Don’s forgetting the same lesson Pete had to learn – keep your affairs outside your building.
That’s what I thought. It’s definately in keeping with Joan’s character.
Yeah, he made a huge deal about not finding her the least bit attractive, then spent the entire time they were naked with a hard-on (which she made fun off).
There’s no way Weiner would skip over 1968 like that.
I thought it was funny how he mentioned his Ivy Leage MBA to Don. Don’s the last person to be impressed by that. He said he was in Accounts, so he answer’s to Pete, right? Because I was wonder if Joan really did take over Lane’s job as Finance Director she’d probally have a staff by now (given the firm’s growth), and I’d love to see her dealing with having men work under her. Just imagine some young accounting grad trying to go over her head and talk to one of the other partners man-to-man. 
I think he said he was in Accounting, as Don made some comment about never getting up there and he was utterly oblivious to Lane’s job as well.
And I suspect that Suckup is setting up part of Joan’s storyline this season. Although it was amusing that Ken, of all people, smacked him down.
What was the point of bringing up the story of the Gay cruising area in the department store, and standing in the shopping bags?
Is this a hint to the beginning of the upcoming (June 28, 1969) Stonewall riots and perhaps a new Gay story line/character? BTW, whatever happened to the Gay dude in season one who just left the company, never to be seen again?
Sal Romano. The reason he left was for spurning the advances of a Lucky Strike exec; since they no longer deal with Lucky Strike they could bring him back to the firm whenever they like. When last we saw him, he was married to a wife who was beginning to suspect and he was moving into video production, so it might be interesting to play catch-up.
The fans have been clamoring for the return of Sal for years now which is understandable since he is one of the most compelling characters on the show. The most interesting thing is how disappointed Don was in Sal for not whoring himself out but disappointed in Joan for the opposite reason.
Don likes Joan.
Don doesn’t like men at all, from what we’ve seen. He’s never had a male friend - the doctor is a creature who plays with life and death, his current preoccupation, not a friend as such. He uses both men and women, but in different ways to satisfy the two different halves of his life. That’s why his relationship with Peggy was so interesting. He used her as he did men, not women, and it played differently from any other interaction.
That might explain why he seems so bereft in this episode. He’s always been desperately seeking something that would move him off the path he’s on, and Peggy was the anomaly in his life. Now he doesn’t even have that. And that means we don’t have it to watch. He better get a new Peggy because we deserve one.
Actually, when we last saw him, Sal was in a phone booth calling his wife/beard, lying to her about having just been fired, and to all appearances about to finally Get Some in the tawdry and soulcrushing manner implied by the background he was surrounded by.
Mad Men seems to be tossing in color highlights of the development of gay culture as the seasons go by. Sal and the Lucky Strikes heir was the first example. Then the young foreign writer who casually mentioned that he “makes love to the men”. Most recent highlight seems to be the department store tearoom story. It’ll be interesting to see if Stonewall gets a mention.
Pushing her husband’s buttons is classic Betty. And she skipped around several abandoned tenements off St. Mark’s Place (at least two, and how many could there be?).
Anybody else wonder if that “pork loin” was the remains of Violin Girl?
I guess they grokked her.
On a related note, I rented a tiny 2-bedroom apartment near St. Mark’s in 2000. Cost me $1950 a month.
I sometimes get the idea that Betty’s scenes would make more sense if she was played by pretty much anybody other than January Jones. I swear that if they recast the role with Gabourey Sidibe and with not a word of explanation, I doubt anybody would complain because the quality of the scenes would offset the visual shock.
I’ve never had goulash, but now I want some: pork roast, onions, paprika- hard to go wrong (unless you’re using melted city snow of course).
Did anybody notice the similarity between the Angry Alpha squatter’s “we live on your garbage” lines and Charles Manson’s rhetoric? Betty was lucky to get out of there with her life, wallet, and virtue intact.
Solid episode, like most late-season premieres, it was more about laying groundwork and table-setting than any sort of payoff. So, being a bit slow is a given.
I’m a fan of small stakes and personal, internal problems in TV drama, which there isn’t enough of, so I’m glad Mad Men is back to scratch that itch. No gunfire, no villains.
A little underwhelming, even though MM doesn’t tend to start big and loud. We got a look at everyone and they… haven’t done much since we last saw them.
Can someone explain the lobby heart attack sequence to me in real short words? I will probably take ten minutes today to go up and rewatch that part, but it completely threw me. As I saw it:
[ul]
[li] The show opened from the doorman’s point of view as he was getting CPR.[/li][li] Fade to Hawaii.[/li][li] Don and Megan coming home through the building doors, talking about being home and cold. It is clearly just before Christmas.[/li][li] Doorman greets them, falls to the floor.[/li][li] (Some sort of skip? and) Doorman is talking about being recovered after a month. It’s still just before Christmas and Don and Megan are still on their way home from the trip.[/li][/ul]
WTF?
That and two or three other weird Don moments make me fear even more of the strange arty crap that crept in last season - the missing elevator, etc. I’m not sure why Weiner is doing this pointless side stuff that never adds up to anything and never leads anywhere unless Don goes insane before the end of the run.
I hate to be dull and linear in my appreciation but these Hitchcock/X Files zings don’t really do anything for me on this show.
The second Doorman scene is just before New Year’s – the Doorman mentions he’d left Don a really good bottle of something or other (for Christmas), and later Megan plans her fondue party for New Year’s with Don’s new fling.
No, that’s not it. There is a very weird cut in there. Don and Megan come in from their trip, it’s still just before Christmas, the doorman collapses, and when it cuts back it’s some earlier time - Megan and Don are dressed differently. Then it plays through until we’re back at D&M headed upstairs from their trip again. It’s a flashback, but it’s so smoothly edited into the flow you can barely tell unless you’re closely watching clothing, etc.
I need to watch again to get it exact, but it’s just a quick flashback to right before they left for Hawaii. Before they left, the doorman collapsed and was revived by the doctor. Don & Megan go to Hawaii and Don spends the trip contemplating the fragility of life. The previous scare is the reason why Don doesn’t let the doorman help with the bags when they return.
It wasn’t quite pointless, as it (clumsily) introduced the doctor to us. Or at least I don’t remember him from last season. Otherwise, he would have appeared out of thin air as Don’s friend.
The episode was confusing and disjointed and Don is right back where he started. Peggy was the only one worth watching and I’ll give it another episode or two, but I think I’m done with Mad Men.
I dig these threads because it often throws light on some piece of dialogue I misheard or some subtle visual I missed.
But I think I’m done watching Mad Men one episode at a time.
To me it seems like in previous seasons, each episode could almost stand-alone with only a thread of continuity from one to the next.
Now, as with other series (Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Weeds), Mad Men is like a 13-hour epic movie.
And I think more and more people are watching shows this way (multiple episodes in one sitting) with the help of DVDs, torrents, VOD and Netflix (I ate up House of Lies in 2 days).
So, I find it a bit unfair to harshly judge each episode. To me, it’s like criticizing the first 18 minutes of Godfather 2 as being slow and boring.
This episode left me a bit disappointed, but only wanting for more. I think I’m going to PVR 2 or 3 episodes then watch them back-to-back-to-back.
No, I just rewatched it (on Vudu). My description in post 95 is exact. The collapse, and start of the CPR, is slotted almost seamlessly into their return. It’s really weird, even by the standards of the little twists Weiner has been throwing in.
The exact sequence is:
[ul]
[li]Don and Megan come in the entry doors with suitcases.[/li][li]Cut to Jonesy coming out of the back room (bathroom, I assume). He asks how their trip was.[/li][li]Cut to D&M. Megan says, “Wonderful, Warm. How are you feeling?”[/li][li]Cut to Jonesy, who collapses.[/li][li]Cut back to D&M in different clothes, no suitcases, as Megan screams.[/li][li]CPR, doctor, phone calls, Don obviously disturbed.[/li][li]Sharp cut back to Jonesy offering to help with suitcase and Don refusing.[/li][/ul]
It’s that first, perfectly timed and seamed cut that really throws reality out the window. A more conventional technique would to have been Don obviously begin flashing back or otherwise separating the time stream. Pointless and irritating to do it this way, IMVHO. Comes off as jerking the viewer around Because They Can.