Mad Men Season 6: Going the wrong way on a one way street

[Winterfell is Burning]

Yeah, I have to say I was cringing throughout. Like Roger with those two sisters it's something that probably seemed awesome in someone's head but just comes out as kinda pathetic.

I'm pretty sure Roger with the twins was supposed to be pathetic.

Best line:

"My mother can go to hell, and Ted can fly her there."

:lol:

Amen.

[Baitac]

Such a good series. My favorite scene was the airplane one. Ted wore awesome aviators and a great jacket with the cool collar. The order to get my shoes on your hands and knees reminded me of that awful scene on this past season's Girls. That was so uncomfortable to watch. My insightful line of the episode is the one that sort of said that it's easy to leave something behind when you are ashamed. I immediately thought of Don leaving Dick behind. That man is living with some shame. I'm wondering if he'll mix pills and alcohol and the season will end like it started, with that view from the floor and people around him yelling his name.

[delete this account pls]

I'm pretty sure Roger with the twins was supposed to be pathetic.

I think Don was meant to look that way this episode too. Or maybe more creepy than pathetic. Either way, I dont think the show intended Don to look sexy or anything in those scenes, it was ugly stuff. A pretty disturbing glimpse into Don's psyche. Sylvia dug it as a fantasy, but as it dragged on and it became apparent that this is how Don would like the world to work, she got the fuck out. Don has a similar attitude at work. He's late for the meeting and expects them to wait for him. But work is even less willing than Sylvia is to go along with that.

I thought it was telling Sylvia used the phrase "it's time to go home". Don can't do that because for him, his fantasies have been a part of his reality ever since Dick Whitman died. Don doesn't really have a home to go back to.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Yeah, the show is often subtle, but this time they weren't: the sex game being clearly a way of Don having control over something now that at work he's having less of it.

Also, the whole theme of the episode is that: he also tries to control Ted by outdrinking him. And there are many examples of Don trying to control the world and ultimately failing, because nobody can. With Sally becoming a teen, I imagine they'll explore that too eventually.

And as the show goes on, the effects of Don't tendencies make him gradually more toxic, but without being preachy, like The Sopranos could be about Tony, nor making him downright evil, like Walter White, since he obviously doesn't kill people or is a drug lord.

[Spring Bass]

I like the Mad Men Power Ranking for this episode:

3. Roger Sterling (last week: 4)

If Matthew Weiner suffers a total break with reality and decides to continue Mad Men for 14 more seasons, there may never again be a scene as delightful as Roger gleefully shitcanning previous Sterling Cooper redundancy Burt Peterson with extreme prejudice before he can so much as clack the metal balls on a desk toy. Getting to ax Burt again was probably the only demand Roger made when they were figuring out the broad strokes of the merger after the Chevy pitch.

"Remember Kenny Cosgrove? He's touring the plant right now." Those are some very stone-cold words to hear before being refired.

That was a pretty cold, smooth maneuver by Roger. Not only did he get the pleasure of re-firing Burt, but he also moved to completely cut Burt off from his client list before he even knew what was happening, and cut him off from the prospect of getting severance pay short of a breach-of-contract lawsuit (if any contract guaranteeing it exists for him). Burt was left with nothing but the knowledge that his former bosses at CGC thought so little of him that nobody bothered to defend him in the partners' meetings when his neck was on the block - and Roger's smug response to Burt threatening to take his clients with him means that the clients didn't care enough about his account management to not leave him for another SCDPCGC accounts man.

Bob Benson was smarter. He immediately realized the significance of being assigned to a man who was being terminated with extreme prejudice, which was no doubt why he was lurking in position to help Joan when he saw that something was wrong. Unlike Burt Peterson, he understood that if you're not involved in the top-level decision-making, you either need to make yourself irreplaceable, or you need someone vested in your continued employment at the firm. When his neck was the block, someone spoke for him.

Which is not to say that I don't think he's a nice guy. I get the impression that he's picked up a talent for wheedling stuff out of people when he's found himself in a position with very little power, considering how he handled the nurse at the hospital. It's like a kind of survivalist servility.

EDIT: Pheww! I think that's the last edit I'll make on the post.

[Castel]

I'm pretty sure Roger with the twins was supposed to be pathetic.

I know? I'm saying that you could see how someone like Roger would think it would be an awesome moment in his head (and hell, on another show it might have been ) and it just comes out all wrong.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Bob Benson is a bit of a conundrum for me. I'm beginning to think that Weiner is throwing us a decent, but human person, rather than a deeply flawed, but human person. That is, I think Bob has his unlikeable bits (his kiss-a$$ing being the most prominent), but I'm beginning to think that maybe he's just overall decent. I wonder what Ken Cosgrove was like at the very beginning of his career. It would almost be a twist. We keep expecting people not to be decent. Having someone being fundamentally decent is almost a fake out.

On Peggy, I know high schools were better in the 50s (particularly in New York) than they are today, but Peggy has, IIRC high school + secretarial college. It seems to me that she's been doing some reading on the side perhaps (I'm thinking about the Napoleon trivia in particuarl)? She's clearly well-read otherwise (she gets various literary allusions - think about her wanting to play on Marc Antony's famous soliloquoy for headphones -, and her "Something" by Emerson fantasy was choice ep before last), but I'm realizing that a lot of it is self-motivated. Peggy is driven and intellectually curious, it appears. . . . The only other person who appears to be becoming intellectually curious here is Don, also a self-educated man. We see him reading Dante (at Sylvia's behest), then stealing The Last Picture Show from her as well. It's an interesting parallel, and a literary counterpoint to the TV focus of lots of other people, including Ted Chaough (the "Gilligan's Island" theory of the universe).

[Castel]

Yeah, I've always seen Benson as a person who's just a teensy bit too hungry and willing to kiss ass, nothing more. I don't recall him having done anything to make me suspect that he has hidden depths.

Although, if he was just being nice this episode, it'd be ironic that that act saved him while his attempts to cosy up to Pete and Don got him about five seconds worth of resistance.

[Iskaral Pust]

I'm torn on my interpretation of Don's dom-mode. Was he expressing a desire for control and mixing it with his office power play, or did he want to feel needed (Sylvia's phone call that she needs him and nothing else will do) or was he even trying to drive her away (her marital situation could make her want more and he wanted to head that off)? But the second and third options clash with his needy "please" at the end. I lean toward the first but there is some significance to the overheard fight, the resonance of Sylvia's plea and the awkwardness of how the domination actually played out.

I'm glad Joan's medical condition was not more serious. Such a great character. I kept thinking that they could not possibly try to write her out.

I like Ted and Don's chemistry more and more. Peggy used to provide the contrast to show Don getting further out of touch but Ted does it even better. And Peggy's warning/plea to Don crystallized her shifted loyalty and perception of her former mentor. Ted's conversation with chemo-guy give us a nice window to this thoughts without needing a mockumentary exposition. Ted as a more modern guy kind of represents the audience's attempts to understand and articulate Don.

Pete's whiny petulance, impotence and anxiety contrasted with Roger taking action to defuse his own anxiety. Considering how much anxiety we see, it's not clear that a merger is all that beneficial. You have to drop conflicting accounts, the Chevy win is only for a specific new model so if may not be a long term client, and you lose talent as you remove redundancy. There may be efficiency to merging (I know the ad world went through waves of consolidation in recent decades) but there doesn't seem to be much incentive for the individuals to go along with it.

I'm on the fence about Benson. He was obviously concerned for his job but he seemed sincere as he helped Joan. More sincere than his previous ass-kissing. I like the point someone made about submissive survival. This show focuses a lot on power struggles at the top but it rarely looks at how junior members in a system must build power gradually from a position of weakness. Benson is showing a different approach from Peggy, Joan, Harry, etc.

We need more Ginsberg. He's very under-used after the promise of last season. It seems like Ted will now be the challenge to Don's talent status.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

I'm curious to see how Ginsberg/Peggy plays out. She's copy chief, but Ginsberg thinks pretty highly of himself. I wonder whether there will be a reflection of the Ted/Don struggle as between Ginsberg and Peggy?

[Francis Buck]

Having re-watched the last episode, I'm feeling more and more like this whole season is really about the total deconstruction (and perhaps destruction) of Don Draper. Or at least, the "illusion" of Don Draper that Dick Whitman has created. Little by little, different parts of his image are falling apart, and the people around him are starting to recoil. His relationship with Sylvia has probably been the ugliest and (and in a way the most desperate) of his affairs in the series. I find it interesting that after a season of Don trying to stay faithful, he basically goes all out in his affair with Sylvia. It has the vibe of a drug addict going clean, only to relapse and become even worse than before. There's also an almost systematic ruining, removing, or at the very least tainting of his relationships with other people. Sylvia, Peggy, Megan, Joan, even his kids. Who does he have left now? And where does the character go from here? I'm certain that Weiner has a "plan" for Don...you can see the arc forming, especially now that we're nearing the end, but the future is still very murky.

[Tears of Lys]

Bear in mind that I haven't actually seen the entire episode yet, just bits of it in between Game of Thrones and Survivor. But as I was sitting here trying to work ( :P) I thought about how despicable Don is that he is sleeping with the wife of someone whom he apparently admires and likes, when it came to me that this last episode wherein he seems to really want to degrade Sylvia - is it that he feels so inferior to the doctor that the thought that he can do this to the doctor's wife is what is turning him on?

Is Don so filled with self-hatred at this point that anyone he may look up to he's got to bring down to make himself feel better?

ETA: Oh, and I meant to say to Francis Buck, yeah, he's going nowhere good very fast. He's picking up speed in his fall.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Bear in mind that I haven't actually seen the entire episode yet, just bits of it in between Game of Thrones and Survivor. But as I was sitting here trying to work ( :P) I thought about how despicable Don is that he is sleeping with the wife of someone whom he apparently admires and likes, when it came to me that this last episode wherein he seems to really want to degrade Sylvia - is it that he feels so inferior to the doctor that the thought that he can do this to the doctor's wife is what is turning him on?

Is Don so filled with self-hatred at this point that anyone he may look up to he's got to bring down to make himself feel better?

ETA: Oh, and I meant to say to Francis Buck, yeah, he's going nowhere good very fast. He's picking up speed in his fall.

I like this theory and analysis. It's interesting - it fits in with his increasing alienation from the times. He's more and more focused on Don and less and less focused on the real world (which is leaving him behind - he STILL wears a hat, for instance). He's fundamentally a conservative (similar to Peggy in some ways) - he doesn't like change, but change is happening all around him and he doesn't know what to do. So what he does is make himself feel better by making others feel worse?

[Tears of Lys]

We keep hoping Don will pull himself together, because in our hearts we used to admire him. He was cool, good-looking, the Man, and seemed to have his finger (no pun intended) on the pulse of the American psyche. He could dazzle clients with a stroke of brilliance. Well, life is passing by and he's not changing with it.

I remember a scene a couple seasons ago (?) where he's in California and he sees some kids with some sports cars. They catch his interest. I remember thinking, what's he going to come away from this with? What's he learning here that will be a spur to his imagination? It turned out, nothing much. Don is an observer rather than a participant. I think that's what he always was.

[Arbor Gold]

I like this theory and analysis. It's interesting - it fits in with his increasing alienation from the times. He's more and more focused on Don and less and less focused on the real world (which is leaving him behind - he STILL wears a hat, for instance). He's fundamentally a conservative (similar to Peggy in some ways) - he doesn't like change, but change is happening all around him and he doesn't know what to do. So what he does is make himself feel better by making others feel worse?

Also fits with his relationship with Ted. Ted wears turtlenecks, says "groovy" during meetings, sits on a side table, and starts meetings on time. Don is so mad at Ted for starting the margarine meeting without him that he retaliates by getting Ted drunk in the middle of the day.

[Baitac]

One thing that totally broke my heart was the voiceover about Bobby Kennedy being in the hospital. It said that he was alive and his heart was beating, but doctors didn't know if he could hear, as he wasn't speaking. I saw some parallels with Don as he stopped "hearing" Megan when she suggested a vacation, and more clearly when he was sitting on the bed, sideways so as to not watch the t.v., no expression on his face, no words said. His body was there, but he wasn't. Much like RFK. :( :(

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Yeah, the next episode will have to include RFK (unless they twist it on us and just skip over it), since IIRC he died just the next day.

[Baitac]

I think that Don is paralyzed with pain and stress. He may just go into a catatonic stage. He has got to decompensate at some point. His life is circling, circling around and into a drain of an identity black hole. I just don't see how he can live in NY and be a Mad Man and remain sane. He needs to reacquaint himself with a new version of who he is, part Don, part Dick and start fresh in a smaller pond. I want him to make it. The empath in me wants Pete to make it too. I currently see Pete as one of those circus acts with the sticks and the circling plates. His plates are crashing. He can't keep them all up in the air anymore. I feel bad for him. I know I'm in the minority, but I see a salvageable person there.

[PhoenixFlame]

Pete's a less sympathetic version of Theon. I want him to find some happiness with himself.

Don's in total douche mode. It's time for a trip to California. Ted and Joan are my favorite characters this season.

[PetyrPunkinhead]

“My mother can go to hell, and Ted Chaough can fly her there.”

Pete had the best line of the night. Two episodes in a row where I'm actually rooting for Pete. I feel so dirty.

Where the fuck was Dawn this episode? Was the actress not available or something? Odd use/non-use of Dawn. Also, I'm glad something finally paid off w/ that brown-noser from accounting. It'll be interesting to see if he's playing Joan or if they'll really get serious.

Roger firing that bald guy again seemed damned mean, like outta left field, to me. Until the episode was over and I thought on it. Bald guy's re-firing set up in a smaller way what happened to Don in the episode. Bald guy (I really should look up his name) waltzes in thinking things will be one way, then finds out very abruptly that they are indeed another. DOn thins he's big man on campus, show's up late and the meeting has started then boom* Ted flys a fucking plane. Don seeks power in his affair and begins the whole "follow me orders, ye scurvy dog" fantasy (sans nautical connotations of course). Now he's gone from his greatest height last episode w/ landing Chevy, to all all time low of losing Alpha Male status in creative, losing the respect of his former protege, and losing his lover.

I'm curious to see how Ginsberg/Peggy plays out. She's copy chief, but Ginsberg thinks pretty highly of himself. I wonder whether there will be a reflection of the Ted/Don struggle as between Ginsberg and Peggy?

Good point. But she's "chief," so my guess is Ginsberg is destined to lose that one if it happens, or maybe he and Peggy will become an item--although, on second thought, he's probably way too uptight for her.

Don's in total douche mode. It's time for a trip to California.

To see who? Anna died 2 seasons ago. I think that's part of what's going on in his head when he gives that look to Megan when she started rambling on about needing a trip. He needs a trip, but the person he needs to see is dead.