Mad Men Season 5 running thread

Grantland's Molly Draper raised a good point: Why didn't Don take Joan to the Cool Whip pitch?

 

Tomorrow never knows - making of

 

In the US, it was released earlier in the UK

 

I did not like that beat. I was intrigued when Don instantly pushed an elevator button, and wondered where he was going/what he wanted to do.

But the elevator door opening without the elevator, and Don nearly plummeting to his death? I thought that was a cheap writer's trick. For one thing, I wasn't sure whether it really happened -- whether he pressed the button, whether he imagined that the elevator wasn't there, or what. Because if there really was such a serious safety risk, why wouldn't he alert someone else, like building security? I'd hate for some poor Sports Illustrated reporter to fall to his death at the Time-Life Building in 1966 because Don Draper thinks it's cool that he saw something symbolic.

I think that's one of the risks of going to the "dream sequence" well too often, as with "The Sopranos" and with Don's fever dream a few weeks back. In general, I don't like it when as a viewer, I can't trust that what I'm seeing is really happening within the universe of the show. It's the same reason I could never get into "Scrubs," for instance, or was put off for a time by "How I Met Your Mother." (And I thought the ending of "The Usual Suspects" was more annoying than awesome.)

I feel that I have entered into a contract with the show's creator and, in exchange for willingly suspending disbelief, he/she won't routinely screw me by portraying something as real and then later pull out the rug to say, "Ha! That didn't even really happen! You're such a sucker!"

 

FWIW, there were Halloween decorations in Joan's office.

 

I saw the empty elevator shaft and immediately had a Rosalind Shays moment.

 

As did I ...

 

I thought it would have made more sense if Don had simply asked Megan to come along and do the pitch as an "acting job". After all, she already had the routine down, and it likely would have resulted in her landing a part in the tv commercial which could, in turn, have helped jump start her new career.

 

Thought the same thing. Damn straight.

 

Joan would have been totally wrong for the Cool Whip pitch. She doesn't give off the 'wife' vibe.

 

Agreed. Appearing in a major commercial would seem to be a good way to restart your career.

 

Maybe, but she has great chemistry with Don and the Cool Whip guys would think she was hot.