Mad Men Season 5 running thread

Joannie moves in with Rodger before the season is over, it's his kid. Surprised she didn't dump that bit of info on Dr Greg as he heads back to 'Nam.

 

The only thing I can think of is she's going to be a spiteful bitch and try to drain his pocket for child support. But it'll backfire when the required (was it back then?) DNA test comes up.

 

Peggy and Roger was the best scene of the night. You don't know how much I make? "That's helpful."

 

Of all the things in the episode, the little thing that jumped out at me was when Roger was trying to find Ginsberg and Stan said "I tried, but he's not at home."

I had to stop and think for a second before it dawned on me that it really wasn't all that long ago that if somebody wasn't at home or work you wouldn't be able to reach them. So different than today when so many of us feel out of touch with humanity if we have to go 15 minutes without access to phone calls, email, Facebook, Twitter and SportsJournalists.com.

 

It would have been the last episode I ever watched.

 

DNA tests didn't exist, IIRC. There would be a blood test that could preclude someone from being the father but nothing definitive.

 

Sterling hates his current wife, so this would not be shocking.

 

Totally agree. It would be Roger's dream to toss wifey to the curb and shack up with Joannie.

 

This was an episode straight out of Grimm's Fairy Tales--not the nice, neat clean Disney ones but the original stories.

Bruno Bettelheim (author of "The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales") would have had a field day with this episode.

Repressed sexuality, daughters' fear of mothers and grandmothers who'd send you into the dark woods and the fear of the Prince who will try and find your missing shoe to conquer you sexually --they're all there

Like the one nurse who hid under the bed, Sally's refuge from her evil grandmother is under the sofa and Don stuffs the victim of his nightmares under the bed but not before he retrieves the one shoe sitting there on the carpet.

It was a pretty dark episode.

 

Of course it is. But I think that would be a little too tidy for Mad Men.

 

"Shut up."

 

Matt Weiner did Fresh Air with Terry Gross a week ago, after the 2-hour season premiere, and he gave some great insight into the season, and our expectations with television. It's worth tracking down the podcast. I swear, Terry Gross doesn't even know what the show is about though. Weiner constantly had to politely correct her and say "Well, I'm not sure I would interpret things that way..."