Tag: Mad Men blog (Page 6 of 7)

Mad Men - Don draper sitting on green couch

Mad Men 3.6 – Mow ‘Em Down

September 21, 2009 /

Well, I’ll say this for tonight’s episode of “Mad Men”: it might have had to suffer the indignity of airing opposite the Emmy Awards (where the series ultimately took home its second win for Outstanding Drama Series, thank you very much), but that didn’t mean that it had to offer up a throwaway episode. Not that anyone would’ve expected Matthew Weiner to turn in anything less than another outstanding chapter in this season’s stellar saga of the folks at Sterling-Cooper, but, wow, I don’t think anyone could’ve anticipated the turn of events that we ended up getting. There was so much going on in this episode that I know I’ll end up missing some of it, but here goes…

Things started and ended this evening with Sally Draper. The addition of a new child to a household is always difficult for the existing siblings, but it was definitely a bit different for Sally. First, she was afraid of what was to happen when Don turned off her light, but as the episode progressed, she basically began to believe that perhaps she was being haunted by the spirit of her late grandpa. You can kind of understand her concern, given that -as she observed – the new baby is named Gene, sleeps in Grandpa’s old room, and even looks a little bit like him. Fortunately, Don got her all straightened out by episode’s end…with virtually no help from Betty! Seriously, if she’s not one of the worst mothers in TV history, she’s got to be right up there. How anyone can have three kids and still end up as cold and detached from them as she always seems to be is beyond me.

Let’s be honest, though: Sally’s story, while serving as a very nice way of book-ending the episode, paled in significance to the shake-up within the offices of Sterling-Cooper this week.

Mad Men - Don draper sitting on green couch

First, there was the big meeting of all Sterling-Cooper employees, so that the announcement could be made that the board of directors from Putnam Powell Lowe would be arriving for a friendly chat and to evaluate the office’s performance, with the added bonus that their visit would be totally screwing up everyone’s 4th of July holiday, not to mention putting a wrench in the plans for Joan’s last day at the office. John Hooker got in a good joke at Paul’s expense, telling him that he’d be expected to shave his beard, thereby resulting in an indignant Mr. Kinsey demanding to know, “Who the hell are you people?” Settle down, Paul, settle down. Despite Sterling’s suspicions that the Brits might be flying across the ocean for the sole purpose of getting their knobs polished, Cooper’s theory is that they’re coming to see Don in an attempt to study him and determine his specific American genius, and Cooper floats the idea that they’re going to offer Don a dual position in both New York and London. It’s a tempting enough concept for Don to ask Betty what she thinks of the idea of living in London, so you can imagine his disappointment when it later turns out that Cooper’s just had an overactive imagination.

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External Entertainment, External TV, Mad Men, Reviews, TV, TV Dramas

Mad Men 3.5 – You can’t kill an idea (updated)

September 14, 2009 /

First, I have to comment on the irony that real-life father Will Harris is busy documenting tonight’s season finale of “True Blood,” while non-family guy me gets to write-up the episode where Don and Betty Draper finally have their third child.

Of course, that’s only one of the key events on tonight’s show. We also witness a financial squeeze from the new British overlords of Sterling Cooper while a mercenary variation of civil rights awareness descends on Pete Campbell. Also, Herman “Duck” Phillips returns to attack from the outside and prompts some proactive behavior from cash-deficient Peggy Olson.

peggy-ep5

****

“The Fog” opens as Don and the extremely pregnant Betty have a conference with Sally’s teacher prompted by a nasty fight with a schoolmate. Betty’s revelation of the sudden passing of Grandpa Gene last episode, however, causes the teacher to become upset and cut the meeting short. She mentions, however, that the death might explain Sally’s unusual interest in the murder of African-American civil rights leader Medger Evers.

Things aren’t too smooth at work, either. Don walks in late to a meeting in which Sal Romano is being grilled about the details of his expense account on his and Don’s nearly fateful trip a couple of episodes back. When he realizes that British honcho Lane Pryce is going to be discussing excess spending on pencils, he leaves abruptly. Later, Pryce appears in his office and, after some brief snippiness, complains about people drinking at work — reasonable enough by today’s standards. Don responds that creative people tend to be nonproductive, until they are productive, which is equally reasonable to anyone who knows anything about creative people.

Don pours a couple of Scotches and suggests a more proactive stance towards making money by working with Bert Cooper and Roger Sterling, rather than harming morale by cutting back on expense accounts. The meeting ends on a surprisingly cordial note.

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Mad Men - Betty Draper sitting at table with man

Mad Men 3.4 – Rage Against The Machine

September 6, 2009 /

First off, my thanks to Bob Westal for quite capably filling in for me last week. It’s not that I couldn’t have blogged both “True Blood” and “Mad Men,” it’s just that I really, really didn’t want to, so I greatly appreciated his assistance…and I hope he didn’t hate it so much that he’s considering backing out of doing the same thing next week while I’m tackling the “True Blood” season finale.

Wow, remember the good ol’ days when kids could get away with taking the wheel for awhile while their dad…or, in this case, their granddad…was sitting in the passenger seat? Actually, even *I* don’t remember the days when kids were doing it quite that young. Maybe it’s just because we lived in a pretty heavily populated area, but while I remember sitting in my father’s lap and handling the steering wheel, I don’t think he trusted me to drive like that on a public street until I was, like, 14. Maybe we can chalk it up to Gene’s increasing senility…? I spent the first part of the episode convinced that Gene was going to suddenly snap and scream at Sally, “You took my five dollars, you little shit,” but when he sat down with Betty to discuss his funeral arrangements, I sensed that we’d see them put into action sooner than later…and, of course, I was right. (As far as the disposition of his worldly goods, wow, isn’t it amazing how much has changed since the ’60s when it comes to the importance of fur as a status symbol?) If Gene had to depart the “Mad Man” universe, at least he got a lot of love in his final few episodes. This week’s tense discussion between him and Don over the merits of war was one of the moments which makes you nod as you take in the similarities to today’s world, though you rarely hear anyone today dismiss a suggestion that war might be bad by replying, “Maybe, but it makes a man out of you.” That whole sequence was great, particularly Jon Hamm’s acting with his eyebrows as Don listened to Gene giving Bobby a lesson on how to cut open a box properly, but, damn, I wanted to hear the story about how Gene got that fan!

Mad Men - Betty Draper sitting at table with man

Gene and Sally continued their bonding sessions – last week, it was The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; this week, it was ice cream – and grew closer, but as soon as he made that comment about the chocolate tasting like oranges, I immediately thought, “Uh-oh, that ain’t a good sign,” and promptly Googled the symptom. As a result, I was horrified…much as I suspect the rest of the viewing audience was…that we were going to see Gene suddenly slump against the wheel while driving his grandchildren to school. Thankfully, he at least made it to the A&P before he had his stroke or seizure or whatever it was that claimed his life. After the episode was over, I said to my wife, “You know, even in the ’60s, I just can’t believe that someone would arrive at the house and present the news to a very pregnant woman like Betty without first having her sit down.” She felt otherwise, suggesting that tact wasn’t necessarily first and foremost on the minds of those folks back then, but I’m still skeptical. Even so, however, the imagery of poor little Sally, sobbing against the front door in her ballerina outfit, was heartbreaking…even if it quickly slipped into annoyance at Betty. Seriously, is she the worst mother on this show…?

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External Entertainment, External TV, Mad Men, Reviews, test, TV, TV Dramas

Mad Men - Joan Holloway in black and red dress

Mad Men 3.3 – The young folks roll on the little cabin floor

August 31, 2009 /

Mad Men - Joan Holloway in black and red dress

Hi, I’m Bob and I’ll be your guest “Mad Men” blogger for today — and what a day it is. We have work masquerading as parties and parties pretending to be work. (Guess which turns out to be more interesting?) We see the hidden talents and proclivities of the ladies and gents of Sterling Cooper as mind altering substances, liquid and herbal, and good and bad behavior of all sorts rules Derby Day, 1963.

“My Old Kentucky Home” opens with a call back to last week‘s totemization of the hotness that was early sixties Ann Margaret, as Peggy Olson supervises an audition with a red-maned lass who claims to have acted in a production of Tartuffe but who sounds like she’s answering the $64,000 question when she says it was written by “Moliere?”  Harry Crane smiles like a loon and tries to ask more about her, but Peggy makes short work of him.

And it’s Peggy we’re going to be spending a good chunk of tonight learning to admire ever more as she realizes that she is a skilled creative, even if Sterling Cooper “hates creatives.” The cause of all that is a last minute assignment to put together material for a new Bacardi campaign, forcing her, pretentious Paul Kinsey and turtlenecked hipster Smitty to work over the weekend as the higher ups, which now include both Pete Campbell and Ken Cosgrove, all attend a swank Derby-themed shindig hosted by Roger Sterling and his new young wife, Jane.

Meanwhile, things aren’t easy on the home front. Not yet retired secretary Joan Harris, nee  Holloway, and her new husband, who, er, raped her last season are getting ready for a dinner party for his MD colleagues. The good news is that not even this psychotic can keep Joan under his thumb. As he fearfully tries to bully her — over table settings — he says angrily that he doesn’t want to have a fight, her answer is succinct: “Then stop talking.”

Joan Holloway

Joan is a survivor, no doubt. But before the night is over we learn that her husband may have some potentially serious career problems on top of his obvious violent tendencies — which nevertheless seem under control, just for the present.

Things are only a little less fraught at the home of Don and the now very pregnant Betty Draper. The Drapers are dealing with Betty’s dad, whose slide into dementia seems to be manifesting itself this week as something more like eccentricity, having young Sally read to him from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (which, perhaps fortunately, she doesn’t seem to quite understand).

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Mad Men, TV, TV Dramas

Mad Men - Peggy Olson

Mad Men 3.2 – The Sky Was Falling, Heaven Was Calling

August 23, 2009 /

Okay, before we really get rolling on this week’s “Mad Men” blog, I really think we should start things off in much the same way that tonight’s episode did: by reminding the world just how incredibly hot Ann-Marget was in the early ’60s.

I mean, seriously, was she smoking or what?

It’s no wonder that Peggy immediately slid into catfight mode with that comment about how, if the client was looking for someone like Kim McAfee (Ann-Margret’s character from “Bye Bye Birdie”), they were looking for someone who’s 25 but acts 14. It was a hilariously bitchy line, almost as funny as Sal’s character-perfect reaction when the clip ended. This obviously isn’t the first time Peggy’s been so annoyed by the goings-on within Sterling-Cooper that she’s stepped out of her comfort zone and tried to be someone that she really isn’t, but, wow, her attempts to duplicate Ms. Margret’s moves and vocal stylings made for some highly uncomfortable viewing. Nonetheless, she at least ended up feeling sufficiently empowered to go out for a one-night stand with a hyper-excited college boy.

Mad Men - Peggy Olson

No surprise, though, that she slowed down his base-running – as well she should have, since he was clearly headin’ for home plate at a fast clip – in order to avoid a possible repeat of the Pete Campbell situation. As she slipped out of bed in a failed attempt to avoid a walk of shame, I couldn’t help but notice just how much more attractive Peggy looks when she’s out of her work clothes…but, then again, you could probably say that about most women.

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External Entertainment, External TV, Mad Men, Reviews, TV, TV Dramas

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