Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

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.

that dude didn't look anything like Leary. And this is what, summer of '66? Leary was already pretty big by that point - being targeted by the feds, conducting televised debates etc. I don't think he was doing NY dinner parties.

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.

It always surprised me how people will take a sarcastic comment in a fictional work as literal, but they would never take it that way if someone said it in real life.

well real life provides more context, no?

but yeah you'd have to be a bit tone deaf to miss roger's joke.

loved Roger's note btw

PLEASE HELP ME

loved the cigarette - i have literally had that happen in, er... similar circumstances.

i can't remember what happened with the cigarette

He smoked the whole thing down with his first drag.

to the sound of an accordion squeeze

heh. i'm sure a gif will be along any minute now.

Yeah that was otm and awesome.

I'm mainly glad it was suddenly all fish-eye lenses and extreme close-ups and trailing effects. It still is a bit stylized but it's all maintained in the Mad Men world and I love the fun Roger seems to be having with it.

it was wasn't

there was a lot in the episode that was really stylized. the Don & Megan driving scenes (and especially the later scene of Don driving alone) had this saturated cartoony look on the scenery going by.

kind of "fake looking" but in a really specific sixties-movie way

yeah, when megan rolled down the window, i thought, "why bother? your car isn't moving."

my wife said she was hoping Megan was going to fall out of the car o_0

that's odd. why she hate a megan?

I find her to be a frustrating character tbh

I kinda hate her too tbh

i felt for her in this ep. like when she was trying to order pie and don was all "WE'LL HAVE ORANGE SHERBET." don's so used to "ordering for" a woman; god forbid she should want something for herself.

weird. what's the objection? dullness? she seems nice enough.

that was to xps

and yeah, don was being a complete ass, all through this episode. bossing her around, ignoring or ridiculing her feelings, abandoning her cuz she wouldn't get with his program, kicking in the door, physically assaulting her.

I dunno I have a kneejerk resentment against anybody who gets everything they want because of how they look. especially when I find it actively unpleasant to look at her lol

She's stuck between modern woman and cardboard cutout. Character was never properly developed as far as i can see.

like, she's just a dimbulb who married her boss. I agree that Don treated her like shit in this episode and her reactions were very humanizing (and funny, eg the sherbet) but yeah I just don't like her.

I don't think she's that dim of a bulb. My biggest gripe was wondering how she was dealing with the obvious preferential treatment at work, so I'm glad it was addressed that she feels like it's not taken seriously by Don and presumably other people. Her reaction to Harry's salacious remarks in the first ep was pretty great.

Maybe if you want autonomy don't marry your boss?

she hasn't been shown doing anything particularly remarkable work-wise, and she's been pretty dumb re: social situations as I noted upthread. jury's out imho. I don't think Don married her for intellect.

I dunno how much she knows about the dark details of don's past (I suspect lots?) but if she does know enough, that "mother" crack was really really horribly vicious.

seemed pretty clear she knew she'd gone over the line there

one more instance of her saying the wrong thing at the wrong time

I really like Megan and think she adds tons to the dynamic of the show. You guys are nuts.

Agreed, this criticism seems completely wackadoo.

I dunno how much she knows about the dark details of don's past (I suspect lots?) but if she does know enough, that "mother" crack was really really horribly vicious.

eh, vicious sure, but 100% justified imo. again, don was being a complete prick, deserved whatever she could (verbally) dish out.

and i don't know why anyone would think megan has to justify herself in the first place. so, she's pretty. not her fault, and don skates on his looks as much as anyone. so, she married the boss. no more her fault than his, people fall in love at work all the time. i think she seems like a pretty decent person, overall. not perfect, perhaps a bit naive, but not distinctly stupid or frequently cruel. she seems to take a lot more abuse than she dishes out.

She's definitely naive, and thrown to some extent by the cynicism of her co-workers. Partly this comes from the end of that Honeymoon period, where its all fresh and new and now Don is falling back into his self-expected role as Man. Don is a total jerk, but he doesn't realise it half the time, because he doesn't consider her as much as he obviously should.

I liked that it was BERT of all people who called him out (for slipping at work, natch).