Wait a second - I thought Dick Whitman switched dog tags with the disfigured Don Draper when their ditch blew up? Did I imagine this? Also, I thought Pete, Cooper, and Sterling all knew about Don's history?
Vietnam protests seem too obvious. Both Don and Roger seem pretty conservative, so a political disagreement isn't likely. If anything, I'd expect "Mad Men" to toss us another storytelling curve ball, much like how Don's scare with the feds finding out his identity had nothing to do with the red herring from the first season (blackmail) and more to do with accidental circumstances (Megan sending in a questionnaire). In fact, the very man (Pete) that tried to blow Don's cover is the very same one that bailed him out years later. I don't know how Roger would find out, but I'm sure we won't see it coming.
Unless I'm misremembering, it was the Army that assumed Dick was Don Draper when he was taken to the hospital. He simply didn't correct them. I'm going to pop in the Blu-Ray right now to verify. And Pete knows the full story, more or less anyway. We don't know if Cooper knows any more than what Pete blurted to him in Season 1, but my impression is that bit of info was all he needed to strongarm Don into signing a contract. Sterling definitely doesn't know anything: he doesn't even know he didn't really hire Don to work for him in the first place. EDIT: Nope, you're exactly right. After the explosion Dick Don goes over and switches tags with Don Don. The scenes are intercut with the Army officers awarding him the Purple Heart in the hospital. I'd forgotten that part: I thought the Army made the mistake, but Don definitely took advantage of the accidental explosion.
Fuckin eh I love this show. We are getting glimpses of self actualization and morality from Ken and Don. I love it. The fistfight was done perfectly. Jared Harris (Lane Price) performed a perfect embodiment of what I always thought that character would do in fight - and he was so clearly tougher than Pete.
How many humiliations did Pete suffer tonight? Let's count: - "Handsome" steals the affections of his teenage classmate - Don gets a round of applause for unfucking Pete's leaky faucet - Ken reopens an old wound by becoming a published author - Don Draper of all people creates a rift in the space/time continuum by lecturing Pete on not cheating on your wife - And finally, he gets knocked out by purported homosexual Lane Pryce In other observations: - I thought it was a nice touch for Joan to let Lane off the hook for that stolen kiss. Aside from repaying the kindness he's always showed her, it just goes to illustrate that she does sometimes understand the men in her office so much better than their wives do. - Don wearing that fugly jacket to the dinner party just goes to show how different he and Pete are. Despite the fact that he's a fashionable guy, Don has never seemed to care all too much about trying to project an image. Harry Crane tried (failed) to look hip by wearing stylish clothes to the Stones concert, while Don wore a business suit. And ironically, the one that wore the less comfortable outfit and stood out was the also the one most at ease backstage. Similarly, Don's anecdotes about having to use an outhouse as a kid and having a beer fridge in his garage prompted comments from Pete to show some simultaneous senses of superiority and camaraderie. - Line of the night: "My wife likes fur, but you don't see me trying to grow a tail."
Exchange of the night: "Oh, honey, you've had such a hard day." "Nope." "Um … this is my first time. I'm kind of nervous." "Nope." "You're my king!" "Okay."
So who do you guys think is going to be the main character Weiner is allegedly killing off this season? I want to say either Pete or Meghan, but I feel like I'm falling for red herrings with Pete and clinging to wishful thinking for Meghan. (My guess for Meghan is also based entirely on about 20 seconds from the first episode - 10 where Don calls out for Meghan kind of in a panic when he gets home and she doesn't answer right away, and 10 where they show her leaning on the railing of the balcony kind of eerily framed.)
I have absolutely no idea what you are saying in the second paragraph but they were setting up Pete big time to off himself. Not that I think they'd just do it as a head fake but yeah he hates his life. Very dark season so far they aren't not laying on some morbid themes, Richard Speck, Walt Whitman, crash fatality videos, Don sketching a noose, Don hallucinating killing a bitch. Not too cheery. My guess is Pete shoots himself with the gun he's had to keep at the office all these years. Besides Don, and a no existent Cooper, all of the partners seem to hate their lives or their role at the company. Did I miss why Sterling has become so useless in the day to day workings of the company? He seems to be regulated to closing the accounts others can't I really didn't enjoy the fight, besides Sterling's hilarious line. I mean I guess stuffy British men would hold their hands like they were turn of the century boxers. Besides that it seemed way to network TV choreographed. I didn't need to see arm bars and and grappling but for a show that does everything else with deft realism this kind of took me out of the show for a minute.
I'm going for Pete. In this last episode when Don asked him what he was doing by cheating, Pete said, "and I have everything." But he clearly hates having a baby and hates his wife. And I think it will go exactly the way Kubla suggested with his gun in the office and Peggy will find him or something. It won't be Meghan, Don is already brooding enough where I don't think the writers will make him even darker. Plus she's only been around for about a season, no one really cares about ER enough for it to make a difference. It could however be Lane if they decide to keep going with the subplot of how he has no worth in the office, etc.
Something is going to happen with the gun. It's in the background a lot, he had it when they walked out of the old building, it was sticking out of the box when he traded offices with Harry, and it got mentioned at the dinner party. If it isn't involved in a major plot point, zombie Chekhov will show up and strangle the writers. I think it's more likely that he shoots Trudy with it. Then again, I half expected Pete to end up adopting Peggy's baby and raising his own child without knowing it.
Very odd episode. Peggy cranking a dude off in a theater, Sterling tripping balls, Don looses his wife. Didn't help much the that torrent had about five minutes ofJennifer Love-Hewwits new show on Lifetime stuck in the middle. It looked like it sucked hard. Anyway. I thought it was going great focusing on Peggy until they threw the acid curve ball followed directly by the missing wife time lapse segment at you. Maybe a little much, but still good episode. Didn't it seem a little too easy getting rid of Sterling wife like they did? I mean the hint that it'll get rough but an acid trip epiphany seems kind of ehhhh.
"This is going to be expensive." What a cunty thing to say. "I'm going to take you for all your money." So rough. Roger needs to be free. We need Roger free.
I dug it. I had to watch it on the replay and will probably watch it again OnDemand just to see what I missed. The second time around I noticed that at the very beginning Ginsberg said something about it being the worst day. I really loved how they showed how it was the worst day for three of the major characters. It fit perfectly after the insight into Pete's world that we received last week. All of the conflict revealed the most intimate parts of each character, their struggles and demons: Peggy losing control and caught between male and female gender roles, lovely revelations about the mystery that is Don's marriage and his absolute need to control every aspect of his life, the duality of worker (and having something for herself) vs wife (being part of a couple) that Megan is confronting, and finally...FINALLY having Roger being honest and admitting that he made a mistake. I disagree that it was meh that Roger had an epiphany through taking acid. The man has never once told nor confronted the truth and it was ironic that something that he certainly didn't want to do was the one thing that actually freed him from his prison. Everyone else at that party was so pretentious in their expectations of taking acid (with a fucking coach of all things!!!) and ended up simply tripping their faces off. Look at the chick that was crawling on the floor. Look at Roger's wife. Here she was, all dressed up in a ridiculous outfit wanting to experience The Truth, and her big moment was "look at my arm." And there was Roger, completely unimpressed with the whole experience, who ended up actually confronting his biggest downfall. To me, that was perfection. Beautifully done, beautifully written, and beautifully staged. Anyone want to give their ideas on the final scene with Cooper finally standing up to Don and the juxtaposition of Don alone through the glass? It reminded me of the opening credits and half expected to see him falling from the building in black and white.
A lot of critics are saying the theme of this episode is time being against all the characters. Which is definitely, true. Everyone is tossing out dates and specific calendar landmarks so we can track the passage of time. Not only the fact Don has at least one shot a year involving a long pensive shot + a window, this one was shot with him looking at everyone else moving in life as he just sat there not knowing what was going on.
I didn't think so to be honest. Roger is basically a flake who wanted to give her a proverbial high five for how grand the disillusion of their marriage was. Fuck that. The older dude doesn't usually break it off in that situation. If he wants to drop Jane's gorgeous ass to chase after Joan's fat ass, excuse me, "curves", then go for it, its just gonna cost you that apartment.
I think you're giving Jane too much credit. She was a newer, shinier version of Betty Draper for a while, but she doesn't hold up quite as well to the much smarter, much friendlier, much sexier, much more talented, and more exotic Mrs. Draper that Don is currently wedded to. And considering Roger Sterling is a man who was probably born with mid-life crisis who is almost perpetually - even if mostly amicably - competing with Don, the idea of resetting his life to start a new period of Draperization seems like something he would be excited about. Running straight to Joan seems like a red herring for this show, especially since the infatuation in that relationship has usually been more one-sided than Roger would like to imagine. Joan already has one infant at home to deal with, after all.
Ok fine, I'll actually contribute something. I really liked this episode. Even with a show as gripping as Mad Men, I still have a tendency to wander around the internet while watching TV simultaneously, and I barely did that with this episode. I loved hand job Peggy. I loved that Roger was the first to trip acid out of all of the characters (right?) and that Mad Men did its acid scene with class. That cigarette trippiness was spot on. I loved the Martian conversation between Peggy and Gingsberg. Loved it. And fuck Meghan. I would've absolutely left her at the restaurant after the line she pulled. Don was definitely treating her like a child, but that was just a cunt move. And I don't use that word. Speaking of (children, not cunts) one of the things I noticed this episode was Peggy and Meghan trying to step up to men's roles but failing. Peggy tried to do the Don thing in the presentation and just sounded grouchy and bitchy. Meghan's whole thing is insisting that she's equal to Don but she came off like a petulant child for the entire episode. The sherbet scene? The voice-cracking shouting behind the door, "Leave me alone!" The chasing her around the apartment as she runs across the bed? It all made my skin crawl. You're trying to be a woman, one who's supposedly all about standing up for your rights, stop acting like you're five. On a related note, when Cooper reprimanded Don about letting "a little girl" run his department, was he talking about Peggy or Meghan? I know he was scolding him on being so distracted with Meghan, but I was under the impression that Peggy had more power and a higher title than Meghan. I've been trying to figure out what the show was trying to say with the Meghan's character/little girl thing. Clarifying that might help with their intention. I can't tell if it's supposed to reflect negatively on Meghan's character, or if it's like seeing it through the lens of men during that time not liking women trying to get more power, or if they're accidentally being sexist, or what. Also, what up Cooper being relevant again. Oh, and I also wanted to add how much I loved the running theme throughout the episode of "truth does not equal good," between Ginsberg's "I was told i was born in a concentration camp, but that can't be true" line and the psychiatrist's criticizing Roger for believing something being true is good/right (whatever it was). Hello, theme for the entire show that I never really noticed before.
He's talking about Peggy running things, like Heinz, and hiring Ginsburg basically with little input from him. Before Don was in every meeting, no matter how big or small. "Peggy can handle it" has become his new mantra. This only became this way as he starting running around everywhere with Megan.
I thought the Roger Acid Breakup sequence was one of the best written things I've ever seen on TV. I've never taken acid, but many of my friends have. I was really curious when the scene started how it would be portrayed (i.e. hopefully without the cliche camera tricks of melting faces and psychedelic colors). The behaviour matched exactly that which my acid taking friends have described. I especially loved that every time Roger opened the bottle of booze (his life blood) it play rousing music. I liked the honesty in the break-up conversation at the end of the trip. Did anyone notice that both of the fighting couples ended up lying on the floor, on their backs, with their bodies slightly at angles. (the Drapers after the fantastically staged chase around the apartment scene. [go back and watch Don chase her through the bedroom; she's at full speed]). I have taken heed of those who have expressed concern that MM was becoming too soapy. I disagree but have nonetheless observed signs in that direction. I though this most recent episode put any such concerns to rest. Top notch stuff. Regarding Bert Cooper's critique of Don. It would be interesting to see him emerge as a force. Unlike Roger who inherited his client, Bert must have some real advertising chops. We have only seen glimpses of his skills along the way. I'd like to see more of him.