'Mad Men' on AMC HD - Page 47

I just re-watched last week's episode and knew that Andrea, Don's old flame he runs into in the elevator, looked familiar, but I couldn't place her. That's Mädchen Amick, the spectacularly gorgeous woman I've seen in a few other roles, most notably opposite James Spader in Dream Lover from 1993 (although I understand she had a regular role in David Lynch's Twin Peaks TV show). She was only 22 in that film, and you see all of her, if I recall correctly. The movie is good, but I'd watch it just for her and how achingly beautiful she is in it even if the movie were not any good.

Anyway, it just dawned on me that she gets choked to death in both Mad Men (via a dream) and in the movie. Ha. Now that's type casting, or more likely a little in-joke. Of course, the homage to the Nurse Ratched choking had to have been deliberate as well. The framing and angles of the shots were far too similar to be a coincidence.

John Slattery does great directing.....

The new appreciative and insightful Don...maybe that dream did the trick?

Pete is a two, or no make that three- time loser.

I guess this one was all about the mad "Men"...Joan is back

Haven't watched this week's show yet but am checking in to express my agreement that Pete is and always has been a weasel. Also, I love me me some Joanie. It is always wonderful to have her around. Just watched the Season 3 finale again the other night and enjoyed seeing Joan come in to oversee the new Sterling, Price, Draper, and Pryce crew's pilfering of their former employer's files. Fun stuff, almost as much fun as seeing the odious Saint John Powell lose his cool when he was firing Lane.

Roger: "I don't know about you two, but I had Lane."



P.S. Those sport coats. Ugh. The only man I ever saw who could pull those off with grace and style was Johnny Carson. The man was dripping with class and grace and good taste, even when he was being naughty.

I liked the ROFL-Fight...

Yeah I would have kissed Joan also.. maybe a little squeeze there? LOL


Poor Pete got beat in every aspect, lousy repairman, lousy fighter and even lousy at the school losing the girl to that guy..

Another episode with adults acting more like children. Once word gets out that a fist fight broke out in a SCDP meeting, their clients will be running to firms that solve their problems like grown ups. Of course Pete's pummeled face and the whole event will be forgotten by the next episode.

Once again Ken appeared to be a lonely adult surrounded by spoiled children.

Pete needs to be beat down on a much more regular basis, until he learns how to play nicely with the bigger boys.

First, a reaction to an open question from the previous episode concerning Peggy's hesitation in her apartment when looking at Dawn and her handbag.

I thought it to clearly be a moment of clarity that Peggy was having, realizing that despite her sophisticated, liberal, pro-civil-rights persona, she was realizing that ingrained racism is hard to fight. That she saw her bag with $400 in it, and a black woman sitting there, and was trapped between her upbringing and her better nature... and by hesitating, made it worse, because Dawn noticed it (not even knowing there was an unusual amount of cash inside) and read it for what it was. Now that moment will stand permanently between them.

It was a brilliant moment of drama.

Second, on the emasculation of Pete. I thought the script laid it on a bit thick. He doesn't drive. He's an old guy to the high school kids (and what *was* he thinking about that girl?). Trudy runs the household and would never let Pete bring home a gun or turn up the stereo. He can't fix the plumbing. He acts out his inferiority issues with a hooker. He repeatedly tries to humiliate the one guy at the agency he thinks is wimpier than him, and loses.

It was fun to watch, because he's such an unsympathetic character, but to pile it all on in one episode challenged the show's usual realism, for me.

Nevertheless, it's an amazing season.

+1. Exactly, and well said. That was a very realistic reaction for the period, even for a socially progressive and sophisticated woman like Peggy. And yes, Dawn noticed and understood what Peggy had just thought. The writers also got it right with the gracious touch of Dawn's polite note to Peggy the next morning, and the fact that Dawn folded all the blankets and tidied up before leaving. That made Peggy feel even more guilty for having that suspicion, but Peggy's was an authentic notion and reaction.

Actually at the office when Peggy invited Dawn to come over she tapped on her purse and said she had just got some cash.

"This is Medieval" *ding! LOL!

Clobber Pete! He needs it!

I wish we could have the adult characters back on the show. Except for Peggy and Ken, everyone appears to be kids on summer vacation.

Maybe since Lane was regularly pounded to the floor by his father he stupidly thinks that a fist fight in an accounts meeting will actually solve problems instead of causing a dozen more. Not that there was an accounts problem to be solved. When we have a problem with someone, we adults take it up with that person, not put on a show for our coworkers.

And since when has kissing your closest ally at work been a good idea? Maybe he has mommy issues too. Don't count on her being too nice to him any more.

I can't decide who won the Mad Men Idiot award this episode. These people are getting dumber every week. Harry is starting to look like he could run this company. Remember when the show was about talented people in the advertising business?

Don and Duck got in a drunken fight last season. This felt similar, albeit this was played more for comedic effect. But that's not unusual either. Roger puked on a client after that oyster fiasco with Don, and a man got his toes severed by a woman driving a lawn mower in the office.

I do agree that the show has lost its balance a bit though. The writers need to impress us with a pitch. They haven't done that yet this season. It used to be an episodic occurrence, which allowed us to forgive some of their social mistakes because we could at least see they were very good at their jobs. But they've become increasingly infrequent. If anything, given the move to SCDP, there should be more emphasis on work--not less.

I don't mind them conveying Roger as an empty suit, as that's how he's always seemed to me. Even Burt has always been a bit of a coot. But Pete, Don, and Peggy regularly created compelling narratives for clients. I'd say that ever since they swapped Paul with Joey after the move to SCDP, the business side has taken a back seat to the soap opera.

lol

Nahhh, in that era all their clients would have occasional instances like that themselves.

From this and your other post you seem to have big issues with the show, how did you make it past season 1?

"The Pitch" premieres Monday April 30th on AMC

I love the show, but this season has struck me as a bit superficial compared to MM at it's best.

Agreed on all counts. After the big fistfight scene ended, I too thought it had been a little broad. I forgave the writers, though, because, it was so much fun to see decent, underestimated Lane pummel big mouthed, meanspirited Pete. Pete could do with more of that.

Lane's kiss of Joanie was sweet despite how uncomfortable it was. Joan could not have handled the situation better. There is genuine fondness between those two.

This is, indeed, another amazing season.

I saw the jacket Don wore to the party. It wasn't that outlandish, but I think he was channeling is inner Lindsay Nelson. Google that (or look it up in your Funk & Wagnalls, if you got one ) to get what I mean.

(big to Mets fans)

Great episode. Pete's chickens coming home after all of his bad decisions, one of them accepting a fistfight with a guy 50 pounds heavier.

I don't mind them conveying Roger as an empty suit, as that's how he's always seemed to me.

On the contrary- and I had always thought of him as an "empty suit" before- this time he had what seemed like sound strategies for handling clients. Plus, Pete has been needing a beatdown for the entire duration of the show. It seemed entirely appropriate. And gwsat's observation on her reaction to it seemed on the money. She has been fending off men her whole life. Lane's advance was a relatively sweet inappropriate move.

I liked the "chewing gum" episode.

^^^ I agree. This week showed some of the things that got Roger where he is. There needs to be some thought behind being a successful silver tongued king of schmooze.

Also, I don't think the fight was shoddy writing. Think about Pete (see rdclark's great description) and Price who desperately wanted to show he was one of the big boys and could bring in business. Given Price's upbringing and the fact that he is middle aged in the 60's, a fair boxing match is not out of the question to settle an "attack" on him. Since it was Price, Pete had to go all-in or he'd be low man. Things were much different back then - like I had to point that out. However, if you never lived back then it's not as easy to realize because you have nothing to compare.

larry

I was a young man in those years, almost an exact contemporary of Pete and the other young guys at Sterling Cooper (God help me). Although it wasn't in New York, I worked in an office with well educated men and young secretaries. No casual sexual hookups or fistfights like we have seen on Mad Men ever happened there but I love the show anyway. Nevertheless, if there had been anyone in our offices who displayed aggressive nastiness to the degree Pete does, I wouldn't have been surprised to see somebody beat him down too.

What do you base that belief on? I have not read of any instance of a senior partner of any firm beating up an employee during a business meeting. An incident like that would have been legend in the industry! The scene was ridiculous and the thought that Pete would just go back to work with a bruised face as if nothing had happened is even more ridiculous. If Pete were a real person, he would have quit, found a job with another firm, taken as many accounts as he could with him, told Advertising Age that a desperate SCDP partner had beaten him up in a routine accounts meeting, and oh, Don Draper is actually Dick Whitman who belongs in jail.


I'll tell you how. The season one DVD and Blu-ray set contain extensive interviews with people who had worked at Madison Avenue advertising firms during the 60's. They raved at how authentic the characters and writing was. Yes, they really did goof off that much at work ("Our jobs weren't very difficult."). Yes, they did drink and smoke that much. Yes, they did make crude sexual and racist remarks that are offensive now. Yes, there were people like Betty who started as secretaries and became successful copy writers. Yes, they did need copy writers like Betty because they realized they had no idea how to advertise to women. Yes, they could put a real name to almost every character on the show.

Now if the season five extras contain interviews saying that business meetings at the time did regularly feature boxing matches and employees quietly went to back to work with bruised faces and bloody noses, then I'll give the show credit for authenticity. From what I know of the period, this was not the case and the show is just pandering to an audience who has been wanting something awful to happen to Pete.

These were purely for entertainment (and I could name a few others) but they were OK for one reason: they had no affect on the storyline or main characters and were easily forgotten.

In this case Lane, a senior partner, beat up Pete, an successful accounts executive, in a meeting while every other partner watched. Pete now knows that he has no future at SCDP with Lane there. Likewise SCDP has a questionable future without Pete there. There is no way that business at SCDP can believably go back to normal after this. I sincerely hope the show doesn't pretend it never happened in the next episode like people are expecting.

My first job out of college was also in the late sixties and my office experiences were apparently much different than yours. I worked in the home office of a "National" corporation where sexual interaction and discrimination were rampant. Seemingly, almost all of the managers and executives belonged to the "Good Old Boys Club." In fact, there was a memorable office Christmas Party complete with drinking where the Executive Secretary actually "went all the way" with one of the VP's on the Board Room conference table. How did we know this? They were so drunk they left the door open. I don't think even Don Draper would have been so inebriated as to forget that important detail.

The company also had an annual "stag party" each spring at the local conservation club complete with food, drinks of all kinds, gambling, and "movies." All salaried men were invited, so I'd go, eat a bit, sip a drink or two, and wait till about 10:00PM or so before I started gambling (when many of the others were drunk on their butts). I always went home with 4-5 times the amount of money I arrived with.

By the way, I also have a couple of pictures of myself in those hideous plaid sport jackets from that era. Johnny Carson I was not.

I think you're over-reading what happened. Sometimes people just have to blow off steam. If I were in Pete's position, I would go to Lane and apologize for the remark, and if I were Lane, I'd accept the apology because, beneath his acerbic exterior and superficial success, Pete is quite clearly a pathetic loser deserving of Lane's pity. Also, he brings in the accounts, and I need him.

The dynamic at SC(DP), going back to the very beginning, has always been that Pete is an arrogant ass and largely a failure at his job, but he has the old-money/high-society name recognition SC(DP) needs to bring certain clients in the door. And he knows how to schmooze.

Pete's not going anywhere. He's invested in the company. He knows he's invaluable given their financial situation. He actually likes to work with Don, and he knows that without Don his career would be a failure.

Lane could conceivably look for an exit after the incident (given how the other partners all ganged up on him), but it seemed like the interaction with Joan diffused that possibility. If Lane didn't understand before, he now does that Pete is an obnoxious brat not worth getting upset about.

Lane and Pete are both dealing with the same issues: feelings of inadequacy and lack of fulfillment in their lives. I could conceiveably see them bonding over this incident long term.

Do you mean Peggy?

I see. Mentioning something twice in two separate posts is being "obsessed" with it (and what was with your bolding that sentence and making the font much larger when quoting me?). Please pardon me for posting. I'll try not to offend you by posting my thoughts about the show again.