Mad Men

enjoy it, everyone, but i've tried and tried and this show just doesn't do it for me. why? i don't give a crap about any of the characters -- they're all unlikeable, striving, downbeat bores. no one laughs, not a bit of lightness -- ever. everyone is dour, self-involved, fraudulent -- and worst of all, uninteresting. would i spend time with any of them in real life? not if i didn't want to spend all my time drunk. i like "rescue me"; what can i say? the mix of drama and humor, wordplay, etc. and vivid, intriguing characters i wouldn't mind hanging out with makes it enjoyable for me. "mad men" strikes me as the show everyone has to love because in its dark, endless peering into the suburban american soul, everyone finds it "deep" -- especially critics. fine: whatever. but i really don't recognize a genuine human in the whole lineup -- at least not one i'd willingly spend an hour with. then again, i liked "the sopranos" but didn't think that was the greatest show in tv history, either.

 

The underplayed subtlety of both of those shots was devastating.

 

Trust you're wholly caught up by now.

Can see what he's done, now . . . spending 2 1/2 seasons to set up the rest
of the run.
The last half of this season has been
without peer.

. . . though if we've seen the absolute peak of the professional career of Don Draper, much of what remains could be
markedly painful to watch.

 

Don Draper may lose his job and his wife and end up being Dick Wittman again.

 

Meanwhile, Pete's apparently been radicalized. I can see him at Lenny's
Black Panthers party, now.

 

I would say something makes me laugh out loud in almost every MM episode. Usually out of the mouth of Roger Sterling. But often Paul, or Ken, or Pete, or any of the Brits. If you don't like the show, fine. But it has plenty of black humor.

"He'll never play golf again."

"My name's Peggy Olsen, and I want to smoke some marijuana."

"Cheer up. When God closes a door he opens a dress."

"It's Mozart!" (Freddy Rumson playing music with his zipper.)

"You seem profoundly sad."
"My people are Nordic."

"Turn it off."
"I can't turn it off. It's actually happening right now."

“You’re trying to tell me when you saw Casablanca you didn’t think about me?”
“You mean Peter Lorre?”
"At the end, with the plane."
"The difference is, that woman got on a plane with a man who was going to end World War II—not run her father's dog food company."

 

I generally sympathize with Don, while my fiancee, who also loves the show, favors Betty, despite her flaws, because Don has been such a cheating, lying bastard.

Anyone else experiencing this kind of male-female split when it comes to the Don vs. Betty situation? Of course, my fiancee also won't root for local hero Tom Brady because he split up with Bridget Moynahan when she was carrying his child.

 

Just when he got his foot in the door!

 

This was my question when I saw that post, too. Don has been cheating since episode one, but now Betty is unlikeable because she's doing the same thing?

Remember how we found out Don was married to Betty -- he'd spent the day with the art chick, went to work, then tucked his kids in that night.

Would Betty be cheating if Dick/Don wasn't? She gave up her career for his family. Don doesn't appear to have said goodbye to anything he did while single.

 

The thing that doesn't seem honest about Betty's decision to cheat is she strikes me as someone who would find someone she geniunely liked to do it with. It doesn't appear she likes anything about this guy other than the fact that he worships her. I mean maybe that's enough but it just makes her seem shallow. The reason Don's cheating seems somewhat tolerable is he's looking for something he's not getting in his marriage, i.e. an intelligent career woman who has passion for something. I think that's what he has grown to hate about Betty, she doesn't seem to have passion for ANYTHING, least of all him. She's a sad character and expertly acted by January.

 

From the last episode:

Trudy: Have you been drinking?
Pete: The whole country is drinking!

 

Does that mean she's fucking a duck?