Mad-Men: season 6 premiere (open spoilers)

[alphaboi867]

@Don_Draper

I have this image in my head about the way (IMO) “Mad Men” should end - it should end in the modern day, but at Don Draper’s funeral…And then, we fade away to the modern day offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Olsen (that’d be Jane Sterling, Bert Cooper - still alive and kicking and reading an iPad in the lobby - Sally Draper and Peggy),…)

I always pictured a 60+ Peggy going into work while having a conversation with somebody (husband, child, etc) on a cellphone about how she spends to much time at work. She’d get off the elevator on the 93rd floor. Cue a shot of the World Trade Center with ominous music.

[Ellen_Cherry]

You know what I love about Don? (In addition that he’s gorgeous Jon Hamm, of course.) He gets away with ignoring direct questions. People pointedly say things to him, he just looks and them and doesn’t answer. I really want to try that, but I’m too much of a motormouth to pull it off.

“Well, what about it, Don? Is YOUR mother still alive?”
“…”

<puke>

[Erdosain]

@Exapno_Mapcase

Simply unimaginable that anyone would have been allowed to tall a joke about severed ear necklaces on television in 1967.

In fact, it wouldn’t have been reported anywhere in 1967. That article refers to a 2003 report that first reported the news about the severed ear necklace and I don’t see anything in a Google search that says it was revealed earlier. Somebody might have, in a magazine or book, but not a chance that anybody talked about it on television. That was one of the biggest anachronisms in the series.

It may be a slight anachronism, but 2003 is hardly the first time people heard of mutilation atrocities in Vietnam. Hell, John Kerry testified in 1971 before the Senate that American soldiers were cutting off ears. That’s only three years after this fictional Tonight Show appearance and I’m pretty sure it was televised.

Best line of the night was Pete Campbell’s as he looked at Harry with disgust. “Everything turns you on, doesn’t it?”

I guess we also know why Don was so eager to give the doctor a Leica.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

@Erdosain

I guess we also know why Don was so eager to give the doctor a Leica.

Seems like a fair trade, a Leica for a lick-a.

[Tim_R.Mortiss]

@Alessan

I guess they grokked her..

I just wanted to say that this is about the funniest and most cogent post I have ever seen at SDMB! Bravo!!!

[Tim_R.Mortiss]

Best part of this episode? Somebody had the brilliant idea of putting Roger Sterling in ANALYSIS! Hell, we’ve spent five or six years watching Roger make sly observations about life, the world, and everything, but he’s been shackled by the constraint of only making pronouncements that made sense within the context of the script. But now, he’s in analysis! He is EXPECTED to spew his innermost feelings! And of course they are hilarious. I hope this becomes a motif for the rest of the season.

[BluePear]

@Ellen_Cherry

You know what I love about Don? (In addition that he’s gorgeous Jon Hamm, of course.) He gets away with ignoring direct questions. People pointedly say things to him, he just looks and them and doesn’t answer. I really want to try that, but I’m too much of a motormouth to pull it off.

“Well, what about it, Don? Is YOUR mother still alive?”
“…”

<puke>

That’s true. He also totally ignored the question of how he ended up being a best man in that Hawaiian wedding while showing the photos.

[BluePear]

I thought this was really insightful.

Reading Too Much Into ‘Mad Men’: 10 Clues From The Premiere Suggesting ‘Don Draper’ Will Die

It also made me appreciate the episode a lot more.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@BluePear

I thought this was really insightful.

Reading Too Much Into ‘Mad Men’: 10 Clues From The Premiere Suggesting ‘Don Draper’ Will Die

It also made me appreciate the episode a lot more.

That’s a good article. It’s flawed, though, because it doesn’t go far enough. The list of actual and metaphorical deaths in the show is several times as long as those ten and they refer to others besides Don. Remember Roger screaming “It’s my funeral!” Or Peggy almost losing a client because of severed ears from dead enemies? Or Betty discovering that violin girl had vanished into thin air, staring transfixed at the knife sticking into the “pig”? Or the crucifix imagery around Sylvia?

But also notice that several of these stories involve rebirth. The crucifix, most obviously, but Betty changing her hair, Peggy changing her ad, Roger changing his attitude.

And Don. I agree that right now the show is pointing toward Don leaving Don behind. But that article misses the big clue, assuming that any of these are clues and not Weiner having a fit. Paradise can indicate Paradise Lost but it probably doesn’t. Far more like that it references the third book of the Divine Comedy. Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso. What happens after Dante visits Hell? He goes to Purgatory, which is where one can ascend through spiritual growth and finally attain Paradise. That’s rebirth.

Maybe Weiner has purged his system of this death crap - Purge-atorio - and the rest of the season we see Don struggling through the seven deadly sins. (Remember that these are metaphorical in Dante, not strictly literal.)

3.1 First terrace (the proud)
3.2 Second terrace (the envious)
3.3 Third terrace (the wrathful)
3.4 Fourth terrace (the slothful)
3.5 Fifth terrace (the covetous)
3.6 Sixth terrace (the gluttonous)
3.7 Seventh terrace (the lustful)

Each terrace purges a particular sin in an appropriate manner. Those in Purgatory can leave their circle voluntarily, but will only do so when they have corrected the flaw within themselves that led to committing that sin.

I have to hope, anyway. Otherwise stuffing a season’s worth of death imagery into the first two hours is the descent into Hell, not the rise from it.