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There’s a moment in one of the season five episodes where you will immediately think, oh, weiner just did this to gently caress with AMC’s money and it is CHOICE. Of course at the time it aired I don’t think the behind the scenes money squabbling was very public but it’s even better now.
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Aug 30, 2021 00:21
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I am of course talking about the episode when Peggy travels into the future and buys a Tesla futuretruck only to crash it into an oncoming fuel tanker in front of a fireworks factory. Spoilers!
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Aug 30, 2021 00:23
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ANOTHER SCORCHER posted:This is a great episode because Don really does listen to Faye's advice and take a big step forward in making peace with himself - he brings his children to Anna's home and tells them about her and his "nickname". That he would couple this with a tremendous step backwards as a psychological counterbalance makes sense. Jerusalem also implied that this scene acted as a step forward for Don, but I always interpreted it as him nearly getting caught and thinking on his feet. He answers Sally's question in such a way that both Sally (who doesn't know about his real name) and Stephanie (who, presumably, isn't aware of his Don identity) are satisfied. Sally will just take as fact from her father that adults have weird nicknames for each other, and Stephanie can assume based on Don's response that his children know him as "Richard," which "Dick" is a nickname for. This is the only way the scene makes sense to me because the alternative is that Stephanie has known about Dick's arrangement with her aunt the whole time, or learned about it between when we meet her and the end of the season, which I don't think is likely based on her behavior up to now.
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Aug 30, 2021 00:26
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Bismack Billabongo posted:There’s a moment in one of the season five episodes where you will immediately think, oh, weiner just did this to gently caress with AMC’s money and it is CHOICE. Of course at the time it aired I don’t think the behind the scenes money squabbling was very public but it’s even better now. lmao i just read the plot summary and remembered it all hooee
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Aug 30, 2021 00:27
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The cast stays massive but I think there are more episodes where non-Don people are showing up in fewer episodes. The line gets blurry for this show because it is very good at hiding it - Lane missing 4 episodes this season is a cost cutting thing, but it still rings true to the plot. Who knows what the SAG rules are when a person is still credited but never shows up on camera. January Jones is still a full cast member but it seems like she's in only half the episodes.
GoutPatrol fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Aug 30, 2021 |
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Aug 30, 2021 00:30
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sebmojo posted:lmao i just read the plot summary and remembered it all hooee
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Aug 30, 2021 00:35
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Goofballs posted:He absolutely looks like he is when he's proposing. He's bug eyed like someone having a religious vision or a manic episode. The normal Don madness is he knows what he's doing is wrong but he can't seem to stop himself because his vices flatter him whether that's alcohol or affairs. Maybe if Midge or Rachel had actually run away with him he would have wound up proposing to them.
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Aug 30, 2021 00:44
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Maybe if Midge or Rachel had actually run away with him he would have wound up proposing to them. He was never going to do that, it was just talking wild poo poo because he was upset
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Aug 30, 2021 00:53
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My biggest memory from Tomorrowland is Don's face when he sees that Megan is totally chill when the kids make a mess in the restaurant. "A woman...not shouting at the kids?" it's like he's seeing a sunset for the first time, he can't believe it. He makes the decision to marry her right there.
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Aug 30, 2021 00:55
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Bismack Billabongo posted:I am of course talking about the episode when Peggy travels into the future and buys a Tesla futuretruck only to crash it into an oncoming fuel tanker in front of a fireworks factory. Spoilers! Dang ruined the surprise  But speaking of Peggy, she absolutely fucks in this episode and it rules. totally Super Saiyan 2, even with ken's dumb rear end
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Aug 30, 2021 00:57
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GoutPatrol posted:The cast stays massive but I think there are more episodes where non-Don people are showing up in fewer episodes. The line gets blurry for this show because it is very good at hiding it - Lane missing 4 episodes this season is a cost cutting thing, but it still rings true to the plot. Who knows what the SAG rules are when a person is still credited but never shows up on camera. January Jones is still a full cast member but it seems like she's in only half the episodes. On the Talking Sopranos podcast recently, Steve Schirripa said that when you get added to the opening credits as a featured actor, you get paid for every episode of the season even if you're not in it. Not sure if that was just HBO rules (or maybe even just Sopranos rules?) but I assume it would be something to make sure you don't end up trapped in a contract where you are unable to work anywhere else because you're in a show you never actually get to appear in. The Klowner posted:Dang ruined the surprise I love Ken's AWFUL shots at being creative. He's a writer so he assumes he can just throw out great advertising ideas but there's a reason he's an Accounts man and not in Creative  Same way Don gets told to leave the negotiating to others when he meets the Heinz guy. There are things he is VERY good at but the business side of advertising isn't one of them.
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Aug 30, 2021 00:58
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Bismack Billabongo posted:There’s a moment in one of the season five episodes where you will immediately think, oh, weiner just did this to gently caress with AMC’s money and it is CHOICE. Of course at the time it aired I don’t think the behind the scenes money squabbling was very public but it’s even better now. What part?
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Aug 30, 2021 05:41
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Annabel Pee posted:What part? i believe it's the use of Tomorrow Never Knows ram dass in hell fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Aug 30, 2021 |
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Aug 30, 2021 05:46
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Annabel Pee posted:What part? They are making a commercial and the guys want the beatles. Don tells them "no one can afford the beatles" and the episode ends with them playing the beatles :3
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Aug 30, 2021 06:36
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Jerusalem posted:
I think this season and next season made me think Ken is the nicest/most moral person in the show. Then I rewatched and realized completely forgotten how much of a creep he was in the first few seasons. Also Single 30 is maybe my favorite episode in the whole show. I'm excited for Jerusalem to get to it.
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Aug 30, 2021 07:49
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Ken is a monumental arsehole initially, but he's also about the only person to support Peggy when she starts as a copywriter (the little "Good work, Peg" in I think series 1 is still cute). Then later he fucks with everyone by being able to take or leave his work, and it's great. He maybe grows the most emotionally out of anyone on the show.
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Aug 30, 2021 08:42
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Also when the are you a Jackie or a Maralyn episode Peggy asks which she is. Ken replies Gertrude Stein and everyone laughs. That is one where I think in hindsight, maybe that was a compliment not an insult.
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Aug 30, 2021 08:46
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Everyone grows in the show. Most of the time it feels like in a negative direction. Ken and Stan are like the only men who end up in a better place by the end. Peggy and Joan too, although for alot of S6/7 Joan turns into a FYGM character most of the time. I wouldn't call Pete and Roger growth because we've seen them make these leaps before and always crawl back to their lovely means.
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Aug 30, 2021 08:48
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It's easy for it to get lost in the mix of everything in the last episode, especially Don's proposal, but I absolutely love that Ken points out that Cynthia and Ed etc are part of his ACTUAL life, and the complete bewildered look on Don's face who it seems simply can't grasp this mindset. The idea that somebody comes to work and does their job but it doesn't define their identity, while the actual thing they care about is... their wife and family!?!?! Hell, just thinking back to the end of season 1, where Don makes one of the best pitches of his life to Kodak where he sells the entire thing on the love for his wife and family, and he does it so well that for a couple of hours he even convinces himself that this is what is most important to him... except of course he already sneered at the idea of spending holiday time with them at Gene's and comes home to his just deserts of an empty house because the reality simply doesn't match the image he presents to the world (and himself). Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 09:12 on Aug 30, 2021 |
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Aug 30, 2021 09:08
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GoutPatrol posted:Everyone grows in the show. Most of the time it feels like in a negative direction. When Don sacked Jaguar he tanked the SCDP IPO, which cost Joan over a million dollars as a partner. That's seven and a half million dollars in 2021. And she'd already suffered the indignity of being used as a bargaining chip to get Jaguar in the first place. She's earned the right to be pissed at Don.
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Aug 30, 2021 09:17
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Bismack Billabongo posted:I am of course talking about the episode when Peggy travels into the future and buys a Tesla futuretruck only to crash it into an oncoming fuel tanker in front of a fireworks factory. Spoilers! You have spoiled the show's AMC-mandated transition into a sci-fi action series, M.A.D.* Men! *(Multiversal Ad-venturing Demolitions) Bismack Billabongo posted:Yeah it’s baffling. This show was definitely more critic bait as opposed to a huge ratings smash (not saying that’s a bad thing, this is my favorite tv show ever front to back) but it was like they were trying to choke it out in the cradle. Mad Men wasn't exactly a ratings bonanza, but it was far and away the network's highest profile hit and it landed in that 30 Rock territory of "Fewer people on the whole watch this show, but the people who are watching it are both very consistent viewers and tend to fall into high income brackets." AMC found itself to become a basic cable prestige TV destination, and their immediate reaction was "Alright, let's greenlight a few so-so dramas but REALLY go all-in on reality series. If you enjoyed the moody, contemplative Mad Men and the elevated thrills of Breaking Bad, you're going to love a soft-scripted series about competitive arm wrestling!" Yannick_B posted:My biggest memory from Tomorrowland is Don's face when he sees that Megan is totally chill when the kids make a mess in the restaurant. That scene does such an incredible job of evoking Betty and her outsized influence on the family without so much as uttering a syllable of her name. Don, Bobby and Sally essentially tense up anticipating a blow that never comes; Don's anger in the moment isn't directed at the kids so much as it is the preemptive lament of a man who has been conditioned to hear that something has been "ruined" for the next 6 hours.
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Aug 30, 2021 16:31
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JethroMcB posted:Mad Men wasn't exactly a ratings bonanza, but it was far and away the network's highest profile hit and it landed in that 30 Rock territory of "Fewer people on the whole watch this show, but the people who are watching it are both very consistent viewers and tend to fall into high income brackets." AMC found itself to become a basic cable prestige TV destination, and their immediate reaction was "Alright, let's greenlight a few so-so dramas but REALLY go all-in on reality series. If you enjoyed the moody, contemplative Mad Men and the elevated thrills of Breaking Bad, you're going to love a soft-scripted series about competitive arm wrestling!" The reality show about advertising they created was the worst example of this. If you like Mad Men, it must be because of the ads!
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Aug 30, 2021 18:56
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GoutPatrol posted:Everyone grows in the show. Most of the time it feels like in a negative direction. I think Pete did actually grow. Basically his mom dying was the best thing to ever happen for his emotional devolpment. Like he grows because of his time in Cali and backslides upon return. But I think the end shows is him mixing that growth with his old life. In the last episode with him, he is introspective in a way we never see him do before. Not even while in Cali
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Aug 30, 2021 21:27
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ElectronicOldMen posted:I remember watching this episode along with the live viewing thread as it quickly imploded. Wonderful times. I'm guessing this thread is archived? I tried searching for it and found posts in other threads as far back as 2008 but no dedicated mad men live watch thread
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Aug 30, 2021 22:09
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https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3325385&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=136 starts here, alot of aatrek so fair warning
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Aug 30, 2021 22:24
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JethroMcB posted:You have spoiled the show's AMC-mandated transition into a sci-fi action series, M.A.D.* Men! *(Multiversal Ad-venturing Demolitions) that's exactly right, and it also ties back to the title. megan is tomorrow, betty is the past, and don's stunned realisation you don't have to be beholden to the past (which is also a sort of twist of what faye told him) is what pushes him to propose. man, i remember that moment so clearly and it's so brief, what a great simple scene.
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Aug 30, 2021 23:21
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GoutPatrol posted:https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3325385&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=136 Haha check this thread out for a lot of edgy 2010-style humor, a pedophile mod reacting every minute, and goons almost unanimously missing the point of the episode and complaining.
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Aug 31, 2021 01:36
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Maybe if Midge or Rachel had actually run away with him he would have wound up proposing to them. Maybe propose, but probably not get married or definitely get divorced. I've said this before, but Don is a love addict among other addictions. In the first season, you could maybe chock his behavior up to some generic point about suburban ennui. But even as a single man with no reason to skulk around, Don conducts himself like a cheating husband or an angsty teenager. His affairs are always passionate conspiracies or unrealistic fantasies or both, all totally unsustainable but compelling in the short term as an escape. The logistics and compromise of an actual relationship aren't part of the fantasy and don't feel like an escape. So, I can't see Don going through with all that; he just wants the high. On that point, I see Faye and Rachel as essentially similar characters: complex, lonely professional women who found a kindred spirit in Don. Their affairs were necessarily conducted in secret (because Don was married, because Rachel was a client, because Faye was breaking professional rules, etc.), but Rachel had the benefit of breaking things off before real life entered the equation. Don could easily have been with Faye - they were both single people, no longer working together, no longer in conflict. But Don chose Megan anyway. Because Megan was intoxicating and new, and because Faye had already stepped out of fantasy and into reality. She was no longer the escape. The same thing would've happened to Rachel. It's also another thing that Faye gets 100% right: "I hope [Megan] knows that you only like the beginnings of things." Rachel or Bobbi or Midge or Suzanne, etc, were always ticking clocks.
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Aug 31, 2021 03:14
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Yeah, absolutely agree that he's chasing that high. His initial infatuation comes from the endorphin rush and happiness he feels being with them, and when that feeling initially fades with familiarity he hunts it down elsewhere rather than consider developing the relationship to a deeper level than just the surface level of how it makes him feel. The deep irony I've always found with Don is that he's attracted to women who are interesting/intelligent/challenging but he also wants them to essentially exist as props/extensions of himself rather than people in their own right, despite that being the thing that attracted him to them in the first place. Which also makes his attempts to shut down Betty's attempts to change herself, develop or find independence so counter-productive, because he insisted she remain the type of person that he then didn't find interesting, so he pursued extra-marital affairs with people who did.
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Aug 31, 2021 03:36
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Xealot posted:I've said this before, but Don is a love addict among other addictions. In the first season, you could maybe chock his behavior up to some generic point about suburban ennui. But even as a single man with no reason to skulk around, Don conducts himself like a cheating husband or an angsty teenager. His affairs are always passionate conspiracies or unrealistic fantasies or both, all totally unsustainable but compelling in the short term as an escape. The logistics and compromise of an actual relationship aren't part of the fantasy and don't feel like an escape. So, I can't see Don going through with all that; he just wants the high. Goofballs posted:He absolutely looks like he is when he's proposing. He's bug eyed like someone having a religious vision or a manic episode. Or like a drug addict.
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Aug 31, 2021 03:38
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Peggy and Joan bonding at the end of the episode over how dumb men can be is one of my favorite scenes. Christina Hendricks gets me every time with that, "Whatever could be on your mind...?" The subject of whether Stephanie knows Don's identity came up earlier. She must know. When he gets into the office at the start of The Suitcase, Mrs. Blankenship tells him that a Stephanie from California called and left no last name. Stephanie knows she just called Donald Draper, even though he was introduced to her as Dick Whitman, and she knew to avoid giving any extra identifying info. She also knows that he owns the house, and just that knowledge plus the fact that he does business under the name Donald Draper pretty much gives up the whole story. Also, Don wouldn't have taken his kids to the house while Stephanie was there if Stephanie didn't know. The risk of her saying something that indicates that she knows him as an entirely different person would be too high.
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Aug 31, 2021 20:58
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Wanna repost something I had to put behind spoilers earlier in the thread:quote:I also think that simple sexual and romantic chemistry was very important. Of course, Megan was younger, but she is the same age as Bethany Van Nuys, that young woman he goes on a few awkward dates with, clearly just to get some practice at dating again after years of marriage, with no intention of ending up in a close relationship with her. So it's definitely not just Megan's youth that gives her a sparkle for Don. I think [Xealot is] right about his romanticizing her as the epitome of the young, liberated 60s woman, but she's also more intuitive, creative, and seductive than Faye. All qualities that Don has. Faye is a good person, but she's a bit cold and analytical. Her personality is more that of a researcher than an artist.
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Aug 31, 2021 21:05
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I stopped watching Mad Men somewhere in the middle of the fifth season - it just got too tiresome for me to see Don self-destruct over and over again and though I got it it didn't really make for pleasant tv watching. But reading these episode summaries are getting my juices flowing to complete my watch for it.
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Sep 1, 2021 00:37
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Jerusalem posted:Yeah, absolutely agree that he's chasing that high. His initial infatuation comes from the endorphin rush and happiness he feels being with them, and when that feeling initially fades with familiarity he hunts it down elsewhere rather than consider developing the relationship to a deeper level than just the surface level of how it makes him feel. I also think Don's self-loathing is an important component here. Part of the complexity of the character is that "Don Draper" is his idealized self, while "Dick Whitman" is a pathetic, abject, unlovable hick. So, the high for Don is that those he's infatuated with also see him as he'd like to be seen. Those clandestine-by-design affairs ensure that women Don meets can only see the former and never need to see the latter. The "escape" Don craves is thus really an escape from himself, to a place where his past doesn't matter and the women important to him accept the ideal as reality. I'd guess that the reason he married Betty was that he believed he could maintain the lie forever. The more introspective and curious women Don has affairs with would see the cracks sooner or later, but "house cat" Betty Hofstadt seemed happy with the alpha breadwinner role-play Don was doing, seemingly indefinitely. (I wouldn't be surprised if Don sees her revelation of "the REAL him" as the actual thing that killed their marriage.) But by "Tomorrowland," Don has fallen into the exact same trap he did before: to his eye, Megan looks like a new Betty. Uncomplicated and easy and convinced that Don is who he says he is. So, part of why his relationship with Faye fell apart was that the mundane drudgery of a real relationship crept in. But the other is that Don showed her his whole rear end. She saw him at his weakest, panicking on the floor and forced to reconcile with Dick Whitman. How could she love him then? What's wrong with her that she still might?
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Sep 1, 2021 00:57
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I wouldn't call Megan just another Betty. The reason he proposes is because she acts like the Anti-Betty. Your comments about Megan being the new 60s ideal woman is spot on.
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Sep 1, 2021 02:00
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Megan is easily the most dismissed and underunderstood character in the show.
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Sep 1, 2021 02:08
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She was certainly the most polarizing!Xealot posted:I also think Don's self-loathing is an important component here. Part of the complexity of the character is that "Don Draper" is his idealized self, while "Dick Whitman" is a pathetic, abject, unlovable hick. So, the high for Don is that those he's infatuated with also see him as he'd like to be seen. Those clandestine-by-design affairs ensure that women Don meets can only see the former and never need to see the latter. The "escape" Don craves is thus really an escape from himself, to a place where his past doesn't matter and the women important to him accept the ideal as reality. Nice analysis! As the series goes on, it more and more suggests that openness, honesty, and acceptance is what we need for our relationships with others and how we think about ourselves. Even love isn't enough if it lacks those components. It will fall apart. Betty loved Don once, and his deception and distance destroyed that. Now Don and Megan are in love, and while it's good that he took back the lie about the ring being from "his" family, it's clear that their foundation is still made of sand.
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Sep 1, 2021 02:45
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GoutPatrol posted:I wouldn't call Megan just another Betty. The reason he proposes is because she acts like the Anti-Betty. Your comments about Megan being the new 60s ideal woman is spot on. No, of course not literally a new Betty. A new marriage-able partner, someone who appeals to his ego in the way Betty did a decade ago. I'm referring to what Joan says, "that's just the kind of girl Don Draper marries." Women who seem perfect, are unchallenging and ultimately uncontroversial. But also, who adore him and are impressed by him. Betty and Megan are extremely different people, but for Don's purposes were marriage material for similar reasons: "you make me feel the way I've always wanted to feel," or whatever it was Don says. My point isn't that Megan actually *is* any of these things (or that Betty was, for that matter.) Objectively speaking, Megan is very mature, insightful, intelligent...she isn't some trophy wife at all. But Don doesn't see that, he sees the 20-something cool girl who's sexually liberated and amazing with his kids and well-spoken and kind of exotic. But again, mostly he sees a girl who is these things and believes HE is Don Draper, the brilliant creative director that he wants to be. My phrasing of "a new Betty" was poor; I mean to say, she also embodies a sort of idealized fantasy of success that drove his decision to get married the first time.
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Sep 1, 2021 02:46
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Betty represented the ideal 50s woman and Megan the ideal 60s woman. This is not a commentary on them individually, just how Don saw them on a surface level.
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Sep 1, 2021 03:46
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Ungratek posted:Betty represented the ideal 50s woman and Megan the ideal 60s woman. This is not a commentary on them individually, just how Don saw them on a surface level. Megan is more representative of the kind of mother Don wishes he had, Don's strongest relationships in the show are always with his kids, biological like sally, his work child Peggy, and metaphorically his ads Don has a deep unsaid desire to provide the kind of childhood to them that he never experienced, that is the reason he chose Megan as a wife instead of a Lover.
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Sep 1, 2021 03:52
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