Mad Men -- A Parade of Ugly

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

Okay, first we've got to talk about the fashion. Normally, I don't comment on fashion. But come on, those clothes in the "Signal 30" episode were hideous. Don's jacket?! Ken and Pete's jackets? And that heavy swath of blue eye shadow over Megan's eyes ... we are so entering the ugly part of the latr 1960s where the fashion evolved from the crisp and proper duds of 1960 into Technicolor horrors like the ones on display on this episode.

The other shocker: Pete and Lane (Lane?!) going mano-a-mano in the conference room while Don & Co. closed the shades, pulled out the smokes and gawked at the skinny, nerdy and perverted dudes, wondering who'd prevail.

The pathetic and creepy quotient was extremely high in this episode as Lane pummeled Pete's face after Pete attempted to show Lane up in the workplace, as Pete ogled a teenage girl (and actually thought he had a shot with her) and as Lane plastered a big smooch on Joan, whose recent separation from her husband wasn't mentioned.

Everything, from the buttoned-down fashion that was featured in season one (remember that scene where Don chastised guys for talking coarsely and not removing their hats in the presence of a woman in the elevator?) to the fabric of society was being deconstructed and the stories of the Mad Men characters seem to be reflecting that.

In season one, Don and Betty's home was a symbol of making it in America. The enviable home in the 'burbs, complete with two kids and a dog, the gorgeous wife nurturing the home and hearth and trying to make her husband happy. The suits, the dresses, the meals Betty put on for Don's higher-ups to make a good impression for Don, who craved all of this when he was raised in poverty by an abusive, alcoholic father who'd knocked up his mother, the prostitute, who died while giving birth to him. But, inevitably, getting all of this didn't make Don happy.

In season five, the home in the 'burbs, with the baby and the pretty wife wasn't looking so good. It's being called a veritable hell by Don -- who twice made references to suicide, as a New York Magazine observer noted -- while he's living in a swanky Manhattan apartment with his twentysomething trendy career gal trophy wife.

Pete, who's now at the point in his life where Don was when the series began, is more openly opining about how he thinks his life sucks even as he welcomes his work colleagues into his home (and saves the biggest steak for the big alpha dog Don). He doesn't seem to want Trudy any more. Doesn't seem to care about his child. The look that Pete gave Don in the elevator after all of this, as he practically trembled with anger, outrage and frustration ("I have nothing, Don.") as Don, the remarried former (or simply dormant) womanizer, not only didn't find it necessary to patronize a prostitute like Pete and the others, but has found himself a younger, hipper wife and still lived in the cool city: Total envy.

Is anyone ever happy?

What does all of this mean for Don, who, despite his violent feverish dreams of murdering his former lover, is still exuding a complacent, life's okay attitude? Is it all an act? Is he still suffering from what he complained about to Anna with regard to Betty, that he's scratching around the edges of his life but can't get inside of it?

Image credit: Ron Jaffe/AMC.

Mad Men -- A Little Kiss (Zou Bisou Bisou)

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

Finally . . . a new Mad Men episode to digest and dissect. Let's dive right into the fifth season premiere shall we?

Megan: Megan's little "burlesque" dance, as Lane called it, at Don's surprise 40th birthday party where she sang a sassy little French ditty to Don reminded me of Joan's sad French song C'est Magnifique, with accordion accompaniment, that Greg made her sing to his bosses. Megan was sexy, showed ample leg (in her later 60s-style short, short dress), shook her fanny then deposited herself into Don's lap in full view of all of his colleagues, in his very own living room. And when it was over, Megan was proud. (The shindig was quite a contrast to Betty's infamous dinner around the world featuring chilled Heineken.) In Joan's case, she was coerced into performing -- in the midst of her perfect, Emily Post housewife efforts -- to entertain her husband's colleagues. Joan was not proud, just sad.

But Megan was sad too, in a way. The performance wasn't sad, exactly, but Don's reaction to it was because it clearly demonstrated that they are in wildly different places in their lives and there's a huge gap of understanding between them which Don is going to have to work at bridging if he wants this marriage to survive. Even though Don has told Megan all about his Dick Whitman past, he still appears to be clinging to vestiges of his Don Draper-esque guardedness, the king of the brusque brushoff (like blowing off Megan's overtures to him after the party ended). He doesn't seem quite willing to emotionally bare all yet.

  

Megan, however, doesn't seem like she's going to take a lot of Don's garbage. She doesn't seem likely to be drunk in the middle of the day, still wearing last night's party dress, searching Don's suit coats and pants' pockets for evidence that he cheated on her like Betty did. Megan isn't afraid of her sexuality and power in a way Betty seemed to be (with the exception of her revenge sex before reuniting with Don when she was pregnant with Gene). Megan's unabashed, confident sensuality has got to terrify and thrill Don but, in this episode, he didn't quite know what to make of her birthday party stunt, followed by the really odd scene of Megan stripping down to her black underwear (definitely not the girdles Betty wore when she was hanging around the house) and angrily cleaning up from the party on her hands and knees, demanding that Don not touch her, commanding him to watch instead.

However if you ask series creator Matthew Weiner, he'd say that Don has indeed completely opened himself up to Megan and is, for the first time in the series, so happy in his relationship that he doesn't even care about work. True, Don doesn't seem to care much about work but I wouldn't go so far as to call Don an open book with Megan just yet. I don't know if he's quite capable of that with anyone.

Joan: Joan's story fascinated me. Her hostile interactions with her mother -- who was like the devil whispering in her ear that she was going to be replaced at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, that she should give up her notion of working and should get her figure back ASAP -- explained a lot about Joan. Seeing Joan with her little boy, and papa Roger declaring "There's my baby" in the office, were delicious. It was a whole new side of Joan. (It was a nice, comical touch to watch everybody play pass-the-baby with Joan's son at the office.)

Pete: I'm taking bets, how long until Pete continues to morph into a Don Jr. and steps out on Trudy (again)? Pete is openly complaining to guys on the commuter train to and from his new suburban house (which looks a whole lot like Don and Betty's Ossining digs) about his life and marriage, about how Trudy has lost her Trudy-ness since the baby. He's even fighting with Roger because he doesn't feel as though he's receiving the proper respect and appropriate-sized office for his role in the company. He's competing against Roger for clients' favor and took measures to fight back but at least he didn't trick Roger into sucking down a half dozen martinis and oysters at lunch before scaling a dozen-plus flights of stairs and puking on clients' nice shoes.

What did you think of the two-hour season five premiere? Thoughts? Comments?

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' Monday: The Grown-Ups

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


The latest episode -- built around the assassination of President Kennedy and the destabilizing impact that violent act had on everyone in the Mad Men world -- was unexpected and outstanding.

I would’ve never imagined, for example, that the combination of losing the senior accounts post to Kenny-boy Cosgrove and watching the news coverage of the Kennedy assassination would've prompted Pete Campbell to retreat into his apartment with Trudy where they clung to one another, to opt not to attend Margaret Sterling’s wedding (a risky professional gamble) and to seriously consider Pete jumping ship to Grey with Duck Phillips.

Betty Draper became unmoored, especially after seeing Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV. Don Draper -- who has appeared distinctly uncomfortable with outward, expressions of deep emotion and sadness -- responded by glibly telling Betty to take a pill and go to bed the night Kennedy died, and continued repeating the line, “Everything’s going to be all right,” as though it was a mantra that would fix everything. But it didn’t. Kennedy was still dead, as was Don's marriage and Betty's trust in him. But, ever the ad man, Don seemed as though he was trying too hard to push the "Everything's going to be all right" pitch, thinking that if he said it enough times, it would be so.

I absolutely did not see coming that witnessing Oswald’s murder on TV would send Betty running to Henry Francis, particularly after the doting behavior Don displayed toward her at the Sterling wedding. I was likewise stunned to watch as Henry proposed marriage to a cash box-hurling woman he doesn’t even know.


The more I thought about the varied reactions to the Kennedy assassination, the only parallel I could make that resonated with me personally was 9/11. On Sept. 11, 2001 and in its aftermath, not only was I, along with millions of other Americans, riveted to news coverage for upon days and days as we sat there feeling stunned and shocked, but there was the lingering fear that we were no longer safe (something Trudy mentioned when she said that if they could get to the president, they could get to anyone). There was an instinct to draw closer to the things and people who were important to you. Thanksgiving 2001 was particularly poignant for Americans as we remembered and cherished what was dearest to us.

Perhaps Mad Men mastermind Matt Weiner was trying to convey that same powerlessness and fear created by Kennedy's and Oswald's public deaths as he had his characters do things that they otherwise might not have done, like ask a veritable stranger to marry you, tell the spouse who’s been lying to you since the day you met that you no longer love him and feel nothing when he kisses you, call your former lover on the phone – your voice brimming with longing -- when your shallow young thing of a second wife is passed out drunk on the bed beside you, and blow off opportunities to advance your career at work when you determine that there’s no longer any future in it.

While darkness and gloom swirled around each character – in particular around a broken Don who sat alone in his shadowy bedroom after learning that the thing he always feared would happen if the truth about his identity came out, had actually came true: that someone like Betty would never love someone like him – there was a bit of lightness in the person of Margaret Sterling in all her bratty, self-centeredness. As the scenes switched from location to location depicting people’s reactions to news that the president had been killed, mostly with tears and astonishment, there was Margaret, in a heap of rich, blindingly white fabric crying, “It’s all ruined!” Mourning her wedding, not the president.
 
Mourning . . . doesn’t that seem like a common thread throughout “The Grown-Ups?” Don was mourning the death of love. Betty was mourning the president and the death of her marriage. Pete was mourning his once promising career at Sterling Cooper and the fact that people at work cared more about business than what had transpired in Texas. Roger seemed to be mourning the fact that he no longer had Joan as a confidante. Margaret was mourning the disintegration of her parents' marriage. And there were Sally and Bobby, their childhood innocence shattering, bit by bit, as they sat in front of the TV and learned that the president’s young children had lost their father.

What did you think of “The Grown-Ups?” By the way, was anyone else miffed that the preview for the season finale contained no new footage? I'm unwilling to accept that next week is the last new Mad Men episode until next summer.

UPDATE: Just saw someone mention on Twitter that there was a similarity between the Aqua-Net storyboard in Peggy's office (four people in a convertible) and Kennedy's limo. I didn't catch that.
Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.