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Mad Men - Season 6 - Sundays on AMC
- Thread starter Cornballer
- Start date
- Status
BertramCooper
Banned
Methamphetamine.
Cornballer
Member
I'm having a hard time believing we're 8 episodes into the season. Feels like it just started.
the downside of a 2 hour season premiere
am i the only person starting to think about the end date. with so many good characters on the show and only 1.5 seasons left you start to wonder how many stories some characters have left.
BertramCooper
Banned
Cornballer
Member
- Ken Levine is confused and angry about last week's episode: How I'd fix MAD MEN
(Again, this is the tv writer Ken Levine.)
(Again, this is the tv writer Ken Levine.)
True, though it still feels like we've blown through a lot of it very quickly. Maybe that's always the case with Mad Men.
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
So critics have been dinging the show for being too obvious or repetitive and this guy's complaint is that it's too subtle?
Somebody's wrong somewhere.
The guy from Everybody Loves Raymond? Yeah, he knows good TV. [/sarcasm]
Steelyuhas
Member
Yeah that's the one that I've having a hard time with. Like what happened it's almost over.
BertramCooper
Banned
I guess we do have an off-week for GoT, which will drag out the anticipation an extra week.
Thanks, Liberace.
And here I thought this was the most telegraphed and obvious (if also zany and wacked out) episode of Mad Men in a long time. Kinda felt like it was beating you over the head with its themes compared to normal.
Do you really need to read the Dr FEELGOOD book to know that people were doing drugs in the 60s?
This is what it should be.
Cornballer
Member
- MAD MEN meets DAFT PUNK (youtube)
SaltyDoughnut
Member
Steelyuhas
Member
I think Don's character is more complicated than that also, but the writing keeps banging us over the head with the prostitute motif. It's shoehorning simple, reductive answers into a complex character who presents complex questions. That's what I don't like about it, at least.
But then I'll freely admit that I don't like anything related to the Dick Whitman part of Don's life (with the exception of Anna, though I think you can still have that kind of character—someone he could confide in—without that weirdly convoluted backstory) so I'm probably in the minority.
Leona Lewis
Banned
Agreed. I feel like they're retroactively making some horror show out of Don's early life to justify how awful he's become. In the end, though, it just feels like piling on. We knew he grew up in a brothel, but did we need the additional detail that he was molested there too? Or that he intently watched his pregnant stepmother have sex with his "Uncle" through a keyhole?
There hasn't been a worthwhile "flashback" since "Waldorf Stories" (which was less about Don personally and more about Roger), and considering how fleshed out characters like Peggy and Pete have become without the use of excessive flashbacks, you'd think the writers would have some faith in us to "understand" Don's mindset.
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
I don't think we actually knew he grew up in a brothel until this season. That his mother was a prostitiute, yes, but we'd only seen him on the farm before that.
Leona Lewis
Banned
I thought he told Rachel in S1. But maybe I'm remembering it incorrectly.
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
If he had, I certainly missed it, or misconstrued it. Up until this season, we'd only seen flashbacks to the farm, or later when he's coming home with Draper's body. I always imagined they were still farmers in that scene.
AnotherNils
Member
Last season when Pete & Co went to celebrate something at a brothel and Don was in monogamy mode, the Madam called him out for only sitting at the bar drinking, and he mentioned to her he grew up "in one of these".
I remember because it caught me off guard.
MrPink93485
Member
He definitely told a madam in Season 5, when he was drinking at the bar of some brothel, but I thought in Season 1 he had only mentioned his mother was a prostitute.
EDIT: Totally beaten
EDIT: Totally beaten
AnotherNils
Member
Well I think that's the revelation for this season. His real mom was a prostitute and then after his father died, his step mother became a prostitute.
This is incredible.
Cornballer
Member
Sapiens
Member
I'm pretty sure it's the same actor. Even kid Don is the same.
Dominican Power
Member
John Hamm is always in some car commercial, jesus.
Steelyuhas
Member
Feels like the guy is voicing half the commercials I see.
Cornballer
Member
They should do a car commercial where they use the audio of his crazy rant/letter from last episode.
lol this is amazing
Just saw this episode a couple hours ago. I liked it a lot. So many giffable moments and awesome scenes/lines. It was incredible: "Every time we get a car this place turns into a whorehouse" (which works on both levels so well), Ken dancing, "I can't hear anything, it's broken", "Are we negros?", the elevator scene, the x-acto knife, Don running around everywhere, dat StanxPeggy, etc. At times it seemed like it was getting a little too close to being too self-indulging ("Hey, everybody's high! Watch them do stuff!"), but the parts with substance and meaning really helped balance it all out.
I really liked the idea that the meth was making Don re-examine everything while trying to get Sylvia back. It really felt like this episode was the culmination of all the whore/Sylvia/mother/sex themes being thrown about all season. The framework for this episode has been slowly (some would say redundantly) built up for quite some time, but I feel the elevator ride would be a great way to cap it all off. Of course, it's Weiner, so who knows what he's up to (I thought The Summer Man was the conclusion to all of this, actually, but now it seems like that would be getting off too easy).
Unlike almost everyone else I felt the flashbacks were essential to this episode, even if not necessarily for every other one. I have had issues with the development of Don's story before, but I feel like every flashback development this season has brought something important to the table. I mean, it was established early on that Don was raised in a whorehouse and that he views sex as a transaction and blah blah blah, but is that really the only thing people are gleaning from these episodes? I mean, first we find out that his mother had to move them to a whorehouse and become a whore to make ends meet. She forbids Don from having sex or pretty much even thinking about anything sexual, then he sees her bang his uncle. He's in the sexually formative stages of his life but no one helps him understand how it all works so he has to figure it out himself, using the fucked up environment in which he lives as a guide. Then this Amy lady has sex with him and for it she is fired and he's beaten. On one hand he's being punished for the sex, but then it's undeniable he really loved it. I feel like this losing of his virginity followed immediately by hatred from his mother is really the most important aspect of Don's childhood life that we've seen by far. It really goes the distance in explaining the sexually lost and confused man that Don has become.
To me it's a great deal more developed than just "man, growing up in a whorehouse really screws you up" and I feel like the only way to get the right picture of it is through these occasional windows we get of his childhood. I mean, it's not like we get flashbacks of him taking out the trash or how he got his tattoos, it's all pretty big types of deals.
I also think him losing his virginity and getting punished for it really serves as a great metaphor for his sexual conquests throughout the whole series. He cheats and cheats and cheats and it almost always ends up badly for him (or her), but regardless of how he is punished he keeps doing it because his environment encourages him to and he wants it badly. In this episode he blows a whole weekend trying to divine the magical pitch that will return Sylvia to his arms, but then when he returns home and finds his entire home life shaken in his absence he realizes that his lust has yet again punished him. It's possible over the night he finally put together the pieces of his maternal issues (evidenced by his oatmeal pitch), his need for Sylvia and his sexual issues and therefore came to the conclusion that it just wasn't worth pursuing any further.
The long, silent, awkward elevator ride was just an amazing conclusion to the super-adrenaline-fueled Odyssey of that whole weekend
I really liked the idea that the meth was making Don re-examine everything while trying to get Sylvia back. It really felt like this episode was the culmination of all the whore/Sylvia/mother/sex themes being thrown about all season. The framework for this episode has been slowly (some would say redundantly) built up for quite some time, but I feel the elevator ride would be a great way to cap it all off. Of course, it's Weiner, so who knows what he's up to (I thought The Summer Man was the conclusion to all of this, actually, but now it seems like that would be getting off too easy).
Unlike almost everyone else I felt the flashbacks were essential to this episode, even if not necessarily for every other one. I have had issues with the development of Don's story before, but I feel like every flashback development this season has brought something important to the table. I mean, it was established early on that Don was raised in a whorehouse and that he views sex as a transaction and blah blah blah, but is that really the only thing people are gleaning from these episodes? I mean, first we find out that his mother had to move them to a whorehouse and become a whore to make ends meet. She forbids Don from having sex or pretty much even thinking about anything sexual, then he sees her bang his uncle. He's in the sexually formative stages of his life but no one helps him understand how it all works so he has to figure it out himself, using the fucked up environment in which he lives as a guide. Then this Amy lady has sex with him and for it she is fired and he's beaten. On one hand he's being punished for the sex, but then it's undeniable he really loved it. I feel like this losing of his virginity followed immediately by hatred from his mother is really the most important aspect of Don's childhood life that we've seen by far. It really goes the distance in explaining the sexually lost and confused man that Don has become.
To me it's a great deal more developed than just "man, growing up in a whorehouse really screws you up" and I feel like the only way to get the right picture of it is through these occasional windows we get of his childhood. I mean, it's not like we get flashbacks of him taking out the trash or how he got his tattoos, it's all pretty big types of deals.
I also think him losing his virginity and getting punished for it really serves as a great metaphor for his sexual conquests throughout the whole series. He cheats and cheats and cheats and it almost always ends up badly for him (or her), but regardless of how he is punished he keeps doing it because his environment encourages him to and he wants it badly. In this episode he blows a whole weekend trying to divine the magical pitch that will return Sylvia to his arms, but then when he returns home and finds his entire home life shaken in his absence he realizes that his lust has yet again punished him. It's possible over the night he finally put together the pieces of his maternal issues (evidenced by his oatmeal pitch), his need for Sylvia and his sexual issues and therefore came to the conclusion that it just wasn't worth pursuing any further.
The long, silent, awkward elevator ride was just an amazing conclusion to the super-adrenaline-fueled Odyssey of that whole weekend
Cornballer
Member
New episode tonight:
Steelyuhas
Member
RIP Mad Men
-Pyromaniac-
Member
is Soderbergh's Liberace movie tonight?
Steelyuhas
Member
Kind of a stretch, but this quote could also apply to when Don bought a Cadillac in season 2 episode 7. He buys the car at the beginning of the episode, and later on Jimmy Berrett (the asshole comedian who did the Utz Nutz commercial) tell Betty about his infidelity. I just ended up watching the whole episode, it is fantastic. I forget how much all of the characters have changed as the show has gone on. It's also the episode where Sal invites Ken to his house for dinner and they show the strain between him and his wife. RIP Sal.
killertofu
Member
I wish Sal would come back
Red Liquorice
Member
Just caught up with this season after only watching the premier. Very solid season so far.
I almost came in my pants with the scene with Don getting his neighbour to be his sex slave in a hotel room and just stay there naked existing only for his pleasure. Wow, lol. I didn't quite buy into him being so invested in that relationship that he would be so affected by it as he was when she ended it - am I missing something or was that a bit of a stretch?
I almost came in my pants with the scene with Don getting his neighbour to be his sex slave in a hotel room and just stay there naked existing only for his pleasure. Wow, lol. I didn't quite buy into him being so invested in that relationship that he would be so affected by it as he was when she ended it - am I missing something or was that a bit of a stretch?
ZedIndyLil
Member
Is Sally Draper in a Trix commercial? Gotta look for that on YouTube...
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