A Glimpse Into the Day when A Great Man was Struck Down

This week’s episode starts off with Peggy looking at a new apartment for her and her man, a continuation of the theme from this season that Peggy has become a very strong woman that’s on her own and a force in the Madison Avenue ad business. 

As Don and Megan walk thru the apartment complex lobby they run into there friendly neighbors, the Rosen’s who are on the way out of town for the weekend to Washington DC.  Don, clearly mesmerized by this woman asks not once but twice as to where they were going for the weekend as Mr. Rosen pokes at Don as he walks away to his car stating for a 3^rd time that they’re going to DC for the weekend.  Don really is on love with this woman, so much so he can’t even hide it well.  This should be interesting to see how long it takes to have this affair exposed.

The mood turns as we get a glimpse of what is was like to be in the shoes of some Americans as the news came across the wire that Dr. Martin Luther King had been assassinated.  The show as it always does captures the moment in history so well and then intertwines different personal things that are happening to each of the characters.  For example we see the offer Peggy made on her apartment decrease per the realtors recommendation because of the area of the apartment and the rioting that may have been happening, we see Don call Washington DC to track down the Rosen’s so he can make sure that the mistress he loves in safe, we see Pete Campbell call his wife with whom he’s separated from and offers to come out and see her and his daughter and be with them in that trying time but she declines (good for her). 

The most interesting exchange being between Harry Crane and Pete Campbell, Harry was complaining to Pete about how their customers were pulling ads because of the regularly scheduled TV programming being pulled in favor of the news coverage on the assassination.  Pete got very, very angry and called out Harry then Bert Cooper had to come out and have them break it up.  This was one of the few moments ever in Mad Men that I actually liked what Pete said and did. 

We again are left to see Don Draper peel away another layer of him, he doesn’t say much about himself but when he does he definitely makes a point.  This admission by him to his wife Megan about his children and how he basically fakes being happy just because he thought that was what he was supposed to do.  He admits he didn’t have a good childhood and that he doesn’t know how to be parent but then also confesses that the moment he sees something in his children he had never seen before makes his heart want to explode.  He was referring to the time he spent with his oldest son at the movie theatre watching planet of the apes as he listens to his son talking and finds himself amazed at what he hears. 

As always the writing in this show is superb as we see Don’s son Bobby peel away little strips of wall paper from his bedroom wall only to later see him reveal things about himself to his dad and Don peel away and reveal more about himself to his wife.  I could only imagine what difficult times it was to live during those days. Until next week…….In the mean time, check out the most talked about part of this episode. 
Video Clip From This Weeks Episode

Can I get a little Napalm on the side?

This episode got ripping and rolling right from the get go, Megan (Dons wife) finally lands a more significant acting role in her day time soap opera but the catch is that it’s a love scene and she is dreading having to tell Don about it.  The irony of course is that Don is cheating on her with the neighbor upstairs yet she is scared to tell Don about a scene where she kisses a man for a minute which in the late 1960’s would be considered more than most could handle on American television.  Speaking of the affair Don is having with the neighbor, he tells her to take off her cross on her necklace and he asks, “Do you pray for me when I leave, pray for me to come back”.  She says, “I do pray for you, I pray that you find peace”.  Very interesting moment in the show as Don just turns her cross around to the back of her neck and carries on with his business with her.    

To add more wackiness to Megan’s work situation her and Don have dinner with her director and his wife, the conversation goes from the Vietnam war to how Don and Megan had met one another and then they propose that Don and Megan came back to their apartment so they can, “get to know each other better, and conduct an experiment”.  The look on Dons face is really quite priceless as he puts out his smokes and allows his wife to politely decline the offer from these late 60’s swingers. That scene was creepy and funny all at once. 

Joan Harris makes her biggest appearance thus far in the new season, one of the fan favorites of the show Joan welcomes an old friend from back home and they go out for a night on the town.  They have a good but somewhat odd and immature night out on the town and wake up in the AM and have a conversation about how well Joan has done in New York City on her own and that how becoming a partner in a Madison Avenue advertising firm was an amazing accomplishment for a woman. Her friend talks about her success in Mary Kay but how that doesn’t compare to Joan’s success.  The irony is that Joan even as a partner of a company is still not treated equal and as she remarks is still treated like a secretary. 

As usual Mad Men writers do an excellent job at outlining the issues of the time, the inequality in women’s right in the workforce, the Vietnam War, the racial divides in the country.

What about Harry Crane and his pitch to Dow Chemical?  He has a great idea to rebuild Dows reputation which was getting hammered at the time because of the Napalm they were making and selling to the United States government that was being used on woman and children in Vietnam only to bust into a meeting later and go off about how Joan didn’t deserve her partnership and how he did deserve one.  From a business perspective he looked like a childish idiot, from an entertainment perspective it was quite comical.  We shall see how this develops, perhaps his head is getting big and he will leave Sterling Cooper Draper Price. 

Lastly my favorite part of the episode was the pitch to Heinz ketchup by Don and then as they walk out of the room they run into Peggy and Ted Shaw (the competition).  I loved how Don lingered back and listened thru the door as Peggy did her pitch to the Heinz executives.  She used a line she learned from Don, “if you don’t like the conversation, change it”, as she laid out a very impressive campaign that was more impressive than her mentors campaign that was presented before her.  Don listens thru the door and then walks away, later they both find out they didn’t get the account and that they even lost an account because of the pitch.  I really hope this pitch Don heard from Peggy snaps him out of his funk and gets him back to doing some creative work. Until next week……….. 

Season 6 Starts with Sin, Sauce and Sun

What a season opener it was, after a long awaited arrival we finally got a taste of what the new season of Mad Men will look like.

It was full of interesting changes in the characters, Roger Sterling with side burns, long hair on just about all of Don Draper’s creative team and well as a shaggy mop on Peggy’s boyfriend.  There were all types of inferences towards life and death, Don reading Dante’s Inferno, the door man having a heart attack in the lobby, Rogers’s mother’s funeral and then the news that Rogers shoe shine man had died.  Interestingly Roger was more upset about the latter.

Overall it was a very good opening episode, we find out Don is back to his old womanizing ways and that Megan is finally on her own two feet.  The ending of season 5 eluded that Don would be back to his cheating ways but to see him cheating on Megan with his neighbor’s wife whom they have dinner parties with is very interesting.  She is also much older than him which I suppose is consistent with Dons flings in the past.  Peggy is strong in her new position and Pete is still as wormy as ever at SCDP.  The most bizarre part of the episode was Betty making reference to her husband Henry about raping her daughter’s friend……wow.  Staying consistent with her immaturity Betty hangs out for a day in an abandoned apartment building with some squatters and assists in making some soup and then later dyes her hair brunette after years of being a blonde. 

Episode 2 right off the get go was all about portraying the sexual freedom that was happening during the late 60’s.  Pete is flirting with his neighbors and her husband is flirting with Pete’s wife.  Don is continuing his affair with his apartment building neighbor, having day time intimacy wife her in the maids bedroom.  This episode like the 1^st one was quite dark, it offered little in humor at all and really touched very little on business.

The Heinz beans and sausage meeting was a highlight for me, interesting to see the ketchup guy from Heinz to come in and meet Don.  I also really liked to quote by Don, “you gotta dance with the girl that brought you”.  Meaning they needed to stay loyal to the beans division of Heinz and stay away from trying to get the ketchup business. 

From a fashion perspective this episode offered more into taking us back to the loud colors and prints that were becoming popular in the late 60’s.  Don still stays true to his classy, simple suits he has always worn.  We see Joan is some new styles as well as Megan in her olive green sweater. 

The most bizarre part of this episode would be the scenes of Don with his mistress and then the shift back in time to Dons youth.  The scene was Don and his pregnant mother taking up room and board at a friend’s house which also served as a brothel.  Don had made reference in earlier episodes about growing up in a whore house, now we get a glimpse of that time in his life.  We also see him give his mistress cash money as he dresses himself for work after a morning in bed with her.  It’s safe to say his upbringing molded him into to man that he is and the way he views women and sex.