346 replies to this topic

[Ken Stone]

Why is there such certainty that there will be a death of some sort this season?  I feel like I am missing something.

[Blaine]

I have no idea, either. One thing I like about this show is that it usually avoids big tropes like "major character death" or upends them completely. Not sure why everyone is going on about somebody dying this season.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Now I can't find it, but there's been rampant speculation that a "major character" will be whacked (to mix my show metaphors) this season.  Weiner or one of the writers may have said as much at some point.  I will check back through the earlier thread because I think it was mentioned there.

[Rhom]

Oh I think there's a good chance that a major character may leave the show... but "whacked" on Mad Men usually takes the form of pissing your pants in front of your co-workers or getting caught with your pants down in the embrace of a particularly forward bellhop.  I don't think anyone dies.

[Iskaral Pust]

I'm hoping the show does not careen into soap-opera territory.  The more violent tone echoing the cultural situation is one thing but I'm not interested in watching SCDP become Desperate Housewives.
I enjoy the show more when the talking points are the character development and interaction, not speculating on shark-jumping events.

[RaceBannon42]

If Peter isn't satistfied being married to Allison Brie, he's an idiot.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

I actually think, all speculation aside (including my own re Pete and Dark Betty), that if there is a death of a major character, it is likely to be sudden, random, off camera and not melodramatic.  Think how they handled Miss Blankenship and Pete's father. People seem to survive the melodramatic "medical" events on camera - foot severing, heart attacks, childbirth.  Maybe a car crash (given all the drunk driving that goes on, you know, maybe not that unlikely)?

[Francis Buck]

Mlle. Zabzie, on 10 May 2012 - 02:02 PM, said:

I actually think, all speculation aside (including my own re Pete and Dark Betty), that if there is a death of a major character, it is likely to be sudden, random, off camera and not melodramatic.  Think how they handled Miss Blankenship and Pete's father. People seem to survive the melodramatic "medical" events on camera - foot severing, heart attacks, childbirth.  Maybe a car crash (given all the drunk driving that goes on, you know, maybe not that unlikely)?

I agree with this. I actually if anyone major's going to die on the show (including in future seasons), it would be either Burt from old age and/or Roger from a heart-attack. Characters (if any) will die of normal -- even mundane -- illnesses, not double-murder-suicides. At least that's my bet.

[Harry the Heir]

I think it's easy to see how Betty could die without violating the tone of the show to date. Mad Men has always had a touch of soap opera, after all: Don has a secret past; Peggy had a baby without knowing she was pregnant; Joan is raising Roger's baby while telling everybody that it's her husband's; Anna Draper died of cancer without her family telling her that she was sick. And in addition to that, Mad Men has depicted some pretty absurd events under the guise of black comedy: Betty shot her neighbor's birds with an air rifle; a guy named Guy got his foot mangled by a lawnmower; Ms. Blankenship died at her desk and had to be wheeled out without the clients noticing. There are certainly limits to what the show can pull off without going against its nature--if Don had really strangled that woman, for example--but those limits are pretty generous.

So I think the show could do a major character death without jumping the shark or becoming too soap opera, and I think I've come with a likely scenario. (Way more people have died untimely death from cancer than have stolen a dead man's identity and lived the rest of their lives as an imposter.) But does there have to be a death of some sort? No, not at all. I don't think anything about the looming sense of potential catastrophe that MW had been building in the past eight episodes needs to be paid off with somebody dying or leaving the show. We could be looking at a business catastrophe for SCDP coupled with personal successes in Don's marriage; or there could be an optimistic ending with suggestions of dark clouds on the horizon; or any number of other things.

Edited by Harry the Heir, 10 May 2012 - 04:39 PM.

[Rhom]

Harry the Heir, on 10 May 2012 - 02:16 PM, said:

I think it's easy to see how Betty could without violating the tone of the show to date. Mad Men has always had a touch of soap opera, after all: Don has a secret past; Peggy had a baby without knowing she was pregnant; Joan is raising Roger's baby while telling everybody that it's her husband's; Anna Draper died of cancer without her family telling her that she was sick. And in addition to that, Mad Men has depicted some pretty absurd events under the guise of black comedy: Betty shot her neighbor's birds with an air rifle; a guy named Guy got his foot mangled by a lawnmower; Ms. Blankenship died at her desk and had to be wheeled out without the clients noticing. There are certainly limits to what the show can pull off without going against its nature--if Don had really strangled that woman, for example--but those limits are pretty generous.

So I think the show could do a major character death without jumping the shark or becoming too soap opera, and I think I've come with a likely scenario. (Way more people have died untimely death from cancer than have stolen a dead man's identity and lived the rest of their lives as an imposter.) But does there have to be a death of some sort? No, not at all. I don't think anything about the looming sense of potential catastrophe that MW had been building in the past eight episodes needs to be paid off with somebody dying or leaving the show. We could be looking at a business catastrophe for SCDP coupled with personal successes in Don's marriage; or there could be an optimistic ending with suggestions of dark clouds on the horizon; or any number of other things.

The only reason I don't see a business catastrophe on the horizon is because we saw that last season with Lucky Strike and the subsequent layoffs at SCDP.

[Harry the Heir]

Rhom, on 10 May 2012 - 02:34 PM, said:

The only reason I don't see a business catastrophe on the horizon is because we saw that last season with Lucky Strike and the subsequent layoffs at SCDP.

True enough. Although Don had that conversation with Ken's father-in-law where he says that a lot of companies won't work for Don now that he's bitten the hand that feeds. I'd be curious to know how that affects business going forward.

For similar reasons, I don't think that Megan and Don are splitting up this season. MW has said that guys like Don don't stay single for very long, because they're at loose ends living by themselves. So Megan leaving Don would basically mean that season 6 is a repeat of season 4.

Edited by Harry the Heir, 10 May 2012 - 02:39 PM.

[Baitac]

Whenever people are in cars I keep thinking: Seat belts!!! You are going to die!! So death by car is always a good possibility.

[Ouroboros]

Mlle. Zabzie, on 10 May 2012 - 02:02 PM, said:

I actually think, all speculation aside (including my own re Pete and Dark Betty), that if there is a death of a major character, it is likely to be sudden, random, off camera and not melodramatic.  Think how they handled Miss Blankenship and Pete's father.

Pete's father only died because the actor playing him passed away. It was written in very well, but hadn't been planned from the outset.

[Blaine]

Rhom, on 10 May 2012 - 02:34 PM, said:

The only reason I don't see a business catastrophe on the horizon is because we saw that last season with Lucky Strike and the subsequent layoffs at SCDP.

If only it worked that way in real life advertising. Usually, it's the opposite. But I agree, that doesn't look to be likely.

So far this show has worked best by playing opposite to what you'd expect. Such as the surprise and joy of starting SCDP. Who knows what is coming. I like it that way.

[Memory Lane]

Megan and Don's relationship seems more like they'll gradually drift apart as their passions pull them in separate directions. It would be kind of tragic - Don does everything to avoid a Betty-like situation where they're both unhappy and drifting apart, but ends up getting it anyways.

[Rhom]

RaceBannon42, on 10 May 2012 - 02:01 PM, said:

If Peter isn't satistfied being married to Allison Brie, he's an idiot.

My my...

[ZombieWife]

I also seem to recall reading somewhere that a main character would die this season.  I dunno.  If they actually had Betty on more this season, I might think it's her, but she's only been in one episode.

[Harry the Heir]

ZombieWife, on 11 May 2012 - 02:04 PM, said:

I also seem to recall reading somewhere that a main character would die this season.  I dunno.  If they actually had Betty on more this season, I might think it's her, but she's only been in one episode.

It seems like she was given a couple of months off for the pregnancy (in between episode 3, which was shot first, and episode 9), but she appears in the preview for next week's episode so we'll be seeing her again.

[ZombieWife]

Harry the Heir, on 11 May 2012 - 02:10 PM, said:

It seems like she was given a couple of months off for the pregnancy (in between episode 3, which was shot first, and episode 9), but she appears in the preview for next week's episode so we'll be seeing her again.

That's right!  

For some reason, your post sparked my memory on something else.  Airing May 14th on Bravo, Mad Men on Inside the Actor's Studio.  EW article here: http://www.ew.com/ew...1154788,00.html

[Memory Lane]

I really liked that episode, although I think opinion will be divided here. It was a bit heavy-handed in its theme of "Getting back what was lost".

1. Don was half of this episode's story, and now he's starting to look familiar*. Suddenly, the home life he was so happy about with Megan is showing cracks, shown by the scenes near the beginning where he's dissatisfied and edgy. His desperation to get back his "edge" in advertising showed as well, whether it was coming up with the devil slogan, or deliberately sabotaging Ginsberg's campaign pitch in order to promote his own. He's come face-to-face with the fact that he's on the outside, rapidly losing his ability to understand the world he's working in, and he has to fight back.

He also gets some of the better one-liners in this episode. That line "I don't think about you at all" was particularly nasty, and reminiscent of the remark he made on the record about Ted Chaough back in Season 4, Episode 5. In both cases, he was deliberately getting under the skin of the other person, by taking away what they craved the most: his recognition (Ginsberg in particular applied for SCDP because he wanted to work with Don).

* The scene with the aborted phone call to Betty was definitely vintage Don Draper/Dick Whitman, what with the desperation and the "who told you to say anything?" attitude. He's not quite to where he used to be, back when work was his "real" life and the home life with Betty just a sham he kept going, but he's sliding back in that direction.

2. I felt sorry for Ginsberg, who got a rather rude and nasty form of sabotage done to him (I suspect Blaine would have more specifics about how bad/normal Don's behavior was). All the same, it's understandable why no one was exactly shedding tears when it happened to him, and I think I'm starting to understand why he's only been doing short periods of work at the agencies he's been working for before SCDP. He's talented, but so arrogant and abrasive that he quickly drives anyone else around him away.

3. It was interesting what they did with Roger in this episode. We see him at the beginning, all smiles and relaxed "Professor Emeritus of Accounts" . . . until Bert Cooper brings him on board a secret project to help a client without letting Pete Campbell know about it. "Sterling Campbell Draper Pryce" indeed - even Bert's starting to feel nervous about Pete. At which point, Roger starts falling back into the old patterns, making an unwise mistake with Jane reminiscent of his mistaken attempts to start things up again with Joan in Season 4. The only good thing he ultimately did was realizing what he'd done at the very end. He's certainly come a long way from the man in Season 3 who turned away an old fling who all but threw herself at him.

4. Poor Peggy - even she's starting to feel a little nervous about her position in the wake of Ginsberg's arrival (she was definitely pleased to see him get egg on his face with the whole Snowball business). I loved her remark to Roger about how it was unfair that she didn't get the secret project just because she's not Jewish - she's not an airplane either, and she did Mohawk.   Perhaps that was Roger's payback for her putting him through the ringer back when he was desperate to re-establish himself and prove that Campbell wasn't just going to shove him aside.

5. Betty was the other half of the storyline focusing on the theme of "getting back what you've lost", and it was even less subtle than Don's scenes. She's literally trying to get back her former self by participating in Weight Watchers, and struggling with her weight in often comical fashion (seriously, someone needs to make a GIF of Betty shooting whip cream into her mouth straight out of the can). More symbolically, she's jealous of Megan's youth, fit body, relationship with her children, the life that she gave up when she divorced Don (including the fantastic new apartment), and she's starting to wonder if she bet on the wrong horse (continuing the ending bit from the Season 4 finale with Don in the kitchen). It was helpful of Henry just to say that outright, and hilarious to see Betty use the Weight Watchers pitch on him in return.

Of course, being Betty, she responded to her envy of Megan and Don's life by trying to undermine their happiness. Don ended up handling that pretty well, and the whole stupid, childish, petty plan blew up in Betty's face. Am I a bad person for liking that it happened that way?

6. Harry returned, unhappy as expected. I can't imagine him actually leaving, though - he's too much of a lazy coward to change either his increasingly dysfunctional home life, or his stagnant work life. So he stays in place.

7. Still no sign of Lane Pryce. Someone really needs to call NYPD.

8. What can I say about Pete, other than that he's his usual arrogant self? He did get a pretty steamy scene there with Insurance Guy's Wife, but it turned out to be just a fantasy. I loved how he made an inside joke at the Insurance Guy's expense, without the latter having a clue as to what's going on. I can't wait until that sleazy prick finds out that his wife has been cheating on him, with the guy he sits with everyday to boot. If the actor is solid, then the look on his face will be priceless.

9. An environmental theme showed up in this episode, in the form of the Super-Bad Smog. The late 1960s was in the very nascent period of environmentalism, with Silent Spring having been out for several years. It's not the first time that differences in views towards the environment have showed up (remember the picnic scene where they left the trash on the grass?), but it's still very noticeable.

Edited by Lane Pryce, 14 May 2012 - 01:34 AM.