Mad Men - Season 4 - Page 2

Nice. It gets way, way, way better. Also, you're probably going to love The Wheel.

My Wife and I plowed through season 3 this past week. We were beside ourselves with the lawnmower. Fucking classic.

Hope Kinsey joins the crew, since he's my favorite secondary character. And of course hoping for a sal comeback.

Sal is toast.

Yup, no Sal. It's pretty much final.

Watching Hamm cameo in a movie I watched recently upped my enthusiasm again. Damn, that is a cool motherfucker. Especially when he's playing an asshole.

Or when he's playing hook hands on 30 Rock. The dude has range. Also looking forward to The Town.

Not sure if a Spoiler Alert is necessary in a season 4 thread. But yeah, that.

Me and the wife just finished Season 3 (Breaking Bad had temporary priority). My reaction is: "AHHHHHHBLAGRGGAGAMOREMORE". The best was when we both realized at the same time that they needed Joan to come back (!) and lay-down the organizational beatdown.

Is it just me or were the last couple episodes (especially the last) ridiculously cathartic? I mean, first in the Kennedy assassination episode we finally have the Betty/Don's past confrontation - and Don completely breaks down. The scene where he's trying to light a cigarette in the kitchen, and drops it on the floor, was absolutely jaw-dropping. Seeing super-suave Don lose control, and eventually cryingly confess to Betty was such a great emotional payoff.

And then in the last episode we not only get to see Take-Action-Don, but we get to hear Don say basically all the right things to all the right people (except Sal of course...). And the palpable excitement about starting a new company? ARGH, new season now please!

Ken is back?

It worries me profoundly that this might be the season they kill Cooper off.

fuck come on hurryhurryhurry

Not surprising. I'm betting we'll get some follow-through on him and Kinsey, even if they're not brought on board at the new agency.

In regards to the question about what the time leap will be, I read the brief, one sentence descriptions of the first three episodes which might give some hints.

Blacked out to protect the innocent: The agency is referred to as "the new agency" in the first episode description, and the second episode takes place on Christmas.

Draw your own conclusions!

Fake Edit: BLARR want now!

I've been using that ideas line since before it was cool. I blame my English teacher. Good read!

Did the writer's expressly say Sal is gone for good? If so, I called that shit in the last season's thread. This show does seem to have a lot of Soprano's in it's blood, in that it's very willing to depart with characters without much melodrama or sense of outright closure. I respect that, because it's jarring and I for one like jarring drama.

I also can't imagine them really bringing in a black member of the firm and having it work out (in the universe of the show). I remember when last season ended that a lot of people were saying the show ought to open up the diversity of its cast, but that seems like it might a little false. The characters of this show are upperclass white people. Obviously the timeline means their going to deal with civil rights (as they've already shown), but I can't see Don or Roger really embracing the movement full on.

It would be kind of like having Tony Soprano bring a black guy into his crew. Both shows deal with insulated worlds going through dramatic upheavels, but neither of which are so open minded as to drop their prejudices.*

*(Not saying more color would be detrimental to the show, just that it doesn't seem like the route they'd go, given the themes).

I wonder if we'll see a lot more of Carla in the Betty Draper household.

Bryan Batt is in a couple of the commentaries in the Season 3 set, and he didn't come off as someone who was leaving the show. I think Sal being back is something that they're keeping a secret.

I get what you're saying, and I agree, but between the insistence that Sal was gone for good, the imminent Civil Rights era, and the fact that the new firm was sorely strapped for resources, I thought it would be the interesting sort of move they'd make. Even if it ended as shittily as Sal's storyline, a black character navigating the politics of that firm would have offered a lot of opportunities for insights into that decade.

Sure, and it could very well work. I'd just assume (and hope) that if so it would be done in a smart, unconventional way as a natural part of the story, and not something done just for the sake of diversity.

I know they're quite processed but these pictures kind of blow my mind. Nice interview, too.

Okay, so I'm finally sitting down to watch the first season. Any thoughts? I stuck with Battlestar and it ended up being amazing for me, but is this show more of a slow burn?

Yeah, it is a very slow burn at times. When things do come to a head though it's satisfying like few other shows on TV. And when Wiener decides to throw the audience a crowd-pleasing bone, then oh man. Besides that, the acting, writing and general ambiance are good enough to keep you interested during even the slowest of plot developments. Normally for a show, I'd say that if you're not into it half way through the season you shouldn't bother anymore. But for this I'd suggest you keep it up a little longer.

I disagree mostly. Breaking Bad can be a slow burn. Mad Men? Nah. It only really feels slow during Betty's scenes when her storyline becomes more prominent in the second season.

Mad Men is not an incident filled, plot heavy show.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/ar...er=rss&emc=rss

Shit, changes indeed.
A year later.
And a marriage i wasn't expecting.

Link has some news on how the show opens regarding the status on our characters!

Damn...this show is not messing around one bit.

I wish you didn't have to sign up to post a comment. I'd like to tell the author that it's Pryce, not Bryce.

im sure a few dozen have already brought it to their attention.

Are those spoilers real spoilery?

I would say so. Just wait till next week when the show airs.

I'll have to wait till the DVD is released...I don't watch shows weekly.

holyshit holyshit holyshit ohhhmygod

Yeah, normally I go blackout for this show, but I couldn't resist reading that article. Want now plz.

Let me also gripe that AMC's schedule for re-airing the third season is utterly shit. They showed it onDemand months ago, but would phase episodes out so that all of them were never on there at the same time. Now they're reairing them, but their re-air schedule is fucked. I've got four episodes left to catch up on, and they're only airing three of those four (11, 12, and 13). Come ooooon "The Color Blue," come ooooon.

I didn't have the patience to wait like that--I had to rent the season box set from my local video store right when it hit.

I kept hoping that I'd be able to buy the season three box set, but it just didn't happen this spring and summer.

I re-watched the finale tonight and all of the season 3 episodes were available on demand.

Not on Time Warner in New York they're not!

Just caught up. I hope Kinsey's still on the show. The guy's a terrific actor. Sal I've made my peace with. Cosgrove, I can take or leave.

Guess New York isn't all it's cracked up to be after all! (OH SNAP)!

Did anyone read the interview with Lizzy Moss from the AV club? It was pretty good and worth the read.

Sunday SUNDAY Sunday! If you're not watching you better be dead, or in jail. And if you're in jail....BREAK OUT!

That is probably my most oft used Simpsons quote.

I'm actually kind of excited that this will be my first time watching the show as it airs. I have never been able to be part of the Chud conversation about it.

It's weird, but far and away the character journey I most anticipate this season, is Sally Draper. She's always been great, but I think this is gonna be the season for Kiernan Shipka. Genius child actor.

Being caught between her parents this season has so much story potential.

I rewatched the whole series in anticipation and I've seen the season 3 finale an unmentionable number of times since then. Can it be Sunday night now?

Incidentally, nearly every single complaint ever had about the series disappears on rewatch.

I missed this show. Roger was on point tonight.

It's good to have the show back... Roger was great.

I like the date Don had... she kinda reminds me of a more innocent January Jones from season one. I can see that being a reoccuring character.

Overall I liked it, nothing out of the park but a good corner stone for a solid season.

When Don got back and no one was home I though to myself that Henry and Betty just packed up and moved leaving Don with the kids.

I thought that exact same thing! They've trained us well because I thought for sure they were dead in the garage.

I also like that the freak flag is flying... it was also interesting that the guy that every woman was after since the show started has to have a prostitute and has a hard time getting a date, presumably. Is it that he is against dating because he still loves his wife.. or is the stigma of "divorced" crimping his style? Dying to find out the answer to that question as the season rolls on.

As much as I knew there was no way they would do that, it was in the back of my mind as well. Funny... and probably a totally intentional tease.

Great point about Don's desk, Phil. I didn't catch it.

"Everybody thinks this is temporal" was the line of the night.

And was i the only one geeking out about the new office every time we got to see something new of it ?


Also, probably just in my head. But anyone else thinks the prostitute had a resemblance to Joan? Something that's possibly not a coincidence ?