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

Spanish. I think it's still late spring '69 on the show.

Soon-ish. Stupid phone.

Manson Family starts offing folks in May '69 tho fwiw

let me guess, a montage with numerous characters glued to their TV sets

David Crosby and Stephen Stills show up at Megan's brandishing guns and telling her, "They're killing everyone with estates!"

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Not-1983/dp/0571119603/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387266627&sr=1-1&keywords=not+1983

http://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/madmen-emmy-poster-pete.jpg

more pretty incredible Emmy 'For Your Consideration' ads right here

http://uproxx.com/tv/2014/05/mad-men-just-launched-a-vintage-for-your-consideration-emmy-campaign-that-would-make-don-draper-proud/

no-one seems to have mentioned that the guy Megan was dancing with looked a bit like Manson so i'm guessing that means it definitely wasn't meant to be him.

no, that was dennis wilson

yeah Manson is tiny. that dude was not tiny

a montage with numerous characters glued to their TV sets

they've never done this iirc?

btw did kiernan shipka's voice drop six octaves between season 6 and season 7? or even between the last episode and several episodes before it?

http://i.imgur.com/mVM83nF.jpg

haha okay that does seem intentional

or even between the last episode and several episodes before it?

This, I think.

Part of me hopes Weiner totally skips the moon landing between 7a and 7b.

i guess this makes don draper roman polanski

xxpost

I hope there's an episode where we learn how Ken is dealing with one-eyed life

xxp yeah i totally hope he just skips the moon landing.

more kinda fascinating/ kinda lol Manson connection stuff here
http://uproxx.com/tv/2014/05/matthew-weiner-is-still-trolling-mad-men-theorists-with-even-more-charles-manson-allusions/

to wit:

In last night’s episode, we also see that Stephanie is 7 months pregnant, and she mentions to Megan that the father is a musician she met in the Bay Area who spent some time in jail. This describes Charles Manson (a musician who lived in the Bay Area who was arrested in 1968 for possession) perfectly. This doesn’t fit the timeline exactly, but interestingly, Charles Manson did rape and impregnate a woman in 1967.

They need to end an ep with "Never Learn Not To Love".

I kinda doubt Dennis' estate would let that happen...? altho I dunno who owns the rights to that one exactly.

"You shouldn't be with a woman."

"A clean well-lighted place"

http://www.mrbauld.com/hemclean.html

Even though Pete Campbell is gross, I did get a nice feeling with the three of them sitting at a table together.

Yeah, me too. Also the Don/Peggy brainstorming and dance scene. Thought this was the best episode of the season -- it had more of the stuff I like about Mad Men, less of the stuff I'm tired of.

I didn't...like the dance scene? Their relationship is too poisoned to support such a scene. She just endured another series of humiliations because men in power won't take her seriously, so now she has a tacit reconciliation with her former mentor? I didn't buy it.

Otherwise, yes, a good episode.

the dance was sweet and tender--they've worked together for a long time.

def. best ep. of the season

so what happens next?

don, peggy, pete kill the burger chef presentation

roger gets chevy

cutler gets philip morris

don, peggy, pete, roger start a new agency?

megan and pete's g.f. die on the plane when godzilla eats it?

gotta keep in mind--peggy wants to please don no matter how much she hates him

also she has zero love in her life, and is def. searching for it

I liked Don and Peggy. Of course I wanted a confrontation between them, I always want the blatant exposition "Don, they don't trust me, you're undermining me!" but I'm glad they're not that obvious. When Peggy said "what would you do" and Don said "first I abuse the people's whose help I need", that was such a good line, cleared up years of baggage between the two. In one simple phrase Don acknowledges both how difficult a boss he was and how important she was, and how the rolls are reversed here and allowed it to be ok.

A bit soap-opera-y though, back to back with Joan's "I don't want a beard I want love!" and peggy's "what have I done wrong". Then Don's stark acknolwedgement "haven't done anything or have anybody). Both Don and Peggy did it their way, the only way they know how, and they're both unhappy and that's the series. I've been waiting all season for this because the history of the show has always seemed to be about Don and Peggy so for them to finally come back together in this context I think is getting us set-up for the final episodes.

Don peggy and pete definitely had a bit of that "get the band back together" vibe.

love this exchange:

Pete: "Don will give authority, you will give emotion."
Peggy: "Don has emotion. I have authority."

I saw the Don and Peggy dance scene as an answer to her question "what did I do wrong?" You fell in love with advertising/an image/an idealized projection as personified by Don (who, as pointed out, is also not happy).

The closing shot with the 50s nuclear family replaced by a corporate chain restaurant facsimile was amazing

I want the poster in Roger's room, does anyone know the name of it?

it's http://www.weidmangallery.com/cgi-local/poster_detail.cgi?i=2930

My God it's even more amazing up-close. I love the pixelated mouths. Humanity screaming into the future, Satan as salesman, the fires of hell engulfing all.

wow

Here's another of his, for Forbes. LOL at "Capitalist Tool" being the tagline!

http://p2.la-img.com/1021/23072/8125905_1_l.jpg

Seymour Chwast of Pushpin, which was cofounded by current Mad Men poster artist Milton Glaser.

Still with the Dante references...

Stan's beard is reaching Beach Boy proportions

I barely even remember this Stan

https://scontent-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/t1.0-9/10341578_10152103569422078_475685226318574831_n.jpg

was surprised by the reappearance of Bob but this was a great way to close out his character arc - that short early opening scene with Joan and her mom and Kevin telegraphed that something about her domestic situation was on the horizon and then when Bob showed up I immediately thought "oh no he's going to make a bid for Joan to be his beard", the whole actual scene of which was just heartbreaking to watch, so well done.

chwast is great btw, currently doing "Great book" adaptations in semi-comic form

also lol'd at I Am Curious Yellow ref

"Trust Megan to see a dirty movie!"

Grumpy Peggy owned.

Oh man, both those zooms were amazing. Got me misty-eyed, both of them. Don and Peggy believing in My Way. Don Peggy and Pete enjoying fake burger chef. So fantastic, so cynical (they know it's fake, we know it's fake, but it's still SO GOOD) so heartbreaking and -warming at the same time.

This is still the best show on tv right now/ever.

yeah my wife and I could not agree if this is better than the Sopranos or not (I'm reserving judgment to the end), the characterizations are so rich on this show, it's insane.

well, the trio in Burger Chef was like the Sopranos in the diner but no Journey, right?

I think the point of those respective scenes is a bit different. With the Sopranos the scene is supposed to be genuinely heartwarming, a family remembering "the good times" in a local neighborhood joint, the simple pleasures etc. Fucked up as they are, they really are a variation of the traditional American family unit that Peggy questions the existence of in Mad Men. Whereas with Mad Men the artificiality, the corporate facade, is made out to be more welcoming to these outcasts and losers who don't really have families at all, who are willing to settle for this shiny, plasticized version of a vague ideal that they have accepted as beyond their reach. I think in the latter there's kind of an obvious point being made that once the breakdown of the ideal 50s Eisenhower post-war nuclear family unit was complete, corporate America stepped in to fill the void, to replace it.

yeah I did get the who-can-tell-the-dancer-from-the-dance intention

of course there's tension and irony in the Sopranos scene too, since it's staged and shot like someone is about to get murdered. I don't think anyone's about to get murdered in the Burger Chef (unless Pete brought his rifle)

xp