Mad Men 7x01 Reaction

Barnes, the Butler Footwear new hire, precedes enshittification, but carries its essence. His role is not to foster quality work nor boldness. No, his role is to cut costs, to increase profits. The Four Ps? One P. Profit. Always more profit. The rest is illusion to make the confounding system seem reasonable. So, the new hire sets out to fire SC&P and manage in-house advertising. The truth lies in, as Ken explains, the idea that if you have no underlings, then you're useless. In other words, someone that can be cut to increase profit. Ken asks Joan, "this is a hierarchy, do you understand that?", and she responds, and later confirms, "certainly." Joan works with the fugazi-ness in advertising, and Peggy struggles against it. Stan warns her, "you're telling your boss you think he's stupid" after repeatedly advocating for superior work. She believes the work speaks for itself. However, her efforts are fruitless against a misogynist whose response to being soundly questioned is a pithy, infuriating, "I guess I'm immune to your charms." With this comment, Lou makes clear to Peggy that hierarchy matters more than quality. Accordingly, Ken avoids meeting with Barnes to maintain his position in the SC&P hierarchy, and sends Joan, who, in turn, threatens the hierarchical position of Barnes. In response, he cuts their meeting short, but not before throwing jabs implying that Joan's value is in her sexual appeal, and a belief that women exist to be housewives. Although Joan is momentarily intimidated by the jargon wielding, microaggressing, young new hire, after meeting with a business academic who disparages the utility of a fancy MBA, lacks her specific domain knowledge, and offers her useful advice, she quickly regains her composure. Ultimately, Joan successfully navigates the hierarchy, and has the new hire so shook, he asks her, "so what am I supposed to do?" after she reframes the firing of SC&P to be risking his position at Butler Footwear. In contrast, Peggy alienates her co-workers, lamenting their acceptance of shoddy work and refusal to go forward with superior work. Peggy falls apart at the end of the episode, a culmination of losing her position of creative authority with the merger, losing her relationship with Ted, and losing to the nonsense hierarchy of advertising. Probably my favorite aspect of exploration in the show, revealing the gatekeeping of male white-collar employment to be nowhere near a system of meritocracy, instead a bogus system rewarding fraternity, nepotism, inheritance, sustained through intersectional hierarchies

Lou was bought in by Duck Phillips, so he follows Duck's philosophy of 'creative not running the show', as Duck said in S2. He's not going to give you anything brilliant, but he's also not going to break down in a meeting or take an impromptu vacation. I love seeing Freddie back, one of my favourite of the non-main cast of characters.

The man is her brother-in-law, Gerry. He was lying on the sofa with a bad back in season 2 when the priest visited and at the restaurant with Peggy's family in 'The Suitcase'.

This season was around the time of Breaking Bad's final season when AMC were breaking the final seasons into two galf seasons and calling them Season 7 part 1 and part 2, but the break between both was a year, so I'm reality it was two extremely short seasons just claimed to be under one "season 7" label. Very frustrating time for television viewers.

Calling Roger a sperm donor !!! Was funny as hell! 💀💀

A few months ago, I saw somebody ask the question "Would Don Draper approve of using AI for marketing?" My first instinctive thought was 'yes' since he's a hollow, empty person and he wouldn't care. But then once I got past that knee-jerk reaction I realized that no, he would HATE using AI in advertising, and I thought back specifically to this episode. Don craves being INVOLVED in the creative process. Even if he's not getting the credit or the money, he still wants to feel that connection with the consumer, that exploration of "What do they want? How can I get them to think it's what I have?" That's when he feels the most fulfilled and human. I LOVE Freddy, and it's always good to see him. I love that he's still sober, and he's settled enough that he's even comfortable hanging out with Don and not slipping. Last episode I saw a comment from somebody saying they couldn't wait to see you two blown away by California Pete, and even I had forgotten just how strongly he hits us across the face right away. He dresses differently, he talks differently, he even CARRIES himself differently. He speaks to Don like an equal (or at least closer to being an equal), without any of the transparent ego of trying to PRESENT himself as an equal. It seemed like you picked it up, but just in case, moving the marketing "in house" means that that company was planning to fire SC&P and would hire their own advertising people who worked for them directly. It's hard to fight against that, because it's not a question of another advertising firm coming in with a lower price or offering a new idea. There is no other firm that you're competing against, you're competing against "I'll do it myself". So that's why Joan had to learn a whole bunch of business-jargon to try and reframe the whole conversation and convince that guy to keep hiring an outside firm. I hate Lou Avery as much as the next guy, but he's not 100% wrong. He's the living embodiment of that old saying "They don't want it perfect, they want it on time and under budget". For a lot of businesses -- maybe even MOST businesses -- that's more important than brilliance or talent. As long as the clients are happy and keep buying more ad space, why should they care about making The Best advertising out there?

I have to admit, I've watched this episode many times and I have NEVER noticed the car. My eyes are always on Megan lol. But damn it is a nice car too now that you mention it.

Standing on the people-mover in front of the mosaic at LAX. That's a reference to The Graduate (and Jackie Brown), which has an identical moment. In The Graduate, it's a metaphor to establish how Ben's life is on rails, dragging him along. The sequence with Don arriving in LA is as exuberant as Mad Men gets, but there's a similar comment hiding there, foreshadowing that Don's life isn't as exciting and dynamic as it appears on the surface. Lane Pryce watch: Speaking of LAX, the dark green convertible brings to mind the Jaguar that Lane's wife bought him before his suicide. And the commissions vs. fees debate that Joan references in her meeting with the business professor is exactly the issue Lane was preoccupied with in his final episode. You can always tell which character the show is most excited to show off after a time jump. This time, it's California Pete! (It's usually Pete, if we're being honest.) It might be something funky with the rear projection in that final scene, but there's a zolly effect going on that gives a brief impression that Don is falling backwards off the balcony. I'm sure that doesn't meaning anything. Really great ending, really great premiere. It's (mostly) a consensus that Seasons 4 & 5 are the best of the best for Mad Men, but for my money, Season 7A is damn close to that level. Incredible stretch of episodes coming up here. I've only watched 7B twice... Very interested to give it another go-around.

That one butterfly meme: Don sees Pete dressed like a billionaire out on his boat for the summer: “is this a hippie?”

Don has always loved his work. Not the management, not all the other bullshit that comes with doing any white color job. No, the work itself: coming up with ideas and/or directing the staff to come up ideas and selecting and refining and managing the creative process. He was distracted a bit after he got married but otherwise he has always always always loved the job. So he isn't working here because of some kind of resurgence in interest now that he is out. He is working because that's the part of the job that he loves. And he loves it so much that he is doing it when he doesn't have to, just for the love of the game. It's not about Ted or whatever. It's about the work itself. It would be fair to say that the one thing Don truly loves in this life is the work, the real work. I can relate to this in some respect. I'm a patent prosecutor. I feel best when I can focus on the job itself: drafting and prosecuting patents. Reading and analyzing the prior art, writing, arguing. That's the good part. But then, there is all the other crap: writing emails, making phone calls, keeping up with deadlines, attending meetings internal or with the clients, etc etc. Sometimes you spend so much of your day doing this crap that by the time you can focus on the real work it's like 4pm and you have to work into the night. Fuck all that shit, I just want to do the work itself.

Pete's happy so the universe has to balance itself out by making Ken the miserable one.

I think "You Keep me Hangin' On" was originally a 1966 song by The Supremes but the one played at the end of the episode is the 1967 cover by Vanilla Fudge. I like it more than the original

Peggy's the landlord. She owns the building.

Megan's place is giving Sharon Tate's home - this is set before the murders carried out by the Manson family by about 6ish months I believe

Here we goo

Can’t believe we’re in the final season. We’re almost finished with the Quartet of Sad Angry Men (BB/BCS/Sopranos/MM)

Pete in his receding hairline era. 👴

California Pete in the thumbnail!!