Mad Men 6x02 Reaction

Kens reaction to Bob Benson was so harsh, because he picked up on him being a kiss ass. We saw him before, where he talks to Don in the elevator, having two coffees (claiming he always gets two, for some dumb reason) and offering one to Don. Shortly after we see him standing around the partners again, and Pete having the other coffee. Bob seems, like he is not working, but just trying to be seen by the partners and impress them.

For anyone who watched it combined with the first one, just look at Don's face at 1:27:30 LOL he can't even hide it.

D E A T H What perspective(s) of death will Mad Men offer? E T A A T E H T A E D What is death? Alok Vaid-Menon argues that "death is truth," and to live truthfully "means to braid death into life." That is to say, a shift away from fearing death, a shift towards death "dancing with us." The season opener presents death as its thematic centerpiece. Dinkins returns to a warzone, Jonesy momentarily dies, Roger's mom and Giorgio permanently die, etc. We get Roger's perspective on life & death through snippets of his therapy sessions. Though, the 'Royal' pitch meeting hints this theme will be explored through multiple characters. After his failed pitch, Don earnestly asks Stan, "does that make you think of suicide?" To which Stan responds, "of course, that's what's so great about it!" I'm excited to see if Mad Men can show us "what's so great about" death this season. Because for me, as Willibald explains, "death is that which completes Man." It is through death that we can learn to embody love. "[...] to live truth ... means to say this might be the last time I ever get to see you again so why the fuck would I not speak with my full chest? is to live like that" -Alok Vaid-Menon

Telling a woman that the Inferno made you think of her is so out of pocket lol

This is perhaps the most tedious episode of Mad Men to my memory.

Harry Burns to Sally Albright: Men and women can not be friends.

Has S6 finished yet?

Peggy definitely had Don vibes in the conversation about the headphones. The 'you've bought me the same idea three times' thing sounds like something he'd say. They're kindred spirits, they clash but they care about each other. I don't think Peggy is better than Don though, or vice versa. They are who they are. Same with Abe. He is different from Peggy but I like their relationship. He supports her but still speaks his mind. Zvyran fcbggvat gur pbaarpgvba jvgu Fgna rneyl vf irel vzcerffvir. Fur'f tbvat gb srry fb inyvqngrq yznb. V ybir Fgna'f punenpgre nep naq uvf eryngvbafuvc jvgu Crttl.

I don't know where this idea that Peggy is progressive came from; she's tolerant sure, but progressive is pushing it

A season opener of opposites and self-fulfilling prophecies. Roger doesn't cry at his mother's funeral, but breaks down over a shoeshine kit from a guy he barely knew. Peggy yells at her subordinates for waiting around for inspiration to strike her, and then inspiration strikes her. "Bob Benson" wants to seem important and climb in his career, and Ken points out he looks unimportant hanging around a lobby. And of course, Don goes an an all-expenses paid trip with his beautiful wife to a tropical paradise and returns with an idea that screams to everyone "I wanna kill myself". A misalignment between thoughts and actions, between choices and motives. At the end of 1967 and the start of 1968, why would the show be showing us all these people, torn between what they say and what they do? Food for thought. Speaking of suicidal moves, Don is cheating on Megan with the wife of a couple they are friends with who literally lives one floor down. This is so much worse than Suzanne, the teacher who lived in Don's neighbourhood. Don seems to genuinely get along with Arnold the husband too, it's the friendliest we've ever seen him be with someone who isn't Roger or Freddie. We need to know more about Sylvia (the wife) but Don says "I don't want to do this any more" right after crawling into another woman's bed, starting off 1968 with a deep personal betrayal. Another opposite, another misalignment. "Did you read my Dante?" It's not even subtle, like almost everyone who ever cheated they know it's wrong. Don knocks at her back door like a visitor, like a stranger. Megan doesn't question it because that's their rhythm now - Don said he's going out for cigarettes in a blizzard, that's just Don. Megan isn't Betty but she's somehow fallen into the same patterns. Betty too has a complex realization that the world is changing in a way her stroppy, teenage daughter is isolated from. A haunted mansion of privilege that isn't just not aspirational to part of the younger generation, its emblematic of the failings of government and capital and society that is drafting them to die in a far off jungle. Last episode she tells Sandy "Sally will be heartbroken" at her leaving, but this episode we find out Sally doesn't give a shit because Sandy like so many young girls things she's "mature for her age". Uh oh. Betty leaves the violin because... what's she going to do with it? Bring it home and explain to Henry and Sally that a little girl is just another young woman lost in NYC? There's nothing she can do except appreciate what she has. And die her bleached blonde hair black - it's still from a bottle baby, but at least it's something. Bonus Thoughts: Peggy becoming Don... or Don-light, female Don, is so resonant. She doesn't know another way to work. Meanwhile Ted ignored all his "emergency work calls" and the emergency resolved itself: Ted isn't Don. In a weird way its sort of nostalgic seeing Don cheat again lmfao like "ah yes, the good old days of Seasons 1 through 3". Don and Megan use the CAROUSEL projector from S1 to show their holiday photos! I love the continuity in Mad Men, like when Trudy pulls out the Chip n Dip... the show is about selling consumer products and our characters actually keep and use the consumer products they're selling for years.

I think Milena is right that Don wants to be reborn in some way and that it does relate back to him going into the ocean like a baptism when he visits Anna in season 2. Unlike his attitude with his previous affairs of being content, satisfied he says to Sylvia "I want to stop doing this".

could you just abandon all other projects and drop a Mad Men every day?? Fun to hear you think through the final arcs of the series as a whole, and it's a lot to hold back from commenting!

Call me pessimistic and I get wanting characters to become better people but if a traditionalist, conservative, wealthy WASP like Betty turned into a radical leftist, that would not feel like an authentic evolution of her character lol. The vast majority of people that come from her background believe (uncompromisingly) that poverty is a choice. (I love Betty's character btw).

The reason Megan didnt question Don going out for so long at the end as he said earlier that he was "out of cigarettes" so, he went out to get some. ALSO Henry - great guy, damn near perfect in comparison to the other men BUT, he's still a republican, probably responsible to the living situation of those kids

I think Betty dyes her hair not because she doesn't want to appear fake but because she didn't like that that kid in the village read her (correctly) as traditional, conventional. I think that's what he meant by "bottled", like formulaic, obvious, routine. So she dyes her hair as a reaction to that.

A very interesting persective on Stan that I saw in a discussion on an episode a few months ago was how he was set up as a foil to Joey Baird in season 4. Joey was introduced at the same time as Stan, and initially he was presented a LOT better than Stan was. Joey and Peggy bantered very well with one another, and Joey never felt the need to challenge Peggy's authority. Stan could not banter with Peggy at all at the time, and he made remark after remark on gender-lines to challenge her. Stan was the guy who Peggy chose to strip naked in front of him to force him to back down. But as we saw over the course of season 4, Joey may have behaved well with Peggy -- his direct boss -- but he was rude and condescending to other women. He was so offensive to Joan that Peggy fired him. We learned thay Joey's smooth working relationship with Peggy was an ACT. Meanwhile Stan has stuck around, and as he has come to respect Peggy more and also gotten to know her he can now banter and engage with her on an equal level. And unlike Joey, it seems to be HONEST friendship and banter, instead of playing the role of "cool guy" to get ahead at work. --------- Ken's over-the-top reaction to Bob Benson sending food to the funeral is because he can tell that Bob is playing an angle. Ken doesn't quite know WHAT the angle is just yet, but sending catered food to a funeral is a glaringly large act. On a normal day you might send a bouquet or a placard, but you don't send STAFF. It's as blatant an attempt to curry favor as you can get without unzipping your pants and saying "Guess what I'll do for a promotion..." Ken's a smart man, and he's trying to figure out what Bob is up to. --------- One of the guys at the house in New York used the term "grok" when talking about what Betty (and by extension The Establishment) didn't understand about them and what they want. "Grok" is actually a very new word which was only 'invented' a few years before this episode, in Robert A. Heinlein's 1961 science fiction novel "Stranger in a Strange Land". The fictional definition is long and complicated, but it is usually used to mean to understand something fundamentally intuitively. Betty doesn't grok this life, and I think she CAN'T grok this life.

Season 6. The Jumping Off Point.

Roger’s arc so far is so good

Don's asking Jonesy if dying feels like a hot tropical sunshine near the ocean because that was the feeling he had when he was in Hawaii.

Rogers mentions Bruce Pike, Mona's partner, back in season 3. He actually attended Margaret's wedding with Mona. Roger always talked about him with disdain.