Oh nice. I’ve only been there once and didn’t recognize it.
Austin Healey 3000. I remember them well.
The shoe-company marketing exec whom Joan met for drinks was played by Dan Byrd, who plays Travis on Cougartown. I had trouble accepting his character because the actor looks quite young (really no different than when he played an awkward teenager on Aliens in America).
Ooh, nice. Want.
Mad Men is suffering a bit from late-stage Ensemble Cast Syndrome (don’t know what the official term is for it), where every character has to have his or her own subplot to keep the actors interested in their roles, and then you end up with five or six mediocre storylines instead of one or two really good ones.
Pete’s dad died in a plane crash in one of the early seasons.
Except in the scene I was referring to, all the men were wearing hats, not just Don. He was walking outside somewhere-- I’m not even sure if it was LA or NYC, but assume the latter. If it was meant to show the contrast between LA and NYC, then I’m surprised the writers would go for that over realism. They tend to do period detail so meticulously, I can’t imagine they would need to break detail in order to contrast the two.
Interesting note about Dan Byrd and his audition for that role (from the New York Times):
To me he resembled a younger (if possible), slightly chunky Leonardo Dicaprio.
I took the shot of suited men with hats outside the LA airport as a visual cue that there is a big influx of businessmen/New Yorkers coming to LA, who don’t quite fit in there. Reinforced by other things in the episode like the double mention of cruddy bagels in LA.
Aw, damnit. I still hold out hope for one last Pete-beatdown before the series ends!
I had trouble keeping track of just who was who. I’m hoping that the show focuses a little more on just a few of the characters each episode now that we’ve got the opener out of the way and are theoretically caught up with everyone.
I did like the way that Don and Joan, especially, seem to be realizing that they’re showing their age and aren’t as hip as they once were. Don’s sharp ladies’ man persona is beginning to look a little past its prime and Joan’s Maidenform Woman sexpot image just doesn’t have the effect it did before girls started burning their bras and shortening their miniskirts. I did notice how short Joan’s skirt was in her first office scene - it looks like she’s trying to keep up, but by 1969, Youth had the bit in its teeth and was well on the way to marginalizing its elders.
My own dad, who was generally very invested in his self-image as an up-to-date, swinging kind of guy, had abandoned hats by 1965 or so, and by 1969 his lapels and ties had widened by almost as many inches as his hair had lengthened. He wasn’t in advertising or in Manhattan, though.
The contrast between him & Joan is striking. Admittedly he’s about a decade to old to be her son, but Joan could’ve easily have been changing his diapers for pocket money in junior high.
And his mother “fell” overboard last season while on a cruise after eloping with her ex-nurse, who was also Bob Benson’s ex-boyfriend.
Really. But he said “hippie”. Maybe Don confusing “hippie” with “preppie” was to show that he’s still out of touch.
I liked the episode more than I thought I would, especially the scene with Joan and the professor.
And even though she’s out of his league, I thought there was some chemistry between Joan and the shoe company guy. They’re a mismatch, but there were sparks.
That closing shot of Don giving up on the sliding doors – what’s it mean? Does he recognize that he can’t control every aspect of his life now?
Much like Don’s hat showed that he was old hat, I think that closing shot showed that Don is alone out in the cold.
And as his conversation with Neve indicated, he knows it.
Did anyone else catch the meta reference the agent made in regards to Megan Draper / Jessica Paré?
“I’ll say one thing about this girl, she evokes strong feelings.”
I think that’s such a wink from Matthew Weiner. Lots of fans hate her.
Megan herself acknowledged her teeth in the Disneyland episode. She tells Don that an actress friend told her she could never be an actress because of her teeth.
I found the multiple airplane rides and the parachute reference to be very suspicious in that, I can’t help if but wonder if it supports this amazing theory I heard last year about how Mad Men will end:
I don’t think it’s totally clear that Don’s lying to Megan about work. For one thing, Don has no reaction when Pete says he’d been meaning to look Megan up, so he’s ostensibly not concerned that she would learn the truth from Pete.
I’m sure it was deliberate that in the last shot of Peggy, she was wearing a crocheted tam with a pompom.
Also struck by Ken tossing the earring to Joan and missing by a country mile. Because he has poor depth perception. He lost an eye for this agency, and this is the respect he gets.
I’m missing the significance of the tam and pompom. Please explain for the slow class.
Wait a sec. Nobody else thought last shot of Don was supposed to be the beginning of alcohol withdrawal? He didn’t touch the liquor Freddie brought over, and he had the door open when Freddie arrived. I assumed he was having bad hot flashes.
Also, he wasn’t necessarily lying to Megan. He has been working, but just as a freelancer. I don’t think Freddie is paying him, but he’s getting his ideas in front of people, which I assume is the first step in getting his job back.
I thought it was interesting that he told Megan he “had to work” as an excuse to leave, then told Neve that he “had to work” as an excuse to stay faithful to Megan.