Mad Men: Season 5 Finale Filled with 'Phantoms'

 

* Warning: Spoilers ahead from the season finale of Mad Men.*

Lane Pryce.

Adam Whitman.

Beth Dawes.

Megan Draper's acting career.

Roger Sterling's quest for enlightenment.

Pete Campbell's vision of what he was supposed to want out of life versus what he has.

Mad Men show runner Matthew Weiner explicitly says that the season five finale was all about phantoms, naming it, cleverly enough, "The Phantom." Everyone was struggling with something and/or someone in the finale which capped a strong, controversial and creatively daring season. By the time the credits rolled, some of those phantoms were addressed, some ignored and some were chased, like the elusive Moby Dick.

Chief among the phantoms were the ones nagging away at Don Draper. Unfortunately, that rotten tooth with its accompanying ache, was a ham-fisted, klieg light of an analogy for the persistent pang of guilt that hit Don in his gut as he thought he saw his dead brother Adam -- who he sent away with an envelope full of cash and orders never to speak to Don again -- everywhere, the burn of the rope with which he hanged himself forming a permanent tattoo of desperation on his skin. The ghost of Lane clung to every cover of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce from his empty chair at the partners' meeting to the check the agency received from its insurance policy on Lane, forcing Don to suppress even further his compounded guilt about sending Lane packing, after agreeing to cover the amount of money he embezzled, instead of offering him something more. And it ended the same way as his interaction with his brother, only this time Don came face-to-face with Lane after he'd passed.

Don's constant refrain, that the tooth ache would just go away, was about as effective a plan as his decision not to talk about how he felt about Lane or Adam with anybody. His guilt will not go away, the episode told us, unless it's extracted and some blood is spilled. "It's not your tooth that's rotten," the ghost of Adam told Don when he was under anesthesia and Don pleaded, "Don't leave me."

Don's attempts to try to extract the guilt like a bad tooth: He gave Lane's wife a check for $50,000 -- which did nothing to alleviate her emotional tumult -- and, under duress, finally arranged for Megan to get a part in a national commercial. Coming home to a drunk Megan, who'd taken to drinking to dull the pain the way Betty did after she'd been beaten down emotionally and spiritually by rejection, combined with having to listen to his mother-in-law admonish him to tell Megan to give up the fantasy of an acting career, made Don realize that even his wife was in danger of plunging into a downward spiral, like Lane and Adam before her.

In his commentary about the episode, Weiner said that for Don to see Megan, in costume, on the set, followed by that long shot of Don walking away as Megan faded in the background, was analogous to Don giving Megan her wings, her freedom, which very well may mean that the freedom takes her away from him. Wrapping the episode on Don being asked if he was "alone" was intriguing.

Despite my initial skepticism about Don asking his twentysomething secretary to marry him when he was in Disneyland, I must say that throughout the season, it's been fascinating to watch Megan evolve and mature. Also thought-provoking, Don's response to Megan's evolution, often manifested itself in one of two ways: Simply taking actions in direct response to her or reverting back to his default husband setting, to the guy who doesn't communicate with his wife, who takes her for granted and makes her feel like garbage.

The other major storylines were watered down because there was an attempt to stuff so many of them into the final episode. Pete had one last fling with Rory Beth in a hotel and learned that she was going to have electro-shock therapy which was likely to render him not even a pleasant memory. Women experiencing depression -- Beth, Betty, Megan -- seems to be a mini-Mad Men trend, as the women suffer, while the men who have given up on life drink like Don and get into fights, or hang themselves, unless they're Roger Sterling, who's most likely to be the first drug death on Mad Men. Seeing Roger standing stark naked in front of a window is just inches away from Roger leaping out of the window while high on LSD, becoming the eponymous "falling man" in the Mad Men intro. That's terrifying because he's fun to watch. However seeing Pete, bruised and battered after mixing it up on the train with Beth's husband and telling Don-esque lies to Trudy didn't move me in the slightest, nor did his idiotic suggestion that if Beth ran away with him to California, her depression would be cured. If anything, more time with Pete would drive anybody to shock therapy.

Meanwhile, I was thrilled to see Peggy get treated the way in which she deserved by her new boss, who even sent her on a business trip. But seriously, what was up with the dogs having sex outside of her motel room window? Was somebody dropping acid when they wrote up that scene?

All in all, it wasn't my favorite finale, but it did a decent job of setting up the sixth season, launching the characters into new territory without doing something wildly impulsive like proposing to one's secretary. I think the episode suffered in comparison to the 12th episode which was extraordinarily complex and riveting.

What say you Mad Men fans?

Image credits: Michael Yarish/AMC.

Mad Men – It’s Getting Grim

 

*Warning – Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men.*

There’s only one more new episode left in the fifth season of Mad Men and damn, has it gotten grim. A bright, upstart suffered one too many insults and attacks from her mentor last week and headed out the door of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. The savvy office manager was pimped out by the partners in order to land the Jaguar account.

And now one of the named partners -- who embezzled money from the firm and forged the signature of a man who stole his identity from someone else and fears being caught by the feds -- hanged himself in his office. Oh, and Sally is now sneaking around New York City with that creepy Glen kid with his cheesy adolescent lip fuzz.

Remember how the elevator door opened in a mid-season episode and Don peered down the empty elevator shaft, seemingly thankful he didn’t absent-mindedly just step forward once the doors opened? Remember how some of the promos for this season featured the stark image of a falling man, similar to the ones we see in the opening credits? Was this all meant to form a meta-analogy of Don watching things fall apart around him? Again? Everything from the team he created to his reputation among the big companies (who are still angry about his Lucky Strike letter)?

Don -- whose own brother Adam also hanged himself after Don gave him money and his walking papers -- experienced an eerie echo of that scenario in this episode, entitled, “Commissions and Fees,” when Lane was told by Don to keep the money he’d embezzled – Don would cover it – as Don told Lane to just walk away from the firm, resign, leave, skedaddle because Don couldn’t trust him (like Don didn’t trust his brother not to wreck the life he’d created for himself with a stolen identity).

Don has now come face-to-face with death (the last time he did so he was in Korea). Because he told Lane he had to go. (It was only by chance that Don’s new prestige client – the landing of which was sullied by Joan prostituting herself – wasn’t sabotaged by Lane committing suicide inside a Jaguar simply because, ironically, it wouldn’t start.)

What will this all mean to Don, who seems to want to focus on his work and lost boys (seeing a young Dick Whitman in Glen I’m betting), and has returned to form, treating his wife Megan as though she’s no longer a marital equal, that she no longer merits notification that she’s going to be saddled with the care of his daughter and that no longer needs to be consulted on stuff? He's already ditched her at HoJos, and now he's acting like she's a brunette Betty 2.0.

Even the so-called enlightenment that Roger experienced on LSD, which he found so beautiful and significant, has disappeared into thin air, worn off, Roger told Don. Does that mean the newness and freshness of Don's new start with Megan has worn off? That the bubble of the enlightenment that Don found in his new marriage has burst?

At the same time, there was some attempt at an analogy meant to be forged with Sally “becoming a woman,” her girlhood passing her by as she’s hanging out with Megan and her friend and gabbing about the color of pubic hair, drinking sugar and coffee, donning white go-go boots and making clandestine plans with Glen to meet together.

Given the way this season has unfolded, there’s no telling what will happen in next week’s season finale, called, “The Phantom.” Any predictions?

Image credit: Ron Jaffe/AMC.

Mad Men -- What in the Hare Krishna is Goin' on Here?

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the latest episode of Mad Men.*

Joan and Don flirted in a bar after taking a bright red Jaguar for a spin. And they didn't wind up sleeping together.

Paul Kinsey joined the Hare Krishnas and shaved his head.

Harry Crane had sex in the office with a Hare Krishna leader Lakshmi, a woman for whom Paul not only has feelings but wants to build a life with her. Guilty Harry handed Paul money and urged him to flee to Hollywood to follow his dreams.

Megan channeled Betty Draper as she raged about Don blowing off dinner and not telling her where he was all night.

Lane embezzled thousands of dollars from Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and forged Don's signature. (Oh the delicious irony of Don -- who stole his identity from a dead man -- having his signature forged.)

Roger, who sported some hideous attire in this episode, actually told Joan he wanted to be responsible -- Roger Sterling, responsible! -- and pay child support for Kevin.

To quote Liz Lemon . . . What the what? For yet another week in this very different fifth season from the previous four, events seemed out of whack. (At least there were no semi-naked shots of Rory Gilmore.) Characters behaved, well, out of character so much so that I have no idea what to expect from anyone next week. Will Joan burn her bra? Will Roger join the priesthood? Pete join the anti-war movement?

For example, we already knew that there was more to Lane than his all-business, musty British demeanor. He wanted to leave his wife last season. He had an affair with an African-American Playboy bunny. He drunkenly shouted at a movie screen and later a fine restaurant -- remember the slab of steak he held up as his belt buckle? -- with Don before the two of them busied themselves with women of the evening.

Lane isn't a shrinking violet by any means, the man who "sacked" Don, Roger and Burt in order to afford them a head start to launch their new firm with which he'd be a partner. But I never pegged Lane as an embezzler or someone who'd mess with the books for his own personal gain. He's the guy who chastised Joan last year for wanting to spend "too much" on a Christmas party, then had to turn around and throw a pricey shindig because Lee Garner Jr. announced he'd be making an appearance. A commenter on a TV blog posed an interesting query: On what is Lane spending all his money? Why is he suddenly skint?

As for Joan, I'd completely understand if she wants to wash her hands of Roger's immaturity and is fed up with men in general, especially after Greg's self-serving stunt with the divorce papers. But it doesn't seem to make sense for Kevin's future financial well being, that she'd spurn Roger's offer of monetary support. It's short-sighted and Joan's not usually short-sighted. But hey, at least she didn't melt into Don's arms when he asked her to dance. Now THEY would've made an intriguing couple. If Joan had danced with Don and made it clear that she was open to more, I wonder if Don would've slept with her or said, "Thanks but no thanks."

While the light in Don's eyes from having Megan work on his creative team has been extinguished -- severely disappointing Don who'd sloughed his work to the side in favor of doting on his new wife -- Megan is now wading into Betty territory (although when she chucked the dinner plate against the wall it reminded me of when Don hurled Bobby's toy against the wall after Betty urged him to "do something" when Bobby was misbehaving during dinner). However I don't think Don's a fan of this side of Megan, not when she's yelling at him or openly criticizing Don's profession. Was it her rejection of advertising that set the fire under Don's behind again and prompted him to make that rousing speech about the Jaguar account, recommitting himself to his work?

Last, but not least, the Hare Krishna thing. Paul in that get-up. Harry falling for Lakshmi's line that she was "burning" for him. Harry, not known for being generous with anyone, giving his now floundering colleague a whole lot of money and a load of encouraging words. This I did not see coming. At. All. I was glad to see old Paul though, I'd been wondering what had become of him, just like I wonder whether we'll see Sal Romano again, or his wife Kitty who's busy wrecking her medical career over on Grey's Anatomy.

Image credit: Jordin Althaus/AMC.

Mad Men -- Everybody's Lookin' Out for Number One

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the latest episode of Mad Men.*

"You are not loyal. You only think about yourself." -- Peggy Olson to Roger Sterling after Roger gave a new copywriter extra work (and cash) instead of asking Peggy.

Everybody's got an agenda, and it's all about benefiting the person they see in the mirror every day.

Betty, who doesn't seem to want what she has but wants what she can't have (food, Don's affection/respect/confidences), wants to make Don and Megan miserable so she'll feel better about herself, particularly after getting a glimpse of the slender Megan when she was getting dressed.

Don, who hasn't been exercising his creative muscles lately, wants to best an up-and-coming copywriter so he'll feel better about himself and doesn't play fair when he uses his seniority to trump the guy.

Pete -- who, like Betty, doesn't want his life or his spouse -- daydreams about sexy dalliances with a woman who's married to the guy with whom he commutes to work every morning. That's when he wasn't off trying to promote himself and only himself, excluding other members of his firm . . . only to fail miserably in his public relations efforts. (Have I mentioned how much I hate Pete Campbell? Snake.)

Roger, who ditched the loyal mother of his first child for a younger wife who he also dumped after he grew bored with her too, wants to sully Jane's new digs so he'd be the first man to have her in her apartment even though Jane expressly said she wanted a fresh break from him, after she extracted a bribe from him in exchange for accompanying him to work dinner.

Everybody's a selfish git in this episode, scheming and maneuvering about how to handle situations in ways which are beneficial to themselves. Even characters who have always been selfish -- Don, Roger, Pete -- demonstrated a little extra self-absorption at the expense of others in their workplace with Don smacking down an employee whose efforts could help Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce's bottom line, Roger blowing off Peggy who'd helped him in a pinch and Pete who was only looking out for himself and not his ad agency when he made his bid for New York Times publicity.

The cruelty we saw that was personal in nature was rooted in each character's insecurities. Betty, unhappily overweight, wanted to hurt Don and his thin trophy wife by not only trying to wreck Megan's warm relationship with Sally, but by telling Sally about Anna Draper, hoping to damage Sally's relationship with her father. Roger, who didn't like the notion of being replaced in Jane's bed by the twentysomething son of a client, wanted to wreck Jane's fresh start. Megan's friend Julia, who was trying out for a role that Megan said was fairly lousy, lashed out at Megan for being freed from having to audition for crappy scripts because she sits on an affluent "throne" courtesy of her husband's money.

Nobody seems happy with anybody. Nobody seems nice to anyone else, except for Henry, who chose not to tell his weight watching wife that he was starving after all the low-calorie dinners and fried up his own steak in the middle of the night, hoping she wouldn't notice. (Henry already demonstrated his insecurities earlier this season when he didn't tell Betty that Don had called to inquire about her health after she feared she had cancer.)

By the way, what is up with Megan being barefoot all the time? Is this supposed to represent a new, freer, youthful, late 1960s kinda vibe? It certainly contrasted with Betty who showed up in Don's apartment looking like the 1960s housewife she is.

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

Mad Men -- 'At the Codfish Ball' Episode = What the Heck?

*Warning -- Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men.*

Things are seriously twisted in the world of Mad Men. More so than usual. More so than when Roger Sterling dropped acid.

You've got Sally Draper -- the girl who was humiliated last season after she was caught pleasuring herself at a friend's house, the kid who adores her father -- walking in on Roger, with whom she was palling around, being given oral sex by the married mother of her father's new wife.

Don, who was feted in grand style by the American Cancer Society for blasting Lucky Strike and all of tobacco in the New York Times, learned that the titans of business don't trust him because of his celebrated correspondence.

Peggy, who seemed truly disappointed that her boyfriend Abe suggested that they move in together instead of marry, unconvincingly tried to sell the arrangement as something edgy. (I don't buy that she's into this.)

Megan put a new twist on Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce's flailing Heinz campaign and, after getting Don to blurt her idea out before the Heinz guy could fire Don over dinner, saved the day. For those of you keeping track at home, that makes twice that Don struck out in the business realm, given that the Heinz success was all Megan's doing.

The world seems upside-down.

Seeing Megan's parents openly fight the way they did, seeing Marie go after the willing Roger and seeing Megan rescue Don made Megan seem like a more substantive character than she's been portrayed thus far. She is now more than a young, pretty secretary who's good with kids and caught Don's eye. Plus she's been bringing out these vulnerabilities in Don that we haven't seen before, weaknesses that he hid from Betty and for which he overcompensated by being sternly authoritative. As we saw in the previous episode, being authoritative doesn't work with Megan who isn't in the grasp of the massive insecurities that plague Betty.

Then there's poor Sally, the kid who gets slapped by her mom in front of people, who is fearful of eating as she witnesses her mother pile on pounds of misery. She's maturing and starting to dress like a teenager under Megan's youthful, hip influence. She's forced to mother her officious step-grandmother when Mother Francis got hurt, weeks after Mother Francis gave her a prescription sleeping pill when the child was anxious. Sally's making clandestine phone calls to Creepy Glen who's at a residential school. I don't see happiness ahead for Sally, or for her father Don who, despite proclaiming his contentment, seems unmoored.

Image credit: Ron Jaffe/AMC.

Mad Men -- Don's Violent, Fever-Fueled Dream Freaked Me Out

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the latest episode of Mad Men ahead.*

If the most harrowing scene from the latest episode of Mad Men, "Mystery Date," had not turned out to have been a dream, I would've been tempted to write off the show because it was so wildly over the line. (I've been in a writing-shows-off kind of mood lately, having given warning that my days of regularly reading and reviewing Grey's Anatomy and The Killing may be coming to an end due to my deep dissatisfaction with insipid storytelling.)

If Don had actually murdered his former lover and shoved her lifeless body under his bed (which, as one viewer pointed out, paralleled Sally hiding under a sofa from a mass killer who wasn't there later in the episode) I would've been insanely angry. It was bad enough that during the entire scene I was shouting at the television, "This'd better be a dream!" Luckily, it was a manifestation of Don's fears as interpreted by a fever-plagued nightmare that his marriage to Megan would collapse under the weight of his prior sexual liaisons. (I still believe that his fidelity to the part of the wedding vows about forsaking all others will be short-lived.)

Fear in general seemed to be the overall theme of the evening as Peggy, who appears open-minded and all into gal-power, gave a worried glance at her purse (loaded with cash she scammed from a desperately stupid Roger) wondering if she should leave it there while Dawn was sleeping on her sofa, unattended.

Henry's pill- and Bugle-happy mother Pauline feared that a mass murderer who killed women in Chicago would come to New York and attack her so she kept a giant kitchen knife at her side while she was babysitting Betty's kids.

Sally was so worried about the Chicago murders that she couldn't sleep, so Grandma Pauline slipped her a sleeping pill. (That makes twice during this show's run that Sally had been rendered unconscious, the other time being when Don had taken her to work on a Sunday and she illictly sucked down some alcohol a Sterling Cooper employee had left behind.)

Joan, meanwhile, was initially fearful that Greg would get hurt when he returned to Vietnam for a second tour of duty, angry with the military for sending him back, particularly when he has a new family. But Joan's fear morphed into fury when she learned that not only had Greg volunteered to go back, but he didn't even care enough about her and their baby Kevin to even consult her about the decision. (Kind of like how he never asked her opinion on whether he should enlist. He just did it.)

While it was stunning to see Joan -- who tolerated grevious mistreatment by Greg in the past as the price for landing a husband (she told him he wasn't a good man adding "I know you know what I'm talking about") -- jettisoning her marriage, it shall prove fascinating to see her evolve into a strong, independent, single mother who's no longer simply after getting a ring on her finger.

My favorite part of the episode: Peggy shaking down Roger, shamelessly so, getting him to part ways with $400 in exchange for Peggy saving his sorry behind. Peggy is coming into her own, despite the unfortunate purse incident which came on the heels of her attempts to bond with Dawn and knowing what it's like to be "the only one" of her kind in the workplace.

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

Loads of 'Mad Men' Season 5 Goodness

Entertainment Weekly has devoted its new issue to the long-awaited return of the quadruple Emmy award winning AMC drama Mad Men which, given all this hype and longing after a 17-month absence, I'm afraid won't be able to live up to fans' expectations (mine included). Nonetheless, as I cross my fingers, knock on wood and hope that Matthew Weiner & Co. have created another insightful, surprising and smart set of 13 episodes, I'm eagerly gobbling up all things Mad Men.

Like that new issue of Entertainment Weekly which devoted nine pages to the returning series that premieres on March 25. What did I learn from the magazine, amid artsy photos of Jon Hamm in his role as the troubled Don Draper?

• There will be some time jump from the end of season four to the premiere of season five but there's no word on how far forward they will leap. Says Weiner, the series creator and head honcho: "I want people to feel like they're going to visit their best friend, and they open the door and everything's been going on without them. The story is on page 30 when they open the door, so they'll have to catch up.
• Elisabeth Moss (Peggy) said she's "completely, completely surprised by season five. For a few of the characters that have big things happen to them this year -- big surprises and changes -- the audience is going to go back and go 'He said that in episode one!'" 
• Talking about the sudden and stunning marriage proposal Don gave to his young secretary Megan in the closing moments of season four, Weiner said: "A lot of the decisions that Don makes may seem strange to the audience, but they're going to seem strange to people around him, too. He is coming into middle age, which is closer to old age back then. Existentialism is a young man's game, and you can say what you want about how death nullifies things. But when you get closer to death, it starts to become more serious, and it's harder to laugh it off and say, 'I'm living for the moment.'" 
• Betty will be back but won't be seen as often as Betty fans (like me) might like because January Jones gave birth to a baby while Mad Men was in production. "It was interesting to work around that [the pregnancy] but [Matt] works best with a challenge," Jones told EW. "That turned into an amazing storyline for me and for Betty. You'll definitely see a different side of her."

Meanwhile, New York Magazine published seven pages worth of Mad Men material, from summarizing each of the show's 39 episodes in pithy fashion and delving into Don and Peggy's "special relationship" (it drives Moss nuts when people constantly ask her whether Peggy and Don will hook up) to a creepy editorial feature where the magazine asked an actuary to estimate when Don, who was born in 1926, will die and aged a photo of Hamm/Draper (see above). The actuary estimated that Draper will pass away in 1985 at age 59.

One last thing I found today while marinating in Mad Men pre-season excitement: Draping is apparently the new Tebow-ing. You take a photo from the back of someone and that person is draping his or her arm over a person or object like the silhouette of Don Draper does in the show's opening credits. Then post the image on Tumblr and/or Twitter. Fun for Mad Men fans of all ages.

Image credits: Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine and Tumblr.

At Least the 'Mad Men' Fan Videos Have Some Life in Them

While I was disappointed by the same-old, same-old season five Mad Men promos AMC has released, I decided to satiate my desire for new Mad Men material by hunting around on YouTube for some Mad Men-themed videos that contain some real emotion, that have real life in them, which means, of course, that they've been made by fans.

One video that I especially enjoyed was by 7Kell Productions (above) which focused on the Don and Betty Draper relationship. (While there are many Betty haters out there, I am not one of them, at least as far as seasons 1-3 are concerned.) The video chronicles the circuitous path the duo took during the show's four seasons, from moments of domestic bliss, longing and betrayal, to the complicated business of being divorced parents. (If you ask me, I think that Don would drop any woman he was with in order to reconnect with Betty, who represented an idealistic dream to him -- one he didn't quite think he deserved -- but whether he'd remain monogamous with her is an entirely different story.)

Then there's "Don Draper Undone" by EditorLosAngeles (above), which heightens the dramatic rivalry and power struggle between Don and Pete Campbell, the only one, aside from Betty, who knows the truth about Dick Whitman.

This video by MovieExtra deftly captures the rampant sexism and harassment, as well as the lame attempts at seduction by the various, moronic men of Mad Men.

On the more serious side, there's this black and white, deeply moody Don and Peggy video that depicts how desperately lonely the pair are for an authentic, emotional connection with someone and how, despite their rocky relationship, they've remained loyal to one another. Heavily reliant on scenes from the outstanding "The Suitcase" episode from season four, the video openly hopes that Don and Peggy will take it to the next level, suggesting that Peggy pines for Don. I don't think she really pines for him and believe that a romantic pairing between those two would be disastrous.

Are there any fan-made Mad Men videos out there that you really like that you really like?

Mad Men's Blank Canvas of a Season 5 Ad Tempts Urban Artists

Where I read a palpable sense of despair in the season five promo poster for Mad Men as the image prominently featured a wretched expanse of white space into which a black and white man was hurtling, others saw it as an opportunity to stretch their creative muscles.

Throughout internet and on subway posters, the Mad Men image is being altered in clever, sometimes downright odd ways.

The Gothamist and the web site Laughing Squid have run photos of Mad Men subway posters that have been tagged in ways that reflected a variety of interpretations of the image:

How do you interpret the basic, unvarnished image? Negatively, positively or intentionally designed to spark existential conversations like this one?

‘Secrets are Back’ on March 25 for a Two-Hour ‘Mad Men’ Extravaganza

Nine o’clock.

March 25.

For two hours.

Don Draper will return . . . and, apparently, fall into an empty abyss in the new season.

What does AMC’s stark, black and white promo image mean for the fifth season of Mad Men?

That Don Draper is starting with a clean slate, starting fresh with his child-bride? Will he learn from his mistake with Betty and reveal his "Dick Whitman" secret to his fiance?

Or is this image more sinister in its intent,that Don's falling away into nothingness?

Given that AMC/Lionsgate has tormented Mad Men fans with this extended delay – an entire 2011 with no fresh episodes – couldn’t they have offered us a promo poster with at least something more tangible that we could ponder . . . something other than vast white space?

The only other hint they've offered is via the web address for the countdown clock until the new season begins, entitled "Secrets are Back." They are such teases. 

For those who need a Mad Men refresher and who haven’t yet gone to Netflix to watch streaming episodes of season four – including Don’s shocking marriage proposal to Megan and Joan’s stunning change of heart – AMC will be putting the fourth season episodes available On Demand starting next week and re-airing the fourth season on AMC at the ridiculous time of 6 a.m. (Seriously AMC? Six o’clock in the morning for the drama that put you on the map?)

What do you make of this season five image? What do you think we read anything into it?

Image credit: AMC.

When Don Draper Pitched Facebook's New Timeline App

Some clever soul took one of my all time favorite Mad Men scenes, Don Draper's pitch for the Kodak Carosel, "The Wheel," and transformed it into a pitch for Facebook's Timeline app.

Brilliant.

Watch the video here.

Via Brooklyn Mutt.

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

'Mad Men'-Inspired Icy Coolness for a Sweltering Summer Day

Mad Men Opening Titles Re-Design from Paul Rogers on Vimeo.

While we won’t be able to enjoy any new installments of Don Draper, Peggy Olson, Roger Sterling and the gang until next year -- likely when there’ll be snow on the ground here in the Boston area -- illustrator Paul Rogers has created a refreshing new, 1960s-styled intro for Mad Men that’s so cool it can take a bit of the edge off of this heat wave.


Watching this makes me feel as though I’ve been transported back to the early 1960s, when TVs were boxy behemoths wearing rabbit ears and central AC wasn’t as prominent in American homes as it is today.

Video via Laughing Squid.

Jon Hamm #2 on EW's Entertainers of the Year

Image credit: Entertainment Weekly.

From his 30 Rock cameos and his hardnosed law enforcement officer in The Town, to his joyously funny Emmy song and dance "Born to Run" routine and his painful portrayal of the complicated Don Draper on Mad Men, Jon Hamm has had one helluva year.

He's shown he can crack wise on TV with the award winning Tina Fey. He can be goofy with the likes of Betty White, such as when he "taught" her how to dance during the Emmy Awards' opening bit. He can sing. He can dance. He can smolder. He can cry. He can say, "What" in a thousand different ways . . . which is why Entertainment Weekly placed him at number two on their entertainers of the year list. (Taylor Swift topped the list, which thrilled my 12-year-old daughter.)

In the amusing accompanying article Hamm said of 2010: "My eternal pessimist comes out whenever things get as good as they have been. However,  I will say that 2010 was the best year I will ever have.”

Image credit: Michael Muller/Entertainment Weekly.

Who Knew Playing Don Draper Was So Dangerous?

Jon Hamm, who plays Don Draper on Mad Men, appeared on Conan O’Brien’s show last night and talked about how he had to go to the hospital, TWICE, after sustaining injuries while pretending to be Don Draper. His on set injuries included: Seven stitches on his head, a broken hand and a separated shoulder.

During the interview, Hamm told O'Brien about a scene he shot with Elisabeth Moss in which she firmly shook his hand, which was broken at the time. The pain from the handshake brought him to his knees. Guess being Don isn't all Old Fashioneds, smokes and dapper duds.

'Mad Men's' Don Draper Says What?

On a particularly insane day for me, watching this short video of Mad Men's Don Draper (the fabulous Jon Hamm) saying, "What?!" a bazillion times and in very different ways, was just what I needed. The ending made me laugh.

Notes on Pop Culture: Media Expectations of Women, 'In Treatment' & Deeply Written TV Characters Wreck My Enjoyment of Films

Image credit: CBS

Media Expectations of Women

Did you hear about the recent controversy involving two twentysomething Glee actresses posing provocatively for GQ while wearing their panties and sucking on lollipops? Or about a Marie Claire writer’s hateful attack on CBS’ Mike & Molly in which the writer said she doesn’t want to watch overweight people walk across the room never mind kiss one another on a primetime television sitcom. Or did you happen to read the New York Times’ hard-hitting analysis of female politicians’ choice of attire?

My pop culture and politics column this week took on all three of those issues and concluded that, collectively, they send a pretty lousy message: That young female celebrities have to debase themselves sexually in order to get media attention and then suffer the intense criticism for doing so (no such requirement for young male celebs), that having overweight men in leading roles on TV shows doesn’t prompt ugly attacks though a leading overweight woman does, and that no matter how a female politician dresses she’s going to be attacked by fashion writers as either dressing too “mannishly” or too sexy in “rump-hugging” skirts. It’s a fairly grumpy piece, if I do say so myself.

Season 3 - Week 2 Preview

In Treatment

HBO’s In Treatment . . . we’re now in week two, eight sessions into Paul Weston’s third season. And I’m just as enthralled as I was in the first.

Of the new patients, I’m most intrigued by Frances, played by Debra Winger, and by Paul himself facing off against his new therapist Adele as he’s increasingly fearful that he has Parkinson’s, like his father.

This is becoming my favorite indulgence of the week, watching Paul and his patients. I find that I do absolutely no multi-tasking (no BlackBerry, no laptop, etc.) while this is on because I want to catch every glance and gesture.

Deeply Written TV Characters Wreck My Enjoyment of Films

After reading a Boston Globe article published the weekend Mad Men’s season finale aired, I realized the truth in what the writer, Matthew Gilbert, was saying: All of these complicated, anti-hero characters on cable dramas -- Don Draper from Mad Men, Tommy Gavin from Rescue Me, Paul from In Treatment, Tony Soprano from The Sopranos, Walter White from Breaking Bad, etc. -- have been so nuanced and deep that movie characters, by comparison, seem pretty shallow. I then proceeded to wonder how much better, say, The Town, would’ve been had it been a cable TV drama (instead of a film) on my recent CliqueClack TV post. And I was really entertained by The Town.

Image credit: CBS.

'Mad Men' Cast Throws in Their Two Cents on The Summer Man

It was interesting to see what Elisabeth Moss and Christina Hendricks had to say about how their storylines played out in "The Summer Man" as they had very different perspectives than I did on it.

They actresses believe Peggy was proven to have made the wrong move in firing Joey, which they said established Joan as "just" a powerless secretary and Peggy as a "humorless bitch." I, however, think Peggy was seizing power and respect, as Don advised her to do, and showed that the boorishness has consequences. She also showed that she could directly wield power, not just indirectly manipulate people to get what she wants like Joan was trying to do, but failed.

While watching the AMC video recap of the episode, I also noticed for the first time that Don's gift to Gene was a big stuffed elephant. He brought an elephant into the room. Into his former house (is it still the one that the Francis family was supposed to have already vacated according to the divorce decree?) Hmm.

'Mad Men:' The Suitcase (Otherwise Known as When Peggy Became Anna, Sort Of)

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men.*

We always knew that Peggy and Don had a special relationship. They both have deep secrets that they’ve only partially shared with one another . . . which is more than they’ve shared with others.

Don knows all about Peggy’s secret pregnancy, her involuntarily mental commitment and didn’t care. He still wanted her to work for him and was determined to pretend as though her whole pregnancy and her denial of the pregnancy, never happened.

Therefore he trusted her, trusted her when he and Bobbie Barrett got into a booze-fueled car wreck and Peggy not only bailed them out but let Bobbie stay in her apartment until her bruises faded. He chased Peggy down and begged her to work at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, saying that if she didn’t work for him he’d spend his whole life trying to hire her. He also added that little chestnut about how he sees himself in Peggy and that’s why he’s as hard on her as he is on himself.

For her part, Peggy felt indebted to Don for not only plucking her from the secretarial pool and christening her as a copywriter, but for keeping her secret and not treating her with sexist kid gloves.

That was all backstory for this strangely intimate episode, “The Suitcase.”

“I got drawn into his web,” Peggy said, explaining to Mark why she was going to be late to their dinner after Don pressured and berated Peggy into staying at the office with him. Don may have or may not have realized that he was doing anything he could to get Peggy -- who’s very susceptible to Don’s guilt trips -- to stay in his company for the evening, including revealing things about himself personally (about being a farm boy, about his father, about Uncle Mac, about Korea), so he wouldn’t have to face the fact that he would have to call Anna’s house in California and be told that Anna ("the only person in the world who really knew me") had died, something which broke his heart, left Dick Whitman feeling completely alone.

At first, the tension was over the fact that Peggy wanted to leave and Don didn’t want her to. To be fair, Peggy didn’t tell Don until she was an hour late for Mark’s surprise dinner for her, that it was her birthday and she had dinner plans. When Don learned that she had plans, he got all snippy and nasty but told her to go, though he clearly didn’t want her to. Only thing was, Peggy didn’t really want to go. She didn’t want to have dinner with Mark and her family. What she wanted seemed a lot closer to what Don was looking for that night, even as she was verbally lashing back at Don, giving as good as she got from him.

This all seemed like one big test for Peggy who, three times during “The Suitcase,” had men telling her that the money spent on her or handed to her (whether in the form of a salary, a set of phony business cards or a dinner in a nice restaurant) meaning that she owed them something, a notion she rejected on all three accounts.

What DID move Peggy wasn’t people telling her exactly how much they’d spent a lot for a shrimp cocktail, it was when people demonstrated that not only did they trust her and have enough confidence in her to treat her like a smart, professional woman, but also had the wherewithal to back up what they were saying. (Duck’s empty promises of making her a creative director were all just a pretense to get her into bed again. The petulant Mark used her birthday as a tool to ingratiate himself with Peggy’s mother, regardless of what Peggy may have wanted to do to celebrate her day.)

Don -- mired in the depths of his personal alcoholic rock bottom -- argued with Peggy (who was unafraid of telling him off, accusing him of stealing ideas while drunk and not sharing credit) and made her cry in a way that reminded me of a big brother-little sister relationship. However Don also built Peggy up by telling her she’s smart and “cute as hell,” but not because he was trying to get sex out of her. Peggy also knows that Don is not going to impulsively give her her walking papers if she breaks dinner plans. He’s not going to call Peggy a whore, even when he asks her if she knows who the father of her baby was and he learns that Peggy’s mother thinks it was Don. In fact, I doubt Don would sever the relationship with Peggy (she’s the one who threatened to do so when Don didn’t ask her to join SCDP, he initially told her to). Their odd relationship can withstand fighting and tears, like some kind of strong, albeit somewhat dysfunctional marriage.

Come to think of it, that little grasp of the hand at the end of the episode, where Don touched Peggy’s hand after asking her not to criticize his ideas for the Samsonite campaign (although he’d been pretty brutal to her ideas the previous night), seemed like an indication from Don that what he wanted from Peggy wasn’t sex – which he could get from anyone -- it was a real, emotional connection which he sought, like what he shared with Anna. Despite his put-downs of Peggy, which seem to worsen as his feelings of self-hatred increase, Don trusts Peggy with secrets, like the OUI arrest and that his dad was killed by getting kicked by a horse. He didn't trust Betty that way. Which is why, as Don lost the one woman on earth whom he felt truly knew and loved him despite all his frailties, he clung to Peggy, the new Anna.

There were more than a few moments of weirdness in “The Suitcase:”

Weirdest Moment I: “Why is there a dog in the Parthenon?”

Weirdest Moment II: Listening to Sterling’s Gold tapes about Bert Cooper and “the queen of perversions” Ida Blankenship (!) and the removal of Cooper’s testicles.

Weirdest Moment III: Duck wanting to leave a “present” for Don and Don then crying “uncle” when Duck had him pinned. So much for Don the tough guy who clocked Jimmy Barrett in the face.

Come to think of it, the entire episode was saturated in boxing analogies, with the Liston-Ali fight as the jumping off point. When Liston went down shortly after the match began and all the folks in the bar were yelling, “Get up,” I kept thinking that that’s how I felt about Don. I wanted someone to yell at him to get the hell up off the mat, stop staying uncle, stop wrecking his career and sabotaging every relationship he has left. Get up off the mat Don.

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

'Mad Men' -- The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

*Warning – Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men.*

After this episode concluded, the first thing I asked my husband, with whom I was watching it, was, “What would we do if we walked in on that?” That, of course, was the most shocking scene of the episode (other than Betty’s face-slapping of Sally after the 10-year-old had impulsively cut her hair), the one where Sally acted like a normal, curious kid, except that she picked the wrong venue in which she should've, shall we say, explored.

What happened next was an unfortunate overreaction on the part of Sally’s friend’s mother: Bringing Sally home and shaming her, but I suppose that’s probably what would’ve happened in 1965. (Betty then storming into Sally's room and threatening to cut Sally’s fingers off as the penalty for lying and for her "transgression" . . . Mother. Of. The. Freakin'. Year.)

Betty is becoming so harsh in her treatment of Sally that it's growing more difficult to sit through these mother-daughter scenes, particularly when Betty thinks that everything Sally does is in some way directed at her, as opposed to Sally's way of crying out for help. Sally’s humanity, her imperfections, seem to gall Betty, like they're an affront to Betty's vision of the perfect suburban family and must be eliminated, or ignored, no matter the cost. So cold is Betty toward Sally that she didn’t even accompany Sally to the psychiatrist’s office; she had Carla bring her instead. (As Dr. Edna said, I think it’s Betty who needs the therapy more than Sally.)

Sally has been practically invisible to Betty for so long. Sure, Betty was able to tell the child psychologist that Sally took the death of her grandfather especially hard, but Betty never really helped Sally get through all of that grief. Weeks later, when Sally's little brother was born and there was that whole naming-the-baby-Gene-and-sleeping-in-dead-Grandpa Gene’s-room which thoroughly freaked Sally out, Betty was largely oblivious to her daughter’s pain.

To lighten up the mood last night, I enjoyed the delightfully caper-ish storyline where the folks from Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce completely played the rival advertising agency that’s been snapping up some of SCDP’s accounts, making the competition think that SCDP was cutting a high-priced TV ad for the Honda pitch. Notwithstanding Roger’s attempts to fatally sabotage the Honda account – because he fought the Japanese in World War II and still considered them the enemy – SCDP’s subterfuge and appeal to the Honda people’s code of honor won out in the end. Though SCDP didn't get the account, at least Don got the competition to shell out major bucks to try to win it, hobbling their future ability to make pitches for other clients.

Over the course of the past two episodes, is it possible that Don’s confrontation with Allison in “The Rejected” -- where Allison quit and called Don a mean person – was a catalyst of sorts to get him to right his ship and (hopefully) put an end to the sad, mean, drunken divorce guy who pays for sex routine? He hasn't seemed his old charming, dapper self in quite some time. (In last night's episode, he was, once again, seeing Bethany, who’s potentially a mate, not just a bed partner, though I still think she’s a younger version of Betty.)Throw in the surprisingly open chat Don had with Faye in the break room, where he uttered a massive understatement (“It is not going well.”) and confessed that his daughter was going to start seeing a psychiatrist and that he misses his children when they’re not around and yet when he drops them off at his old house he's relieved, and I'm wondering if we're seeing Don gradually turn the corner.

A moment of levity from last week: Seeing Peggy’s head appear in the glass part of the wall between her office and Don's, peering into the room to see what was going on after Allison heaved a paperweight at Don and broke some glass made me laugh out loud.

Another observation from last week: The way in which the news of Trudy’s pregnancy played out between Pete and Peggy was delicate and awkward and real as they silently acknowledged that this won’t be Pete’s first child. That look they exchanged at the end of the episode . . . priceless.

Speaking of Peggy, that Life Magazine gal who invited Peggy to the party, Joyce . . . that situation didn’t go the way that I expected. I was greatly impressed that Peggy didn’t flip out over Joyce’s sexual overture like the way Joan did with her roommate in season one. But then again, most of these episodes have been surprising me lately. I never know what to expect, anything from Lane Pryce wearing a steak belt buckle and heckling a movie, to Roger Sterling playing Santa Claus and Betty's house getting trashed in a home invasion.

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.

'Mad Men' -- The Good News (Dick + Anna '64)

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Mad Men.*

This episode was called “The Good News,” but frankly, there wasn’t any good news, other than the fact that Lane Pryce has a wicked sense of humor when it comes to the subjects of slabs of steak and Texas belt buckles.

Don’s downward spiral has been a depressing and fascinating thing to behold. First of all, he’s not eating, with the exception of gobbling down Lane’s sandwich in the break room. Secondly, he’s just drinking his way through his haze of a life, bouncing from one distraction to another (making one inappropriate sexual come-on after another, his secretary, Anna’s niece) trying to get himself forget the pitiable lonely life he’s leading in the wake of his divorce.

So it was a fresh relief to see him visit the calming oasis which consistently seemed to center him: Anna, who still calls him by his given name, Dick. In all the scenes they’ve shared together, there was always something distinctly different, more relaxed and tender in Don’s face. Like he was finally home. (Watch the scenes when he’s in New York, he looks like another person.) “I know everything about you, and I still love you,” Anna told him soothingly, the way he wishes Betty would have after he confessed the truth to her.

By the way, Don’s delusional if he thinks that the reason Betty divorced him is because of the manner in which he was born (from a prostitute whose married john wound up with custody of the baby after she died) and that he came from poverty. “After I told her, I felt relieved,” Don said to Anna about finally telling Betty the truth. “. . . I could tell, the minute she saw who I really was, she never wanted to look at me again, which is why I never told her.”

No Don. Midge, Rachel, Bobbie, that flight attendant, Miss Farrell, the piles of cash that were hidden in a locked desk (about which he lied), his attempts to control and manipulate Betty’s every move (shaming her if he had to) while refusing to allow her access to his true emotions THOSE are the reasons why she finally left. Not because he was poor or because of what his mother did for a living. Anna’s the only person on the planet whom Don/Dick had allowed to see inside his soul.

To learn that Anna had little time left because she had cancer that had spread throughout her body – and no one clued her in about her diagnosis – was such a crushing blow to Don, knowing that the one constant in his adult life was about to leave this world, so soon after his marriage died. I must admit that, given his deep feelings, I was mildly surprised to see him run away from Anna’s like a coward, knowing that this was likely the last time he’d see her. (I’m willing to entertain the argument that perhaps the comments by Anna’s sister contributed to Don, the broken family man’s fleeing: “You have no say in the affairs of this family. You’re just a man in a room with a checkbook.”) He then sought refuge in his favorite places: Inside a bottle and in the arms of a call girl.

LOVED Joan in this episode, her in-your-face argument with Lane when she asked for two vacation days off before Greg goes to basic training, and Lane turned her down because they’d just be coming off a holiday break. “I understand that all men are dizzy and powerless to refuse you but consider me the incorruptible exception,” Lane said. “. . . Now don’t go and cry about it.”

To see them both implode after Joan chucked the flowers at Lane, when she received the wrong set of flowers, was entertainingly uncharacteristic for the both of them.

I also enjoyed watching the heartbroken Lane -- on a verge of a divorce or, at the very least, a serious martial estrangement – engaging in some masculine bonding with Don, causing a lively ruckus in the movie theater, getting rowdy with a steak at an upscale restaurant and then venturing to Don’s sad bachelor pad and sleeping with an escort, a pal of Don’s slap-happy call gal. But the distinct difference between Lane and Don, as we all know, is that Lane’s foray on the wild side is but a blip. For Don, it is becoming a lifestyle, for how long is anyone’s guess.

Image credit: Michael Yarish/AMC.