MAD MEN on AMC - Season 6

lol otm

now that pete's on chevy, there's only one thing bob has that pete doesn't: people like him. i think hes just hoping to leverage that

also the execs weren't going to bat for bob per se, they were going to bat for the account. they were right that changing up everyone managing the account would look weird. just changing one guy keeps up the appearance that everything is ok

Pete's secretary was weirdly foregrounded this week, bit of bonding with him over the gun etc. Reminds me of how they introduced Megan. I get the sense that nothing good is going to happen to her.

I love the emergence of psychotic Bob; I would love to see Draper die of cirrhosis in the finale, and then have Season 7 basically be Profit '69 starring Bob Benson.

Mad style has Bob down.

pre-faker reveal:

http://www.tomandlorenzo.com/2013/06/mad-style-favors.html

and post:

http://www.tomandlorenzo.com/2013/06/mad-men-the-quality-of-mercy.html

what became of Bob's Joan crush? come to think of it there hasn't been much of Joan at all of late.

it wasn't a crush, it was his usual sucking up. she did end up saving his job, after all (not that he knows about that)

Better to have a desperate, lying Golden Boy who feels like he’s forever in your debt for keeping his secret than to have one who never quite trusted you because you didn’t. Pete knows that the Bobs and Dons of the world can charm their way through almost anything and that he’d do well to hitch himself to a rising star (EVERYBODY in Bert’s office defended Bob to Pete) rather than trying to shoot it out of the sky.

this seems otm to me (with the caveat that the senior partners were defending continuity on the account rather than bob himself, but hey 80% of success is showing up i guess)

in hindsight, bob-as-young-don was telegraphed pretty clearly wasn't it?

Saying it won't wash now, but that first scene in the elevator with Don made me recall (maybe unconsciously) the flashback Don/Roger scene.

Bob has yet to demonstrate Don's flair for creative problem-solving but we'll see

He has potential for creative problem-starting, though.

Misread as problem-staring. But he's got that, too.

me too

His goofy smile in the elevator reminded me of the flashback of don in the elevator with roger.

― mizzell, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 12:19 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xp

So Pete is going to be Bob's Roger?

He'll certainly be cupping more balls than Roger did.

I just noticed that James Wolk, who plays Bob, was the star of the very short-lived but critically acclaimed Lone Star, where he played a guy who secretly had two families.

I wonder if we're going to get a Bob flashback (has any other character had one of those, besides Don?)

i liked lone star for the one episode it ran

xpost Roger had a flashback involving Don, as did Peggy.

the flashback that explained how don came to work at sterling cooper included a scene between joan and roger that don wasn't in

ah yeah I couldn't remember if it was Don or Roger having that one

Mad style has Bob down.

pre-faker reveal:

http://www.tomandlorenzo.com/2013/06/mad-style-favors.html

and post:

http://www.tomandlorenzo.com/2013/06/mad-men-the-quality-of-mercy.html

― dan selzer, Tuesday, June 18, 2013 11:19 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thanks for posting, these are amazing.

their commentary has been uniformly great

altho tbf they tagged Bob as gay, but not as an out-and-out fraud (which they admit)

their reasoning was A+ tho

haha god i forgot this episode where pete has to say "chip and dip" 1000 times

new loopy theory could be if last week was "fraud" as the 8th circle of hell maybe next we're looking at "treachery." Or maybe that already applies to Don with Ted and Peggy. In any case maybe this does map on to Don hitting "bottom."

Rescreening Rosemary's Baby in honor of this ep and found another MM connection: At xmas time, Rosemary is supposed to meet Hutch in front of the Time/Life buillding, the fictional home of SCDP.

for those who would like to selectively review old episodes, season 1 episode 7 is joan's cutest look EVER

Yeah, I agree with T&L that there is no believable scenario in which Bob isn't actually gay (I'm still seeing people waffling over this). Homosexuality wasn't exactly a bargaining chip in '68.

I like the new SC&P logo

http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/51c081d669bedd9306000003-560-863/press%20release.jpeg

Bob's gay, but that became much less relevant to Pete when he realized that Bob is well-liked, a much better social climber than he is, and that these things are prized at this agency -- something Duck sure never found out. Somehow, in realizing that Bob was completely fake but now indispensable to their huge account, Pete felt the need to bargain as Bob was in the superior positiion. It really goes back to the fact that Pete has never really earned any advancement, he's just been given it quid pro quo.

Bob was totally a rent boy type in the beginning of his social climbing, or so it was implied.

is this a complete list of the gay characters so far?

salvatore
joan's blonde friend who was in love with her
belle jolie guy
kurt of kurt & smitty
david mamet's daughter
manolo
bob benson

When I saw that fake memo the other day, it made me wonder when we stopped using words/letters in our phone numbers. KL = 55, obvs, but when did that practice finally die out? I was sure it was earlier than 1968, but I couldn't find any evidence to the contrary.

my mother in law is in her 70's and a few years ago she was going through her notebook/address book updating some phone contacts that she had lost when her laptop crashed. Mr Veg started looking through it and was dying laughing because she had phone numbers that had exchange letters in them from waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day, still in her address book 50 years later. He's like, "Um I think you can cross that one out, Mom"

then she started asking him to read out the phone numbers to her and he kept going, "KLONDIKE...457...."

The switchover was pretty much done by 1968, but there was probably a lot of public inertia in acceptance. I remember seeing local television ads that used the LL-NNNNN format as late as 1973 or so.

As always, the Internet provides: The Telephone EXchange Name Project (apparently I grew up in the "HYatt" exchange!)

to the gay list also add Lee Garner Jnr.

ah how could i skip over him

Probably too minor a character, but the MC of Don's birthday bash from last season.

apropos of nothing, if a tmbg biopic ever comes out, vincent kartheiser should play linnell and rich sommer should play flansy.

ted is a bit of a dork really isn't he? clothes, haircut, general goofiness.

is this a complete list of the gay characters so far?

dunno if Megan's swinger boss and wife count here

Pete has never really earned any advancement, he's just been given it quid pro quo

Pete has made serious personal sacrifices to win accounts

is this a complete list of the gay characters so far?

salvatore
joan's blonde friend who was in love with her
belle jolie guy
kurt of kurt & smitty
david mamet's daughter
manolo
bob benson

― 1 P.3. Eternal (roxymuzak), Tuesday, June 18, 2013 11:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

+ son of tobacco exec who propositioned sal and was a monster all around

I think I'm conflating him with the belle Jolie guy

So, Bob Benson - Cuban refugee?

^^^ had that thought

Totally a Latino trying to pass (see also Pete's shitty comment about Manolo not being good enough to care for his mother unless he was Spanish).

so the West Virginia thing is a red-herring?

Manolo also name of Nixon's devoted Cuban majordomo.