Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

My architect friend commented on Joan's marking on the carpet "the stairs will go here."

Uh, think again.

right. the slide is going there. *smacks head*

wtf was roger doing at the end? yoga or something?

He's tripping on acid.

NAKED

TRIPPIN BALLS

Where's he gonna put his note?

when people say that shot of don leaving the set was like "sirk," what do they mean?

roger has it all worked out.

also i hate these end-of-episode montages with the patterned gliding camera movements. they are this grand, bombastic gesture of closure, "see how this all ties together," that is kind of belied by the actual content. (in other words, it's all very "magnolia.")

i guess the idea is to take stock of various characters and where they are, so you can sit back a nod, anticipating how these various plots will pick up or resolve a year from now, when the 6th season begins. but the gesture is kind of insulting, as it always is, since the audience can figure that stuff out anyway. i don't need an additional reminder in the form of a last-minute montage. it wouldn't bother me as much if this is the level the show typically operated on, but it's not. the show--with some frequent and regrettable exceptions--is generally one of the shows on TV that trusts its audience to assemble things themselves, at least more than is common for television.

the actual ending--the hard cut to black as don decides how to respond to the flirtatious girl at the bar--was pretty great, i thought. it's also a kind of dramatic gesture, but one that actually seems to mobilize the audience's engagement with the show in a more interesting and active way. it asks us to assess don's behavior in season 5 in light of what we've seen before, and decide if he has undergone a permanent transformation or if he is merely in a "phase," soon to revert to his womanizing ways. i like the way it demands that we take stock of the significance of the last season in light of the show in general. it's a smart way to end a season, and it has the genuine sense of --not full closure, obviously, but a kind of contingent closure (perfect for an ongoing series). as opposed to the psuedo-closure, the empty stylistics of the montage sequence.

peggy seeing the fucking dogs was pretty hilarious though.

that whole post is absolutely on the money. i've never been able to put my finger on why those gliding/stock-taking scenes are so insulting, but you nailed it in one.

i didn't like the gliding camera either, but thought the montage itself was nice as a series of shots of isolation.

i think the "sirk" comments are kinda weird myself, but i imagine they are objection to some perceived heavy-handed visual symbolism. (i thought the shot in question was tremendous though--it was clear and evocative and made a lot of emotional sense to me.)

yeah I pretty much agree with that amateurist post, altho I'm a little more forgiving of the montage approach if the shots contained within are worth it (eg, features comical dog fucking)

those song-plus-montage things are consistently the worst thing about the series. wasn't there one in season 2 that was set to some contemporary rock tune? that might be the show's nadir for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liarrDZqG0E

ha wasn't it arcade fire or sth? i can only imagine the negative feedback they got on that. at least i hope so.

xp

part of what saves the montage for me is that it contains dogs fucking and roger trippin nude. i dunno i didnt get a "time of your life" vibe from it but thought it was sorta genuinely odd.

right but the naked roger + dogs fucking just kind of revealed how corny the montage trope is. i'd rather they just have ended the plotlines on those shots without the accompanying music or gliding-lateral-tracks-DO YOU SEE?!

yeah agreed in general.

btw you can see why i basically find magnolia intolerable. even though PTA does this stuff with a ton of craft and skill, i still feel like somebody is reaching out from the screen and hitting me over the head with a cereal box for 140 minutes.

idk I'd find being hit on the head w a cereal box kind of relaxing

if the status quo is being hit on the head with something else, sure.

Really wouldn't mind if they emulated/straight up ripped off some classic 60's cinema stuff instead.

Well, for one thing, you couldn't show side boob or dude ass in an American film til '66-'67, so they delivered that this time.

so earlier seasons lose points for anachronistic side boob?

Critics called those seasons "European".

right but the naked roger + dogs fucking just kind of revealed how corny the montage trope is. i'd rather they just have ended the plotlines on those shots without the accompanying music or gliding-lateral-tracks-DO YOU SEE?!

the dogs fucking would have lost something for me without "You Only Live Twice" soundtracking it

there was an early ep that used a decemberists song, i think it was playing over a montage of all the ladies taking off their bras

yeah part of the letdown of that montage is finding out that the writers of mad men have pretty corny indie fuxor tastes in contemporary music.

I have totally blocked that out. let's never mention it again.

I have this strange memory of one of the ladies taking off her bra and showing full anachronistic boob in the office party scene. I think Harry was involved. Probably the Decemberists too. A low point all round.

Hating closing montages is very anti-Wire!

agh that kind of shit drove me nuts in the Wire

Hating closing montages is very anti-Wire!

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Monday, June 11, 2012 6:27 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it depends on how they're done i guess. i've never seen the wire.

*bites tongue*

I would say don't watch it if you don't enjoy constantly being hit over the head with obviousness

They do that a lot on CSI (all three flavors) as well.

IIRC, the one time we saw a female nipple on the show was way back in S1 when Hildy (Pete's o.g. secretary) slept w/Harry. Xposts

Joyce also showed Peggy/us some nude photos.

I liked the closing shot a lot, too. It also fits with all the "look at all these obvious things you may have missed" recapping going on in this ep, to drive home the "hey, hasn't Don been good recently ~think abt it~" point that's been mentioned a few times upthread.

Wondered at the significance of Adam appearing. iirc his death started Don's re-evaluation of himself, and looking back a lot of this season was Don coming to conclusions -- about his talent, what he wants from/for the firm, himself as a boss, what lines he'll cross, what he wants in family life, etc. Final shot suggests he's also reaching one about his personal life.

Worked for me as a setup for a new tone next season, anyway.

also the writers thinking oh shit we've only mentioned dick whitman once this season better remind folks.

I don't agree that the cut to black was exquisite, and I think a lot of the montage was lazy television, but the part about everyone experimenting all season with enlightenment and then blowing it off as folly is spot on.

“This episode suggests a new direction forward, all right, but it’s one that says the rot has taken hold and might be spreading, that all is emptiness and pointless struggle, and everything you really want will always be held just in front of you, a carrot to keep you marching in a straight line. In short, it’s a direction that loops right back around to where we’ve always been, which is why the episode’s “cliffhanger,” if it can be called that, involves Peggy realizing that she still doesn’t have the job she’d dreamed of and Don being asked by a woman at a bar if he’s alone. (The cut to black here is actually fairly exquisite. We know what he’s going to say, and we don’t need to see it. It’s a moment of poetry in an episode that veered wildly between mystique and rampant highlighting.) It’s a boldly cynical new direction, particularly after a season that flirted with the characters experiencing something beyond themselves. Or, as Roger said of his enlightenment last week, “it wore off.”
— “The Phantom” | Mad Men | TV Club | TV | The A.V. Club

"it wore off" was a fabulous line. def reminded me of the best of sopranos-style storytelling in spirit

“This episode suggests a new direction forward, all right, but it’s one that says the rot has taken hold and might be spreading, that all is emptiness and pointless struggle, and everything you really want will always be held just in front of you, a carrot to keep you marching in a straight line.

i really hate these monday rehashes that start by explaining the "themes" of the previous night's episode. barf.

i h8 it when people evaluate and discuss art too

i thought this p much ruled

very sad tho, this whole season has been v bleak. i think i said that about previous seasons, which are sort of running together in my mind now that i think.

"sirk" = heavy handed, histrionic, beautifully shot, weirdly out of time, plays on light and darkness, i can go on here

so peggy invents the virginia slim, that's p cool

was the dogs screwing a "you've come a long way, baby" moment?