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.

tied an onion to his belt?

Say, "Gimme four bees for a quarter!" ?

Shit, I mean five bees. Goddammit.

maybe it'll be a prequel and draper will play his own grandfather in the 1870s. like back to the future iii or something.

http://www.viddler.com/eleist/videos/1/

^ "don draper introduces facebook timeline" is p great imo

Haha, awesome

Like Comment
Peter Campbell: Look at us, Don. Like two peas in a pod. A thing like that.

Don Draper: Shut up, Pete (16 likes)

ha i forgot harry got all verklempt

I've caught up with the first season-specific thread. A little iffy on the opening episode overall--there seemed something almost self-satisfied about most of it; maybe this is the season where the show really started to get a lot of attention?--but "Tobacco Road" at the end was just as bracing as I wanted that moment to be. (Never would have guessed that particular song in a million years.) 1964, and some actual rock and roll.

This is an incredible season

I think 'Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency' was the moment I realized that I was severely underestimating just how unique Mad Men was. Season 4 was the first one I was fully on board with, where I was just blown away at how rich the series actually was. Season 5 was even better. And it's still good.

Probably my favourite season.

I still marvel at you guys' ability to remember episode titles. I never notice them.

I can remember, like, five episode titles from this show... And once you get the joke, Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency is a very funny title.

The best I can do is "That time in Season Four when..."

Oh, you mean The Suitcase? (only season four episode I know the name of)

what's the joke? i'm sure it's obvious..

I think the guy's name was actually Guy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Walks_into_a_Psychiatrist%27s_Office...

I'm not entirelysure of the joke, but the punchline is him getting his foot run over by a lawnmower. And the joke is even funnier for being so vague, imo.

I've been glancing at episode titles as I go along, and a few stick out. "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency" for sure; also "Meditations in an Emergency," since the book turned up a couple of times. There's an upcoming episode called "Tomorrowland," and I know that from just having finished a book on the 1965 World's Fair.

Oh, right, Tomorrowland! That one is incredible also.

jeez, how do you folks remember what things happened in what season? i don't think i have enough brainpower for that.

I think "The Suitcase" (the Samsonite episode) was the first time I've been really moved by the show--probably helped that I had a lousy day myself. Simon & Garfunkel at the end was perfect.

best episode, i think

yeah Bleeker Street was an amazing touch. not that well-known a song in the UK, dunno about the States?

I remember "The Suitcase" as an episode title just from reading a lot of TV critics who talk about the episode with reverence (and rightly so).

The two really great moments centered around Peggy: how nasty Don was to her early in the episode, and then later, when he breaks down and says he just lost the only person who ever really knew him, Peggy's great "That's not true."

There's a hand squeeze towards the end that really got to me.

Finished 4 last night. I'm not ambitious enough to read back through the thread closely, but I skim-read big parts of it and saw a lot of commentary that matched my reactions exactly.

I do think at this point (if you've forgotten, Don has just married Megan) Peggy has emerged as the most interesting character. It took me a couple of seasons to warm to her--she's so unusual--but her mix of kindness and wry detachment, and this other beatnik world she's able to drift in and out of, are fascinating. (Her lesbian friend is a great character.) I wonder if her child will reappear--I would assume so; obviously, don't tell me. I loved the scene where she said goodbye to Faye.

Like everyone, was taken aback by Carla's dismissal and Midge's depressing reappearance. I'm not sure why Midge was punished like that, a foil for Don to appear so magnanimous. (There's a really interesting post on her that links that to his about-face on cigarettes.) Betty's extreme harshness is interesting and odd--agree with those, though, who still don't find her completely unsympathetic. (Smiling at Sally's Beatles hysteria was great.) Sally's a great character; Glen is too, hope he's not gone for good. (He may have wandered into a Todd Solondz movie, never to return.) Dropping in Ray Wise was just too bizarre (funny, though). I'm guessing Leland Palmer showing up was the creators simply staking their claim that this is an historically important show. I haven't been trying to think through what everything means; just letting it unfold for the time being. Hope Kinsey and Sal return--Ken Cosgrove's okay, but I don't find him as interesting as they were.

The biggest surprise to me in Season 4 was how the World Out There was kind of kept at arm's length. Either of the two extremes wouldn't be good: having the show exist in a complete vacuum, or (probably worse) overdoing it. There's an attempt to find the right balance. I felt like it erred on the side of caution, if anything. A little Beatles, a little Vietnam, a little civil rights, a little feminism--but mostly, it still could have been 1960. (Even the end-credit music is still mostly sleepy-time '50s.) I'm not sure if LBJ has been mentioned even once. I'm not really complaining--there's intelligence and restraint at work. My guess is that the World Out There will find its way into the show more and more in the remaining seasons--e.g., Joan's husband obviously isn't coming back.

betty is a tremendous character imo, i don't think her oft-callousness is meant to be anything more than a symptom of her frustration at this suburban life she's trapped in, the false dream she's been sold. i mean that's pretty obvious. she's not any harsher than don draper imo, it's just that don is one of these "guys" that tv viewers look up to bc his (mis)adventures are so compelling (though not any less true.) i think betty's life is so comparatively cloistered that her harshness stands out more i guess? don has been just as randomly cruel as betty and probably moreso.

I'm not sure. I think Betty gets worse in later seasons but Don stays roughly the same.

I agree with all of that--didn't mean to leave the impression that I thought Betty was harsh in relation to Don. In a way, what you say was implied in my comment: you're conditioned to expect Don to be a bastard whenever he feels like it. It's surprising coming from this character who's introduced as such a wholesome presence. (Although obviously they plant doubts about that almost immediately: the therapy, the weird relationship with Glen, the great ending with the shotgun, etc.)

I'll move my next few posts to the Season 5 thread, but Roger's just so funny in the first episode. "Why can't you sing like that?" ("Why can't you look like that?")

Season 5 was the best. They came back hard (remember, this was after the extended hiatus) and kept the tempo up the whole season.

As I thought would be the case, more and more intersection with events of the day. Having both Richard Speck and Charles Whitman turn up was a surprise--the Speck stuff was really well handled, especially Sally's morbid fascination and the image of her under the sofa. (What was going on with Henry's mother as she recounted the details of the killings to Sally? It was like she turned into Count Floyd momentarily--I thought she was going to start chopping up Sally on the spot.) Also the Civil Rights marching in the first episode, and the resolution at the end with the lobby of job applicants. Minor quibble (and I rarely wade into this): as much as I like Dusty Springfield, and like "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" (which conceptually fit perfectly), I think that episode should have ended with a black voice on the soundtrack. Not that it had to be "A Change Is Gonna Come" or anything--too obvious--but something lighter or a little ironic from Motown or Jackie Wilson or somebody. It just felt a little off to hear Dusty Springfield come in. (The Crystals "He Hit Me" was a great weird choice, though.)

Five seasons in, I still can't figure out Pete Campbell--his manner, I mean, not so much the character. His gee-whiz line delivery is almost out of Lynch. I really liked his displacement as he looked over at his driver's ed crush making out.

Season 4, episode 4, "The Rejected": what is the drony music that's playing in the background when Peggy arrives at the happening that lesbian Joyce invited her to? It sounds like something from at least a year or two down the road--it's still 1965.

Nothing line from a non-recurring character that might be one the ten funniest of the entire seven seasons (you may not remember it): "We'll discuss it inside."

I don't remember the sound exactly but there was some pretty out there stuff by then. Theater of Eternal Music was already playing for instance.

"Signed D.C." by Brave New World--found the site I used to use for Mad Men music. The song sounds better buried in the background than heard on its own.

If it's a cover of the Love song, the original didn't come out until 1966.

1) Yes, it's a cover of the Love song (which I'd never heard till now). 2) Brave New World, according to Discogs, were around from '66 to '73 (they only released two singles; "Signed D.C." was later included on a compilation). 3) "The Rejected," the Mad Men episode, is set in February of '65.

Okay, we've caught them red-handed.

this is the best season of the show

a handful of front-to-back perfect episodes (the premiere, the Honda scooter one, The Suitcase), and so many great moments and setpieces - anything involving Sally's adolescence, death of Ms. Blankenship, Peggy at the pseudo-Warhol party, the withering waspishness of Henry's mom, Don and Lane on the town, death of Anna, Betty talking to Sally's shrink

Yeah this is maybe my favourite. It's the most light of tone and pop art-y as I recall.

Is this the season where Don takes up with Megan?

at the very end, yes

Started rewatching this, forgot how much I hated any focus on how tortured Don is. The scene in the first season after Roger's heart attack where he goes to Rachel Menken, ugh.

The scene where he pleads with her to leave, right? I thought that was one of the weakest, least credible scenes in the entire seven seasons. (Maybe I have the wrong scene--I thought that Don pleading with Rachel happened after Pete threatened to expose him.)

Is stuff like that supposed to come across as romantic though? I take those as illustrations of how delusional and desperate Don is.

Like, it comes across as weak because Don is weak, and not because it's poorly acted/written.

Don's interaction with his secretary (with the card and a $50) the morning after they have sex was stomach-curdling.

Haha yeah that is super-gross.

Don and Lindsey Weir’s combined hypocritical sanctimony in S6 is also amazingly disgusting behavior. They both lord their fake moral superiority over Megan like a weapon, its deeply cruel.