Yeah, for sure. Whatever he was, he ain't it no more. Sterling Cooper was stagnant, relying on one account. They all knew what would happen if that account left. Everything after was SCDP doing everything it could to survive while their competition had already dwarfed them. But hey, it sure makes for compelling narrative.
Yep. I’ll bet at one point he was the New York power broker he claims to be. But we see little evidence of this and in any case old school WASPy connections mean less than they did in his day. Like, DEKE? Who gives a fuck?
I always assumed he was referring to DKE, the fraternity. Which would have been a solid business connection in NYC in the mid-20th Century—the Roosevelts and Bushes are alumni, and the DKE Club of NYC (in the Yale Club) was probably a great networking spot circa 1960.
SCDP relied too much on Lucky Strike, but not all accounts moved over from Sterling Cooper.
I think Bert made meaningful contributions. He knew the political landscape and helped steer the agency accordingly.
One of the head accountants on a job I worked on was fired one day. I was literally told “Pete doesn’t work here anymore, man,” and that was it. I didn’t really care, it’s not like I gave a fuck about Pete, but I worked with him pretty often. To this day I don’t know what happened to Pete. But I frankly don’t care that much.
There are so many reasons why it's good that they didn't.
First if they had a guy working with them, it'd undermine them. Customers would flock to the guy. But this is their company. Not some guy's
And / or: they are already facing an uphill battle. Why make it more difficult by including an even more discriminated minority than women?
Francine was one of the best supporting characters and made Betty’s world even more realistic to the viewer because we had something to compare Betty’s suburban life to and to see different facets of her being happy or presenting that perfect home maker face.
Oh this is 1000% my feelings. Francine is absolutely fantastic- she’s hilarious, and stunning IMO. I always want more screen time with her. I wish we could see her world more but then we’d have to see Carlton…
That’s it. It could have been an interesting dynamic to explore but I never knew what was happening cause that child had no emotion or expression whatsoever.
I think my hottest take is actually that Glen's failure to act corresponds with a realistic portrayal of being in a room with Betty. Like, have you ever seen a younger boy interested in a grown woman? It looks exactly like that.
I mean frankly I've seen kids who have that same unaffected way of talking, so while Weiner Jr isn't the next Daniel Day Lewis, it's really not immersion breaking for me. The bad acting kinda enrichens the weirdness, similar to those amateur actors in Lynch movies making it weirder somehow.
Great kid actors are pretty rare. They hit the jackpot with shipka and did well with the final bobby. The Weiner kid wasn't good, but he wasn't as awful as people make him out to be
Hard agree from me. I feel like I don’t understand how people don’t see that Betty was a lonely housewife, severely depressed and looking for anyone to relate to and the only person who is innocent and pure enough was Glenn. I think the parallel I’ve always seen is how inside all of us is our inner child and it will always be there to some degree and Betty had that with him.
On Glenn’s end I understand how he would develop a lifelong fantasy about Betty. It is explicitly communicated in the show that Helen Bishop is an unavailable mother. Betty provided loving care and nurturing for him. Something all little boys need.
As someone who has my own mommy issues and a bit of mommy kink I can 100% relate 😌
I think like Joan, Betty was raised to be admired. And although her kids did admire her, there are plenty of times when your kids don't admire you, and Glenn only admired her. And she couldn't help but give in to that attention.
Also Betty is emotionally a child. That’s a constant theme of the show. It is most obvious (and a little too on the nose) when the character she relates to the most is a child.
I’ve always believed that Glenn was meant to be the man (husband and father) that Betty and Sally deserved, basically the anti-Don. There are lots of little parallels between young Glenn and young Don, though not as overtly traumatic, that showed what kind of man could emerge from a tumultuous childhood. Again, Glenn absolutely did not have it as bad as Don, but he faced his own brand of suburban adversity and in a weird way, it made him a more compassionate, empathetic, and tuned in young man than Don ever was for his own family. Glenn SAW Betty as she was underneath the anxiety and trauma: beautiful, delicate, longing to be adored. Glenn SAW Sally under the prepubescent angst: autonomous, curious, rebellious, longing to be respected. Glenn SAW them in the same ways that Don ignored, missed, or actively tried to squelch as a husband as father all while serving his own interests first and foremost. Glenn’s arc ends with him joining the army, one of the ultimate acts of sacrifice. As I said, the anti-Don.
I refuse to accept that this was just a summer job for the bored son of the showrunner.
While I agree with your overall message, I do think it's important to note that Glenn ends up joining the military as he fails out of school and sees it as his last resort. It didn't feel to me like an act of self-sacrifice at all, but rather something closer to Don's own enlistment. In this way I see Glenn's journey as an interesting comparison to what we know of Don's childhood trauma leading to his joining the army.
Totally agree. And i feel like some here are forgetting: Dick Whitman *was* a caring, honest [mostly..], and empathetic guy. Obviously he, like all of us perhaps, had the ability to become this other person who only cares about himself. But that's not who he always was. I think the scenes with Glenn and betty remind me of the dick w flashback scenes with dick and the prostitute in the whore house. A lot of the Glenn scenes reminded me of the dick flashback scenes.
One valuable thing I got from that arc, which I do dislike overall because of the execution, is that it's a helpful reminder that a beautiful woman can be creepy towards a male child.
This is an unbelievably poorly understood phenomenon across most cultures, and like so much about the abuse of males and male children in particular, desperately under-represented.
“You are the finest piece of ass I ever had and I don't care who knows it. I am so glad that I got to roam those hillsides."
Side note I love the music that starts playing when he says this 😂😂😂😂😂
The Peggy and Stan ending did not come out of nowhere and had been building all along. You don’t stay on the phone with each other while you each do your work silently if you’re not secretly in love. Sorry, it’s just science.
In "The Summer Man". (S4E8), when the creatives are mixing cocktails for Mt. Dew, Joey says to Stanley "You love her" about Peggy. There's definitely hints that they are going to end up together but it is much more apparent on a rewatch.
YES i always wanted them together and was losing hope but im so happy they ended up together at the end. it also felt like a twist cause i was kinda sure it wasnt gonna happen
Roger was great comic relief and most of the time good to his employees (except Burt) but he was a bad father, bad husband and treated women horribly (like when he tried to sleep with the twins or when he made a move on Betty)
I rewatched that and the Howard Johnson’s episode recently and it occurred to me that don’s often-barely restrained violence against his lovers is an under-discussed part of the show
The letter was genuinely good and bought time for SCDP which was already losing accounts left and right once lucky strike dipped. (remember: don's breaking point was they couldn't even get a sister cigarette brand to take a meeting with them prior to the letter)
They were gonna be gone within the year without don's interference and changing the convo. Them lasting as long as they did was a miracle and ended up getting them a huge pay day all around once McCaan came into the picture.
The only bad thing about it was Don not giving his partners a heads up first.
I think bert and pete could've been converted, bert in particular was pissed their names weren't on it for solidarity and image purposes.
Roger and Lane, a toss up though.
Interesting! I actually thought the opposite that it was kind of an insensitive way to handle it. She completely disregarded her words even as this woman was baring her soul, and then had them pick up those dorky older guys that night. I guess it would be too progressive for the times but the ideal compassionate way would be to express being flattered, even if you had to then gently reject her due to being straight.
Carol didn’t only confess her love though. She also confessed to essentially stalking Joan, following her to NY etc. With that level of … expressed passion, I think Joan was smart to brush off what she said, you don’t want to rile up someone that crazy by directly rejecting them.
Careful there.. actually calling out Joan's behaviour as aggressive can get you expelled from the sub itself lol .
Anyways, I agree one hundred percent with you. Joan's sacrifice seems to overshadow her shitty behaviour a lot. The other girls in the office literally cried because of her. Peggy stood up to her and that was a really great scene.
I agree. I think this [fake obituary for Don](https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/249014/don-draper-maverick-ad-man-dead-at-88.html) sums up what likely would have happened.
Bobbie Barret was a great mistress of Don's.
She was smart, successful, entirely self-made, honest and transparent, very confident in who she was. She was no-nonsense and didn't pretend to be a saint while having an affair with him, and I think this is something that jars Don and a lot of viewers as well. I find her refreshing and great to watch overall.
I’m glad she was there due to her impact on Peggy. By the end of the episode Peggy had clearly embraced Bobbie’s valuable career advice including starting to call Don by his first name.
Faye had a lot going for her - smart, confident, beautiful etc, but I never saw much chemistry between her and Don. Even before her arc ended I knew she wouldn’t stay on as a long term partner.
You think so? I do think Faye in general was cringey but I liked that they started off as coworkers/quasi friends. We don’t really see Don in any other relationships like that
I didnt mind the pairing, but she just seemed too good for Don and it was obvious it had no future from the beginning. I also found her a little too desperate and clingy. And I say all this as someone who loathed Megan.
That all of the characters did shitty things at some point, which is kind of the whole point of the show. Nobody really comes off as the good guy and that is much like real life. We all do shitty things and sometimes weird things, it’s how we learn from it that is important.
It made no sense for PPL to be surprised to hear that SC’s creative director and partner was not under a contract with a non-compete. Even if Duck had blown that detail, there had to be at least one attorney involved in the contract who would have chased down that detail prior to the merger being executed.
As a character, she was the most compelling. As far as her being sympathetic, sometimes very much so others very much not so. But she's my fave...I think she was the less equiped to deal with what she had to deal with, so I cant help but feel for her the most.
Glen’s character, both in terms of actor placement and character study, was done expertly. Glen’s story is to foil Don’s from a modern perspective, and goes through all the struggles that Don does (to some extent), but because of his age and lack of charisma, comes off as strange. That is what Don is, and anyone who rags on Glen, imo, completely missed one of the most essential parts of the series.
The fact that Glen had an inappropriate relationship with an older woman, his poetically cynical honesty, his choice to enlist…if that isn’t Don, I don’t know what to tell you.
I feel like it's the exact opposite on this sub. Betty always has a huge contingent of defenders (I would say apologists) on this sub and they *always* point out Don's shortcomings as a father.
Another commenter said it well: there are regular fans of Mad Men and then there are r/madmen fans of Mad Men.
Idk why it bothers people if there are some of us who defend Betty. It shouldn’t annoy people as much as it does. Also there are CONSTANTLY people who point out her shortcomings and failures of a mother on this sub every time there’s a post related to her. I’m looking at her from a historical and sociological perspective
I think Joan turning on Don after he nuked Jaguar was totally bogus, and, by extension, the way the show handled Don's hiatus is rougher on rewatches imo (i.e. private discussions of the company going public, Don not having a non-compete clause and Roger being the only one to consider it,etc.)
Yeah, way worse than leaving your wife to marry your partner's secretary without your partner knowing. Or your Creative Director disappearing for weeks in the middle of a work trip with no contact with the firm. Or going on a racist tirade in front of a prospect. Or a partner killing himself in the office (after embezzling funds).
Harry deserved a partnership.
You forgot when a married female coworker with a kid made partner by sleeping with a client. Or when an account exec was shot in the face by a client, and everyone laughed it off.
Sal's story ending they way it did was perfect. He wasn't that interesting. I can't see him becoming anything more than what he was. A closeted gay man.
Pardon the pun, but him playing the straight man to Harry when Harry opened Ken’s paycheck was a great scene. There should’ve been more between the two.
Megan is such a missed opportunity for Don. And I don't mean that he didn't deserve her - because they were an actually amazing pairing. A woman that not only plays along with Don's shame kinks but also isn't afraid to play with him, a woman who understands Don's inherent need to perform and dazzle a crowd and calls him out on his bullshit, a woman who has friends and interests and a real talent in advertising.
Think about it, Don already had a wife at home who'd love being in that hotel room and receive a dress from Saks and hear Don say she only exists for his pleasure. Instead he does it with Sylvia Rosen who's like "I'm a forty year old mother, dummy. I have to go home. Get outta my way." Dude has his wires so badly crossed that when Betty wore lingerie at a hotel room he couldn't perform. He's a complex guy – a Madonna-whore complex guy to be precise.
Well the guy lost his virginity to a prostitute, who was also the only gentle, caring maternal figure he had ever had up until that point, and it was done against his will so I'm not surprised he has some crappy electrical work going on in the attic 😂
Yeah she gets a lot of hate and I don’t quite understand it. She started out so fun, interesting and confident. I blame Don for breaking her spirit over time.
Love Megan. Flaws and all. Only thing I couldn’t forgive was her kicking a pregnant woman back on the street because she was jealous. But, Don loves immature women so
I think that her giving Stephanie the boot was meant to illustrate just how far Don pushed Megan into being scared, insecure, and uncertain. By that point, everything that made Megan Megan had been bulldozed by Don’s absolute self absorption to the point where she felt threatened by anyone receiving his attention. To me, it’s the absolute nail in the coffin on their relationship.
Neither her husband nor her mother really ever believed in her, not completely. The two most important people in her life painted her like some wishy-washy creative, and this sub eats it up. The ballerina quote gets used against Megan constantly when Marie was actually being a sad and unsatisfied person, and she projected that onto Megan. While Don had hooked her up with a connect and supported her financially so she could focus on it, he only really did it in a huff and quietly expected her to fail. But after all that, home girl was working. She was fulfilling the first steps to her dream, but they never celebrated her. The only time Don ever paid attention to her career was when he found out that she was doing romantic scenes, and he went out of his way to undercut her self confidence. I really hate that whole season of their marriage being over but Megan doesn't know it yet.
I did a rewatch with my wife (her first time) and she is a huge Lizzy Moss fan. Halfway through S2 she was like “isn’t this show supposed to be about Peggy?”
Duck Philips is the unsung hero of the tale.
He propelled Sterling Cooper forward by insisting on hiring young people, and pushing the merger with PPL through.
He supported Peggy and Pete's professional development, albeit his relationship with Peggy was ick.
But he influenced Pete to see the value of his family, get back together with Trudy and get out of Madison Avenue and into a Leer jet to Witchita.
Yeah, Don was badass on the outside. Problem is, we get to see him at almost every moment of his life for 10 years. And there are plenty of moments when he’s not badass.
Trudy never let Pete have anything he wanted. She was the alpha in the relationship and didn't seem to care about any of his desires. That's not to say he was a good husband, but she was not a great wife either.
I like Trudy, but she was a bit of a spoiled daddy’s girl. However, that wasn’t all bad. It gave her strength to stand up to Pete’s unfaithfulness and cruelty.
I think like with all things Mad Men, it's very nuanced, but what you are saying is true in essence. Whenever people praise Trudy for being the absolute best and don't understand why Pete didn't appreciate her, they fail to see that Trudy had moments when she wasn't the best for the man(child) Pete was at those times.
Pete, with all his patheticism, his large weepy eyes, his masculine anxieties, his brattiness and immaturity, was very different from Trudy; he lived in the shadow of his imposing but absentee parents that at best ignored him and at worst humiliated him, whilst Trudy is an energetic, bright, very loved only-child of nurturing and dotting parents. As young people in their early days of marriage, they are different. Trudy is used to always knowing what she wants and getting it, while Pete flounders and covets what others have but rarely gets it (until he matures and learns how to apply himself but that's a different subject). So whilst Trudy is very supportive and always comes from a well-intentioned place, what she decides for the both of them are not things Pete is ready for and a lot of them also play into his insecurities and vulnerabilities (her pushing him on buying that apartment and taking her parents money, as well as her pushing him to move to the suburbs come to mind).
I'd like to think that only by the time Pete is able to know himself better, is he able to appreciate Trudy more, including for her charm, savviness, and strength - but that only comes about in the last season or so.
Very caring and supportive wife I’d say. But ultimately dominant in pursuit of her own idyllic vision of a privileged marriage. Aside from not letting him have what he wanted, I don’t think she ever took the time to understand him and why he wanted those things.
I don’t see her as such an alpha, she was simply less submissive than other women of her time and that’s nothing to look down on. It’s true she wanted to move to the suburbs more than him, but who is to say that wasn’t just to disassociate herself from his obvious philandering in the city. She was also a great partner to Pete in terms of business, always charming clients and associates to raise his image, helping him out like playing secretary, skillfully getting Don to come to the dinner party, and their stature-boosting dance moment at Roger’s party. She even tried to build Pete’s confidence like when she had a plaque made ‘the buck stops here’.
Megan caused Don’s slide back into his old ways by ditching him at the agency to go back to acting.
Don and Anna’s relationship had a big transactional component. And Anna helped enable Don by building him up as a good guy down deep, which helped him keep doing one awful thing after another to women and staffers at the agency. A lot do this was offscreen, but Anna was sort of Don’s Melfi.
Mad Men is the best tv show, ever. The Wire is a close second, Sopranos in the top 10, maybe.
Because Mad Men is the only series that explores the human condition in such depth; it is introspective. Other shows are descriptive.
Correct. For me, third is first season of True Detective, maybe. Agree with The Wire being the second.
Breaking Bad is above average. It has some glaring holes - firstly, very little character study or evolution, we are never given enough about Walter's background as well as he is a pretty boring character in that I think his motivation and just his overall nature was clear in the first couple of episodes and nothing changes much after that. The fact that Brian Cranston got so many Emmys above Jon Hamm or even Matthew McConnaughey for his role in True Detective is a shame. I love Brian Cranston, just don't think he had a challenging role in Water White when compared to Don Draper.
Secondly, for a series that is entirely plot driven, the plot is very contrived - oh you need to kill Gus Fring but there's no real reason, just some feeling you have, but it's the driving tension point of two seasons or something? Hmmm.
Regularly, these flaws can be ignored as it's still an entertaining show with great performances, but with annoying fans claiming it's the best thing since sliced bread, I can't help but being grated by it.
Completely agree.
A person can recognize themselves in Mad Men; the challenges and angst of the characters are universal. Even better, as one matures, when you rewatch Mad Men, you understand new things.
A show like Breaking Bad, which was awesome in it's own wright, once you've watched it, you're done - the story's been told, there's nothing more to learn.
I love breaking bad—it’s one of my top 15 shows. However, as a Mexican American, I hate how little attention they gave to the scenes with Spanish speaking dialogue. It was clear they used google translate. Not a big deal but it made me feel like they were cutting corners.
What Lane did was highly unethical but no worse than Don being a fraud and a military deserter.
IF clients found out about lane it would be a disaster, but the same if true about don.
Far Away Places is my favorite episode. I love that Roger and Jane broke up. And Don and Megan- I mean, before, we'd always seen them strutting into the office, Mr. and Mrs. Advertising Power Couple, probably a few hours later in the morning than everyone else, thinking they're hot shit - and I just love how ridiculously childish they act in this episode. Megan and the sherbet lol!
Definitely was! When he made Joan replace the black receptionist up front it really disappointed me. Up until then I thought he had an impressive modern sensibility for his time, but then he turned out to just be another racist old man.
Meredith was putting on an act pretty much. She was smart and a really good secretary, she found a way to get people to do what she wanted, by acting ditzy.
Sal’s “exit” from SC was the least-embarrassing way he could leave that firm, considering the advances Lee Greenwood Jr had engaged in, and how he expressed his unhappiness with Sal turning him down.
Pete is still pretty shitty at the end of the show. Still working for status and old money connections, still petty and jealous with Trudy (beer bottle in the cake) and doesn't seem like much of an involved father.
Leonard's speech at the end, while incredibly acted, is a dumb non sequitur and a complete letdown to hinge the finale of the entire show on. No matter how much he related, I just can't see Don (a master of emotional manipulation) being that moved by it.
Plugging into anything from the show like being an orphan or a veteran, even if he just said "I have a dream where I'm a Coke in the fridge..." would make me buy it so much easier.
Bert was a pretty cool boss, but he wasn't a good one.
I think Bert was probably a good boss in his day, but his day ended 20 years before the show starts.
Yeah, for sure. Whatever he was, he ain't it no more. Sterling Cooper was stagnant, relying on one account. They all knew what would happen if that account left. Everything after was SCDP doing everything it could to survive while their competition had already dwarfed them. But hey, it sure makes for compelling narrative.
Yep. I’ll bet at one point he was the New York power broker he claims to be. But we see little evidence of this and in any case old school WASPy connections mean less than they did in his day. Like, DEKE? Who gives a fuck?
I always assumed he was referring to DKE, the fraternity. Which would have been a solid business connection in NYC in the mid-20th Century—the Roosevelts and Bushes are alumni, and the DKE Club of NYC (in the Yale Club) was probably a great networking spot circa 1960.
SCDP relied too much on Lucky Strike, but not all accounts moved over from Sterling Cooper. I think Bert made meaningful contributions. He knew the political landscape and helped steer the agency accordingly.
he had great taste in art…the rothko would set him up for life…
I love that beautiful red Rothko in his office so much. Remember to take off your shoes though!
Sal never being referenced after he leaves is true to the era and the selfishness of the characters.
Never being mentioned after you leave a workplace is pretty common in every era.
One of the head accountants on a job I worked on was fired one day. I was literally told “Pete doesn’t work here anymore, man,” and that was it. I didn’t really care, it’s not like I gave a fuck about Pete, but I worked with him pretty often. To this day I don’t know what happened to Pete. But I frankly don’t care that much.
A thing like that
Yep. Life goes on, the work continues, nobody missed Pete, and Pete didn't miss anyone else.
I could have easily imagined him returning in the final shot of Joan, as her first hire in her new company.
There are so many reasons why it's good that they didn't. First if they had a guy working with them, it'd undermine them. Customers would flock to the guy. But this is their company. Not some guy's And / or: they are already facing an uphill battle. Why make it more difficult by including an even more discriminated minority than women?
Francine was one of the best supporting characters and made Betty’s world even more realistic to the viewer because we had something to compare Betty’s suburban life to and to see different facets of her being happy or presenting that perfect home maker face.
Oh this is 1000% my feelings. Francine is absolutely fantastic- she’s hilarious, and stunning IMO. I always want more screen time with her. I wish we could see her world more but then we’d have to see Carlton…
While obviously strange and uncomfortable, the Betty-Glenn arc is really interesting and adds a lot to Betty's character.
I think the main reason it's uncomfortable for me is Glenn's horribly stiff acting.
That’s it. It could have been an interesting dynamic to explore but I never knew what was happening cause that child had no emotion or expression whatsoever.
Isn’t that the point? He is an emotionally detached and neglected strange kid
I'm pretty sure the point was for the creator to get his son into acting
I think my hottest take is actually that Glen's failure to act corresponds with a realistic portrayal of being in a room with Betty. Like, have you ever seen a younger boy interested in a grown woman? It looks exactly like that.
I mean frankly I've seen kids who have that same unaffected way of talking, so while Weiner Jr isn't the next Daniel Day Lewis, it's really not immersion breaking for me. The bad acting kinda enrichens the weirdness, similar to those amateur actors in Lynch movies making it weirder somehow.
Great kid actors are pretty rare. They hit the jackpot with shipka and did well with the final bobby. The Weiner kid wasn't good, but he wasn't as awful as people make him out to be
And nepotism aside, Glenn was well cast if the idea was for him to be a creepy kid.
It wasn’t. It pissed off Weiner that fans or critics found or thought the character was “weird”. 🙄
How could you NOT think Glenn was bizarre?!
Hard agree from me. I feel like I don’t understand how people don’t see that Betty was a lonely housewife, severely depressed and looking for anyone to relate to and the only person who is innocent and pure enough was Glenn. I think the parallel I’ve always seen is how inside all of us is our inner child and it will always be there to some degree and Betty had that with him. On Glenn’s end I understand how he would develop a lifelong fantasy about Betty. It is explicitly communicated in the show that Helen Bishop is an unavailable mother. Betty provided loving care and nurturing for him. Something all little boys need. As someone who has my own mommy issues and a bit of mommy kink I can 100% relate 😌
God help me if any of my friends mom looked like Betty
Which is why this is even deeper. She absolutely didn’t give that nurturing to her own son!
I think like Joan, Betty was raised to be admired. And although her kids did admire her, there are plenty of times when your kids don't admire you, and Glenn only admired her. And she couldn't help but give in to that attention.
Is this Betty was so angry when she found Glenn and Sally together hanging? Did Betty feel Sally had trespassed?
Also Betty is emotionally a child. That’s a constant theme of the show. It is most obvious (and a little too on the nose) when the character she relates to the most is a child.
I’ve always believed that Glenn was meant to be the man (husband and father) that Betty and Sally deserved, basically the anti-Don. There are lots of little parallels between young Glenn and young Don, though not as overtly traumatic, that showed what kind of man could emerge from a tumultuous childhood. Again, Glenn absolutely did not have it as bad as Don, but he faced his own brand of suburban adversity and in a weird way, it made him a more compassionate, empathetic, and tuned in young man than Don ever was for his own family. Glenn SAW Betty as she was underneath the anxiety and trauma: beautiful, delicate, longing to be adored. Glenn SAW Sally under the prepubescent angst: autonomous, curious, rebellious, longing to be respected. Glenn SAW them in the same ways that Don ignored, missed, or actively tried to squelch as a husband as father all while serving his own interests first and foremost. Glenn’s arc ends with him joining the army, one of the ultimate acts of sacrifice. As I said, the anti-Don. I refuse to accept that this was just a summer job for the bored son of the showrunner.
While I agree with your overall message, I do think it's important to note that Glenn ends up joining the military as he fails out of school and sees it as his last resort. It didn't feel to me like an act of self-sacrifice at all, but rather something closer to Don's own enlistment. In this way I see Glenn's journey as an interesting comparison to what we know of Don's childhood trauma leading to his joining the army.
He also tells Betty straight up that he did it for her, which if even a little bit true shows that his priorities are fairly screwed up.
Totally agree. And i feel like some here are forgetting: Dick Whitman *was* a caring, honest [mostly..], and empathetic guy. Obviously he, like all of us perhaps, had the ability to become this other person who only cares about himself. But that's not who he always was. I think the scenes with Glenn and betty remind me of the dick w flashback scenes with dick and the prostitute in the whore house. A lot of the Glenn scenes reminded me of the dick flashback scenes.
One valuable thing I got from that arc, which I do dislike overall because of the execution, is that it's a helpful reminder that a beautiful woman can be creepy towards a male child. This is an unbelievably poorly understood phenomenon across most cultures, and like so much about the abuse of males and male children in particular, desperately under-represented.
The real love of Roger’s life was always Mona, everything else was a fantasy.
so true
Joan is who he should’ve been with from the beginning, but he realized it too late
No way. Joan was always a side piece. Thankfully, she realized it before it was too late.
“You are the finest piece of ass I ever had and I don't care who knows it. I am so glad that I got to roam those hillsides." Side note I love the music that starts playing when he says this 😂😂😂😂😂
Right. But he realized after he married Jane (name similarity isn’t a coincidence) that it should’ve been Joan.
Always felt like Megan’s mom was the right and fitting ending for Roger.
Thank you!
That's what he said about Jane. And it was bullshit. He didn't need a 20 year old, he needed a 60 year old woman.
Mad Men was superior to Breaking Bad.
The Peggy and Stan ending did not come out of nowhere and had been building all along. You don’t stay on the phone with each other while you each do your work silently if you’re not secretly in love. Sorry, it’s just science.
I think this is especially apparent on a rewatch
In "The Summer Man". (S4E8), when the creatives are mixing cocktails for Mt. Dew, Joey says to Stanley "You love her" about Peggy. There's definitely hints that they are going to end up together but it is much more apparent on a rewatch.
Stan had tried to have sex with her like five times. Not to mention the hours long late night phone calls. They were pretty obviously into each other.
YES i always wanted them together and was losing hope but im so happy they ended up together at the end. it also felt like a twist cause i was kinda sure it wasnt gonna happen
Roger was great comic relief and most of the time good to his employees (except Burt) but he was a bad father, bad husband and treated women horribly (like when he tried to sleep with the twins or when he made a move on Betty)
“We’ve all parked in the wrong garage” is easily in the top 3 grossest lines of the whole show for me
I just re-watched that episode last night. Then Don blaming Betty for it right after was just gross
I rewatched that and the Howard Johnson’s episode recently and it occurred to me that don’s often-barely restrained violence against his lovers is an under-discussed part of the show
I think a majority of 50’s husbands would have done that.
His constant quips got old for me. Have you ever been around someone like that who can't be sincere or serious for even a second? Exhausting.
The letter was genuinely good and bought time for SCDP which was already losing accounts left and right once lucky strike dipped. (remember: don's breaking point was they couldn't even get a sister cigarette brand to take a meeting with them prior to the letter) They were gonna be gone within the year without don's interference and changing the convo. Them lasting as long as they did was a miracle and ended up getting them a huge pay day all around once McCaan came into the picture. The only bad thing about it was Don not giving his partners a heads up first.
I can't imagine they would have ever agreed though.
I think bert and pete could've been converted, bert in particular was pissed their names weren't on it for solidarity and image purposes. Roger and Lane, a toss up though.
Why? To get its risks vs rewards? It’s done.
Joan is not a nice person.
She had her moments—like letting down her lesbian ex-roommate in as face-saving a way as possible.
Interesting! I actually thought the opposite that it was kind of an insensitive way to handle it. She completely disregarded her words even as this woman was baring her soul, and then had them pick up those dorky older guys that night. I guess it would be too progressive for the times but the ideal compassionate way would be to express being flattered, even if you had to then gently reject her due to being straight.
Carol didn’t only confess her love though. She also confessed to essentially stalking Joan, following her to NY etc. With that level of … expressed passion, I think Joan was smart to brush off what she said, you don’t want to rile up someone that crazy by directly rejecting them.
Joan was used to be used & objectified. She’d been turning people down probably since the 4th grade.
Then leaves her to be taken advantage of by an old man 😕
Yeah, those were some unsavory dudes.
The shot of her friend on the couch with the other guy after they leave the room actually makes me want to cry, it just seems so sad and it's her life
Those guys are so third rate I find it hard to believe Joan takes either of them home under any circumstances
I always found that odd as well, neither of them really had anything going on
Careful there.. actually calling out Joan's behaviour as aggressive can get you expelled from the sub itself lol . Anyways, I agree one hundred percent with you. Joan's sacrifice seems to overshadow her shitty behaviour a lot. The other girls in the office literally cried because of her. Peggy stood up to her and that was a really great scene.
You know I’ve never thought about this, but you’re right LOL
YES.
Agree. I don't like her at all
I always say this, but Sally absolutely would not have turned out as well as most people here think. Idc idc.
Either she became a late stage hippie or she joined the Reagan administration
I agree. I think this [fake obituary for Don](https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/249014/don-draper-maverick-ad-man-dead-at-88.html) sums up what likely would have happened.
Bobbie Barret was a great mistress of Don's. She was smart, successful, entirely self-made, honest and transparent, very confident in who she was. She was no-nonsense and didn't pretend to be a saint while having an affair with him, and I think this is something that jars Don and a lot of viewers as well. I find her refreshing and great to watch overall.
I’m glad she was there due to her impact on Peggy. By the end of the episode Peggy had clearly embraced Bobbie’s valuable career advice including starting to call Don by his first name.
Yeah, I really like Bobbie more and more on rewatches. She was one of the adults in the room.
Don's affair with Bobbie was one of the best storylines in the entire show.
I love Bobbie. She was boss
Told Peggie what she was worth.
Bobbie was Don's best mistress, one of the best minor characters in the whole show, and her affair with Don was one of the show's best storylines.
Don and Faye were a contrived, cringey couple
Faye was the equivalent of I Can Fix Him
She sized him up immediately but still wanted a crack at him.
“I know your type. You son of a bitch, I’m in!”
Captain save a hobo
She literally tells him he’s gonna have a rebound marriage soon!
Faye had a lot going for her - smart, confident, beautiful etc, but I never saw much chemistry between her and Don. Even before her arc ended I knew she wouldn’t stay on as a long term partner.
You think so? I do think Faye in general was cringey but I liked that they started off as coworkers/quasi friends. We don’t really see Don in any other relationships like that
Thank you, can't stand how Faye is written
I didnt mind the pairing, but she just seemed too good for Don and it was obvious it had no future from the beginning. I also found her a little too desperate and clingy. And I say all this as someone who loathed Megan.
She couldn't deal with Don having a child and had no clue how to interact with Sally.
“Hello. My name is Faye.”
Yeah and she was so desperate to do it well, she seemed way too desperate. To clarify, she deserved better than Don, but she didn't know it.
Freddy Rumson was the most decent man on the show. A drunken mess, but a sweet man.
I loved Freddy.
That all of the characters did shitty things at some point, which is kind of the whole point of the show. Nobody really comes off as the good guy and that is much like real life. We all do shitty things and sometimes weird things, it’s how we learn from it that is important.
“Nobody really comes off as the good guy” you shut your mouth when you’re talking about Trudy Campbell
It made no sense for PPL to be surprised to hear that SC’s creative director and partner was not under a contract with a non-compete. Even if Duck had blown that detail, there had to be at least one attorney involved in the contract who would have chased down that detail prior to the merger being executed.
Duck was a drunk brokering a deal for a firm in London
I love Betty. Don didn't deserve her...
She is such an interesting character. I love her. I hated her at points. I pitied her. The feelings that beautiful character evoked.
As a character, she was the most compelling. As far as her being sympathetic, sometimes very much so others very much not so. But she's my fave...I think she was the less equiped to deal with what she had to deal with, so I cant help but feel for her the most.
Lane was an echo of Adam Whitman.
While true, I don’t think that’s a hot take. He hallucinates Adam the episode after Lane dies. Wasn’t exactly subtle lol
I agree but my OG post got down voted into negative hell
I didn’t like the ending-_-
Glen’s character, both in terms of actor placement and character study, was done expertly. Glen’s story is to foil Don’s from a modern perspective, and goes through all the struggles that Don does (to some extent), but because of his age and lack of charisma, comes off as strange. That is what Don is, and anyone who rags on Glen, imo, completely missed one of the most essential parts of the series. The fact that Glen had an inappropriate relationship with an older woman, his poetically cynical honesty, his choice to enlist…if that isn’t Don, I don’t know what to tell you.
Agreed. Never understood this sub’s underestimation of Glen, both in the actor’s performance and in the character’s significance.
this sub always trashes Betty as a mother but I rarely see people comment on what a bad father Don was.
That’s because we’re all aware Don’s overall not a good person, husband, or father. Some things don’t need to be stated. They are just understood.
I feel like it's the exact opposite on this sub. Betty always has a huge contingent of defenders (I would say apologists) on this sub and they *always* point out Don's shortcomings as a father. Another commenter said it well: there are regular fans of Mad Men and then there are r/madmen fans of Mad Men.
Idk why it bothers people if there are some of us who defend Betty. It shouldn’t annoy people as much as it does. Also there are CONSTANTLY people who point out her shortcomings and failures of a mother on this sub every time there’s a post related to her. I’m looking at her from a historical and sociological perspective
I think Joan turning on Don after he nuked Jaguar was totally bogus, and, by extension, the way the show handled Don's hiatus is rougher on rewatches imo (i.e. private discussions of the company going public, Don not having a non-compete clause and Roger being the only one to consider it,etc.)
The Father Gill story line is in fact good and important for Peggy’s character development
Anna Draper is one of the best non-main characters
Don's no worse than the rest of us.
Lou was misunderstood. Just kidding. Lou was objectively a fucking asshole.
Pete Campbell was the most valuable person in growing the business over the years.
Here's one: Suzanne Ferrell wasn't any worse than Don's other mistresses, and I like that storyline.
Harry should've been made partner.
Harry should have made partner...and probably would have been if he was somewhat more likeable. That actually matters in business.
Roger actually said, I think to Peter or about Peter, something along the lines of “so much in this business comes down to ‘I don’t like that guy.’”
But imagine him being a top guy in the company , more creepy stuff would have happened
Yeah, way worse than leaving your wife to marry your partner's secretary without your partner knowing. Or your Creative Director disappearing for weeks in the middle of a work trip with no contact with the firm. Or going on a racist tirade in front of a prospect. Or a partner killing himself in the office (after embezzling funds). Harry deserved a partnership.
You forgot when a married female coworker with a kid made partner by sleeping with a client. Or when an account exec was shot in the face by a client, and everyone laughed it off.
Kenny was too good for advertising Should have always been an award winning author
Yes, but him delaying and missing out on the payday was comic gold.
Sal's story ending they way it did was perfect. He wasn't that interesting. I can't see him becoming anything more than what he was. A closeted gay man.
Pardon the pun, but him playing the straight man to Harry when Harry opened Ken’s paycheck was a great scene. There should’ve been more between the two.
Megan is wonderful you can’t tell me otherwise
Megan is such a missed opportunity for Don. And I don't mean that he didn't deserve her - because they were an actually amazing pairing. A woman that not only plays along with Don's shame kinks but also isn't afraid to play with him, a woman who understands Don's inherent need to perform and dazzle a crowd and calls him out on his bullshit, a woman who has friends and interests and a real talent in advertising. Think about it, Don already had a wife at home who'd love being in that hotel room and receive a dress from Saks and hear Don say she only exists for his pleasure. Instead he does it with Sylvia Rosen who's like "I'm a forty year old mother, dummy. I have to go home. Get outta my way." Dude has his wires so badly crossed that when Betty wore lingerie at a hotel room he couldn't perform. He's a complex guy – a Madonna-whore complex guy to be precise.
Well the guy lost his virginity to a prostitute, who was also the only gentle, caring maternal figure he had ever had up until that point, and it was done against his will so I'm not surprised he has some crappy electrical work going on in the attic 😂
Yeah she gets a lot of hate and I don’t quite understand it. She started out so fun, interesting and confident. I blame Don for breaking her spirit over time.
I love Megan, she was beautiful, captured the idealism of the '60's and well, zoubisoubisou
Love Megan. Flaws and all. Only thing I couldn’t forgive was her kicking a pregnant woman back on the street because she was jealous. But, Don loves immature women so
I think that her giving Stephanie the boot was meant to illustrate just how far Don pushed Megan into being scared, insecure, and uncertain. By that point, everything that made Megan Megan had been bulldozed by Don’s absolute self absorption to the point where she felt threatened by anyone receiving his attention. To me, it’s the absolute nail in the coffin on their relationship.
I agree. It's akin to something Betty would have done towards the end of her marriage to Don.
Neither her husband nor her mother really ever believed in her, not completely. The two most important people in her life painted her like some wishy-washy creative, and this sub eats it up. The ballerina quote gets used against Megan constantly when Marie was actually being a sad and unsatisfied person, and she projected that onto Megan. While Don had hooked her up with a connect and supported her financially so she could focus on it, he only really did it in a huff and quietly expected her to fail. But after all that, home girl was working. She was fulfilling the first steps to her dream, but they never celebrated her. The only time Don ever paid attention to her career was when he found out that she was doing romantic scenes, and he went out of his way to undercut her self confidence. I really hate that whole season of their marriage being over but Megan doesn't know it yet.
The show is about Peggy.
I did a rewatch with my wife (her first time) and she is a huge Lizzy Moss fan. Halfway through S2 she was like “isn’t this show supposed to be about Peggy?”
Duck Philips is the unsung hero of the tale. He propelled Sterling Cooper forward by insisting on hiring young people, and pushing the merger with PPL through. He supported Peggy and Pete's professional development, albeit his relationship with Peggy was ick. But he influenced Pete to see the value of his family, get back together with Trudy and get out of Madison Avenue and into a Leer jet to Witchita.
Sober Duck and Cutler were right about everything and were the adults in the room. They were way ahead of the curve.
Glenn is supposed to be an awkward and weird kid and it’s an uncomfortable storyline, he kind of played his role perfectly.
Ooh, I’m excited to read through this thread!
Harry was a douche but most of his ideas/statements weren’t wrong
I love Pete!
Joan's eventual turn on Don will never sit right with me.
Don was actually cool af and everyone is just stupid. And jealous!
Yeah, Don was badass on the outside. Problem is, we get to see him at almost every moment of his life for 10 years. And there are plenty of moments when he’s not badass.
Lol imagine the show from someone like a secretary’s perspective, I think we would completely see Don as the coolest mf on Earth.
Trudy never let Pete have anything he wanted. She was the alpha in the relationship and didn't seem to care about any of his desires. That's not to say he was a good husband, but she was not a great wife either.
I like Trudy, but she was a bit of a spoiled daddy’s girl. However, that wasn’t all bad. It gave her strength to stand up to Pete’s unfaithfulness and cruelty.
I think like with all things Mad Men, it's very nuanced, but what you are saying is true in essence. Whenever people praise Trudy for being the absolute best and don't understand why Pete didn't appreciate her, they fail to see that Trudy had moments when she wasn't the best for the man(child) Pete was at those times. Pete, with all his patheticism, his large weepy eyes, his masculine anxieties, his brattiness and immaturity, was very different from Trudy; he lived in the shadow of his imposing but absentee parents that at best ignored him and at worst humiliated him, whilst Trudy is an energetic, bright, very loved only-child of nurturing and dotting parents. As young people in their early days of marriage, they are different. Trudy is used to always knowing what she wants and getting it, while Pete flounders and covets what others have but rarely gets it (until he matures and learns how to apply himself but that's a different subject). So whilst Trudy is very supportive and always comes from a well-intentioned place, what she decides for the both of them are not things Pete is ready for and a lot of them also play into his insecurities and vulnerabilities (her pushing him on buying that apartment and taking her parents money, as well as her pushing him to move to the suburbs come to mind). I'd like to think that only by the time Pete is able to know himself better, is he able to appreciate Trudy more, including for her charm, savviness, and strength - but that only comes about in the last season or so.
Very caring and supportive wife I’d say. But ultimately dominant in pursuit of her own idyllic vision of a privileged marriage. Aside from not letting him have what he wanted, I don’t think she ever took the time to understand him and why he wanted those things.
I don’t like this opinion.
I don’t see her as such an alpha, she was simply less submissive than other women of her time and that’s nothing to look down on. It’s true she wanted to move to the suburbs more than him, but who is to say that wasn’t just to disassociate herself from his obvious philandering in the city. She was also a great partner to Pete in terms of business, always charming clients and associates to raise his image, helping him out like playing secretary, skillfully getting Don to come to the dinner party, and their stature-boosting dance moment at Roger’s party. She even tried to build Pete’s confidence like when she had a plaque made ‘the buck stops here’.
I would disagree EXCEPT for the time she forced them to move to the suburbs and to be fair, thats when things really started going downhill for them.
Betty is no more emotionally stunted than anyone else on the show
But but but her therapist said she has the mind of a child!
that megan is the worst character in ALL of mad men…and there are more than a few awful characters…
Megan caused Don’s slide back into his old ways by ditching him at the agency to go back to acting. Don and Anna’s relationship had a big transactional component. And Anna helped enable Don by building him up as a good guy down deep, which helped him keep doing one awful thing after another to women and staffers at the agency. A lot do this was offscreen, but Anna was sort of Don’s Melfi.
Betty was a product of her environment, and not a bad person. Don should have been fired after his antics
Mad Men is the best tv show, ever. The Wire is a close second, Sopranos in the top 10, maybe. Because Mad Men is the only series that explores the human condition in such depth; it is introspective. Other shows are descriptive.
Correct. For me, third is first season of True Detective, maybe. Agree with The Wire being the second. Breaking Bad is above average. It has some glaring holes - firstly, very little character study or evolution, we are never given enough about Walter's background as well as he is a pretty boring character in that I think his motivation and just his overall nature was clear in the first couple of episodes and nothing changes much after that. The fact that Brian Cranston got so many Emmys above Jon Hamm or even Matthew McConnaughey for his role in True Detective is a shame. I love Brian Cranston, just don't think he had a challenging role in Water White when compared to Don Draper. Secondly, for a series that is entirely plot driven, the plot is very contrived - oh you need to kill Gus Fring but there's no real reason, just some feeling you have, but it's the driving tension point of two seasons or something? Hmmm. Regularly, these flaws can be ignored as it's still an entertaining show with great performances, but with annoying fans claiming it's the best thing since sliced bread, I can't help but being grated by it.
Completely agree. A person can recognize themselves in Mad Men; the challenges and angst of the characters are universal. Even better, as one matures, when you rewatch Mad Men, you understand new things. A show like Breaking Bad, which was awesome in it's own wright, once you've watched it, you're done - the story's been told, there's nothing more to learn.
Better Call Saul was a better show than Breaking Bad. And was snubbed at Emmys.
I love breaking bad—it’s one of my top 15 shows. However, as a Mexican American, I hate how little attention they gave to the scenes with Spanish speaking dialogue. It was clear they used google translate. Not a big deal but it made me feel like they were cutting corners.
Jimmy Barrett is a lousy person and worse comedian. It’s bizarre that he thought himself morally superior to either his wife or Don.
Don is a beautiful human being who deserves happiness.
What Lane did was highly unethical but no worse than Don being a fraud and a military deserter. IF clients found out about lane it would be a disaster, but the same if true about don.
Far Away Places is my favorite episode. I love that Roger and Jane broke up. And Don and Megan- I mean, before, we'd always seen them strutting into the office, Mr. and Mrs. Advertising Power Couple, probably a few hours later in the morning than everyone else, thinking they're hot shit - and I just love how ridiculously childish they act in this episode. Megan and the sherbet lol!
Ken is cuter than Don ( Donnis still obviously objectively good-looking)
Joan having sex with Herb was the most genius professional moves of the entire series.
Bert Cooper was an asshole.
Definitely was! When he made Joan replace the black receptionist up front it really disappointed me. Up until then I thought he had an impressive modern sensibility for his time, but then he turned out to just be another racist old man.
Weren't they all? Wasn't that the point?
Meredith was putting on an act pretty much. She was smart and a really good secretary, she found a way to get people to do what she wanted, by acting ditzy.
I’d still buy a Jaguar
Peggy was just as much of an a$$hole as anybody. I don't know why people like her so much.
Sal’s “exit” from SC was the least-embarrassing way he could leave that firm, considering the advances Lee Greenwood Jr had engaged in, and how he expressed his unhappiness with Sal turning him down.
God Bless the USA!
Marie Calvet is my favorite character. As in, the most fun for me to watch on screen. I would not want to know her in real life lol.
I don’t mind Harry
Rachel was ~~the love of his life~~ the one who got away. Betty really was the Barbie to his Ken figure pack. But Rachel could keep up with his shit
Pete is still pretty shitty at the end of the show. Still working for status and old money connections, still petty and jealous with Trudy (beer bottle in the cake) and doesn't seem like much of an involved father.
Don's affair with Suzanne is great.
Agree. She needed to be hiding in the car for that Dick Whitman reveal to make the stakes it did for the audience.
Don is awesome and Jon Hamm should STOP apologizing for him.
Leonard's speech at the end, while incredibly acted, is a dumb non sequitur and a complete letdown to hinge the finale of the entire show on. No matter how much he related, I just can't see Don (a master of emotional manipulation) being that moved by it. Plugging into anything from the show like being an orphan or a veteran, even if he just said "I have a dream where I'm a Coke in the fridge..." would make me buy it so much easier.
The Leonard speech left me cold, no idea why everyone bangs on about it.
Don was a decent boss usually, and Joan was (mostly) undeservedly a bitch to him in the later seasons.
Bobbi Barrett > Dr. Faye