Not Roger at all. Remember, his name was on the building because his father was a founder, not because of anything he did. Roger is the character who has grown the least. He was perfect in the days when you kept clients by supplying them with food, booze and hookers, but he is terrible at a start-up.
I don’t think he arranged the office swap to keep Pete, but rather to keep himself. He knows that if it came down to a confrontation Pete is more valuable, and of one of them goes it will be him. That would be tricky with the ownership. It will be interesting to see how he reacts to the results of the prank.
Pete has grown a lot. In the first season, he wanted a promotion solely from his name and social position. Now he appreciates that it comes from work, and is critical of the slackers he sees around him - even Don.
I rent DVDs via a website that has a thing where they send you TV shows in the correct order
I’m looking forward to seeing it from the beginning!
I kept looking at him and saying “who is that?!” I looked on Wikipedia to find out!
Yeah I hear those herbal smokes are horrendous, I thought maybe they’d CGI some smoke in…
I think a lot of people kept booze in their offices back in those days - or I just knew of a lot of alcoholics(!)
Netflix is available here now, but I have a ‘restricted’ download package for my broadband - people haven’t realised the Netflix eats your download allowance and gotten bills for over €100 from their ISPs! I’ll stick to renting the DVDs
I would just quibble with this part. Of course, it’s not Downton Abbey, but there was a class system in place at the beginning of the show, which is why Pete has such a sense of entitlement. He doesn’t get fired because of his name, and his mother’s maiden name, and that’s really what he was hired for in the first place.
I think the overall narrative arc of the show is the death of the dominion of the WASP aristocracy, and the arrival of a completely different social order in American business. That and the tragic fall of the skinny tie.
I’m not sure that’s really true. Don’s early season conquests were all women who were in stark contrast to Betty - independent and self-assured. Midge, Rachael, Bobby, even the school teacher (Susanne?). The thing with Allison happened when he was at a low point. Before that he was never shown being interested in secretaries or “dipping his pen in the company ink”. Of course Megan knew about the Allison situation, which was what emboldened her to pursue him so aggressively. We’ll have to wait and see how that works out.
If anything, we’ve come full circle. Season 5 Peggy is exactly the type of woman that season 1 Don would have pursued, while he’s now closer to season 1 Pete or Ken, viewing the secretarial pool as his personal harem (not quite, but you get my point).
It sort of bothered Joan - when Peggy came to her asking what to do about Betty and the kids arriving for a family portrait, and Don was off with Midge. Joan allowed that she had wondered why he’d never shown any interest in her, assuming that he was good-looking enough that he could find female company without having to bother women from work.
I didn’t think the episode was up to much. By the way does anyone know if the Jameson label was identical in the '60s to what it is now? The scene were Roger I think is pouring a drink, you see the (presumably product placed) bottle and it looks identical to one you’d buy now. It’s not a huge faux pas if they had a different one at the time, I’m just curious.
I was always under the impression that Betty and Don “had to” get married. It certainly fits with the timeline. Betty graduates from Bryn Mawr in May/June of '53, Betty spends the summer in Italy as the “muse” of an Italian fashion designer, by fall she’s back in NYC modeling; meets Don, then along comes Sally at some point in '54.
From not caring. In this show actions always have consequences. Betty left when she found out, but that was doomed anyway. Don is fairly famous in the biz - if the story made it to the press, it would be big. Might not be this season, but it is going to break some time.
January Jones was lower down in the credits than she has been before, wasn’t she?
I tried to defend Betty as long as possible; I find a lot of the readings of her to be sexist and unfair. But Matthew Weiner seems determined to turn her into an irredeemable, cold bitch (Not just because of this, but I agree that he exemplifies the need to ignore what writers say about their own work.) No, she hasn’t always been that way - recall her desire and adoration for Don in the first couple of seasons; and how she befriended Francine when her neighbours were vile about her. But unless they do something interesting with her this season and move her along a little, I’d much rather watch Pete, Peggy, Lane or Joan.
I think Mad Men is a little more sophisticated than depicting women as jealous and hateful of other women. Peggy and Don have a deep bond, but there hasn’t been anything sexual between them since season 1 when Peggy was a secretary and probably thought that’s what she “should” do (Don rebuffed her, and she wasn’t particularly hurt IIRC). Peggy’s feelings towards Megan are likely mixed. She seemed sincerely apologetic in this episode; she probably feels sympathy to her as a female junior copywriter in a horrendously sexist world; yet as others have pointed out, Megan gets away with a lot more than Peggy or anyone else could because she’s married to Don.
Thanks to Katriona for the link to Tom and Lorenzo’s style blog. Fascinating stuff that does reveal a lot about the characters. Incidentally I couldn’t take my eyes of Joan’s chest when she was in Lane’s office either. That dress…
I reckon Lane is not as upper-class as you might think. Recall him saying fondly that no-one in the US asks “what school you went to” (and how the other British characters treated him). He means secondary school, not university. Perhaps he’s grammar-school educated and went on to Oxbridge. In any case, probably not rich and/or aristocratic.
I think there will be an African-American character bigger than we’ve had before (Carla, Paul’s girlfriend, etc). The civil rights context was so strongly focused on in this episode.
The Megan & Don sex scene was very S&M-y. I was watching it with my mother, and she said “I missed the beginning of this scene”. I didn’t rewind it, jeez. Megan’s “un, deux, trois, quatre” was very sexy, but the rest of that scene made me cringe.
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I love how they just became an EOE and Lane’s first words to the applicants were “We’re only hiring secretaries so gentlemen you’re free to leave” and nobody batted an eye. Even the undercover reporters they’re terrified off won’t think that worth mentioning.
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Yes, that was hilarious.
Pete and Peggy looking at each other when she got stuck with Joan’s baby. So much going on in that scene…
IIRC there was an intimation in Season 2 (1?, 3?) that Betty had hooked while she was a struggling model–or at least was a “party girl” in the Audrey Hepburn/Breakfast at Tiffany’s context.
In the episode where Don and Betty meet at a hotel (I think it was Valentine’s Day), they bumped into a girl whom Betty had roomed with when she was a struggling model in NYC. The girl was with “Curtis”, an older gentleman who awkwardly did not have a business card when asked. Don later informed Betty that her old roomie was a “party girl”. Betty later claimed that she had figured this out when discussing it with her neighbor.
If Betty Hofstadt Draper once worked as a hooker, she is the greatest actress who ever lived.
He’s a thuggish guy with a Noo Yawk accent and has a “kind of” wife on the side. With his manner, It was pretty obvious to me that we were supposed to at least wonder whether he was a mobster.
