'Mad Men' on AMC HD - Page 46

As a point of reference, $400 in 1966 would be like having about $2,811 today.

Ya know, I honestly don't. I'll have to go back and check that out.

Yeah, that was weak - him not knowing it was a dream. I've had a few dreams that were frightening in their reality, and when I awoke, I not only knew it was a dream, but knew exactly what it meant (never pleasant.)

I think you all are unfairly discounting the fact that they were fever induced. Fever induced nightmares/hallucinations feel very real.

Second season - near the end.

Yes, thanks, I googled and found it -- s02e12. I've never liked the guy ... Now I remember why. ;-)

That's right. I watched my Season 2 BDs last week. Greg was certainly a rat where Joan was concerned. As detestable as he was in most ways, though, it's hard not to admire the guy for his patriotism and devotion to duty.

Not for me. I don't think his motivation is devotion to duty and patriotism. I think he's a megalomaniac. He couldn't control his wife, so he raped her. He didn't get the job he wanted, so he found one that gives him a high level of control over others.

He's a dirt bag, plain and simple.

There are plenty of patriots to admire without having to admire patriot rapists.

I don't disagree that Greg's conduct toward Joan was reprehensible and he clearly chose the Army because his civilian medical career was foundering. Regardless of his motivations for choosing the Army, though, he turned out to be a good Army doctor. That said, where Joan is concerned, Greg's Army record is a very thin silver lining in guy who is mostly a big black cloud. Thought I made that clear in my last post buy maybe not.

I'm in complete agreement with Ken H, and would point out that we only know his version of his service medical career, and that version as told to his wife. It's possible that the Army "made a man out of him" but he's such a pathetic looser I find that doubtful.

The larger question, and it's huge, is why haven't they explored more fully Joan's having anything to do with the guy at all. There are enough overlapping issues of how such a seemingly desirable woman would work so hard to make a life with this idiot to make another show.

Yep. At best, Greg is trying to drown his guilt over the rape by serving exemplary in the army.

Thank God he's not the father of Joan's kid, not that Roger's much better, but at least he cares for her. I'm still sticking to everything but the elevator encounter to being all a dream. It's just too much to swallow that a chance encounter would have the mistress find his new address, find the apartment, and just show up in the middle of the afternoon not knowing if Don was there alone or with his new wife. I do think it was weak writing that we don't see on this show very often. And yes fever induced dreams can be very lucid but that's no excuse for what we saw in an otherwise good episode.

How do you that he is a "good Army doctor"? He could be a mediocre one. He could be a Frank Burns.

Do you know what happens to the person that finishes last in their class at medical school?

I couldn't agree more. Joan is both beautiful and smart, so why did she wait until she was over 30 to marry and then choose the sorry Greg? Another silver lining in Greg's sordid relationship with Joan is that he, albeit unknowingly, provided legitimacy to Joan's child.

I love Joanie. I thought the scene in which she broke down in Lane's office because she was afraid she had been replaced was one the show's all time best. That was the one in which Lane reassured her by saying of the two young women who were trying to do Joan's bookkeeping duties, "The two of them together couldn't operate a parking meter. They're imbeciles!"

He gets an MD degree?

And somebody has an appointment with him/her in the near future.

You got it!

I can tell you it's very hard to fail out of medical school. I had a few classmates who had to go an extra year, but out of a class of 220, I can't recall anyone who didn't finish eventually. They get state funding for every student, they don't want to risk it.

Yes, there are plenty of doctors out there that barely made it through (though I am not saying all that barely made it are bad doctors).

Also, I don't think doctors were begging the US Army to stay in Vietnam. If ANY doctor (regardless of skill or lack-thereof) wanted to stay for extra time voluntarily, they would take ANY warm body.

I think it goes, "What do you call the guy who graduated last in his class in medical school?" - "Doctor."

If you start having fever-induced hallucinations, go to the hospital immediately because you are dying. And no matter how bad your fever is, you won't be wondering afterwards if you strangled a woman and hidden her corpse under your bed unless you already have mental problems.

Mad Men has used two other narrative devices that broke from the straight narrative they do so well. A few seasons ago Don conversed with his dead father as if he were in the room. This replaced the old fashioned technique of having the dead person be an "echoy" voiceover (assumed to be only in the person's head) which is now corny. Beginning in the third season of Dexter they started using this same technique of Dexter talking to his dead father as if he were in the room. They did this because it was much cheaper than shooting flashbacks which they had done in the previous seasons and it had already worked in Six Feet Under. Fortunately Mad Men didn't start doing this regularly.

The other one was Don seeing "Anna's ghost" waving goodbye. I thought Don seeing a ghost was silly and was a pointless break from straight narrative. Thank God they didn't have Don start talking to Anna as if she were in the room!

Don's "dream" strangling was one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen on TV.

Mainly because is was unclear that it was a "fever dream", I wouldn't have thought (or believed that) Don was a cold-hearted murder- but that is exactly what was presented.

When Don strangled the girl to death, I stood up out of my chair and exclaimed "what just happened?!" to my wife. It took me a minute but once I thought about his fever I said to her that it had to be a dream. Then, it turned out to be a dream.

Still, for a second, I was definitely having a WTF moment.

^^^^ Me, too.

He was stewing about the whole thing and it was no surprise he dreamt it, fever or not.

larry

Someone, anyone... PLEASE put Bette out of my misery for me and everyone...

Edit 1: Oh wow... That water looks umm... "clean".

Edit 2:

Yes, that's exactly how the joke goes. Doctor jokes are easy on doctors (I have 4 in my family).

Although Greg's decision to volunteer to spend another year in Viet Nam was an admirable one, at least by 1966 standards, he handled it miserably. The guy was such an entitled, self-centered a**hole, he didn't understand that such a decision was a family matter, which required consultation with Joanie. Sheesh, what a twerp!

I watched Episode 3 again today with my grandson and am now convinced that the murder scene was Don's fever induced hallucination, not the real thing. First, Don Draper of all people would never leave a door unlocked in a New York City apartment. Second, at the end of Don's dream Andrea's leg was sticking out from under the bed but was no longer in sight the next morning. Finally, Don's wife came home within an hour or so after Andrea left and spent the night in bed with Don. Works for me.

Is there really any question that it was an hallucination? It struck me as corny symbolism of Don putting his wandering ways "under the bed" once and for all, and then after he awoke, he told his wife that she would never "have to worry about him" again. Don seems to be realizing his mortality.

Of course, this is Don we're talking about, so I wouldn't take any bets on his future fidelity.

Agreed.

I wondered last season if we would ever see Greg again, thinking he might not make it back from Vietnam. I was wrong about that. In any event, I suspect either we've seen the last of Greg because Joanie won't have him back, or we'll see him only briefly to visit the baby whom he believes is his.


I think the entire encounter, apart from bumping into her in the elevator at work, was a fever dream. In other words, Don's old flame never even showed up on his doorstep. He didn't actually turn her away the first time or kill her the second time because she was never there at all.

Take a look at this interesting article on Slate from Friday that discusses how a clever viewer noticed they used backwards footage, a la David Lynch, of Don getting out of bed to answer the doorbell when she first "arrives," to subtly suggest this was a dream. You also see the same footage in correct sequence after Don supposedly throws her out the back door. The extreme consequence from the second encounter in context suggests at least that Don was dreaming her return visit, and this backwards footage suggests that no visit at all took place outside his fever dream. (Am I the only one who watched the choking scene and was reminded of McMurphy strangling Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?)

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/...wpisrc=nextbox

No, but you are apparently the only one obsessed enough to keep bringing it up.