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Mad Men - Season 6 - Sundays on AMC

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I find Ted and Peggy together gross. Elizabeth Moss is one of the ugliest actresses in Hollywood (but she is still good at her job).

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ZaCH3000

Member
You know what, the way the partners handled Don was bullshit. Especially the way Sterling and Bert Cooper handled things. I understand Don needs some time off but to do it deceptively was not the way to address his behavior.

Here is why. Don negotiated with Lane SCDP. It was his idea. Sterling without this move is rich, but redundant. He gets pushed into retirement. Same with Cooper. However, Don saves the day.

With the new company, who mishandles Lucky Strike? Sterling does. That single account was his only responsibility and he lost it. His mishandling almost kills the company. Who saves the day? Pete and Don. Roger should have been let go at that moment for lying to the partners.

A lot of you act like Don had this coming but come on. Bertram Cooper who has done absolutely nothing is still around. Don could have and now should have told him to fuck off when they decided to make SCDP.

Without Don and his actions the company as is would not exist. Hell, SCDP would have been a failure let alone expand to the second floor. Don needed to be given a leave of absence but deserved a return date and not had to confront fucking Duck of all people with a possible replacement. SC&P don goofed.

Edit: I almost forgot, it was Don's pitch that got them DOW chemical. I hope Don leaves to steal Ken and Harry to start a new agency.
 
You know what, the way the partners handled Don was bullshit. Especially the way Sterling and Bert Cooper handled things. I understand Don needs some time off but to do it deceptively was not the way to address his behavior.

Here is why. Don negotiated with Lane SCDP. It was his idea. Sterling without this move is rich, but redundant. He gets pushed into retirement. Same with Cooper. However, Don saves the day.

With the new company, who mishandles Lucky Strike? Sterling does. That single account was his only responsibility and he lost it. His mishandling almost kills the company. Who saves the day? Pete and Don. Roger should have been let go at that moment for lying to the partners.

A lot of you act like Don had this coming but come on. Bertram Cooper who has done absolutely nothing is still around. Don could have and now should have told him to fuck off when they decided to make SCDP.

Without Don and his actions the company as is would not exist. Hell, SCDP would have been a failure let alone expand to the second floor. Don needed to be given a leave of absence but deserved a return date and not had to confront fucking Duck of all people with a possible replacement. SC&P don goofed.

Exactly. I would also add that Don Draper is not a man who forgets. He is a vengeful god. This is why I firmly believe there is a list and those motherfuckers will pay dearly in time.
 

Jackben

bitch I'm taking calls.
The partners are all truly ruthless including Don. He himself made many hazardous and stressful decisions all on his own without caring about how it affected the others. Of course it would be returned in kind, it was only a matter of time. Given Don's dip in performance the partner's only needed to find a solid excuse to get rid of him and they got it this last episode. I think I said as much in the early episodes of the season. Bullshit or not, Don was not good for their business by this point and I don't think he really wanted to stay. Hopefully the shock to his system and leaving his job will end up allowing him to find some kind of redemption.

I also don't think Don even needs to execute vengeance whatsoever. They will pay and suffer in their own deceit for the very fact that the golden age of advertising is ending and they have become so big and disjointed that they will likely fracture and deceive each other to the point of being forced to quit or be surpassed. They have really nothing left to aim for. All they are doing now is becoming McCann Erickson.

Honestly I don't see Don returning to advertising at all. He might do something in an advising capacity, but everything he has said up to this point has indicated if he ever left it would be to do something else.
 

ultron87

Member
I felt like Roger and Bert turning against Don came a bit of nowhere. Joan and Cutler generally made sense.

Edit: Though I guess Roger seemed pretty down during that scene.
 

A Human Becoming

More than a Member
Moss is no supermodel, but ugliest in Hollywood? Put down the Stretch Armstrong.
Moss and Buscemi both take the top spot to me.

Anyways, season turned it around at the end. It started all over the place with story lines going no where but managed to focus in. Six was an improvement over five.
 

iammeiam

Member
Bertram Cooper who has done absolutely nothing is still around. Don could have and now should have told him to fuck off when they decided to make SCDP.

Doing nothing is a massive step up from singlehandedly losing Jaguar, blasting awkward all over a dinner with a major client in an attempt to gt a favor for a friend endanger another client relationship as part of a power play against another partner, and then pitching Hershey, nailing it, and then doubling back to fuck the pitch up. Don isn't just turning out ideas he can't sell to clients, (like the botched hotel pitch) and pulling back from day-to-day creative (announcing he won't do Chevy anymore because of reasons), he's actively hurting the company in most of his client interactions. He's just not Don Draper anymore. My guess is that Joan is just done with his shit after Jaguar, Roger might have fought for him but probably realized which way the wind was blowing. Cooper has always been all about the business, and the remaining CGC partners don't really have a lot of use for Don (he let Ted have CA, sure, but that follows just weeks of mind games). Don probably could have coasted forever, but his recent string of fuckups just meant he had to go.
 

Jackben

bitch I'm taking calls.
I felt like Roger and Bert turning against Don came a bit of nowhere. Joan and Cutler generally made sense.

Edit: Though I guess Roger seemed pretty down during that scene.
Roger "found" Don. He was originally his protege, his golden boy. Obviously they changed and developed into peers as the season went on, but they both went through divorces, getting married to their secretaries, near death experiences and a ton of company business together. They fell out as friends and then reconciled their relationship through the years as well. I'd say that Roger was probably the most reluctant to agree to such a thing out of all of them. Joan was done after Jaguar, Cutler see's him as 'the enemy' and Cooper saw Don as no longer useful to the company.

EDIT: ninja'd by iammeiam, but yes my thoughts exactly.
 
BTW I loved that phone call between Betty and Don, one of the more underrated moments in an episode chalk filled of awesome scenes.

Yeah, that quick moment of instinctive vulnerability when Don calls her "Birdie" and she finally seems to relax just a little bit. It's also at that point that Meagan basically turns into a statue in the background.
 

ZaCH3000

Member
The partners are all truly ruthless including Don. He himself made many hazardous and stressful decisions all on his own without caring about how it affected the others. Of course it would be returned in kind, it was only a matter of time. Given Don's dip in performance the partner's only needed to find a solid excuse to get rid of him and they got it this last episode. I think I said as much in the early episodes of the season. Bullshit or not, Don was not good for their business by this point and I don't think he really wanted to stay. Hopefully the shock to his system and leaving his job will end up allowing him to find some kind of redemption.

I also don't think Don even needs to execute vengeance whatsoever. They will pay and suffer in their own deceit for the very fact that the golden age of advertising is ending and they have become so big and disjointed that they will likely fracture and deceive each other to the point of being forced to quit or be surpassed. They have really nothing left to aim for. All they are doing now is becoming McCann Erickson.

Honestly I don't see Don returning to advertising at all. He might do something in an advising capacity, but everything he has said up to this point has indicated if he ever left it would be to do something else.

Don's character will not make a complete 180 within one season. He will reconcile with his children and reestablish a friendship with Betty to keep the family together. But the firm full of slime balls? The same firm he built with the same partners who needed him to succeed fucking him in the end?

Did you see the way Don reacts to the news. His expression, body language and tone of voice is like, "really? You guys fucking serious? Do you know who you are fucking with?"

He will dismantle them with the same vengeance he had against Lucky Strike and the entire tobacco industry for that betrayal.
 

Jackben

bitch I'm taking calls.
Don's character will not make a complete 180 within one season. He will reconcile with his children and reestablish a friendship with Betty to keep the family together. But the firm full of slime balls? The same firm he built with the same partners who needed him to succeed fucking him in the end?

Did you see the way Don reacts to the news. His expression, body language and tone of voice is like, "really? You guys fucking serious? Do you know who you are fucking with?"

He will dismantle them with the same vengeance he had against Lucky Strike and the entire tobacco industry for that betrayal.
A betrayal is still a betrayal and I definitely saw how he reacted. But I'm not certain that is on the forefront of his mind at this point. I feel like he has a lot of other things to aim for now. But we shall see next year.

If anything, he might need to save the firm again and end up counselling Peggy or perhaps become involved in the LA firm which I predict will split off into its own agency. He might even end up facing off against the monster Benson is becoming. I no longer have any doubt that he is a sociopath and a villain. Though seeing as Wolk has a new full time show this fall I doubt he will be a major character next season and will probably only participate minimally like Alison Brie.
 
But just the first part of season5 is gonna be elegible this year. I think he can win it this time, depends if Kevin Spacey is nominated or not...

Fuck, that's right.

Which means Cranston and/or Spacey will block Hamm out again next year.

Fuuuuuuuuuck.

(I still love you, Bryan.)
 
Yeah, that quick moment of instinctive vulnerability when Don calls her "Birdie" and she finally seems to relax just a little bit. It's also at that point that Meagan basically turns into a statue in the background.

it's amazing how many people missed Don calling her Birdie. It was such a sweet moment.
 

ZaCH3000

Member
A betrayal is still a betrayal and I definitely saw how he reacted. But I'm not certain that is on the forefront of his mind at this point. I feel like he has a lot of other things to aim for now. But we shall see next year.

If anything, he might need to save the firm again and end up counselling Peggy or perhaps become involved in the LA firm which I predict will split off into its own agency. He might even end up facing off against the monster Benson is becoming. I no longer have any doubt that he is a sociopath and a villain. Though seeing as Wolk has a new full time show this fall I doubt he will be a major character next season and will probably only participate minimally like Alison Brie.

If Don returns I fully believe he will participate bicontinentally.

If that was the end of his reign at SC&P, he will enact his wrath on the firm in some way.

I'm leaning towards the former since it has more potential as a story. The partners fumbled that meeting regardless of how next season plays out and will strain their relationships with Don.
 
Now that I have seen Breaking Bad, I don't understand how Cranston has shut out Hamm this long. He's great, but some of his performances are like cartoons compared to Hamm.

I mostly agree. Cranston has done amazing work on that show. That being said if he should've one any year it should've been for Season 4. The way he implodes is just fucking incredible to watch. I can't think of any performance across any medium that rocked as hard as Cranston that year.

Hopefully Hamm gets a pity Emmy this year. He deserves it for six seasons of fantastic performances. That Hershey pitch is probably going to be what nails it if he wins. I was muttering holy shit roughly ever few seconds during that scene.

it's amazing how many people missed Don calling her Birdie. It was such a sweet moment.

I didn't miss it. I thought it was pretty sweet as well. It's nice that since they got that night at the camp they've coalesced into an amicable... friendship? Familiarity? I'm not sure what to call it. Maybe it's just that Betty has finally become an adult and Don finally respects her as a person. Still, that look on Megan's face was cold as ice when that word came out.

The creepy rape joke notwithstanding, can we agree that Betty has made some notable progress this season?

I think the creepy rape joke is part of what made her for me this year. This woman clearly doesn't give a fuck. She's come so far from the doting, infantilized housewife in season one to her own person in season six. It took a long time to get here, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but Betty is probably one of my favourites on the show now.
 
I wonder if Don has waited to tell Megan about not going to Cali until after he got fired how different things would have been.

Timing is everything!
 
Don's firing was done in anger, and it was vindictive. They called him in on Thanksgiving morning, for pete's sake.

Bert-- pissed about Jaguar, Hershey's and the merger
Joan-- pissed about Jaguar
Cutler-- happy to see one of "them" go
Pete-- doesn't care
Ted-- happy to see his rival go (Cali favor or no)
Roger-- can't deny what's been happening (and no doubt has had to cover for more than one missed meeting)

I'd say Bert and Cutler were the driving forces.
 
I really think people are underrating how badly Don was performing.

Weiner made it a point this season that Don was never around when they needed him and the few times he was around he fucked up.

He even stopped working on Chevy. he created the merger without consulting anyone. He fell into a god damned pool while stoned. He was a fucking mess of a person. Etc.


If you were to rewatch the entire season, I think you'd see how predictable and just Don's firing actually was in the context of the season.

It's a miracle Don wasn't fired sooner.
 

ZaCH3000

Member
I really think people are underrating how badly Don was performing.

Weiner made it a point this season that Don was never around when they needed him and the few times he was around he fucked up.

He even stopped working on Chevy. he created the merger without consulting anyone. He fell into a god damned pool while stoned. He was a fucking mess of a person. Etc.


If you were to rewatch the entire season, I think you'd see how predictable and just Don's firing actually was in the context of the season.

It's a miracle Don wasn't fired sooner.

Nobody is denying his lack of performance leading to his dismissal. We are questioning it's execution. I admit Don needs time away. However, he also deserves a return date because he made it all happen despite his sink to rock bottom.

Don at his best defines an agency. You think a guy like indecisive Ted Chaugh defines an agency? Please, he was always following behind Gleason although he was the more outlandish, eccentric partner.

He isn't fit to head an agency one desk at a time. That is why I ultimately think Don be running the show out there. At the very least he will bail Ted out of making bad business decisions because Don still has a stake in the company and it's in his best interest to see the LA branch succeed.
 

CassSept

Member
I really think people are underrating how badly Don was performing.

Weiner made it a point this season that Don was never around when they needed him and the few times he was around he fucked up.

He even stopped working on Chevy. he created the merger without consulting anyone. He fell into a god damned pool while stoned. He was a fucking mess of a person. Etc.


If you were to rewatch the entire season, I think you'd see how predictable and just Don's firing actually was in the context of the season.

It's a miracle Don wasn't fired sooner.

Yeah, he completely didn't care about the company through and through, was out of touch with anything that has been happening. There was a point to all the scenes where he either burst into the meeting halfway through (or even just as it was about to end), had no idea when they were actually happening or what did they concern, or skipped them altogether in favor of his mistress. There was a multitude of these scenes throughout the season. This was basically one of the themes this season, that Don didn't care about SCDP/SC&P at all (down to the point where they removed his name from the name and he shrugged it off), he was never there, he never really did anything and even if he did, it was on a whim and for no reason whatsoever but because he wanted to. He basically became arbitrary to the firm, and when he actually did act it was all in self-interest and usually he screwed up.

Don might had not been a wreck through most of the season as hard as he was in seasons 3/4 (especially 4) when it comes to his personal life, but as far as the office goes he has become a liability to the firm. His suspension/de facto firing is completely understandable.
 
You guys are crazy for thinking Don's Creative is up to par. The hotel thing he overlooked the negative suicide connotation of the Ad which was exactly the type of thing he used to catch. The ketchup ad was painfully bad. He couldn't come up with anything remotely close for Chevy, and Hershey he would have lost had he not blown it. All the big names, Heinz, Hershey, etc. his only strategy is, "Your brand is synonymous with the product and that's what we should run." It's lazy and reliant on nostalgia. Like all of the executives in contemporary corporations, he is content with the money that is being made instead of trying to make the money that is there to be made. It was evident this guy had lost his touch when he left Ginsberg's work in the taxi.

I also don't get how you could say the drinking was unearned. He has been steadily drinking more the whole season ever since the finale last year when he let Megan have her gig. He has used alcohol and women as escapism and since Sylvia left him his drinking would logically get worse
 
I didn't miss it. I thought it was pretty sweet as well. It's nice that since they got that night at the camp they've coalesced into an amicable... friendship? Familiarity? I'm not sure what to call it. Maybe it's just that Betty has finally become an adult and Don finally respects her as a person. Still, that look on Megan's face was cold as ice when that word came out.

yeah I wouldn't be surprised if that's what caused the whole ex wife and screwed up kids tantrum she threw and then immediately apologized for. her face definitely changed he called her birdie.
 
You guys are crazy for thinking Don's Creative is up to par.

Matthew Weiner: That's a very interesting analysis. It's hard for me to explain this, but Don's ads this year are spectacular. That omission is actually kind of an expression of creative genius. It is where things are going. It is the way advertising will be in 1975. You just have to talk the clients into it. The idea of how do you draw someone's attention in when you live literal photography and you can scream at them with the product bigger and more accurately than ever, is something they're struggling with. I don't want people to think Don is off his game. The clients are a little behind. That's the way they should see it. What they should really think about is that he ruined a public offering, he fired their most important client, he impulsively forced them into a partnership merger and then went to war against their partner. That's why he has the leave of absence. I don't think there should be any doubt that he is at the height of his abilities. The great thing about Don, and part of the contrast with Ted, is Don is not a fad-ist. Don is still operating from his own relationship with the product, which is more timeless. Despite trends in humor, photography and everything else that's going on in what the advertising agency's self-proclaimed creative revolution, Don's advertising, I think, is still great advertising, and probably better than a lot of the advertising that is getting sold. His understanding of television is the reason they got Sunkist, you know?

http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-wa...in-and-more-from-season-6#Z7KPSzzJ8kftIc9I.99

Creator of Don Draper: Crazy When It Comes To Don Draper's Acumen As A Copywriter

;D
 
I think Don is making strides into healing himself. A big part of it is acknowledging his past and letting people know who he truly is. Ted, Roger and now Sally got a glimpse of who Dick Whitman is.
 

Dabanton

Member
Amazing episode.

And Don had to be 'rested' for a while. Anyone would have done the same thing, to use a pitch about chocolate to talk about growing up in a whorehouse was quite literally Mad Man behaviour. I understand why he did it as we the audience know his story but his friends and colleagues don't. To them it was a man losing them a not insignificant amount of money.

But the end showed that maybe Don is beginning to embrace his beginnings as a man. It left the door open to some sort of redemption. And while it did that to Don it looks like it's doomed Peggy to be that woman.

No family,no partner,working hard and making lots of money and going home to an empty house that's if she's not working late at the office.

Ted running away after their night of lust was no surprise. Waking up with your wife in the morning can make a man refocus his thoughts and responsibility's.
 
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