Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

like i said upthread, they'd hinted at it (Lane wanny smoochy Joan) before - but what i think put him over the top was the adrenaline rush of getting into a fight (and winning).

so who was Lane with at the pub watching the World Cup? his wife who he's semi-separated from? (or not separated from?) I feel like I forgot a plot turn somewhere, I thought she moved back to London.

Dad beats Lane/tells him to get his affairs in order --> Lane brought his family over from England

at the pub Lane was with his wife and Mr. and Mrs. Jaguar

Yeah, Lane wanted to go to the park and thought hanging with other expats was dweeby, but then really got into the footy and tried to parlay it into a business deal.

dunno how much of Lane's behavior at the pub was genuine tbh

yeah, i thought it was pretty clear that he was putting on the expected show

laughed a lot at this episode. made me remember why i like this show.

Lane's Playboy exploits were while the wife was back in blighty.

the show is flirting with total farce this season, though getting away with it so far. i know there have been silly moments before but lane fighting pete was into utter ridicule.

damn i forgot about lane's dad pwning him

I think it's safe to say Lane is probably the partner most intimately acquainted with physical violence

well a couple of them actually fought in various wars

and then there's Don/Dick's childhood.

dunno how much of Lane's behavior at the pub was genuine tbh

He was drunk and England had just won the World Cup, that was enough to shake him out of usual grouchy reservedness around his wife's friends.

Pretty much everything Laine did felt pitch-perfect for the character for me. Whatever he did with Don last season it was on their own time and didn't lose the agency a massive car account in the process.

(xpost - come on it's clearly Roger who's been in the most actual physical fights)

Roger talks a lot but I suspect it's all talk. (see: mugging)

dude is a playboy through and through

and then there's Don/Dick's childhood.

it's clear he got treated like shit, I don't recall any physical abuse tho.

Duck vs. Don Draper was a fun fight

and Don is quite clearly not a fighter - drunk Duck whooped his ass.

xp

do u remember when don got blown up in korea

p sure that's an intimate acquaintance with violence!

yeah but w getting blown up tho

not punching a dude

;)

N. Korea punched him in the face iirc

but yeah I propose that avoiding getting hit by artillery and knocking a man on the ground with your fists are entirely different skills

I dunno if anybody else agrees but I was getting the impression they were doing some heavy foreshadowing with Pete heading toward some kind of breakdown: the Whitman references, being asked to bring his gun to the house (reminding us that he has it for the second or maybe third time this season), being belittled and humilated repeatedly ... I have a habit of reading too much into TV shows, but this seemed like the writers are setting up 'this guy will snap violently'. He seems incapable of enjoying what he does have, and is desperate for some kind of approval and acceptance which he sees others having but not him.

Is there anybody specific Cosgrove is meant to be? Or just as 'author who started out in advertising' a la Pynchon/DeLillo/Heller?

it's clear he got treated like shit, I don't recall any physical abuse tho

he's mentioning that his father used to beat the crap out of him.

pretty confident the writers aren't trying to draw any specific parallels with any of the characters (otoh I had no idea Pynchon, DeLillo, and Heller all started in advertising). I did wonder if his nom de plume was ever actually used but it doesn't look like it.

The Whitman/gun/frustrated Pete stuff def felt like foreshadowing to me but who knows.

he's mentioning that his father used to beat the crap out of him.

ah right - that came up in reference to Sally, or something, I think? forgot about that.

could be foreshadowing something for two seasons from now tbh

pynchon didn't work in advertising. he was a technical writer for boeing.

think u mean yoyodyne

lol

can we stop misspelling Lane's name now plz

yeah, seeing a lot of "laine" and even some "layne"

like i said upthread, they'd hinted at it (Lane wanny smoochy Joan) before - but what i think put him over the top was the adrenaline rush of getting into a fight (and winning).

― Porto for Pyros (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall)

That and Joan tenderly brushing the hair from his face. Totally believable. I have platonic female friends who I occasionally have the urge to kiss.

A very funny episode. I would be all up for MM becoming a knockabout comedy with a deathmatch between two of the cast at the climax of each episode. They could do a spin-off Tekken-style Mad Men beat em up.

Also, in the previous ep I was kind of hoping that Don's fever dream would turn out to be real, and the rest of the season would revolve around him covering up a murder.

me too (re: don's dream)

yes me too.

WOW. incredible episode!

"england won the world cup!"
"cup of what?"

i love how lane just cannot maneuver around jaguar guy's conversation. "i was in the war, it was awful." "i'm so sorry.." "no, those were the best years of my life, really." i think the jaguar guy was just fucking with them.

is it just me or have they just not established well why megan would have fallen for don? i mean i get in principle--he's handsome, brashly confident, sexy, successful--but i guess the actors don't have convincing chemistry?

dark permanence thing really made me laugh

why does everybody need to be convinced so hard? is it because it is television? people don't act convincingly in real life.

people act erratically and without apparent motive all the time imo.

why does everybody need to be convinced so hard?

? have you not heard of the notion of two actors having chemistry?

i dunno if it's the episodes themselves or just my particular view of it right now, but i feel like we're seeing some of the limitations of jon hamm the actor, or at least the conception of the don draper character by hamm and weiner et al. hamm almost has his speech patterns, gestures, tone of voice, etc. down too well.

kartheiser is really the standout in this show -- it's not really a believable character in terms of verisimilitude of gesture, voice, etc. but it's a really interesting and absorbing creation just the same. especially true in this last episode.

I guess I was reacting also to the "not convinced by Lane kissing Joan" and whatnot. Like if ever there was anything that portrayed people just doing stuff and stuff happening to them I think it's mad men. Episodes have themes, characters have arcs, but for the entire series, characters have done things for reasons we (at least I) can't fathom. I think it's neat.

I guess I've heard of actors having chemistry but I guess now that I think about it it's never something I've tried to observe critically or w/e. I think about the writing on this show a lot more than the acting.