[Ronin]

Season 5 started yesterday with a 2 hours premier. Thoughts?

Loved the episode but did anyone notice the show had a slightly lighter and funnier tone? There were freakin' JOKES. I mean, the show had funny moments before but it felt like they were going for humor in quite a few scenes. WEIRD.

But still, awesome show. I want to go to that party...

[nns]

I'm watching it now. I was afraid the show would start off with a darker tone, but I'm happy to see it didn't.

"Open your blouse."
"You're a dirty old man" *opens blouse*

When will I have that power?! :ahwow:

[strykn]

Do you need to watch season 1?

[nns]

Season 1-4, or you won't understand/appreciate what's going on.

A bunch of people on IMDB suspect Megan is playing Don. IMDb :: Boards :: "Mad Men" (2007) :: Wow Megan Sucks (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804503/board/flat/196736842)

I didn't get that impression watching the episode. What I did think was that she comes from a far different background than the other characters. That part where she very comfortably laughed and chatted with the black gay guy at Don's party. Later, she admits to Peggy that everyone in the office is cynical, they don't smile, and they smirk - all a very upsetting culture shock for her. This all didn't give me any indication that she's up to something. But then the people on IMDB gave some interesting comments, and now I'm not so sure anymore.

I still remember that scene where Sally was running away from everybody at the office, falls, and Megan is the one who comforts her. That was probably the one warmest, kindest moment I've ever seen in the series. It really stood out to me. So much so that I watched it a few times, and wondered why such a minor character (Megan) was given the spotlight so prominently. The characters are so cold, guarded, and gloomy sometimes that it's a huge suprise to see any sort of warmth portrayed.

[Splmash]

Joan is now a milf. She also had the best line in the episode. Something like "I once knew someone with your job, now she has it all." And that awkward moment when Roger picked up the baby and also when Peter walked in with Pam and the stroller. =D

Glad Mad Men is back.

[Tetsugen]

Probably the best series after Breaking Bad & Boardwalk Empire.

Anyone else wondering where the hell January Jones is ?

[nns]

^She hooked up with some older guy right around the tail end of her marriage with Don.

IRL, I think the writers made her role smaller. I remember reading about it last year. Maybe she wants to do other things?

[Ronin]

Megan's Canadian, where everyone is friendly and there's fun. She's now in New York on Madison Ave. She's used to being a free spirit. They're just on the verge of the Austin Powers era, no?

[Mr.Ping]

I haven't watch it yet...but will soon..

[nns]

This video offers a good insight into the tone of the new season:
Mad Men - Inside Episode 501 & 502 Mad Men: A Little Kiss – AMC (http://www.amctv.com/mad-men/videos/inside-episode-501-502-mad-men-a-little-kiss)

[gars]

January Jones in a fat suit....? hahaha

[Tetsugen]

January Jones in a fat suit....? hahaha

I dunno but I have a feeling

that he's going to get back with his ex wife sometime during this season

[Splmash]

I dunno but I have a feeling

that he's going to get back with his ex wife sometime during this season

doubt it, he wants a mother figure for his kids. betty is far from a mother figure nowadays. she's more ... donut figured.

[Ronin]

I thought the same thing BUT

Have you ever gotten that feeling while watching Mad Men...thinking that you know what's going to happen but then it doesn't. Why? Because the writing is simply too good. They don't go for the cliches...which is why I don't think that will happen. If anything, Don will just bang Betty in some sort of relapse and remembers how much she sucks...and I don't even think THAT will happen because this isn't that kind of show. It's subtle but UNPREDICTABLE AS HELL.

I mean...who saw Peggy being pregnant coming!? I thought she was just getting fat!

Mad Men just goes to tell the story of these people, even if it's ordinary, they turn it into interesting.

[sonick]

Holy shit this past week's episode was great!


Pete getting emasculated left and right

"Chewing gum in pubis"

"Big and Brown"

Don fixing the sink like a bawse

And last but not least:

Mad Men - Lane Pryce Fights Pete Campbell - YouTube


Also, this made me :fulloffuck:

Or how about the two different historical massacres that have played into the storylines this season? The first murderer, who raped, tortured and killed eight student nurses was Richard Speck. The second (mentioned on last night's episode), who killed 16 people — including his wife and mother — was Charles Whitman. Richard Speck. Charles Whitman. Richard Whitman. Dick Whitman.

[Ronin]

Fucking funniest thing ever...Lane and his ol' timey fighting stance kicking Pete Campbell's ass...and Roger saying what we're all thinking.

[kristianhay]

Mad Men and Game of Thrones made for a pretty unreal night of TV.

Pete Campbell became all the more douchey with this episode, and Peggy leaving SCDP was pretty shocking. To see Don finally show that much emotion was really interesting, and her line, something along the lines of, "You would have done the same" was pretty epic.

[gars]

Mad Men's episode tonight was amazing. Just when I thought this show couldn't get any better, they come up with this.

I hate Pete Campbell, but he's also one of my favorite characters on the show.

[Ronin]

LOVED tonight's episode. It's all about subtle glances and knowing looks around rooms.

Campbell is a weaselly piece of shit. Don will have rivals in the industry in Peggy...and probably Ginsberg. That smile of his tonight when he knew Ginsberg's idea was the best...like "Oh, you bastard...I hate you but that shit is good."

[Splmash]

Peggy did the right thing. It's what Don would've done. Joan is becoming more and more of a round character, please excuse the pun. Don breaks down again in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

[kristianhay]

Heavy episode tonight, wow. Even more added onto Don's conscience. Can't wait for the finale.

[gars]

Heavy episode tonight, wow. Even more added onto Don's conscience. Can't wait for the finale.

Ya, I expected that to happen, but didn't expect them to show it.

[Splmash]

The finale is going to showcase the most emotional and alcohol infused breakdown in the history of TV.

Who knew, a rope is more reliable than a Jaguar.

[kristianhay]

Yeah, the finale is going to be fucked I think.

I was definitely surprised when they showed Layne hanging from the ceiling of his office.

[nns]

I kept thinking Layne would go nuts and smash that glass into Don's face.

Glen is one creepy looking kid. I kept thinking he would do something indecent around Megan or Sally.

[TVD]

Great interview with Jared Harris (Lane Pryce) about the episode...

(Spoiler alert: If you haven't watched Sunday's episode of Mad Men, read no further.)

Sunday night's episode of AMC's "Mad Men" packed a heavy load of sadness and regret, with the graphic suicide of Lane Pryce (Jared Harris), the British financial officer for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

For Harris, whose character decides to hang himself in his ad-agency office, the moment was a bittersweet one. But he says he's happy his character gets to leave the show "with a bang instead of a whimper."

The suicide takes place after Pryce fails to asphyxiate himself with the exhaust from a Jaguar, which refuses to start (a running gag the past few episodes), and after Don Draper (Jon Hamm) fires Pryce upon discovering he's embezzling from the agency.

"He (Pryce) was vindictive. He was angry. It was a passive aggressive act," says Harris. "His choice of doing it there was an f-you to the office, the people who work there, particularly to Don." The passive side of that, he says, was in the suicide letter -- a boiler-plate note that explained nothing.

"He was trying to dig a hole for the people there, particularly Don, and make them feel bad about what he'd done. It was a cowardly thing to do. He did it to try and hurt them the way that he feels they've hurt him."

Harris says it took two hours in the makeup chair to give his face the ghastly gray color of death, and then he was sneaked onto the sound stage with an umbrella hiding his face so none of the actors could see him. He was then strapped into a safety harness and hanged from the ceiling.

When the other actors were brought in to discover his body and cut him down, it was the first time they had seen him "dead" -- so their shocked and chaotic onscreen reaction, Harris says, was in part based on this initial look.

And, says Harris, there was no time for gallows humor on set.

"There's so little time to shoot," Harris says. "I just wanted to break into that Monty Python song, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, while hanging there and start dancing, but it would have put them off because they were trying to act their reaction in a genuine way. I didn't want to be disrespectful to how they felt. My job was a lot easier than their job -- I just had to hang limply from the door and stick my tongue out."

Harris says he loved playing Pryce, and cited two of his favorite moments: One was the fist fight Pryce had with Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) earlier this season, and the other was the failed suicide in the Jaguar. "I laughed when they told me the Jaguar was not going to start. I fell off my chair."

Read more: Jared Harris talks about his shocking 'Mad Men' exit (http://www.azcentral.com/ent/celeb/articles/2012/06/04/20120604jared-harris-talks-about-his-shocking-mad-men-exit.html#ixzz1wtBgChs1)

[kristianhay]

Just finished the season finale - twas good, not great though. A little anti-climatic and felt almost as if it could have been a series finale? Don seemed to come full circle to his old self, a la season 1.

Will be interesting to see how it plays out with Peggy at another agency - there is the possibility for some really good story lines next season. Hopefully it's not a two year wait this time.

[KingDeeCee]

God dammit. I had no idea it was out already. Thought they said something about fall 2012?

Anyways, downloading the season as we speak. Hopefully it'll be good.

[nns]

What was up with Ginsberg? He was all worked up over the client not like their ad pitch. Then he had the balls to raise his voice and talk back to Don.

[Ronin]

Also disappointed by the finale. Last weeks was crazy...this week was just Megan whining about being too rich.

[nns]

I like how her mom called her an "ungrateful little bitch". "Not every girl gets to do what they want. The world could not support that many ballerinas. Thank god my children aren't my whole life".

Pete needs to put on some weight before he goes and starts fights with people.

[Manic!]

Heads up. New season of Madmen starting Today.

[lowside67]

2 hour premiere tonight!!!

[kristianhay]

Stoked! I've been anxiously waiting for Mad Men to return, should be good. 2 hour premiere is nice too.

[twitchyzero]

my favourite scenes so far

Betty Draper pulling out a gun on the pigeons
Don takes the kids to trick o treating and the guy at the door asks Don "and who are you supposed to be?" [credits roll]
fist fight btw Pete and Lane
Lane Pryce's suicide attempt in the E-Type...very emotional and comical at the same time I was speechless

Many seem to like the tractor scene...I thought it was very out of place.
http://madmen.wikia.com/wiki/Top_10_list:The_Best_Moments_of_Mad_Men

[lowside67]

My thoughts on the Premiere...

I don't know if I was expecting too much as I have been eagerly awaiting the return of Mad Men, but I found the whole 2 hours a relatively "meh" experience. It wasn't that it wasn't all the things I liked about Mad Men, we had Meghan in a bikini, Don having a creative brainstorm, Peggy being crazy, and even Betty with some pretty wild dirty talk in the bedroom, and yet I didn't find it that engaging. There have been some episodes where I simply could not look away and this one I found that when a text came to my phone, I didn't have any issue reading it while barely paying attention to the show as it kept on. Am I alone in this one?

[Neva]

I'm with you that the episode didn't quite strike as much as others have but I was also having a hard time remembering what happened last season leading up to it.

[ScizzMoney]

I thought last nights episode was great.

[sonick]

Holy SHIT this week's episode was great.

Going public, losing Jaguar, pitching to Chevy, losing Vicks, merging with CGC

[Manic!]

So whats the top secret car?

[sonick]

Chevy Vega

[Ronin]

Chevy Vega

If that's the case then...

...this doesn't end well. The Vega is one of the worst cars of all time.

[sonick]

Odd episode, but:

http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/vulture/2013/05/20/itsmyjob.o.jpg/a_560x375.jpg

/nuff said.

[Ronin]

6x10

...was that fucking Jimi Hendrix?

[sonick]

haha I noticed that too in the party.

The last shot with Pete was so damn good. Solid episode of business and drama, but felt too cramped with so much going on.
Posted via RS Mobile

[Ronin]

I thought it was a great episode. It's all about the detail with Mad Men and this ep had tons. They're really setting up Don for a big fall.

Hendrix, Joplin...Jim Morrison? And who was that that Don was talking to? Ringo?

[kristianhay]

Past couple episodes this season have been great, I've been enjoying it every week.

[sonick]

http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/vulture/2013/06/03/rogerballs.o.jpg/a_560x375.jpg

http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/vulture/2013/06/03/petecreep.o.jpg/a_560x375.jpg

[Energy]

This is why you have to learn how to drive a stick shift

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18rto5k2cpqrrgif/ku-xlarge.gif

[kristianhay]

That season finale was really great - what a piece of writing and television. There were so many moments that mirror'd back to Don in season 1 - Ted sneaking back into bed with his wife, Pete looking at his child with Trudy watching from the doorway, etc. I also thought it was really great how, despite Don's world falling completely apart, I was left feeling hopeful for the guy. From the Hershey meeting and onwards, Don chose honesty, which is something we haven't seen from him in the past. Nice moment with Sally and him at the end as well. Looking forward to S7 already!

[Ronin]

He sure picked the wrong time to choose honesty. Even when he's being a good guy, he's being selfish because he basically screwed everyone else but him. Hershey looked like they were ready to hire him on the spot but he fucked a $10m account for his own benefit. Can't say the SC&P decision was the wrong one.

Am I the only one that thought Peggy looked pretty damned cute in that black dress? Amazing was a push up bra and a short skirt does...

[nns]

Rolling Stone has a great article on the season finale.

It's always so traumatic when another excellent Mad Men season ends. I loved that finale so much, I knew I'd have to obsessively re-watch the whole season all week just to figure out how great it was. I've viewed that "Both Sides Now" scene dozens of times in the past few days, and it still hasn't stopped ripping me to shreds. Season Six still seems back-loaded, with too many weak episodes in the first half. But Matthew Weiner really nailed those brilliant final four episodes, capping a bleak, baffling year for the Mad Men crew. As the doorman Louie used to say, back when he was Little Carmine on The Sopranos, this season Don Draper got stuck in a stagmire – and now he's at the precipice of an enormous crossroads.

The Most WTF? Moments of Mad Men Season Six

This was basically an improved remake of Season Two, another meandering slog redeemed by a strong finish. Peggy spends both seasons getting chased by a creepy Irish guy, except instead of Father Twitchy McEyebrows, this time it was Ted Turtle O'Neck from the County Douche and his bad Kennedy imitation. ("Ask not what your country can douche for you – ask what you can douche for your country.") And as in Season Two, Don gets tangled up with a married couple, who just aren't fascinating enough to hold so much screen time. This husband was a surgeon instead of a comedian, but while their hippie son knows how to work a pair of bell-bottoms, the Arnold-and-Sylvia subplot got tired fast.

As for Don himself – poor Dick Wheezus keeps trying to roll out that same old razzle-dazzle kabuki that used to wow the clients, but he's the last to realize he's lost his touch. He hit bottom in the Hershey meeting, where he melted down like a Kit Kat in a glove compartment. A truly wrenching scene – it evoked that song by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers: "I go to bakeries all day long / There's a lack of sweetness in my life." (Maybe Don can use that line next season in a Hostess meeting?)

When Don told Megan his latest going-to-California fantasy, I recalled the wise words of the great Rachel Menken back in Season One, when he tried to sell her on the exact same scheme: "What are you, 15 years old?" But that was eight years earlier, and this time Nixon's won the White House instead of Kennedy, Rachel Menken is now Mrs. Tilden Katz, the actress who played her is kicking ass on Sons of Anarchy and Don still has trouble talking long-necked brunettes into falling for his California trip.

The Women of Mad Men

Since the Jewish queenpin understood her goy toy Don as well as anyone has, he should have heeded her words, but he didn't. He still only likes the beginnings of things, no matter how many times he plays out this pattern of escaping to a West Coast Tomorrowland, then going back to New York City when he believes he's had enough. During the finale, it was hard not to think of Warren Beatty in Shampoo, set in L.A. amid the 1968 election. No way could Don get over in L.A. – he's neither Warren Beatty enough nor Jack Warden enough.

The Sixties figure Don resembles now is Brian Epstein, the doomed Beatles manager. Another self-made man in a suit, a master at shaping people's dreams and fantasies – not to mention a self-destructive alcoholic with guilty secrets. Like Epstein, Don's a golden boy of the early 1960s, but when the Beatles change the conversation with Revolver, he's behind the times with no clue how to update his old-school show-biz tricks. By 1968, Epstein was dead from all the booze and pills; who knows how long Dick Baby-You're-a-Whitman can outlive him. (And the finale takes place the week the Beatles released The White Album, just in time for Thanksgiving 1968 – their first post-Epstein record. That week began with The White Album and ended with Van Morrison's Astral Weeks.)

Sally, who got the brains in the family and hopefully not a damn thing else, finally saw her father at his worst, catching him in bed with Mitchell's mom. Sorry Don, but no way was she going to go Tommy on this shit ("You didn't hear it, you didn't see it") and turn into the deaf-dumb-and-blind pinball wizard of Miss Porter's School. Sally has always been the one character who will tell Don he's full of crap. ("You say things and you don't mean them and you can't just do that!") But he still said, "I know you think you saw something" – a line that gets more repulsive every time I watch. In a way, those words must have been an even more painful betrayal for Sally. It must have been how the young Don felt watching his father cheat the hobo.

Inside Mad Men: The Cast in Their Own Words

Yet Don needs his daughter more than ever, since it looks like he's trashed another marriage. For a year or so there, back in her "It's just a milkshake" heyday, my girl Megan was Mad Men's smartest cookie. Then she turned into Lobotomegan. How many scripts have the stage direction, "Megan walks out of bedroom and watches Don watch TV"? The Megandroid got more feisty moments in the finale than she had all season. (Though I love my colleague Sarene Leeds' prediction that Megan turns into Mary Tyler Moore – she's gonna make it after all! I bet Joan ends up on Alice, waitressing at Mel's Diner, while Ginsberg becomes The Jeffersons' doorman and Roger Sterling takes over from Furley on Three's Company.)

Bert Cooper, sad to say, barely appeared all season. But he was great in that climactic sitdown, when he finally woke up and got tough. Me, I would gladly watch an entire Bert Cooper spin-off, maybe one where he retires to that cattle ranch in Montana with his bad-ass lesbian sister and terrorizes the local farmers. Next season on AMC: Did You Wash Your Hands?

It's still hard to see how Sterling Cooper remains open for business, since they haven't sold an idea all year. But Ted and Don, who dreamed up this cockamamie merger, get cut out of the action, as does Pete Campbell. (Who apparently finds it hard to concentrate on driving when he isn't sitting near a high school girl going to third base.) Ted Chaough-Not-Shaw, as always, is as greedy and grasping as Don, but nowhere near as competent, so even Peggy is over his bull-chaought. Let's just say if Peggy kept that broomstick harpoon of hers around the office, no jury would convict. ("Your honor, the dead man told the defendant someday she'd be glad he made this decision. Can we wrap this up by lunch?")

Mad Men Season Six Glamour Shots

With all these disasters in his life, what's left for Don to do? Nothing except hit the road and show his daughter the whorehouse where he grew up. That final shot of their two faces was truly hardcore. Sally's arched eyebrow at the end – a flicker of compassion? Skepticism? Curiosity? Whatever it is, she might be the only person who hasn't given up on him.

The season ends with one of Mad Men's craftiest music moments: "Both Sides Now." It was a song particularly beloved by Jimmy Page, a guy who knew a thing or two about going-to-California fantasies. In his 1975 Rolling Stone cover story, Page raved to Cameron Crowe about how Joni Mitchell wrote his life with that song. "She brings tears to my eyes, what more can I say? It's bloody eerie. I can relate so much to what she says. ‘Now old friends are acting strange/They shake their heads/They say I've changed.' I'd like to know how many of the original friends any well-known musician has got. You'd be surprised. They think – particularly that thing of change – they all assume that you've changed. For the worse."

But Don Draper has changed, and definitely for the worse, which is only one of the reasons he has so few friends left. Don has driven away Megan, the girl of his own "Going to California" dreams. ("Find a queen without a king, she plays guitar and cries and sings: Zou bisou bisou.") Jimmy Page might have advised Don not to lose Megan. But then Jimmy Page, unlike Don, was a shrewd businessman who understood the value of assets. Hey, maybe Led Zeppelin will meet Megan in L.A. at the Rainbow and write "Living Loving Maid" about her.

Both sides now? Don doesn't belong on either side of the country and he knows it. Even though he just coined the term "bicoastal," he's blown his chance at any kind of home, burning his bridges. (How can you be in two places at once, when you're not anywhere at all?) Like Rachel Menken said, part of him really is 15 years old, but his only shot at moving forward is the 15-year-old girl standing next to him on a street corner in Pennsylvania, raising an eyebrow at this dad she barely knows. She's confused. So is he. And that's where Mad Men leaves us for now: Don and Sally by the side of the road. Just kids.


http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/blogs/pop-life/mad-men-old-friends-are-acting-strange-20130627