Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

SAVE IT FOR YOUR CONVENTION WHORES

i will, thanks.

is this the end of Don and Megan?

sorry, giving by play-by-play 23 hours late

'i was was raised in the '30s. my dream was indoor plumbing.'

is this the end of Don and Megan?

I don't get that vibe. I just think Don's in a place he's never been before, meaning that he's not calling the shots and he might be okay with that.

love Pete's narcissism when Harry comes into his office to tell him about Megan. juicy office gossip doesn't really affect him - doesn't give a fuck!

I think I meant the Don/Megan advertising entity. Peggy sure wasn't up to the chemistry

Logical if boring solution woulda been to keep Megan on part time for the occasional pitch. She'll still he doing the performances at dinners with the clients, unless she starts moving ahead and being to tired to bother, which would certainly cause some tension w don

super-dumb to not ask Megan to still do the pitch, it's an acting gig

The part where Ginsburg was asking Megan if hey gave you clothes when you have a role seemed unusually meta for the show.

it was noteworthy that she didn't even have to put in her two weeks. usually when you quit and they tell you to go home on the same day, it means you've burned your bridges. the fact that don sent her home at lunch and she didn't get to stick around for the perfunctory cake... ouch. i think you guys may be overstating don's goodwill re megan leaving.

i did notice that, but i didn't think it was because she burned any bridges or anything.

figured it was more like opening the bird cage door and just letting her go!

peggy made the point very clearly that don's nowhere near as sanguine about megan's choices as he lets on. peggy might be wrong, of course, but i get the feeling she isn't. don's trying awful damn hard to be the/a good guy, to respond pleasantly to his loss of control, but he's anything but happy about it.

Touré ‏ @Toure

It cost Mad Men $250k to use the Beatles' “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Lionsgate: it was the most expensive music deal the studio has ever made.

yah: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/how-mad-men-landed-the-beatles-all-you-need-is-love-and-250000/

Asked what he would have done if Apple Corps had once again said no, Mr. Weiner replied: “I don’t know. I would have changed the story.”

Aside from songs that have been played in the occasional commercial or the Beatles cartoon series that was shown on ABC in the 1960s, the use of “Tomorrow Never Knows” on “Mad Men” is likely one of the only times that a Beatles track has been used in a TV show, music and advertising executives say.

"all you need is love" was in the final episode of the prisoner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2MIvUx9uiQ

british though

it WAS really fun (in a fourth-wall-breaking way) to go through that prolonged moment of anticipation where you're like "no way are they going to actually play it, but look he's putting the record on the turntable and everything, surely they'll have to cut to black or...? HOLY SHIT THEY'RE ACTUALLY PLAYING IT" but still, that's a bundle of money. otoh i think the season as a whole has been stellar so far, i don't know that infusing the money into the rest of the episodes would've made them even better than they already were.

figured it was more like opening the bird cage door and just letting her go!

this reminded me: speaking about mad men being too "on the nose," wasn't there an early episode where roger literally gave joan a birdcage while asking her to be his kept mistress?

yeah beatles license doesn't become ridiculously expensive until much later (same is true of licensing in general, as anyone who's tried to watch wkrp lately can tell you). obv prices went up across the board but part of me wonders if the nike 'revolution' fiasco didn't play a role in making beatles song permissions and licensing costs so prohibitory, for awhile at least. zeppelin famously were the same way (and in many ways still are - no zep or beatles on spotify), not allowing 'dazed and confused' for dazed and confused for example, but increasingly they've been much more willing to grant permission, if the price is right.

"Rock and Roll" was suppsed to be the credits music for D & C--Page signed off, but Plant said no.

there was that video of Jack Black and the kids begging LZ to let them use "Immigrant Song" for School of Rock.

my favourite music rights story is Louis CK getting The Who.

well the who is obv not too hard to get but w/ the budgets he's working w/ it is amazing he pulled that off, esp such a lengthy excerpt

yeah, i think he paid 7,000 for what would normally cost 150,000.

as anyone who's tried to watch wkrp lately can tell you

yeah i actually have taped-off-air boots of that show because i can't stand the library music or 3rd-tier shit they've picked to replace the original music cues.

"it was noteworthy that she didn't even have to put in her two weeks. usually when you quit and they tell you to go home on the same day, it means you've burned your bridges. the fact that don sent her home at lunch and she didn't get to stick around for the perfunctory cake... ouch. i think you guys may be overstating don's goodwill re megan leaving."

Don was totally turned on when Megan turned things around with Heinz, now that she left the agency for something that she always wanted to do since she was a little girl (eye roll) I think he is more than disappointed. Interesting to see how he'll deal. Will he still respect her?

Was a huge GG fan and loved seeing Alexis Bledel but thought she came off just a bit too Rory. It's her voice and how she still holds her body and that heart! It was the heart!!!

getting down to the important matters - had there been colour photos of earth from space in 1966?

yeah, i think he paid 7,000 for what would normally cost 150,000.

Ha, yep, he sent a few episodes to Townshend who was impressed enough to only charge a tiny fraction of what he'd normally get.

as anyone who's tried to watch wkrp lately can tell you

That has to do with licensing for sale rather than broadcast, I think. It was why Freaks and Geeks took a few years to appear on DVD, and the Wrecking Crew doc has been held up in licensing limbo for a while, too. Hopefully Weiner & co. have already gotten this sorted out for the season 5 DVD.

I like that Don wasn't able to make it all the way through Tomorrow Never Knows. He is officially not with it anymore, and Megan leaving is only gonna make his job that much harder. He used to make a lot more effort to keep up with things. Maybe Roger's going to try to get him to try lsd.

Don seemed really old in this last episode, like painfully old.

Don was totally turned on when Megan turned things around with Heinz, now that she left the agency for something that she always wanted to do since she was a little girl (eye roll) I think he is more than disappointed. Interesting to see how he'll deal. Will he still respect her?

i think he's worried he might not be faithful without her around him as often.

Or that she might not be faithful to him. They don't have very much in common outside of work, I could see her falling for some bohemian theater type now that the novelty of the advertising world has worn off.

Yeah I thought the set-up of don not knowing where she was at least introduced the possibility he could be on the receiving end of some infidelity this time around, obv he was with Betty but that was more her finally cheating rather than pre-empting him.

Pete's committing serial infidelity and is reading Thomas Pynchon. Don's sad-eyed, monogamous, and demonstrates a total lack of interest in Revolver. Weird, huh?

Hopefully Weiner & co. have already gotten this sorted out for the season 5 DVD.

no, for the DVD edition the beatles track is replaced by "mrs. brown you've got a lovely daughter"

Yeah I thought the set-up of don not knowing where she was at least introduced the possibility he could be on the receiving end of some infidelity this time around, obv he was with Betty but that was more her finally cheating rather than pre-empting him.

given that he is a serial cheater, i was surprised that he wasn't more suspicious, but maybe he was just putting on a good front.

ya I was expecting explode-y Don, maybe he's learned a lesson from their big fight.

I liked when Peggy told Don to shut up.

Peggy and Don fighting like an old married couple was o_0

The fever dream episode at least implied that he might have cheated on Megan no? When the woman came into his apartment she said they had done it a couple of months previously iirc - granted she was a hallucination, but maybe that part was true?

she was referring to a much earlier incident, when he'd been married to Betty, iirc

The elevator bit this ep was so awesome and random.

And SYMBOLIC.

given that he is a serial cheater, i was surprised that he wasn't more suspicious, but maybe he was just putting on a good front.

i think don's putting on a hell of a front these days (and self-medicating to keep it up). the cracks give it away.

if you were being kind you could say he's trying hard at marriage.

http://www.ifc.com/fix/2012/05/reggie-watts-makes-music-with-jon-hamm

It was funny when Alexis Bledel said "your irises are so blue and round"

the best "world has changed" moment all season was when the lab lady told them they weren't allowed to smoke in the lab