mad men

[Rhom]

Actually, Burt Peterson's been mentioned on the show a couple of times in season two; Pete and Duck both hated him. I had gotten the impression that he was in the accounting department, but I guess he was another account executive who got moved up to the head position, only to prove that he couldn't handle it.

Ah. I must have missed that as I was rewatching.

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

So apparently "Out of Town" received series-high ratings, growing by 34% overall over "For Those Who Think Young" and 71% among 18-49. Counting all three airings on Sunday night, the episode pulled in 4 million viewers. Conventional wisdom says that Mad Men is cancel-proof regardless because it's AMC's flagship and helps establish the credibility that permits them to attract other high quality projects, but I still find it reassuring when Mad Men keeps breaking records for the network.

[Blaine]

I find that interesting in light of Sal and Don's moment last night. Don obviously knows what he saw, but surprises Sal by never adressing it. Obviously Don has been living a lie for so long, he is willing to overlook the lies other people tell. (I liked Don's throwaway line last night about his birthday and that seeing his driver's license wouldn't help.)

All in all, not a bad episode at all. Glad the season is up and running.

Don and Sal's little trip was a typical Mad Men symbolism. Both men more comfortable living a manufactured lie than being who they really are. Both easily assume new fake identities for the fun of it, while in the company of three people in uniform - forced to wear their identification. Don's killer line to the stewardess points to his acceptance of his dual nature - "I've been married for years. You get plenty of chances."

So, I wasn't much surprised to see how he accepted Sal's secret. Also how subtly he let him know that it wasn't an issue. While pitching an ad concept to update London Fog's image to be more like the giant bottle ad they mocked earlier. It's what he does.

I loved the fact that this episode dealt so much with Sterling Cooper. Seeing Peggy trash talk her secretary like one of the guys was great. But Pete really stole the show with his perfect "rich kid denied the shiny toy he wanted" behavior. Ad agencies tend to be very, very competitive and situations like this are common. I was associate creative director over half the accounts at my last agency.. and you're damn right I want to prove I deserved all of them. And that's exactly why it was set up that way.

[Rhom]

Sarah Palin/JQ Adams has beaten me to it... I had seriously been considering a change of my avatar to a big close up of Pete's face. The dancing Peter Dyckman-Campbell is even better. :rofl:

I loved the fact that this episode dealt so much with Sterling Cooper. Seeing Peggy trash talk her secretary like one of the guys was great. But Pete really stole the show with his perfect "rich kid denied the shiny toy he wanted" behavior.

I agree that is good stuff. I also liked the Brit secretary. When Peggy called him Moneypenny, I literally laughed out loud. He also coined a great phrase for the office when he called it a "Joanocracy." It was humorous to see him try to take credit for Joan's idea to shuffle him off to the side and then get shot down and told to continue carousing with the other secretaries.

[Blaine]

Another great line, of course from Cooper: "I don't care. London Fog is a great name."

[Mathis]

He also coined a great phrase for the office when he called it a "Joanocracy." It was humorous to see him try to take credit for Joan's idea to shuffle him off to the side and then get shot down and told to continue carousing with the other secretaries.

I thought he said gynocracy. It threw me a bit as it quite demonstrably isn't. Joanocracy makes more sense.

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

I thought he said gynocracy. It threw me a bit as it quite demonstrably isn't. Joanocracy makes more sense.

I think he said gynocracy, but was thinking of Joan. In any case, I think this is a distraction from the real issue, which is when Joan and Hooker will start sleeping together. I think that's going to happen pretty soon.

Blaine:

To defend my namesake a little bit, I think most people would be pissed off by the way that Lane Pryce misled him and allowed him to get his hopes up. That wasn't just entitlement causing his tantrum. That said, he should have swallowed his anger and moved on, because life's not fair, etc., etc., but that's not the sort of thing that Pete's ever been good at.

[Nichole]

I like the episode, but agree with Rhom, it is really just setting everything up. I thought there was going to be a year 1/2 difference between the end of last season and the start of this one. I'm trying to figure out my historical time line, but are they going to end up covering the Kennedy assassination? I thought Weiner didn't want to do that.

Also, where is Duck? Is he still at Sterling Cooper? Did I miss something?

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

I like the episode, but agree with Rhom, it is really just setting everything up. I thought there was going to be a year 1/2 difference between the end of last season and the start of this one. I'm trying to figure out my historical time line, but are they going to end up covering the Kennedy assassination? I thought Weiner didn't want to do that.

We have no way of knowing that right now. If season three covers as much time as one and two, then the finale would take place in December. But

Also, where is Duck? Is he still at Sterling Cooper? Did I miss something?

They never say, but the implication from the end of last season is that Duck was let go after his power play failed in the finale last year.

[Blaine]

To defend my namesake a little bit, I think most people would be pissed off by the way that Lane Pryce misled him and allowed him to get his hopes up. That wasn't just entitlement causing his tantrum. That said, he should have swallowed his anger and moved on, because life's not fair, etc., etc., but that's not the sort of thing that Pete's ever been good at.

Oh, Pete got screwed. But it's Advertising and he needs to learn to deal with it. You lose clients, you lose talent, you lose everything to a rival eventually at some point in your career.

But that's what makes Pete great is that we get to see him wear his heart so clearly on his sleeve. Particularly in regards to wanting respect and jealousy. Ken got a story published? I want to write a story and get is published. But the way that Kartheiser (and the directors and writers, etc) finds a way to bring this entitlement to life is always both despicable and relatable. I always love a good Pete story.

How Ken is handling the co-promotion is interesting too. It's always interesting to me whether Ken is naive or a better game player than he looks. One minute he's goofy, then next he's revealing a depth that you'd never guess is there. Is he really refusing to be competitive? Or is he just better at winning than Pete?

So hopefully we'll see interesting arcs out of both of them this season.

[Nichole]

They never say, but the implication from the end of last season is that Duck was let go after his power play failed in the finale last year.

That's what I thought, but wasn't sure if I had missed something where it was mentioned.

[Blaine]

That's what I thought, but wasn't sure if I had missed something where it was mentioned.

Nope. But I'm starting to get used to the idea that each season opener requires a bit of catch up, due to the jump forward in time. This jump having only been 6 months or so, wasn't as bad as last year (Where's Peggy's baby 2 years later?)- but some stuff is going to have been resolved and moved on - like Duck.

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

For what it's worth, in the interview I linked to above, Matt Weiner says that the plot of this season relies a lot less on trying to figure what happened during the six month gap, saying that "Things get chaotic so quickly, and there are so many more immediate problems. There is a high level of tension pretty soon." So I wouldn't expect Duck's absence to be a lingering mystery.

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

Found myself thinking of the scene where Lane Pryce is staring at Cooper's copy of The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife. Cooper says that it reminds him of "our business," and then asks, "Who is this man who imagined her ecstasy?" Then Don walks in, and Cooper says to him, "We were just talking about you."

I feel like there's something here that I don't understand yet. Anybody have any thoughts?

[lumer]

I spent most of last week watching the first two seasons of this series, and just watched the first episode of season three. Not much to add other than the fact I loved this show, and to say I really enjoyed the discussions over here. Hopefully I'll contribute more now that I see the series in real time (well almost, takes me a few hours).

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

Spoilers for "Love Among The Ruins" to follow:

The season three premiere didn't throw me at all, but I felt lost at sea for the first act of "Love Among The Ruins", completely unable to get a handle on what the argument over the Ann-Margret/Patio ad was, which had me distracted during the scenes to follow. Caught the episode again at eleven and realized my problem: to my mind, Peggy's take on Ann-Margret is so clearly right--her voice is shrill, the song is insipid, etc.--that I had trouble grasping her as an image of male fantasy. I'm happy to believe that in 1963 men saw her differently, but the cultural gap between 1963 and now was too much for me on this issue.

Missing that, I also didn't catch (until Keith Phipps of the Onion AV Club pointed it out) that Ann-Margret's number at the beginning of the episode and the dance around the Maypole at the end are two illustrations of Don's pitch to the Madison Square Gardens people: “Let’s also say that change is neither good or bad. It simply is. It can be greeted with terror or joy. A tantrum that says, ‘I want it the way it was’ or a dance that says, ‘Look, it’s something new.’†Don is clearly ready for some change in his life; just last week he was bemoaning how he keeps going places and winding up someplace he's already been. To him, Ann-Margret's song is so pure that it makes his heart hurt, and the promise of renewal embodied in the Maypole dance is clearly very moving to him. (I don't understand the people who took his reaction to be sexual. Yes, the teacher is attractive, but the way she's presented could not be more virginal.) He has a lot invested in the idea that everything could be made new again. I, um, don't think that's going to work out well for him.

I thought Peggy's storyline was interesting too. I like the paradox of how the men treat her: she's valued because she knows What Women Want and hence can sell domestic products like diet soda and popsicles; at the same time, her expertise will not trump their conviction that a woman's primary goal is to be whatever a man wants them to be. (This was Paul's logic when Peggy objected to the Jackie/Marilyn ad in "Maidenform" last year, and it's Don's logic in his scene tonight.) I think her reaction--to pick up a grade-A loser for a one-night-stand as a quick ego boost after being shut down at work--made a lot of sense; and like Don, she uses a different persona to get laid, in this case the role of ditzy secretary sufficiently unthreatening that even Mr. "My Momma Says I'm Still Growin'!" doesn't feel emasculated.

Betty's storyline was probably my favorite, largely because it had that great sequence from when Don comes home to see William plunging the sink for some reason to Don using his powers for good instead of evil to the final conversation with Gene where he looks positively stricken, understanding despite Betty's euphemisms that he has become more child than parent. It's a great, instantly identifiable storyline--my parents are still comfortably middle-aged, but I remember them agonizing over a lot of the same decisions w/r/t my grandparents--but it flows very naturally from what we already knew about the characters.

(For instance, we already knew from "The Inheritance" that Betty suspects William and Judy of taking her mother's things without consulting her, so her suspicion that he's after the house has precedent. I think she might be on to something here too. William first suggests selling his house to pay for his father's stay at the nursing home, which would of course "force" him to take up residence in the family home. He then suggests just moving into the house full stop to care for the man. He never offers to host his father in his own home, or even explains what that would be impossible, which strikes me as suspicious. I bet that William, who seems to believe that he's been under his father's thumb for thirty years while Betty has been lucky enough to escape, sees the family home as his reward for being "the good son.")

Re: Roger's storyline, I'm suddenly self-conscious about how long this post has grown, and so I'll just say that I'm curious to see where that goes, and it looks like we'll find out more next episode.

[Rhom]

I spent most of last week watching the first two seasons of this series, and just watched the first episode of season three. Not much to add other than the fact I loved this show, and to say I really enjoyed the discussions over here. Hopefully I'll contribute more now that I see the series in real time (well almost, takes me a few hours).

Glad to have another person who can appreciate the show on the thread. We seem to have lost a few of the regular commentators from the beginning of season two. Our discussions usually last through the first few days of the week at least.

Spoilers for "Love Among The Ruins" to follow:

The season three premiere didn't throw me at all, but I felt lost at sea for the first act of "Love Among The Ruins", completely unable to get a handle on what the argument over the Ann-Margret/Patio ad was, which had me distracted during the scenes to follow. Caught the episode again at eleven and realized my problem: to my mind, Peggy's take on Ann-Margret is so clearly right--her voice is shrill, the song is insipid, etc.--that I had trouble grasping her as an image of male fantasy. I'm happy to believe that in 1963 men saw her differently, but the cultural gap between 1963 and now was too much for me on this issue.

I'll agree with that. I was confused by Peggy's story through most of the night. I was struck by how much her one night stand looked like Pete though.

Betty's storyline was probably my favorite, largely because it had that great sequence from when Don comes home to see William plunging the sink for some reason to Don using his powers for good instead of evil to the final conversation with Gene where he looks positively stricken, understanding despite Betty's euphemisms that he has become more child than parent. It's a great, instantly identifiable storyline--my parents are still comfortably middle-aged, but I remember them agonizing over a lot of the same decisions w/r/t my grandparents--but it flows very naturally from what we already knew about the characters.

Betty had some good moments last night. After the dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Pryce (she's a real peach), I liked to see her reaction on the car ride. In my head I was contrasting it with last season where she felt like a power couple after dinner with the Barretts. Now she resents having to go to things like this. I also liked the scene at the end where Don stands there watching Gene pour the liquor down the sink (nice touch that), and seemed to be coming to a realization of what he has brought on.

Re: Roger's storyline, I'm suddenly self-conscious about how long this post has grown, and so I'll just say that I'm curious to see where that goes, and it looks like we'll find out more next episode.

I'd say we will, but we are already getting a strong wiff of it in this episode. Everyone seems to be against him. Betty was very cold towards him, even Don seemed to have a slight standoffishness when discussing Jane. (I liked when Mona called her "June.")

My favorite line of the night was "If you're going to call me down here everytime we lose an account, I'll wear the carpet out." Classic Cooper.

So far, I havn't felt like the season has taken me anywhere. I'm anxious to get into the real meat of the story and have something to follow. We've had two very well written and acted episodes as per the norm, but I havn't felt connected to them yet. Also, I think last night was the most commercials I've ever seen in one episode of Mad Men.

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

Betty had some good moments last night. After the dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Pryce (she's a real peach), I liked to see her reaction on the car ride. In my head I was contrasting it with last season where she felt like a power couple after dinner with the Barretts. Now she resents having to go to things like this.

Well, I think part of it is because Mrs. Pryce was a cold fish, and part of it is because she was already distracted thinking about her father so she wasn't in the best of moods. But speaking of Mrs. Pryce, one of the funniest scenes of the night was Lane and Don pretending for courtesy's sake that their wives really hit it off.

I'd say we will, but we are already getting a strong wiff of it in this episode. Everyone seems to be against him. Betty was very cold towards him, even Don seemed to have a slight standoffishness when discussing Jane. (I liked when Mona called her "June.")

That's certainly true. I love that Roger seizes on the opportunity to unload all this to Peggy, mainly because she's too polite to tell him that she's not really interested. It makes me think once again exactly how much Roger managed to screw himself over, both by leaving Mona and by pushing this merger. Roger's never done a huge amount of work at Sterling Cooper, particularly last year, and now that he's no longer a senior partner and doesn't have a lot of friends willing to go to bat for him, he could be in serious professional trouble.

So far, I havn't felt like the season has taken me anywhere. I'm anxious to get into the real meat of the story and have something to follow. We've had two very well written and acted episodes as per the norm, but I havn't felt connected to them yet. Also, I think last night was the most commercials I've ever seen in one episode of Mad Men.

Every Mad Men season takes a little while to get into the real meat of the story, though. In terms of the story structure, it seems like they like to have a few episodes introducing the new situation, and then things take a turn around episode five and start getting more intense, and then they take another turn around episode eight. Given the graceful way that they brought together all the disparate storylines last season, I'm willing to be patient and let things unfold.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

1. It struck me (again) how childlike Betty is. She didn't solve her problems with her brother, Don did (even after she and her brother had made a big deal about how the solution was none of his wife's and her husband's business). Now, she will be watching her father becoming more childlike as his (presumably) Alzheimer's progresses.

2. I thought Peggy's storyline was extremely interesting. One of the best, and most uncomfortable moments was when she stood in front of the mirror and sang "Bye Bye Birdie" a la Ann Margaret. She looked like she was trying it on for size, almost as if she wanted it. At the end, you could tell she felt uncomfortable with it and uncomfortable with herself - she cannot release herself into unrestrained (shrill) joy like that, even in her nightgown, alone, in front of a mirror. I almost thought she embarked on the one night stand almost as research for work. She wants to be Don. This is what Don does. Therefore she'll do it, and hopefully learn something that will make her more sucessful.

3. I thought that Sterling's conversation with Peggy was very interesting. In particular, his rhetorical - "what would it take for you to not want your father at your wedding?" When she answers that he's dead (a complete non-answer) he assumes Peggy would do anything to have him there - because that's the way he sees himself, irreplaceable. We were wondering whether he is being forced out of the agency by the Brits (never seems to have anything to do lately - Don remarks on it before they pitch the MSG guys) and part of the theme in the coming eps will be that he's very replacable (by daughter, by Mona, by the agency, etc.).