'Mad Men' on AMC HD - Page 59

Sure it made sense. Joan was being gracious to Don, and it had nothing to do with sympathy. Had she told him at that time, she would have been denying him his moment to take the moral high ground and display how her virtue was more important to him than landing the big account. She allowed him that out of close friendship and respect, and because she recognized it as Don's genuine display of chivalry and honor. Of course she knew he would find out later, but that doesn't mean she has to spoil the moment for him.

It's a subtle, but important bit of graciousness.

Well said.

You're forgetting the fact Joan was under the impression Don had signed off on the deal. Why would she be gracious after that?

Because as soon as he told her it wasn't worth it, she mentioned she was told the partners signed off on it, but he quickly informed her otherwise. He said he was against it as soon as he heard about it, and the other partners had voted in his absence. That's when she touched his face and said that he was one of the good guys.

Watch it again and tell me she was looking for sympathy. She wasn't.

Thanks.

IIRC, Don told her in the conversation that he disagreed, and had left the room. Thus the reason for Joan calling him "one of the good guys" or words to that effect.

Edit: Sorry Will, didn't see your reply.

Gracious....

This episode had Don pushing his' and the show's limits.

Wow, Lane looked ...well...really terrible..that was a shocker.

AMC continues to amaze...

Nor was she looking (mainly) for money. She was looking for recoginition. Don could have kept her by appointing her as Assistant Creative Director of Creative or something to that effect.

fafner

Another life Don has ruined. He is batting close to 100%.

fafner

But, how could Don ever trust Lane....After he forged Don's own fake signature....

I mean...REALLY

I don't think Don holds any actual accountability for what Lane did. But I doubt Don feels that way, given the parallels with his brother.

Lane committed a crime rather than ask for help. And, remember, Lane didn't just forge the check for his bonus; he forged the entire circumstances of the bonus situation by extending the firm's credit line $50k without the consent of the partnership. What's not clear is, after Joan came on and the partners told him to extend the credit line, whether he actually did that again or whether he was able to fudge the books somehow and get Joan in using the previous credit extension.

When all this comes out, in all likelihood Lane is going to look very very bad, which is probably why he committed suicide. Or maybe he was able to clean things up somewhat and that's what he was working on before he tried to kill himself? I guess we'll find out next episode.

The Jag not starting was a very nice touch

Wow. Another very entertaining hour of TV.

One of the many things I really like about this show, is how they consistently try to incorporate a broad spectrum of what could happen in life, but never does it seem unrealistic.

Don didn't ruin Lane's life; Lane did. He committed a terrible lapse in judgment, ethics, and character. He committed a crime and took great pains to conceal it. Don allowed him the easy way out by way of resignation without anyone else having to know, and without a possible criminal prosecution.


Correct. Once that trust is lost, you can't get it back. Not in business affairs among partners, anyway.


I suspect you're right. Morally, Don bears no responsibility. He was trying to do what was best for both the company and for Lane. Don was being very decent to Lane by letting him resign without anyone knowing why.

Now Don will have to suffer in silence by keeping Lane's final secret to himself. Don is slowly killing himself with his secrets. That kind of stress is very hard to carry for long periods of time alone. It takes its toll.

You nailed it, man. I wish you had been wrong -- not because I want you to be wrong, but because I liked Lane. He was a fundamentally decent man who lost his bearings and momentarily took a serious leave of ethics. He didn't deserve to die for it.

+1, Lane was a great guy...his suicide was like a kick in the guts...

I don't see how anyone could blame Don. I had to terminate someone once who did almost exactly the same thing. However, unlike Don and because of the type of business I was in, I didn't give her the chance to resign and save face. I approached her after work with a "witness" accompanying me and pretty much confronted her with what I had found and fired her on the spot. And, to the best of my knowledge, she hasn't committed suicide yet either.

I agree that Lane was a nice guy who did a series of wrong things.

Lane should have just asked Don for the money from the get go. Sad because I liked that character.

The irony is that Don pretty much forged his own life, and we're not talking anvils.

Don offered Lane the opportunity to resign with dignity, and he also covered the $ short-fall personally... Betty actually showed a bit of Mother instinct.

Yeah, I don't understand the eagerness to paint Don as some sort of villain in this. He did the decent and proper thing.

I'm not sure it's the same. This was about loyalty and character. Lane put the company in jeopardy, lied to the partnership about very serious financial matters, and embezzled $8000 when he could've just asked someone for a personal loan and Don surely would've given it to him.

As the partner meeting at the beginning of this episode made clear, Lane is the only person among the partners who has any sense of how financial matters should be handled. If he's using that power to take advantage of the company? That is a serious, unforgivable breach of trust.

And when Don confronted him about it, he didn't confess. He doubled down on the lie, clumsily and obviously. And then that whole conversation after he did admit it, Lane was basically saying, "You got rich off the sale to PPL; I've gotten nothing from SCDP. I deserved that money. It was mine." It wasn't even really the company's money. It was part of a significant credit extension from the bank that he lied to the partners about to justify unnecessary bonuses. That is not someone you can keep around.

Don is huge on loyalty and trust. He wanted to fire Pete over talking creative after hours with Bethlehem Steel. And he wanted to save Freddy when they fired him in Season 2 because of his loyalty, despite his highly irresponsible behavior.

For a split second, I thought Lane was thinking going into the car repair business.

It is a kick in the gut. So sad that Lane's dignity prevent him from asking for a personal loan.

BTW, that museum scene seems shoot in USC.

Well Jared Harris is probably relieved he doesn't have to keep working on that accent any more. He mentions in the commentary for "The Ward" that he found that accent for "Mad Men" the most difficult to do (and you do all know he's the son of Richard Harris).

I did think and Don mentioned that if he had brought the tax problem to the partners they might have helped him out. It was more a matter of pride.

Betty wasn't being a good mother, she was happy that Sally trusted her instead of Megan.. little does she know that Sally was out there on the museum with the boy..

good read:


http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/20...sode/?ref=arts

Once again, Mad Men is approaching warp speed as we near the season's end. Lane's exposure as an embezzler and his subsequent suicide were gut wrenching. As others have already stated, I too had a hunch the Jag wouldn't start. That Lane might take his own life, though, became a very real threat when he first saw that very expensive XKE and went behind a pillar in the parking garage to puke. With Lane dead, the firm needs Joan's managerial skills and good judgment more than ever. It's a good thing they promoted her.

I am considerably less cynical than some about Betty's motives when Sally came home after having started her first menstrual cycle. For the first time in as long as I could remember, Sally was frightened, afraid, and alone. For maybe the first time ever, Betty stepped up and was a mother when her little girl needed her. I bought it and thought it was effective and moving. That said, will it last? Nah.

Agreed.


Did you mean to say "Betty's motives"?

Unrealistic? We've already had two suicides and probably more to come. With the fist fight, the prostitution and jumpy story telling, this is verging on soap opera melodrama to me. That's fine, but it's certainly not the introspective Emmy-winning show it once was (although Emmy's only award a single episode of a season). I would not be surprised to see a "Who Shot Don Draper?" cliff hanger to end this season although I was sure that's where it was headed before Lane offed himself.

But there was some realism here. We got some explanation on Lane's financial situation. He liquidated all his British assets to meet his partner contribution for SCDP. That would have left him with a serious tax bill in 1966. Why didn't he just tell the partners about how he got into this predicament and get a loan from them instead of whining like an infant about how they all have so much money and life is so unfair? Here's a guy who wouldn't take his kid out of private school when he couldn't afford it.

I'm glad that "the letter" keeps popping up. Of course Dow Chemical doesn't want anything to do with SCDP. With the ecological movement growing at the time, they know Don will write a letter saying how they're polluting the environment. It makes no sense that Jaguar wanted anything to do with SCDP since Don will surely write a letter saying that their cars encourage people to drive dangerously as we saw at the end of this episode.

What is the firm going to change their name to? If this were The Office, I'd expect to see Dwight scraping the P off of the front door in the next episode.

Yeah, people never commit suicide in real life.