* My favorite parts about the blow-up Don overhears between Sylvia and Arnold: the complete absence of Arnold’s voice, it’s just his stuff sitting there in the hallway, like the discarded clothing of the man who wasn’t there in Don’s Royal Hawaiian ad; Don’s frantic button pushing to close the door before he gets caught listening in.
* Margie! Nice to meet you, female copywriter! We hardly knew ye.
* When Peggy introduces Ted to her old colleagues she calls Stan by his first name and Ginsberg “Ginsberg.”
* Blink and you’ll miss it, but Bob briefly tails Peggy and Ted as they walk to their offices.
* No chair for Pete at the meeting. Never let it be said that Mad Men doesn’t place enough banana peels in front of that guy!
* “Now that we’ve dispensed with the gallantry.” Roger, you magnificent bastard.
* Cutler = Roger 2
* “Ted’s a pilot!” I swear you could hear Don’s balls shrivel.
* Pete’s mom was so lucid in her senility that she briefly had me confused. I kept mixing up her allegations regarding Pete’s late father — who died in a plane crash, which is worth noting in this plane-heavy episode — with the truth about Pete’s very much alive father-in law.
* Re: Roger’s firing of Burt Peterson: holy shit, Roger. Like the Comedian from Watchmen, to whom I will never stop comparing him (which fact renews my confidence somewhat in the idea that Watchmen has things to communicate outside its art form and era), this cackling nihilist has a mean streak a mile wide. Every line was a punch in the throat.
* “I need you, and nothing else will do.” Sylvia’s got a future in copywriting ahead of her.
* “A little rap session about margarine in general.”
* My notes for the beginning of Don and Sylvia’s hotel-room tryst: “No dom/sub games for Sylvia, Don, sorry.” [line break] “Whoops, I stand corrected.” Sorry, but that was all some hot shit. Don’s confidence comes from being unpleasant and adored for it.
* Don’s thoroughly out-alpha’ing Ted.
* Pete to his brother: “I don’t have a chair!” Wah wah wah.
* Ted Chaough asserting that every advertising archetype has its Gilligan’s Island analogue anticipates several decades of meta-pop.
* The best thing about Draper Pitches, as we see in his margarine spiel, is that he can take the most absurd and banal subjects imaginable and make it seem like he’s taking you through the stargate in 2001.
* Bob! “Just walk with me, and I’ll bother you all the way out. No one will know.”
* Bob! Furniture polish improv! Okay, maybe this guy’s a good accounts man after all.
* Unexpected and fascinating to get such a direct window into Ted’s thoughts about Don, during that conversation with Gleason. Ted’s amazed that Don seems more interested in him than in their work, because he doesn’t feel interesting. “He doesn’t talk for long stretches and then he’s incredibly eloquent.” Gleason’s got Don’s number, though: “Give him the early rounds. He’ll tire himself out.”
* “Peggy, he’s a grown man.” “So are you! Move forward.” Peggy, audience stand-in.
* I guess it should go without saying that Don’s playing control games because it makes him feel the most like himself and the least like his life is out of control in any other area.
* Don and Ted in a plane! Hahahahaha! Like something out of a single-camera comedy.
* “Sometimes when you’re flying you think you’re rightside up but you’re really upside down. Gotta watch your instruments.” Ted Chaough, accidental philospher.
* “No matter what I say, you’re the guy who flew us up here in his own plane.” Don’s been out-alpha’d.
* “Not every good deed is part of a plan.” Joan’s mom, voice of optimism.
* “My mother can go to hell. Ted Chaough can fly her there.” Pete Campbell, winner, line of the night.
* It’s a dopey tv-critic thing to worry about, I know, but what a sad state of affairs that Jon Hamm may never win an Emmy. What a marvel that guy is in this role! Don gets dumped, and it plays out on his face like someone dynamiting the sculpted surface of George Washington right off Mount Rushmore.
* Joan saves Bob, just like that. A good deed goes unpunished!
* Oof, that fadeout on Megan’s voice, brutal.
* “They’re shooting everybody.” With that, Pete’s mom disappears, walks behind the glass, becomes a silhouette, a ghost. Very creepy.
* That shot of Don arms akimbo, in the foreground of the shot, out of focus, Meagan and the news report behind him. Well done, Slattery.
* People are finally getting together.
* Using the assassination of Robert Kennedy to comment on the state of Mad Men, rather than the other way around, is the most Mad Men thing Mad Men has ever done, an act of creative hubris that would do Don himself proud.
Tags: Mad Men, reviews, TV, TV reviews
Bravo, Sean;
I caught this in the Salon review and if intentional, it’s fantastic. Silvia’s room was 503, which is SMTP code for “Bad Command Sequence”. It also pointed out that not only was Don acting out control fantasies with Silvia due to the rest of his life, but because his interest in Silvia stems from displaced admiration for Arnie, and since he’s witnessed Silvia dissing Arnie, he’s going to punish her. Another good observation there was that Ted was there for his dying friend, while Don let Ann Draper die alone.
Are we rooting for Don’s destruction like we are for Walter White’s at this point? It seems like maybe we’ve turned a corner.
I like that Ted can use “groovy” and “rap session” and yet not be a joke. He’s got an encouraging style (that’s “rubbed off” on Peggy) but it has its limits: “You said there were no wrong answers.” / “I didn’t say that!”
Still, Don is somehow, to me, better than Pete Campbell. That could be partly due to Don’s/Hamm’s charisma, but Don also has at least done some good for people. He may be damned, I’m just saying Pete is maybe more damned? It’s an interesting relationship because Pete, while he doesn’t like Don, is still following his model in some ways but failing worse. And Don doesn’t need a toady to prop up his ego like Bob.
But hey, look at Bob going and gaining some dimension in this episode. Even if partly for selfish reasons, he did go out of his way for Joan.
What happened to Don’s secretary?
What was so bad about Bert that Roger took such pleasure in axeing him again?
“Sorry, but that was all some hot shit.”
Cringe-worthy. We were actively wincing and praying for those scenes to be over as fast as we could. So unpleasant.
It feels legit twisted (in a good way? bad way? depends on the viewer, I guess) to watch someone act out his fantasies, in the context of knowing everything about them that’s fucked them up. Like… “that’s hot… but oh you poor sad thing….. shit…. but this is hot!”
It was really great to watch her reactions to him, and see how she responded to him. She played ball for a while, but I’m glad she quit. It had to be fun for a while, but it seemed real exhausting.
This show is confusing because I don’t know what it’s “about.” Is this show about Don unraveling? Is this show about all of them unraveling? Pete’s currently fun/horrifying to watch. I’m kinda afraid he’s going to act out in an insane way (kill himself, kill someone else, destroy the company….). But the show isn’t “about Pete” specifically so then we’d all see how that affects everyone else.
I have NO idea where Don’s marriage is going. Is he forever doomed? Does he have hope? Chris asked, “Are we rooting for Don’s destruction like we are for Walter White’s at this point?” I would prefer to root for their marriage and even though the guy is a fuckup and a terrible cheat…. he seems to want to straighten out…. It REALLY sucks that he can’t be honest with his wife. Who knows when or if he’ll learn. That closing shot of her speaking to him was kiiiinda sweet… but on the other hand…. he seemed to be just dazing off, not listening to her. Like he was soaking up the romantic experience of marriage (perhaps this is his “grist for the mill”).
BTW, Bob is so cool and nice and handsome, I want to be like Bob! Jesus Christ, I hope the show doesn’t give him more dimension by revealing his drinking problems, prostitution habit, or insane psychosis.
These little discussions are really fun, if maddening. So many threads to reach for because I don’t know where the show should go next. Well, they don’t treat me like an idiot and I appreciate that.
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