So, for the next few days, I'm gonna inflict my impressions of season one of 'Madmen', AMC's offering to the increasingly crowded 'Prestige Series' T.V. Shows that's coming up on the cable channels. Mainly 'cause I just gots me the DVD of Season one, and repeated watchings of it by me have convinced me that it's now a solid 'A' in my book. So there.
Episode 1: -"Smoke gets in your Eyes"
- I think the scene with Don asking the black waiter his opinion on cigarettes is vital as it: shows Don actually listens to people and doesn't care about their social status in regards to their opinion.
-Don pulling 'It's Toasted' out of his ass at the Lucky Strikes meeting, then ripping a strip off Pete Campbell for blatantly stealing the research material Don had rejected earlier.
- Joan's (Christina Hendricks) ass in that dress! Sweet Merciful Jesus!
- the casual Antisemitism of Roger and Don. ("Any Jews in the office?" "Not on my watch!")
-reference to Freud with the German (female) psychologist. The 'death wish'
-the ads in the background show that Sterling Cooper is a very traditional company. The ads are safe and boring. Compare and contrast with the upcoming VW ads.
-Peggy's interaction with the doctor- He's judgmental, condescending towards her getting birth control.
-Joan showing Peggy around Sterling Cooper. The characters all tear her appearance apart.
-The giddy excitement the junior ad execs have to Pete's 'Bachelor Party', and the actual, boring party at the strip club. (A flabby woman does the most unerotic striptease in the background, while the ad execs try to convince themselves they're having a great time. Campbell lamely tries to flirt with a secretary, with awkward results.)
-I love Sal's line at the strip club, and the Automat girl's confused reaction.
-Rachel's smooth negotiation of the awkward meeting with Sterling Cooper. Sparks fly between Rachel and Don. "I'm not gonna let a woman talk to me like this!" Rachel and Don make a connection over the dinner later. I suspect because they both feel like interlopers into the American Dream. (Rachel is Jewish, and a woman, and Don is well, Don.) She disarms him with her comment about his fear, and that's what sparks his attraction to her...
-the constant coughing during the Lucky Strike meeting.
-We see when Don pulls the Lucky Strike meeting out of its dive to pitch the 'It's toasted' line, that this is really him. Don's success as an ad man comes from taking himself into the ad. This has deeper meaning at the last show, when he pitches the Kodak product.
-Don's treatment of Peggy shows that he is a man of his time. He has a code, and he sticks to it. he doesn't poo where he eats.
-Pete's initial character unfolds. A smarmy, unctuous little weasel who makes no bones about wanting Draper's job. Draper smacks him down, twice. "Let's take it slow. I don't want to end up pregnant in the morning.." Pete mutters, "Fuck you." under his breath. Pete clumsily seduces Peggy near the episode's end.
-the show's end reveals that Don is married and has a beautiful wife and two kids at home. We see Don's been interacting with a mistress, a secretary, and a client all this time. He's got a family, as well? What a cad...
Ep. 2- "Ladies Room"
-Don and Betty have dinner with Roger Sterling and his wife. Betty's hands stop working.
-Peggy's troubles with the men at the office.
-After a minor accident with her kids, Betty starts seeing the shrink, much to Don's dismay.
"We're all so lucky to be here."
-Don's mistress and how she helps him with the aerosol campaign-accidentally...
The central theme of this season, which hits home like a hammer in the final show, is nostalgia. However, it's for a nostalgia that never existed in the first place. I think everyone in this series has a yearning for something else.
Ep. 3 -"Marriage of Figaro"
Don meets an old army buddy-calls him 'Dick Whitman'? Don's look of disgust says it all.
-Doyle-Brumberg's VW ad has the office in a state of grudging respect-Roger and Dan get defensive-the landscape is changing.
-Pete comes back from his honeymoon-he's like a kid playing grown up. You can tell by the stilted language he's using to describe it to the other ad execs.
-the dead wife joke before the meeting with Rachel-she's on the ball, the ad guys aren't. Another misogynist joke during the kid's party.
-Don hangs out with Rachel at her store-a seduction begins-is Rachel seducing Don, or vice versa? the dolphin cuff links, a leitmotif.
-"Am I supposed to live some life running alongside yours?" -Rachel.
-Don's daughter's birthday party-the divorced neighbor gets henpecked behind her back, one of the neighbors slaps a kid(not his) for running and breaking something in the house, kid's dad makes kid apologize to the neighbor. Don goes through a six pack in an hour putting his daughter's playhouse together, gulps down alcoholic punch like it's, well, punch. Pregnant neighbor smokes, drinks alcoholic punch.
-Don gives Divorced woman's kid a BB gun to play with. The Divorced Neighbor coolly rebuffs a man's advances. Later she makes a connection (non-flirtatious) with Don. Don goes to get the cake, doesn't return for a while. sits in car by train tracks, contemplating his life. comes back with puppy for daughter.
Ep. 4. "New Amsterdam"
-the junior ad execs listen to Bob Newhart in Pete's office. Pete's wife takes him to lunch, and by lunch I mean takes him to look at apartments in Manhattan. Pete's protesting that he can't afford it falls on deaf ears.
-Rachel and Don meet again. Rachel rebuffs Don.
Betty meets D.W. ex husband. The divorcees' need for a last minute babysitter puts Betty in the position of looking after her weird son. He watches her pee in the toilet, then asks for a lock of her hair. Betty's so desperate for a connection, she gives him the hair he wants.
-Pete and Don hit loggerheads over the Bethlehem Steel contract. Don suspects Pete unsold the client on the original idea.
-Pete's interactions with his parents and his wife's parents show just how emasculated he is in his life.
-Pete's attempt to assert himself by pitching copy to the Bethlelem Steel client behind Don's back gets him fired from Sterling Cooper. A conference with Bert Cooper reveals that Pete's family, though not as rich as they were, has a certain cachet for Sterling Cooper. Which saves his job. (I suspect Pete is aware of this on some level, and the fact that his family name and not his work saved his job only adds to the resentment Pete feels...)
-God, I love that cigarette dispenser in Roger's office.
-Pete and his wife's family meet the co-op board. It's obvious they're getting the apartment on the cachet of Pete's family name, much to Pete's chagrin, again. The episode ends with Ella Fitzgerald's "We'll take Manhattan" playing ironically over the credits.
What started to happen here is when my interest in Mad Men really started to grow. Initially, Don's character piqued my interest. Then, as the series progressed, we start to see our initial impressions of the characters, even the secondary ones, start to change. Peggy sleeps with Pete probably because she wants to be a sophisticated working gal in Manhattan, and gettin' boned by ad execs, well, that's just something sophisticated Manhattan gals just do. (We see she's taking Joan's advice to heart in more ways than one.)
This episode is also where I started to empathize with Pete. He's under pressure on all fronts to live up to his family name. You get the impression, given his father's disproving take on his career choice, and his wife's desire to have both a Manhattan apartment and a baby, that being a slimy little weasel is the only choice he has in life.
Ep. 5 "5G"
Don and Betty come back from an awards ceremony; Don's award is a horseshoe on a plaque, mounted prongs up so the luck doesn't run out. Hungover the next morning, Don heads to the bathroom and slams the door. The horseshoe comes loose, and the prongs point down.
-Ad exec Ken gets a short story published in the Atlantic Monthly, inspiring resentment among the other execs, including Pete.
-Peggy overhears Don's conversation with Midge, his mistress.
-scene with Don and Midge making pillow talk abruptly switches to Pete in bed with his wife while she reads his short story. (He's like a little kid, eating snacks in bed.) Pete tries to get his wife to use her connection of an ex-boyfriend in the publishing industry to get his story published.
-Peggy drops a bomb from Don's past during a meeting. We see his past in a meeting with his younger brother, Adam Whitman. The scenes with his brother are painful. Don's face is in agony for the rest of the morning. This revelation about Don's hidden past, in a lesser series, would become an engine driving tension in the series.
-Peggy reveals her confusion to Joan when Betty and the kids show up for a photo portrait
-Pete's wife gets him published in "Boy's life", an act that greatly disappoints him. It's his wife's way of keeping him in line...
-"Adam, my life goes in only one direction: forward." Don's final scene with his brother shows us how lost he really is. He tries to pay off Adam to stay out of the life of Don Draper, an act that has lethal consequences...
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