't like change. Its like the camera work was very different as well. Seemed to be a lot more close ups and moving camera shots??? (I have know idea what the technical terms are for what I am trying to describe). It felt like a movie instead of a tv show.

This whole post is complete nonsense except for one key bit: "I don't like change." And for that reason, I really like this post. Knowing is half the battle.

Nobody likes change, dude.

peggy would never have sat on a table with her feet on a chair even a season ago

It's this permissive society they're living in. She'll be trading in her two-piece for a bikini next.

Roger will die/kill himself/get killed before all this is over and Peggy will be a partner.

She was drinking whisky too, has she ever drank on the show before?

I do like how comfortable she looked doing it though.

xpost

has she ever drank on the show before?

Have you forgotten her one night stand with the guy from the bar?

Think he means in the office.

I'm assuming they'll have to go up against original Sterling Cooper for business at some point which will bring the lols. Also I hope we haven't seen the last of Duck. Sal's probably gone for good though.

I think they pretty definitively sent Duck off into the long goodnight.

Think he means in the office.

She*, thankyou.

And yeah, I meant irresponsible-but-enviable worktime drinking really.

Speaking of Duck and Peggy, she had to have been at least a little drunk there.

xp ok gotcha

She*, thankyou.

Sorry!

Naah, it's alright.

Anyway the drinking thing just stuck out at me because every other character has been doing it since the first season, it's just nice to see her blending in a bit more at last.

She may as well drink casually in the office. She got stoned at the old place.

(I keep remembering things...)

Apparently the days of the in-office wet bar are not dead. Male friend going to edit a Conde Nast mag is to be given his own office, and within it there is a drinks cabinet. Stocked.

Conde Nast hasn't actually moved on from the 1960s in any way though has it?

I dunno, virtually every office I've worked in has had booze in the office and drinking in the office. Not to the extent of Mad Men, but it doesn't strike me as something that's that outlandish.

drinking while working and then going for a nap seems a bit outlandish

It sounds to me like increased productivity all around.

This whole post is complete nonsense except for one key bit: "I don't like change." And for that reason, I really like this post. Knowing is half the battle.

Thanks. That is what I was going for.

NEway, never watching this show again.

Peggy would have a drink or two after hours in the office if she was staying late. Then she'd have a drink here and there when she got her own office. I think they've done well showing her progression into some state of equality with her workmates.

I also liked the slightly different shooting and editing. The new office is smaller and more frenetic, and with everyone pulling together as part of a team rather than straight-up disposable underlings, there's a greater sense of freedom.

xposts yes, up until the '90s, it's rumoured that Vogue House receptionists would turn away/suddenly cancel taxis ordered to collect people, if driven by non-whites.

She was drinking whisky too, has she ever drank on the show before?

I didn't notice that, but I did notice she was smoking when she called Don to ask him for bail money. Maybe out of stress, but I can only remember one other time when we've seen her light up, and that was mostly to fit in.

why does peggy have such bad hair

I think she is trying to look more mature, but otoh her hair has always been semi-tragic.

Bad Hair always shown as working-class in NYC skyscraper aspiration dramas (and comedies).

I don't think Peggy's trying to fit in anymore as much as she is actually fitting in. As much as a woman in the office in her position could, at least.

Good to see that Joan is fairly recognized as the office runner and not just a secretary/receptionist type. I breathed a sigh of relief at the end of last season when Roger called her when he realized they didn't know shit about where anything was or how their business was actually run on a daily basis. Hopefully we see more implying that Sterling Cooper was an office she learned to run, whereas SCDP is her's from the beginning.

I'm thinking the Whitman flashbacks might be on the way out. Maybe seasons 1-3 were really Dick Whitman hiding as Don Draper, and now we're finally seeing him living as the person he's built.

what happened to Joan's husband again? I can't remember. He joined the military?

Who was the dork who pretended to be Peggy's finance? Her actual boyfriend? Some underling who works with them who Don doesn't even recognize? The point of that eluded me slightly.

aw i thought peggy's hair was nice

sorry man but it was nagl

post on this thread or youre soft MAD MEN S4 on I LOVE CRICKET: THE CHINATOWN OF ILX: THE CHINATOWN OF ILX

matt in dc is a disgusting hairy jerk

sorry man but it was nagl

i was thinking about this when i saw photos in the paper earlier -- i kind of think the actress has the kind of face that would suit various choppy 70s/80s/90s haircuts a lot better than anything non-anachronistic. (whereas when you see john hamm in 00s casual he kind of looks like a nebbish.)

a nebbish?

http://www.nypost.com/r/nypost/blogs/popwrap/200811/Images/200811_GQ-Jon-Hamm.jpg

I wouldn't want to see him in the beige polyester suit worn by the Breakfast Club vice-principal, for example.

massive xp but
it's interesting thinking about joan's husband and vietnam: when it was augured it seemed so well setup, but i think it'd probably be a really hard thing to do delicately; introducing a loathsome rapist to the show, and giving him comeuppance by killing him in the war?, maybe as the sole representative of american soldiers in the whole show?

I wouldn't want to see him in the beige polyester suit worn by the Breakfast Club vice-principal, for example.

He could take it off!

re: Peggy drinking in the office has been going on since at least Season 2. When Kinsey and the other young copywriter came to her desk by the xerox machine (lol) before she had an office, she pulled a bottle and three paper cups out of her desk. and she was drinking with Pete and Freddy Rumsey in his office when he pissed his pants, etc.

but yeah she definitely had a more commanding/assured presence in this episode

mizzell 'gq photoshoot' really does not equal '00s casual'

also i just realised i am still in the wrong decade.

i'm wondering how soon it will be until Peggy is showing up to work in PANTS?

SLAAAAAAAAACKS

Slacks are overrated anyway.

i'm wondering how soon it will be until Peggy is showing up to work in PANTS BEING A LESBIAN?

lol

She slept with Pete + Duck + presumably that little dude from the last episode. She can't possibly really fancy any of them.

yeah I wasn't clear on who that little dude was either (her Thanksgiving date?) At first I thought it was her art dept/assistant copywriter guy

It was Karl from LOST.

he's her pot dealer.

http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=145094

What it was actually like to work for Ad Age in 1964.

I kinda saw Don as realizing that he needed clients who wanted 'risky, challenging' ad work done rather than something staid and safe, just so he wouldn't go insane from creative frustration - so getting rid of the obtuse bikini client, and talking himself up as an edgy genius to the WSJ, would hopefully ensure that the clients who did hit up his agency would be looking for something new.

No question he's also acting out his divorce-conflicts in the office as well, as mentioned upthread. I wonder if he will end up becoming a member of some swingers club or dungeon at the rate he's going.

Aren't we about due for the Beatles btw?

there was an interesting piece on this american life this past weekend about julian koenig and george lois. koenig is a character.

Oh, awesome, I'll check that out.

w/r/t Greenwich Village - Don really needs to run into Eric Dolphy or something on the street, that would be boss

xxp yeah thats what i meant about thinking don would capture the zeitgeist with his sweeping tantrum as opposed to the likes of peggy creeping in still at the edges of the older paradigm - another successful reinvention

my memory is hazy on this - does lane harbour a partic general beef with don's god status or was he just giving bad vibes about being left outta the loop again as he was under the english when roger asked for word in private with don

or is it all wrapped up in the same thing i guess

the beatles played on ed sullivan about 8 months before the first episode
xxp

ah, thanks for that - thinking about it now you'd kind of expect in any other period film somebody'd be going on about them, so I'm kind of glad nobody is

hopefully we'll see someone with a mop top soon, though.

Yeah, some comments box I read had someone saying "Why couldn't we have started up in February 1964, when a certain band from England played a certain American TV show? Would've loved to have seen Peggy singing along to 'I Want to Hold Your Hand'" ... and I thought, "Ugh, I really *wouldn't* have wanted to see that."

yeah im praying they avoid most of the obv 60s touchstones so it doesnt become, i dunno, that 60s miniseries nbc ran 10 years or so ago

that's exactly the kidn of shit they never pull on this show and if they do, it's all over

hopefully we'll see someone with a mop top soon, though.

I lol'd at this too, but everyone in the office is kinda too old for that shit. Brief shot of Kinsey playing Dylan on his acoustic guitar was hilarious tho

but yeah in general agree with s1ocki and m. bison

maybe sally will buy a beatle wig?

my memory is hazy on this - does lane harbour a partic general beef with don's god status or was he just giving bad vibes about being left outta the loop again as he was under the english when roger asked for word in private with don

or is it all wrapped up in the same thing i guess

― r|t|c, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 12:24 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

lane is the penny pincher, roger is the barker, don is the racehorse -- their roles are necessarily adversarial as they all have to check each other, by design. it's interesting to see how the characters don't often see this in given moments, and how their personalities fit (are written?) to these jobs.

and Bert is the sage, obviously

is lane naturally a penny pincher though or was that pragmatism not born from being a doormat working under the english for so long? i kinda had him down as more of a worrier if anything, which is why the frisson w/ don didnt seem quite so simple to me

everyone on the show seems too busy and wrapped up in their own personal shit...so it's kinda hard to imagine any of them sitting around watching the ed sullivan show...they aren't really the water cooler types and i think the writers recognize that. with the obvious world-shaking exceptions (JFK) I think the show is pretty true to life about how those media-events happen on the periphery of your life, and doesn't really pander to that mostly-false nostalgic shared cultural memory.

well right bert is supposed to see all this and understand how it all works but he's written not very clearly. sometimes he's up his own ass, sometimes he cuts through it all.

xps yeah but this convo has got me thinking. lane is not "naturally" anything, just lines on a page... i wonder how much he was built out from a very stock fuddy-duddy role to begin with. looking back i'm surprised he's a major now, he of all people

Yeah, some comments box I read had someone saying "Why couldn't we have started up in February 1964, when a certain band from England played a certain American TV show? Would've loved to have seen Peggy singing along to 'I Want to Hold Your Hand'" ... and I thought, "Ugh, I really *wouldn't* have wanted to see that."

Not only is this a bad idea, Peggy would have been too old to be singing along to the Beatles. Sally, maybe. Either way, dnw.

However, he is Jared Harris...

looking back i'm surprised he's a major now, he of all people

^ advertising in a nutshell for you there. ^

from that adage article linked above:
"What's wrong with this picture? No. 1, we never did interviews over lunch; No. 2, we didn't take notes in shorthand; No. 3 we didn't ask cute-ass questions; and No. 4, our pictures were never bigger than our stories."

season is RUINED

Aren't we about due for the Beatles btw?

much cooler to have a lesser brit invaish tune at the end

lol like they could afford the beatles anyway! they charge like a million dollars per song.

mad men 1, whiney g weingarten 0

haha

Weird that AdAge seems so butthurt over this, you'd think they'd like the publicity.

it totally misrepresented them by showing a journalist USING SHORTHAND

I love this quote from a New York profile of John Slattery (http://nymag.com/arts/tv/profiles/67270/):

Slattery says Weiner got furious with him recently, when he ad-libbed a line. “Matt said, ‘Don’t you think I fucking thought of that? That’s why I wrote what I wrote!’" Slattery laughs. Yes, Weiner is dictatorial, but so what? “Somebody has to be,” says the actor. “I’ve worked with plenty of people who make horrible decisions."

As a writer, it makes me want to do a handstand.

is AdAge a play on the word adage

Adagio

just watched this, good ep

Henry's mom OTM.

everyone on the show seems too busy and wrapped up in their own personal shit...so it's kinda hard to imagine any of them sitting around watching the ed sullivan show...they aren't really the water cooler types and i think the writers recognize that. with the obvious world-shaking exceptions (JFK) I think the show is pretty true to life about how those media-events happen on the periphery of your life, and doesn't really pander to that mostly-false nostalgic shared cultural memory.

― ryan, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 1:52 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

but as an ad agency they would be aware and thinking about the cultural impact of the beatles, no?

that's true. however, the show itself seems determined to show them experiencing cultural changes in their personal lives and these feeding into the business/creative decisions they make. the pop-cultural landscape seems to emanate out from their emotional lives into the world (maybe that's overstating it, but it's how i felt about the episode ending song choice...)

liked the british invasion music at the end. what song/band was it?

in any case, perfect way to underscore the emergence of the NEW DON

― i'm the kind of challop that's built to last (latebloomer), Monday, July 26, 2010 1:24 AM

Using Google I've discovered it was "Tobacco Road" by The Nashville Teens, who upon closer inspection seem to have been neither teens nor from Nashville.

― i'm the kind of challop that's built to last (latebloomer), Monday, July 26, 2010 2:06 AM

its actually a cover version by the blue magoos (from nuggets)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRk3VWEJnA4

^^^yeah thought I recognized that. didn't get where the "Nashville Teens" came from

its on this too

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_95zfVLZW68U/SGy4dV_2CWI/AAAAAAAAAcU/H0Jsx6_VBN8/s400/bl1.jpg

british bronx invasion

wiki says it's the nashville teens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Road_(song)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzG3z9cXJvg

It was definitely the Nashville Teens version.

Why were you watching?

lol

ok ya i watched again, def the nashville magoos

it sure wasn't david lee roth

Does next week's 2 hour Rubicon mean we're screwed out of a new MM ep on Sunday?

maybe sally will buy a beatle wig?

I peg Sally as a Monks fan or something

wiki says there is one airing Aug 1.

I peg Sally as a Monks fan or something

Monkees, maybe

As soon as The Stooges start recording albums, she's gonna be all over that.

shocked no one has yet mentioned, "john. marsha. john. marsha. john. marsha!!!"

it's been mentioned alot!

oh, i missed it then!

btw, chiming in to say: great episode! yay for more quality Mad Men!

i didn't sound like the tobacco road from nuggets!

it

freudian slip!!!!!!!!!!!

in that scene with the Jantzen client; draper = id, sterling = super-ego, pete = ego

hamming it up
jon hamm
the ham fight
harry coming back looking like a ham

Archie Whitman's favourite food = ham

green eggs and ham

Haha what are people reading into Lane's one line in this episode again?

he looked like he had the hump w/ don

Nah he's just British, they look like that.

no, he def was pissed at don

said this on the real MM thread

Yeah I suppose the issue is that the others essentially see this agency as business-as-usual Sterling Cooper Mk II whereas Don is looking beyond that, but no one else has caught up and it looks like Don's making a dog's arse out of things. Also Don kind of generally being a dick when he isn't getting his own way.

I don't get the John-Marsha reference ;_;

Stan Freberg. Comedy guy who released a novelty record that year that was just a couple (just him?) saying "John" and "Marsha."

Oh wait, "John & Marsha" was from 1951 according to wikipedia, belay that comment.

John and Marsha was even a thing in the '70s - Americans more likely to know it than, say, Tom Lehrer.

In 1961's The Parent Trap, the characters during the animated opening title sequence refer to each other as "John" and "Marsha".

i used to love freberg's history of the usa as a kid. Didn't know he was still alive: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/07/25/2106005/stan-freberg-still-funny-after.html

Yeah Stan Freberg's the shizz.

re-watched this last night. Don is a colossal asshole - to everybody - throughout the entire episode.

yah is p cool how he makes fun of that crippled dude

The ironing is delicious. xp

It was definitely the Nashville Teens version.

Yeah, they chopped off the little noodly lead-in, but there's no arguing to be done here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGuZY6NVXqU

is the john/marhsa thing a big american touchstone? never heard of it all before seeing it in this ep. what's a british equivalent?

Probably some famous Goon Show sketch.

not a "huge" touchstone as evidenced by the fact that half the people here didn't get it; those novelty records were more in the consciousness pre-70's I think. Although I heard this on Dr. Demento at some point as a kid.

I def. remember being exposed to it as a kid in the late 70s/early 80s, probably through my parents? otoh I had a grandfather who owned Stan Freberg records (Green Christmas was a seasonal favorite)

Me, too. I knew exactly what they were talking about, but I'm pretty sure my dad had Stan Freberg records or did the whole "John/Marsha" thing with my mom. Probably both.

w/r/t Greenwich Village - Don really needs to run into Eric Dolphy or something on the street, that would be boss

Sadly, Dolphy passed away that June. My substitute fantasy involves Don somehow stumbling across some of the Jazz Composers Guild folks (Bill Dixon, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra) upstairs from the Vanguard.

I've forgotten; were all bridges with Connie pretty much burned by the end of S3?

Connie makes it clear he can't do business with Don in the S3 finale. Also Don found managing him/dealing with him impossible so yeah, bridges = burnt

I didn't know the origin of "John/Marsha" but it immediately sounded familiar to me. Probably from cartoons that appropriated it.

It was also an ad slogan as well as a comedy record, so maybe that's part of it.

I thought 'uh...something to do with the brady bunch?' at first, but then realized that wouldn't work chronologically. but apparently it's related:

http://www.tressugar.com/Mad-Mens-John-Marsha-Reference-9416754

man comedy sure did suck back then

I think the John/Marsha bit is hilarious! It's like The Aristocrats joke but with a soap opera convention -- see how many twists you can put on the "longingly calling out your lover's name" bit.

Food for thought?

http://justtv.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/on-disliking-mad-men/

Don's handwriting is inscrutable:

http://twitpic.com/29sga0

shorthand, no?

that's the reporter's handwriting, and it's shorthand

xp lol pileon

I remember in the show thinking don was writing that - editing must have been misleading on some level

I thought he was just doodling cause he was bored

pretty sure don doesn't doodle

xp to polyphonic

is that nhex's blog?

I blame @goldenfiddle for steering me wrong.

I wanna learn shorthand.

is that nhex's blog?

My response to this is either haha or I don't know.

also where tf is nhex lately hm

http://justtv.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/on-disliking-mad-men/

this essay's terrible. umpteen paragraphs ruminating on the nature of television criticism and the divide between fans/detractors before he finally gets to a discussion of the text in question and then when he does he says something like this: according to the subtext running throughout the series, commercial culture creates idealized surface images that obscure deeper truths or cultural anxieties which is absolutely wrong and a fundamental misreading of one of the show's key subtexts (which is that commercial culture creates idealized surface images that ILLUMINATE deeper truths and cultural anxieties)

Shakey otm

what's more they reflect the personal truths and anxieties of the people that created them (Peggy and the catholic popsicle, Don and the glo-coat domestic prison, etc)

xp

That Glo-Coat commercial, it was worth a lot more words than we're saying here so far.

i thought the subtext was that surface images are deeper truths

commercial culture creates idealized surface images that ILLUMINATE deeper truths and cultural anxieties

OTM

Mad Men is critical of consumers buying into the constructed imagery of advertising,

no it isn't. this guy is either not paying attention or being deliberately obtuse

just rewatched ep1 after being underwhelmed on sunday night. think i was half asleep then because i totally missed some of the best bits, like the glo-coat commercial. so dark! betty probly won't buy any though bc i bet she gets off on imprisoning children.

also i can maybe see what someone upthread was saying about jane's friend reminding them of betty. not so much in looks, but she might have similar charms that don saw in single, pre-domestic witch betty? not that we know that betty... the whole date scene just seemed like standard draper womanizing on first view, but i really liked when she told don about her opera job and he perked up, like it was turning the creative gears in his head. i guess he was also happy to get her talking about something other than "real problems". hope he takes her up on the offer for a ticket! she's also different because roger knows her personally - all of don's past flings have been strangers to everyone but him, right?

henry: "maybe we have twice as much to be grateful for" - lol, this guy... loved his mom tellin it like it is about betty.

my objective was to get the ham

rachel and bobby were known to people at the agency and betty and sally knew who the teacher was.

midge, still the best of them all, was the only total stranger, i think.

right, i should have qualified "personal" more... those being professional relationships, whereas roger is already hearing from jane about don's grabby hands, inviting them to thanksgiving, etc. might not end up being significant, but roger has a little window into don's romantic life now.

seems like midge would be hangin out around don's new address...

loved his mom tellin it like it is about betty.

the blank stare on her face when Sally spit out the sweet potatoes and ran from the table = priceless

freddy rumisen!

GLENN

and glen!! xp

^ !!!

Sally and Glenn are made for each other.

Also, is that the first time Don's actually boned a secretary? Or just the first time we've seen it?

"I never want to do anything that Swedish people do"

Peggy playing the virgin game with her douchey boyfriend is pretty funny, but I realize it's kind of normal for the era.

actually "you're never going to get me to do anything that Swedish people do"

love how they broadcast mad men three times in a row

Peggy would have been too old to be singing along to the Beatles. Sally, maybe.

I guess we'll see, because she got some 45's for xmas.

omg glenn

glenn is a badass. looking forward to a possible confrontation with henry or betty or don.

"civil rights is the beginning of a slippery slope" - has cooper made political statements before?

i wasn't really feeling the new office new energy thing until we visited roger's this week. last scene was painful

did he forget in his drunken slumber and think she was the nurse?

A lot of it was painful. And of course made me hugely curious what comes next. (xpost)

thanks for all of your hard work

It was pretty much the painful, awkward episode. I about died when the Lucky Strike guy was having Harry sit on Santa's lap so he could take an awkward Polaroid. I think I decided that Roger Sterling is pretty much the douchebag of victory when it comes to being awesome while ruining other people's shit. Joan was amazing, and I'm scared about the preview with a clip of her. Freddy might be redeemable! I like how Peggy was glad to have him back, then he ended up being lame, and they ended up meeting somewhere in the middle with him acknowledging his weakness and her getting reasonable advice about men from him. I figured it was New Year's by the fact that she wasn't spending time alone, but it was just Christmas... does that mean that her guy gets ditched in the new year if he didn't make the cut? Hope so.

S.B.D., LOL

Haven't read comments yet, but most awkward episode ever -- especially at the end, I could barely watch.

Yeah, this episode was all kind of creepy. And this comes immediately after watching True Blood, of course (woo Sunday night!), so creepy in a different way than that.

Felt kind of like Don (sad, pathetic, drunk Don) was being constantly beset by attractive women. Or at least he perceived it that way. Nurse, psychologist, secretary, he put the moves on all of them, just really sloppily. Did we even get his secretary's name? Man, what a strange episode. This show has not remotely jumped the shark as far as I'm concerned. Hell, I'm even Don/Peggy shipping all of a sudden ("Merry Christmas, sweetheart.")

Also OMG GLEN wtf is up with that kid

The secretary's name is Allison, but I don't know that I would've remembered that if someone hadn't told me during the show.

In that scene right after Don + Allison had slept together, where they're kinda just looking at each other before she leaves, I got momentarily sold on the idea that maybe Don could become one of those men ("types" -- acc to the ad lady) who have longterm relationships with their secretaries. Sure, it's a superficial relationship, but Don seemed pretty happy with the superficial relationship he had with Betty. Maybe he could've been happy with Allison (even tho clearly the end of the episode indicates that's prob not in the cards).

What was she typing while she looked blankly off into space? I thought it was a resignation at the time, but she appeared in the scenes from next week's episode.

That long-anticipated Beatles-acknowledgement was tossed off pretty perfunctorily in the opening minutes.

Nurse was the chick from Brick, right?

They're really pushing the new, loser-y Don Draper this season, totally drained of mystique. (Not complaining.)

They'll have to give him some new kind of dark side - his shady past and compulsive womanizing are pretty much non-issues, for the first time, at this point.

yeah his drunk overeager GOODNIGHT! to the departing nurse lady was sad (and lol).

skipping the thread post-episode 2 because i haven't downloaded it yet but I found a copy of Stan Freberg's United States of America: The Early Years for 50p today and its actually p lol.

They'll have to give him some new kind of dark side - his shady past and compulsive womanizing are pretty much non-issues, for the first time, at this point.

nuh uh; that he's just nihilistically cruising forward without even a veneer of a healthy, nuclear life is compelling; the sloppiness of sleeping with his secretary is a pretty damning state of the union on how his needs are interfering with his life, judgement etc. thought this was great btw. how is don even creepier than glen.

Peggy picks the sketchiest dudes.

this guy seems pretty wholesome compared to ... any other dude she's been paired up with. plaid shirts and cardigans.

i just remembered that this guy said 'i brought cookies' and hereby rescind my previous flattery

Mr. Wholesome somehow seems more irksome than even Pete Campbell. But no one will ever be as awful as Duck Phillips unless Peggy started dating Glenn.

What do you want from me?

To give you a go around like you've never had before.

You are triggering ptsd right now, cozen.

We're doing season 3 mini-marathons to catch a friend up - I had to leave the room for the Peggy/Duck scene. This new guy (Mark?) is such a mouse.

Isn't Allison the secretary who slept with Harry Crane at the season 1 office party? Poor girl.

No, that was Pete's secretary Hildy.

Oh, right - thanks Nicole.

Peggy sleeping with that guy instead of holding out means that he's on the way out after New Year's, right?

I miss Hildy.

They're really taking Don down so many notches. His staff are calling him pathetic behind his back.

One can only assume that it's a setup for some sort of mild return to glory a few episodes from now.

Peggy's douchey beau is Karl from LOST lol

omg Glenn and Sally are gonna run away and become hippies aren't they

why does glen always have something sharp in all his scenes. why do they give the crazy kid something sharp all the time?? bad weiner, bad.

things are gonna get stabby

Is this the right Weiner kid?

http://www.gq.com/style/wear-it-now/200903/arlo-weiner-mad-men-slideshow#slide=1

That long-anticipated Beatles-acknowledgement was tossed off pretty perfunctorily in the opening minutes.

Good move IMO. Having all kinds of excellent feelings about this season, the first three weren't as instantly compelling as this.

Answering my own question: nope!

http://blogs.amctv.com/mad-men/2008/04/interview-with-marten-weiner.php

That long-anticipated Beatles-acknowledgement was tossed off pretty perfunctorily in the opening minutes.

Good move IMO.

Totally agree. The Beatles-excitement-in-the-air would have been in February (when they appeared on Sullivan) to July (when A Hard Day's Night appeared). Now they're part of the furniture.

(I'm probably a little off on July; wrote that from memory. Feel free to correct me, o fellow pedants of ILE.)

Setting up three potential Don love interests in one episode was a crafty move (even if one was loved and disposed of straight off the bat).

really ladled on the pathos for Don in this episode. Thought it was great that they showed Don displaying obvious joy at Roger's humiliation, followed by Don basically aping Roger (drunkenly self-loathing divorcee bangs his secretary)

not sure why they showed a flashback to Duck before this episode when he didn't even play into Peggy's story this time; I actually had to struggle to remember the stuff with Freddy Rumsen, seems like they should have shown that.

I think they flashbacked to Duck to show that Peggy was a lying liar about never having had sex before, and to personally cause me emotional distress.

i thought it was too cheeky by half to introduce SEXY LADY SHRINK and SEXY GIRL NURSE and then have don drunk bang his secretary. three potential bad affairs to have! and he picks the worst one! ha ha, bad don!! and the 'next on' clips show this secretary is going to be a running thing. i was sincerely hoping she was typing out her resignation letter...

i mean, what are they on this time around? maximum discomfort? is this a 'final seinfeld' thing? punishing us for enjoying these monsters' company for three years?

well this is kinda the crux of the show isn't it, exploring this uncomfortable transition from one era to another? I kinda just felt sorry for everybody this episode.

i was sincerely hoping she was typing out her resignation letter...

I was shocked to see her in the preview for the next episode, because I did think she was typing out her resignation letter.

"civil rights is the beginning of a slippery slope" - has cooper made political statements before?

Ayn Rand lover + didn't want Campbell to market to black people = you can guess what Cooper's politics are.

they've made it clear Campbell's kinda a stealth liberal

I love when Cooper is eccentric, and then I cringe when he talks about his "core values" even though they're just as eccentric, although harmful.

oh yea totally forgot about the rand stuff!

i can't look at him and not think about Rand. esp the way he says her name.

kinda surprised to hear the resignation letter stuff - i thought the point was that she was just distractedly accepting that she was back to work, in a universe without don as her knight in shining armour; absentmindedly getting on with her work. i don't think there was a tremendous narrative point to that shot, just an affirmation of her heartbreak.

Thought it was great that they showed Don displaying obvious joy at Roger's humiliation

also didn't catch this. thought it was kinda good natured, & that those guys are in pal mode.

honestly don't think the show has ever shown Don so happy - his face was *glowing*

suicide note

maybe a bit extreme; it was probably just a resignation letter

but we know she didn't quit! still cd be a resignation letter i guess... don could get her to stay on or something

convince her, i should say

the idea that she was typing anything of import seems weird to me - like, "I'm quitting/killing myself in a fit of distraught rage! Better type a letter!" Um, no.

I don't know she didn't quit because I download it in the uk and the torr3nt files often don't have the 'next week on mad men' bits

i can't look at him and not think about Rand. esp the way he says her name.

― oreo speed wiggum (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, August 2, 2010 2:21 PM (14 minutes ago)

Did he say it a weird way, or just with too much affection?

yea i thought final secretary shot was more about getting back to work, and hey look forward to a miserable and awkward day! dunno where she'll go with it. hope she tries to stand up to don in some way.

didn't really like pretentious shrink lady, though i had some sympathy for her after don's terrible "i thought you came here to flirt but you came here to fight" line. he is getting sloppy.

i really like Phoebe the nurse. the "my daddy was a drunk" line was delivered so well.

yea phoebe seems cool

i find that actress... annoying

She was a semi-regular on my beloved Everwood.

She was the neighbor who seduced Mohinder on Heroes, she must specialize in flirty neighbors.

would neighbor.

So, am I misremembering that Joan was being called Holloway again in this ep, instead of Harris? Maybe it was just Roger, asking where Mr. Holloway was, something like that.

not sure if it was the same part, but i think roger asked her where her husband was at the party, and she retorted "saving lives"

can't wait for him to get fragged

Maybe it was just Roger, asking where Mr. Holloway was

^this

She was the neighbor who seduced Mohinder on Heroes, she must specialize in flirty neighbors.

― ô_o (Nicole), Monday, August 2, 2010 3:23 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

also played a slutty resident on greys anatomy who tried to boink some married guy, then she got shot str8 up IN THE FACE (unrelated events)

is Lee Garner Jr. the most reprehensible character to ever appear in the show? I kinda think he might be

I mean other people are jerks/do mean things but this guy just seems like 100% evil

Yeah he's awful. The scene the next morning when Don and Roger meet - "May his reign last for a thousand years" (or something) - was v funny. In fact I think I laughed more than any episode I can remember.

conga line was great too

fn love this show

funny seeing alison brie after a season of community

kind of unspoken thing of roger's wife looking really unhappy

didn't even notice Roger's wife. she was there in those party shots...? when Peggy came in with her date?

yeah. the lucky strike douche gave her a squeeze in front of roger.

And with Lee Garner Jr grabbing at her while Roger's being Santa Claus

xpost

is Lee Garner Jr. the most reprehensible character to ever appear in the show? I kinda think he might be

Yeah, he really is King Cunt.

I'm with the faction that believes there was no particular significance to Allison's typing. Daydream shattered, business as usual.

Suggest Ban Permalink

didn't even notice Roger's wife. she was there in those party shots...? when Peggy came in with her date?

― I Never Promised You A Whine Garden (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, August 2, 2010 7:37 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark

she asked don about his holiday plans and said it was his fault he wasn't taking anyone to mexico

Hey, Don really was being responsible by going with hookers. Now he's out there defiling and disappointing secretaries and disgusting coworkers.

pretty psyched for don in the poconos, if we see it... though i doubt it will be as significant as his s2 CA experience

Don having existential crisis in Cali is still my favorite few episodes.

full of Joy

don's CA adventures is my favorite part of the series thus far, too.

at first i thought the petite nurse was rachel bilson of the OC fame and I got sassy with the TV.

Thought it was great that they showed Don displaying obvious joy at Roger's humiliation

also didn't catch this. thought it was kinda good natured, & that those guys are in pal mode.

― baby i know that you think i'm just a lion (schlump), Monday, August 2, 2010 3:27 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

see, i read that look as a fake smile you give a friend whenever a new acquaintance says something stupid/racist/off color/etc and you have to keep pretending you like them so you look at your friend and hope they are as disgusted as you are...

Scene at the desk between Don and the secretary was pitch-perfect.

Can't believe it's almost 1965 already!

Which one of Don, Peggy, Pete or Harry do we think is going to fuck up the Lucky Strike account?

Also the old Don Draper would never have fucked someone from the office. Losing his grip.

yeah – this is why the affair is significant: don is breaking his own rules. i expect it is gonna come back and bit him in his ass, hard.

also, i think it is gonna be harry that gets rid of lucky strike. there was already a hint of TV discontent w/r/t/ the glo coat ad.

Layne's the one so concerned about Lucky Strike being the lion's share of their business. Ergo, he's the most likely to fuck it up in tv world. I don't think he has any direct contact with them, though, so maybe not.

see, i read that look as a fake smile you give a friend whenever a new acquaintance says something stupid/racist/off color/etc and you have to keep pretending you like them so you look at your friend and hope they are as disgusted as you are..

That's how I read that look as well.

I wonder how soon we're going to see the fallout from this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_and_Health:_Report_of_the_Advisory_Committee_to_the_Surgeon_General_of_the_United_States

When did the notice actually have to appear on cigarette packs?

Hmmm ... Legislation to that effect was passed in 1965, and they first appeared in January 1966.

[she asked don about his holiday plans and said it was his fault he wasn't taking anyone to mexico

ah right - ugh that was such a burn

I didn't think so. She wanted him to court her friend is all. I don't think it was a snide comment about the divorce or anything.

Yah I agree.

I took it to mean he could've gone to Mexico with whatserface except he was too grabby/aggressive and she didn't like that. also it was a little knife between the ribs letting Don know she's in on his personal business.

like "you could have gone to Mexico with my nice friend except OOPS you're an asshole"

Not everyone acts like life is an rip thread.

Uh, I think it was Don who didn't call the girl again. She shut him down on the grabbiness, but was still up for another date. Presumably he didn't get around to calling again, right?

"you could have gone to Mexico with my nice friend except OOPS you weren't interested in her"

i read it as a barely-suppressed reaction to roger's previous life (maybe it's not very previous). jane's will to settle don with her friend seems like a fearful move to me, but that's taking a few leaps maybe. roger left his wife for me = i'm his wife now, he'd leave me too, because that's his world = don's a single man now, surely a bad thing for me

Didn't Jane's friend say in the cab, "Let's see where we are on New Year's Eve"?

Don's answer was apparently "alone, crying into my whiskey bottle in my apartment"

""you could have gone to Mexico with my nice friend except OOPS you aren't interested in being functional and the office is starting to think you're lame"

Haven't read much of the above, but it's kind of blah so far isn't it?

I actually thought these two episodes have been the strongest openers of any season (which usually strike me as taking a while to ramp up)...

Didn't Jane's friend say in the cab, "Let's see where we are on New Year's Eve"?

― jaymc, Tuesday, August 3, 2010 9:27 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

yep, exactly

agree w. alex in sf

it's interesting that the don draper of season 4 (lonely, pathetic, alcoholic, self-hating, on the edge of career failure) is nearly the same character of roger in season 2/3.

Pretty sure Don is absolutely terrified of turning into Roger, but that's the way he's going. Roger seems to have a lot more fun though, possibly just because he's less self-aware.

I think the audience thinking that Don is really self-aware of how he's perceived and what kind of man he is was the biggest red herring of the first few seasons. I'm hesitant to say it, but Don has made a lifestyle of feeling like a fake, although others saw him as more of an enigma and less of a fake. How many times did we hear a variant of "who are you, Don Draper?" in the past?

I think now he's actually living as Don Draper, has no idea what that entails or how to make it work, and that's troubling.

So they're having this casting call where you can vote on people and the top 10 women and top 10 men will get the chance to audition for a part on the show. My friend is currently number 15 or so. There's some definite rigging and robovoting going on because some of the top people have 20000+ votes and are totally inappropriate. Sure it's a popularity contest and a test to see who has more friends and friends of friends willing to click "vote" on various devices on various days, but my friend is actually high enough to have a chance of being in the top 10 and he deserves it, so please, everybody go to http://madmencastingcall.amctv.com/browse/detail/8BSISS and click vote!

that glen kid is a weird little fucker.

reminder, PLEASE go to http://madmencastingcall.amctv.com/browse/detail/8BSISS and vote! He's getting behind. If everybody here voted for him every day it could help him crack the top 10!

I am less and less interested in this show

last 20 min of this episode has been hilarious

yea reminds me a lot of don & roger out carousing

the drunk british guy is great

def more entertaining than the first half, but I dunno, show feels so aimless

don's been divorced for 3 eps what's it supposed to feel like?

yes it is kind of aimless, i don't think that's a bad thing..

'don sleeps with lots of girls' was getting boring even when he was married and it was ooo-taboo, now it's just boring-boring

it was dick not don who would've slept with not-kate hudson, this is significant forward motion & not aimless IMO

soapy & hilarious & v good episode

l0u1s jagg3r out on the town.

Sorry Lane, that was a low blow.

is there a thread for rubicon yet? from what I've seen it exists just to make mad men look like breaking bad.

i was surprised how funny the second half of this was considering the somberness of the first half. i was legit upset at anna's cancer diagnosis, and it really puts into perspective the emptiness of don's skirt-chasing. there's basically one adult in the world he can be himself around and that he can love without sexual baggage, and once she's gone, where's his mooring?

lol @ "he's one of those alcoholics who thinks that he's collecting"

I know it gets tiresome to see someone do the same thing over and over again, but if ever there was a time for Don to self destruct and go whoring every night, right after his divorce is a pretty dramatically appropriate time.

Can we talk about "his mother thinks he's the next bob dylan" singing "House of the Risin' Sun?"

Lane had me seriously lol'ing with "she seems to know her way around your kitchen..."

Joan's "Breast? Thigh?" routine is more played out than Don fucking around.

Lane and Don broing down at Godzilla was awesome. "THIS IS A REALLY GOOD MOVIE!!"

they get off a few great lines every episode.
I dug the "no one understands what's wrong with themselves but everyone else can tell as soon as they see you" line from gidget

I've got the re-broadcast on while I'm doing chores-- just noticed the way the mixed-up-roses-scene opens up with Joan mundanely unsticking pencils from the ceiling while standing on a chair.

wau @ the edgy audience baiting standup of 1964

i'm way behind on reading this thread. i'm also drunk and started drinking @ around 9pm. january 1965 seems fun. grass and standup comedy.

'don sleeps with lots of girls' was getting boring even when he was married and it was ooo-taboo, now it's just boring-boring

that's the point though, i think the bloom is *supposed* to be off the rose for everyone who worshiped don, whether on the show or in the audience. we're supposed to believe he's in pathetic midlife crisis mode.

seriously, don seemed positively vampiric when trying to come onto that student girl "you're so beautiful and so...young"

he's gonna hit bottom soon... i mean, farther down than he's already gone. some fugly shit is about to transpire.

he used to have good taste in affairs, now he's just coming on to any old broad. feminism means more of those broads are telling him no.

it did seem to be a bit of a dull episode (whenever they do an episode that doesn't show 75% of the other characters it seems kind of dull to me), at least it was funny.

I watched the first two episodes of Rubicon and if last night's doesn't improve I don't think I'm sticking with it.

i think Don might bang a trannie.

that's the point though, i think the bloom is *supposed* to be off the rose for everyone who worshiped don, whether on the show or in the audience. we're supposed to believe he's in pathetic midlife crisis mode.

Oh, that explains a lot -- just watched this for the first time (season 4 premiere) and was kind of confused because I had the impression that DD was supposed to be glamorous or something, whereas (at least in this season) he is a hack who thinks he's a genius, and a prick, right?

prick, definitely. hack who thinks he's a genius = unclear at this point. maybe his mojo is gone, but we haven't seen any indication of that quite yet. (unless you count screwing up the prude swimsuit account as hackery.)

the plot right now is about a man who was king in the fifties and early sixties losing track of the way the world is evolving. Don was able to hang with the beat-types because he felt able to understand youth and connect with the moment, but the moment is rapidly leaving him behind. I often wonder how this show can survive into the seventies.

hippie crap was a huge marketing/advertising boom, pretty easy to guess what direction the show will take - it will follow the advertising industry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzuFeXYbOOo

lol

maybe his mojo is gone, but we haven't seen any indication of that quite yet. (unless you count screwing up the prude swimsuit account as hackery.)

I do! I took that scene to be a devastating picture of a guy who works in a service industry and somehow got the idea he was an artist.

Eephus you really should go back and watch the first two seasons at least.

hippie crap was a huge marketing/advertising boom, pretty easy to guess what direction the show will take - it will follow the advertising industry

― Party Car! (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, August 9, 2010 12:19 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Don pretty much summed it up telling kate hudson to just not buy anything anymore

Eephus you really should go back and watch the first two seasons at least.

don't really want to commit 25 hrs to this project, just wanted to understand what it was about so I could be up to date!

i can't imagine this show making any sense to anyone who didn't watch the first two seasons though. but itmight give you a flavor.

got it

At least watch a handful of eps from the first two seasons so you can see the tonal shift that's happening. I don't know about other viewers, but my entire experience of this show is watching it transform historically. Like when Don was dancing with the college gal last night, I kept thinking that the music sounded out of place now, in 1965, in California, but was actually totally fitting and appropriate music in the first season and would not have even been commented upon. But now Don needs to evoke the time and place that the music comes from to sell it to the student (who finds it old and boring). It's not the scene by itself that is interesting, imo, it's how far we've come in four seasons.

Also, ILM expert PWN me if necessary, but I thought it was neat that House of the Rising Sun was made popular in 1964 by the Animals, even tho Dylan recorded it in 61. So this guy who isn't Dylan (but whose mother thinks he's the next Dylan) is playing this song that Dylan recorded but the audience would have known from the Animals -- lot of weird issues of ownership and identity already inherent in the song (Dylan claimed a writing credit but it predates him by quite a bit I believe), which makes it a kinda perfect choice for Mad Men.

lol Dylan claimed a writing credit on HotRS? That's ridiculous

The oldest known existing recording is by Appalachian artists Clarence Ashley and Gwen Foster and was made in 1933. -Wikipedia

as soon as the song started i got a fear that depression-boy Don would have trouble sitting through an old song about a whore while sitting with a couple of working girls. but then they left. (is it me or were the commercial cuts super odd in this ep?)

(is it me or were the commercial cuts super odd in this ep?)

no, i was saying the same thing last night

If any audience would know that as a Dylan song, it would probably be a Manhattan one.

I thought they left early to indicate that they're peripheral to this scene (Village comics + folk singers) -- that Don might live here now, but he's still an older wealthy dude slumming it with the kids.

lol is this gonna be the season where Don knocks up a whore

I hope not. Might be an interesting plot line in 1958, but kinda meh in 1965. Look at how casual Joan + her doctor discuss her procedures -- the times are a'changin.

that didn't seem that casual to me

well, he was a real doctor, not a back alley dude, and he discussed her abortions candidly and without a lot of judgement. It seems like in NYC at least, abortions weren't unobtainable.

I hope not. Might be an interesting plot line in 1958, but kinda meh in 1965.

was thinking more in terms of what this would mean for Don PERSONALLY, what with him being the abandoned son of a whore and all

seriously.

it's a little on-the-nose, no?

also, i can't help but feel like we're moving away from personal mythos of Don. for one, we're now in an era where it's going to matter less and less everyday that he transformed his identity since there's going to be a lot of this going on (personally and in terms of national character too) -- nb Bob Dylan's name appearing, himself a man who transformed his identity and changed his name, and he becomes a celebrity because of it. maybe it'll be weird if all his colleagues find out his real name is Dick, but i can't imagine anyone caring much at this point. it's just becoming less and less transgressive (and as people start dodging the draft en masse, he won't even be unique).

well - he never dodged military service.

i found it interesting to see him say out loud the reason we all thought Betty left him. i briefly felt sympathy for the man.

Obv not exactly the same but in a world where people are doing all kinds of shit to get out of Vietnam, is his taking someone else's name during Korea really strange? not so much narratively comparative, but morally analogic maybe

I'm thinking this is shaping up to be the best since S1.

That was the first time Don's drug use didn't trigger an Archie-flashback. Instead, we had Dr. Joan tell a hillbilly joke that he might've appreciated.

i found it interesting to see him say out loud the reason we all thought Betty left him. i briefly felt sympathy for the man.

true although I think the fact that she also knew he was fucking around on her played a big part. but maybe she accepted the fucking around more than the lying about who he was.

I like Mad Men a lot, but it has a bad habit of presenting several unrelated story threads that are, at best, tangentially related and making a big deal at the end of the episode about how OOOOOOH DO U C HOW CLEVER WE ARE we wrapped everything together? And generally they _don't_ make the connections; the themes flirt but don't connect and there's no big picture to see. Doesn't make it any less enjoyable of a show, but they overshoot their artistic cred.

akm: i don't think it was even the lying about who he was so much about who he really actually was that Betty left him.

^^^OTM

Betty couldn't deal with being married to a whore's son who grew up poor, disowned his family, and stole another man's identity

i really think it was the first two points that loomed the biggest, which is what Don basically said.

iirc it went like this:

Don: "So i'm totally some other guy named Dick."
Betty: "Oh! Hrmmm."
Don: "My mom was a whore and I grew up dirt poor on a dirt farm."
Betty: "Get out."

i thought it was the constant cheating rather than the gatsby stuff that drove betty nuts. i read her digust with him as much more prosaic, whereas he can claim it's all the identity stuff to look away from it.

really thought his telling anna that it was all about the dick whitman - don draper lie rather than saying "i'm a poon hound" was a real moral low. and it's as plain as day! the beach bunny knew it! the sister knew it! right away!

To be fair I think it was both factors.

ya for sure. but who he *really* was seemed to be the final straw for Betty.

I don't remember it that way at all, or I don't think it's that cut and dried.

Betty was more than willing to put up with all his whoring as long as he filled her all-powerful-daddy-figure needs. once that illusion was shattered - he got the boot

Don: "So i'm totally some other guy named Dick."
Betty: "Oh! Hrmmm."
Don: "My mom was a whore and I grew up dirt poor on a dirt farm."
Betty: "Get out."

^^^OTM

I just rewatched all of s3, getting a friend caught up. Betty acted a bit sympathetic when Don was going through the photos of his family, explaining who was who. She asked about Adam, and when Don broke down, tried in her best ice princess way to console him. But the next morning, it was obvious she wasn't having any of it. Then Don and Roger went out for drinks, Don learned about Henry Francis, confronted Betty and called her a whore building a life raft the whole time. And then she kicked him out of the house. so yeah, more complicated and all of the above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZUHui6cwcg

omg awesome

one of last night's highlights was the twinkle in don's eyes when he said "catherine deneuve" (reading the movie listings)

Oh yeah, was it really acceptable medical practice in the 60s not to tell someone they had cancer? Seems totally unthinkable.

Unfortunately, yes.

In an interview on Fresh Air, Weiner confirmed that Betty freaked when Don/Dick told her his mother was a prostitute who died when he was born, because "Betty's Philadelphia Main Line", like Grace Kelly. But yeah, it's more complicated, and I'd say the thing with the comedian's wife (revealed to her by the little rodent cuckold himself)creeped her out: "How could you. She's so old." No question marks or exclamation points, she's just chilled, and remember Don's a significant number of years older than Betty, and the identity thing just confirms a complete unknown: "What is this guy really capable of??" She glimpses the shadow of a whole other real world, re (The Crying of Lot 49 and) the death of Oswald as tipping point, before she leaves his ass.

Also fine that they "flirt" with significance sometimes, perfect way of putting it, like from Jan & Dean vs. "Cape Cod" and not-Kate not caring about either, to the guy trying to be '61 Bobby D. at the end of '64 (but maybe he got some nostalgia gigs when some hated "Like A Rolling Stone") as son of whore says "Later for that" and leaves with whores. (He did seem to be possibly affected by that diaspora folk song in Season One ep, despite having sneered at singer's long hair)( and let's not forget the cosmic version of "I Am A Pilgrim" in the sky, as Don/Dick walked into the Pacific waves, embracing his life)But yeah, he knows about the shelf-life of this Bobby D. wannebee.

i'm liking Molly Lambert's episode summaries:

http://thisrecording.com/today/2010/8/9/in-which-i-have-a-texas-belt-buckle-and-im-going-to-see-game.html?printerFriendly=true

really good, sensitive writing from heather havrilesky at slate:

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/heather_havrilesky/2010/08/09/mad_men_season_four_episode_three_recap

"You know what's going on here, don't you? Handjobs."

meanwhile, Zoller Seitz deems it the first truly bad episode of Mad Men

it wasn't "truly bad" or even "bad" but there were a few clunker moments.

and let's not forget the cosmic version of "I Am A Pilgrim" in the sky, as Don/Dick walked into the Pacific waves, embracing his life

um that was George Jones' "Cup of Loneliness" iirc...?

(unless that's a reference to something that happened in the last episode - which I haven't watched yet lol, was sick/asleep last night)

If you think this was truly bad, then you're missing the fact that they're not sticking Jared Harris (who is a pretty awesome actor) in the corner and he's actually going to be useful this season.

Best moments: Joan fidgeting and being nervous about her husband actually doing doctor work, because it's on her. Don looking like a scared child as he claims he has to leave for Acapulco (but goes home). Lane and Don being drunk bros, all the way from Don suggesting a movie and pouring Lane's expensive whiskey all over the floor while filling his flask to the Godzilla bit to the Texas belt buckle and hooker shtick.

"does howdy doody have a wooden dick?"

wow I did not realize Harris was the one who played Andy Warhol in I Shot Andy Warhol (which I admittedly haven't seen since it came out)

Richard Harris' son iirc

I could watch a full hour of Lane and Don reacting to movie titles

"THIS IS A GOOD MOVIE!"

i totally loved

"they say it's for all the young lovers"

cut to:

GODZILLA: KRAAAAAAAA

what happened to baby gene? three episodes into the new season and i don't think i've seen him or heard about him at all. we haven't seen betty very much though.

I could watch a full hour of Lane and Don reacting to movie titles

That "Send Me No Flowers" gag was a bit obvious/sitcommy, I thought

betty was holding baby gene when they first discovered the wrecked-up house in the last episode. he's really big now!

http://i37.tinypic.com/2ajup0g.jpg

poor bobby, all the hamming it up in the world can't save you from being the forgettable middle child.

I'm just happy that we get to see Don drunk and being dumb instead of him being drunk and "suave" all the damn time. Jokes while drunk -> viewer laughs

cut to:

GODZILLA: KRAAAAAAAA

― goole, Tuesday, August 10, 2010 1:34 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

OH. MY. GOD. PEOPLE. IT'S. GAMERA. I would think everyone on ILX would be able to tell Gamera from Godzilla. Gamera is filled with meat.

if it's gamera, it's anachronistic

Gamera (ガメラ) is a giant, flying turtle from a popular series of kaiju (Japanese giant monster) films produced by Daiei Motion Picture Company in Japan. Created in 1965 to rival the success of Toho Studios' Godzilla during the monster boom of the mid-to-late 1960s, Gamera has gained fame and notoriety as a Japanese icon in his own right.

Yeah, and not released in the U.S. until two years later.

i know; I did that search too :\ xp

(Two years after the episode, that is.)

so, in 2012?

fucks sake

so this was either a dream or time travel, right?

Spotted a few things during the rewatch of s3 - in particular a copy of W.E.B. Griffin's The Corps (first book 1986) behind Don's desk at home.

Probably all Sally's dream.

watched last night, great episode. SHENANIGANS!

was thinking that perhaps one of the reasons the show appears "aimless" to some is that the central conflicts underpinning it are kind of buried and obscured. there's no villain, for example, and none of the characters have clearly defined goals - it's like a soap opera with all the conventional melodrama stuff removed.

some of the conventional melodrama stuff removed, maybe

we haven't seen them working enough imo

Nah, I was getting a bit bored of advertising puzzle of the week.

i think they probably wanted to do godzilla and couldn't get the rights?

s04 villain: Lee Garner Jr.

All the seasons have sort of had villains.
1 - Pete
2 - Duck
3 - The British

yeah various characters have sort of slipped in and out of "bad guy" roles (would add Hilton to that list to, to some extent) - in a weird way each only really fully assumed that role towards the end of each season. Garner may get there too - as I said upthread I think he may be the most purely evil person to appear on the show (altho there are various obvious ways the writers could undercut that)

show him kissing a puppy

he would make puppy smoke.

The only recurring character its almost impossible to build much empathy for is Joan's moronic rapist husband (and Lee Garner Jr, I guess.)

yeah that guy is awful

in a kind of pathetic way tho

i'd totally forgotten about that. was starting to feel bad for him last ep.

i'm just glad he patched her up ok. i was waiting for another lawnmower scene.

Yeah when you have a dude raping someone in the first or second episode he appears it's hard to go back and build him up as a sympathetic dude.

two random things about last episode:

- geez, these writers sure are fond of hillbilly jokes
- lol Finn D'troglio as the standup!

i always heard that joke as a canadien joke, with moose cock instead of donkey dick.

"in a kind of pathetic way tho"

I actually don't even find his "oh god why can't I be a surgeon" thing pathetic. It actually makes him pretty monstrous to me. He's so full of this one idea of himself that he's unwilling to deviate from it even though it's obviously really clear that he should be doing something, hell anything else.

So is Bryan Batt gone for good or...?

He is not in the cast this season, but there's always a chance he'll be in an episode.

He's been busy at least:
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780307588852.html

No Sal as long as Lee Gardner Jr. is their main client

they'll lose Lucky Strike, there will be a few episodes where they're broke as fuck, then they'll get a big new account that symbolizes the late 60s turning into the 70s and they'll hire Sal back on and he'll be gay as fuck. can't wait.

yeah after bringing Freddy Rumsen back I wouldn't rule out anything re: characters re-appearing

Gotta have at least one more cameo from Sal and Paul.

I'd certainly be very disappointed not to see Paul's bitterness at not being invited to play with the big boys.

tempted to go with "they'll hire Sal back on and he'll be gay as fuck" as a new screenname

i dont understand your screenname philosophy at all forks

if the voices tell me it's a good idea, i go for it

whats the over/under on getting to 1969 by the end of season 5?

i don't think we get to 67.

oh, SEASON 5. Um, 69 sounds about right?

twss!

basically I want to see fat Don Draper doing coke at Studio 54 by season 10

i want to see him invent grunge

"yeah, it's just a rock but you put a box around it and sell it as a pet these dumb kids will buy it! we're gonna make millions!"

don draper *is* irving azoff

actually i think don is transforming from humphrey bogart philip marlowe into elliott gould philip marlowe. very quickly.

S1: March 1960-November 1960 (9 mos.)
(14 months)
S2: February 1962-October 1962 (9 mos.)
(4 months)
S3: March 1963-December 1963 (10 mos.)
(10 months)
S4: November 1964-?

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Based on the above, I expect S4 to end in summer of 1965 (Watts riots in August?). Hard to predict how much time will elapse between S4 and S5, but even if they do 14 months (as with the break between S1 and S2), that still puts the debut of S5 sometime around November 1966, with the season finale in the Summer of Love. They'll need at least another season to get to 1969.

actually i think don is transforming from humphrey bogart philip marlowe into elliott gould philip marlowe. very quickly.

― pwnz0rship society (get bent), Tuesday, August 10, 2010 4:41 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

ha

snooki stackhouse

checkmate

Has Weiner given any indication how many more seasons will run?

...I know plans change and you were never entirely committed to this to begin with - but at one point in the series you had said the idea would be to do five years, and to make it to the end of the decade by the end of that fifth year. And now things have slowed down considerably.

What happened is, when we talked, it's so hypothetical. But I was going to skip 1963, and I decided not to do that. I was going to have it come back every two years, but then I thought, 'Why have a formula? Why not let the story dictate when we’re going to open up the curtains every year?'

In terms of how long it goes, who knows? I don't want the fans to feel insecure. I don't know. I have plenty of story to tell. One of the great things about committing to the changes at the end of last season is that there’s so much life to the show. There’s so much new story in this whole beginning.

(From here.)

Hm, apparently next week's episode is directed by John Slattery.

"What happened is THE SHOW IS A HUGE SUCCESS AND THEY ARE PAYING US LOTS OF MONEY SO DUH IT'S AS MANY SEASONS AS I CAN MAKE IT"

meanwhile, Zoller Seitz deems it the first truly bad episode of Mad Men

― heterosexist matrix of desire (Gukbe), Tuesday, August 10, 2010 3:00 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

zoller seitz can deem away, wrongly -- basically a victim of the lame rushed-out "recap" thing

Srsly, how many of these recap things are there? Everywhere you look someone is doing a weekly breakdown/recap of this show.

loads of places do them. i guess it's the kind of show people like to pick apart the morning after. zoller seitz' were pretty good back on the house next door, but i've not read any of them this series save that one.

critics writing about "critically acclaimed" show shocker

i could be wrong, but i thought that critics used to write about shows maybe once during a season (like in the NYer or wherever) and maybe again if there's something really interesting re the show (like an interview with the showrunner, or if there's a really discussed season finale, etc). discussing every episode as it comes out seems newer (tho i def saw a few places do it for the Sopranos, it definitely wasn't at this level).

Blogs are pretty much ruining that by giving a platform for a running play-by-play. I don't think as many need to break it down episode-by-episode, but we're in that space now. I'd rather see people write about pieces of an episode, or continued themes.

next thing you know some asshole will do 1000 record reviews on TWITTER or something crazy like that

recaps are fucking exhausting to read imho

I can't get enough of them, tbh. I watch the show on Monday nights, and the first thing I do afterwards is read Alan Sepinwall's review, followed by this thread. On Tuesday I'll read the Slate dialogue and Mo Ryan's review.

discussing every episode as it comes out seems newer

But this isn't happening in traditional print publications, is it? When Sepinwall wrote for the Newark Star-Ledger, he would use his space in the paper to write a preview of the upcoming season and maybe conduct a couple of interviews, just like you said. All of the episode recaps happened on his blog.

I guess it's new (like within the last couple of years) that places like Slate and Salon do episode recaps. With Slate, at least, it's kind of a natural extension of their Movie/TV/Book Club feature.

also there's the AVClub + TelevisionWithoutPity stuff

Used to enjoy TV Without Pity, but they just go on for page after page after page--takes longer than watching the show.

just don't see the point. i watched the fuckin' thing, don't need to be recapped thx. i guess it's theoretically possible to do good weekly reviews, but no-one really does this; it's almost all recap. but if zoller seitz really hated the california stuff, or didn't enjoy don and lane broing out, he's probably in the wrong game.

lol'd at the george/martha callback in this ep.