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Mad Men, Season 5. General Discussion Thread (spoilers welcome)

Good ep but I felt like Weiner was being a little too derivative of the dream stuff he did on "the Sopranos."

I liked how Ginsberg was the one to take offense at the staff snickering over the rape/murder photos. It helped set him up as more than just an annoying nebbish.

Roger and drunk Peggy was a thing of joy, their banter harkening back to "His Girl Friday." I'd love to see more of them working together.

The "Mystery Date" commercial and the grandmother trying to gossip about sordid news in front of the kid, then pretending she was talking about something else both cracked me up. That was childhood in the 60s-70s. Of course, then it took a darker tone.

I'm not sure how Joan plans to split from her husband. NYS circa 1966 was not a place to get a no fault divorce. Unless she plans to move to Nevada for six weeks ala Betty.

The purse shot took me til the end of the ep to figure out. Ouch. Even 'enlightened ' people, eh?

Finally, I hate to sound obtuse but were all of Don's encounters in the apartment dreams or just the latter?
 
Yes, but was that home right away with enough time for her to stop by and have him send her down the service elevator?
 
Just the excuse I was looking for to re-watch the episode.

Wait, no, I mean, "I’ll have to reexamine the evidence." Yeah, that's it!
 
This show is SO much better without Betty. I hope January Jones stays pregnant for the entire run of the series. Sally is filling her role in the story now anyway, the immature blonde whose problems Don can't escape. In Sally's case, the immaturity is justified and therefore not so grating, and anyway I think she's already more mature than her mother.

Michael sure brings a different dynamic to this show. It's because he's the first major character who isn't living a life of quiet desperation. His home life could make him desperate, but it's clearly just not his personality type. He's a real breath of fresh air for this show. All the neurotics are stultifying.

It was kind of uncomfortable watching Don having a cold since I'm just getting over a bad cold myself. How selfish of him to go to the office anyway and risk infecting everyone. Stay home, you clod! :rommie:

I doubt that Roger thinks the kid is Greg's. He must realize that the most likely explanation is that she didn't have an abortion after all. He just isn't going to make any waves if Joan isn't. He's probably relieved that she's being so "sensible" (so far, anyway - what happens when Greg's paychecks aren't rolling in?)
 
Love this show, hate Betty.

Did anyone think that the strangled woman looked like his wife when he let go of her neck and pushed her under the bed?
 
If someone gets killed by a car next week, let it be Betty. :rommie: That would be wonderfully ironic since she just had a cancer scare. Then we have the fun of seeing Don deal with having to raise his kids.

It will probably end up being someone more disposable, like Dawn or that guy who had the panties on his head.

Just don't kill Pete. They've barely scratched the surface of that character.
 
There's no way they'd get rid of Dawn. Her story line has just started, and race seems to be one of the important themes this season.
 
I don't think they'll kill Betty. Unless I miss my guess, they've invested too much in that character to just kill her off. First, they introduce her as the sexy, ex-model, perfect fantasy wife. Then we find out she's really just a child in a woman's body (and a rather spoiled one, at that). And now she's a frustrated shrew. I think they're setting her up for some kind of major change. (Of course, I suppose dying could be considered a major change...)
 
If they kill off anybody (and they may not, Weiner might have just been messing with the audience with that title) I bet it will be Lane's wife. That seems to be the speculation du jour. Although I love her character, I wish they'd have the guts to kill off Pete's wife because it would provide such great story for him. Like Temis, I'm intrigued with the possibilities for his character. Pete's so interesting because he could go either way and it would be plausible--I could buy him becoming ultra responsible, nice guy, single dad extraordinaire, and I could also buy it if he spun out of control and became completely amoral. Kartheiser could nail either version. No way they kill off Pete. Hell, maybe Pete will hit someone with a car.
 
That wasn't at all what I expected (Weiner did hoodwink us with the title, that rascal :lol: ) but it was a surprisingly compelling episode about how someone who seemingly has it all can succumb to depression. Pete--though he does maddening things--is dangerously depressed. The whole episode, though low key, felt tight as a string to me and fraught with tension. Anyone else agree? I felt as if Pete might decide to jump out the high rise window at any moment. He's obviously got internal demons.

Also, though I concede it was a terrible thing that Pete said to Lane about them not having a use for him after he fired them all from the old agency, quite frankly I found Lane's initial anger at Pete in that situation to be pretty misplaced. Pete didn't make Mr. Jaguar go to that prostitute's party. He wanted to go. It wasn't Pete who suggested the location--it was Roger. :shrug: It was Lane's' dumb ass client who let the hooker leave her chewing gum in his pubic hair. :lol: If we cut to the chase, the client lost the account for himself. All three of them--Roger, Pete, and Don--insisted that Lane couldn't close the deal when he could.

It's like Pete is morphing into Don. He was explaining himself to Don in the cab as if Don was reading him the riot act when it was his own conscience battering him. I found Don's line "If he'd met [Megan] first he wouldn't have been so quick to throw it away" telling. The crux of his problem is (besides from Pete's general insecurity about his professional acumen and masculinity) that he also chose the wrong wife. Pete admitted to Peggy in the season 2 finale that he wished he'd chosen her, that he was in love with her. From the beginning they've left little hints that Pete, while generally fond of his wife, isn't really in love with Trudy. Trudy's line during that same episode, "If you really loved me you'd want to come with me [to my parent's home]" and Pete's uneasy agreement (he didn't go with her) was also quite telling about his mindset towards his wife. He married the "right, proper" girl like Don did. Like Don, though, Pete made a mistake. Like Don, he's restless in the suburbs. Notice Don kept bitching that he wanted to get back to skyscrapers and Pete forcing him to enthuse that he could play his records as loud as he wanted now that he finally lived on the bottom floor.

Pete doesn't have Don's smooth confidence, though, so he's reacting far differently. Don comes in a handsome package. He's got charisma and can reinvent himself smoothly, or at least appear to do so. Pete can't. I remember Pete gravitating towards Don in the episode where his father died in the plane crash because Don showed him kindness and listened to him. When he went back in to the office assuming there'd be more of the same, Don, who was preoccupied and having a bad day, blew him off without realizing the mindset. Pete was more hurt than he should have been by that, because he really emulates Don and doesn't have any close male confidants. I find it fascinating that Pete felt the need to explain himself to Don at all in the cab and not anyone else. I love the layers of these characters on this show. No wonder i'm so addicted to it. :D
 
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I loved that the three others not only let it happen, but out right encouraged the fight. :lol:

Everyone has wanted to take a shot at Pete, but Lane was the only one who could.
 
Dorian Thompson said:
Also, though I concede it was a terrible thing that Pete said to Lane about them not having a use for him after he fired them all from the old agency, quite frankly I found Lane's initial anger at Pete in that situation to be pretty misplaced. Pete didn't make Mr. Jaguar go to that prostitute's party. He wanted to go. It wasn't Pete who suggested the location--it was Roger. :shrug: It was Lane's' dumb ass client who let the hooker leave her chewing gum in his pubic hair. :lol: If we cut to the chase, the client lost the account for himself. All three of them--Roger, Pete, and Don--insisted that Lane couldn't close the deal when he could.
Click to expand...

Yes but the client had shown a completely different face to Lane; from his POV the night's debauch was unprecedented and out of character. It's understandable that he lost his temper, assuming, knowing Don's and Roger's ways, they had led an innocent astray, so to speak. The other partners could proably have calmed him down and explained the situation, but Pete had to shoot his mouth off. His dismissal of Lane's contributions reveals, in his usual self-centered way, that he has no clue what it takes to run a company like theirs, and doesn't deserve to get his name on the door any time soon.

I'm really enjoying Jared Harris's Lane Pryce. He obviously has a romantic notion of himself and wanted to get in on the more "glamorous" side of the business. He feels like he's missing "the big show," just like being stuck in a supply depot during the war, not realizing how valuable his skills are at SCDP. It makes his creepiness a couple episodes ago more understandable. Maybe knocking smug Pete down a peg will make him feel better.

Don continues to show growth. Is the character being set up for a big fall? I have to wonder.

Don correcting the name of Charles Whitman! Whoa! And I liked the stuff with Cosgrove. Another great episode.



Justin
 
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