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Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.



stop digging

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Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


pentyne posted:

Don refuses to sign the 3 year employee commitment contract that Hilton wants in S3. Cooper approaches Don in his office alone after one of Don's disappearing binges with the contract and basically tells him he has to sign saying "Would you say I know something about you Don?" and then saying "After all, who's really signing this contract anyways" with a smile on his face.

This is important to note just because Cooper is drawing two lines here - you can't just disappear on us without consequences, and I know exactly who you are. Very heavy stuff

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


Something about the scene where Sally walks in on Don cheating on Megan felt incredibly shocking and raw. It's still great on rewatch, but that's one of those things I definitely think experiencing "new" the first time is important for

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


Yoshi Wins posted:

they actually started setting up his schizophrenia from early in season 5. In a scene that is very poignant in retrospect, he tells Peggy he has a paranoid suspicion that his father is not who he says he is. He also claims to be a Martian who received a message from Mars to stay where he is, but that he’s been unable to find any other Martians. Peggy assumes he’s expressing some angst in a creative way. He’s actually displaying early symptoms of schizophrenia, but he just happens to come across as a quirky creative guy.

They drop other hints too. He makes some paranoid remarks in season 6 and I think he says something about his head buzzing after he has a moral dilemma about SCDP working for Dow.

But he does go from about a 5/10 to a 10/10 on the madness scale in a single episode, that’s true. Maybe that’s how it works though? I don’t know too much about how those symptoms progress in real life.


There's... a lot more going on in that scene than creative angst or paranoid delusions. He's rationalizing to himself the fact that he's from a concentration camp and managed to keep living. There's obviously some element of the future schizophrenia there, but it's way more nuanced than that.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


:smug: Good luck at your next meeting.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


Excellent write-up, as usual. This episode really does so much to humanize Pete, who even up until last episode just came across as a slimeball.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


I'm always shocked when people think the later seasons are weaker, imho the show exclusively gets better.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


Great write-up, as always.

Jerusalem posted:

Late into the evening, Sterling Cooper is emptying out and Don leaves his office, hat and coat on. Joan is technically doing her job and "watching" Sally,who is sleeping on a couch while Joan bitches with another secretary. She's talking about how she's impressed that "she" has come in on a Sunday but points out that "she" is also getting paid more than all of them. The safe presumption is that they're talking about Peggy. After all, they're all in on a Sunday as well, but they all had to stand in line waiting for food while Peggy - who was once a peer to the other secretaries and very much a junior to Joan - got to sit and eat with the other executives. Worst of all, she didn't even seem to notice her treatment was better than the other women were getting.

I know it's silly, but I always read this as complaining about Sally. She's bitterly noting to the other secretary that sure, Sally came in on a Sunday (as a joke I think :v:), but she definitely makes more than any of the secretaries (which is true!) I had never even considered she could mean Peggy.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


The Klowner posted:

Also I'm pretty sure the gum that Bert stepped in came from Sally, we see her chewing gum a few scenes prior. Or am I just parsing that completely incorrectly

This is 100% what happened

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


I don’t think that’s an entirely, for lack of better word, fair approach to either of these situations. Don seems to make himself vulnerable because he actually feels vulnerable at those times, it’s not manipulation.

Of course, authentic vs artificial is literally what the show is telling us right now, so :v:

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


Yeah, agreed.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


One of my friends, during a live watch of the series, commented that Duck is the star of his own TV show, that just happened to cross paths with ours. I definitely think this episode highlights that.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


Jerusalem posted:

Has anybody made a show or anything about the complete clusterfuck that was Theranos? It seems absolutely ripe for being turned into a television show.

If you haven't read Bad Blood yet, I encourage you to do so.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


Jerusalem posted:

He wants her to confront the truth, but she refuses, snarling at him that "you people are ugly and crude" and pulling away, leaving the couch and walking away. "What people?" demands Jimmy, who in spite of the seriousness of the situation can't help even now but turn his anger into a joke,"Comedians?"

I can't help but laugh at this every time. Jimmy just immediately turning Betty's prejudice into a pretty funny off-color joke, as naturally as he breathes.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


this is a really good show

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


Jerusalem posted:

One thing that really stands out to me is Sally's birthday party, where a drunk Don is running about with the video camera, treating the whole thing - documenting his daughter's birthday! - as a chore and a joke, and then there's a moment where he catches one of the invited married couples just standing together sharing a moment of genuine love and affection and it hits him hard, because there is a depth of not only emotional attachment but also a willingness to open themselves to the other that he simply does not have with Betty (while she absolutely has it for him).

That the episode ends with him abandoning the party, then making a big grand gesture to escape consequences by giving Sally a dog is basically a perfect indictment of his mindset.

That's such a great moment, because it captures one of the reasons I find myself hoping for Don's turn constantly at this point in the show - he's a deeply sentimental, emotional guy. He hides it and lies and does terrible things, but he's a slave to his emotions.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


I think we learn little things about a lot of characters this episode. Obviously Freddie's backstory and probable trauma, but you have Jimmy living it up with Roger's crowd, Don learning too many lessons about loyalty and friendship, Peggy's own professionalism and loyalty.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


Yoshi Wins posted:

I believe Matt Weiner believes that people usually have multiple motivations for what they do. It's possible to support multiple motivations for almost every important moment in the series. Don's desperate emotional plea to Joan not to go through with it at her apartment comes across as being unrelated to ego. He's almost choked up and tells her that if this is the only way to get the account, he'd rather not be in business with people like that. But he also has a consistent pattern of wanting all the credit for all the ads his firm makes. So I believe you're both right.

Yeah, this is it. I also think an element of "the characters tell you what they think, even if it isn't true" going on - Pete and Joan both blame Don's ego for it, and believe he was acting completely selfishly, but I'm sure Don was 100% genuine with his plea. And that his dismissal of Jaguar too was because of his complete disgust with them. It just, well, ALSO helped that he was able to subsequently save the day - which comes back to bite him pretty bad, as the characters all take note!

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


I have trouble condemning Pete for lashing out at his mother in that scene. When you consider all his family has put him through just so far, and believe me sympathy for Pete is tough, a small reality adjustment feels like more than him being a bit sadistic - if anything, it was a relatively muted reaction to the abuse she just hurled at him. I don't know, I think it was a very human response.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


The scene with the ocean has gotta be symbolism of a baptism too, right? This episode had Christian rituals as a major point, and Don is at a major decision point in his life.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


yeah gonna be on :f5: next couple days, it's an incredible episode

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


I really, really don't think you can see the broken husk that is Don as his world falls apart multiple times, even when it doesn't and think to yourself "good golly gosh that's just a sad trombone!! Look how badass this dude is". Maybe rewatch some of the show alongside the thread, I really feel like you missed, uh, the show.

GoutPatrol posted:

He drove his brother to suicide.

and another

I really struggle to blame Don for either of these, and call him a murderer thus. The idiot article writers during the time the show airing constantly comparing him to Tony Soprano and Walter White were really dumb.

Beamed fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Jan 31, 2021

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


VinylonUnderground posted:

So you think Paths of Glory is an effective antiwar movie?

jesus christ

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


There was more to Mathis' loving up trying that line than just "don looks better" to be fair :v:

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


JethroMcB posted:

Except Don's advice is sound, more or less "Read the room, address the previous offense with a sense of humor, but do NOT explicitly apologize because the client will read that as weakness. They've already agreed to a second meeting, so what you did clearly was not a deal-breaker for them, we still have leverage here."

Don even gives Mathis the appropriate angle - "Go in with a bar of soap, tell them you've got it on hand in case you need to wash your mouth out." Prop humor, but it addresses the elephant in the room and turns it into a self-effacing thing. Instead, Mathis just parrots the exact line from the story Don told him - A bawdy one - knowing that being coarse was what got him in hot water in the first place, and then blames Don for bad advice. Mathis sucks.


Mathis sucks

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


Gaius Marius posted:

I think it's like a lot of things in the show. a little column a a little column b. Don does use his looks and charisma to get away with poo poo that others couldn't. but mathis also totally hosed up dons advice and the fact that he couldn't figure out that he himself hosed it up shows he's never gonna be a player in the ad world the way don is.

Unspoilering just to write my agreement here: Mad Men is always way more nuanced than you'd think, and there's never just one reason for anything. That said, it is definitely NOT a subtle show :v:

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


This is one of my favorite episodes of the series (probably not even top 10 even still!) and an excellent write-up. I really love that final shot, I feel like the entire episode is just so devastating. Everyone is unhappy, miserable, and frankly scared.. except Peggy, who is satisfied at least in knowing who she is and what she wants.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


Yoshi Wins posted:

Listen, we all know the only way to meaningfully grow is to tell Hershey executives that you grew up in a whorehouse.

Hey, it works!

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


I definitely got the vibe that Betty was super pleased with Dons decision vis-a-vis Gene. She might hate what’s happening to him, but she cares a lot, and it shows. I’m surprised you saw it as a pained expression!

I agree with your take, Yoshi, on the Kindergarten teacher though. Don isn’t entirely fantasizing about her, he’s shocked and taken aback at how liberated she looks compared to him, who, as we know, is about as capable of being open as a sealed bank vault.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


VinylonUnderground posted:

Breaking Bad also never really hit a doldrums period whereas at least two seasons of Mad Men could be easily excised. It's a real Sopranos situation where it just drops like a stone for a few seasons and spins its wheels. Breaking Bad was nonstop adrenaline throughout.

This is a bad opinion I disagree with.

I thought Breaking Bad was the best show on TV while it aired, while loving Mad Men, but I am way more willing to revisit Mad Men than Breaking Bad. I think part of that was Breaking Bad's intensity also came in part from its weekly episodic releases - it made some of the tension in various arcs feel way more pressurizing.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


Good luck Jerusalem! :unsmith:

For what it's worth, I think the show successfully does condemn bad men, after all it's Don's attempts to actually break his cycles in season 6 and 7 that are the catalyst for the show's final arc. That has to be worth something for it to land.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


buddy I haven't read a page of subtext in my life, and you're gonna tell me i need to read it here? nice try

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


before each episode he had to enter nervous panic sweat, Weiner would walk right up to Jon Hamm and tell him that the Kansas City Royals were in the ninth inning and they were tied. After filming Weiner would laugh it off and say they weren't actually a real baseball team, which is what leads to the great Don Drinking Things scenes.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


Sash! posted:

That episode where the prostitute rapes him is the point where Don moved from "total piece of poo poo" to "deserving of pity" for me. The guy is just so fundamentally broken from his junk upbringing that I'm not sure he could fix himself, even if the wanted to. Although he doesn't, because of how messed up he is.

I would describe the end of season 6 and entirety of season 7 as him really trying to fix himself. In fact you can see glimpses of it in 4 before he bails and takes the easy way out. He does want to be better, he’s just... bad at it.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


I absolutely agree with each season, like each ep, having a theme. I’ll hold off on my analysis until the end though, since i think there’s a lot of comparison.

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


The Klowner posted:

S8 spoilers Don hugs him because he gives him the idea for the coke ad op

this cynicism is destroying my soul

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


Sash! posted:

It is important to me and my understanding that Peggy, the person that likely understands Don more than any other living person, is distressed and has the impression that something is seriously wrong with Don. She didn't realize, and Don probably didn't either, that he was on the cusp of actual change.

Yeah, Peggy usually shuts his poo poo down, and it was genuinely impactful when she stood up and said “... I don’t think you should be alone right now.”

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


can we stop responding to the bad posts that don't understand TV and instead share our favorite mad men era dance?

Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


The two responses to best dance in the show are correct and I was a fool to ask :negative: a FOOL

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Beamed
Nov 26, 2010

Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.


Heads up, there's a paragraph where you use Betty when you mean Peggy about five times :v: Will never not be funny.

The dance this episode was insane. It was definitely something of a power play, as you say, but it was also super cool. I really appreciated your write-up on how it was Jennifer's realization that they would always be outsiders to those events, something Don and the old man in the bar had talked about - it hadn't sunk in for her that the rich would never let them be in the "in group", no matter how wealthy or successful they became.

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