Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

where are we at in the timeline, November '66...?

yep, thanksgiving '66.

something has to go blooie

felt like that smog was particularly ominous.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wavz13/4083896787/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7m8LP_E-8w

maybe they will address the first kwanzaa (held December '66)

Wish they'd let up on Betty draper. I get it, she's fat!

I suggested to someone that next time they replace the actor playing Bobby they should go full-on Doctor Who regeneration, and now I see that the first Doctor Who regeneration was at the end of October '66. I sincerely hope they don't miss this boat.

Bobby got actual lines this time!

hoping the series ends with Bobby pushing his dad out the window after murdering everyone in the office with Pete's rifle

- Betty + whipcream + spitting it into the sink

I dunno, I saw this and thought man, the writers really do fucking hate Betty huh

she's too one-dimensional villain at this point imo

- Ginsberg's "and... murder?"

this was hilarious though

Betty's Thanksgiving prayer was twisted. "I'm thankful that I have it all and that no one has anything better."

I dunno, I saw this and thought man, the writers really do fucking hate Betty huh

felt like the Henry-feeding-her-steak-like-a-dog bit was more in this vein than the whipped cream bit, personally. but yeah she's a bit cartoonish

really hoping Henry goes to work for Nixon somehow...

That kind of tipped her into the "cartoonishly evil" category for me. xp

Ginsberg has turned out to be a great character

why did he not get off the elevator with Don at the end?

like, does he have a second job somewhere else in the building or something lol

because he's not actually on his way home, since he's got to work late like Peggy and Stan

why was he in the elevator at all then

like iirc Don's in the elevator - Ginsberg gets in - Don gets out - Ginsberg stays in the elevator. where is each one going?

Don enters the elevator, Ginsberg was *hiding behind a plant* or something so he could corner Don in the elevator and yell at him, Don leaves to go home, Ginsberg goes back upstairs to eat chow mein and keep giving Peggy shit

Don's "I don't think about you at all" was hilarious, not least because it's a total lie

I like how we've spent several episodes debating if Ginsberg was going to be seen as competition/foil for Peggy, when it's ending up Don.

I also like, in reference to all discussions about just how good they are and how much a genius Don is, that when he started with the devil talk, I thought the point was that it was terrible. It was clear the next day that while it wasn't as good as Ginsbergs, everybody thought it was pretty good.

saw it as the rest of creative was humoring him, b/c he's the boss, it's a bit of a chickenfeed account, it was a decent enough concept, and Don hadn't done much on his own in a while. It didn't seem great, no.

I liked the bit where he said (when trying to make it seem like he was freestyling) that "obviously" everyone's minds turn to a snowball's chance in Hell. When... no, the first thing in my mind was a person being hit by a snowball 0_0

agree w/silby. Ginsberg's pitch seemed more effortless, particularly the thing about the pig

Don had definitely honed his concept a little bit between the time when he was recording ideas on the dictaphone and when he pitched it to the team

his new line was funnier ("this ... could change everything")

on a side note they finally did the sensible thing and started running The Pitch right after Mad Men (ad pitching competition reality show) instead of a rerun of the Killing

I watched it, it was ok. It was just good enough that I will probably keep the channel on AMC and watch it.

i'm just (vaguely, mildly, not really) annoyed that i had to turn away from the second hour of the food network star premiere.

Of all the shitty TV that I watch, Food Network Star is the one I feel most guilty about, because it's exceptionally shitty. But that's a conversation for another thread. Or better yet, for never.

That scene of Don brainstorming was pretty LOL. I kept thinking "Oh, these are horrible ideas, any minute now he's going to kill his machine with whiskey in a writer's block frenzy.

Food Network Star is responsible for Guy Fieri, so I think it should be killed with fire.

Funny if you think about it - Don & Megan so inspiring with Cool Whip, Betty solo depressing with Reddi Whip.

a) I think he was a plant
b) he's Orson Welles compared to pretty much every other contestant who's been on that show
c) I am sorry for cheapening a Med Men thread with food network star talk.

did Pete and Ken know that Don's pitch was Don's when they were suggesting it was pretty good (but less good than Ginsberg's)?

(btw, who were the ad people ['Peter, Paul and Mary'] who Pete was complaining about being highlighted over SCDP?)

re several comments upthread: i straight-up hate this show's treatment of betty. it's the one thing about mad men that really sticks in my craw. reminds me of the weird, nasty and at least borderline misogynist contempt displayed for elizabeth perkins' celia on weeds. somebody working out ex-wife and/or bad mommy issues...

Betty became a sympathetic character a while back, but she still acts upon her worst impulses. That doesn't make her a cartoon villain. That makes her human.

also ads for next week indicate quite a bit of Lane. xposts

Thanks! I get the show on itunes, so I don't really get to see the promos.

(btw, who were the ad people ['Peter, Paul and Mary'] who Pete was complaining about being highlighted over SCDP?)

I was wondering this as well

(btw, who were the ad people ['Peter, Paul and Mary'] who Pete was complaining about being highlighted over SCDP?)

See the link I posted above to the original article. Mary Wells, Richard Rich and Stewart Grene of Wells Rich Greene. "Our motto is, if we were modest, we'd be pefect".

Ugh.

I wonder if Melissa's happy now lol

article's behind the paywall

http://www.sendspace.com/file/0z0hzf

gracias!

Ha, they had to take the ads out of the article. Also, is it just me, or does Mary Wells look a bit like Betty/January Jones?

Betty became a sympathetic character a while back, but she still acts upon her worst impulses. That doesn't make her a cartoon villain. That makes her human.

yeah, but other at least partially loathsome (human) characters on the show get to act on a much wider variety of impulses, and the show seems to treat at least some of their behavior with a measure of sympathy and respect. for a while now, betty's just been getting hammered.

sure she's human but she's consistently the dumbest and most short-sighted human on offer. it's pretty conspicuously and i don't really like it either.

If Betty's character was never seen again in the series that ep would've been a damn good sendoff.