Mad Men

It was pretty interesting seeing Harry be a big "player" in the world out west, and Don and Roger completely befuddled by all the hippie stuff. Nowadays there really is no big difference between east and west coast, but I guess back then they really were two different worlds.

Based on that and the disdain the west coast execs show towards Roger and Don, makes me wonder if any new startups got going as a west-coast based company and if Harry would be involved in that kind of storyline. I mean, at least by the 80s there had to be some sort of power shift to Silicon Valley and Hollywood.

Elurin_sl said:

Uh, they are all partners. Technically, they don't have to do shit. They own the company, they don't necessarily have to accomplish anything. It's in their best interest for the agency to do well because they can be bought out by the other partners for more if the business is doing well, but at this point the senior partners (Roger, Bert, Don) are so loaded that it really doesn't make a difference. Which is why they can just nap in their office and be drunkards.

It's not a ponzi scheme, it's business ownership. If it were a ponzi scheme, all of their employees would be paying them.

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Joan handing an account to Pete, who will do nothing to service that account in any way except take a commission off of it, sure seems like employees paying their bosses to me.

Sure it's standard corporate bullshit. Standard corporate bullshit is fucked up.

First, Joan is also a partner. So that doesn't really work.

Second, that's what pretty much all employees do. We go to work to make the company money; in essence making the owner(s) money (whether they be a single person, group of people, or stockholders). That's capitalism for you.

She wasn't going to let Pete screw her out of her win, so she cut him out. I don't see what's so complicated about it.

I love this show but it feels like it's not going anywhere... and it's felt that way since the beginning, not sure why I still watch.

Adam12_sl said:

She wasn't going to let Pete screw her out of her win, so she cut him out. I don't see what's so complicated about it.

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It's just interesting to see people's attitudes and how they adjust just based on the fact that it's Pete and he is a prick. As has been said, this storyline, where one department attempts to take the glory of another (Whether it be Pete snatching up copy, or Don/Lane attempting to do Accounts job) has happened multiple times before, and each time the offending party was admonished, made to apologize and in one case fired. But even though Pete is righteous here, the episode ended with "meh".

MsBehavn_sl said:

I love this show but it feels like it's not going anywhere... and it's felt that way since the beginning, not sure why I still watch.

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Show imitates life very well ...A lot of the stories remain the same, we're just given a new perspective to see how Gender, Age, and Characters affect perception. Pete vs Joan here is a good example.

But yeah, this show constantly feels like it's building to something, this season especially--they are really doing the ominous tone well. But it is a really slow burn.

For me the most interesting "character" of the show is the setting and watching how it has changed from the early 1960s to where it is now. The characters might keep falling into the same old ruts but the world has been moving on around them.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/lates...be-just,98653/

^ new theory that Megan is actually already dead. That sort of thing doesn't fit this show, and would rely on next episode picking up right where this past one left off, which never happens on Mad Men. Still interesting to read. I will be absolutely shocked if Megan survives the season with all of the imagery they have been piling on lately. I think that if anything Don's hallucination of Megan in California represents the death of his ideal of her rather than her actual death.

chaos_sl said:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/lates...be-just,98653/

^ new theory that Megan is actually already dead. That sort of thing doesn't fit this show, and would rely on next episode picking up right where this past one left off, which never happens on Mad Men. Still interesting to read. I will be absolutely shocked if Megan survives the season with all of the imagery they have been piling on lately. I think that if anything Don's hallucination of Megan in California represents the death of his ideal of her rather than her actual death.

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I agree, I think it's going to be the ideal. They are really dog piling on the "Mother" themes/symbolism, emphasizing how much Don wants that. And if you think to the Season where Don fell for Megan, she seemed like the perfect mother figure. I think this is all going to culminate in him finding out she had an abortion, and then he's going to split with her and slowly after that "Don Draper" will die, and he will become Dick Whitman again.

As for him being dead? California is always used to "kill" Don Draper--think about every time he goes there. He instantly reverts to Dick Whitman and considers abandoning his life as Don Draper. The first time he runs off with all those rich people, and a girl named "Joy" that promised him eternal happiness? The next time he contemplates staying to help Draper's wife with cancer, and is only forced to leave by her sister. The next time he falls in love with the "ideal" of Megan and how she is absolutely (unrealistically) perfect in every way. California has always represented "heaven" and the death of all the falsehoods he's built up in New York.

So when Megan says "I live here"--She meant that Don's version of her, the version Dick Whitman fell in love with, the mother (Hence the belly), and free, independent spirit, lived there. The Megan back home is Don Draper's wife--it's the person he doesn't know. (This week he even says I usually feel better after being out there--I think that has to do with how this time he wasn't able to kill of Don Draper as much. Also this week he even said "that's not my name" when the lady called him Don.)

Just my guess anyway. Maybe the guy is right and it's more literal. There is some compelling evidence of it--like the phone call/sharon tate ect. But I think it's more symbolic. I think Roger's words at the end were carefully chosen too--"New York is the center of the world", the real world, reality. California is Dick Whitman's heaven.

I wouldn't be surprised either way, at all. Literal death or figurative would both fit with the symbolism thus far. I just have a feeling it will be the figurative death because of all the "motherly" themes that have come up. If it is literal though, I think it's going to be Bob Benson who does the killing.

Lithose_sl said:

It's just interesting to see people's attitudes and how they adjust just based on the fact that it's Pete and he is a prick.

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To the same extent, I think Joan's attitude was also different because it was Pete. It's possible she would have, but I really can't see her shutting out Roger or Ken like that.

I'm kind of hoping Don spirals out of control and eventually sheds the Don identity and comes out the other side as Dick again and sorta has a little redemption--not some unrealistic cheesy happy ending, just some peace. He and Megan move to Cali or something. The foreshadowing could also be the death of the Don identity, though probably less likely than the other options.

If someone actually dies, it's not gonna be creepo murdering them. That is way too morbid and out of no where for this show. There are plenty of accidental deaths that could happen.

That is way too morbid and out of no where for this show.

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Yeah. I don't think they'd have a character hang himself in his office, blocking the door and causing coworkers to force their way in and pull his corpse down either, that's also pretty morbid. Oh, wait...

Suicide and murder are two different beasts. In a show like Mad Men, if characters start to kill each others, it's shark jumping, and if some out of nowhere nobody kills a character, it's lame. Now, great writing can make just about anything work (after all, Peggy almost killed Abe, but the thin veneer of comedy somehow made it work), but I still feel it's unlikely we'll get an actual murder. Symbolic one? Sure.

I don't really think it would happen, but I certainly wouldn't consider it jumping the shark to have a character murdered off screen. I could easily see Don arriving home to a house full of police who break the news that Megan was shot/stabbed/whatever on her way home from work or something.

Lane's suicide fit the show perfectly. Murder does not

Whatever. Bob Benson's gonna kill 'em all.

Szlia_sl said:

Suicide and murder are two different beasts. In a show like Mad Men, if characters start to kill each others, it's shark jumping, and if some out of nowhere nobody kills a character, it's lame. Now, great writing can make just about anything work (after all, Peggy almost killed Abe, but the thin veneer of comedy somehow made it work), but I still feel it's unlikely we'll get an actual murder. Symbolic one? Sure.

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I think it's unlikely too, but where it's the second to last season, I feel like he might be looking for something really paradigm shifting for Don. The end of the 60's is really considered the end of America's golden age, and kind of the "death of innocence". The show tends to capture a lot of broad cultural themes in it's characters. Megan dying to a violent act and shattering the original, safe, idyllic world the show has persisted in until now would be lock step with the times (Riots, King's Death, Bobby's Death, more violent war protests, inflation and disenfranchisement ect)...Heck even cinema is about to undergo a radical change with Bonny and Clyde, then Mean Streets and the other 70's "blood" films...It was a pretty huge shift in culture.

Dabamf_sl said:

Lane's suicide fit the show perfectly. Murder does not

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It depends on how it is done. Sure, a CSI murder mystery doesn't fit. But we don't know what they are doing. I'm sure it is going to be more symbolic than anything. They've pretty clearly established the dangerous nature of the times and the rampant crime and violence, I can't help but think they are doing that for a reason. They even showed us someone breaking into the Draper apartment. No idea what that reason is, though.

McCheese_sl said:

Whatever. Bob Benson's gonna kill 'em all.

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My money is on Dr. Rosen killing Megan.

Edit - the actor who plays Bob Benson reveals his favorite Bob Benson theory.

Q. The purposefulness with which Bob goes around the office, and the way he seems to turn up everywhere, has viewers suspicious of his true motivations, and has spawned a lot of theories about the character. What do you think of them?

A. They?re hilarious. I can tell you my favorite one. Someone said he was Peggy?s son, time-traveling back from the future. [starts laughing] I laughed for like 10 minutes. I thought that was hilarious.

Q. I notice you?re not denying this.

A. I am saying nothing.

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Poor Bob.

And jesus christ, Don. "Comforting"

Speaking of the death of idealism...

The "On the next Mad Men" actually had one very telling shot, for once. Of course it could mean nothing. Also, apparently several telephone calls will be made.