Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

i did NOT know about speck, what a fucked up story.
also wtf wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_rapists

American rapists
Stay away from meeee

aaaanyway we all know about this already right

by my count Roger's tally for bribing people in the office into doing things for him is up to $1410 so far this season

More than that! $50 to the secretary in the debut, $1100 to Harry same ep, and $410 to Peggy last night

Just wanted to point out that the show must have a product placement deal w/Bugles, as Mother Francis was eating them while watching tv just like FatBetty.

there's always been tons of product placement on this show

ha i though the bugles was a nice link between Betty and Mother Francis (as was "your mother is obsese.")

Bugles: Fat People Like 'Em!tm

anyone else feel robbed of at least a season's worth of potboilery baby daddy drama by joan's dumping the motherfucker already?

you misspelled "saved from"

anyone else think that the show's treatment of betty is sort of shabby/creepy and indicative of certain issues on the part of its creator(s)?

xp lol, i guess so

and yes, i agree with you

I think you could definitely make a case that this show has "mommy" issues... in contrast to Don (who's shown more or less being a dad who at least loves his children), pretty much all the mothers on the show have been portrayed in a pretty negative light.

Betty
Peggy's mother
Henry's mother
Joan's mother (altho in the last couple episodes she doesn't come off so badly...?)

Mona Sterling seemed to have her shit together, I guess

Campbell's ice-cold mother too

how are the daddies in general, besides absent? the only ones coming to mind are pete's dead one and lane's violent one.

Betty's dad was pretty cool.

Don's drunk, violent one

Trudy's dad seems manipulative but not entirely evil. at least responsible and caring towards his daughter.

The women on the show are just pretty faces or they are Joan, Betty, Peggy, Sally and now Mother Francis This is why I was hoping Megan has some major character development. Hate that Betty's just sort of stagnated with a lame weight issue so far. Would have appreciated more Sally time instead of the Don dream.

The women on the show are just pretty faces or they are Joan, Betty, Peggy, Sally and now Mother Francis

mmm no. Trudy, Megan. Wouldn't exactly call the LIFE mag woman a "pretty face" lol

oh you ref'd Megan - sorry. Trudy isn't major but I do think she's past the "pretty face" accusation

trying to reach out but really making everything about herself.

yes--it wasn't just peggy glancing at the purse. dawn looked uncomfortable with much of their conversation, esp the latter half. i think part of this may be peggy's self-centeredness but also a reaction to what i think might be perceived by dawn as a kind of uncomfortable intimacy. not sexual intimacy, just.... well just as peggy probably doesn't have much experience hanging out with black folks, i wonder if dawn has much experience hanging out with white folks. and by going from 1 to 11 on the relax-o-meter peggy probably made dawn pretty uncomfortable. the purse thing was just the capper.

Peggy was doing a lot of projection/nervous white person stuff. Eager to spotlight their similarities without actually talking about race etc

that's the ongoing "all this stuff means something; see the connections?" show-and-don't-go madmen trademark
― wrapped sausage stylus (forksclovetofu), Monday, April 9, 2012 11:37 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, this. sometimes it comes together nicely just on the level of patterning, sometimes it actually means something, other times it seems like they are trying too hard to signal their "quality" status by hitting you over the head with this meaningless parallelism. i think this last episode fit more in category 1 but YMMV. the worst instance of this had to be that "beautiful girls" episode.

Peggy was doing a lot of projection/nervous white person stuff. Eager to spotlight their similarities without actually talking about race etc

― Disco Bob & MC Criminal (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, April 9, 2012 5:15 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, the moment peggy shifted from "i know what it's like to be the only one of your kind" (OK, sure) to "and i know all about your ambitions and concerns" (uh..) dawn began to look uncomfortable.

"Pretty faces" as in featured extras. I would love to see more Trudy.

Don is totally useless at being anything more than a weekend parent, think of the episode from last season where Sally threw a tantrum in his office. If the mothers come off worse on this show it's usually because they carry the greater burden; they're simply in proximity to the kids more, without many (or any) other outlets, so their arbitrariness and cruelty stand out.

Betty is this but with the added challops of being relentlessly immature. The show's refusal to let her grow up or learn from experience like, at all, is its worst part imo, if it's just gonna be Fat Morticia this season I'd rather they write her out altogether.

If the mothers come off worse on this show it's usually because they carry the greater burden

lol what "burden" did Betty carry - Carla did everything

I dunno about the "burdens" borne by the parents on the show whose children are already grown (which is all the other mothers I listed)

would say the show is more broadly about dysfunctional families, rather than dysfunctional moms

Wow, whoever brought up the sociopathic stuff a few weeks ago was otm with this whole dream sequence!

i felt very otm in that moment, though it was veggie girl who first called don a sociopath itt

ah c'mon who among us hasn't dreamed of strangled an ex amirite

lol

tbrr tho... if Don had actually murdered her that would have been evidence for his being a sociopath. But dreaming about it just means that he's anxious about reconciling his past and his libido with his relationship with Megan. It has zero bearing on whether or not he's a sociopath (which, in case it isn't obvious, I don't really think is supported by the series - his relationship with Anna and, to a lesser extent Joan and Peggy, suggest otherwise)

Yeah but this is still close to a 'plate of shrimp' moment

thought it was pretty well done the way the "white people problems" media anxiety over the student nurse murders overshadowed the riots. bumping it off the cover of Life magazine and Peggy saying "but you're not a nurse" ... oh.

― dmr, Monday, April 9, 2012 1:21 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not that it invalidates your point, bit iirc the nurses in Chicago were all filipina, not white.

Shakey Don comes off as "more or less being a dad who at least loves his children" only because he gets to be the cool weekend escape glamorous fun parent. All the dads do. They get to flee into Manhattan, stylish offices and casting calls. They're also neglectful, alcoholic, philandering and sometimes violent. This is why I don't think the show itself has "mommy issues," except maybe in how regressive Betty continues to be.

The show is obviously about this insane level of privilege enjoyed by a very narrow sliver of society, how wonderful and glamorous and easy it is, just before it's seriously challenged. All I'm saying is the freedom to neglect your kids with impunity is one of these privileges. Despite her class, Betty and the others don't have access to this in quite the same way.

Not that it invalidates your point, bit iirc the nurses in Chicago were all filipina, not white.

some were "white," some filipina.

All the dads do. They get to flee into Manhattan, stylish offices and casting calls. They're also neglectful, alcoholic, philandering and sometimes violent.

violent?

where does this "all the dads do" come from? none of the other father characters (only ones I can think of with small children are Lane, whose family has been out of the country, and Pete, whose child is just a baby) do any of this.

and I think Don's been shown to genuinely be concerned for his children's physical welfare in a way that Betty is not

I'm talking about all of the mothers and fathers on the show, regardless of age, as people were upthread. Lane's dad was violent, as was Grandma Francis'. When did we switch to just this generation?

I agree with your second point but Don's way of expressing concern (on a fundamental, life-choices level) is "where's a woman who can handle this?"

I'm talking about all of the mothers and fathers on the show, regardless of age, as people were upthread.

^^^this, does not jibe with this:
They get to flee into Manhattan, stylish offices and casting calls. They're also neglectful, alcoholic, philandering and sometimes violent.

the only generation depicted fleeing to Manhattan's stylish offices and casting calls is Don's generation.

Don's dad may have been violent, alcoholic, neglectful and philandering but that was obviously unrelated to Manhattan lol

The show's refusal to let her grow up or learn from experience like, at all, is its worst part imo

Work with/know plenty of people in real life who won't grow up or learn from experience, and its not their writers holding them back

No way is Don a sociopath. The man's got the full range of emotional responses, plus extra kinks, but he's understandably shy about showing them given his era, his past as an impersonation of a dead man, and a man who saw nasty shit while he was in Korea 9inlcuding being blown up, which would give anyone PTSD)

I don't know Shakey, I think it's pretty heavily implied (by the show, by history) that previous generations acted this way too, whether in New York, London, wherever. Yes Don's dad was a poor, mean motherfucker -- which was kind of my point to begin with, that the show doesn't let the fathers off any easier, in general. Again, I think Don superficially comes across as a better father because of the era-sensitive social role his gender allows him, where creeping distance isn't called neglect.

He's not one of the fathers mentioned above, but Pete's new train buddy is such an obvious dickwad, and he spells out the accepted of-its-time working man's response to family life in such a methodical way... it's like a Mad Men mission statement, all our people are still shit, just different.

Work with/know plenty of people in real life who won't grow up or learn from experience, and its not their writers holding them back

yeah, but when the "people" are fictional, it's always the writers holding them back. betty can't catch a break, and the only thing it seems to serve is the writers' distaste for the character.