'Mad Men' Crew Does 'Bye Bye Birdie'

The Movieline web site has happened upon a gem of a video: The cast and crew of Mad Men hamming it up (pun intended) by "singing" (and I use that term loosely) Ann-Margret's Bye Bye Birdie number which featured prominently in season three, especially in "Love Among the Ruins." Well, most people are singing or trying to sing except for Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olson) who's messing around with her BlackBerry.

Be sure to catch John Slattery (Roger Sterling) in the wig.

Missing 'Mad Men' Yet?

Sunday nights have felt so . . . empty . . . lately without Don, Betty, Peggy and Joan.

And we can't forget about Roger, whose killer one-liners were reliable moments of humor amid the disintegration of Don's personal life this past season. New York Magazine compiled Roger's one-liners (and two-liners) from the third season in this video below . . . making me miss Mad Men just a little bit more.

Still Reveling in Afterglow of 'Mad Men's' Finale

*Warning all you procrastinator Mad Men fans. This entry contains spoilers from the finale. Watch it already will ya?*

I remain blown away by Mad Men's season three finale, "Shut the Door. Have a Seat," as do many critics and bloggers who've gone ga-ga over the hour of goodness that was both fun and exciting (had a bit of that madcap caper feeling), as well as occasionally leaden heavy with elements that made the heart ache.

As I continue to absorb and contemplate the re-booted Mad Men -- Don'll be single (if everything goes as Betty hopes while she's in Reno), he'll be working for an upstart new company, Peggy's asserted herself as being on equal footing with the men, Betty'll be married to a politician -- here are some cool Mad Men items I've found while surfing around them there internets:

Don Draper's 10 Tips on Succeeding in Business: A GateHouse News Service writer has a great column where he says that everything you need to know about how to be a successful businessman, you can learn while watching Don Draper. Tip number eight: "If you call a subordinate into your office to be fired, don't invite them to sit. It's easier to absorb a blow standing up, and they'll appreciate that you didn't lull them into a false sense of security."

Joan Holloway Harris Paper Doll: Mad Men-obsessed illustrator Dyna Moe has released her new Joan Holloway Harris (I hope she dumps the hubs and becomes Holloway again) paper dolls. Among the items you can dress Joan in include the green dress with random blood splatterings from the unfortunate incident with the riding mower. I'm anxiously awaiting Dyna Moe's illustration for the season finale. There's so much to choose from.

Everything Don Ever Said: A blogger who runs the site Unlikely Words has taken an extraordinary amount of time and claims to have chronicled every word that's ever come out of Don Draper's mouth. And he's put it under the heading, "Everything Don Draper Said," and it's organized by season and episode. Now I can't vouch for whether the blogger's captured every single utterance -- I haven't fact-checked him or anything -- but while scrolling through it it looks mighty comprehensive to me.

Which Characters' Futures Are Uncertain? TV Squad writer Joel Keller wondered about how much we'll see of Sal Romano, Betty (once she divorces Don) and others in season four.

Cast Discusses Finale: AMC's Mad Men web site has posted a video which includes interviews with the cast -- mostly Jon Hamm and January Jones, as well as show mastermind Matt Weiner:

Is This the End?

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

Upon seeing this pointed scene between Don and Betty Draper last night, what did you think? Is this the end of the Draper marriage? A speed-bump? Betty's revenge for feeling betrayed and hurt?

Dyna Moe Captures ‘Mad Men’s’ Aqua Net Moment

I didn’t mention it in my review of “The Color of Blue” Mad Men episode, but this scene, where members of the Sterling Cooper creative department acted out the ad pitch for the Aqua Net account, was highly amusing, didn't you think? The only way to improve it would've been to have Kinsey in the scarf.

By the way, what do you think will happen to Sterling Cooper? Bought back? Bought by a malevolent outsider?

Image credit: Dyna Moe/Nobody’s Sweetheart.

'Mad Men's' Betty in Rome

When she's not hurling metal lock boxes filled with campaign donations for the New York governor's re-election at his top political aide for whom she has the hots, Mad Men's Betty Draper likes to spend time vacationing in Rome, donning mod attire, speaking Italian and flirting with the local men at an outdoor bar.

Dyna Moe of Nobody's Sweetheart created this fab illustration. See all of Dyna Moe's fabulous interpretations of Mad Men scenes here. I'm hoping that she offers a 2010 calendar as I was too tardy in ordering a 2009 calendar and missed the boat.

'Mad Men' Tuesday: Wee Small Hours

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


“I want what I want when I want, when I want it. You don’t care what it does to the rest of us.” -- Betty Draper, about her baby waking up in the middle of the night crying in hunger, but it wasn't really about the baby.

"I want you. I don't care. Doesn't that mean anything to someone like you?" -- Don Draper, to a young woman he's about to bed after she warns that they could get caught.


I don’t understand Betty and Don Draper. No matter how hard I try.

I can understand Betty’s distaste for the dullness of suburban life, her intellectual boredom, her jealousy that Don gets to work in the city, mix it up creatively, dine in fine restaurants with “clients” and live an exciting life outside of the home. I can also understand that Don doesn’t seem to think he deserves a beautiful wife and an idyllic family who live in a beautiful home in the ‘burbs because of his background, and that thing with the stolen identity. A multi-millionaire who’d appeared on the cover of Time Magazine told Don that he was "indecently" lucky, so why didn’t he feel that way? And almost all the women on the show (except for Peggy Olson) seem to be trying to get what Betty has but she doesn’t seem to want it either.

However when it comes to Don and Betty’s romantic lives, I’m going to have to come to terms with the fact that I don’t completely get them and am not sure I ever will. Don and Betty just shared a wonderfully sexy jaunt to Rome, proving that they’re still hot for one another, but the moment they entered their suburban home all of that just evaporated, like their home and their kids serve as one big, cold shower dampening their affections for one another. So they turn outward instead of inward in an attempt to satiate their deep unhappiness, instead of working together.

Betty, who seems like she’s just waiting for the feminist revolution to start, wants to feel desired and senses that Don’s distracted (or doesn’t like being Don’s housewife, a possession) and looks elsewhere for affection. In Mad Men’s second season, Betty looked to the young, handsome equestrian to dote on her, to desire her, but the moment he tried to forge a real romantic connection and kiss her, she cut him off and directed his affections toward her married friend. At the end of that season, before allowing her unfaithful husband to return to the home, Betty evened the infidelity score with a fling with a stranger in a bar. This season, it’s been Henry Francis, the powerful aide to the governor who has made it plain he wants a relationship with her, which she seems to be seeking (by writing him letters, going to his office to chuck a heavy box at him) and then rebuffs Henry’s attempt.


“I don’t know what you want,” Henry said to her. What does Betty want? Does Betty even know? Is it all just about the satisfaction of the chase and when the chase is over any potential relationship is kaput, like when Betty told Sally that every kiss beyond the first is but a mere shadow by comparison?

Speaking of loving the chase, there’s her husband Don, who has this beautiful Grace Kelly wife and, after she threw him out last year, seemed to be on the good husband/good daddy road to redemption. Don has not acted on his sexual impulses since the near-fling with the flight attendant in the season premiere (though he did run away like an angry teen when Betty asked him why he didn’t sign the Sterling Cooper contract). Then he fell off the faithful husband bandwagon during this “Wee Small Hours” episode where he consummated his simmering desire to have the idealistic, young elementary school teacher whom he asked whether she’s “dumb or pure.”


What’s curious is his selection of conquests. In season one, with Don’s affair with Bohemian artist Midge there was little chance of Don getting caught or Midge running into Betty or anyone Don knew. But as his time has gone on, Don has selected women who are more likely to meet and have run-ins with Betty. Bobbie Barrett was a client’s wife and a person with whom Betty would run into at events. Miss Farrell, Sally’s former teacher who said she sees Betty at the market and lives close by, is even one degree closer. Is he trying to get caught and be punished like the bad boy he thinks he is, deep down inside?

Other storylines:

-- Poor Sal. He was acting in all manner of social correctness with the drunk and aggressive Lee Garner Jr. If Lucky Strikes Lee had made a move on Don which Don rebuffed, do you think Don would’ve been fired as easily as they disposed of Sal? As I watched Sal photocopy his work, I wondered/hoped he and the other “misfits,” Sal and Peggy, would jump ship to join Duck.

-- By golly, is Connie Hilton a nut? The moon stuff, the telling Don he’s like a son and an “angel” and then reprimanding Don for not actually pitching a Hilton on the moon, that whole exchange was baffling. “You did not give me what I wanted. I’m deeply disappointed Don,” Connie said after Don presented a smart Hilton campaign. “. . . [W]hat do you want from me love? . . . When I say I want the moon, I expect the moon.” (Betty could just as easily have said those words to him.) All the moon talk made me think of It’s a Wonderful Life’s George Bailey promising to give Mary Hatch the moon. Anyone else get the feeling that this odd relationship between Connie and Don will end badly?

What’re your thoughts on what Don and Betty really want? On Sal’s termination from Sterling Cooper? Connie’s Hilton on the moon?

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

‘Mad Men’ Monday: Souvenir

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

Whenever I tell people that -- regardless of what they’ve heard about lead character Don Draper -- Mad Men is at its best when it’s about the women, this latest episode will make a great addition to my list of examples, right behind the episode where Betty was shooting the neighbor’s pigeons with a BB gun.

It’s crystal clear that Mad Men is going to go down the Betty Friedan/Feminist Mystique road. Betty Draper not only shares a first name with the author, but definitely suffers from the malaise and disappointment of feeling trapped in the staid life of a housewife, after having received a college education and having led an exciting single life. Everyone told women of her time that what Betty has is what all women should aspire to – a beautiful house in a leafy suburb, money, a successful (handsome) husband, healthy children, household help, nice clothes.

Joan told Peggy in the first episode that if she was lucky, she’d find a husband at Sterling Cooper (like Jane eventually did with Joan’s former lover) and become a housewife. Joan, who wielded authority in a high-powered New York City advertising agency as the office manager (though her ambition was frequently thwarted because of her gender), wanted a life like Betty’s. She found herself a handsome man, a doctor, and became engaged and married him, even after he date raped her when she was at work. Joan planned on “being happy” as an affluent housewife, only her husband’s failure to become a surgeon pushed her back into the workforce where she’s now a manager in a department store and looking quite despondent about it.

However Betty hates her lot in life. She wants to live like Joan again, live in the city, have excitement, have a purpose. Betty seemed thrilled with her work with the Junior League, as it gave her a reason to get out of the house, put on her best clothes, flirt with a man (even receive a kiss from him) in order to get him to do her bidding.

To fly to Rome with Don, to deftly utilize her Italian, to flirt with some men who tried to pick her up and then seduce Don, only amplified Betty’s hatred for her lot in life back in Ossining, a life that’s now about taking the kids to the pool and redecorating the living room. When she returned home, it seemed as though the spell that had been cast in Italy had been broken. And she didn’t like it.

Consider the lead paragraph from The Feminist Mystique and tell me this isn’t where Betty’s headed:

“The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night – she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question – 'Is this all?'”

Betty feeling desired by Henry Francis, by the Italian men, feeling powerful and being able to laugh while men called Don “old” and “ugly” in Italian (given that Don’s such a babe magnet, I’m sure Betty found that highly amusing that Betty was the object of affection) these are things Betty craves, itches that aren’t being scratched, at least not enough for her tastes.

In other stories, the parallels between Henry Francis and Pete Campbell were stark. Both men helped a damsel in distress whom they found attractive and needy and whom they wanted to bed. They both expected something in return for their help, however one was somewhat restrained and let his payment be a kiss, while the other one was a boorish man-child who forced himself on a young, powerless woman who didn’t feel as though she could rebuff him.

While his wife Trudy was out of town, Pete acted like a child, eating cereal in front of the TV while watching cartoons, staying up all night. And he, once and for all, cemented his place in the world of Mad Men as a cad after he pressured a timid au pair – who was frightened he’d rat her out to her bosses for wearing the woman’s dress and staining it – into having sex. You just know that the Peggy thing isn’t over and is going to come back to haunt him.

I loved this episode, for the sexiness of Don and Betty’s Italian sojourn and her Junior League foray into local politics, to the forlorn look on Joan’s face after she saw that Pete found her working in a department store.

What did you think of “Souvenir?”

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

'Mad Men' Monday: Seven Twenty Three

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

This episode threw me for a loop. When I saw three flash-forwards -- whose mysteries were unveiled by the end of the episode, including one with Don Draper face down in a motel room with blood caked all over his pretty face -- I thought, “What is this, Lost?” Prior to the latest episode, Mad Men hasn’t done flash-forwards, just flashbacks.

I was surprised to see Don, who has spent the last half dozen episodes seeming like he had gotten his act together by being supportive and kind to his wife, soothing his daughter’s fears and cradling his newborn son in awe. However the Don we saw in “Seven Twenty Three” provided a glimpse of the old, pre-thrown-out-of-the-house Don, the one who drove drunk, slept with Bobbie Barrett, who violated Bobbie Barrett as a business negotiating tactic (after she’d done the same to him), and nearly ran off with a pack of jet setters to aimlessly tour the globe to do nothing but eat, drink and have sex. I guess the bad boy, the one who doesn't think he's worth anything, was simply lying dormant beneath the veneer of the all-American success Don. All it took was for the folks at Sterling Cooper to press hard to get him to make him commit to a three-year contract, to “tie” him down and make him, in his estimation, give up his power, and Don’s carefully reconstructed façade collapsed.

He was back drinking and driving. He responded irrationally to Betty’s legitimate questions about his employment status by storming out of the house for the night. He picked up two hitchhikers, took their drugs (when they could’ve been anything) and sat in a cheap motel room watching the couple mess around like a pathetic lost soul after failing to charm the girl, unaware that they were scamming him and planning to steal all his money as soon as he passed out. He started thinking about his father again (during the episode when Gene died, he pulled out an old snapshot of his father) and imagined him telling his son that he was nothing but a worthless bum who was “up to his old tricks” and wondering how a powerful man like Conrad Hilton could be taken in by the lie that is Don Draper.

Don’s discomfort during this episode started when Hilton surprised him by showing up at his office unannounced and then chastising Don for arriving to work at 9:30 and for having neither a Bible nor any personal effects in his office, criticisms to which Don took umbrage, particularly given the fact that Hilton was sitting in Don's chair. That was before Hilton asked Don to work on his New York properties. 

To make matters worse, when Don continued to hedge at the notion of signing a contract with Sterling Cooper, Bert Cooper pulled the “I-know-who-you-really-are-Dick-Whitman” card in order to get him to cooperate, while going into Don’s office early in the morning, like Conrad Hilton, and sitting in Don’s chair waiting for him to arrive. “Would you say that I know something about you, Don?” Cooper asked, indicating he knows he’s not “Don Draper.” “. . . After all, when it comes down to it, who’s really signing this contract anyway?” he asked, stocking the embers of Don’s fear that he doesn’t really belong where he is and that he'll someday be outed.

Meanwhile, Betty’s not altogether comfy with her new detente with Don as evidenced by her coffee shop meeting with Henry Francis, the aide to the governor (the one who flirted with Betty and lasciviously touched her pregnant belly) regarding the water tank project in order to lobby on behalf of the Junior League to put the kibosh on the proposal. She seemed thrilled with her assignment, which gave her an excuse to contact Henry again and be flattered for a while. Dressed to the nines, Betty seemed disappointed when Henry said he could only meet with her for an hour and wasn’t going to take that hike to the reservoir where the water tank was proposed as he’d promised. Was Betty hoping for a sexy afternoon in the woods, possibly leading to another quickie like in the angry one she had in the bar at the end of last season?

The way Betty went out and purchased the fainting couch -- and the location in which she put it -- seemed to indicate she was interested in more than a mere conversation about a local political issue. “That’s the hearth darling, that’s the soul of your home. People gather around a fire even if there isn’t one,” the decorator had told her. What kind of fire was Betty experiencing when she was caressing herself while lying on the sofa Henry said she should have placed where the “soul” of her home is?

After Getting Its Second Emmy, AMC's Trying to Lure New Fans to 'Mad Men'

On the heels of its back-to-back best dramatic show on television Emmy win, AMC has decided to try to lure new fans to Mad Men as it's about halfway through the third season.

One way to pull in some new eyeballs is to have a season three marathon which the network has slated for this Sunday, September 27 starting at 10 a.m. through 4 p.m. (See the AMC schedule here.)

Another is to produce a video explaining the "story thus far," kind of like a CliffsNotes for the entire Mad Men series.

It makes for an interesting parlor game to examine which clips the show's creators decided to use in this nearly five-minute summary. The video starts off with scenes from Don's affair with the odious Bobbie Barrett, Peggy's affair with Pete, the birth/adoption of Peggy and Pete's baby, Peggy's confession to Pete and Betty kicking Don out of the house and letting him return. Roger's infidelity and subsequent marriage to Don's secretary was also touched on briefly, as was the British invasion of Sterling Cooper. The remainder of the third season episodes, including the death of Grandpa Gene and the birth of Baby Gene (though not Sally's reaction to all of this), made the cut.



After watching it, do you think the video offers any clues to what might unfold in future episodes, especially given that it included the scene of the man who works in the New York governor's office openly flirting with a very pregnant belly?

Image credit: Dyna Moe/Nobody's Sweetheart.

'Mad Men' Monday: The Arrangements

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

Before I launch into my review of the latest MM episode, I have one, tiny complaint: I'm a patient person, at least when it comes to giving my favorite shows/actors/writers a little latitude to see where they're going, because I've liked where they've gone in the past. Whatever it is that I'm watching/reading/listening has to have a payoff, I think, so I'm willing to wait it out. (That's how Lost gets its fans to hang on through things like the Nikko and Paolo debacle.)

And given that I've expressed my adoration ad nauseum of Mad Men and the genius of a show runner Matt Weiner, you know that this comes from a place of love: What was up with the past two episodes? Have they been dragging and excruciatingly slow, or is it my imagination? I can usually revel and delight in the subtle sophistication of a slow-moving plot, particularly in the case of Mad Men, but the last two episodes have left me feeling distinctly unsatisfied, and I don't know if the pace is the reason. Or maybe it's just me.

Annnywaaay . . . onto "The Arrangements."

After I finish watching a Mad Men episode for the first time, I typically reflect upon it as if it were a puzzle, seeking the connective threads that unify disparate storylines. For this recent episode, with the exception of the advent of Sal the Director, it seemed like the theme du jour was the parent/grandparent child relationship.

Grandpa Gene's Arrangements

The most obvious story that fit into that theme involved Gene Hofstadt who put a concerted effort into his relationship with his two grandchildren, and simply tolerated his daughter and his son-in-law. His efforts were followed, of course, by his abrupt departure from his grandchildren's lives after he suddenly dropped dead in the line at the market. Gene seemed to be trying to bond with Sally and Bobby in his own, eccentric manner, like allowing his little princess Sally to drive (!!) and telling her not to give up on herself (unlike her mother), and giving Bobby some of his coveted treasures from his World War I days. Don -- who'd been a supportive though not emotionally accessible son-in-law -- blanched when he saw Gene giving Bobby the helmet Gene had taken from a soldier he'd killed, a helmet which still had blood on it. Don took the helmet away from Gene and that was that. Otherwise, Don and Gene kept a largely silent distance from one another.

With his daughter Betty, Gene expressed his disappointment over how Betty's life had turned out, in particular by her selection of a husband whom Gene never trusted because Don has no family and "no people." During an awkward conversation at the Drapers' kitchen table, Gene attempted to discuss "arrangements" with Betty in the event of his passing. Betty reacted to this subject matter much like a small child, saying she couldn't handle such talk ("I'm your little girl!") and fled the room. I must say, I am so not liking Betty this season. The self-sufficient, adult Betty of last season, who toughened up in Don's absence, seems to have disappeared. What a damned shame.

Shortly after Gene died -- I thought, that because of the way he was doling out parting words and gifts that he was going to commit suicide -- Betty, Don, William and Judy were sitting around the same kitchen table where Gene had tried to talk to Betty about his arrangements, and they were grieving in a matter-of-fact way, with Betty tearing up off and on. It was Sally, still in her leotard and tutu, who exhibited ferocious, gut-level anger that her grandfather had been unceremoniously taken from her. She was furious and raw. Betty had no patience for that and harshly told Sally to stop being "hysterical" and to "go watch TV." Off Sally went seeking solace in front of TV news footage of monks setting themselves on fire to protest the Vietnam War. Sally must've felt like that in some way, except her flames were of burning rage.

Peggy's Mother Felt Betrayed

Peggy decided she needed to move to Manhattan because her commute to Sterling Cooper was too long and draining. A very reasonable and sensible move. But her mother, once the most vocal advocate on her behalf in the Olson household (while Peggy's sister Anita bad-mouthed her to Father Gil, mentioning Peggy's unwedded motherhood and giving the baby up for adoption), morphed into a bitter, martyred, spurned matriarch upon learning that her daughter was leaving the bosom of Brooklyn. Peggy moving out of Brooklyn was a betrayal, as far as her mother was concerned, and Peggy deserved to be punished for it. The transition from being a supportive mother to a caustic one, was jarring, especially to Peggy, whose apartment hunt provided the few moments of levity in the episode.

Other parent/child scenes:

When Don fetched a box, which contained evidence of his Dick Whitman existence, he plucked from it a photo of his father upon which he gazed. What was he thinking or feeling in that moment? Was he remembering how he felt upon the passing of the father whom he despised? Who knows.

Then there was the rich, young client, the jai alai aficionado friend of Pete Campbell's from college, who wanted to blow $1 million with Sterling Cooper on the packaging of a jai alai star and the sport. Because Don knew the client's father was a friend of Bert Cooper's, Don felt it appropriate to give him a heads-up to his son's misguided business venture. A kind, gentlemanly thing to do, though it is a tad patronizing. The father knew all about the plan and described how he was allowing his son to do this as a form of tough love; when his son loses all his money, then, the father said, he'll have to build character and put his nose to the grindstone. That's the only way he'll learn, the father said.

The Sal story seemed disconnected from the other parent-child-centric ones, but it was nonetheless intriguing. As you watched his wife Kitty, in her sweet confection of a green nightie, practically begging her husband for sex, you felt pity for her, while at the same time, could feel Sal's excitement at being able to release some of his creativity -- some shred of his true self -- through the filming of the commercial. If only Sal could actually be himself, instead of pretending to be a happily married man.

One last tidbit: What happened to the season two Bobby Draper? He was by far the best Bobby. Remember that scene when he told Don that he needed a new daddy? This new Bobby -- what is this the third or fourth Bobby? -- doesn't fit in the way the previous one did.

So what'd you think of "The Arrangements?"

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

'Mad Men' Monday: My Old Kentucky Home

When the credits rolled on the latest episode of Mad Men, I felt kind of, well, disappointed. Unlike most episodes, I couldn’t pinpoint a unifying theme. At least not right away. Sure, there were two parties – Roger and Jane’s horrifically awkward old time Kentucky-themed soiree at a country club, and a business-oriented dinner party at Joan and Greg’s. There was a small working pot “party” with some of Sterling Cooper’s underlings when they had to work on a Saturday.

Then there were the other assorted bits of oddness, Betty’s flirtation with the New York governor’s touchy staffer who, upon seeing her standing outside the ladies' room, opened with the line, “I wish you were waiting for me,” and then moved in to touch her belly in a lascivious fashion. And the stolen $5. Am I the only one who was just waiting for Grandpa Gene to take out a belt and beat the light-fingered Sally? (There was a distinctive darkness hovering around Gene, who had Sally read him The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, of all things.)

Put together, the disparate stories seemed like a hodgepodge of disconnected threads. How did they fit together? Maybe they didn't.

I toyed with the notion that the episode was about places in life as embodied by Peggy’s statement, “I’m in a very good place right now,” despite later being on the receiving end of a patronizing, chiding from her secretary after Peggy insisted that she be included with the creative guys who were smoking pot.

Maybe it was all about places.

Roger and Jane are in a self-contained bubble, pretending to ignore the scorn aimed their way, particularly during their very uncomfortable gathering (the blackface was painful), which Don called “work disguised as a party.”

Betty’s in the world of gestation -- no longer riding horses as she loved last season -- and flirting with a stranger while she looks resplendent in white lace, and later necked with her husband at the edge of a party in the shadows of some trees.

Joan is uneasily morphing into a supporting housewife role – seemingly alien to her -- being placed in a situation by her husband to be his performing monkey in order to up his standing with his bosses. (I hate Greg for the rape scene last year and cannot help but think of him as a domineering, controlling spouse who pressured Joan into performing in front of their company. Did ya catch the uncomfortable look she gave to Greg while she was singing?) Joan's usually the one who sets the agenda and makes the orders, at least at Sterling Cooper. That is, as long as she remains in the secretarial arena.

Gene, a veteran and a former business man, is in a place which is also foreign to him: Bunking in a spare room at the home of his daughter and despised son-in-law, he's been placed under their protective care and the watchful eyes of their housekeeper Carla. Gene is reduced to running around the house, where he’s just a guest, raging that someone had stolen money from him, helpless and confused.

Don -- on whom I can’t get a read this season -- seems to be crawling inside his own skin. He wanted to leave the Roger-Jane fete before he even arrived but stayed because of his obligations to his wife and to Roger. Don was gentlemanly and even affectionate to his wife in attending to her, passionately kissing her -- playing the role of the good husband – after seeing Roger and Jane slow dancing. I wonder if his heart is in the same place as Betty’s when it comes to their marriage?

So maybe there was a unifying theme in “My Old Kentucky Home” after all.

Key/interesting moments and quotes:

-- The Jane/Joan showdown in Sterling Cooper. After a very prickly exchange filled with silences that just hung there, particularly after someone called Jane “Mrs. Sterling,” Jane and her hat told Joan, “Roger is having my rings re-sized. I keep losing weight.” Then she scrunched up her nose in the full-figured Joan’s face.

-- Peggy’s take-down of her secretary Olive’s criticism of her for smoking pot with Kinsey and Smitty was great. After Olive chastised Peggy for leaving her purse unattended in her office and for doing weed (something I cannot imagine her doing to a male boss), Peggy gave this soliloquy:

“I have my own office with my name on the door. And I have a secretary. That’s you. And I am not scared of any of this. But you’re scared. Oh, my God. You’re scared. Don’t worry about me. I am going to get to do everything you want for me. I am going to be fine Olive. I really am.”

-- Pete and Trudy. Oh my God. Pete and Trudy. Doing that dance. Reminded me of George Bailey and Mary Hatch dancing at the Bedford High graduation party on the gym floor that opened up to a swimming pool.

-- Don to Roger, “No one thinks you’re happy. They think you’re foolish.”

What did you think of “My Old Kentucky Home?”

Image credit: AMC.

Sneak Peek of New 'Mad Men,' Plus Dyna Moe's Peggy & the College Boy

For your viewing pleasure . . . Dyna Moe's take on episode two of Mad Men's third season, "Love Among the Ruins." Peggy, in blue, kind of reminding me a bit of the color of the blue egg from the Easter episode last year.

Plus, AMC has released its sneak peek for next week's installment, "My Old Kentucky Home," which, if you go by the previews, seems like it'll be explosive. Gotta love -- or hate -- Jane *cough* Sterling's hat.



Image credit: Dyna Moe/Nobody's Sweetheart.

Artist Dyna Moe Starts Illustrating New 'Mad Men' Season

If you were following this blog last year during Mad Men's second season, you no doubt read my heaps of praise for the genius of Dyna Moe, an illustrator who created quirky interpretations of the AMC drama and posted them on Flickr.

Remember all those Mad Men avatars on Facebook and Twitter that AMC heavily promoted, where you could "Mad Men Yourself" a few weeks ago? Those were Dyna Moe's work.

Well she's now started providing images inspired by season three -- which started Sunday night -- and has created, "What the Bellhop Saw" of Don and the stewardess spotted in the hotel hallway by the bellhop, whom we all know was on his way to Sal's room.

I'm looking forward to a new batch of Dyna Moe images. Can't wait to see her interpretation of a pregnant Betty Draper.

Image credit: Dyna Moe/Nobody's Sweetheart.

'Mad Men' Monday: Out of Town

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

The season three premiere of Mad Men had, overall, an ominous feeling, punctuated by wry moments of sarcasm. From the first scene, conflicting messages were being sent, reflecting the conflict boiling inside our leading man, one Don Draper. There’s an ongoing culture clash and power struggle within Sterling Cooper as the Brits have taken over the joint, while Ken Cosgrove and Pete Campbell have been pitted against one another in the same way John F. Kennedy, the president at the time, famously did with his staffers, with the hope of yielding the best efforts from all his aides.

The Ghost of Fathers Past

Given that the season began with a conflicting scene – Don being a good, doting husband warming up milk for his sleepless, pregnant wife while recalling what an uncaring horror his father was – one would’ve thought, that Don would’ve reformed his womanizing ways. His time spent living out of a hotel room last season, followed by his admission to Anna Draper that he might’ve screwed up the greatest thing he’d ever had, his family, seemed to indicate that Don would try harder.

However a well behaved Don Draper would’ve made for bad television, apparently. So, while he visually conjured up in his mind tales of his father’s cutting cruelty (blaming his wife for “killing another one” after she gave birth to a stillborn baby, then quibbling with a prostitute -- Don’s mother -- over the cost of a condom), you’d at least hope that the reason Don was thinking about these things was to remind himself not to repeat his father’s mistakes. Don, who was thrown out his house last season and then disappeared during his California jaunt, did tell Sally, “I will always come home,” didn’t he? He was comforting Betty with a lullaby woven from detailed descriptions of a warm, sandy beach as he spooned her in bed, right? He’s not his father.

But when Don could not resist the temptation of a blond stewardess who threw herself at him in a Baltimore hotel, does that mean that Don can’t shake the ghost of his father or that he’s simply a kinder, gentler cad named after his mother’s dying wish to do something gruesome to his father’s sex organ?

My favorite scene came at the end of the episode – which featured the same instrumental music that played during Don’s recollections of his father – when Sally, who missed her father so much when he traveled that she broke the locks of his luggage with a hammer, found the stewardess’ TWA pin amid Don’s things. In that moment, Don’s infidelity was right there, in his bedroom, in his daughter’s hands. Don literally gulped when Sally asked if he’d brought the pin home for her and watched as the woman who’s pregnant with his child took the pin and attached it their daughter’s clothing, almost as if she were being stamped with Don’s scarlet letter, except that only he and Sal knew about his unfaithful moment, not the whole village.

Culture Clash

The transition from working for the New York-owned Sterling Cooper, to a British-owned version of Sterling Cooper has not gone smoothly, or so we saw from this first episode when we learned that a third of the Sterling Cooper’s employees have been axed, including the head of accounts who has a sick wife and three kids. Fear of layoffs has been rampant among the staffers and Joan Holloway is being driven bananas by a smarmy, pompous windbag known as John Hooker (the British version of Pete Campbell), who referred to Sterling Cooper: The British Edition, to a “gynocracy.” I’m hoping Joan exacts a slow, twisted revenge on this twit. We saw the first installment of that revenge when Joan told Hooker – whom Peggy Olson called “Moneypenny” -- that he could have the recently vacated office of the fired accounts manager, only to have Hooker’s boss, financial officer Lane Pryce, chastise Hooker and tell him to work at a desk outside the office, not in it.

The Kosgrove-Campbell war shall be very interesting to watch unfold, even if it did seem like a cruel thing to do: Tell someone he’s been promoted to head of accounts, only to later tell him he’s got to share the job with someone else with whom he’s competing. The difference between the ways in which the two men took this news was eye-opening. Ken was relaxed, self-assured and witty when he walked into Pryce’s office. Pete, by contrast, was noticeably nervous, wouldn’t sit down and made lame, almost defensive excuses about why he hadn’t been more hospitable to Pryce since he arrived in New York. At the meeting when the accounts were divided between Ken and Pete, Ken was giddy and smiling, as opposed to Pete, who was sulking, looked near tears and then bubbled over with anger afterwards, like he’d had something taken from him, telling Ken, “You’re no good,” whereas Ken’s response was, “What could possibly be the matter?”

Other episode moments of note:

-- As Sal uncomfortably awaited Don’s response to catching Sal with the bellhop during the hotel fire, I found Don’s response curt but to the point, not at all surprising, given he seems to be the keeper of Sterling Cooper secrets, “Limit your exposure.” Not just a slogan for London Fog (I HATE the chick-flashing ad campaign by the way) but for lying, two-timing husbands like Sal and Don, regardless of with whom you’re cheating.

-- The octopus-pleasuring-a-woman painting in Cooper’s office was off-putting and plain freaky. “I picked it for its sensuality, but it also, in some way, reminds me of our business,” Cooper said. “. . . Who is that man who imagined her ecstasy?” Then Don entered the room. “We were just talking about you,” Cooper remarked.

-- What did Joan mean when she said to Peggy, “I’m gonna be out of here soon.” Are they going to have Joan quit her job in order to marry her rapist fiancé? Or has she already married him and plans to live the at-home married life? God, I hope not. Sterling Cooper sans Joan would be a wretchedly dull place.

I'd love to hear your take on the premiere, both the good and the bad. Why do you think Don was thinking about his father? Who'll win the Ken-Pete showdown?

'Mad Men' Reviews, 'Morning Joe' Cast as 'Mad Men,' Plus Hamm's Early Acting Gigs

Mad Men season three premiere reviews are starting to roll in -- for those lucky folks who got advanced media screeners -- and the reviews appear to be really good, as good as I expected they'd be. Which only means my expectations for Sunday night's episode are now, oh, I don't know . . . sky high?

From the New York Times, Alessandra Stanley: "Even more than in the first two years, this new season, which begins on Sunday on AMC, stresses the less amusing side of that innocence, leading viewers to look back, aghast at, and enthralled by, a world so familiar and so primitive. Characters on Mad Men struggle in shame and secrecy with the very things that today are openly, incessantly boasted and blogged about: humble roots, broken homes, homosexuality, unwed motherhood, caring for senile parents."

Boston Globe, Matthew Gilbert: "Sunday's hour is, like many episodes of Mad Men, quiet on the surface. There are pauses in conversation, and almost no soundtrack music fills the silences and emotional vacancies. And yet the subject matter of this show shouts at you the more you think about it, the more the characters don't say what you know they are feeling. In even the smallest details -- watch how a stick pin travels through the episode -- Mad Men remains TV at its most artful. Like Don Draper, it's beautiful, stealthy, trouble, and, above all, addictive."

Entertainment Weekly, Ken Tucker (who gave the episode an A-): "The third-season premiere of Mad Men is chock-full of revelations about familiar characters and fresh details about newly introduced ones, as well as the sort of specifics and symbolism that creator Matthew Weiner layers into every episode like a top Top Chef. As with so much about Mad Men, some of it is overheated but never half-baked, and the opening hour rises like a nearly flawless souffle of sex and salesmanship." (I'm in love with that phrase, "flawless souffle of sex and salesmanship." Wish I'd come up with it.)

Los Angeles Times, Robert Lloyd: "That nothing much seems to be happening -- and happening slowly at that, to the frustration of some viewers -- means that small moments play large; it's television as Japanese tea ceremony. Characters are built gradually through action, not declaration, and that action might stray far from what is eventually revealed as the main point. There are those who find this all precious beyond belief -- with an average of only 1.8 million viewers an episode last season, this is a series that would not survive at all on broadcast television -- but I find it quite beautiful more often than not."

Meanwhile, people are having a bit of fun with all of this Mad Men mania leading up to the season three premiere, in particular, the folks at Mediaite who took the crew from MSNBC's Morning Joe and assigned them roles on Mad Men, casting the show's namesake, Joe Scarborough as Don Draper, Mika Brzezinski as Joan Holloway and Willie Geist as the slimy Pete Campbell. Of Scarborough, writers Rachel Sklar and Glynnis MacNicol observed:

"Scarborough, a former Congressman, is certainly no stranger to selling, nor does he lack for Draper-esque confidence. We've noticed he's traded in his zipper sweatshirts for dark suits of late, but that's not all it is -- of any character on Morning Joe, he's the one we can most easily see sitting in a darkened bar with a glass of something amber at his side. Besides, couldn't his book [The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise] on the GOP just as easily have been called Meditations on an Emergency?"

Over on BuzzFeed, they must've taken a little visit to IMDB to look up Jon Hamm's acting roles and listed his top six acting gigs, including the time he was Lorelai Gilmore's most boring date ever on the Gilmore Girls and when he was a firefighter on Providence before the days of Denis Leary as an alcoholic firefighter with a death wish.

Image credit: Frank Ockenfels/AMC.

'Mad Men' Week Takes Over Talk Shows

Mad Men week continues here on Suburban Mom as Jon Hamm and Mad Men takes over TV talk shows. But in order to catch the promotional interviews, you've either got to plan on staying up late (in one case getting up early) or setting your DVRs . . .

Mad Men's leading man, Hamm (who plays Don Draper), is slated to appear on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien today, August 11.

Hamm is also scheduled to appear on Good Morning America and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday, August 12.

On Thursday, August 13, Hamm is listed as a guest for Live with Regis and Kelly, on the same day as Kate Gosselin, which is an unusual pairing.

On Friday, August 14, January Jones (who plays Betty Draper) is expected to also visit Jimmy Fallon.

Image credit: Frank Ockenfels/AMC.

'Mad Men' Madness: The 60s, The Women & Don Draper

*Warning: MINOR season three spoiler ahead.*

It's Mad Men week here at Suburban Mom, leading up to the season three premiere on Sunday night. Set your DVRs for 10 p.m., August 16 (9 Central), even though I know that true fans will go old school and watch it live.

My new pop culture column this week is all about the award-winning AMC drama. It examines the show's first two seasons and concludes that while Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is clearly the star -- the central figure from which everything and everyone else is an offshoot -- the collection of Mad Men women represent "the moon, providing the show its gravitational pull."

Meanwhile, the New York Times had a piece about Mad Men which finally provided an answer to one key question about season three: What year will it be? The answer, according to the Times, is 1963, the year of the publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, the Bull Connor-led attacks on peaceful civil rights protesters, Martin Luther King Jr's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," and, THE event, the John F. Kennedy assassination.

I'm hoping that in the third season, the women's stories continue evolving the way they have, messily, realistically and, in some cases, providing an aspirational empowering message. (I speak, of course, of Peggy Olson, advancing quickly in the masculine world of advertising). Plus I can't wait to see Don interact with a baby. Does Don Draper do diapers?

What are you most looking forward to in a new season?

Image credit: Frank Ockenfels/AMC.

Mad Men Season 2 DVDs & Killer Vanity Fair Photos

I've spent the past couple of days marinating in Mad Men's second season DVDs in preparation for a column I've been working on. And, I must say, as a Mad Men fan, I found the DVD extras to be insightful. There are a bunch of audio commentaries on the disks which not only illuminated characters and plotlines, but also confirmed some of Mad Men fans' suspicions about why show-runner Matt Weiner had certain things happen.

For example, Jon "I'm Don Draper" Hamm said that the one of the main themes of the AMC show's sophomore season was about the evolution of the female characters, about "these women finding their place and finding their power." While commenting on the season two premiere, Weiner said that Betty Draper (January Jones) was trying to figure out the value -- in hard currency -- of her housewifedom and determine whether being a married, at-home mother was a form of prostitution. "I love this idea," Weiner said, "'What are we worth?'"

On the audio commentary for the episode "The New Girl," (otherwise known as the one where Don gets into a drunk driving accident while the Odious Bobbie Barrett's in the car, and Peggy bails them out of jail), it was fascinating to hear actress Melinda McGraw, who played Barrett, express her shock at how much "people hated Bobbie Barrett." She speculated on why there was a double-standard for Bobbie's cheating versus Don's, calling her character a female version of Don the debonair.

The disks also included a two-part documentary about the evolution of the feminist movement, using the women of Mad Men as a jumping off point, putting the show into historical context. (If Weiner sets season three in 1963 -- he hasn't yet divulged the year -- this Newsweek piece provides some details on what historical events transpired in 1963 that could be woven into the Mad Men narrative.)

Meanwhile, the media (myself included) are working themselves up into a frenzy leading up to the August 16 season three premiere:

-- Vanity Fair just released a long article about Mad Men and included some killer Annie Leibovitz photos of Hamm and Jones that should sell a lot of copies of that magazine. Smokin'.

-- New York Magazine had a three-article package about the show, including a shout-out for the snake-like Pete Campbell and a guide to the show's first two seasons.

-- And after seeing the slate of Mad Men events slated to occur in New York City in the next week, I'm kinda wishing I lived in NYC to attend them.

Image credit: Annie Leibovitz via Vanity Fair.

'Mad Men' Season Three Still Photos

The New York Daily News has two dozen new still/promotional photos for the third season of Mad Men on its web site. Though we don't yet know in what time frame the new season is set -- the last season ended at the conclusion of the Cuban Missile Crisis -- the images are interesting. For example, in some of the photos indicate an evolution of style, a bit different than in the first season, at least for Betty Draper. And I did notice in a couple of photos that Roger Sterling's not wearing a wedding ring, like in this photo. (Last season he told his wife he wanted a divorce and asked Don Draper's 20-year-old secretary to marry him.)

Image credit: Frank Ockenfels/AMC via the New York Daily News.