Mad Men on AMC (6 Viewers)

[Premier]

My only opinion on it is that the show has avoided stuff like that, ie "I'm so busy that it wish I could talk on my phone in my car."

This felt a little too much like that. But, whatever. #### politics.

 

[corpcow]

Never thought I'd see the day where Sally actually looked better than Betty.

Megan looks hot until she smiles. Those choppers are scary.

I loved stoned Harry eating the bag of 20 mini-burgers. Don's disdain for him is great.

Dude! She is 12!

In fairness, I think that's more of a reflection on how repulsive Betty looks than anything else

 

[Sam Quentin]

For the record, the Republican Party and Mitt Romney both scare the #### out of me, and I enjoyed that Weiner took a little dig.But I didn't think jamny was making a big deal out of it. There's a difference between being unduly outraged and thinking it was dumb or unnecessary.

knowing that Weiner was probably taking a dig, took me out of the 1960s for a bit...

 

[Marvin]

It's just a shame that people can't put their over-the-top political feelings aside for just a few minutes and enjoy the show. Pretty sure Fox News is on 24/7 if you can't deal with it.

 

[Sam Quentin]

It's just a shame that people can't put their over-the-top political feelings aside for just a few minutes and enjoy when writing the show. Pretty sure Fox News MSNBC is on 24/7 if they can't deal with it.

FYP

 

[Marvin]

It's just a shame that people can't put their over-the-top political feelings aside for just a few minutes and enjoy when writing the show. Pretty sure Fox News MSNBC is on 24/7 if they can't deal with it.

FYP

IT WASN'T ABOUT MITT. Hypersensitive conservatives just read it that way.

 

[Good Posting Judge]

 

[jamny]

It's just a shame that people can't put their over-the-top political feelings aside for just a few minutes and enjoy when writing the show. Pretty sure Fox News MSNBC is on 24/7 if they can't deal with it.

FYP

IT WASN'T ABOUT MITT. Hypersensitive conservatives just read it that way.

C'mon. Be realistic.Do you think that line would be in the show if Mitt wasn't running for President?

 

[Marvin]

It's just a shame that people can't put their over-the-top political feelings aside for just a few minutes and enjoy when writing the show. Pretty sure Fox News MSNBC is on 24/7 if they can't deal with it.

FYP

IT WASN'T ABOUT MITT. Hypersensitive conservatives just read it that way.

C'mon. Be realistic.Do you think that line would be in the show if Mitt wasn't running for President?

Yes

 

[jamny]

It's just a shame that people can't put their over-the-top political feelings aside for just a few minutes and enjoy when writing the show. Pretty sure Fox News MSNBC is on 24/7 if they can't deal with it.

FYP

IT WASN'T ABOUT MITT. Hypersensitive conservatives just read it that way.

C'mon. Be realistic.Do you think that line would be in the show if Mitt wasn't running for President?

Yes

ok...end of discussion.

 

[corpcow]

It's just a shame that people can't put their over-the-top political feelings aside for just a few minutes and enjoy when writing the show. Pretty sure Fox News MSNBC is on 24/7 if they can't deal with it.

FYP

IT WASN'T ABOUT MITT. Hypersensitive conservatives just read it that way.

C'mon. Be realistic.Do you think that line would be in the show if Mitt wasn't running for President?

Yes

ok...end of discussion.

Jeez, you guys are ridiculous. Who the #### cares?

 

[Marvin]

It's just a shame that people can't put their over-the-top political feelings aside for just a few minutes and enjoy when writing the show. Pretty sure Fox News MSNBC is on 24/7 if they can't deal with it.

FYP

IT WASN'T ABOUT MITT. Hypersensitive conservatives just read it that way.

C'mon. Be realistic.Do you think that line would be in the show if Mitt wasn't running for President?

Yes

ok...end of discussion.

Jeez, you guys are ridiculous. Who the #### cares?

Exactly

 

[Marvin]

Very cool on-the-set photos.*

*Warning: Commie-Pinko propaganda ahead.

 

[badmojo1006]

Very cool on-the-set photos.*

*Warning: Commie-Pinko propaganda ahead.

I like the shot of all those white shirts

 

[Good Posting Judge]

Pssssst: Unless you're into Lifetime movies starring Kirk Cameron or Walker: Texas Ranger reruns*, chances are that the entertainment you are consuming was created or written by a liberal. Flaming, most likely. ACLU card-carriers.

It happened.

* - OK, you do have Johnny Ramone and David Mamet.

 

[Premier]

Stalker chick

 

[nittanylion]

!!!WTF!!!

 

[Christo]

Whoops, dream.

 

[Premier]

Man that was intense.

 

[badmojo1006]

"Joan plays the accordion"

 

[Premier]

I love how in Don's dream, he just kicks the dead woman under the bed.

 

[Abraham]

What did the note say? They had an awkward moment when Peggy threw away the beer bottles. What happened?

 

[badmojo1006]

I love how in Don's dream, he just kicks the dead woman under the bed.

But when did the dream began? Did Andrea ever come over?

 

[Wrighteous Ray]

What did the note say? They had an awkward moment when Peggy threw away the beer bottles. What happened?

The awkward moment was Peggy thinking whether she should leave her purse with the $400 in it in the room with Dawn.The note said "Thanks for the hospitality. Sorry to put you out." Something like that.

 

[Wrighteous Ray]

I love how in Don's dream, he just kicks the dead woman under the bed.

But when did the dream began? Did Andrea ever come over?

It was all a dream.**Don used to read Word Up magazine.

 

[Premier]

I've liked all the episodes so far, but I'm not sure where the season is going. There don't seem to be any major story arcs, or I'm just missing them. I guess they are building to Don marriage unhappiness and a power struggle between Pete and Roger...but I don't really know.

 

[Raider Nation]

That was one fantastic freakin hour of television. I need to soak that in some more.

 

[Marvin]

I love how in Don's dream, he just kicks the dead woman under the bed.

I'm pretty sure that was an allusion to the Richard Speck murders they kept mentioning during the episode. Speck stabbed or strangled his victims. Like they said in the show the only survivor hid under a bed.

 

[Raider Nation]

I love how in Don's dream, he just kicks the dead woman under the bed.

I'm pretty sure that was an allusion to the Richard Speck murders they kept mentioning during the episode. Speck stabbed or strangled his victims. Like they said in the show the only survivor hid under a bed.

Yep, good call. Some excellent pump fakes by the writers.When the vixen first came over, I thought it was real. When she came back the second time, I knew it was a dream after Don fell ill. Then when he killed her, I was ... it sure felt real.

But then I remember Megan saying she'd be home in a couple of hours.

 

[Marvin]

Whoops, dream.

Right when it was happening I thought "that's gotta be a dream". It reminded me of the "Funhouse" episode of The Sopranos where Tony has food-poisoning induced fever-dreams. I just had to look that EP up to see if Weiner had anything to do with it.

 

[Raider Nation]

Oh, Greg. Big doosh. HELLO Roger.

BTW, how come Joan and Roger know the baby is theirs due to the sex timeline, but jughead Greg didn't put it together?

 

[Marvin]

I love how in Don's dream, he just kicks the dead woman under the bed.

I'm pretty sure that was an allusion to the Richard Speck murders they kept mentioning during the episode. Speck stabbed or strangled his victims. Like they said in the show the only survivor hid under a bed.

Yep, good call. Some excellent pump fakes by the writers.When the vixen first came over, I thought it was real. When she came back the second time, I knew it was a dream after Don fell ill. Then when he killed her, I was ... it sure felt real.

But then I remember Megan saying she'd be home in a couple of hours.

I was cracking up when Henry's mom was talking about the murders and how a "handsome man" might knock on the door.Yeah not so much. Speck

 

[Marvin]

Oh, Greg. Big doosh. HELLO Roger.

BTW, how come Joan and Roger know the baby is theirs due to the sex timeline, but jughead Greg didn't put it together?

Greg is pretty damn dumb for a doctor.

 

[Raider Nation]

Oh wow, "Andrea" was played by Mädchen Amick. Still sexy as hell.

Much of "Mystery Date" takes place over a very long, very dark night for the staff of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and their loved ones, a night full of nightmares and self-realizations and even more horrifying imagery than last week's introduction of Fat Betty.In one of the opening scenes, Peggy, Stan and Michael are hanging around the SCDP creative lounge, Stan with a pair of nylons on his head as they work through a Topaz pitch. It's a gag, and a test of how transparent the stockings are supposed to be, but it's also a classic image of what a mugger or rapist might wear, and it segues nicely into the arrival of Peggy's pal Joyce with photos from the Richard Speck massacre in Chicago. "American Horror Story" did a riff on the Speck killings in one of its early episodes, and here "Mad Men" uses the event as a springboard for a series of nightmares, including a very literal one for Don and metaphorical ones for Joan and Peggy. (Sally refuses to sleep to avoid the nightmares, then takes a pill — what I fear will the first of many — to knock herself out.)When we met Don, he was a philanderer, though we didn't quite know it at first, as he spent several scenes in the "Mad Men" pilot with Midge before finally going home to Betty and the kids in Ossining at the episode's end. And as much as the show has demonized Betty over the years, it's never exactly let Don off the hook for his adultery. He didn't sleep with Midge, and Rachel, and Bobbi, and Joy, and Miss Farrell, etc. just because Betty was an unsatisfactory wife. He slept with them — and, as implied by Bobbi and spelled out by the appearance of Andrea (who, judging by the timeline, would've been on Don's radar shortly before the series began), many more women — because there's something very broken inside him. And Don knows this. He knows this and fears this part of him, even as he's convinced himself that things will be better this time — that Megan Calvet Draper is all the woman he will ever need for the rest of his life.And he has a literal fever dream in which Andrea somehow shows up at his apartment, then in his bedroom, until he can't resist both her charms and his own weakness. So he beds her and, when she warns him he'll keep making this mistake, he strangles her to death, then shoves her body under the bed. It's at once an inverse of the Speck massacre — a dead woman under a bed instead of a live one — a "Wizard of Oz" riff and the realization of Michael Ginsberg's take on the Cinderella fairytale (which also involved a woman in terror with one shoe off and one shoe on). And then Megan appears to him for real in the morning, bathed in a heavenly white light, the angel sent to rescue him from his own demons. But as much as Don insists she has nothing to worry about with him, is he really cured, or will those impulses pop up again in real-life circumstances?I'm curious when each of you figured out that Andrea's presence in the apartment was a dream. For me, it was the seduction scene, not just because it seemed far too long had passed for Megan to not be home, but because it seemed so blatantly a fantasy/nightmare come to life. And I'm glad it did, because the only way the strangulation scene would have been acceptable to me was with the understanding going in that it was a dream. Had the show not telegraphed that — or had I not figured it out — and Don woke up the next morning with no corpse on the floor, I'd have been irked. That's not a game "Mad Men" should be playing, and one that I'm assuming it wasn't.While Don was having a real nightmare and Sally was cowering in fear in Henry and Betty's haunted house (a place so creepy that even Paulina complains about the atmosphere), Joan and Peggy were being confronted with more abstract, but no less painful, fears.Peggy spends a late night working on a Mohawk pitch for Roger before being startled by a noise elsewhere in the office. Though bad things have happened in Peggy's workplace before — including an incident that's finally dealt with in the Joan story — neither the old office nor this one has ever felt like a particularly scary place. But as Peggy moves through the dark, empty space, it suddenly feels like she's the heroine in a horror movie (or the Cinderella of Michael's pitch) before she opens the door to Don's office and discovers the sound was only Dawn, crashing on her boss' couch because there's a certain point in the evening after which it's difficult for her to get home to Harlem in such precarious, discriminatory times. And Peggy, full of confidence, cash and a lot of liquor from her earlier dealings with Roger, decides to invite Dawn into her home, and to extend her aura of awesomeness by bonding with her latest successor and offering shelter to SCDP's pioneering black employee. But she's so drunk and focused on her own career arc that Dawn never really gets comfortable in the conversation, and then there's the horrible, inescapable moment when Peggy realizes she's left her purse out in the living room, and that she's not quite as liberal and relaxed around black people as she thought — and, most importantly of all, that Dawn saw all of this instantly, and Peggy has no way to take it back. Moments earlier, she was trying, tentatively, to compare her situation to Dawn's, and in that glance that lasted only seconds but surely felt to Peggy like an eternity, she realized she had become another insider silently judging the new outsider. It's not a terrible crime — it's not even a Roger Sterling-level joke — but it's Peggy, like Don, being confronted with a weakness she doesn't want to admit that she has.Because of Speck, there's much discussion of people appearing at doors, and what they might do. The man who crosses Joan's threshold should, in theory, be fulfilling a dream for her. It's her husband, back from Vietnam for a long-awaited leave, with less than two months to go before he's back for good. But we know Greg's more nightmare villain than daydream hero. We know that he raped Joan on the floor of Don's office. We know that he's an insecure bully, whom Joan married less out of love than out of expectations. We know that they've tried to make it work, and there have been moments where it has worked a little, but that ultimately he's the pretty face she settled for. But he's hers, and she's counting on him to be home soon and make her life make sense again — to not only help out with the baby (or as much as the average dad in 1966 helped), but to help push away thoughts of Kevin's real father — and instead it turns out he's volunteered to stay in Vietnam even longer than required.As he admits to Joan — right after violently grabbing her wrist, in a reminder that when Greg Harris feels insecure around his woman, he's not afraid to exert some physical strength to put her in her place — he's a very important man in Vietnam, as opposed to the schmuck whose career in New York evaporated. And to Joan's credit (and my relief), she finally sees that insecurity, and this selfish decision, and this marriage, for the absurd shams that they all are, and she gets the strength to kick him out of her life, hopefully forever. (And the fact that Greg doesn't even bother to look in at the baby he's been told is his son before walking out doesn't speak highly of his investment in the overall family unit.)When the morning comes, it seems everyone's emerging from their nightmare, and perhaps none more than Joan. Don's bad dream only lasts a night, where Joan is escaping a nightmare she's been living for years, even if she couldn't admit it to herself before now. So while Don is left feeling uncertain about his wandering eye, Peggy is consumed with guilt over the split-second moment with Dawn, and Sally curls up under the couch like the one survivor of the Speck massacre, relying on Seconal to keep her asleep, Joan lies on her bed next to her son and her mother, wide awake and lost in thought but not necessarily unhappy. This isn't the life she planned for, and it's one that will require many adjustments, but at least the bad man won't be crossing her doorstep again for a very long time, if ever.Some other thoughts:* Loved the arrival of the accordion player during the tense dinner with Greg's parents, calling back to a similarly awkward moment involving Greg, Joan and an accordion back in season 3.* Mädchen Amick, who played Andrea, has always had a bit of a retro look to her, so she slid very easily into the 1966 fashions and hairstyle. * It gets overshadowed by the bit with the purse, but interesting to hear Peggy admit she's not sure she has it in her to act like a man all the time for the sake of her career. Meanwhile, we see that Michael Ginsberg already has started to move in on Peggy's niche as the SCDP writer who understands women. Overall, I thought this was a much better episode for Michael, and for Ben Feldman, than last week. He's still twitchy and weird and unable to read social cues (if this show was set in 2012, there would've already been discussion of Asperger's), but not nearly as broad and Woody Allen-lite as last week. And I did laugh at him responding to Ken's suggestion that he was just almost fired with a quick, "I don't think you're right about that."* Last week, I asked for more of Roger and Peggy together. Tonight, I got it, and it was even more marvelous than the last time. It's again a mark of Roger's falling status and Peggy's rising star and confidence that she's able to hustle 400 bucks out of a name partner (and how many times this season are we going to see Roger empty out his money clip to solve a problem with Pete?), and I could've watched her enjoy the power position and count her new money all night. * In kicking Greg out, Joan brings up the rape, and it's interesting to contrast how hot her anger justifiably burns over that to Paulina turning the memory of her father violently abusing her into a teaching moment to be passed down through the generations.* Also note the huge generation gap between Paulina and Sally, with Paulina expecting Sally to already be prepping to be an adult. When Paulina was Sally's age, the concept of a teenager as a separate life stage in between childhood and adulthood was many, many decades away.

 

[Premier]

Oh, Greg. Big doosh. HELLO Roger.

BTW, how come Joan and Roger know the baby is theirs due to the sex timeline, but jughead Greg didn't put it together?

Greg is pretty damn dumb for a doctor.

I assume this kicks the door wide open for Roger to leave his whore wife and get together with Joan? Or will she do the strong single woman thing?

 

[Ted Lange as your Bartender]

Oh, Greg. Big doosh. HELLO Roger.

BTW, how come Joan and Roger know the baby is theirs due to the sex timeline, but jughead Greg didn't put it together?

Greg is pretty damn dumb for a doctor.

I assume this kicks the door wide open for Roger to leave his whore wife and get together with Joan? Or will she do the strong single woman thing?

Any chance Don and Joan (drunkenly or otherwise) get together before the season ends? Or would that piss off too many viewers?

 

[Good Posting Judge]

Oh, Greg. Big doosh. HELLO Roger.

BTW, how come Joan and Roger know the baby is theirs due to the sex timeline, but jughead Greg didn't put it together?

Greg is pretty damn dumb for a doctor.

I assume this kicks the door wide open for Roger to leave his whore wife and get together with Joan? Or will she do the strong single woman thing?

Any chance Don and Joan (drunkenly or otherwise) get together before the season ends? Or would that piss off too many viewers?

Doubtful.

 

[Apple Jack]

I love how in Don's dream, he just kicks the dead woman under the bed.

I'm pretty sure that was an allusion to the Richard Speck murders they kept mentioning during the episode. Speck stabbed or strangled his victims. Like they said in the show the only survivor hid under a bed.

Yep, good call. Some excellent pump fakes by the writers.When the vixen first came over, I thought it was real. When she came back the second time, I knew it was a dream after Don fell ill. Then when he killed her, I was ... it sure felt real.

But then I remember Megan saying she'd be home in a couple of hours.

Putting her under the bed was the wise thing to do until you figure out what to do, when the wifey could come home at any minute.And no way Don and Joan hook up. Don just essentially killed a chick for tempting him. Granted, it was a dream, but it gives you an idea of where his head is. This is his first honest relationship and he seems to be all in.

Joan and Roger? I don't think she would do it. She could find another sugar daddy pretty easily.

Nice going by Henry's mother to let Sally catch wind of these murders and then turn her on to pills.

 

[jwb]

I've liked all the episodes so far, but I'm not sure where the season is going. There don't seem to be any major story arcs, or I'm just missing them. I guess they are building to Don marriage unhappiness and a power struggle between Pete and Roger...but I don't really know.

This show doesn't really need a major story arc.

 

[Raider Nation]

Nice going by Henry's mother to let Sally catch wind of these murders and then turn her on to pills.

I think I see where this is going. Sally gets hooked. Glen's got the good stuff on the seedy part of town.Sally starts turning tricks for pain meds.

 

[Apple Juice]

I've liked all the episodes so far, but I'm not sure where the season is going. There don't seem to be any major story arcs, or I'm just missing them. I guess they are building to Don marriage unhappiness and a power struggle between Pete and Roger...but I don't really know.

This show doesn't really need a major story arc.

This is a show about moments, themes and characters. Character arcs tower above story arcs in importance. If I had a complaint about last season, and I don't, it would be some of the twists thrown in to stir things up, like Roger banging Joan on a street or Don swiftly marrying Megan. The writing and execution is so masterful that things like that don't sway my love for the show, but my favorite moments come when Don lobs questions at a teenager at a Stones concert, goes back and forth with Peggy and some cocky wannabe-Don, grumbles at Betty on the phone or smirks with Roger.

The show doesn't need to squeeze in big resolutions, cliffhangers and uniting story arcs each season like Breaking Bad, each one a sum on it's own. Instead it piles up the little moments until vague shapes take form. It's fascinating to watch, to figure out what it looks like or how it's going to change. Mad Men doesn't grab you and shake you, it just shifts slightly and lets you admire it from a distance, and most importantly ponder what it's trying to say.

 

[Wrighteous Ray]

This show doesn't really need a major story arc.

This is a show about moments, themes and characters. Character arcs tower above story arcs in importance. If I had a complaint about last season, and I don't, it would be some of the twists thrown in to stir things up, like Roger banging Joan on a street or Don swiftly marrying Megan. The writing and execution is so masterful that things like that don't sway my love for the show, but my favorite moments come when Don lobs questions at a teenager at a Stones concert, goes back and forth with Peggy and some cocky wannabe-Don, grumbles at Betty on the phone or smirks with Roger.

The show doesn't need to squeeze in big resolutions, cliffhangers and uniting story arcs each season like Breaking Bad, each one a sum on it's own. Instead it piles up the little moments until vague shapes take form. It's fascinating to watch, to figure out what it looks like or how it's going to change. Mad Men doesn't grab you and shake you, it just shifts slightly and lets you admire it from a distance, and most importantly ponder what it's trying to say.

The show could probably use a few more office lawn mower accidents, though.

 

[zamboni]

I love the way Don abuses the younger subordinate guys in the office.

Like to Ginsberg when he was rehearsing the pitch: “I just wanted to hear the tone of your voice so I can make sure it's not as annoying as it is in every day life.”

 

[jamny]

I love the way Don abuses the younger subordinate guys in the office. Like to Ginsberg when he was rehearsing the pitch: “I just wanted to hear the tone of your voice so I can make sure it's not as annoying as it is in every day life.”

Or when he said at the bar "Everything I say from here on just attach an 'or else' to it"

 

[ericttspikes]

My wife wasn't into the show the first 4 seasons so I've been watching the old ones with her during the week and catching the new season together on Sunday. The writing just doesn't compare this year. I know Matthew Weiner was involved in some sort of contract squabble, as this season moves along I wonder if they put some of these in the can without him? Don't know, but season 5 is a pale comparison of the first 4 so far. Even the dialog isn't as crisp or smart.

"Mystery Date" was one of my least favorites yet, it just meandered all around trying to find a common plot thread with the Speck murders but it fell flat. I don't think there was one sympathetic character in this episode, not that there has to be any I suppose. Even Joan didn't exactly take the moral high ground being upset at her husband leaving her and Rogers kid, come on. Still one of the best shows on TV, but not hitting it's stride compared to the previous seasons so far.

They've done episodes like these before, when the ad biz takes a back seat to the characters lives, but I think this show shines best when they explore the creativity and thinking behind the campaigns and the interactions with the clients. Roger and Don being burned out and on their downward slide doesn't help the mood of the show either.

 

[zamboni]

I love the way Don abuses the younger subordinate guys in the office. Like to Ginsberg when he was rehearsing the pitch: “I just wanted to hear the tone of your voice so I can make sure it's not as annoying as it is in every day life.”

Or when he said at the bar "Everything I say from here on just attach an 'or else' to it"

One can certainly see more head-butting between Don and Ginsberg as they develop the Ginsberg character.Don seems to see the creative spark in Ginsberg that he himself may not possess as much anymore.

 

[Apple Juice]

I love the way Don abuses the younger subordinate guys in the office. Like to Ginsberg when he was rehearsing the pitch: “I just wanted to hear the tone of your voice so I can make sure it's not as annoying as it is in every day life.”

Or when he said at the bar "Everything I say from here on just attach an 'or else' to it"

One can certainly see more head-butting between Don and Ginsberg as they develop the Ginsberg character.Don seems to see the creative spark in Ginsberg that he himself may not possess as much anymore.

I think the back-and-forth between Don and Ginsberg has a LOT of potential. Kind of surprised by the griping so far. Ginsberg's impassioned speech to sway the Heinz guys was exactly like Don when he was on his game, and even though it aggravated him I think Don recognized it. That's why Ginsberg told Ken Don wasn't even close to firing him. He probably feels like Don respects what he did, and he might be right, even if Don isn't that interested in his work lately.

 

[Apple Juice]

My wife wasn't into the show the first 4 seasons so I've been watching the old ones with her during the week and catching the new season together on Sunday. The writing just doesn't compare this year. I know Matthew Weiner was involved in some sort of contract squabble, as this season moves along I wonder if they put some of these in the can without him? Don't know, but season 5 is a pale comparison of the first 4 so far. Even the dialog isn't as crisp or smart."Mystery Date" was one of my least favorites yet, it just meandered all around trying to find a common plot thread with the Speck murders but it fell flat. I don't think there was one sympathetic character in this episode, not that there has to be any I suppose. Even Joan didn't exactly take the moral high ground being upset at her husband leaving her and Rogers kid, come on. Still one of the best shows on TV, but not hitting it's stride compared to the previous seasons so far.They've done episodes like these before, when the ad biz takes a back seat to the characters lives, but I think this show shines best when they explore the creativity and thinking behind the campaigns and the interactions with the clients. Roger and Don being burned out and on their downward slide doesn't help the mood of the show either.

Strongly disagree that the writing has fallen off. That woman Betty was talking to who has cancer, her description of what it feels like it was magnificent. Peggy's scene with the new secretary at her place was terrific. I think the writing is still pitch-perfect. There just isn't a lot of drama or intensity yet.

 

[Apple Jack]

I love the way Don abuses the younger subordinate guys in the office. Like to Ginsberg when he was rehearsing the pitch: “I just wanted to hear the tone of your voice so I can make sure it's not as annoying as it is in every day life.”

Or when he said at the bar "Everything I say from here on just attach an 'or else' to it"

One can certainly see more head-butting between Don and Ginsberg as they develop the Ginsberg character.Don seems to see the creative spark in Ginsberg that he himself may not possess as much anymore.

I think the back-and-forth between Don and Ginsberg has a LOT of potential. Kind of surprised by the griping so far. Ginsberg's impassioned speech to sway the Heinz guys was exactly like Don when he was on his game, and even though it aggravated him I think Don recognized it. That's why Ginsberg told Ken Don wasn't even close to firing him. He probably feels like Don respects what he did, and he might be right, even if Don isn't that interested in his work lately.

When Ginsberg said that, I audibly said "yep." Although, I think Cosgrove was right, too. Don isn't above firing somebody in the heat of the moment if they annoyed him enough.And I agree whole-heartedly about the writing this season. And I'm pretty sure Weiner has written or cowritten every episode so far.

 

[ericttspikes]

My wife wasn't into the show the first 4 seasons so I've been watching the old ones with her during the week and catching the new season together on Sunday. The writing just doesn't compare this year. I know Matthew Weiner was involved in some sort of contract squabble, as this season moves along I wonder if they put some of these in the can without him? Don't know, but season 5 is a pale comparison of the first 4 so far. Even the dialog isn't as crisp or smart."Mystery Date" was one of my least favorites yet, it just meandered all around trying to find a common plot thread with the Speck murders but it fell flat. I don't think there was one sympathetic character in this episode, not that there has to be any I suppose. Even Joan didn't exactly take the moral high ground being upset at her husband leaving her and Rogers kid, come on. Still one of the best shows on TV, but not hitting it's stride compared to the previous seasons so far.They've done episodes like these before, when the ad biz takes a back seat to the characters lives, but I think this show shines best when they explore the creativity and thinking behind the campaigns and the interactions with the clients. Roger and Don being burned out and on their downward slide doesn't help the mood of the show either.

Strongly disagree that the writing has fallen off. That woman Betty was talking to who has cancer, her description of what it feels like it was magnificent. Peggy's scene with the new secretary at her place was terrific. I think the writing is still pitch-perfect. There just isn't a lot of drama or intensity yet.

Maybe it's just the downward arc of the characters that bothers me. A lot of death, sadness and fear with little in the way of redemption, joy or progress. Having re-watched season 2's "Crisis Management" recently, nothing from this season has compared. "Mystery Date" seemed to follow the same "ripped from the headlines" storyline with little payoff. In "Crisis Management" the characters stories intertwined perfectly with the uncertainty and fear of the Cuban missile crisis, their individual and collective lives reflecting the precarious time. Fearful, yet still moving forward as the world seemingly is collapsing around them. There just doesn't seem to be that optimism that was always underneath the struggle.Don's character just turned 40 and he is burnt out, seemingly a has been? William Bernbach won "Man of the Year of Advertising" in his mid 50's. Maybe Don never had it? Maybe he will turn it around. I know I'll be rooting for him to.