In her very little screen time she did at least get to give the bitchiest line of the episode when asked not to tell anybody yet about the Jai Alai special:
“I won’t even tell people after it’s aired.”
Decent episode but the first of the season for any show always has the “first day back at school” doldrums.
I’m guessing that the Wall Street Journal piece is going to have exactly the opposite effect of the Ad Age piece: too much about Don.
Did anybody else expect to find Betty and Henry carbon monoxided in the garage? I couldn’t think of any reason they would be since the car wasn’t running during the make-out session but one never knows, and I was wondering where they were going with the two not being home at the appointed time. No such luck. (Nothing against Henry but now that she’s an ex Betty adds even less.)
I said “meh” because I’m not thrilled with the prospect of having to care one way or the other about Betty and that schlub she’s involved with. They’ve toned down Elizabeth Moss’s part to bland and mediocre. Joanie isn’t on screen enough. And I find the new Don more of a cipher than anybody to get curious about.
Of course, I’ll keep watching. What else is there to do on Sunday? But unless things start to change soon, I will find something else.
First time through, I enjoyed it, although many of the actors seem to finally be caught up in their own press. Joan was jammed into scenes unnecessarily, probably because of the heat she generates, and I found it to be distracting, since I kept expecting her to say or do something essential to the ep. I thought they had buffed up Peggy into somebody boring until she got herself dressed down by Don again, which had her quaking in her shoes. At least they got rid of that dippy hairdo. I watched it a second time, and it didn’t hold up in the dialog department in some cases. Many of the lines didn’t seem to make sense. Jauary Jones was delightfully hateful and infuriatingly icy. The new hubby better learn to check for those land mines before opening his mouth.
I’m a bit curious to see how the agency got to where they are in the past year. They’re lying about a second floor and don’t have a conference table but Don’s getting interviewed, they have an office and Peggy says that all their success is because of Don. And then when they lose the Jai Alai account, Pryce says that Lucky Strikes is 71% of their billing. So they don’t really seem all that successful at all, or at least not much better than they were when they left Sterling Cooper v2.0.
Yeah, I think ‘living on the edge’ is going to be the theme this season. While the partners are well off, the rank and file took a huge risk going with them.
It dragged in spots, but overall I liked it. Lots of Peggy is always good, both because I like the character and because they showed off her calves. I was simultaneously horrified and overjoyed when Don tossed the two prudes out fo the office.
Sadly, at no point in the story did anyone murder Betty Draper.
Well, he made absolutely no attempt to give them what the want. I know things were a bit different in the 60s, but advertisers aren’t supposed to rethink entire marketing strategies for the client. They’re supposed to execute on the strategy that the company brings them. As soon as he turned the card around I knew they weren’t going to like the concept.
I was astonished that they have the same kid playing Bobby two seasons in a row. We always refer to them as First Bobby, Second Bobby and Third Bobby when we’re watching the DVDs. I was looking forward a little to Fourth Bobby.
By the way, did everyone in the 1960s have mediocre TV reception? Even from the major networks? Even when viewing from in or near New York City? Because the TV reception within Mad Men seems to be chronically plagued by static fuzz and vertical hold problems. I think the writers are overplaying this bit of nostalgic quaintness.
As a child of the 70s, I remember broadcast TV pretty well, along with all the things that could degrade the picture. However, we lived in a viewing area much smaller than New York, and the major networks (NBC, CBS, and ABC) almost always came through perfectly clearly. Even in bad weather.
Of course, the PBS and UHF stations were a different matter.
I’m not buying the dominatrix scene. Sure, we all want to see Don get slapped, but it seemed unrealistic, or maybe obvious. Yes, yes, Don secretly wants to be punished. Too easy.
So, what’s the deal with Betty’s new husband? Was he really so blind sided by her all-American beauty that he really thought she was his fantasy realized? Or did he see her for who she is, spoiled and simple, and was a-ok with it?
Don never gives the client what they want. That’s not why he’s there. He gives them what they need to be successful, and he never likes it when a client questions his creative. Especially when he knows for a fact he’s right. Don does not execute another person’s strategy.
His apartment was really dark, wasn’t it? So maybe he can’t see himself in the mirror well enough to notice that he doesn’t look like his usual suave self. Besides looking tired and frazzled, his suits didn’t hang quite right, and he was never quite clean-shaven.
It took me a while to figure out that the woman he took to dinner, Jane’s friend, was the preacher’s wife from True Blood.