MAD MEN on AMC - Season 6

Sally is kinda fucked regardless isn't she? What a messed up set of parents to have.

He's fine if he tells her, he's fucked if he keeps it to himself and Sally finds out by some other means.

It was just pointed out to me (I didn't pick up on it last night) that Sally had changed her last name. I dunno if she just did it, or if Henry has adopted the kids. I would think I full adoption would've played into the series, though.

I don't think she's changed it. IIRC, the subpoena is addressed to Sally Beth Draper. "Beth Francis" is just the name on her fake ID (so Betty says).

I think Sally is grounded enough to handle the Dick Whitman story, however it's told to her.

nyt has like three madmen stories in the arts section today

http://franklinavenue.blogspot.com/2013/06/we-found-it-actual-la-location-of-don_25.html

Apparently, another house on the same street is the one featured in the "Thriller" video.

Did they intentionally find a house that looked like an Edward Hopper painting?

I think, if anything, Don's going to seem a lot more sympathetic to Sally if he actually shows her who he is. As a father, he's the mostly-absent cipher who goes off to work and does the normal family time activities but hasn't ever really related to his kids except for the rare occasion.

Actually seeming like a human being with a backstory that's more than white collar breadwinner father is going to make him seem a lot more relatable, even if he does keep fucking up. Sally's seen just enough to think that he's a liar, an idea her mother fostered.

I don't really have a big problem with the flashbacks but at times I do think Don's trauma has suffered from over-explication. but of course at the same time uncovering that trauma (and neutralizing it?) seems more and more the guiding theme of the show. So maybe making it explicit (even if it sometimes feels like a dark fable of some sort) is the point.

That's a hopeful and humanizing way to take on that trauma that makes Don who and what he is--I'll be fascinated to see if they continue down that road and still make it compelling.

guys peggy was wearing chanel no 5 to signify that she's now a marilyn instead of an irene dunn

http://i.imgur.com/webGMb3.jpg
in Echo park

the wide shot of the house looked really weird.

the wide shot of the house looked really weird.

I think it was just bad digital paint to age the house.

wide establishing exterior shots are not really a thing this show does v often

A better version of this priceless treasure

http://25.media.tumblr.com/1683f4de47f228a23c75a4ade26ab978/tumblr_mowgbcZKA91r3s62po1_500.gif

bless you, Johnny Fever

it's technically angelino heights, not echo park.

http://video.vulture.com/video/Epic-Rant-By-Pete-Campbell-Of-M

So great: http://madmenwiththingsdrawnonthem.tumblr.com/

https://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/c4965f674e7e734f67baa24a9bde5784/tumblr_mor5v2nRJi1qdbluio1_500.jpg

otm

Slate has a theory that the Chevy account is an extended metaphor for Vietnam. I don't totally buy it, but it's rather compellingly argued:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/06/25/mad_men_vietnam_video_essay_how_season_6_s_chevy_storyline_reflected_a_violent.html

I just re-watched seasons 1-4 and I think one thing that became clear to me was that the show is almost always, in one way or another, addressing its historical context but very rarely is there any kind of direct or 1-to-1 relationship between the lives/business of the characters and the historical events around them. It's not even a typical kind of dramatic irony where we know more than they do. Instead, it's almost like the relationship between history and the show's "present" is more oblique and impressionistic, rather than causal. They keep enough verisimilitude to make sure that characters are aware of and respond to major events (as in the episodes with the assignations) but more often history is this amorphous thing going on outside their walls and then refracted into their lives. The episode with the fog of pollution seems interesting in retrospect because it's a moment where those two approaches (the surreal/oblique and the factual) seem to meet.

So I sorta DO buy the Chevy = Vietnam thing, since it's exactly the way the show seems to operate. Excerpt that the "=" is a lot less direction than a simple equation.

assassinations, I meant! Though for once auto-correct is strangely appropriate.

I like this one:

http://25.media.tumblr.com/3afa2bd31b2fe92e5bb853016a31592b/tumblr_mnvg1oGtCE1qdbluio1_500.jpg

Clues to the ending of ‘Mad Men’ have been embedded within the show since its very beginning

https://medium.com/sterling-cooper-draper-pryce/e96804523838

thats good

the more I think about this the more I think that yeah it doesn't end with Don's death (too trite and too pat) but with his abandonment of the Draper persona entirely

I hope it ends well.

don kills skyler

Making Ad.

'80s Don Draper

Not all of us were raised in a cushy cabbage patch. Some of us had to crawl our way out of a garbage pail.

From Mad Men Screenshots with Things Drawn On Them:

http://31.media.tumblr.com/837eefc1274b67aad7b9096104b38b07/tumblr_mowvjlR8HW1rkdtsao1_500.gif

lol

bob benson's on that robin williams sitcom about advertising. i think if i pretend he's the same character, like orlando or something, that show won't be completely fucking unbearable.

They're doing a Breaking Bad (only with fewer episodes):

http://blogs.amctv.com/mad-men/2013/09/mad-men-serves-seven-and-seven/

Seems a little stingy to only give us one extra episode out of the deal, but there you go.

New thread: MAD MEN on AMC - Seasons 7(a) & & 7(b)

(Also this be my 10,000th post. Yay me)

Five or six episodes in. The MLK episode was straightforward and very good. Not sure about the merger yet--seems like a narrative contrivance, may get better. In the RFK episode, two things bothered me: 1) Pete Campbell losing his temper (with his mother, with his secretary) is sometimes plain bad acting; 2) Don's control stuff with his neighbour's wife was really silly and not worth whatever point was being made (one that has probably been made countless time already anyway). I was starting to feel music was disappearing, but "Love Is Blue" worked surprisingly well, I liked the Mitch Ryder song (think I knew it, but never associated it with him), and Friend & Lover's "Reach Out in the Darkness" as a backdrop for RFK was perfect.

The Doctor Robert, Quack M.D. episode--bizarre. But first "Reach Out in the Darkness," now Mama Cass; the people who made this, they're 100% in sync with me again.

"Reach Out of The Darkness" might be the show's greatest music cue--so perfect in contextual nastiness & irony.

The Doctor Robert, Quack M.D. episode--bizarre.

And very funny.

This season is where the quality started to wane for me.

I'm so invested in the characters at this point, I'm still immersed in everything, and there are still great moments and sequences. On the whole, though, I agree. Three problems: 1) there are so many characters, some of them are by necessity falling by the wayside--they don't really seem to know what to do with certain people (e.g., Bert Cooper; even Peggy's in a rut). 2) Don's philandering isn't that morally interesting anymore, just repetitive. When he's in the middle of his affair with the neighbour's wife, and he has a fit about Megan's kissing scene, you'd think even he'd be aware of the irony. 3) The increasing...irrelevance of the campaigns? When Don or somebody gets really excited about a campaign now, I'm often thinking "You still think stuff like this has anything to do with what's going on in the world?" Not always, but often.

It isn't as good as the previous one but I think this is the funniest season. All the stuff with Pete and his mother is hilarious.

I think most people (including me) lost patience with Don's cheating; perhaps the writers thought it necessary for him to get to that point but I thought it was boring to spend as much time as they did on it.

not to give anything away for clemenza but the neighbor-cheating thing has a payoff that's central to Don's character, and which wouldn't have made sense to happen as part of his earlier affairs

Appreciate that. I know it's weird to be responding to comments about something in progress that you've seen--I'll try to be clear where I am.

I do agree that the whole "you are my prisoner in this expensive hotel room" was ridiculous but I think that was kind of the point, to show how Don's tricks/obsessions are tired and outdated and stupid by this point

Finished up last night. Yes, the payoff to Don's affair with Sylvia was big. (Curious if she'll be back in Season 7--would assume so.) The last few episodes were all over the place but pretty good. Liked the way the '68 convention was integrated. I find Pete an ongoing annoyance at this point, and I'm surprised so much time is devoted to him. (I found all the stuff with his mother unnecessary.) One character who's gotten more shaded and compelling as the story moves along is Ted. Glen's return at Sally's boarding school was excellent. Joan jumping the gun on Avon (and getting confronted by the other partners--first time, really, she seemed completely at a loss, and that added some complexity to an already great character), Glen's return, and Ginsberg going off on the war were all good. Hope there's lots of Sally and Betty in 7. Lots of bumps along the way--I wouldn't call it a consistent show anymore. Reading back through this thread, I was surprised by the Megan-is-dead theory; that had never occurred to me at all. The two external realities that I would think have to play a role in 7 would be the war (even more so than what there's been so far) and black militancy--there's been a progression from invisibility (the elevator operator who was reluctant to answer a direct question) to a tentative civil-rights era presence (Dawn) to, I would assume, something more urgent and confrontational.

After wondering why music was no longer important, it came back in a back way in the last few episodes. "(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me," "Piece of My Heart," "Porpoise Song," and "Both Sides Now" all excellent.

I find Pete an ongoing annoyance at this point, and I'm surprised so much time is devoted to him.

never heard this opinion before!

Pete is a combo of broad comic relief and just, for me, a really interesting creation as a character. He's allowed to be despicable and sorta sympathetic at the same time.