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Bismack Billabongo posted:I would tread lightly here BUT bloggers Tom and Lorenzo do fashion analysis of every episode of the last four seasons as well as season overviews for the first three seasons. They can be pretty interesting IMO. I am linking the oldest entries first so you can avoid spoilers. Yeah, thanks for the link but I'll wait till I'm done. I'm so close to the end now and I've succeeded beyond my wildest dreams in avoiding spoilers, so I don't want to take any risks 
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Jan 7, 2022 00:10
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Blood Nightmaster posted:I never thought this episode was particularly bad either but I also don't really think of the two part openers as separate episodes. The back half might be my favorite just for the funeral scene alone, lol The one titled Two Cups of Coffee has really nailed down Pete's speech pattern
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Jan 7, 2022 00:30
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not to open up pandora's box or anything here but isn't it kind of a spoiler that pete survives to s7e1? given the shock of lane's suicide and how much of a shitbag pete is despite having a wife and kid idk ??
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Jan 7, 2022 01:05
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Bob Benson is great and my friend.
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Jan 7, 2022 02:25
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I love Bob Benson, but yeah I can see finding him smarmy and unpleasant on first look. He makes it pretty easy to feel that way.ram dass in hell posted:not to open up pandora's box or anything here but isn't it kind of a spoiler that pete survives to s7e1? given the shock of lane's suicide and how much of a shitbag pete is despite having a wife and kid idk ?? Eh. "Shocking deaths" aren't really this show's thing. I mean, characters die, but usually in pretty unsurprising and mundane or expected ways, Lane excluded. I don't think it's a relevant spoiler that a wealthy man in his 30's survives the series. It isn't Walking Dead.
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Jan 7, 2022 02:58
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Season 6 has always been my favourite season of the show and I am so happy that you're finally tackling it! This is Mad Men at its darkest, funniest, and most lurid.
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Jan 7, 2022 04:46
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Jerusalem posted:I gotta say though, opening the episode with Jonesy's POV to presumably make the viewer think it was Don having a heart attack or something is kinda lame and gimmicky. This episode goes directly with the next so I never thought about it by itself before. But just from reading your writeup I would say that the very first and last scenes address this strange POV choice. The audience is meant to think they know Don's POV in the first scene but are shown to be wrong and by the last scene they bluntly tell you that Don doesn't even know who he is. I've been looking forward to you getting to this season since the start because I think it might be the richest for your writeup style. Also, Bob is my friend too and he's very nice.
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Jan 7, 2022 06:13
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ram dass in hell posted:not to open up pandora's box or anything here but isn't it kind of a spoiler that pete survives to s7e1? given the shock of lane's suicide and how much of a shitbag pete is despite having a wife and kid idk ?? it's avoidable, but for the kind of show mad men is, I don't think it's a big problem. everyone's barometer on this issue is slightly different but I think as long as people aren't spoiling major plot events e.g. Lane's death or upcoming changes to the company, it's fine to talk about certain major characters in the future tense sparingly
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Jan 7, 2022 06:36
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Bob freaking sucks!!!!!Jerusalem posted:Yeah, thanks for the link but I'll wait till I'm done. I'm so close to the end now and I've succeeded beyond my wildest dreams in avoiding spoilers, so I don't want to take any risks spoiler alert: mad men... is good
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Jan 7, 2022 06:37
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When you compare Bob's actions in this episode to what Don did to get hired he doesn't come off as badly. And yes, I also love Stan's beard, it makes him look so much friendlier and nicer.
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Jan 7, 2022 06:44
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I mean, I also strongly disliked Stan when he first showed up and I've grown to really enjoy him... but Peggy was around at the time to put him in his place and force him to be less of a douchebag, so I fear for Bob. But on the other hand, I strongly disliked Pete on first appearance too, Peggy was around to put him in his place multiple times, and yet he's still a douchebag.... hmmm, this is gonna need more research.
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Jan 7, 2022 09:14
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Pete is at liberty to be an rear end in a top hat forever because his family's rich. If they weren't he would have been out on his rear end after season 1 and doing Hare Krishnas with Lakshmi by now.
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Jan 7, 2022 18:44
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Randallteal posted:Pete is at liberty to be an rear end in a top hat forever because his family's rich. If they weren't he would have been out on his rear end after season 1 and doing Hare Krishnas with Lakshmi by now. Nah, for all of Pete's flaws he at least has ambition (remember Paul was complaining that things couldn't stay the same). He is more likely to to end up like Burt Peterson. KellHound fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Jan 8, 2022 |
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Jan 8, 2022 02:08
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Yes, one of the most racially progressive characters on Mad Men is a huge piece of poo poo. Wait, all the racially progressive characters are. Hmmm.
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Jan 8, 2022 04:15
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Vitruvian Manic posted:Yes, one of the most racially progressive characters on Mad Men is a huge piece of poo poo. Wait, all the racially progressive characters are. I mean this is Mad Men, every character is human and has their bad moments (don't say "what about Bobby," Bobby is a Baby Boomer). But also I wouldn't exactly call Abe, Dawn or Shirley huge pieces of poo poo
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Jan 8, 2022 05:07
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Mameluke posted:I mean this is Mad Men, every character is human and has their bad moments (don't say "what about Bobby," Bobby is a Baby Boomer). But also I wouldn't exactly call Abe, Dawn or Shirley huge pieces of poo poo you should never forgive Bobby for trading the sandwiches for gumdrops
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Jan 8, 2022 05:13
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Mameluke posted:I mean this is Mad Men, every character is human and has their bad moments (don't say "what about Bobby," Bobby is a Baby Boomer). But also I wouldn't exactly call Abe, Dawn or Shirley huge pieces of poo poo PoCs are presented as fine, if marginalized side characters because the story doesn't care about them. I should have clarified that I meant "members of the main cast" who are all white, because of course in a story set in the '60s the only stories worth telling are white stories with peripheral engagement to PoCs.
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Jan 8, 2022 05:15
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The "progressiveness" of characters like Pete and Paul are in general (so far at least) demonstrated as usually coming from a self-interested place, which is pretty in keeping with their characters in general. Pete doesn't really particularly give a poo poo about black people when he pushes for marketing towards them, he just sees a largely untapped market where they could be making money and is too insulated from the realities of life for POC to grasp why his clients would object to the notion, as well as having no idea how tone-deaf his insistence to the poor elevator operator that anybody can make it in America is. Paul WANTS to be progressive and open-minded but it's largely because it fits in with his own personal image of himself as the hero of the story, the guy on the vanguard of social consciousness and change. He's a deeply arrogant person (who like Don Draper is also plagued by self-doubt, he's just worse at hiding it) who thinks he's very humble, and taking away the clear comedy beats surrounding everything he does (his Star Trek script  ) it's both infuriating and depressing to see how on the surface he has all the right ideas but they're all in some way corrupted by his deeper motivations.
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Jan 8, 2022 05:27
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Contrasted with . . . ? Don, who doesn't "see" race? Rodger, who is openly racist but in a harmless and playful way? Peggy, who is open to charity towards black people but still thinks they will jack her poo poo? Betty, fraternizing with the help? Sure, Paul and Pete's racial progressivism is presented as self-serving. But that's because that is the only way racial justice can be perceived in the show. It's O'Conner's "The Barber". Vitruvian Manic fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Jan 8, 2022 |
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Jan 8, 2022 05:32
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I wasn't contrasting them with any of the other characters, just talking about how their "progressive" attitudes are largely self-serving, and it seems like we're on the same page in that respect?
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Jan 8, 2022 05:56
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I was making an edit at the same time you were posting. A major theme of the first and second season is "the birth of the modern woman" coupled with the "apotheosis of HRC" which is derailed by real world events and there remains a revanchist anti-black thread throughout the show because "they" "stole" HRC's moment. Now, Weiner can't have black people be the bad guys in the show, it's the old Atwater speech but also he and his aren't actually that mad at black people because they don't really see them as people. But they *can* show that the kind of people who would support a black person over a more deserving white woman are just loving awful people. And they do. Repeatedly.
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Jan 8, 2022 05:57
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Do you believe the stupid poo poo you post?
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Jan 8, 2022 05:58
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Gaius Marius posted:Do you believe the stupid poo poo you post? Do you have anything to add, or is this more of your general zero-content white noise posting?
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Jan 8, 2022 06:03
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Mameluke posted:But also I wouldn't exactly call Abe... huge pieces of poo poo I would.
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Jan 8, 2022 06:05
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Sash! posted:I would. Worth noting, the clearest "Abe is an rear end in a top hat" scene is him denigrating The Modern Woman for daring to compare the plight of women to the plight of African Americans with a "Woman's March".
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Jan 8, 2022 06:11
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Vitruvian Manic posted:Worth noting, the clearest "Abe is an rear end in a top hat" scene is him denigrating The Modern Woman for daring to compare the plight of women to the plight of African Americans with a "Woman's March". 
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Jan 8, 2022 06:15
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abe's an rear end in a top hat but he means real well, i stan.
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Jan 8, 2022 08:38
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Wait, Peggy is supposed to be Hillary? Peggy is definitely a Republican imo
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Jan 8, 2022 11:26
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any time this comes up, i do not understand why people cannot accept that the sort of american white person that has managed to make it to madison avenue just would not give a poo poo one way or the other (at best) about the civil rights movement, and it isnt malice from the showrunners. the most metatextual info we have from them is a combination of what i just wrote with their own acknowledgement that they felt they couldnt really tell those sorts of stories well anyways and didnt want a poor attempt to do so to cheapen not only the show but the importance of those historical events. theres a lot of other really important poo poo happening in the 60s that are getting backgrounded too right now, and if some or any of those pop up again its going to be in the context of how they relate to don draper, because its his story, and not because theyre important for importance sake because this is a show about a character and not a documentary about a time period. "weiner didnt make his story about rich white men focus around the civil rights movement because he was salty about deeply unpopular hillary losing to one of the most popular presidential run candidates in history" is just schitzoposting, come on dude
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Jan 8, 2022 16:12
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Mameluke posted:Wait, Peggy is supposed to be Hillary? Peggy is definitely a Republican imo I think "Peggy is supposed to be Hillary" is insane, but Hillary was literally a Goldwater republican lol
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Jan 8, 2022 16:16
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Vitruvian Manic posted:You folks know all he is doing is a shot-for-shot on the episodes. this is extremely uncharitable. there's plenty of value in having another pair of eyes observing a show you think you've dissected thoroughly
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Jan 8, 2022 16:31
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oh wait you're the latest rereg of shbobd or whatever his name was. please continue being a huge rear end in a top hat for no discernible reason
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Jan 8, 2022 16:37
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Paper Lion posted:
It's their entire schtick. They keep re-regging just to post more batshit "interpretations", then start shrieking when anyone challenges them on it.
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Jan 8, 2022 16:45
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I think HRC is supposed to stand for human rights campaign?
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Jan 8, 2022 16:55
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Hillary rodham clinton
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Jan 8, 2022 17:01
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Oh he's talking about real world events meaning when the show aired, re: the nomination + election of Obama? Yeah that is some psycho poo poo
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Jan 8, 2022 17:08
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kalel posted:Oh he's talking about real world events meaning when the show aired, re: the nomination + election of Obama? Yeah that is some psycho poo poo Yes, this show he initially wrote in 1999 is clearly a neoliberal screed specifically interested in revenge against Barack Obama for “stealing HRC’s moment” despite making her his SOS. Vitruvian Manic posted:…because of course in a story set in the '60s the only stories worth telling are white stories with peripheral engagement to PoCs. I don’t even understand your point. Plenty of stories set in the 60’s are focused on the civil rights movement. If you’re going to complain about period pieces marginalizing POC voices, look to literally any centrist take on the civil rights movement that places white progressives at the center, like Stonewall or The Help. Mad Men is pointedly saying many of the exact things you’re suggesting, that “well-meaning” white liberals aren’t actually that invested in progressive politics outside of vanity or self-interest. Like, yes, there aren’t many nonwhite characters central to the show, but that’s probably realistic of these characters’ lifestyles in the 60’s. It’s not trying to speak authentically to POC experiences in the 60’s, but it’s also pretty explicit about criticizing the white people it’s depicting. “You know what they say about the South! It isn’t 1963, it’s 1863!”
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Jan 9, 2022 00:56
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i cant even talk about some of my fave abe scenes yet. i love abe.
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Jan 9, 2022 00:59
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kalel posted:I also feel like the scene where Sandy and Betty talk in the kitchen is way too long. Sandy's character in general seems to have a disproportionate amount of screentime in relation to what her character contributes to the show. It seems her only purpose narratively is to get Betty to be jealous and to realize that young hobos exist. Sandy is given the introduction and initial screentime of an important recurring character but she disappears from the show and from every character's memory after the end of the next episode. maybe Jerusalem will give his thoughts about the character next time but next time will be his only opportunity lol you think betty's desire to "rescue" this obviously talented girl from what she sees as a ruinous future is about jealousy? there are pretty obvious parallels between betty's youth and sandy's, and reasons why betty might be looking back and seeing mistakes she's made and time she's wasted. that's not jealousy, it's regret. don has a similar journey over several episodes in season 7 with the much-maligned diana.
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Jan 9, 2022 02:04
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R. Guyovich posted:this is extremely uncharitable. there's plenty of value in having another pair of eyes observing a show you think you've dissected thoroughly Also yes this, for example the first time I watched through the series I had no clue the car Lane's wife bought him was (ironically) an actual Jaguar because I'm loving car blind. I'm not even kidding, until the writeup here I had no clue  I used to look up old episode reviews on the AV Club and The Guardian back then because they really helped me contextualize what I just saw so this thread has been pretty cool actually,
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Jan 9, 2022 02:46
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