Mad Men

It's one of the most remarkable combinations of quality and sadness I've ever seen in a TV series.

 

Couldn't agree more. And the levels of depth are mind-boggling.

 

I really liked tonight's episode.
Something about the kid and Betty just hit me. Hard.
Then the scenes with her dad. Ripping Don. Then feeling up the daughter he doesn't recognize.
Betty telling Don he couldn't take a shower, when he asks why, she just says they were pretending at her dad's house.
The feeling of doom I get seeing dude on his way to Mississippi to register black voters.
I'm not sure how many episodes are left, but I don't want this show to end anytime soon.

 

What freaked me out about the Glen and Betty relationship was the obvious likeness to the Don and Betty marriage. He's in Don's clothes, for goodness sakes! It's as if Glen's the husband Betty truly wants---somebody who worships the ground she walks on. Then you see how her daughter looks at Glen---an obvious crush, obvious that she wants his attention but cannot take it from her mother---and you see the point of this week's episode. We can't escape our parents/families from Pete and his mom to Betty and her mom to Sally Draper and her mom. The name of this week's episode was the Inheritance, which, is ironic, given that this week's lesson was that you can't inherit anything but yourself.

 

The kid Glen is played by Matthew Weiner's son Marten. Very, very disturbing the relationship between him and Betty until Betty gets a wake-up call with the "I want to rescue you" line.

I don't think I've ever seen so much blue blood WASPdom on a screen ---between Betty's family and Pete's.

That was Episode ten. I assume there are thirteen episodes.

 

Great show. The Glen kid is starting to weird me out. There's going to be something very creepy happen, and it's not because the kid has a crush on Betty. And doesn't he look like Brad Garrett (Ray Romano's cop-brother on his show) as a 12-year-old?

Agree about Paul going to Mississippi to register voters. That was a funny moment on the bus when he's trying to relate advertising to Marxism. He got some strange looks. He and the girlfriend may also wind up on the wrong end of a gang of rednecks right out of Mississippi Burning before it's over.

 

I haven't had much sympathy for Betty this season. Sure, she grew a backbone, but I think she's guilty of committing many of the sins she condemns others for (Don, Helen Bishop, etc). She's not a very caring mother. Her daughter will grow up exactly like her---with all of the baggage she got from her own mother. But it was so sad to see her home. You could see how she developed such a need to keep up appearances, to always perfect that fake exterior, even at the expense of the interior. That Don was the only one who comforted Betty when her father propositioned her---thinking that Betty was her mom---is a sad commentary. JR is right. Pete and Betty---100% WASP, which is certainly not Don.

But her line at home---when Don says he's taking a shower and she asks him to leave---was startlingly sad. "We were only pretending." And the sad thing is, they weren't just pretending for the last 24 hours, but for the last 10 years. And are we all just pretending? Betty acts like a little child with her maid---she calls herself an orphan! Do we ever really grow up? Even when we have our own kids, are we still just the same scared little kids who crave the comfort of their parents?

 

I don't understand why such a hard case like Don allows his mousey wife to push him around. She won't let him stay in the house? It's his house too! He should tell her he's not leaving, but the door is open for her.

 

Don's due to fire someone, I think, or crush their career at SC. He's taking so much shit on the personal front that the pressure has to be released in an environment where he still has some measure of control. Just grabbing Paul's trip to L.A. isn't going to account for all that.

 

I'm thinking something is going to happen on that trip to Cali with Pete. Or he'll meet a new woman out there. Either way, Betty is really getting on my nerves. Either take him back or file for divorce. And she needs to find someone to sleep with and stop messing around with that kid.

 

Pete's had it coming for a while, and Don's feeling powerless in life and angling for a fight. Could be fun in L.A.

Why did Joan make such a production out of crushing Paul by telling him he wasn't going on the trip? Is it because she doesn't approve of his relationship?

 

No, they had a thing for a while. I seem to remember he dumped her. And when he had that party and introduced her to his new girlfriend she reamed him out later for trying to cultivate this whole I'm really hip and open-minded thing by dating a black woman.