Xealot posted:

Yeah, for as reprehensible as Pete is, he's also the funniest goddamn character. He does one of my favorite line readings in basically anything: "Not great, Bob!


Mad Men is probably my favorite TV drama ever made, and I've had some frustrating conversations with people recently who found it too slow or plodding or to be "about nothing." It absolutely is about something, I think best summarized by Faye in S4, it all comes down to what people want vs. what's expected of them. The show is filled with characters seeking to become some aspirational self, who are then confronted by the inescapable reality of who they actually are. The central focus on advertising is the perfect metaphor for this...an industry built around lies promising a better life, designed to distract people from the obvious truth that those promises were always empty.

It's interesting in retrospect that AMC's two big deal flagship shows of this period - Mad Men and Breaking Bad - so heavily explore themes of toxic masculine ambition and the isolation and destruction that brings. Obviously, the latter is way more bombastic and Shakespearean about it. But Mad Men does a really nuanced job of showing how traumatic and self-destructive it can be in small, subtle ways that accumulate over time. The best trick the show pulls off is presenting Don Draper as this stoic, confident, successful alpha male, and then showing how empty and self-loathing and lonely and vulnerable the man inside that empty suit actually is.

Mad Men is goddamn excellent.