MAD MEN on AMC - Seasons 7(a) & & 7(b)

Threesome + nipple + only daddy + 2001 = another great episode

I'm an Amy fan now

That was genuinely horrifying and sad

yeah when he offered up the box I said "please don't be a body part" and then oof

were computers really that threatening/game changing for advertising?

anyone buy the theory that Stephanie's baby daddy is the Wizard

Megan's turned into Betty :/

and just a year ago they were laughing at her swinging co-workers

i say this with no vindictiveness and it's totally cool if you are enjoying the show and yes, i can't seem to stop watching it either
but jeeeezus this show has gotten crazy stupid

it's gotten crazy - JUST LIKE THE 60s

this still had several irl LOL moments for me (Stan's "You?" Harry's "This is much more fun" etc)

The day after, I think the Sally/Betty showdown was my favorite scene of the whole night.

this show is now and always has been a dayglo fever dream and it's tremendous.

Molly Lambert, good as usual on a Monday morning.

I feel like this whole half-season has focused on the creative, at-your-own pace and we'll get you something great...eventually approach to the 25 tags by noon, campaign by Wednesday, on the to the next one routinization approach to things. Possibly because I ALWAYS find myself fighting that fight - I'm getting pretty good at my job, and am having a much easier time turning out consistently quality work that gets to what it needs to, but there are those occasional assignments that I drag my heels on because I can't bring myself to just DO THE WORK and then it becomes a last-minute stressful test to see if I can actually pull it off.

Don seems to be moving himself into a position where he can take advantage of some opportunity to move on from his forced stasis. To where and doing what? I have no idea. However, compare this Don to the 9 a.m. Draper staring at his expensive watch in a big, empty apartment, and he's looks to me like he's getting ready to move.

I'm really curious about Peggy - she's so obviously got a good heart, but also knows that it is both a huge asset and a giant weakness. She has to really be frustrated at her lack of real agency in her life, and that the only thing that keeps her getting somewhere is to just keep dealing with other people's shit and shenanigans.

And poor Ginsberg. Dude just couldn't make it in the world that is.

Peggy watching TV w the neighbor kid was lol, she is totally settling into old maid-hood

they definitely planted the ginsburg stuff a long time ago, he was always pretty bananas and not just "eccentric." at the very least you got a sense of a very busy and convoluted inner life.

yeah, that character arc was set in motion back with his first monologue about being a holocaust baby

...from outer space, iirc.

I prefer reading molly's recaps on grantland more than watching the actual show

so Don basically has to get rid of Cutler somehow right? cuz Cutler's gonna see intrusion on the meeting as an obvious grounds for firing, yes?

That's if he wants to stay. Cutler's deal is to either freeze out the old SCDP gang, or at least get them under his thumb.

Seems like it. Where's Don gonna go though? Doesn't seem very comfortable in LA, even if he wanted to just run off and start a new company with Pete and Harry

Philip Morris comes on board, Don becomes indispensable. Don't see how else they can play this.

this no longer seems like a company that will live or die on one account

They're not going to piss in Phil Morris' mouth twice.

incidentally
Lou: You know who had a ridiculous dream and people laughed at him?

Stan: You?

Me:http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1503/15037917/2442057-1627833308-mj-la.gif

the guy who plays lou is very convincingly uptight and hateful.

Cutler must feel kind of desperate to glom onto such a loser - but his other allies from his previous firm are dead/gone

i didn't buy don's performance or his bizarre "pitch" to philip morris (basically: "you get to be the folks that tamed don draper, won't that make your competition sore??")

he's appealing to their ids, essentially, hoping this will work better than lou and cutler's appeal to their egos. i mean sure corporate culture LOL but i don't buy that the tobacco dudes would, after having run the idea by their partners and thinking on it, really go for a don draper working their account.

seems like a hail-mary pass. but each season has to have some moment when don-draper-the-mover-and-shaker has some flabbergasting moment of inspired juju, although to the show's credit they often don't take very long to undermine that.

i still wish this show was 95% about advertising.

instead of "the 60s" or whatever. but i guess i can take that up w/ matt weiner.

i wonder if it's more that he found it hard to do more ad stuff or if his head just got big w/ all teh sixtiez chroniclerrrrr whatevers

because workplace plots absent rich frames for procedure, slotted-in content etc are not self-evidently teeming with fruitful story ideas

well sure "the 60s" would have to poke in plenty, just b/c there's a major shift in how advertising _works_ in that period, not unrelated to everything else going on. but i think that actually gets lost, or has gotten lost over the last few seasons, since advertising is only one of several major plot threads the show is insistent on following.

show's about the 70s and 80s now. what month did the last episode happen in? don's been back a little while, long enough for peggy to start to thaw towards him. may? june at the latest? guessing moon landing happens in the finale, or maybe that's next episode and we get to august. gulp.

there's been plenty of ad stuff though interestingly nearly every major campaign they're working on is for a doomed client.

I don't think there was a single contextual clue re: the date

xpost

i dunno tobacco companies still making good money overseas

Kodak wasn't doomed for decades!

maybe you guys know ppl hitting a burger chef drive-thru in their chevy vega and enjoying a nice commander cigarette afterwards but i don't

i still wish this show was 95% about advertising.

― espring (amateurist),

The last two seasons have concentrated on advertising through the prism of soap opera mechanics, and, yeah, I want more, partly because I've rarely seen a hetero threesome or hippie on camera working -- and I haven't in life either.

which might (and probably does) mean nothing, they use defunct (or nearly defunct in commander's case) brands all the time for a number of reasons but it's still interesting that of the three huge whales they've landed or looking to land - fast food, car, tobacco - they're defunct (and soon at that) or they're legendary disasters.

wait is the chevy thing they're working on actually the vega?

Would Ginsberg (or anybody at the time) have been aware of IBM's connection to the Holocaust? Or did that become well known later and the show is referencing it as opposed portraying as part of the reason Ginsberg is so hostile toward the computer.

nah I think Ginsberg, sensitive to technological innovations, fears obsolescence.

The computer is a machine and Ginsburg is R.P. McMurphy.

I thought Ginsberg was ENIAC...?

yeah all the gearheads had a big laugh when mad men landed the account - http://jalopnik.com/the-joke-behind-mad-mens-new-secret-chevy-account-493087484

oh man that's fantastic

It's funnier that they went with the Vega as opposed to the Pinto, which has the more famous disaster story. Although Ford could have been game, as they've been selling Pinto emblem t shirts recently.

shades of the invite to the sterling daughter wedding

http://tinypinepress.com/wp-live/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/madmen-screenshot1.jpg

Would that Mad Men could be on long enough to get to where irony is the easiest sell of all.

XP That one reminded me of the gag in Diner where we find out the couple is going to Cuba for their honeymoon at the exact moment Castro's revolution kicked into high gear.