New to 'Mad Men'

[Anduril]

Mad Men is the only show I truly give a shit about anymore. My wife watched it before I did; I was reluctant at first but once I got into it I can't turn away.

I agree with the poster who said that the other shoe is getting ready to drop, I'm in suspense constantly for this show! It just seems that things are getting ready to explode. The last episode of the season is called "Meditations on an Emergency" which is the book that I believe Don is reading.

All in all, I love this show. Its really the only show on tv that I follow regularly now, since Enterprise was cancelled.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Cuban Missile Crisis, perhaps.

 

[Anduril]

Maybe, the hinting of building a bomb shelter by the man at that veterans party gave me chills. As did the look of pride in Sally's eyes when Don had to stand up and be recognized as a veteran. Don knows that his life is a lie, but his daughter views him as a hero - damn. This show can say so much without saying it. If you're paying attention, that is.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Betty told that schmuck of a husband of hers not to come home. Yes!!!! That lying jerk. Making her think she was crazy and lying to her face about Bobbi. Well, your dick finally screwed you out of a marriage, Don. Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy. I think Betty finally lost it because Bobbi is older than her. Before, she could rationalize that the women were all younger. With Bobbi, not anymore. She finally came to terms with the fact that it's Don's problem. Don cheats because he's a serial philanderer.

Poor Joan. She did all the work, and of course Harry got the credit and a new guy got the job. Never even occurred to them that she'd want the job because she's getting married.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Anyone else think that Betty finally kicking him out will reignite Don's attraction to her??? Look at the women he has had affairs with. Each whom in their own way has stood up to him. Which has disturbed his highly controlled public facade. While Betty's previous obedience has bored him.

Just a thought!

 

[Dorian Thompson]

I can see Don becoming completely jealous if another man pays any attention to her. Being that his mother was a prostitute and his stepmother was so cruel to him, I think Don's been screwed up about women his entire life. He can't rid himself of the idea that a woman's a Jackie or a Marilyn, a madonna or a whore. He wanted to marry a madonna and have the perfect image, but he was bored even though he does love her. I think he would have severely regretted leaving her for Rachel on a whim like he wanted to last season when he was panic stricken that he'd be found out at work. Soon enough Don would have bitterly missed his kids, missed Betty, and started cheating on Rachel. Rachel realized that and called him out on being a coward.

 

[Top41]

Wow, what a great episode! Good for Betty for leaving him--I wondered if it was building to that. The ep did a great job of showing how distraught she was, from breaking the chair to not showering to sleeping in her dress. January Jones is really good in this show!

I felt so bad for Joan--you could tell how into it she got and it was so sad when...totally blanking on the character's name, but the dude with the glasses--just hired the other guy. That was played out so well.

Peggy was really interesting in this episode--her ambivalence about religion and helping the priest was cool to watch.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Father Gil was really pushy trying to get her to confess at the office like that. I wonder if that's why she barges into Pete's office in the preview all furious yelling at Pete that he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I'm afraid this show is just too sloooow for me. I'm losing interest in these people.

But I'll keep watching because it's very pretty and carefully made, and I can appreciate that. Also, I just finished up the mind-bending wild ride of Dexter's S2 last night, and needed something "boring" to watch so I could get to sleep.

 

[Top41]

Father Gil was really pushy trying to get her to confess at the office like that. I wonder if that's why she barges into Pete's office in the preview all furious yelling at Pete that he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

Yeah, I wonder what will bring that about. I don't know if she'll blame Pete if she does find out Father Gil knows, though, just because Pete has no idea about the baby.

I'm afraid this show is just too sloooow for me. I'm losing interest in these people.

I'll be honest: I'm not dying for each new episode. I do watch every week, and it's not a show that I just forget is on or lose track of, so that's saying something, but I'm not exactly totally psyched to see it either. But there's a pattern: I'll start watching somewhat indifferently and then by the end of the hour find myself totally hooked...just in time for it to end. It's a slow build.

But I'll keep watching because it's very pretty and carefully made, and I can appreciate that. Also, I just finished up the mind-bending wild ride of Dexter's S2 last night, and needed something "boring" to watch so I could get to sleep.

I don't think Mad Men has the suspense that a show like Dexter naturally has built into it. It's a slower show, one you can kind of sit back and appreciate. It's not a show I'd expect to sit down and watch a marathon of--I watched like 5 eps in a row of Gossip Girl this weekend but I can't see doing the same with Mad Men. Still, there's a lot I appreciate about the show, even if it isn't the television equivalent of a page-turner.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

I can't wait for each new episode. I think it's the best thing going on television right now. These characters have me completely hooked. The payoff is always worth it.

 

[TheArsenal]

Grim episode. Good episode, mind you, but grim. Full of disappointment and worse.

Betty's breakdown. Betty's kids watching Mom lose it. Betty's dinner party humiliation. Draper being tossed out. Peggy's being used by the Priest on one hand and aggressively digging at her secret to "save her soul" on the other. Joan's husband showing signs of being an old school disciplinarian. Joan being perfect for the television position, only to have it taken away and to humiliatingly train the guy who replaces her.

Even what was seen several episodes ago as the fun nutty commercial done by Jimmy ("nutty". see what I did there? its a pun) was positioned so that it transformed into a taunt.

Just plain grim.

I guess I am supposed to be rooting for Betty. Intellectually I am. And I certainly don't need dishonest happy endings spoon fed to me. But, I'm feeling a little sorry for Don Draper, deserve it as he may.

And, I too agree this episode seemed to be paced slower than the others.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Why would anyone feel sorry for Don? He's done absolutely nothing to merit it. Betty's never cheated on him. She's in love with him, tries her best to be the perfect hostess and impress his bosses, yet he constantly cheats on her. He belittles her, belittles her grief about her mother's death, (remember him calling grief a form of "self indulgence") is constantly jealous, berates her when Roger makes a pass at her (after she gave up her dinner because there weren't enough steaks in the fridge), then denies everything to her face and tries to make her crazy. He even eavesdrops on her psychiatric sessions with her doctor. Then there's the little business of him completely abandoning his baby brother. Don overextended his sympathy card with me looooooooong ago. He's the husband of nightmares. Sorry, the character just makes me crazy.

If he could have just admitted it to Betty, but he couldn't even do that. He had to make her think it was her problem. He wants a home, a family, and the freedom to cheat at will. I wait for the day when Peggy takes his position and his office. I've gotten to the point with his character where I hope it's him falling out of the window in the opening credits. Him denying it was absolutely the last straw for me. I'm incapable of rooting for the character in any way any longer.

 

[TheArsenal]

Agreed. His callousness almost literally places blood on his hands. He destroys entire lives offhandedly. The very act of getting out bed every morning makes him one of the most brazen liars I've seen on television.

There is no rational reason to sympathize with Draper in any way. But, there you have it, I do.

Edit:

I wait for the day when Peggy takes his position and his office.

I read something from the creators awhile back, I'll search out the link. But the long and short of it was, that the ad men in Sterling are dinosaurs facing extinction and just don't know it yet. So Peggy taking his position is the type of thing that very well may happen.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Hey, we all have different tastes. No problem there. Who knows why we like characters? I like Pete, though I have no absolutely no reason to. He's done such bad things. I think maybe it's that Don is so slick a liar, and so brazen, that I react badly to him. Pete seems like such an awkward fish out of water, so needy, that I can feel some sympathy. Kartheiser's an amazing actor that way. I loved a remark I heard in one of the DVD commentaries that Kartheiser gives Pete a "slimy innocence." For some reason, that observation makes sense.

I read something from the creators awhile back, I'll search out the link. But the long and short of it was, that the ad men in Sterling are dinosaurs facing extinction and just don't know it yet. So Peggy taking his position is the type of thing that very well may happen.

That's gonna be so cool. Peggy is such a Helen Gurley Brown type in the making. I loved how the two new "young hip" guys at the agency still call her "sweetheart" and expect her to wait on them. Gender equality is a hard won victory. I also enjoy that Pete, whom Roger especially and Don belittle so much because he's the "rich kid" and didn't have a war to serve in (ironic since Roger is also a "rich kid") is often right in his ideas. I have a feeling he'll survive the dinosaur extinction.

 

[TheArsenal]

Found it.

Taken from an interesting ten page New York Times interview done in June with show creator Matthew Weiner. Worth a read for those interested in the behind the scenes.

Weiner: "....Also, Sterling Cooper is not cutting-edge; it’s mired in the past. The story to me is about the onset of a subversive ethnic point of view that has not yet poked through to Sterling Cooper. They’re dinosaurs.”

Knowing that these unsuspecting sexists and bigots sit on the brink of their doom is all part of the fun.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

I can't wait for that awful Roger to be perplexed and horrified by young people being wild for those long haired Beatles.

 

[Top41]

I wonder what will happen with Joan now. She got her first taste of something new with reading those scripts, and she was damn sharp with her observations. I wonder if in the 70s, Peggy and Joan will be running Sterling Cooper. How cool would that be?

 

[Anduril]

I found the way Joan lives at home and the persona she portrays in the office to be so completely different that it was shocking, but in a good way.

 

[exodus]

Congrats on Mad Men's two Emmy wins last night.