Mad Men 4x01 Reaction
Comments (31)
the space/time between episodes gets more difficult to bear...
Ah frik, I accidentally closed my window in the middle of writing my thoughts. The re-write to recapture those thoughts is never as good as the original... The reporter in the opening scene is using "shorthand", a writing system for taking notes very quickly using a specialized alphabet of extremely small writing marks. It used to be extremely prevalent amongst secretaries, note takers, stenographers, doctors, etc. it fell out of use in the late 20th century after the rise of recording devices, text-to-speech, etc. Don's had a drinking problem for the entire show, but having somebody tell him to "eat something" is an easy way for the show to really draw attention to it. He's spiraling hard and it's having real physical symptoms. When it comes to raising their kids, Betty and Don each THINK that they're personally doing a great job, and they honestly don't see how they're messing it up so badly. Betty doesn't understand that she's making her children terrified of her with no outlet for their feelings and a constant element of fear in every interaction. Don never understood that absent neglect is damaging all on its own. I agree that Betty's staying in the house because she feels that she is "owed" this house -- this LIFE -- and she doesn't want to give it up. Even though Henry can offer her an equally nice house elsewhere (or a better house). She doesn't want a that OTHER life. She wants HER life. And that includes THIS house.
I don't think Betty thinks she is "owed" the house, at least not in the divorcee I'm-owed-half-of-what-we-had-together sense. It's that she (naively) believed she could excise Don from the marriage, replace him with Henry, and continue on in her life with the kids in Ossining without missing a beat (or moving). Betty isn't riding on the 1960s wave of feminist liberation here. She's doing a do-over marriage.
Lots of great storytelling ahead. I’d never say what’s before is better than what’s ahead. Yet when I think of Mad Men, I’m most nostalgic about what’s before. It’s like a sort of… dark, yet whimsical infancy, best felt thru this score, for example: https://youtu.be/jTs3BP3fzD8?si=9UTnvocuodo9RfVI (Had accidentally posted this in response to a comment below)
I'm with you. Can't wait for what's ahead, I love every season but for whatever reason I am most drawn to 1-3.
Don is objectively very handsome (I know beauty is subjective but he's as close to objectively good looking as you can get). But I would say Roger is more attractive even if he's not as handsome; his charm, personality and sense of humor do a lot to enhance his overall appeal. A night with Roger is guaranteed to be a lot of fun whereas Don would probably speak less than 20 words all evening and you'd catch him at 2am sitting on the side of the bed smoking and staring pensively off into space
Don is the stereotypical "tall dark and handsome man with a troubled past" that is the mainstay of romance novels and frankly western culture. Whether that makes him more attractive than Roger is something I'll leave to others, while nothing that this romance/sexual archetype exists and pervades for a reason.
Lmao Milena's list of guys she thinks are attractive explains why she prefers women 😂
The most shocking behaviour this episode: What kind of monster makes the dog stay outdoors overnight?? 😟
If you don’t like what they’re saying, change the conversation
I always thought Don was handsome. But my radar for that kind of thing is not well attuned. It's funny that Milena thought Roger was handsome even when they didn't like him. Stupid sexy Sterling... It's definitely easier to buy Don being a ladies man than Tony Soprano though for sure, even with Gandolfini's charisma. This episode definitely feels like a split in the show - the divorce has happened, the new office, new name. This is my favourite season overall, but I do miss the earlier stuff. There's a cosiness to their house and the old offices that isn't there now. One random observation - Henry's mother says about Betty 'she's a silly woman', which is the same phrase Betty uses about Gloria, her father's new partner.
Tobacco Road is a top 10 needle drop on this show.
It's not the first use of electric guitar on the soundtrack, but it's the first song like *that* that we've heard, and feels like a musical harbinger for the rest of the decade -- the Beatles, the Kinks, etc.
The "John, Marsha" thing was from a comedy spoof record from the 1950's by Stan Freberg. I don't understand it, but it's just a recording of two people saying John and Marsha like that over and over. It's on YouTube.
I forgot to talk about that. The joke is that it's like they're playing out an entire married couple's breakdown and reconciliation but just by saying each other's names with different inflections, like they're happy, they have an argument, they break up, they get back together, just by saying "jooohn" and "maaarsha".
On Jon Hamm's attractiveness. He had a few episode arc on a great sitcom called 30 Rock, where the whole story of his character is that he's so beautiful that people never want to hurt his feelings or correct his mistake. He thinks he's a super interesting and capable guy, when he's really just completely sheltered from consequences and therefore learning when he's wrong. He's a dctor who knows nothing about medicine and he thinks he can speak other languages that he actually can't. It was pretty funny
The Bubble (30 Rock "spoilers"): https://youtu.be/UAQoXOLlvT0
Girlies let me edit movie reactions! I have nothing going on! This is not a joke! 😩🥰 Unrelated but lesbians love Pedro Pascal because if you squint, he looks like a butch lesbian 🙂 The ending is one of my favs in the show, when the music kicks in holyyyy! It's mostly a setup episode but it sets up so well! For years Don has been cosplaying the mysterious stranger and now he has a job where he needs to self-promote, oof, Don "I hate talking about my traumatic past" Draper's worst nightmare! Funnily enough, Peggy also sucked at advertising herself as a roommate in S2. Lola mentions it but when Don retells the story of 3x13 he's already editing it to sound event better. "I walked into Lane Pryce's office..." no you didn't babe "Holster up my guns"... What did Don say on all the way back in 1x2? "You think they want a cowboy... he's quiet and strong... he always brings the cattle home safe." yeehaw? I LOVE the new hip 1964 SCDP offices. The clean stark white is a visual punch in the face after 3 seasons of SCDP's dank mid-century carpets stained with liquour, blood + urine. In 1x1 we arrived at a Sterling Cooper 40 years in the making... while I LOVED it, this is NEW new. It feels like ANYTHING could happen, especially on the imaginary second floor 😭 "I never saw myself working in a place like this", is this new office the sort of place Don imagined working in? Did he use his interior design skills to help create it? I don't know. Roger fits in so well, it's like he was born in that white corner office. Eric Viola spoke about Henry/Betty below, but I don't think anyone has mentioned that Henry didn't want to have sex in Don's house (his "dirt", according to Henry's severe mother) but was comfortable having sex in his car, a space which belongs to him. Careful listeners may be interested in the lyrics to the ending song 'Tobacco Road': https://genius.com/Edgar-winter-tobacco-road-lyrics Bonus Thoughts: Don pays a sex worker to slap him in the face during sex, is this something he always wanted but could never ask Betty? I'll never understand older men going for younger women they have nothing in common with... what is Don gonna yap with Bethany about, Dress to Impress on Roblox? The Joan Economy needs no more inflation buuuut they placed her right in the center of the new office, SCDP literally revolves around her. The new office is in the former Time Life building, a real skyscraper in NYC you can visit today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1271_Avenue_of_the_Americas
@Kev: Big agree, I haven't listened to the commentary yet but I'm sure it's textual yeah. There's also the intro: "Who is Don Draper?" the show's thesis statement up to this point, followed by: "I wanted it to be indistinguishable from the movies. I wanted people to be watching it and say, "What's happening in the story right now? Oh! It's something else.""
Henry was turned off from having sex with Betty that night because of Don. When Betty confronted Sally when she tried to call her dad, it showed that Don is still ever-present in Betty's mind. Only when Don/kids were out of sight out of mind did he feel more comfortable being intimate with Betty. You could see at the end he was frustrated by how much real estate Don is taking up in Betty's mind when she's refusing to move to spite him. She is still defining herself in relation to Don.
"I know you don't want to hear this right now, but he's right" Henry is right imo. It's been almost a year and Betty isn't even looking at cool new houses to move to. Their current Ossining house was always intended as a 'starter home', Henry can almost certainly afford somewhere nicer + bigger for 2 parents 3 kids.
Don & Bethany have negative chemistry. It's cringe. But kind of interesting to see him go on a traditional date for once. Btw, the woman who was slapping Don was a prostitute, not sure if you caught that. Seasons 4 & 5 are my personal favorites (can't decide between them tbh) so I'm happy to be at this point. There are so many INCREDIBLE episodes ahead, on par with 3x13 or even better.
Don pays a woman to fuck and slap him. It clearly gives him some sort of gratification. This is something he could never ask Betty to do maybe? He's almost always the dominant partner in his sexual hookups, as is expected of men in the time (and now mostly tbh).
Yep, "acclimatised" - understood. Or, as we prefer to say in English: aklimatizovati.
I'm always aklimatizovating myself to new situations.
Lol poor Allison... She's been on the show since season one!
Haha. It's subtle storytelling but it shows Don rehired her as his secretary at some point, when they could afford to.
Don's secretary is the same one from season 3, Allison. Her hairstyle & fashion has changed.
I love seeing the younger women characters style change over the years. Other characters too but the younger women in the office are obviously chasing high street fashion/workwear trends more actively. And in contrast, it's also fun seeing whose styles are more locked-in (they know what they like, or what looks good on them, resist trends etc).
As crazy as it sounds, Mad Men begins on this season for me. I have no idea why. Sopranos was the same way. Perhaps it’s where the great writing really finds its own stride and measure.
Agreed. When someone says "Mad Men", I think of the SCDP office, the 60's style/culture (which is just now taking shape), and scenes, episodes and characters from seasons 4-7. Don't get me wrong, I love the first three seasons as well, but this is when the 'main' show starts for me.