Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

yeah, i dunno about the lane = racist read. think the struggle with the cabdriver was there more to raise questions than to make any clear point.

dudes it not like people are like "i am going to do this particular thing for a RACIST reason and this other thing for a CLASSIST reason"

could be that it was a throwaway scene added to explain how he ends up with the photo and no-one really thought through WHY he would want to keep the stupid wallet in the first place.

i wish this show was as serious and thought out as it wanted to be. There's pretensions of DEEP MEANINGFUL SOCIAL EXPLORATION but it's all gloss

― Lil T the Bowed Jet (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, March 27, 2012 4:16 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

are you joking, what would you have liked to have happened in this situation, a deep meaningful exploration of layne's racism?

$100 in 1966 money is over $600 in 2010 money, and he sort of changed his mind after he noticed how much money was in there.

perhaps it'd have been more clear if Lane had yelled "hands off, negro lackey! I will make sure this wallet returns to the place from whence it came!"

He gives the cabby his card and tips him.

he sure does.

"here's a tip, cabby. don't wade into the ilx mad men thread."

i wish this show was as serious and thought out as it wanted to be. There's pretensions of DEEP MEANINGFUL SOCIAL EXPLORATION but it's all gloss

sort of agree, cuz i do wish it were willing do dig a little deeper, cut a little sharper, but my bigger problem is that it's starting to really feel like a traditional soap opera, in that, despite all the ups and downs, it doesn't really seem to be going anywhere. first few seasons gave me the sense that it's structure was novelistic, that these various pieces were being put in place to some meaningful narrative purpose.

fucking "it's"

If you found a wallet in the back of a cab and was about to hand it to the cab driver and noticed it had $600 in it, and you were having money problems, what would you do?

demon struggle

ilx mad men threads always make me glad the writers do their own kinda weird, sometimes inscrutable things and not the super obvious TV things everyone seems to always want them to do

ilx mad men threads are fun because so much of nothing happens in the show and yet we always have so much to talk about

I am throwing my buddha trinket at this thread.

Yeah nothing happened, except the birthday party, the office-switching stuff, Joan bringing the baby into work, a steamy phone conversation, French pop musical number, commentary on the civil rights and occupy struggles, etc.

Don't forget the rough sex!

i think it was a mix of things but obviously a slight distrust of the cab driver had something to do w/ it. i liked this moment for the same reasons as s1ocki.

i liked the quiet irony of when layne dismissed 1/2 of the "negroes" by saying they were only hiring secretaries. even though the context was "civil rights" there are these narrowly defined gender roles (discrimination) that nobody in the room cared to question at that moment.

also do you think that all the black folks showing up to apply for a job was just a spontaneous reaction to their "equal employment" ad or if it was a concerted action to test the sincerity of that ad?

Yeah, that whole "secretaries are female" thing, and that all of the black men (and women!) didn't really question it was a decent commentary on the mixed state of racial/gender/workplace politics

despite all the ups and downs, it doesn't really seem to be going anywhere.

Well, the show is going *somewhere*: to the end of the 1960s.

I'm not saying that to be snarky, either. I think a lot of the show's momentum comes from the anticipation of how the characters will react to and interact with the changing times.

What do all of you think of the way with which the receptionist was canned? She was kind of iffy, but it was kind of a quick turnaround from "we don't need to hire anyone" to "weakest link on the chain just carried a racist statue through the entryway past the group that would be offended, dump her"

wait was she canned? i must have missed that.

first few seasons gave me the sense that it's structure was novelistic, that these various pieces were being put in place to some meaningful narrative purpose

I think, like the Sopranos, they weren't sure where it was all going for the first couple seasons (might get cancelled! or in the Sopranos case have a major player die lol) and now that the show's place is secure and Wiener's given it an end-date, we are going to see some very methodical, multi-season plotting with a definite "narrative purpose".

also s1ocki OTM w this: glad the writers do their own kinda weird, sometimes inscrutable things and not the super obvious TV things everyone seems to always want them to do

I don't think that's a thing that happened, was it? xps

"weakest link on the chain just carried a racist statue through the entryway past the group that would be offended, dump her"

this was totally grounds for firing. she did a really stupid thing, which was immediately identified and she knew she should have known better.

i couldn't get a bead on how we are supposed to understand megan. was the presence of her arty/homosexual friends meant to underline the generational divide between her and her husband? that struck me as a bit over the top, her coquettish song-and-dance routine included.

i did like how almost everyone in the office had a different assumption of how don must have been reacting to that.

Well, they had no open positions, then they asked her if she'd just carried it through the entryway past all the waiting people, and then the scene cut to them announcing an open receptionist position.

oh i see.

the exchange between Meredith the receptionist and Joan was awesome in its awkwardness.

this is kind of small potatoes, but i wish they had trusted the audience to get the point re. pete sending roger to staten island without underlining it -- i like when this show dares to handle things much more elliptically than is standard in TV.

The implication was that they solved the "how can we hire a black person without money" problem by taking advantage of the heedless receptionist's errors and firing her.

I'm not saying that to be snarky, either. I think a lot of the show's momentum comes from the anticipation of how the characters will react to and interact with the changing times.

that's true, but the first couple seasons were built around these ticking-bomb plot devices: don's secret, peggy's secret, the suggestion that don's life and marriage were collapsing. it seemed as though an examination of an era were being tied to a narrative that was moving in a definite direction, like television's revolutionary road or something. the longer it's gone on, the the less there's any clear sense of overarching narrative structure. not saying that the more prosaic "here's what happened next" stuff that's replaced it is uninteresting or unsatisfying, and it's probably more true to life, but i do find myself a little frustrated by the lack of attention paid to some of the story threads that first attracted me. plus want more betty.

this is kind of small potatoes, but i wish they had trusted the audience to get the point re. pete sending roger to staten island without underlining it -- i like when this show dares to handle things much more elliptically than is standard in TV.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Tuesday, March 27, 2012 4:41 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya i liked that you didnt actually see him at staten island but maybe it would have been better to not see him wake up at all and just have his little line about "pranks" or whatever to acknowledge that it had happened

i couldn't get a bead on how we are supposed to understand megan. was the presence of her arty/homosexual friends meant to underline the generational divide between her and her husband? that struck me as a bit over the top, her coquettish song-and-dance routine included.

yeah, i think the whole party scene and the subsequent rape-sex were meant to underline the fact that megan and don have almost nothing in common with one another, aside from mutual physical attraction.

I am actually content with less Betty in the show, now. The new problem of Don losing focus on his career could be more catastrophic than anything, really. His ability to pull things together has been pretty much key to his persona. I spent half the episode wondering if he'd just turned into a younger Roger Sterling.

and over the top or not, "zou bisou bisou" was so flippin great

lol misread it as 'mutant physical attraction' which also actually kinda otm

Don's arc is totally mirroring Sterling, this seems pretty blatant

Roger's the only father figure he has etc

announcing an open receptionist position

No - they explicitly said "we can't have one of them sitting out front" and Lane said the job opening was for a secretary.

I don't buy the idea that Don and Megan have little in common. Megan's friends are definitely more of the late 60s era, but what about Don's dalliances with the beat crowd? There are also some parallels with Betty and the whole model/actress thing. If anything, they're both born manipulators of people, too. Megan being cold and then manipulative when she mis-stepped isn't that far out of step with early-period Don Draper.

don's arc is mirroring sterling's, and pete's is starting to mirror don's. the circle of liiife.

So will Sterling lose his testicles so he can mirror Cooper?

Cooper never married!

Is Sterling becoming the new Bert Cooper? Cooper was the one who used to have the large office with art affectations and less client interaction. He's aging into the seniority but without the respect.

lol at testicles

er, I didn't read Don and Megan banging on the carpet as rapey at all. Rough, yeah. But big difference between that and Joan and her husband.

I wasn't going to address that at all since a fictional portrayal is kind of in the eye of the beholder, but that did not really code as rapey to me. Definitely a game to put Don in his place and challenge his aggression.

yeah it was a dom thing