Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

Mad Men isn't on lifetime? What have I been watching? Oh my..

So far this is my favorite episode.

lol that happened to me too...took a second to realize it wasn't a shot of young sally

"there were some shots of Jane in this episode that made her one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen."

no kidding; she also talked and had a lot more personality in this episode than I ever remember seeing. the shots of her on the bed at the end were stunning.

i really like megan.

great episode, though i thought the 3-way bad relationship parallelism was maybe a little forced? roger tripping was classic though, and i loved the hojos detour. such a weird and great design scheme. don is a flaming fucking asshole btw.

This is definitely the best episode of the season; likely top five for the series.
A/B/C plots all excellent.
About time; I was getting less and less engaged and a show like this was just what I needed to remind me why I watch Mad Men.

I thought the opposite of Jane. Sort of. While she will always be beautiful I thought she was more serious than she had been in other episodes and sad. I thought she was a very good actress to look less attractive not because she is but because of hat she was emoting: sadness, confusion. I remember thinking she was so gorgeous when she first appeared as the hot secretary. This episode had her looking slightly vintage Star Trek vixenish but jaded and that eclipsed everything, for me at least.

Sorry:
*what not "hat" she was emoting....

Wonder if they are just really going to do away with her so quickly or the exact opposite and show her more now that she and Roger are quits.

it's weird to see don crying again

i liked this episode a lot. no pete, but i'm sure that will be rectified soon.

What a weird episode! Also my uh…version had 10 minutes of a Lifetime show spliced in. Which was extra confusing.

― raw feel vegan (silby)

Ha, mine too.

Roger on acid should've been funnier IMO.

I thought that was the right amount of funny. My favorite part was when he responded to the professor but his lips weren't moving.

amazing episode. up there with the best of the series imo.

the trip scene started out a little corny (orchestra playing out of the vodka bottle) but as it went on it was pretty well done I thought. the end of it where they got really deep into their relationship while they were coming down felt real.

Speaking of that, didn't Timothy Leary already look a little bit more "counterculture" by 1966?

wasn't really buying Peggy giving some random guy a handjob in a movie theater just because she made a bad pitch

She'd had a fight with her bf, lost it at her pitch, decided to play hooky, smoked some random guy's joint, and maybe just felt like being bad. Peggy is all about behaving out of character when no one expects.

amazing episode. the handjob, the acid, the sorbet, the non-linear plot = LOVE

Handjob Peggy (comes with everything you see here) was less to me about her feeling bad and more to me about her wanting to be desired and in control of the situation.

Speaking of that, didn't Timothy Leary already look a little bit more "counterculture" by 1966?

― Johnny Fever,

So that was actually supposed to be Leary?

Someone either called him Leary or my closed captioning (I had the dishwasher running.. too noisy) ID'd him as such.

Roger said at one point "Well, Dr. Leary, I for one find your product boring" but I thought he was speaking in the abstract, not literally addressing the prof

Roger namechecks Leary as "Thanks Mr. Leary but I find your product to be lacking" but I really think he was just being urbane and facetious. That was DEFINITELY not Leary they were tripping with.

i'm xposting like crazy today

A note:

(By the by, the host was not supposed to be LSD pioneer Dr. Timothy Leary, despite Roger's joke; his character's name is credited as Sandy Orcutt, which is an anagram for "Candy Tutors," whatever that means.)

Oh okay that makes more sense. xp

Handjob Peggy (comes with everything you see here) was less to me about her feeling bad and more to me about her wanting to be desired and in control of the situation.

otm, i saw it as her wanting to show dominance SOMEHOW, since it had been denied her during the pitch meeting.

Oops! I was cleaning & watching so I didn't get Roger's Leary joke :(

otm, i saw it as her wanting to show dominance

yeah this is how I read it. lion imagery kinda the giveaway here.

i lolled at blunted Peggy's born free trip

nobody's mentioned this yet but Ginberg's Holocaust-orphan story was o_0

monologue rather

Yeah wasn't sure what to take from that

Yeah, it was. In a normal week, that probably would've been the standout moment, but this week I'd forgotten about it already.

Also why do people no longer give handjobs to strangers in movie theaters?

nobody's mentioned this yet but Ginberg's Holocaust-orphan story was o_0

I was wondering how historically accurate this was -- I was under the impression that babies born in the camps were mostly killed at birth.

A few probably got through for various reasons.

the impact of ginsberg's story was deadened a bit because I was half-convinced peggy was dreaming during it. she was high and doing crazy shit, she fell asleep and woke up to don's enigmatic phone call, ginsberg talks about being a martian in a scene shot entirely in reflection...I was too incredulous to believe it was really happening until the nonlinear structure of the episode became apparent.

yeah and the way the monologue shifted from jokey sarcasm to earnest confessional was almost imperceptible, really well done

A few probably got through for various reasons.

think this is probably true - or a late arriving prisoner was pregnant and didn't deliver til after the camps were liberated or something...? I can think of a few scenarios where this would have happened. but I guess it remains to be seen how true this backstory is.

here's an example

http://www.aish.com/ho/p/48952026.html

On Dec. 21 Bein felt labour pains. She climbed to the top bunk in her barrack, and there, aided by two other inmates, gave birth in secret to a baby girl. The infant was tiny, weighing only one kilogram; she was too weak to cry but strong enough to drink the meagre offering from her mother's breast, and somehow survived the next few weeks in hiding.

The only other infant survivor, according to Auschwitz museum records, was a Hungarian boy, Gyorgy Faludi, born the day of liberation with the help of a Russian doctor. Soviet Red Army troops liberated the camp on Jan. 27, 1945. Baby and mother were among the survivors, and they were an unusual sight -- indeed, almost unique.

Ginsberg didn't specify which camp he was born at did he...?

not at all, just providing another story

WOW. Fucking AWESOME episode.

Also, bravo on the LSD scenes. I hate hate hate when shows do drug scenes, they are always full of bad show-offy lousy visual effects and this was just so perfect, like that bit with the cigarette.

you knew someone was gonna take acid at some point (Peggy? Sally?) and there were a million things that could have gone wrong with it but they REALLY delivered with Roger

sound editing was bonkers - the cross-mixing of Pet Sounds with Mel Torme (I think it was?), the baseball stuff, the split-conversations

yeah I think it was a good choice to convey the trip mostly w/ sound instead of visuals

megan was great in the scene w. the orange sherbet

ginsburg may have been lying as well, who knows.

AV Club also seems confused on the Leary tip, but I really don't understand how anyone can not think it's just a joke. Like if you were at Kentucky Fried Chicken and you were all "This chicken leaves something to be desired, Col. Sanders" it doesn't mean you are having lunch with Col. Sanders. Jeez.