Mad Men - Season 4 - Page 3

I'm thinking that it was a coincidence, unless Don knew what she looked like before hand or requested a shapely red head.

Sure would like something horrible to happen to Betty.

like getting knocked up again..ha

It is amazing how enjoyable this show is when there really isn't one likable character. At least not ones you like for positive reasons.

My bet is that she's a regular he's using. She mentioned talking about the family.

good point.

Yeah, Anna Camp looked just like flashback January Jones. In real life, they are only about 4 years age different. Don's apartment was just right-- a workspace and lady friend space. I know Harry Crane has just lucked into his position, as it was a new field, but Rich Sommer's wardrobe kept cracking me up. He seemed so out of place, which makes me wonder if we see a story line about it. Echoing sentiments from above, I think Sally is the character to watch. She and Betty are having a competition and it should be fireworks. I like Henry Francis's sister (or was it mother)'s comment after Thanksgiving about the children being afraid of Betty.

Don finally realized he is in full control of this place, and SCDP is what he makes it: that was nice ending.

I approve of Peggy's new hairdo.

Same here, I'm enjoying the evolution of the 60's

Solid episode for a season starter. I thought it was very self-contained and didn't seem to leave a whole lot of specific loose ends that will be continued through the season. It was interesting to see Draper mostly frustrated through the whole episode, whether by getting denied in the cab or screwing up the ad magazine interview.

I do as well. But I have a question. Every time I see an interview with Elizabeth Moss, she isn't quite as full in the face as she is in the show. Do they give her a facial appliance for the bit extra flesh under her jaw? It isn't much, but I noticed the hair, and continued looking at her face.

Feel free to call me crazy on this one.

Loved it. Plenty of reviews are making a lot of noise over the lack of the classic Don Draper magic with the ladies. But I loved the fact that he got shot down by one young, naive (but smart) lady and smacked around by a hooker. Makes total sense to me, and it builds into the question asked with the first line. "Who is Don Draper?" I don't think even he knows and he just continues to find out. I doubt he knew he liked to get slapped around before. Is it self-loathing, or remnants Betty standing up for herself, not afraid of him?

I think Don's something of a contradiction. Without the lie that the life with Betty forces him to continue, he can't pretend to have any sense of "truth." So of course he can't really answer anything to the reporter in the beginning of the episode. (By the way, love that he's talking to someone who was actually injured in Korea...quite the contrast, as he himself is someone who just lied his way out of the conflict and just kept right on lying, while that guy put himself int he position of seeking the truth as a reporter). The only time he's comfortable is when he's selling, including selling himself, whether it's the projection of who Don Draper is to Betty or to projection of a sincere and trapped suburban man to one of his former lovers. Without either, he can't have either.

And on top of all that, he now has the stigma of being labeled as a divorced man, something of a failure, which also connects with his business. Despite being independent, he's now seen for what he is. But what is he? Nothing more than a story, which is how the episode ends, fake detail about the second floor included. The fact that there is no second floor is a great detail. Don doesn't have a second floor either. He has nowhere else to go or hide. Until he figures it out, what we see is what we get.

Great episode. It's a shame that one of the most interesting characters (Betty) is the character most isolated from all other plotlines.

Really? The only thing that would interest me is the daughter finally slugging her for being such a vindictive bitch.

Betty isn't perfect or anything, but I think it's weird how much people hate her.

Yeah, she acts like such a child. That whole scene in the hallway played out more like two sisters instead of mother \ daughter. Plus when Don asked to see his daughter and she just shrugged, that was pretty fucked up.

I'm curious to see how her knowing the secret about Don is going to play into the power struggle of her moving out of the house, or if it comes into play at all.

Didn't Barrett tie him to the bed when they were together? I think Don's kinky side has always been there.

Tremendous episode. It seems that with Don now becoming the face of his agency, that the Dick Whitman lie will be revealed to the world this year.

Weird, but, I'm sure you'll agree, unsurprising. We see the same thing with Skylar. Did Carmela get this much shit while Sopranos aired?

Yeah, there's a lot of people with hateboners for Betty. Particularly dudes, which is strange.

I'm divided on Mad Men.

I adore everything to do with the office but could completely skip 80% of the domestic drama, which resembles a John Updike novel stretched over 4 seasons. For some folks that's a plus, but the whole suburban ennui thing has never been my bag. This became a real problem for me, as opposed to an annoyance, in the midst of Season 3.

That said, the last few eps of S3 were terrific, and starting a new company is exactly the narrative shot in the arm that the show needs. Very much looking forward to watching the premiere this week.

I could see that being a problem for someone if the show wasn't smart about how it deals with it's characters or it's setting. The writing and acting elevates it past a level of "American Beauty" type bullshit. Someone wrote about last night's episode continuing the tradition of the show dealing with the tension of transition. That's what I think it nails perfectly about the suburban life. It's not just the suburbs, it's a particular time, a particular place and a particular feeling. It's basically my preferred version of Revolutionary Road (a huge influence for the series). The Mendes movie version can fuck itself.

People always tell me that if they could pick one decade to live in, they'd pick the 60's. I think they're nuts and only looking at the positives, not the insanity, not the transition that quite literally was pulling the country (not to mention the identities of it's citizens) apart.

I don't believe that Don was completely shot down by the young lady, yes, he did not get to sleep with her but she does want to see him again. With his past flings, Don has had his marriage as a bit of security blanket, in a way it's what defined him as a man. He knows that the attraction to the other women is purely sexual and nothing else can become of it. Now that he's divorced and on his own, he does not have that to fall back on and his old tricks will not work. When it comes to who is "Don", does he want a relationship with another woman? or does he just want to fuck around? Right now I don't believe that he even knows what he wants. It's like how this episode ended, the old Don attitude and personality won't work at the new agency, so he has to re-invinte himself in order to bring in new clients. Which in a way could be a metaphor for what he must do if he wants to explore any new relationships.

unless it's with the hooker.

I completely appreciate this, but Don and Betty's marital problems just stopped being interesting to me on any level in S3. This has little to do with the quality of the show and everything to do with what I personally find compelling (i.e.: I'm not saying that the Draper homelife isn't well-written/acted, just that it kind of bores me). That said, I agree about the show's facility with nailing a particular time, place and tone. That's what I enjoy most about it. I just enjoy it much more when we're at the office, far from the Draper household.

I can understand and agree with this. I absolutely never cheated on my ex, but I'm not going to lie - it was way easier to talk to women when I was in a relationship because I felt like I had nothing to lose. Now it's like "Wait, what the hell happened? I used to be awesome at this!"

It's a confidence thing. You know someone wants you, so you think there could be others like that. When you are single, and specially if you haven't dated in a while, it gets trickier.

I can't see Don lacking any confidence though. At least not for a long time.

Betty is an annoying, whiny, childish, cold, self centered and nasty bitch.

I wouldn't compare her to Skylar from BB at all. Skylar has the capacity to be a bitch, sure.. but she's a strong woman in a complex situation and forced to make difficult decisions and deal with the consequences. She's a layered character and she feels more real, but not exactly "fragile". She's proactive, while Betty is more or less reactive.

Betty NEEDS a man in her life and can't stand on her own. She's incapable of true warmth as a human being, and she's not exactly what I could consider "bright" either.

Perhaps my opinions are tainted by the fact that I've dated a couple of women who were very similar in temperament to Betty Draper and it was a complete misery that even mind-blowing sex couldn't overshadow. Women like that make you want to go gay or at least scoop out your brain through your ear canal just for a moment of peace. I'm willing to bet that many of the other people with so-called "hate boners" for Betty have also dated or spent considerable time around somebody like her.

Fuck Betty, I hope Sally stabs her in the throat with a steak knife

Yeah, I didn't see that as Don getting shot down. I saw <dates name> as a little more savy and aware of the one night stand tricks. She was interested in a catch, not a fling. She turned him down for the one night stand, not for Thanksgiving and when he said he had plans... she left open the possibility for a New Years date.

That smiley at the end is unsettling.

You're aware, I think, that Betty's character serves in part to sum up a whole repressed generation of women, and that Betty's need for a man in her life stems, in large part, from having had that need stamped into her by an older generation that broadly and vehemently believed that to be true? That, in fact, Betty Draper's own personal story is a tragedy, and one that's only partially of her own making? Cause and effect and all that?

I just got done saying that I find the Draper homelife stuff to be fairly boring overall, but I'll amend that to say that I find Betty's character strikingly sympathetic on occasion. Anyone who hates her but not Don (who is the definition of "reactive") might want to ask themselves why that is.

Yeah, exactly. I talk to a lot of people who say, "I hate what they've done to her character, I wish she was like she was in season one." That chills me to the bone. Again, she's not perfect, but who is? Don certainly isn't! Betty is figuring out who she is right along with Don, and to be frank, she's doing a better fucking job of it. By the end of season three, she knew she didn't want to be with him; a man who was basically a fraud and treated his marriage as such. Her character is on a journey and if you look at how naive she used to be compared to what she is now, she's come along way. That she's still somewhat a victim of her circumstances and environment makes her character all the stronger and more interesting. Don has it easier than her, don't forget.

We're starting the fourth season and we still have people not getting major characters?

Anyway, that was a nice start. Especially the continuing deconstruction of the 'Don Draper' persona.

Betty was boring as shit in the first season. People really want her to go back to that? Wow.

I agree completely. She is pretty much what people expected her to be. And though she is vain and sometimes spiteful, she has had to endure a lot being married to Don Draper. As far as being a sympathetic character, her subplot last season where she briefly returned to modeling and then was fired was very affecting.

Betty is just a drag as a character. That's the best way I can think of to put how I feel about her into words. Who wants to watch someone pout and complain all of the time? Even when she's doing something for herself the results aren't particularly satisfying. The problem is she's a cold character, but unlike Don she's not fun.

Isn't this pretty much what Don was doing throughout last night's episode? Also, Betty fucked her husband in a car, came in drunk with her new husband. She's clearly pretty happy, if not a little worried about her new in-laws. She's not pouting and complaining all the time, but this is still how people perceive her. Which again, I maintain is pretty fucking weird.

Extremely.

That she's vain and spiteful ought to come as no surprise - she's been kept a child through adulthood. And now she's stuck in the amber of the cultural moment between women-as-property and women-as-people. As a function of the history of that time (and the dark tones of the show as a whole), she'll likely never free herself from that cultural freeze. She's too old to be swept up in liberation, too young to really believe/find solace in the conservative ideals she's always known.

This is exactly why I find her character compelling and tragic in her own way, even if she isn't very likeable.

Precisely. Way more well-said than I could manage.

That's going to make her relationship with Sally all the more interesting/combative/tragic. Sally is going to find her place in the changing world sooner or later, while Betty may not ever.

I am kind of Bummed that this show is starting back up AFTER LBJ's election. I would have liked some advertising storyline with Goldwater and how these characters would have reacted to the passage of the Civil Rights Bill.

The agency will be forced to get ONE freaking Black employee in 1965.

Of course. Grandpa Gene foreshadowed that last season.

The end of this episode was so rock 'n roll. Don reinventing himself (to mesh with the "times") is obviously gonna be a theme this season. He's gotta be the bigger-than-life "celebrity" in his business now, and I wonder how that plays in his personal life.

-His date was very attracted to Don (he didn't strike out), but she did not want to be a one night stand.

-Don has obviously seen this particular hooker before. She knew his fetishes.


Great premiere.

The date clearly dug Don, and I think the fact that she didn't succumb to his advances turned him on all the more. She will be back, perhaps as a legitimate love interest.

Definitely seems to be what they're setting up, and I don't think it's a coincidence that she resembles Betty, at least superficially. Don's affairs have generally been women unlike Betty. Independent, modern, and earthy (and dark-haired, if that means anything) - basically, the type of women who will occasionally tell Don he's full of shit. The hooker is in this tradition.

But it's interesting that his date looks like January Jones and affects Betty-like qualities (even to the point that her career involves her looking pretty, standing around holding a glass), but she's seemingly a little more cautious in her dealings with Don. Maybe this will push him out of the madonna/whore thing he's been doing. Or maybe her caution is just old-fashioned sexual conservatism, which would make her even more of a Betty 2.0.

It's not a matter of not understanding the character, it's a matter of not giving a shit about them.

Speaking of rock n roll, how long before we get an inevitable Beatlemania reference, I wonder? I think Sally is a John fan.

I thought the date was supposed to point out how much has changed with Don's love life. He's not "in control" during the date. It set up what the scene with the prostitute drove home. I hope there's not more to it but I suppose that the way the scene in the cab ends suggests otherwise.