Mad Men 5x08 Reaction
Comments (41)
I love watching this show with you two so much 🥹 This is my favourite series of all time, and the best thing is that we're over halfway through season five and so many of my fav episodes and moments are still to come. Eeeekk!!
I finally caught up to the reactions after binging the past seasons and now I join the painful wait for the next upload 😓
Finally broke down after this reaction and started watching ahead. Episodes 509 and 510 down already.
I think it's easy to think it's easy for Don to be unaffected/unconflicted with Megan wanting to go in a completely different direction with her career. I think it's totally human to want your partner to be into something you're into. Megan did initially indicate she wanted to try and pursue copywriting and when she succeeds at it and you see your partner excelling and something you're passionate about, it can't not hurt when they suddenly reject it completely (in a way rejecting you).
They were not understanding to him at all. We the audience suspected that Megan wanted to move on for an episode or two now. But from Don’s perspective, she dropped a bomb on him.And he was gracious about it. Don is heartbroken, and understandably so. But apparently he’s not even allowed to have feelings. These two are great but sometimes in this show they are completely unable to empathize with men.
I have never felt sadder for Don than in this episode.
Praying that Heated Rivalry is on your guys radar🙏
Many scenes in this series remind me of a book, Games People Play (1964) by Eric Berne. I wonder where Matthew Weiner gained some of his insight into human behavior from that period.
What? I've never noticed that.
Regarding the title, since you were wondering, in the New Testament (in John) Lazarus is the guy that Jesus brings back from the dead.
"Lady Lazarus" is a Sylvia Plath poem about death/suicide and rebirth, published posthumously (after Plath's own suicide) in 1965. The final lines definitely feel applicable to Megan's reinvention, and her rejection of Don's dream for her future in advertising, in the episode: I am your opus, I am your valuable, The pure gold baby That melts to a shriek. I turn and burn. Do not think I underestimate your great concern. Ash, ash— You poke and stir. Flesh, bone, there is nothing there—— A cake of soap, A wedding ring, A gold filling. Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air. Cyngu onggyrq qrcerffvba nyy ure yvsr naq jnf gerngrq jvgu ryrpgevp fubpx gurencl, fb gurer'f nabgure fvtavsvpnag cnenyyry gurer jvgu Orgu. Naq bs pbhefr gur ersreraprf gb fhvpvqr pbagvahr fgnpxvat hc: Va nqqvgvba gb Qba qenjvat gur abbfr n srj rcvfbqrf ntb, urer jr'ir tbg gur pbairefngvba nobhg Crgr'f vafhenapr cbyvpl, gur rzcgl ryringbe funsg, naq gur Flyivn Cyngu ersrerapr va gur rcvfbqr'f gvgyr. Onq arjf sbe Ynar nurnq...
The highlight of the episode is Peggy telling Don to shut up. Elisabeth Moss should've won the Emmy for this episode. I'm still waiting to have someone explain to me what Don has done this season. The show has no center because of it. Storylines that go nowhere. I mean WHAT is Ginsberg? Pete is bored, sad, for apparently no reason at all. Lane punches the shit out of Pete and promptly disappears for 3 episodes. Its a disjointed, unfocused season, with Don on his way to another failed marriage as the feature??? Hooray. Meanwhile the women grow more saintly, and the men are resolutely determined to break the Guinness world record for behaving like animals.
How about Don working? Like a full day. 4,5, 6 drinks worth of a day's work. Sweating it out, and figuring where the campaign goes. Don chasing Megan around the apartment was downright scary, and I'm not dainty. Just cause Don hasn't stuck his thing, in another woman's thing, doesn't make him a better person. He treats Megan like a beautiful thing he owns, while thinking he is being enlightened. Happy Don is BORING Don. Sorry. His ersatz angst is the shows fuel. It's where most of the great dialogue comes from. Megan has not produced one memorable line, and she is now positioned in the center of the plot. Downgrade. But, she happens to be "good at everything". Really? Instead of the magical negro, we getthe magical brunette, I guess. You gave very valid reasons for Pete's malaise, and I don't buy any of them. I'm too dense to see where Pete feels entitled to feel so bad? I may be guilty of looking at it with 21st century eyes, but......... those reasons aren't good enough for me, for him to be detonating a bomb in his rectum, and basically become a sociopath. It's a device of Matt Weiner pinning a plot crime on the man, instead of the man organically creating his plot. It just feels FORCED. MM to me is about Don and Peggy's relationship. Everything else is secondary. It's unspoken, rarely visited, and that's perfect. The love they have for each other is the most real thing on the show. It never has to be sold, or told. It's UNDERSTOOD. If Don isn't available at work, that's less opportunity to see them in the same bowl. Ginsberg is an adjunct comedy relief guy. Does everything out of his mouth have to come across like the tossed out notes of Woody Allen's comedy routine? Again, he feels forced. Although, I very much appreciate the bon mots. Roger still getting by on greasy charm. He's the best written character on the show, but he's still a to the Manor Borne entitled ass. Banging another man's wife at the biggest party of the year? That's Page 1 of the sleazebag's how to book. I love him. Harry? Guess Weiner ran out of bilge to write for him, so he has been kept out of firing range. My problem is Megan. She's a cypher, who isn't too interesting, and was exposed by her father as a poser who wants the struggle, but doesn't want to commit. Way less Megan, more Peggy. More Joan. Pete is unrealistic in his monstrosity. Season 5 so far feels like a soap opera. Far beneath what this show should be.
Shame Alexis Bledel's role was spoiled by the thumbnail. Pete and her storyline is meant to reflect a role reversal, with Pete taking on the role of the 'other woman'. His conversation with Harry illuminates that feeling of being used and powerless we see in some of Don's lovers. Maybe also highlighting the 'changing times' we see in Don's storyline. The nuance gets lost somewhat because of Pete's desperation and generally unpleasant nature. I mentioned it in Signal 30, but I'm not a huge fan of Pete's increasing humiliation and sliminess this season. It's disappointing to be invested in a character despite their bad qualities, only for them to keep going to the extent that I've completely checked out. I still enjoy the plotlines and the acting. I get why they did it, it is a logical continuation of his character. I just don't enjoy it.
THANK YOU.
It makes for a phenomenal needle drop… but I did have to wonder why Megan would tell Don to start with the final track on the album. Surely he’d find the first track Taxman a lot more palatable and easy to get into. I just don’t get people who listen to an album out of order for the first time I guess lol
Tomorrow Never Knows isn't exactly the catchiest tune. It was the avant-garde's preferred track on Revolver, so a poser like Megan would be drawn to it. She could've told Don to listen to Eleanor Rigby (an actual great song) first, instead.
Heartbreaking: Worst guy you know doesn't get to have the affair he yearns for.
So strange to see Mr Belding from Saved By The Bell pop up in this episode as the Cool Whip guy
One of my absolute favourite episodes, maybe even my favourite, depending on the day. The "Tomorrow Never Knows" moment is still electrifying -- both for what it means narratively, and as a viewer who spent most of S4 and S5 wondering how they were going to handle The Beatles when they could never in a million years play their music on the show. (The show played footsie with the question in S4 with the "Do You Want to Know a Secret?" cover, and again this year with Don whistling "I Want to Hold Your Hand". Of course this episode would feature a conversation about how impossible it would license their songs. $250K well spent.) I think it's really fascinating how the show has dramatized the importance of music this season -- first with mission to sign the Rolling Stones, and now with Don outright asking why clients care so much about using pop music in their commercials -- because I think you can feel that same shift in how the show itself uses music cues. All the way back to "Band of Gold" in the premiere, Mad Men has used popular music (with an *almost* perfect devotion to period-appropriateness -- I see you The Decemberists) to underscore important character moments and key political and cultural milestones, but the way that pop culture has bled more and more into the narrative and fabric of the show, to the point that we're now getting stories about whether the main character is "made for these times" (to borrow a phrase)... Maybe it's just that "Satisfaction" and The Beach Boys are more famous and recognizable than Bobby Helms and Perry Como, but the needle drops feel bolder and more expressive than they did in the buttoned-down early seasons. And it makes sense, because the explosion of pop culture (and the Beatles especially) in the decade is just one of those cultural forces that you *have to* explore if you're going to write about the 1960s. On a totally unrelated note: Vf vg zl xabjyrqtr bs gur erfg bs gur frnfba pbybhevat zl bcvavba, be ner gurl ernyyl haqre-ernqvat gur Crgr fgbelyvar urer? Gurer vf n ybg zber tbvat ba guna "Crgr fxrrif ba Ubjneqf jvsr", naq vg'f abg rfcrpvnyyl fhogyr -- bhgfvqr bs Orgu'f zragny urnygu ceboyrzf, V thrff, gubhtu V guvax rira gung abgr vf cerggl cebzvarag va gurve nsgre-frk pbairefngvba nobhg gur cvpgherf bs gur Rnegu. Ohg lrf, fur *vf* yrnivat uvz ba gur ubbx, naq cynlvat hc gur "ab Crgre, jr pna'g!" bs gur fvghngvba. Crgr vf ybbxvat sbe fvghngvbaf jurer ur pna srry cbjreshy -- ohg fb vf Orgu, naq fur sbhaq bar. Znlor chggvat Uneel va gung fprar jvgu Crgr gb pbasvez uvf (lrf, irel gbkvp) ernq ba gur fvghngvba jnfa'g n tbbq fgbelgryyvat pubvpr, orpnhfr jr xabj jung xvaq bs punenpgre Uneel vf?
A small extra note but The Beatles rights holders are extremely selective with what they license, it's not just the money issue. Not only do you have to pay shit loads, they get approval over the scripts and will reject anything that doesn't fit their vision for how Beatles music should be used in media etc. That's why you don't hear Beatles tracks everywhere on TV and ads even when brands and streamers can afford it. It's really interesting that they signed off on this when it's kinda "negative" (arguably positive overall, a sign of changing times etc) - whoever did is smart for seeing the vision, you can imagine a stupider person being like "we're not signing off on sexy Don Draper hating the Beatles" lol.
Matt Weiner must've met some guy like Pete when he was younger, and ABSOLUTELY hated that guy. "How can I make this guy worse" is how he went about writing that character. It's boring. Makes out with a guy's wife in his living room, while he's in the house. WHO DOES THAT???
That scene in the test kitchen is very Always Sunny coded.
Cutting to the researcher, still standing there through that entire argument lol
V nccerpvngr gur tveyf qrsraqvat Zrtna naq oryvrivat va ure, naq V haqrefgnaq jul gurl'q vagrecerg Wbna'f pbzzrag nf rail/ovggrearff. Ohg jung gurl snvyrq gb gnxr vagb nppbhag vf gung Wbna vf nyjnlf evtug nobhg gurfr guvatf yby. Ure vafgvapgf ner nyjnlf ba cbvag
Vg vf n yvggyr jvyq gb zr gung nalbar pbhyq jngpu gurfr svefg ~60 rcvfbqrf naq guvax "gung crefba punfvat gurve qernzf vf tbvat gb unir n unccl raqvat".
Megan's outfits are so modern looking, I'd happily wear them today. How did we go from poofy 50's dresses to this in only a few short years?!
@Jamie What do you mean? Don't the actors have to bring their own clothes?
AMC and the Mad Men crew paid $250,000 for the rights to use a Beatles track for 30 seconds, only to have the main character turn it off in disgust 💀 They're truly the greatest to ever do it... What happens when there's a misalignment between "what you're good at" and "what you want to be good at"? It's a tough one. As a dirt-poor traumatized self-made man, Don struggles to understand how Megan could ever give up something she has raw talent at. All he can see is her in ten years, as good or better than him. But it's extra interesting because Don's entire life is a misalignment. For the first time perhaps in years, Don is at peace. He's in love with a woman who loves him back and he isn't even cheating on her (wow!). He's still drinking but not as bad. Work is mostly good, the darkest points of S4 are in the rear view mirror, new clients arrive and leave happy. Pete got skis! Don even has enough introspection to say it himself: Why shouldn't Megan do what makes her happy? It's a tough question because the misalignment isn't between what Megan wants and what she has, it's ultimately between Don Draper and The World. As the sixties progresses, as fashions change, as Don's beautiful modern wife rocks up looking like a "Sixties Movie Star" from our collective imaginations, as clients request trendy songs and kids riot and Peggy rips a blunt in the office, there is Donald Draper. Still standing rock solid, drinking his Canadian Rye brown in a two-piece suit built like knight's armor. The tank man. Don's livelihood is built on knowing what people like and desire and perhaps for the first time ever, he feels that insight slipping away... how can he know what the average consumer wants when he doesn't even know what his own 26yo wife wants? And in the end, he turns the trippy new Beatles record off: it's not just a metaphor for Megan, it's a representation of the world moving past him towards something new and away from his folksy car-whistling nostalgia of "I wanna hoold your haaand". Don is a man built perfectly for 1960 but it's now 1966. Bonus Thoughts: PIZZA HOUSE! "I think she's good at everything, she's just one of those girls" has stuck with me... some people ARE just like that, it's cool. Joan settles into a nice background supportive role here, it's nice to see her sniping a little out of pocket again... she wants to gossip and be mad but Peggy is having a little enlightened moment, yeesh. Lola mentions the music picks being great and I think it's half true but also half that we're getting into an era where we still listen to the songs - Gimme Shelter, developed Beatles, Stan + Ginsberg even mentioned The Zombies etc. Sure Pete is a loser, but he's not the worst person Rory Gilmore has slept with.
Ybir gur Mbzovrf fubhg bhg urer. Nabgure UBS Znq Zra arrqyr qebc pbzvat hc j/ gurz va n srj frnfbaf.
Just like the last episode showed us Sally come SO CLOSE to having a good evening with her father, here we see Megan & Don come SO CLOSE to having a healthy marriage. Meagan lies to Don, but she feels bad and confesses very quickly. Don accepts her explanation and doesn't suspect that the lie is covering up something deeper. He avoids paranoia, and doesn't even get angry at the lie itself. He listens to Meagan when she says she wans to quit, and supports her even though he doesn't understand her desire. SO CLOSE. But despite not showing his anger with Meagan, Don is internally exploding and so he lashes out at everybody around him. Don "supports" Meagan in quitting her job, but it's a thoughtless support that doesn't take into account the fallout of their actions (For example, Meagan should not have left that day. She should have helped the rest of the team transition to a new person, and finished what was on her desk). He's saying Yes To Everything instead of thinking about it and making an informed decision. So they avoid a fight right here, but it's still not open communication. I was shocked at Pete's awareness that Beth was intially only having sex with him to get back at her husband. He dropped it very quickly, and latched onto an obsession with continuing the affair, but even that brief moment of Seeing is more than I expected from him. Not related to the show, but the insurance conversation here always reminds of how proud I was a few years ago when my workplace got no-cost life insurance for all personnel. It's not a MASSIVE amount, but it covers every permanent employee and pays out to the beneficiary of their choice with absolutely zero cost to them. And when I hear how other companies do things like have insurance pay THEM, I'm glad that we cleared that low bar.
"They're exactly what they're supposed to be. But they're not 'it'." Basically sums up the entire episode (Pete having everything he should want, his work life going well, 'perfect' home life and still unfulfilled and miserable, Megan with the job Peggy and Don both think is perfect for different reasons yet she's still unfulfilled and miserable. ) Had to laugh at the reaction when Beth drew the heart on the window. It's whatever, not gonna get into a big thing about it, but always makes me smile when conclusions are jumped to and then proven wrong.
@Kev Ner gurl fgvyy ebyyvat qbja jvaqbjf ng guvf cbvag? Vg fher ybbxf ryrpgevp jura fur pybfrf gur jvaqbj. Abg gb trg nyy "gur oyhr qencrf zrna qrcerffvba" urer, ohg V'ir nyjnlf gnxra vg nf na vagragvbany ersrerapr gb gur ryrpgevp fubpx gurencl (naq Orgu'f zrzbel ybff) va gur svanyr.
With how obvious the small cracks in Megan and Don's relationship are, I do appreciate Don's conversation with Roger because it proves that he is self aware. It doesn't mean that he's going to 100% act on that awareness as usual but it makes his relationship with Megan so much more complex and indeed different than the one he had with Betty
I do wonder how much of Don's different response to Megan's dream of acting vs Betty's dream of modeling simply comes down to the context of each situation rather than an attempt to be better. With Betty's return to modeling in 1x9, it wasn't simply a case of her taking agency of herself and once again pursuing her dream. She was actively being used as a pawn by McCann Erickson in order to manipulate Don, and with Don valuing his sense of autonomy above all else, he relunctantly shut down Betty's dream. None of that exists with Megan's return to acting. Don isn't being put in a box or made to feel like a puppet on a string. It's much easier for him to try playing the role of the supportive husband in this case, even if he still doesn't like it.
Pete was (as usual) awful here but no comment about the manipulation of the insurer's wife (making the first move / heart on the window despite saying she wants him to move on)?
Yeah, everyone in this plot -- except Trudy, obviously -- is cheating. "Pete is a creep", and rolling your eyes at his conversation with Harry, is not giving enough credit to the storyline.
Rory!
Just taste it!
Fun fact: the woman Pete has sex with is Pete’s actor’s real life wife. Also it’s rare for the Beatles to give shows rights to their songs but I’m happy they got a chance to cause it’s not the 60s without the Beatles
You can name the woman – Alexis Bledel – they know her already