Mad Men

[diggler]

This is actually Roger's best play, he's being marginalized in the office and needs Don back in his corner. This evens the stakes as far as office politics goes, now that he's Don's hero there's nothing Don won't side with him on. Ted knows what Don did for him, even though no one else does, so with Ted/Pete/Roger/Don in the same corner, things should get interesting. I'm loving Lou's panic, Don reporting to him is going to be glorious.

Betty's life has gotten so small. She's finally starting to acknowledge the cracks in her lifestyle. When Henry asks what Bobby did to ruin her day, even she can't say it out loud because she knows it wasn't a big deal.

[©brad]

Don fired Jaguar, so Joan did what she did for nothing, and the company couldn't go public or something. Then Don couldn't stop fucking things up. Joan has nothing against Don. She has something against Don working with them. As she says, it is working without him. Yes, they aren't creative, just okay, but at least the company isn't in danger. She's thinking about his son. Nothing out of character.

Peggy doesn't want Don back. She's already underestimated with Lou, she doesn't need someone else above her. Remember where she was one season ago in Ted's firm! She's bitter. And she tried to show she has power. She doesn't really has power.

I don't think it's out of character at all.

Well this harkens back to whether you thought Joan's anger towards Don when he fired Jaguar last season was justified. I don't think it was. And Joan got exactly what she wanted out of that deal (partnership). That wasn't taken away when Jaguar was given the middle finger. Plus the company was able to parlay Jaguar into Chevy, which is proving to be far more lucrative for the firm. Don has been the most consistent character in seeing Joan as an actual human being and not a piece of ass.

Peggy makes even less sense to me. It's not like she's happy under Lou. She's being extremely petty and forgetting how much Don has done for her. I'm still not exactly clear on why Peggy is mad at Don in the first place. For disrupting an affair she was having with her married boss?

[03]

i have to agree with both cbrad and drenk on this.
i think joans contempt is from the jaguar thing, and peggys is just general frustration.
don used to be this mysterious, overbearing, intimidating force that was respected and acknowledged as being superior in an almost ethereal way, and now he's just  a regular guy, and i think that everyone is comfortable with that now. so for him to show back up just kind of fucked with everyones head, and everyone reacted in different ways. the meeting of the partners made sense to me, because the way they let him go was almost like an unspoken agreement. so when they're like 'hes fired' and then 'but we cant just fire him' is another testament to the hold he still has on them, they were just able to keep it at bay.

[Drenk]

I remember what Joan said to him : "For once I'd like you to say "We"." They're all sick of the Don Draper show, of him thinking that he's naturally the most important person. Especially when he's fucking everything up. Joan talks about the "damages" he's done in this episode. They lost money because of him. And Joan is more respected without him!
Of course, I'd want Joan to smile at Don the way she did in Christmas Waltz and Peggy to admit that she's just like Don, but I understand why they don't.

But I'm sure Peggy, at least, won't stay that cold toward Don.

Now, Don works again. But he's useless. I can't wait to see how he deals with it.

[Brando]

Peggy makes even less sense to me. It's not like she's happy under Lou. She's being extremely petty and forgetting how much Don has done for her. I'm still not exactly clear on why Peggy is mad at Don in the first place. For disrupting an affair she was having with her married boss?

Peggy wasn't happy working under Don.  It's more than just Ted. They've had issues for seasons. Don had to beg Peggy to join the new agency cause they had issues. There was a confrontation when Don won the Clio award for the floor mop ad. Peggy felt she should have been acknowledged for that ad. She decided to look for a new job cause she hated working with Don. When Peggy told Don she was going to work with Ted, Don went off on her. She was furious when the two agencies joined and she was going to have to go back to working with Don.

Peggy sees Don as someone she can't escape. He did a lot for her in the beginning.  In recent years he's done nothing but hold her back. He treats her poorly cause he feels like he has the right to while at the same time keeps her under his thumb cause he doesn't want to lose her.

The other woman in Don's life can escape his bullshit by leaving him. Peggy is the only woman in his life that hasn't been able to get away.

[©brad]

Well this is where the realities of a TV show conflict with character motivations. Peggy as a character should have jumped ship to another agency for more money and creative freedom a while ago, right after Ted left. Alas, Elizabeth Moss must remain on the show.

Still, if I'm Peggy, and I'm forced to be at SC at this point, my allegiance would be with Don. Purely from a career perspective, she has a better chance of getting good work that will define her career out of Don than with Lou, who has shown he couldn't give have a fuck about good creative. As a copywriter, you're only as good as your last ad. If you start producing mediocre dreck, you're career is screwed.

My hunch is Peggy and Don will eventually reunite and it will be a way between Don/Peggy/Roger/Pete/Ted (who remember Don helped by giving him California) vs Lou, Bert, and everyone else.

[Drenk]

A great review: how colors explain the characters.

http://tomandlorenzo.com/2014/04/mad-style-field-trip/

And something interesting about Joan:

Her marriage is long behind her; well and truly over. She's moved on. We kinda thought that's why her yellow roses were featured so prominently as she moved into her new office.  But she is once again dealing with a square-jawed, handsome, good-on-paper alpha male who's secretly a mess of insecurities and who makes rash decisions that deeply affect the people around him without ever asking for their input. Don is the office version of her husband and she's already put up with that shit once in her life. She's not about to let another handsome, privileged man screw up her life because of his own issues. Hence the red rose dress, which is now a symbol not just of her husband, but of the ways in which the men around her have disappointed her and how she no longer puts up with it anymore. This costume actually underlines and helps to explain her anger in her scenes.

[©brad]

That's a false equivalency. Don is flawed but I don't buy that he's the office version of that insecure, narcissistic rapist douche of a husband.

[diggler]

I thought they established during the rapist husband story that Don was the opposite of that. Joan resents Don for showing up at her apartment because it makes the men in the office an uneven playing field. It was more simple when they were all willing to pimp her out, an attitude Joan is used to, it allowed her to conduct herself as a more ruthless businesswoman. Don proved that he actually cared about her and she doesn't want to deal with that. Don firing Jaguar just threw more logs on the fire. Sure, she made partner anyway, but it puts Don on the moral high ground and she can't stand that.

[©brad]

I think you're reaching a bit. "You're one of the good ones aren't you" was her line when Don showed up at her apartment, and it was delivered sincerely.

Don proved that he actually cared about her and she doesn't want to deal with that. Don firing Jaguar just threw more logs on the fire.

Where is the evidence to support this? She's got reason to be irked at Don now, but during "The Other Woman" at the end of season 5, Don was one of her only allies.

[diggler]

I think Joan is used to every man only giving a shit about her on a sexual level, it's shaped how she's climbed the ladder. Even Lane, who she assumed respected her on a professional level (which he did), threw himself at her in a moment of desperation. There's a part of her that appreciates that Don showed up at her apartment, but she can't reconcile that with the choice she made, it makes it worse.

You could also turn the argument around and say that Don was the selfish one in the Jaguar scenario. Perhaps he didn't want Joan to sleep with the creepy Jaguar guy because his ego couldn't accept that it was anything but him that won the account.

[Drenk]

Matthew Weiner.

The network has decided to split it over two years, so that's already different. I added an extra episode because I didn't want to have a six-episode run; I mean, seven is going to feel short enough. I had a plan with the writers for these 14 episodes that goes across them together, but there's going to be 10 months between them on the air. So right away I'm like, "Ugh, I need two premieres, two finales, really, because I want people to come back."

It allowed for less digression, quite honestly. I don't know how the audience feels about that, but when you're doing 13 episodes you can investigate every corner of the story if you want to. You can follow anybody home. This has made us really concentrate on the main characters — that was one of the byproducts of it. And it actually didn't seem like enough episodes for what we had to do. I'm writing Episode 12 right now. ... I actually haven't written the last two.

From this NPR interview: http://www.npr.org/2014/05/01/308608611/mad-men-creator-matthew-weiner-on-the-end-of-don-drapers-journey

I really hate that AMC decided to fuck the way the writers developed a season for the final one.

[©brad]

Me too. We've bitched about this before but it's worth bitching about again. We're getting two mini-seasons, not one final season split in half, whatever the hell that is. Breaking Bad worked because the show is a pulpy, cliffhanger-happy thriller that makes for the perfect binge-watching session, and thanks to Netflix, a tsunami of new viewers came for that final 7. Mad Men is a slow-burning, soapy intellectual show that's found its audience by this point.

[Brando]

I really liked this episode.

2001/The Shinning

Mad Men gets away with things others can't. It can be so on the nose but still make it work. Even the characters themselves make reference to it and it works. Cooper points out the obvious of Don being in the office of a dead man. Don gets called an ape using tools, talks about unable to make fire and then uses his own name in a drunken reference about the Dawn of time.

I did notice something about Lou in this episode. I thought he looked strange in his suit. I'm not sure we've seen him in a jacket before this episode. When he turns his back to Peggy to look out the window, we get the established Mad Men shot from the logo. We've seen it multiple times with Don along with other characters. Lou's shot is in complete contrast with Don's. He is hunched over. It looked like his suit didn't fit right like it was too small for him. It made him look older than he really is. I came to the obvious realization that he is Nixon. They did the same thing in earlier seasons trying to make connections with Don and JFK.

[Drenk]

Yes, Peggy, Ginsberg has always been insane.

This was sad. What we've known of these people lives is fading. There is no creativity in the office and the main character, Don, has no place to be. Two episodes left this "season" and it has just begun; I'm curious to see how Weiner & Co will give a finale vibe to this part. Episode 7 is called Waterloo. It should be interesting.