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

my lai, altamont, woodstock, nattering nabobs

"Sugar Sugar" going to #1 in Billboard.

Looking forward to Megan insisting Don listen to "Her Majesty."

Seems like she'd make him listen to Tommy, or at least the debut effort of her new friends David, Stephen and Graham.

Cannot imagine what next year is going to be like. Don and Peggy are happy creatives. Rogers in charge. Everyone's rich. Sally's a young woman. How are we going to get 7 episodes of drama?

Even Cutlers happy.

Dramatic return of Sal.

who hooks up with Bob

the previous few episodes i had a sense that maybe bert wasn't long for this world, was there foreshadowing to that effect or was i doing nothing more than observing him being really quite old?

Xp which reminds me, they missed covering Stonewall this season.

Can't believe they skipped over the Rally for Decency.

last episode was as close as this show was gonna get to covering stonewall

Morse's exit interview: http://blogs.amctv.com/mad-men/2014/05/qa-robert-morse-bertram-cooper-2

I didn't know Morse had a background in musicals - halway through the routine I was like, wow this guy can really move and sing.

Also - a great payoff to the seven-series-long sock gag

One of the best moments: Don Draper looking proudly at Peggy during the pitch, then when she mentions going home to a ten-year old boy his brow furrows. And Pete is lost as well.

Pete looked more uncomfortable to me than lost.

Maybe they're going to throw a real curveball next half season and set it at the end of the five year contracts?

whoever said pacing upthread was otm, that was just really good television.

XP: I was thinking that too! The biggest issue would be making up Sally, and of course they'd need a new Bobby and Gene.

Jumping ahead 5 years would put them in the neighborhood of the Nixon resignation.

supposedly Matt Wiener made some reference to the setting it in the 70s in that Colbert interview but it isn't anywhere online in the UK so i haven't seen the damn thing.

i'm trying to figure out how sincere don's pitch to ted was--he seemed to rediscover some love of work this half-season and also has seemed genuine abt passing the torch to peggy.

http://37.media.tumblr.com/aa21f6237514187756c052daef7fbcff/tumblr_n67dllVrok1qdbluio2_500.jpg
http://24.media.tumblr.com/cf353c0a4fa7dafd69ad833389e77c8f/tumblr_n67dllVrok1qdbluio1_500.jpg
http://37.media.tumblr.com/f906610ff2d872ebaf6b7c3e7f9f947c/tumblr_n67dllVrok1qdbluio3_500.jpg

'How Much Money Did Each of SC&P's Partners Make Last Night?'

http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/mad-men-how-much-did-each-of-the-partners-make.html

Xp which reminds me, they missed covering Stonewall this season.

i feel like it was subtext to the conversation between bob and the account guy he rescued from jail.

also, re cougars tee, i thought this too!

also this season has been excellent, and this episode was just wonderful throughout. i don't want this show to end.

H'mmm, from miracle $ave of all (Roger most improbably rising to the occasion and then some, but death of Bet, his father's partner and original agency's co-founder, was a huge change, demanding a huge response), to Draper's being told "The best things in life are free" by a dead man (the first dead man he's seen who is happy): that's quite a change too--and seems like a challenge, maybe. Last glimpse of D.: sitting down and thinking about it; looks like he may be caving in a little? This whole ep is its own kind of happy, happy, happy (clap along)cliffhanger.
So Cutler warns Ted, "Remember what happened the last time you took Don's advice!" What is he referring to, and why, in a previous ep, did he declare, "Don ruined Ted?" Ted insisted on going West, instead of Don (said he owed him, for saving the neighors' kid from the draft, and maybe other stuff)? Went to get away from Peggy, save his marriage, and now he has neither, apparently. But that was his own choice, so what is Don being blamed for?

What is he referring to, and why, in a previous ep, did he declare, "Don ruined Ted?"

Isn't it that pitch/meeting last season where he humiliated ted about his relationship with peggy?

"Remember what happened the last time you took Don's advice!" What is he referring to

i assumed this was referring to the original idea to jointly pitch to chevy.

Yeah thats what I thought too

Ted hates his life and it's pretty much as a direct result of everything that's happened since that moment.

Harry Hamlin has also been fantastic this season - Roger's become more serious-ish (in an interesting rather than bland way) and Cutler's been providing all these lovely grace note laughs in his place.

had no idea Hamlin had such good, dry timing.

his yea vote was lol

Harry Crane constantly being reminded he's not a partner yet

What are the chances they take it away from him?

Hamlin has been so good this season. The line this week about "You're a football player. You're a bully and a drunk." was so cutting but also so revealing that there was something akin to deeply rooted jealousy and insecurity borne of his personality? Nature as an intellectual v. a jock? Patrician looking down on a self-made scrapper of a man? Like, he would have been willing to take a punch from Don NOW because he can look past the immediate humiliation and pain to the fact that it really would be shortest route to getting rid of him, but that he would NOT have made that decision prior to some point in his life. Kind of like he's in his prime, and sees Don as someone who is past his, for whatever reason.

So, looking at the money earned per partner - That is an insane amount of money for each person, especially the senior guys. But Joan is set, even at a 5% stake! Stoked for her. All she's ever wanted is to be truly self-reliant and not dependent on anyone else to make her way.

What are the chances they take it away from him?

A little late for that now. He missed his golden ticket because of indecision.

i love that joan has 1.5m dollars

yah and it's like 11 million dollars in todays dollars

cutler seems to want to cultivate this image of being above it all (i loved his line to harry from earlier in the season--the one about his self-pity being distasteful) but he's prob the worst opportunist of the partners.

in addition to the musical number, the two other delightfully indulgent things from this episode were fucking over harry yet again and the don/meredith scene.

meredith so obviously not anyone's source of strength

also so obviously not don's type

he was very kind in his dismissal of her affections, tho.

lol 'you're right, not now'

whenever I see her all I can think of is Joan smashing that plane on her desk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b93d782eOMQ

i don't remember everything everybody says otm

even before the musical number, i was already thinking this was one of the best episodes ever. So many unexpectedly lol moments, like Pete's delivery of: "Marriage's a racket!"

Genuinely wondered in that split second from the shot in the cockpit to Cutler making the call in his office, whether Ted had crashed the plane. Oddly disappointed to find him at the other end of the line.

Sally lighting and holding her cigarette is 100% Betty Draper.

Loved that he was going to crash the plane into claremont, my hometown (well ok upland but still)

My favorite part of this great episodes was Pete's "10%!"

"episode"

"What do I do now?" was another big lol

I like this piece from Margaret Lyons about how the show treats death:

http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/what-has-each-death-meant-on-mad-men.html