Mad Men Blindwatch Thread: Come Watch Again... for the First Time!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Mad Men Blindwatch Thread: Come Watch Again... for the First Time!

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

God Hole posted:

the one moment that had me picking my jaw up off the floor was after don's picnic with his family, he grabs the blanket and whips ALL the garbage off it onto the ground, and then walks away. it was one of those moments where you were like "yeah, 60's" but there was something just so obscene about it.

yup. i distinctly remember someone recommending me a video called "charisma on command" or something that goes into detail about how to be cool and confident like don draper. it was basically a pick-up artist tutorial.

i think don is excellently characterized and portrayed, but if the ultimate point was to show how empty and unfulfilling an existence like don's is, unfortunately the showrunners were a bit too subtle.

edit:

I think one of the things that's hard to square is Don's seemingly unusual capacity for forgiveness and selfless gestures, at least in his professional life. Outside of his pathological adultery and the ensuing fallout he seems to be a genuinely upstanding person, not really the corporate climber shithead you'd expect from the archetype.

lurker2006 fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Sep 30, 2020

# ¿ Sep 30, 2020 15:52

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lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

awesmoe posted:

ill give you forgiveness and selfless gestures, but saying someone is an upstanding person except for that time he drunkenly raped his assistant is kinda burying the lede

it is fair to say he is a man of contrasts! some good, some not so good!!!

Now that you've jogged my memory on that development I agree that my phrasing was kind of reprehensible there. To be more specific I remember thinking when I watched that it was just kind of curious how totally his character faults seemed to be wrapped up in his hosed up romantic relationships. I assumed they would just be another filter to view his imposter syndrome but they were so central that they make me question if I interpreted the premise of the show wrong. The professional adman side of his character almost felt kind of thin in the context of a drama.

lurker2006 fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Oct 1, 2020

# ¿ Oct 1, 2020 01:38

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

Yoshi Wins posted:

I like Glen and I like the way Weiner�s kid plays him. Though I do think it�s weird that Weiner cast his son for that role.

He was ok at the level of a 7-10 year old but he was not up to the task of playing a high-schooler.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2020 18:19

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

Ainsley McTree posted:

Same, yeah; I watched this show pretty religiously when it was on, but at this point I couldn't really recall the arc of any single season, it just feels like one long show to me. I tried to do a rewatch at one point but kind of lost steam early in season one. Fortunately, Jerusalem's recaps are thorough and insightful enough that following the thread will scratch the itch!

I remember a lot of the side character stuff losing me completely around the time Peggy got a beatnik boyfriend, just felt like an obligation they were carrying before they could get back to the Don A plot at a certain point.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2020 20:41

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

algebra testes posted:

When I was younger Don in 5G was like "wow what a jerk"

Now I understand it entirely. Although agree with it maybe not.

I wonder how he might have reacted differently if Adam had ended up a little sharper, more worldly. There was such a gulf between them that Don probably would have seen their correspondence as being nauseatingly patronizing in addition to the other problems.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2020 17:25

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

Xealot posted:

I agree more with you. I absolutely think the characters change, in incremental ways that are slow day-to-day but striking if taken as a whole. I likewise think that's true of the setting: as you watch season-by-season, the changes to the broader culture accumulate fairly gradually, but comparing 1960 to the early 1970's is mind-blowing. To me, anyway.

MAJOR SPOILERS for the ending: But I also think the cynicism GoutPatrol brings to it is justified. Like, is Pete actually going to value his family this time or not? Did joyless workaholic Peggy actually fill the romantic void in her life, or is this a temporary distraction? Is Roger in an honest relationship between equals, or is he going to sabotage it with another 20-year-old next month? It's purposefully open-ended in a sense, Don's ending most of all. Is that smile at the end a moment of genuine catharsis or clarity for him? Or did he literally learn nothing, leaving there with a killer Coke ad and nothing more.

Is he in a meaningfully different place when he gets the idea for the coke pitch compared to when he delivered the Carousel pitch? Could the latter have not implied the same character breakthrough? We know he regressed from that one.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2020 02:49

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

edit: I'm sorry.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2020 21:49

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

lurker2006 fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Oct 19, 2020

# ¿ Oct 18, 2020 23:10

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

Incelshok Na posted:

Sal is like bacon: just entirely wonderful. I watched the show when it came out and I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed him.

I think I recall a rumor of his abrupt exit being driven by irl grievances over the actor repeatedly leaking plot details.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2020 21:23

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

Yoshi Wins posted:

I've always completely agreed with your take in the spoiler. Joey pulls some poo poo, Peggy fires him, and he is GONE. Peggy's coworkers may say she's a humorless bitch... but probably not to her face. And anyway, Joan isn't right about that either. Peggy gets along well with dudes in creative in the latter half of the show. It's pretty clear she's not humorless. She just doesn't care that much if people don't like her.

But Joan was just trying to recapture some dignity. Throwing some powerful shade at Peggy was all she had left at that point. And Peggy should have talked to Joan first before firing Joey, if only as a courtesy.

A pretty odorous opinion but she did kind of come off like that a lot of the time, or if not humorless just kind of a dork. To make a larger point I don't think the show ever really properly demonstrated her spark for creative, at least not enough to justify the amount of time she's treated like an advertising prodigy. I compare her to other women like Joan, Megan, Faye, Don's other mistresses, and even Betty as much as she had devolved into the house wife role, and Peggy seems uncultured and dull, overshadowed by any personality she's in the room with. Maybe that's the point, an average girl like her has such a leg up because she was able to get a foot into the man's world and out of the secretary straight jacket.

lurker2006 fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Oct 21, 2020

# ¿ Oct 20, 2020 08:27

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

sebmojo posted:

could you refresh my memory on that?

He gets shot in the face while he's out duckhunting with ford execs and loses an eye. This starts a little arc where he becomes disillusioned with the accounts game and wants to focus on his writing but then he goes back on it. Ken was always a secondary character on the level of Silvio and Kinsey but I though his end in the show was kind of abrupt.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2020 21:36

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

Don's taste in mistresses definitely brought to mind that tremendous fight scene between Tony and Carmella where he just utterly crushed her for becoming a queenbee housewife.

lurker2006 fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Oct 26, 2020

# ¿ Oct 26, 2020 02:25

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

Yoshi Wins posted:

but Don was the one who found Dr. Wayne, and he had other priorities.

At that point in the show where it was constantly riffing on the dark side of 50s Americana I just kind of assumed that was standard operating procedure for shrinks of that time, they're lowkey going to let the husband know what's going on with the dame.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2020 21:17

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

Yoshi Wins posted:

Don has some pretty obvious differences from Pete's father. Most importantly, he didn't come from a privileged background. He had to work and display merit to get where he is. But his demeanor with subordinates at work is reminiscent of how Pete's father is with Pete. He is cold, demanding, and authoritative. Pete feels Don's rejections on a personal level. It ties in to his issues with his father.

One problem for Pete is that there really isn't a situation where Don would be in a position to give him an atta boy. He's still creative, to him Pete is just another middleman he has to deal with occasionally like the office accountant or the frontdesk, he probably wouldn't have much to say to him at all if it weren't for his attempts to play office politics.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2020 13:06

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

JethroMcB posted:

with this revelatory information (in what we know to be the penultimate episode of the season) leads the viewer to believe that this is going to be explosive.

When Pete showed his intention of revealing it to Cooper I immediately had the impression that it would be dismissed out of hand, it's not like Don lied about any credentials, you don't sever a money maker for what is essentially having a pen name.

lurker2006 fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Nov 3, 2020

# ¿ Nov 3, 2020 20:29

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

KellHound posted:

My favorite Episode Description is "Peggy helps Ginsberg with a problem" for the episode where ginsberg has his breakdown claiming computers are making people gay so him and peggy need to reproduce

I don't know how I feel about his exit. He was always a bit of an oddball but cutting of his nipple and giving it to peggy? Seemed like it should have been a nightmare sequence.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2020 13:53

lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

VinylonUnderground posted:

Sure. I just think that one of the things that Weiner talks about a lot in interviews is the fundamental hollowness of Don. I just don't think he actually does a good job translating that to the screen where Don is Captain Awesome followed by *sad trombone*. It alternates between Frank and his Brother talking about "Those were the days!" at Shadynasty's and a middle schooler's idea of being "deep".

Don Draper is a clove cigarette. And Weiner loving loves clove cigarettes.

In Mad Men you have an awesome man being awesome (but he is sad inside because he is deep and has real feelings. ). In Breaking Bad you have a small pathetic man freed by death (that starts at the pilot and ends at the finale).

That was my biggest problem with the show, Don was given so many pet the dog moments to the point of absurdity, felt like a Forrest Gump type folk hero half the time.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2021 04:56

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lurker2006: Jul 30, 2019

doublepost

lurker2006 fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Feb 21, 2021

# ¿ Feb 21, 2021 04:56

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Mad Men Blindwatch Thread: Come Watch Again... for the First Time!