Mad Men Season 5 running thread

I worked at a publishing company where a fight (albeit, NBA style) broke out during an editorial meeting. It was pretty damn funny and it was about COVER art. Seriously. Managing editor and the sales director It was all over in about 15 seconds but still, it was the topic of conversation for the rest of the week.

 

You really would have been talking if a secretary had taken over a riding mower in the office and ...

 

Googled it. General consensus seems to be that the first sexual harassment lawsuit was in 1974.

So that's off the table. I wonder if Peggy will begin recruiting others, though.

 

When I was a bookseller back in the 70's and early 80's, we used to hold regular "Book & Author Breakfasts" at the local country club. Three authors would talk about their respective books to a crowd of about 150 women, most of whom were either Junior League types or members of what we called "The Blue Rinse Power Set".

In the mid to late 70's (can't remember the exact year) we invited two women professors who had written the first book on sexual harassment in the Canadian workplace. The reaction to this book in the Q&A afterwards was unanimously swift and negative. The two authors were in a state of shock.

The ladies were not kind.

 

I take back my argument from about a month ago that in ways Pete Campbell is a sympathetic character.

My money now is on Pete finishing out the series by being hired to work on Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if Trudy snapped and went Lorena Bobbitt on him, resulting in bleedout.

 

Yeah, at one point, I thought Pete was just misunderstood and deep down he was an OK human being.

Now he's reached the status of (to borrow a hockey phrase) gutless puke.

 

The vote was 4-0.

 

I'm a big recapping/analysis guy. Can't get enough of it, frankly, which is why for an episode like this, I'll pretty much hit on all the people I respect to get their take to see if it matches my own.

I thought Matt Zoller Seitz of Vulture just crushed it this week.

http://www.vulture.com/2012/05/mad-men-joan-jaguar-recap.html?imw=Y

I really don't think Joan's character was betrayed by the writers. I think people frequently want to believe certain things about Don or Joan that have more to do with their hopes and expectations for the character, not the reality of the way they're written. Joan was someone who was obviously very sharp in her professional life, but someone who had a lot of doubt in her personal life, dating back to the fact that she married her fiancee after he raped her on the living room floor. This isn't an episode -- in my opinion -- that will lead to some big reveal later. Not at all. You're taking expectations gleaned from years of cliched television and trying to apply them to a show that doesn't play by those rules at all. This is not the "set up for the season's end game." (Though it's obvious Lane's embezzlement will eventually come to light.) This was a short story about morality and self worth, and who owns us and holds power over us. We have three examples of a woman taking a situation where they're seemingly powerless and turning it into a scenario where they emerge more powerful, although not without a cost.

SF_Express' death saddens me for many reasons, and one of them is that I'm sad he'll never get to see how Mad Men ended, or weigh in on these thread again. His comment a few pages ago, I think, was perfect. No one ever said this show was going to make you feel comfortable. I think Pete Campbell is one of the most interesting characters we've ever seen on television, precisely because he's so loathsome, but also because his sliminess is driven more by how badly he wants to be liked for being good at his job. He sees his moral failings as a strength, and thinks he should be admired for the way he's able to manipulate situations like this, for getting the job done. If he were a JR Ewing-type evil dick, he'd be much easier to straight up hate, but instead he's a much more complicated character who just creeps everyone out. Pete knows he has zero morals, and he gets results in his job. He might be the most important person at SCDP, and why shouldn't Joan have to pimp herself out the way he does? He doesn't really view it as any different. And he probably would have fucked the Jaguar guy if it meant landing the account.

As for the "soap opera-ness" of this season, I suspect this kind of thing happened a lot more than we'd like to acknowledge, especially in that era. Weiner supposedly has a rule in the writer's room that every story idea must be grounded by some actual event that happened, either in history or in the lives of one of the writers or one of their friends. It's how they explained the scene in S1 when Betty goes out in her nightgown and starts shooting pigeons, which seemed a little crazy at the time. That actually occurred. One of the female writers lived it with her mom. I seriously doubt Weiner has always stuck to that rule, but I think for the most part, Mad Men does its best not to be sensationalist and relies a lot more on the quiet complexities between the characters and their changing moralities. The scene (and the acting) between Don and Peggy at the end was beautiful. I don't think that kiss was creepy. I think it was Don's acknowledgement that she's one of the only people, and maybe the only person, who really knows him. That, in a very platonic way, he will be lonely and emptier without her.

They landed Jaguar, but at what cost? Why do men constantly yearn to "own" something beautiful?

Again, just a wonderful episode.

 

Great analysis, DD.

When Pete first brought the whole idea up to Joan, I kind of had a thought similar to when George went to see the doctor about that little white thing on his lip in Seinfeld. He wanted a "get outta here!" from the doctor when he asked about cancer. Joan never really gave a "get outta here!" when Pete sleazily brought up the idea of sleeping with Herb. She replied with a perfect mix of indignation on one hand, and odd curiosity on the other. Like everyone else on the show, it was a "what can this do for me?" moment. If there's anything that's obvious, it's that every single goddamned character on this show is working for him or herself. There is no altruism. Joan only agreed to it once she realized how much of a personal gain it represented to her. She didn't give a fuck about SCDP or whether or not the company landed Jaguar. As she noted in Christmas Waltz, she's been taught by her mother to be pretty for men, and that her looks would be an avenue for personal gain. Just this episode, you have her mother whoring herself out to the super to get things fixed in the apartment. Apple doesn't fall far, etc.

I think they've done an amazing job of portraying just how lonely and desperate Don is throughout this season. And when you're a man of the 50s in his 40s married to a woman of the late 60s in her 20s, you're constantly worried about being left behind. All he wants is the perfect life he had with Betty. Someone warm to come home to. Someone to control. Any time Megan shares her ambitions, he goes off the deep end. I'm not sure those two are going to find a middle ground in that regard. That moment with Peggy when she leaves, where he tries to use the same old controlling tactics ... "Let's not pretend I didn't teach you everything you know." ... was such a clear sign of that desperation, that hollowness that is carving its way inside of him. He's so afraid of being alone, and he lets so few precious people inside. Those people are falling by the wayside one by one. I'm not sure if he can handle it should the Megan situation come to a head and she actually leaves him. So excited for the rest of the season.

 

Who does Don now call in a real crisis like a DUI with a mistress, getting locked up or some Dick Whitman item coming back?

Peggy was his safety net, right? I don't think he has one anymore.

 

Just keep in the back of your mind the earlier, EARLIER episode when Don said to Peggy (in so many words): "If you ever leave here, I'll do everything in my power to bring you back."

That's obviously not going to happen next week, or the next . . . but before the end? Don't be surprised.