Mad Men

[Mike Kelly]

Wow, Tee, I didn't think anyone would have remembered "The Sadness of a Happy Time" That particular episode from the excellent Run for Your LIfe series aired soon after I had moved from NY to Miami. Just turning 18, I flew back to NYC every chance I got. Needless to say, I was feeling disassociated and down that first year and that episode struck a chord that resonated for a long time. I think I'll dig out my vinyl of "Claudine" and give it a spin. Mad Men continues to find connections to those of my generation that I didn't think were possible.

[Mister Tee]

I'm behind on commenting here.

I was mixed on the previous week's effort. I wasn't sure the Pulp Fiction-y time scramble really suited the show (or the plot materials of the specific episode), and it created unnecessary confusion early on -- when Don popped in Peggy's meeting and started rambling about Howard Johnson's, I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. I appreciate that they wanted to follow each story strand to its conclusion without interruption and yet still have the show cover only a short period. But I didn't feel enough payoff from that.

On the other hand, Peggy's sexual sideshow during Born Free was a kick, and Roger's acid trip was divine, so the show was hardly without its pleasures.

But I found this past week's episode overall more engaging. The mothers-and-daughters theme was explored with a whole panoply of relationships, and the show ended with what Greg has already pointed out as a wow. (It also led to what Andrew Sullivan has properly called one of the greatest editorial corrections ever. From Slate yesterday: "An earlier version of the story said Sally ate the fish after the blow job. It was just prior")

People have, for good reason, questioned Don and Megan as a couple, but I think during the restaurant scene they made spectacularly beautiful music together. Megan seemed to feed him his intro lines like a rehearsed pro, and as a result we got to see Don at his pitching best -- the Heinz sale brought to mind the Carousel pitch from Season One. A couple that can work together like that -- with Don appreciating it; knowing Megan has saved the firm's ass on multiple levels -- might have more staying power than most have been assuming.

The Peggy/Abe breakup?/marriage?/shack-up progression was very interesting (not least because it gave us two wonderful Peggy/Joan scenes). In Peggy I think we have someone who's struggling to navigate between the way her censorious mother has raised her and the new way she sees ahead for her (and all women) in that era. The mother-influenced strand can't help but want the validation of marriage, and be a bit let down when Abe suggests something a bit less grand. But the experimenter in her realizes she's young, and that Abe may be great for her right now but doesn't, in the long run, suggest he ideal lifetime companion. So, living together on some level seems the perfect choice...even though by the standards of the time it's a radical one (it became a less radical choice over the next decade or two, and pretty much the norm since...I don't know...the 80s?...but only because people like Peggy paved the way).

And finally we get a show with alot of Sally, leading up to her rather too rapid initiation into the adult world. There's a slightly sick element to that last portion of the show...Roger, in retrospect, almost seems to have been using Sally for foreplay before consummating with Megan's mom. For Sally, the (neatly symbolic) opened door was a shocker. It nicely caught that moment I think alot of us may have experienced somewhere along the way in youth: You want desperately to grow up, but in the process you once or twice hit some aspect for which you're just not ready, and you pull back -- as Sally did -- in shock and disgust (even though a few years on it'll be a perfectly regular part of your life).

Coolest utterly minor cultural touchstone: the background music during the first scene at Don & Megan's apartment was a Jobim composition that I instantly remembered being sung by Claudine Longet on a memorable episode of Run for Your Life that year, entitled The Sadness of a Happy Time. Run for Your Life, for those not around then, was a pretty highly regarded variation on The Fugitive, with Ben Gazzara diagnosed with a terminal but somehow not disabling disease, rambling around the country trying to live as much as he can before he croaks. Longet played his love interest in, I believe, a two-part episode that was pretty well remembered. I wonder if we were meant to link the two French ladies (Longet and Megan's mother). Longet, again for those not following in real time, was a minor actress, more known for being married to Andy Williams...until 1976, when she "accidentally" shot and killed her skier/lover Spider Sabich. Lethality behind Megan's mother might have been intended here.

By the way, the Longet incident led to one of the great early Saturday Night Live sketches, the Claudine Longet Invitational Ski Tournament. ("Killy is flying down the slopes. He's going to win this race -- oh, but now he's accidentally shot by Claudine Longet!")

[Greg]

The final scene at the awards banquet where everyone silently stares ahead was just priceless.

[flipp525]

I found this episode very unsettling, but also kind of brilliant. The whole season so far has had this creepy sense of foreboding. Each episode feels like a horror film even when nothing outright bad happens complete with imagery to go along with it (the Speck murders, Don doodling a noose, Pete watching mangled bodies in a car safety video, etc). It's a nice way of subtly acknowledging the turbulent times that are about to take over the social structure of America.

It's pretty obvious that Peggy was trying to be Don in that meeting, but basically failed. If Don had said the same things she did to the Heinz client, he would've listened and probably capitulated. Don's absence from the meeting was conspicuous and unacceptable. Bert calling him out on not being present at work was something that really needed to happen. Was it Bobbie Barrett in Season 2 who told Peggy that she would never be Don and once she realized that, the sky was the limit? That moment came back to me during this episode.

What was the significance of Peggy watching Born Free? A contrast to Ginsberg being born in a camp and born, well, not free? It was fascinating to see her reaction to his news that he was born in a concentration camp and had been subsequently adopted from a Swedish orphanage at the age of five. What a crazy, tragic story. I had to remind myself that talking about the Holocaust was not really part of the national conversation at this time, so her cluelessness about the possibility of a baby being born in one was right on the money. I think he might've also re-opened the wound of giving up her own baby.

The complete recreation of a 1966 Howard Johnson's was quite impressive. But what might've been moreso was how sinister it ended up becoming. The imagery of the HoJo's was also far more psychedelic than any of the visuals the trippers were encountering. I also found it odd that they were not thirsty or anything the next morning. After doing LSD (or during because it tastes like nectar of the gods), you need orange juice when you wake up pretty much STAT.

Roger's LSD trip was surprisingly just what he needed to gain the clarity on his relationship with Jane (who obviously revealed way more than she thought she would during their trip). In a time with very few pre-nups, she's right: this is going to be quite expensive for Roger. Interesting revelation that she's most likely Jewish (as she was speaking Yiddish when high). I think this is the one episode where I truly liked her--and it looks like it could be her last. I thought the note "My name is Roger Sterling and I'm on LSD" combined with the missing Megan for half the episode also contributed to this unsettling "missing persons" feel that was introduced in "Mystery Date". On a ligher note, I absolutely laughed out loud when Roger's cigarette "tromboned" and then quickly rewound the scene about three times. That was absolutely hilarious.

Don and Megan's relationship is very odd. He is very much a part of the old guard and she's liberated. Doesn't seem like a recipe for a lasting marriage, especially as the social structures of America, so firmly in place previously, begin to loosen and finally dissolve altogether.

Another sly parallel: Peggy freaked out over not being able to find the violet candies Don had given her for good luck while Megan rejected the orange sherbet because it tasted like perfume. Also, contrast Megan shoveling orange sherbet in that totally unhinged scene with the saintly way she dealt with Sally's spilled strawberry milkshake in California last season. (I'll admit that a friend of mine pointed that one out to me.)

Sally with Mickey Mouse ears!

[ksrymy]

So, are we taking bets on if/when Pete will eat his shotgun? I always thought it would be Roger, but maybe Pete's the Falling Man.

I've heard others saying that, with all the "out the window" comments Roger is making, Roger will throw himself out of the window. My only rebuttal is that Slattery is their best chance of winning an acting Emmy. With Margo Martindale gone and Archie Panjabi being the only winner still around for the Supporting Actress - Drama category, Hendricks could do it too (and especially two episodes ago).

I hate Pete. If they were to kill him, I'd be happy.

Chekhov's gun either insinuates suicide or that Pete will go on an office shooting (which he could turn on himself after it's over).

[flipp525]

So, are we taking bets on if/when Pete will eat his shotgun? I always thought it would be Roger, but maybe Pete's the Falling Man.

[Mister Tee]

This week's episode didn't have the intensity level of the previous week's -- at least, till we got to the Price/Campbell main event -- but it was a thing of beauty nonetheless. I'm amazed that a running series like this -- which has to worry about sustainable character arcs, and works with teams of writers -- can manage to turn out episodes that are as thematically layered as fine fiction. Last week, it the stranger at the door/girl under the bed imagery. This week, it was identity.

Did everyone notice how many ways names were referenced/played with? No one could remember Cynthia's name ("Well, hello...you!"); Ken Cosgrove had his multiple noms-de-plume; Pete brought up his family name, to try and impress the drivers ed girl; only Don correctly recalled Charles Whitman's name, because it was his own birth name (I was sure Weiner would be unable to resist a Whitman cite, but the Don connection slipped by me); we hear the history of how Cos Cob got its name...which, bringing the whole thing around, gives Cosgrove a name for his new story character, a stand-in for the episode's central figure: Pete Campbell. Whose identity is given athorough going-over in the course of the hour.

Last week we had Don's feverish imaginings, which we weren't sure were a dream till late in the episode. Here, we began with what sure looked to be a dream: Pete in a class eying a nubile teen, then a cut straight to him in bed. But, it wasn’t so: the entire episode is like a nightmare for Pete, but of the most painful waking kind. He's humiliated by everything: his failure to repair the sink; his classroom brush-off in favor of "Handsome"; the clear disapproval he reads in Don's eyes after the whorehouse scene (where he was only trying to BE like Don); and, of course, being decked at the hands of that Marquis of Queensbury-trained "homo". (A word that, in 1966 parlance, simply meant "less a man than me”)

In one sense, I was delighted to see Pete decked. Like Roger Sterling, I wanted to see this thing. (When Joan says, Everyone's wanted to do that to Pete Campbell, she could be speaking for much of the show's audience) Yet, when I saw him on the elevator at the close – battered and humiliated – I felt the most unreasonable sympathy. (It reminded me of a time back in grade school, when I’d had the satisfaction of seeing a guy I didn’t like humiliated. I don’t even recall the circumstance, but I remember vividly the look of full defeat on his face at the key moment, which evoked the same sort of bizarre sympathy I felt last night). Pete is a guy who's grown old without growing up -- doing things that are supposed to bring him credit in this world, but feeling no satisfaction from them. He’s absolutely lost out there in the suburbs – disconnected from his baby, unable to perform the one indispensable action (driving). His only recourse seems to be lashing out and demeaning others – which is what makes us dislike him (and pleased that, with Lane, he’s made the mistake of going after someone not inclined to brush it off). But I worry there’s worse to come. The evocation of his shotgun, the connection to Charles Whitman and his alienation…Pete seems an essential character to the show, but he could become a casualty. If so, this episode will have served as solid preamble.

And, as always, there’s plenty else going on apart from the mainline story line…even in throwaway bits:

The way the men sit at the dinner table relaxing while the womenfolk leap to handle the dishes is 100% true to the era.

Pete’s sales job on his hopelessly retro stereo (“like having an orchestra in your living room”) is one I heard innumerable times back then.

Joan’s delicate non-reaction to Lane’s kiss was perfectly handled. Even ambiguous.

Loved Trudy’s “you can’t bullshit me long enough to get out of this party, Don” phone call

I’m curious about who sold Ken out to Roger. Ken says he assumes it’s Pete, but, in most drama, when a character makes an assumption like that without us seeing it validated, it turns out false. (Is it likely, anyway, that, Pete would spend any time confiding in Roger? They’re barely speaking)

Don seemed unusually open about his past in this episode – debunking the country-mystique others were going on about by citing his rugged upbringing; telling the madam about his whorehouse roots. Don, on the whole, seemed the most grown-up character on the show. Just sitting at the bar in the brothel, he seemed more relaxed than the rest, despite (or perhaps because of) not partaking. Roger’s line summed it up: “Jesus, Draper – even here you’re doing better than us”.

Just a remarkable show.

[Greg]

"Because chewing gum was found on his pubis!" is one line I won't soon forget.

[Mike Kelly]

I thought it was clever that they cut away from Don's fever dream for a few other scenes, then came back to it. It made me question whether it really was a dream; at least until it became obvious. Well done.

[The Original BJ]

To chime in on Mister Tee's question, I'd never heard of the Richard Speck case before this episode of Mad Men.

In contrast, I remember hearing about Kitty Genovese as early as grade school.

I agree that this episode was terrific, and I too, miss Damien's thoughts as well.

[FilmFan720]

Is the Richard Speck slaughter still familiar, to those under a certain age?

In my twenty years on earth, I don't think there's been a serial killer that's gained national attention. Bundy had died down when I was quite young and I was all of, what, maybe five when Dahmer took over.

I'm very aware of who Richard Speck is (and was born in the 80s), but that could also be from living in Chicago. It seems like every few years it is brought up again in some discussion, or the news does a retrospective, or new news is found about it. If I didn't live here, I wouldn't remember it.

As for the past 20 years, I specifically remember the Andrew Cunanan case in the late 90s. And in college, we were all glued to the D.C. Sniper case.

[flipp525]

What was Ginsburg's dark version of Cinderella all about? Hobbling like wounded prey down a deserted side street, terrified, hearing Prince Charming's measured footsteps behind her. Hand on the shoulder, she turns, not caring what he looks like —she wants to be captured. Is this also about the nurses letting Speck in? Joan marrying the man who raped her? Peggy's ambivalence about "acting like a man?" Ginsburg knows that he doesn't understand women. Do any of the men in Weiner's universe? Do his women understand themselves?

There's a certain darkness to Ginsberg I find interesting. I've heard some theories bandied about that there's some Holocaust stuff in his family background, maybe involving the lack of a mother in the picture.

The look on Dawn's face as a result of Peggy's casual racism was heartbreaking.

Mama Fracis' lurid description of the Richard Speck murders was creepy, tantalizing, delicious, just everything. And all delivered in that creepy mausoleum. I love that Matt Weiner clearly seized upon how great this actress was last season in just that one episode and decided she should get more time to spread her wings this season.

"He Hit Me (And it Felt Like a Kiss)" was the perfect end song to this episode. I had only heard the Hole cover before; the original is much more haunting (since it lacks Courtney Love's obvious irony).

An absolutely fascinating episode and by far a series highlight.

By the way, I miss the thoughts that Damien would've had on this season so far. It just makes me feel his loss all over again.

[ksrymy]

Is the Richard Speck slaughter still familiar, to those under a certain age?

In my twenty years on earth, I don't think there's been a serial killer that's gained national attention. Bundy had died down when I was quite young and I was all of, what, maybe five when Dahmer took over.

But onto the episode. Jesus Christ, this is the most marvelous episode I've seen in quite some time. Against my better judgment, knowing full well that the first episodes of a season count for nothing, I was worried about season five. This episode brought everything back.

This will be Hendricks' Emmy episode. Marvelous marvelous marvelous.

I'm really liking how Roger is trying to undermine Pete by means of money.

And mercenary Peggy is fucking hot. Jesus Christ. "How much you got?" "$400." "I'll take it." "Jesus!" "Do you want to give me your watch too?" So great.

And Sally is really coming around. If the Emmys didn't have such an aversion to child actors, I'd say we could expect an Emmy nomination from her in the next three seasons.

[Greg]

The lovely, purely visual moment with the purse was so multi-layered: given that Peggy's announced how much money she has, it's perfectly logical she'd be wary of leaving her purse with someone she barely knew. But the fact that Dawn's black -- the cultural implication of not trusting HER -- makes Peggy feel so guilty she actually does more than she would for a comparable white person.

Based on the website http://www.usinflationcalculator.com the $400 Roger gave Peggy would be worth $2,800 today.

[Mister Tee]

The previous week's episode was fine, but didn't provoke alot of thought. Last night, however, was for me one of the strongest in a long time.

Is the Richard Speck slaughter still familiar, to those under a certain age? In my youth, it was emblematic of the era, alongside Kitty Genovese and the soon-to-come-in-Mad Men-years Charles Whitman rampage. It clearly formed the thematic basis of the entire episode, which was about violence against women and how it intertwined with the sexual desires/fantasies of both men and women. Even the imagery was consistent: "one girl under the bed" was used over and over, and the shot of the dream-victim ended with the same "one shoe" visual that had been the climax of the Cinderella ad. It's been a while since we've had an episode as completely layered and thematically coherent as this one.

Individual dramatic highlights:

Peggy lording it over Roger in negotiation. Hilarious to see Peggy so confident in her position.

Sally showing disbelief at her step-grandmother's "it was good for me" rationalizations of the abusive treatment she received from her father. Grandma Pauline -- and Joan's mother -- perfectly encapsulate the culture of submission (and, in Pauline's case, sexual guilt and loathing) from which the first feminists had to try and extricate themselves.

The Peggy/Dawn scene, a classic "trying to bond, but not really getting there" encounter. The lovely, purely visual moment with the purse was so multi-layered: given that Peggy's announced how much money she has, it's perfectly logical she'd be wary of leaving her purse with someone she barely knew. But the fact that Dawn's black -- the cultural implication of not trusting HER -- makes Peggy feel so guilty she actually does more than she would for a comparable white person.

Joan's stunning lash-out at Greg. She's been sitting on that assault for five seasons, and uses it at the absolute maximum moment of impact. Her marriage to Greg was the ultimate Mystery Date that turned out to have a Speck-ian outcome.

If anyone thought this show was declining, this should thoroughly disabuse them of the notion. What an episode.