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

Yikes! I guess the moral of that story is, if you're British, don't work for SCDP. You're lucky if you only lose a foot.

Don had to fire Lane, but there might have been softer ways to handle it. He should have gotten on the phone to the company lawyer to find out what his options were. Could he keep Lane on for a while and come up with a cover story for his departure that would allow him to save face and keep his visa by getting work elsewhere? Would it be kosher to inflict an embezzler on a competing ad agency? That would appeal to Don. :evil:

Also, Don really needed to tell the other partners that Lane embezzled. It's their company too. But the way he handled it - secret and cold - was on par with his personality.

So, will Cooper connect the dots between the check made out to Lane and Lane's unexpected suicide? He seems too savvy not to figure that out pretty quickly.

On a side note: I bet Jaguar wasn't happy about this episode. Their cars did not come off well.
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Their car heroically tried to prevent a suicide! :D
 
Roger Wilco said:
Temis the Vorta said:
So, will Cooper connect the dots between the check made out to Lane and Lane's unexpected suicide? He seems too savvy not to figure that out pretty quickly.
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I think he'd be glad. Suicide is exactly what Cooper would expect someone to do in Lane's position.
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Exactly. Although Cooper would have preferred hara-kiri.
I'm trying to figure out what an embezzlement of 50 grand would be in $$$$ today.
 
I'd like to see Coop apologize to Don, just leaving it at that, no other comment - so that Don would realize he'd figured it out, and there was no further need to discuss it.

Did everyone see ads from AMC to Dish Network customers about Dish threatening to give AMC the boot? I have Comcast, so I wondered whether they were showing the ads to cable customers on purpose. :rommie:

Interview with Jared Harris about the episode.

Sounds like John Slattery is a lot like Roger Sterling when it comes to being in the know around the workplace:
[John] Slattery normally finds out because he knows where the scripts are buried and he goes and reads them before anybody else.
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billcosby said:
I'm trying to figure out what an embezzlement of 50 grand would be in $$$$ today.
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$355,000. Though Lane "only" took $8,000 (about $55,000).
Donald Draper said:
Remember, one of the things that appealed to Don about Megan was how well she and the kids got along at first. But now that they don't its another in a long list of signs that Megan and Don's marriage is falling apart.
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I think that's a pretty big reach. Sally still likes Megan quite a lot, and vice versa. She just isn't her mom, and isn't trying to be.
 
Don's firm has got to take a major hit from this one. It's hard to imagine a lot of people wanting to join a firm where one of the partners committed suicide in the office.
 
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Snaploud said:
Don's firm has got to take a major hit from this one. It's hard to imagine a lot of people wanting to join firm where one of the partners committed suicide in the office.
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Yeah, it would have been somewhat better if Lane could have done it somewhere else. Mind you if he had managed to gas himself in the Jaguar that wouldn't have looked too good either.
 
^

The Jaguar would have been better than the office, though...

And was I the only one who laughed when the car wouldn't start? Past few episodes, the problems with the car have been part of the story, and when Lane needs it to start, it won't.
 
Oh no.. I laughed heartily too... My dad had a brand new canary yellow 1971 Jag sedan and WHEN it worked, it was a thing of beauty both inside and out..

WHEN it worked...

God, I loved that car, all things considered...
 
That was chilling to see.

Past few episodes, the problems with the car have been part of the story, and when Lane needs it to start, it won't.
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Jaguar came through when it mattered most. By not starting, as was said, it tried to stop a suicide.

Yeah, it would have been somewhat better if Lane could have done it somewhere else.
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Relatively, to be sure.

Yikes! I guess the moral of that story is, if you're British, don't work for SCDP. You're lucky if you only lose a foot.
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It's true...

.
.
.

With one episode left, let's see how much I guessed right:

1. "All the rumors/speculation that Pete's going to die are a red herring." Right.

2. "the fact that Roger jokingly said "Sterling Campbell Draper Pryce" in one scene means that's probably not going to become the new name." Right.

3. "Pete has the lion's shares of accounts. So, without him, what we now call SCDP is dead." Jury's still out 'til next week. He's a survivor but will his attitude cost some accounts? Will Dow Chemical be a game changer?

4. "after Lane is caught and ousted, Pete's name will be added. Jury's still out.

5. "Joan will then be promoted to partner" Half right, the timing was off.

6. "but not have her name added to the company's" Jury's still out but I doubt it.

7. "she'll take over Lane's duties." Jury's still out.

8. "There might be a death as has been alluded to all season but I don't think it'll be any of the regulars. I think they'll go for the most obvious choice because we all think it's too obvious so we expect them to avoid it. The character who'll die will be Greg in Vietnam." Wrong! Definitely wrong. Though he might still end up KIA, that's clearly not the death that was being alluded to.
 
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I think the car wouldn't start because Lane had blocked both exhausts. He'd have been better off to have taken the car and parked it in a small garage somewhere. Or run the hose into the car without blocking the exhausts.

Still it was rather funny, in a dark sort of way.
 
It'll be Sterling Cooper Draper Campbell.
Or.... I suppose it could be SCD. We haven't seen the Roger vs. Pete row yet!
 
I'm sure Lane hanging himself in the office was meant to cause posthumous damage to the firm's reputation.

I've worked in offices where people had killed themselves before, it's great. You get to hear ghosts and shit.
 
Warped9 said:
I think the car wouldn't start because Lane had blocked both exhausts. He'd have been better off to have taken the car and parked it in a small garage somewhere. Or run the hose into the car without blocking the exhausts.

Still it was rather funny, in a dark sort of way.
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billcosby said:
I'm sure Lane hanging himself in the office was meant to cause posthumous damage to the firm's reputation.
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At first I felt really sorry for Lane but then I though about the fact that his first attempt was in the Jaguar his wife had bought him.

His wife bought him that car because she loved him and because she was proud of him. She didn't know he'd stolen. She didn't know he'd cheated on her (or tried). She didn't know about the tax problem. She didn't buy the car because she wanted it (she kept asking him why he didn't drive it). She wanted him to have something to commemorate his (perceived) success and her feelings for him.

And he tries to use it to kill himself. That's a huge "eff you" to the woman who bought the car for him. Not only would she associate the car with her husband killing himself but she'd be forced to wonder if she'd done something wrong for the rest of her life. So not only did he (presumably) hurt her by killing himself but he tried to do so in a way that would increase her pain. That's a selfish and nasty thing and would have only hurt her, not Don or the partners.

Yes, Lane was not in a right frame of mind but he obviously had the capacity to plan out a suicide (twice) in reasonably calculated ways to impact the people he left behind. Therefore, I'm not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on this. I think he had an idea he'd be hurting his wife terribly by using the car but he just didn't care.
 
Not to mention what his young son would think. Gee, dad killed himself because of money problems? How expensive was my tuition here at private school, mom? That'll fuck a kid up for good long years and mess with his head.
 
It's not as if the guy had nothing. I'm sure the rest of the partners would have had to buy him out of his portfolio, and he had a reputation for building an up-and-coming advertising agency. He could have easily explained away the situation out of a desire to return to England and be with his family. Don was going to keep his mouth shut about the embezzlement and even let the debt pass. Lane had a bright future if only he would stop blaming the world for all his problems.
 
In an earlier episode Pete told the insurance guy on the train that his policy at SCDP covered even in the event of suicide. I assume Lane's policy was comparable, it may have been a situation where he felt he was worth more to his family dead than alive.

Justin
 
Could Lane have gone on with his life? Most assuredly. Don was covering the money issue and he offered Lane time to devise a dignified way to exit.

But Lane was adrift in deep shame and humiliation. No one but Don knew of his situation, but to Lane in his present state of mind he likely felt naked and transparent to everyone. He could be convinced his sins were obvious for everyone to see. So it really isn't surprising that he could think suicide was his only option left. He felt humiliated, ashamed and completely unworthy.
 
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