Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

“That's my biggest complaint about ‘Mad Men,’ that at worst it seems to be looking back from an enlightened time rather than yet another messy, unclassifiable moment in human history.”

i think this is true, and continues to be true

article doesn't mention Carla at all lol

or Kinsey's g/f

“Mad Men,” which so far has given a few lines to a black maid, a black girlfriend and, in the latest season, a black secretary,

It does, but I think it undervalues the role of Carla.

“That's my biggest complaint about ‘Mad Men,’ that at worst it seems to be looking back from an enlightened time rather than yet another messy, unclassifiable moment in human history.”

i think this is true, and continues to be true

― sarahell, Sunday, June 10, 2012 4:29 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i felt this way at first like i said but i think its more a 'different time' than nec. a better one ... the effect for me (and maybe this is unfair b/c thats what im bringing to it, but) is more to start taking a look at how things actually operated or evolved, to locate a kind of realer understanding of the dynamics of 60s relationships than we've ever been presented which could as easily make us take a step back in our own time -- i mean i think it certainly forces ppl to think a bit about what similar assumptions are going on now

make us take a step back in our own time -- i mean i think it certainly forces ppl to think a bit about what similar assumptions are going on now

that's a good, positive way of looking at it, and i just wonder if that's true for most viewers.

i wonder about that sort of thing a lot (esp w/ writing about rap) b/c people will bring different things to it. i guess this is like a distrust of the idea that there's some kind of inherently 'good' show where an obvious social good is being applied ... how many ppl who watch the wire got the idea that its about the drug war being evil (and that's a more strident program, quite obviously)

i do think there's something in the creation of this show that MAKES me think about power dynamics but i mean, 'what do the masses think' at some level feels a bit condescending. who really is watching this show at teh end of the day. arent they in it more for the costumes any way. i mean i think its obvious a huge % of people don't even really get it cf that libertarian mad men party

there's some kind of inherently 'good' show where an obvious social good is being applied

the only thing i can think of in that regard is Dr. Who, but that's a very different show.

but i mean, 'what do the masses think' at some level feels a bit condescending

sure, i mean, i won't front, partly why i watch it is because the women wear some awesome dresses and Jon Hamm is v easy on the eyes.

not sure if i'm altogether satisfied with this as a finale

oh my god that shot of Don walking off the set holy shit holy shit holy shit

that one shot is so so so so good

Yeah, that shot was great. The rest? I think it was the only truly dud episode of the season.

I also really liked the shots of the partners in the new office space, walking in at the start of the scene and then staring out at the window at the end.

Pete Campbell is basically the worst.

it wasnt a dud but it was mad men at its bleakest/most miserable

a well-deserved stomach punch after the s4 finale

didn't feel bleak or miserable so much as just sort of at sea.

but yeah -- it was a great shot. marred, i think, by then cutting to don walking directly into a bar and flirting. there's this nice, striking, easy to read image, and then everything just sort of dissolves again, on a symbolic level.

That was my takeaway as well. Nothing pivotal at all about any of it. Even the closing scene. Everyone who watches the show knows Don was eventually going to find himself in such a situation again. Just that no one knew when.

that was grim. were they trying to give the impression that megan was going to take a whole bottle of pills?

and a lovely shot at the end but i suppose they had to show us where he went next - it felt a little too cinematic otherwise

I did like that one line Lane's wife had, though...something about how they should've known better than to fill that man with ambition.

yah it was too cinematic

that shot of peggy seeing two dogs fucking haha whaaaaaat

and Roger naked at the window trip pin

the closing montage was a bit much

the shot of Don walking off the set was great

I do love it that we had a nudity warning at the beginning and with all the affairs and goings on what we get is roger's ass.

we had a hint of alexis bledel sideboob, to be fair.

initial flood of responses elsewhere seem to be "how boring, what a letdown" etc, but idk, after last week's hugeness i was expecting a more normal-seeming episode. so stoked we got to see peggy again, and that she was included in the ending montage like the other leads.

Boring is what this show does best after all!

ECT is still in use today for really stubborn cases of depression, by the way.

Nobody really knows why it works.

walking off set show was too sirk for me
as was most of this that didn't set well

loved the fight between megan and her mother tho. that line about artistic temperament but not the talent was excellent.

I liked the cinematic walk-off the set. It signalled differentiation.

Realized that Megan didn't break Don's heart when she left advertising, she did it when she used him to get the commercial.

Yeah, that just occurred to me as well.

I'd have been much happier with Don walking off the set being the closing shot.

Oh, and him watching Megan's screentest w/ forbidden smoke in the projector light was just as gorgeous.

best season

I think that title still goes to 3, but this might be second-best.

Though I do think the first 10 eps felt much more solid to me than the last few.

Pete took a lot of punches this season

many lolz this episode - Pete fight, Peggy + dog-fucking, Roger the acid-head

"Pete took a lot of punches this season"

Both literal and metaphorical. My favorite is still when he ran off to get his tools while Don just stripped down to his t-shirt and fixed the sink like it was no big deal.

Weird motif about sunlight in this ep.

On second viewing lots of funny lines, esp Don's "we can do that?"

…and Don never came to a meeting again

I just hope there's no Inception/Sopranos-like agonizing about what happens after the end of the finale of this episode.

welp there goes my 'this is still don's gas dream' suggestion.

Don never left California in season 2, everything since then has just been a coke-fueled reverie

by the way I've never rewatched that, was the person who was hanging out with the woman he was sleeping with her dad or what?

heh someone on tumblr pointed out that pete's sister-in-law (presumably trudy's sister) is named judy.

when i was defending the episode earlier i had kinda forgotten about pete's "here's my entire season's character arc in monologue form", that plus dead adam making "hang" puns was nagl, writing-wise.

i feel like the pete plotline could've been saved if beth had been played by a different actress who could better convey the intensity of manic-depression.

Really liked the way they came back to the photo in Lane's wallet from the premiere. Something basically innocent that became damning outside of context.

Nancy Sinatra's Bond theme: A+

It seemed like they were over-stuffed w/classic closing shots (Don leaving the set, the partners in the new office, Roger's ass) before landing on one that was less-so, but both more in character and boring.

plus dead adam making "hang" puns was nagl, writing-wise.

could have tqken this if he'd just raised his eyebrows, not gone "geeeet it?!?!?!"

I feel like Weiner should have stuck to Don thinking he saw Adam in that office, the dentist scene was overkill.