With the sixth season premiere less than a month away, thought it would be nice to discuss the escapades of Don Draper and Harry's evolution from total dork to awkward try-hard. It's going to be another two-hour premiere, really excited to see how much has changed in whatever span of time Weiner decided to jump to.
Mad Men
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Holy shit I can't wait. I also hope Betty get some sort of comeback… I feel pretty bad for her. I need more Peggy and Joan duking it out, and Sal Romano back on the show!
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Can't wait for the return of Sassy Draper!!!
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Can't wait for the new season, but I'm kinda foggy about what happened in the last few eps of season 5. Don't remember much. Need to go back and check them! XD
Also, just had to say that the season 3 finale was one of the best season finales of anything ever.
And, you guys remember that kid who was a neighbor of the Drapers early on? He kinda developped a "relation" with Betty and stuff.
I never figured him out, or his character in general. And I must say he scares me quite a bit. He's a Hannibal Lector in the making the way I see it.
Anyone really got what the writers were trying to do with him? Cause I sure haven't. -
@The:
And, you guys remember that kid who was a neighbor of the Drapers early on? He kinda developped a "relation" with Betty and stuff.
I never figured him out, or his character in general. And I must say he scares me quite a bit. He's a Hannibal Lector in the making the way I see it.
Anyone really got what the writers were trying to do with him? Cause I sure haven't.Oh, that's just the creator's son. He's supposed to be not creepy at all, but he's just not a very good actor.
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Have we really never had a Mad Men thread till now? o.0
How did we let that one happen, AP?
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I loved the season premiere. This episode was a little confusing. I didn't get the flashbacks to Don's childhood and what they were supposed to signify in the current narrative.
And just when I think I cannot hate Pete Campbell more, I realise that there can be more depths to my hatred for him. Why can't they all be like Ken Cosgrove?
Consequently (and not just because she's played by Alison Brie) I love Trudy. -
I'm nearing the end of season 3, as someone who found a good chunk of S1 risible and heavyhanded and grew to care a bit more in S2, I guess I can say I've actually enjoyed this season straight through.
! i like that Don and Roger seem to hate each other (at the moment?) since Roger is a garbage human being. Like at least Don is pitiable. I actually was asking Silence during one of their fights, like, what exactly set that off (it felt like one episode suddenly Don hated Roger??), and I guess … Just Roger being Roger amongst everything in the season was just it? So many characters in this show do shitty things all day long and somebody actually reacting to it normally went beyond me. And there was enough of a gap between episode 3:3 and 3:4 for me that maybe it got lost in transition.
! Anyways I guess I'm warming up to the show, S3 has been good to me so far. Uhhh other thoughts
! - Roger is seriously awful and I never get over how people think he's cool or funny in some "hehe that rascal gettin away with that stuff hes sayin!" way. But a huge chunk of Mad Men's audience seems intent on thinking Don Draper is some desirable persona so lol? It's not like a lot of the other cast can't also be shitty but Roger is basically the biggest one.
! - Betty at the hospital delivering her baby was one of the stronger emotional reactions the show got from me. What a claustrophobic nightmare that seemed to be.
! - The most the show pulled from me though was Sal's firing. That was pretty brutal
! - Pete reading EBONY MAGAZINE out of the blue an episode after that TV thing fell apart was a neat touch. -
What you're saying about Roger is a big part of why I don't really get the show. Too many people watch it and seem to think the characters are sympathetic or funny or charming, and most of them just seem…terrible. And I spend too much time watching successful terrible people as it is.
Maybe it's that they're successful terrible people that really have shitty lives like everyone else?
Hang in there, Kierkegaard.
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Too many people watch it and seem to think the characters are sympathetic or funny or charming, and most of them just seem…terrible.
No I feel you entirely and it's why I avoided the show for so long.
The fanbase has this weird obsession with romanticizing characters like Don and Roger, which seems to be counter to the idea of actually watching the show and acknowledging that they are basically shitlords. Don less so, arguably, since he has a big sympathetic backstory and well established and consistent neuroses that turn him into More Than That.
but you get my point and it still applies.
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The strange thing about Mad Men is that you can read wave after wave of character analysis and thematic breakdowns that seem to sync up with what the show is going for at heart, but I feel that a lot of that is really just lost on a majority of the fans. A lot of people into it just love the aesthetic of drinking in the office while wearing a suit and fancy dressup parties. I actually really like Mad Men, but I think its biggest problem is that the people behind it are aware of the two types of fans it has, and will occasionally throw a bone to the fans of all that dressup stuff by making episodes that essentially amount to–LOOK LOOK EVERYONE IS HIGH ISN'T THAT JUST SILLY?
I get your take on Roger. He's a dick. I think what wins over a lot of people with him isn't the fact that he is sympathetic like Don (although I think that does get touched on a little further down the road), but rather that he seems to be fully aware of the fact that he is a raging dick.
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I have never seen someone (noteworthy) say that these are all charming characters. Most of them are assholes, especially Don.
But starting with season 4 the show lightens up a lot and Roger is mostly used as comic relief.
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Roger Sterling is a dick. He's also charming and witty. Very much so. I can watch a video of "Roger Sterling one liners" all day long. In fact, I used to, before youtube pulled that video down.
All the characters on Mad Men are flawed. I can prattle at length about "shades of grey" but I think all the major characters are more dark than light. And it is interesting how Don and Roger's characters are deconstructed in the following seasons, where Roger is shown to have subtle touches of humanity to him, while Don is shown more and more assholish, even more than his background warrants. Pete Campbell, I do admit, is pure, unadulterated, asshole and is getting more so as the series progresses.Season 5 and 6 spoilers.
! In particular, Don redeemed himself a little in Season 5, where he stayed faithful to Megan. He also overcame his dislike of her leaving his agency to pursue her dream to the extent of actually materially supporting her in her new endeavour. Cut to this season, where they cut my newfound sympathy to him in shreds. Started cheating on his wife again, and generally passive-aggressively showing his dislike of her career. Not to mention the general shitty treatment of Peggy.
Roger, on the other hand, has had a few excellent moments lately, with his touching delayed reaction to his mother's death and his attempts to bond with his grandson and Joan's (and his) son. -
Like make no mistake, I get Roger and what he is. It's just not a self-justifying thing to me and my gaze is different. I will never find him witty, or charming in any way. Or to put it differently, I'm not Mad, or a Men, so he's basically a really offputting shitlord. It's not like that interferes with the show in some way, it's just how it is. When I watch, Roger is just the unfunny asshole who wears it on his sleeve like every other arrogant and terrible dick, the same way that Pete is just the naive and awkward moron idiot which we all univesally see and it's just part of the show.
Although on that note I do probably dislike all the non-Peggy characters more than the average viewer.
Man my stepmom has some weird loathing of Peggy and idk if it's some internalized misogyny or what.
Anyways that's not really important; thinking today I'm gonna start and ass through Season 4.
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Reviving this thread because the finale aired yesterday. I really liked it and it's really sad to see Mad Men go. They actually managed to make Pete likable in the final episodes. While some stuff in this show was kinda strange imo I can't say that I actually disliked an episode of Mad Men. This show deserves more attention.
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I was really satisfied with the finale, but sad to see it go.
Not really surprised by the Coca Cola ad ending… Fix the broken Coke machine, Don. Now fix the world.
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Sally Draper deserves her own spin-off.
Better Call Sally.
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I watched the show mainly for Peggy and Joan and I was happy to see them get a nice ending. I'm not sure what Don was doing at the end. I've read somewhere else that the Coke ad implied he took what he learned at the retreat and went back into advertising with it. I'm not sure and I don't really care. I never liked Don, this last season didn't change that.
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Half way through season 3 myself.
Was really not into the show at all in season 1 for the major reason that NOTHING happened. Same with season 2 though I did find myself caring a little more. Season 3 has so far had my most emotional investment though it's not quite to the point of adoration for the show. Heard season 4 is when it really picks up though so almost there!
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I enjoyed the finale.
On the first page you'll find my complaints about the show–basically that Weiner started to cater a little too much to a vocal fanbase and stray away from the main draws in Don and Peggy. I find a lot of the cast to be very entertaining, but I was fine with them being relief from Don's dealing with his lie of a life and Peggy's rise/fall/rise/fall/rise, but there were points where one appealing point of the show--watching character interaction that didn't have a meaningful plot goal--was also its weakness. Anyway, as a whole I'm glad I watched and got my fill from it. It made up for some lame GoT eps on some Sundays. As for the finale:
! It was a pretty smart way to settle Don's internal crisis. Everyone expected him to off himself, and this was even teased in his conversation with Peggy. In the end, he finds at the retreat that he is not the only one in the world going through identity-related depression. He seems to break down and have a revelation, but in reality he just said "fuck off" to all the Dick Whitman stuff and used the emotion and genuine identity search that the hippy-youth were pushing to create the Coke commercial and sell carbonated sugar water. He sees everything as a commodity, so he just sold what people created back to them and settled in as an asshole. Give or take an opinion or two, this is basically how ad-trends work so not a bad way to close things.
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By far the best AMC series to be honest.
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By far the best AMC series to be honest.
Seriously, stop creating new threads and bumping old long dead ones in order to add one sentence.
If you legitimately have something to say, or are presenting something you think the forum might be interested in that they haven't seen otherwise, like the Three Kingdoms you posted the other day, that's fine.
But if its a just a years old necro or thread creation to go "I like this", and nothing else of any substance to add, then… that's just not enough. At least write a paragraph or a review or something.
Your thread creation privledges are revoked for the time being.
