Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

the total cluelessness in re the party made me think something was wrong with her.

i attribute this to the age gap more than anything else

what do we know about megan so far? is that she has pretty screwed up parents, more naive and more trusting than most of the characters on the show (kind of a low bar there), probably brighter than betty and with a better sense of self-retraint, probably the only character we've seen yet (save of course peggy and maybe lane) who tries to act with a sense of what's right.

she got some kind of dream to come true -- marrying the big shot in the city -- but has to deal with what life with all his baggage is like. that's half the point of her character, surely

after so many different flavors of cynicism, selfishness and bitterness, i think the show is having fun with a true innocent and how far that can go. really seems to bug some people tho!

How long did we have to wait to discover what Peggy's flaws are?

once I clapped eyes on her huge choppers I stopped being intimidated by her

it does make me a little suspicious - like the show's writers are waiting and ratcheting up the sympathetic angle prior to letting the other shoe drop

xp

Peggy was flawed, or at least conflicted, right from the beginning

banging Pete against her better judgment etc

i think megan and betty both seem real. with megan, the writers have tended to emphasize the positive aspects of the character, and with betty the negative, but neither seems unrealistic or unlikely to actually exist.

i agree that there's something off about the show's failure to equip megan with her own burden of mistakes, grudges and flaws. it's like betty has to be made twice as evil as anyone else just to permit megan's relative decency to exist in the mad men universe. she is presented as something of a dream girl, though not exactly of the "manic pixie" variety.

Peggy's flaws are that she slept with Pete and that she's conflicted?

flawed in the sense that she was a person that made mistakes. she did not always do the right thing/react appropriately etc

well there was that one jogging teacher, but she was both innocent and clueless. megan has ben given some foresight and intelligence. really the most 'manic' thing she's done to date is marry don

xp - i don't think betty has seemed particularly evil this season at all! she seems to be much kinder and considerate of her kids; she seems to actually enjoy things in life (ok, so it's food that made her fat, but still!) she does not seem remotely beyond the pale as far as interactions with her asshole ex that repeatedly cheated and lied.

this is kind of a key difference between Megan and Peggy - while both are sympathetic, Peggy has made mistakes. we've seen her be awkward, petty, vindictive, self-absorbed, etc.

flawed in the sense that she was a person that made mistakes.

Megan makes mistakes. She says the wrong things sometimes. She married a guy she barely knew.

i still wanna know why Megan was constantly borrowing lunch money from Ginsberg and never paid him back. probably just part of her flaky pixie-ness and nothing sinister.

Peggy's flaws are that she slept with Pete and that she's conflicted?

she's grudgeful, sometimes mean, sometimes oblivious (her interaction w the new secretary), quick to anger, a bad actress (apparently), a pete-toucher, a frumpy dresser, a bit of a stick in the mud, a movie theater pervert, etc...

she seems to be much kinder and considerate of her kids

......................

yeah, i'm not getting that at all. the most humanizing thing they've given betty this season are a fat suit and a dieting regimen.

yeah she was delightful to Sally this week

she seems to actually enjoy things in life (ok, so it's food that made her fat, but still!)

this comment is intended seriously?

contenderizer, my point is that we didn't know those things about Peggy in the first season of the show, just like we still don't know much about Megan after less than a season. Megan is still a mystery to us to some degree, just like she is a mystery to the characters. Joan thinks she's a trophy wife; Peggy thinks she can do anything.

compared to how she was to her a couple seasons back? When I said "more" I meant it relatively speaking.

Peggy banged Pete in the first episode! and dressed terribly

xp

xp - i don't think betty has seemed particularly evil this season at all! she seems to be much kinder and considerate of her kids; she seems to actually enjoy things in life (ok, so it's food that made her fat, but still!) she does not seem remotely beyond the pale as far as interactions with her asshole ex that repeatedly cheated and lied.

― sarahell, Tuesday, May 15, 2012 4:19 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

she used her 12-year-old daughter as a pawn in mind games with Don and Megan

adultery is bad, but this is way way way more bad. straight up horrible, childish, and evil.

she's using her child to get back at her ex. manipulating your kids like that is inexcusable, one of the worst things you can do as a spouse with joint custody.

She married a guy she barely knew.

would say this has pretty definitively been depicted as NOT being a mistake on her part. so far.

Peggy banged Pete in the first episode! and dressed terribly

yeah, and she's repeated the latter sin in almost every episode

Peggy banged Pete in the first episode!

I was responding to contenderizer. I don't dispute this. I also don't see it as a character flaw any more than Megan marrying Don.

and dressed terribly

lol

so you think neither are a mistake, but cited Megan marrying Don as a mistake anyway? okay

pete is nagl. marrying don i can understand.

she seems to actually enjoy things in life (ok, so it's food that made her fat, but still!)

this comment is intended seriously?

― Mordy, Tuesday, May 15, 2012 1:23 PM (3 minutes ago)

-- yeah, it is! It seemed the last season she was featured in she was miserable and super-depressed. I dunno, I just remember being severely depressed a few years back and taking no pleasure in anything, and being able to enjoy eating was a sign that things were turning around and there was hope.

getting pregnant by one of your already-engaged superiors/coworkers - who also happens to be a slimy asshole - seems like a pretty big flaw imo but ymmv obviously

xp

And not even -realizing- she is pregnant! That is a pretty serious flaw.

she's using her child to get back at her ex. manipulating your kids like that is inexcusable, one of the worst things you can do as a spouse with joint custody.

there are far worse things you can do. like this just seems like garden variety bad parenting that lots of people in that situation do from time to time.

i guess i see the compulsive eating as being symptomatic of the depression, not as an alleviation or bright note in it. it's hard to imagine she's getting satisfaction out of it, but other interpretations might be valid too idk

It seemed the last season she was featured in she was miserable and super-depressed. I dunno, I just remember being severely depressed a few years back and taking no pleasure in anything, and being able to enjoy eating was a sign that things were turning around and there was hope.

that's an interesting read, i guess. and she was looking forward to the pleasure that using sally against megan and don would provide, so i guess it's a bummer that didn't work out as planned.

she's using her child to get back at her ex. manipulating your kids like that is inexcusable, one of the worst things you can do as a spouse with joint custody.

there are far worse things you can do. like this just seems like garden variety bad parenting that lots of people in that situation do from time to time.

― sarahell, Tuesday, May 15, 2012 1:31 PM (15 seconds ago)

i come down somewhere between these poles. betty's manipulation of sally was shitty, but no more shitty (and arguably much less trivial) than don's mistreatment of betty. i still think that don is the show's only real villain, but this season seems to be working hard to change that impression.

there are far worse things you can do. like this just seems like garden variety bad parenting that lots of people in that situation do from time to time.

― sarahell, Tuesday, May 15, 2012 4:31 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

o_O

yeah, you don't ever do that shit with your kids, it's just wrong.

people do it all the time. sad but true

xp

I guess the qualitative moral difference is that cheating is something adults do to each other, involving the children means harming an innocent

^^^^^

so you think neither are a mistake, but cited Megan marrying Don as a mistake anyway? okay

I think both of them have made spur of the moment decisions that could have had bad results. For Peggy it did, for Megan it didn't. Judging things based entirely on the results is foolish.

Betty isn't gargamel just being evil for the thrill of it. She's reacting (poorly) to things that have happened to her. That's why she's not so much a "villain" to me.

i'm not saying it isn't wrong, just that it's not evil-wrong. It's not suggesting your ex or their current partner is an unfit parent, absconding with the kids, refusing custodial visits, trying to seduce the ex ...

fwiwI think Don's lying about his entire identity and serial cheating and general disregard for Betty as a human being is much worse than Betty's (still really bad) impulsive attempt to lob a grenade at Don through Sally.

no, manipulating a child is way more evil than trying to seduce your married ex-husband, I promise. xp

not that I really believe in comparative evil but do you seriously think that manipulating a child is run-of-the-mill bad parenting whereas flirting with an adult is evil?

having been raised by decent but flawed parents, i feel that "harming the innocent" is an unavoidable part of the process. what betty's done is shitty behavior, but not some high crime. sally will get over it.

smh