Mad Men Season 5 running thread

Boom - They met at an awards dinner that the SCDP partners attended. Megan, who of course attended with Don, brought her parents along, as well, to see him honored.

 

Got it. Thanks. Must have been an episode of season 5 that I missed.

 

Go back and watch it. At the Codfish Ball is the name. Best of the season, imo.

 

Some of what I've read post-show is 100% certain that we're supposed to conclude that Don tapped dat ass at the end of the show. I thought it was more ambiguous and that his delayed response was demonstrating that he is inexorably sliding down the slope to being the old Don we all know and love. He was very clear that he was having no part of the festivities at the whorehouse with Jaguar but now? Yeah, not so much...

 

Yeah, you're correct. As we know, "Mad Men" likes to set up next season's issues in the last episode of the season. Don giving into temptation by other women is used by the show to indicate when his marriage is unhappy. I don't think he unambiguously was tempted whatsoever. In fact, I imagine he probably didn't give in. But the delay was meant to tell us that it's going to get more and more difficult from this point forward for him to stay faithful, triggered by him not liking the fact that Megan used him to get that part in the commercial.

Strange how pissed off he was about that, wasn't it? I think she put him in a terrible spot, of course. I'm guessing that maybe he felt like he already stuck his neck out once for her at SCDP and she didn't take advantage of it? Something along the lines of her continually using him for her own career interests? I suppose that would really stick in the craw of a total self-made man like Don.

 

I totally agree with you. But I still loved it.

 

I can't tell whether Don is mad at Peggy and displacing it onto Megan, or mad at Megan and displacing it onto Peggy. Or both?

 

Probably a little of both? He believes that women take advantage of his good nature to advance their own career goals. I guess he feels used by both. Which seems somewhat silly. People network. Or perhaps this is more of Don coming from a prior generational mindset where there was more loyalty and stability?

 

The AV Club review did a good job of explaining why I was unhappy with the episode. It'd start to do something good, and then made sure you noticed it by underlining it six times in heavy, red ink. With a few exclamation points at it. "Did you notice!?! DID YOU?! Here it is again, more intense.!"


The double-take when Don sees his dead brother's face on a passing businessman was brilliant. We all made that connection the moment Lane hanged himself. We know Don Draper well enough to know what kind of emotional impact that is going to have on him.

Leaving it at that would have been pitch perfect. Instead, we get the overbearing dentist office scene, which reminded me of everything that made Sopranos an inferior show to Mad Men. They don't trust the viewers to make the connection, so they feel like they have to spell it out and beat us over the head with it. And they make it a dream/hallucination sequence because those are artsy, right?

Lane's death freed up an office space, but they didn't need it because the business is finally ready to expand to another floor. His death gave them a hefty insurance check, but they didn't need it because the business is finally ready to bring in some steady checks. They are moving on and his death is always going to just be just one of the bricks that went into what they are building. Powerful stuff.

But just to make sure we got all that, because we dumb viewers can't be counted on to get their brilliance, we had the scene where all the not-dead partners stand and look optimistically out the bright window. I'm surprised they didn't put a blinking, all-caps strip message across the bottom: "THE LIGHT REPRESENTS THE BRIGHT FUTURES THEY ARE HOPING FOR!"

Pete is battling depression. Serious, medical depression. The scene with Rory (she'll always be Rory to me) in the hotel did a fantastic job with that. The scene in the psych ward with the monologue? Heavy handed.

All of my favorite moments in the episode were the ones where they used a light touch. Just a split-second of Megan breaking down into tears looking into the mirror. That creative guy whose name I always forget telling Ginsburg he's sick of the sniping between him and Don. And the one everyone's going to remember: The little Don Draper smirk before fading to black.

We didn't need to hear what Don said, and they trusted us not to need to hear it. This episode needed a lot more of that.

 

I also got the vibe that he was more than mildly torqued that she would consider using him for an ADVERTISEMENT. He all but said, "Oh, now advertising is OK?" I think that he got Megan the part to make her happy but I think he also lost a measure of respect for her as well, and that ain't good. He, in a way, is gonna lose her matter what. He saw her becoming Betty Redux and thus losing her down that rabbit hole of misery if she couldn't act. So, he got her the part and now he loses her due to his own feelings or this being the start of her career.

 

As unfair as it is, he still resents Betty for leaving him, I think. He may have done everything he could have done to destroy the marriage, but in the end, she left him. And in his mind, that was a betrayal of everything he'd provided for her.

 

Don can't shake loose of that desire for the "woman take care of kids, and me // woman rely on me fiscally$$$" dynamic. That ship's sailed, pally, for most women worth a second look, and if you can't handle it, you're looking at a personal life filled with casual encounters/hookers.