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

[Warped9]

Roger Sterling is up to no good with those skis.

Before Pete dissed Lane he dissed Roger, and not for the first time. Roger is sly and I'm waiting (hoping) to see how he evens the score.

Is it just me, or is this show turning into a desultory soap opera about some people who work at an ad agency? Maybe that's all it ever was.

A conventional soap opera never resolves anything as the same few characters go through the same damn things over and over and over again. The only difference is they change partners. Characters in soaps rarely if ever evolve.

Thats not true of Mad Men and some other shows. I've watched two seasons of Boardwalk Empire and it could also be something of a soap only with gangsters in the 1920s. The characters evolve and situations change.

Nothing ever really evolves or changes in a soap.

 

[Jonas Grumby]

I'm not sure what to make of the empty elevator shaft scene. Was it just a (somewhat heavy-handed) symbolic reference to Don's fantasy of Megan sharing his career with him falling out from under him? (Despite his surface acceptance of her acting decision, he's obviously deeply disappointed at her turning her back on advertising.)

I swear, if they have someone step into that empty elevator shaft a la L.A. Law, that might just be the jump-the-shark moment for me!

 

[Maurice]

The elevator shaft could have been symbolic of looking into the abyss. Don's just seen Megan go off without him, and he tries to follow using another elevator and find himself on the brink. She's gone where he can't go? It's perhaps him feeling the bottom is falling out of his life.

EDIT:

Somehow I missed that the title of the episode was Lady Lazarus, which is the title of the following 1962 poem by Sylvia Plath:

Lady Lazarus
by Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it—

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?—

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot—
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart—
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash—
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there—

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

23-29 October 1962

 

[Lord Garth]

Okay...

I don't have AMC so I have to wait to watch Mad Men through Amazon. Things were hectic so I haven't had a chance to watch the episode until now.

I'm up to the part where Pete and the guy he rides the train with brought him over to his house, and...

... WHAT THE HELL?!?!!!

How f***ing stupid is Pete?! What the Hell?!

Back to watching the episode.

EDIT: Got to the end. That was a very unusual song for Mad Men. I can only imagine what the reaction on all sides would've been in 1966.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Pete wants to get caught. He hates life in the suburbs, doesn't really love Trudy, but he doesn't want to be the one to make waves and walk away and get taken in the divorce. A lot of people have affairs because it will force the issue when they don't have the courage to do so. This was a girl who needed rescuing and that gets Pete going. He feels ineffectual in every other area of his life, so him taking her home and listening and all that good stuff made him feel like a prince charming...or a king. Vincent Kartheiser is so damned interesting as Pete--they'd better not get rid of him. Mad Men will be so much less if they do.

 

[the G-man]

That's an interesting point about him wanting to get caught because he hates the suburban life. I'd been thinking it was simply a desire to emulate Don but I really think you're on to something. He does spend a lot of time talking about 'the city.'

 

[gblews]

Megan is really a 'daddy's girl' isn't she? She just can't decide which daddy to please.

I think you've misread this. Megan may be a Daddy's girl but her pursuit of acting is her dream, not her father's dream for her. Her father simply pointed out to her that she was ignoring what had once been of major importance to her and further, the reason might be, to please her man. She realized what Dad was telling her was true and now she is running with it.

Megan and Peggy have got to be prime candidates to fully embrace the women's movement whenever it finally hits.

Megan really dropped Don into the deep end by letting him listen to "Revolver". That was pretty heady stuff back in the mid 60's. A bizarre scene, the stuffy and always under control Don Draper listening to Tomorrow Never Knows -- priceless.

 

[the G-man]

Megan is really a 'daddy's girl' isn't she? She just can't decide which daddy to please.

I think you've misread this. Megan may be a Daddy's girl but her pursuit of acting is her dream, not her father's dream for her. Her father simply pointed out to her that she was ignoring what had once been of major importance to her and further, the reason might be, to please her man. She realized what Dad was telling her was true and now she is running with it.

Maybe. However, when Megan was first introduced she told Don she was interested in getting into advertising. Perhaps she said that to "hook" Don but I didn't take it that way. I took it as a legitimate interest in the field. In addition, the fact she seemed to shine at it led me to believe that she had actually found it something enjoyable...until her father showed up and guilted her out of liking it.

I guess time will tell.

Megan and Peggy have got to be prime candidates to fully embrace the women's movement whenever it finally hits.

I'd say Peggy has embraced it and is, in essence, Weiner's avatar for the movement. She went from mousy secretary to increasingly confident copywriter. She takes control of her sexuality and now she's living with a guy instead of marrying him. She might not be burning a bra and the trip might be a bit bumpy, but there's no doubt in my mind that Peggy's role on the show is to show the changing role of women during that era.

Megan really dropped Don into the deep end by letting him listen to "Revolver". That was pretty heady stuff back in the mid 60's. A bizarre scene, the stuffy and always under control Don Draper listening to Tomorrow Never Knows -- priceless.

See my earlier comments about this episode being all about foreshadowing. That scene, and that song title, were about precisely that.

Don is forty years old. The Beatles are music his daughter listens to. He's made mildly disparaging remarks about them in the past. He doesn't like having to license rock music for commercials, preferring jingles specifically written for the products.

His younger wife (who, to be candid, may actually be too old to be listening to the Beatles, but I'll let that slide) gets him to listen to this (in her mind) cool new song.

He listened to a part of the song, didn't like it, and then picked up the needle and stopped.

Don doesn't like and can't understand what's happening to the world. And the once super adaptable Don Draper is starting to reach a point where he can't adapt or won't adapt.

That scene foreshadowed the fact that, one way or another, Don--and people like him--are going to become part of the past.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

A 40 year old in 1966 was much "older" than a 40 year old today.

 

[Warped9]

A 40 year old in 1966 was much "older" than a 40 year old today.

I think thats quite true. I can recall people being expected to "grow up" and leave their youthful interests behind them at a certain point. Not the case today when folks in their 40s, 50s and 60s comfortably and unapologetically enjoy stuff they've been enjoying since childhood.

 

[RevDMV]

Don't forget the concept of the generation gap.

There is huge gulf between those who identify with the 50's, and those with the 60's. My parents are younger than the character of Don, and have never had anything but contempt for everything that originated from the time of the 60's.

In some ways for Don to remain a man if his times within the show, he's going to have to alienate the show's fans.

 

[Kestra]

You guys are making me sad. I'm liking more mature Don and don't want to see him become a relic. I also dislike the Beatles though, so maybe we're kindred spirits.

 

[Warped9]

I've been through my forties and I'm now in my fifties. I feel the generation gap more now then I can ever remember. It's not so much in cultural as in terms of maturity. I'm not like Don by any measure but I will say it depends whether he will be able to adapt and come to terms with change. He doesn't have to embrace it. He just has to learn how to adapt.

 

[the G-man]

Presactly to most of what was written after my last post. It would be unrealistic to expect someone of Don's age at that time to enjoy the Beatles or similar music. Even today most people, once they hit 40, have pretty cemented taste in music. It's human nature.

 

[Lord Garth]

I have to be honest. While watching Season 5, I couldn't believe the changes I've seen were happening so fast. I knew there were huge shifts in a short time during the mid-'60s but Mad Men is the closest I'll probably ever come to seeing it (I was born in 1979). I had to look up the fashions and the songs of 1966 to double-check to make sure the changes actually were this fast.

Here's a question though: wouldn't someone who was middle-aged being disconnected with youth just be something that was understood? Rock'n'Roll was around five or six years before the beginning of Mad Men's first season and I can't see Don being into Elvis any more than he's into the Beatles. As early as Season 2 there was a disconnect between Don and Kurt & Smitty.

So are the changes in 1966 just a culmination and the straw the broke the camel's back or was the magnitude of the change greater than, for example, 1954 or 1962?

 

[Warped9]

I was only 7 in 1966 so my recall is blurry. But looking back things did seem to happen fast and furious in that decade. The early '60s were much like the last gasp of the '50s while the late '60s seem to be presaging the '70s. Crazy.

And, yeah, Don could feel the disconnect because at 40 in 1966 then his 20s were spent in late 1940s, long before Rock 'n Roll came along.

And as it's already been said a man of 40 in the '60s could have seemed older than a man of 40 today. Indeed today the equivalent of 40 in the '60s would be about 50 or so today depending on the individual. I think a lot of this has to do with attitudes. People today can hang onto their youthful interests much longer because it's no longer seen as childish. I bet you wouldn't be surprised at seeing 40, 50 and 60 year olds going to the movies to see Avengers, something you'd think would appeal almost exclusively to teenagers and twenty-somethings. But thats not the case anymore. 40 and 50 something people today can seem much more youthful today because they can still connect (to some extent) with younger folks who have the same or similar interests.

 

[Lord Garth]

It probably helps that comics, for instance, have gradually been gearing themselves to older and older readers. If they'd stayed written the way they were during the Silver Age, from what I've seen of them, I would've stopped reading comics shortly after turning 12. That's when I purged anything and everything I considered childish. Anything that was a shade of gray stuck around.

The big difference, I think, was that there were no shades of gray during the 1960s.

To turn this around to advertising and marketing: big business has been made out of blurring the lines. Something Don Draper hasn't stumbled onto.

 

[the G-man]

I was only 7 in 1966 so my recall is blurry. But looking back things did seem to happen fast and furious in that decade. The early '60s were much like the last gasp of the '50s while the late '60s seem to be presaging the '70s. Crazy.

I was only 2 in 1966 but looking at family photos, etc., you can see some of the changes hitting hard around that time.

If nothing else, the first crop of boomers were now hitting 20-21.

And while I'm certainly not old enough to remember it (and wasn't anywhere near it given I grew up in rural upstate NY), 1967 was the "summer of love."

And, as far as music goes, I listen to the oldies stations a lot on the satellite radio and I have notices that circa 1966 is when the 'big change' really cemented.

Mid 50s-mid 60s music still had a lot of similarities. Yeah, there were some changes before that: the Beatles, Dylan going electric, etc., but the number one song of 1965 was "Wooly Bully," and guys like Elvis and the Beach Boys were still holding on.

But post 1966 music started to sound more like 1970s music and psychedelica became firmly entrenched: 1966 saw the Stones do "Paint it Black," and the Troggs sing "Wild Thing." The Beach Boys went from "Help Me Rhonda" to "Good Vibrations." 1967 saw "Light My Fire," hit #2 and Lou Reed and company put out "the Velvet Underground and Nico," which to this day sounds at least as modern as anything most 'alternative' bands put out.

 

[Warped9]

Tonight's episode seemed to be all about people getting back at others for feeling slighted in some way or other. Betty used Sally to try taking a swipe at Don and Megan because she felt insecure when she stepped into Don and Megan's apartment. That one backfired.

Roger sleeps with Jane because he didn't like her flirting with his client's son and therefore taints Jane's feelings about her new apartment. Roger might not have even realized why he did it.

Don edged Ginsberg aside because he didn't like being slighted in front of his staff and also felt a bit threatened by Ginsberg's creativity and vitality. I kind of understood it, but it still was a shallow thing to do. Even so Ginsberg really needs to learn when to keep his mouth shut.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Don can be a petty little bitch just like his ex-wife, only his cattiness is in the professional realm while Betty's is in the personal. Pretty shitty things that both of them did.

Betty has classic first wife jealousy syndrome. She's ticked off that the second wife has the benefit of the beautiful Manhattan apartment, that the ex-husband that she adored has "reformed" and makes the attempt to treat the second wife well, calls her beautiful and doesn't belittle her the way he did Betty....remember when Don said Betty's two piece bathing suit that she looked so lovely in made her look desperate? I can really relate to that anger since my ex had the 22 year old girlfriend he got pregnant, but it'll eat you alive from the inside out if you don't kill it and get rid of it. It only destroys you while your ex and his new piece go on with their lives. Betty hurt Sally to get back at Don. That's lowering yourself. The tragedy of it is that Betty has a lovely new home and her husband adores her. Many "first wives" aren't so lucky. If I had a Henry Francis who was genuine and sincere and didn't even care that I was heavy I'd be giving him mind blowing sex every night. If only Betty could appreciate him, she could be happy.

Sally Draper is teenaged rebellion waiting to happen. Some hippie burn out to be is just waiting to drive off in a van with her to Woodstock when she's 15 going on 16 and Don and Betty will both be clueless as to how it possibly could have happened. They'll have no idea even after she comes home pregnant. My folks put me in the middle all the time and it SUCKED. Sadly I was born too late to find an enterprising young marijuana dealer with a Volkswagon van.

Don was a jealous, catty bitch who cut Ginsburg off at the knees. Ginsburg doesn't suck up and play by the rules. He's young, more creative and talented and a "Jewish niche" is opening up opportunities for him. Don is threatened. Don can be mean when he's threatened. Peggy's about to jump ship because she's feeling underappreciated and threatened in a big way. These people--they aren't adjusting well.