Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

yeah it was the client

http://maxgif.com/2e9

lol

there's a thread for that

Really wish people would stop saying "on the nose" all the time. :/

― polyphonic, Monday, May 7, 2012 6:22 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ok from now on we'll just say "super-duper obvious"

"When did music become so important?"

new ILM board description

the scene with pete's new love interest drawing the heart on the window was sort of ludicrous i thought, but i guess the sentimentality and generally fanciful nature of the show means it can carry this kind of thing. i'm still really loving the way it's playing to its strengths this season, the best thing about mad men has always been how emotional it is.

I guess the drawing the heart could be read as sentimental and corny but I thought it was kinda vicious actually. like she was just toying with him. I don't think she has any intention of getting together with him, like, ever so why torture him. maybe I'm misreading it and she really has feelings for Pete but I don't really think so.

they have an interesting dynamic going on - Joan seems to acknowledge their natural affinity for one another, but otherwise the friendship seems driven by Peggy's need for advice/to spout off. Joan never comes to her about anything. She mentioned her (ex)husband only in passing for ex.

Joan never seems like she's *needed* anything from *anybody*.

well, she's needed things from Roger

but yes it's not really in her character to express need

This interview with Bledel seems to make it clear she's toying with Pete:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/interrogation/2012/05/gilmore_girls_actress_alexis_bledel_on_mad_men_interviewed_.html

I knew it would be Tomorrow Never Knows, and when I clocked I was so excited to hear it in the context of Mad Men that Don taking the record out of the sleeve and cuing up the needle seemed excruciatingly long. When it finally came on, the song has rarely sounded as vital to me. Very well done.

How Weiner got "Tomorrow Never Knows":

Mr. Weiner said he had been trying “for a few years” to get different Beatles songs onto “Mad Men,” but had been rejected by Apple Corps in the past.

To win the company’s approval in this case, Mr. Weiner said, “I had to do a couple things that I don’t like doing, which is share my story line and share my pages.” He added that he received the approval from Apple Corps last fall, about a month before filming started on the episode.

Never watched The Gilmore Girls but was blown away by Alexi Bledel's screen presence in this episode (not just flim-flam for fancying the pants off her, I don't think).

Loved the Harry/Pete phonebooth thing

Tomorrow Never Knows fell a little flat for me.

After all these years, Beatles songs are cropping up here and there – mid-period ones at least (I'm Looking Through You in that Ricky Gervais film Ghost Town, Norwegian Wood in the same and now this)

It would have been funny if he'd put on Yellow Submarine by mistake and really dug it.

lol

Don't really buy Pete being hip enough to be reading Crying of Lot 49 in hardcover in '66.

whoah what I missed that

maybe ken told him to buy it?

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3mx06CD7W1qj441oo1_1280.png
Felt a bit Anthony Soprano being into Sartre.

Pete likes to keep up.

I thought his Head skis looked rather modern, but that's probably just a reflection of the kind of skis my half-sisters' grandmother had rattling around her cupboards.

Pete likes to keep up.

...with the joneses.

felt a bit of bait and switch with the "crying of lot 49" thing -- was hoping Howard and his wife were part of some cult and would tie back into Pete's L.A. experience with the aerospace company.

Hmmm.. V. had already been nominated for the national book award. CoL49 got big ticket reviews in that year (e.g. http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Reviews_of_The_Crying_of_Lot_49 ), but yes, I'd imagine Pete wouldn't necessarily be reading it so close to the publication date. On the other hand, I don't really know how much promotion and hype it had at the time.

he does look a little skeptical in that pic.

it should have ended on this awesomeness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUrGfo-bJo8

does this season need some Dick Whitman action? probably best to let that one simmer but i do miss it, surprisingly. I'm sure it's coming.

I DON'T KNOW WHERE SHE IS. DO YOU KNOW WHERE ABE IS?

do pete and peggy have a child together living with her mother or have i completely imagined this?

You saw her sister's child at the Mom's; she gave her baby away.

ah cool, thanks.

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.