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

Peggy telling Stan about having to give up her kid drove me to tears. Also, it occurred to me then that Stan:Peggy :: Peggy:Don

That scene where all of the board were standing there with whiskey in hand after learning from Roger about the consolidation made me think of "I am the man who drinks at work"

I'm shaken by how bad the seventies have been to Ken so far.

Two people, Lou and Ken, got to give Don and/or SCP the middle finger last night. Neither of them is particularly likeable. (I guess Ken was early on.) Maybe that'll be the last two episodes, one aggrieved party after another exacting his/her revenge on Don/SCP.

I really liked the scene with Peggy and the headhunter. Felt like her finally getting the respect she's due, and his advice was nicely straightforward. (It's also a sign of how effective the show's oppressive sexism is that I'm glad for her or any of the women to get through a scene without a guy hitting on them.)

McCann Erickson in 1971:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib-Qiyklq-Q

Hadn't thought about it, but I could actually see that turning up in the last couple of episodes. I'd rather have CCR, but if it happens, I'd be okay with that.

one aggrieved party after another exacting his/her revenge on Don/SCP

though what was funny about lou doing it was that it was a monumental moment for him while don hovered between confusion and indifference.

clan solidarity with pete, one eeeensy weensy massacre and the world holds it against you forever. (also, a very rare example of pete delivering rather than being on the receiving end of a punch.)

last scene is homeless don draper clutching rotgut in a brown paper bag looking at the 1984 Ridley Scott Mac commercial through an electronics store window

series ends with Don marrying a pregnant Meredith + moving to Malibu to the tune of "Big Yellow Taxi"

the children of Bert Parks and Coca Cola.

would be ok with either of those tbh xps

Only thing I didn't get/only thing I didn't think I got: Campbell vs. MacDonald punch-out. ???

I know about the ancient massacre etc, but why this bit here?

lol i don't think anyone really got why that was placed where it was, yr not alone

only reason i can think of is to further highlight how removed from work-a-day american reality people like pete & trudy (and this headmaster dude apparently) are, but it's not like we didn't know they had their brahmin heads up their asses after 7.5 seasons

though what was funny about lou doing it was that it was a monumental moment for him while don hovered between confusion and indifference.

Lou is so silly; Don didn't seem the least bit fazed, and got in a funny dig when he explained Lou's departure to everybody else. Almost reminded me of Mickey Mantle's reaction to Ball Four: "Jim who?" (The reaction only--Jim Bouton wasn't Lou Avery. Now that I mention it, let's see somebody reading a copy of Ball Four.)

Pete's storyline has always been that of the faux-old money, family prestige variety although his family doesn't even really have the money. Going in and throwing around his name, as if it means something, is always so phony so it was hilarious that he was being discriminated against, based on his name, for a similarly bullshit reason.

could also see Pete somehow ending up back with Trudy, they really are made for each other

Something I read today suggested there was a link between the thwarted legacy issues of Pete's daughter and SCP being subsumed into McCann. I don't know. I'm more inclined to leave it at a) comic relief, and b) a possible springboard for Pete getting back together with Trudy. (Did I hear Trudy right, that she's exasperated with all the married men in town hitting on her?)

any hope of stan and peggy?

I really liked the scene with Peggy and the headhunter. Felt like her finally getting the respect she's due, and his advice was nicely straightforward. (It's also a sign of how effective the show's oppressive sexism is that I'm glad for her or any of the women to get through a scene without a guy hitting on them.)

yep - v true, it was honestly a relief when that guy didn't sleaze on her.

i assumed the pete/macdonald storyline was mostly in there for comic relief.

the pete and joan scene was nice btw

Yes that's what Trudy said. Of course it's annoying to her -- she's just trying to live her life and a buncha husbands just see her as tail. It'd be really irritating and totally conceivable.

Wondered about Tammy drawing a man with a moustache - a metajoke about facial hair becoming ubiquitous or a particular man she was seeing?

duh, particular man TRUDY was seeing

Poor Trudy.(update: good call, SLB, hope Trudy's got somebody.) Always liked her, but she seems to be one of those characters just floating around in the background, underemployed by the writers, and altogether, I guess.
Maybe Pete will get a call from Rory, who got her memory back--electroshock wouldn't affect her as much as they both thought, not in 1970, unless she got into the clutches of that guy at McGill, who tried to blast his patients back to infancy, and rebuild their personalities (forgot his name, for some reason---but he was the president of the American Psychological Association and the World Psychological Association). Of course, both characters were depressive, but that was part of their bonding.

Come to think of it, this would prob be too damn sweet for MM, since the actor who plays Pete and the actress who played Rory are married.

Just to clarify, wasn't questioning Trudy's exasperation--rather my ability to hear correctly.

I feel like Trudy was genuinely annoyed but it was also a little bit of a humblebrag.

THE KING ORDERED IT!

"Always liked her, but she seems to be one of those characters just floating around in the background, underemployed by the writers, and altogether, I guess."

I believe issue is Allison Brie has Community conflicts which preclude her being used in Mad Men with any consistency.

sounds like they need to give community to sterling cooper west

I'm noticing a move away from cocktails to beer this season. They're all getting on, I suppose.

"I feel like Trudy was genuinely annoyed but it was also a little bit of a humblebrag"

She also points out that she's just a few years from being ignored altogether by the same men. She's pretty astute.

xpost Hobart suggested they all crack open champagne, so getting beer instead was a kind of passive-aggressive spite move

A friend and I had an idea for some writing...Can someone clarify where exactly they are on the timeline right now? Is it mid-1970, late '70, or are they into '71 yet?

"humblebrag": seems like a genuine source of frustration, and while she might possibly be attracted to some of the guys making passes, still they're all "husbands," or those are the ones she mentions, of course Pete was a husband, not a good advertisement for the status, and she's being invited to be the cheater or cheatee, having been the cheated-on, and doesn't feel good about that. Plus, there are so many of these guys: the sheer frequency of having to deal is an annoyance in itself (prob gets bits of attitude from wives too).
Also, she's conditioned to think of herself in terms of attractiveness, and she sees how it is for older women, also conditioning makes it come out like she's a poor little orphan princess (and she was raised as a princess of industry, pretty sane and adaptable considering). But she has to say all this to somebody, she would like Pete to commiserate/have *some* clue, and maybe a bit of a reproach for casting her adrift (also maybe "You lost a good thing," understandably so).
He should have stayed, and these upper-class bullshit-damaged waifs could have made their way through the forest together.

very otm, thanks dow

season started in April 1970, so it's probably around July now?

I thought Pete/Trudy story echoed the main Sterling Cooper story in that both were about trying to repeat what has worked in the past, with little success. What made the private-school thing funny was that it seemed like it was at first about how the family name doesn't mean as much anymore, with the move toward merit-based achievement tests and so forth, but then the twist was that it still carried a lot of weight ... to an absurd degree.

Don's fabled powers of persuasion utterly failing him twice in one episode was a marvel to behold. he's officially a relic now, prospects are grim

yep

Draper looked more destroyed when the McCann guy told him to sit than when Megan and Betty left him.

loool so true

I love how being freshly-minted millionaires provided absolutely no solace for anybody

I liked Roger planting a drunken kiss on Don, "you are okay"

Last five minutes of Mad Men is gonna be Lou's "Scout's Honor" cartoon.

Would love it if they all jumped ship again to join Freddy Rumsen's fledgling startup.

Rumsen Phillips and Romano

I also liked the foursome drinking beer in the middle of the day after McCann guy gives them the rest of the day off.

A reddit thread places it in August 1970 - the calendar on the wall behind Trudy, genuine magazines on desks from that month.

xxxxp

Joan: "No one takes me seriously over there." Yeah we saw that recently, when she and Peggy met with the Three Stooges, who were about to start jacking off at the conference table, 'til one of the gals pulled out some distracting print, ooo, gotta study this, h'mmm, yas.
Mention of contracts (don't think they have all the merger loot yet), but maybe she could buy her own non-advertising business (something she may already know about, like a printing company, IT consultancy[lot of early IT consultants were female]). Can see her on the beach with her geezer, phoning in, to see how things are going. She left the business world behind briefly, when she got married, but that went so wrong, and it's been so long, don't think she'll try that again (although---was that a serious offer, to send her four-year-old away, to please the geezer?)

I liked Roger planting a drunken kiss on Don, "you are okay"

For some reason that made me immediately think "oh no, Roger is going to die!" It felt too much like a final farewell and there was all of this stuff before that about quitting smoking "you're a young man" etc.