150 replies to this topic

[stephanie familiar]

re: season 5, episode 5

1. oh pete, pete, pete. just when you were starting to redeem yourself
2. lane challenging pete to a duel was hilarious. "you're a grimy little pimp!"
3. the end was my favourite of the season thus far, and paired with the song playing during the credits, gave me chills

[Nicholas Taggart]

[Sanjay]

The Pete vs Lane fight was one of Mad Men's funniest moments - I loved Rogers reaction to it and Cooper's punchline to the scene.

John Slattery's directing was well geared toward the humour, which there was lots of this episode - he's getting experimental with the edits (the cut between Roger and Lane both opening a door) and nice touch including the dripping tap echoing in the end as Pete sits in class looking at the young lovers.

Also, they included England winning the World Cup! (the last time they did that )

And I'm glad Ken kept on writing his pulpy sci-fi stories. (I'd love to see a Mad Man equivalent of an up-and-coming Marvel Comics from the 60s)

[Henry Blanco]

And I'm glad Ken kept on writing his pulpy sci-fi stories.

I always thought Kinsey was the SF fan.

[Sanjay]

I figured Kinsey would be writing pretentious 'worthy' stories with ham-fisted allegories.

[Jim Ohara]

(I'd love to see a Mad Man equivalent of an up-and-coming Marvel Comics from the 60s)

I'd love to see that. You'd think at the very least they could get some sort of TV movie out of it. A Stan biography would be great, but I guess these types of things need conflict and drama to make them work and maybe people aren't interested in exposing some of Stan's shadier history (or blowing things out of proportion to get viewers) until he passes away.

[Sanjay]

In some ways Stan is as enigmatic as Don Draper was.

Plus they'd be the underdogs with their finger on the (then) button against the big unfashionable company of DC. With characters like Stan, Jack, Steve Ditko, Steranko, Wally Wood etc - it would be fascinating.

Or they could hurry up and get Kavalier & Clay made!

[Nicholas Taggart]

Sounded to me like Ken was writing a more realistic, John Cheever-y type story about how unhappy Pete is rather than another sci fi story




I guess he has a few nom de plumes.

[Sanjay]

I'm waiting for Ren Mosgrove the slash-fic writer!

[Henry Blanco]

Did they even have slashfic before the internet? You know, the time when people would write something that would only be read in public after an examination of its grammatical merit and a determination of its sale value based on the contemporary market?

[Paul F]

The cast of Mad Men go bowling:

[Nicholas Taggart]

Wild episode this week.


The scene between Peggy and Ginsburg was really sad. I was very affected by it. I just got the connection to the title of the episode (Far Away Places) now.

[stephanie familiar]

Spoiler

i thought that it was a weak episode, compared to others. they spent too much time on the LSD scenes, and i don't think they were well done. that said, perhaps the end result leaves things open so that joan and roger can end up together, though i think he's a weasel and don't want to see him end up with her.

don scares the crap out of me. i fully expected him to strangulate his wife after he chased her around the apartment.

[Jake]

Spoiler

i thought that it was a weak episode, compared to others. they spent too much time on the LSD scenes, and i don't think they were well done. that said, perhaps the end result leaves things open so that joan and roger can end up together, though i think he's a weasel and don't want to see him end up with her.

don scares the crap out of me. i fully expected him to strangulate his wife after he chased her around the apartment.

I think the newest episode was the weakest I remember in the series. I like what they were trying to do, but there were some odd shooting and editing choices that just left me cold. The three threads were pretty good, though, and were obviously setting up the three characters for where they're going. I'm glad Bert finally got in Don's ass about his behavior so far this season, though.

[jleal]

I disagree.To me, this was a brilliant episode and it took them about 5 years to lay the foundations so they could pull it off. The time jumping, the LSD scenes, the oddly silent, almost noir-ish scenes in which Don searched for Megan felt like the creators were taking a chance.
And Bert's final sentence was a perfect way to end the episode.
At this point I would love to see some more creative episodes, as Whedon did with the musical ep of Buffy and so forth. There's been a part of me that would love to see a modern age episode. Same character, backstories, etc, just told through a post 9/11 gaze. Or a black and white ep. Or a silent ep. A musical ep would be golden, too.

[stephanie familiar]

At this point I would love to see some more creative episodes, as Whedon did with the musical ep of Buffy and so forth... A musical ep would be golden, too.

ugh, go away!

[Noel L]

I thought this episode was brilliant. The risks were worth taking and it made for a much more interesting, less soap opera-ish episode, which was very refreshing. More a short movie than another Day of Our Lives. Have no idea what it is like, but I loved the LSD scenes. Bert's final statement was right, but I'd ask him the very same question.

[Sanjay]

I quite dug this episode.

I liked the split stories with each of them dealing with their own drug and how conflicts their inner and outer selves  (weed/LSD/new love - Bert Cooper even points this out to Don at the end). Interesting to see Don, the unreconstructed man, deal with how different Betty and Megan are - with the shit that they'll both take and accept with him.  Megan is so much more self aware than Betty (who lives in her own fantasy) she even points out the reality of new love to Don, with her line about it diminishing a little it everytime they fight.

The movement of time within each story worked really well for me, for example - the disorienting jumps between cuts.  And I'm quite liking the addition of Ginsberg, I really am curious to see his homelife with his Dad more - especially after that conversation he had with Peggy at the end.

[Nicholas Taggart]

Add me to the crowd who liked the episode. I thought it was great.

I really enjoyed the narrative structure of it. I feel like the show has started to reflect the more experimental aspects of cinema that were happening at the time, which fits with what seems to be the theme of the season that everything is changing to something that a lot of the characters can't relate to anymore. I thought that theme was very well expressed in the scene with the bean guy who related to what Peggy was pitching but just couldn't imagine that young people could possibly feel the same way about things as he does.

[stephanie familiar]

i thought matthew weiner was all about unwavering authenticity? why did he get julia ormond (who i at first thought was juliette binoche, as they look exactly the same to me) to play a french canadian? are there no french canadian actresses aside from jessica pare?

anyways, solid episode.