"Mad Men" on AMC (US) - (Spoilers Within)

[Fading Fast]

I agree with all of your points. While I used to like Peggy, even she is paling for me now. She's becoming too much like Don, even if she will never admit it.

I've seen some women commenting on Facebook and other places that Don is still hot and sexy, no matter what he does. Uh, I disagree completely. The whole control game he played with Silvia made me loathe him, and I was going to really hate Silvia if she kept going along with it. I'm surprised she went along with it as long as she did, especially considering she has no problem telling off her husband.

It's funny, it was that episode and the control "game," where my girlfriend lost all interest in Don. Even as a guy, I found it creepy.

 

[Worf]

I agree with all of your points. While I used to like Peggy, even she is paling for me now. She's becoming too much like Don, even if she will never admit it.

I've seen some women commenting on Facebook and other places that Don is still hot and sexy, no matter what he does. Uh, I disagree completely. The whole control game he played with Silvia made me loathe him, and I was going to really hate Silvia if she kept going along with it. I'm surprised she went along with it as long as she did, especially considering she has no problem telling off her husband.

I don't find that surprising... The whole "Dom/Sub" by-play was the hottest thing on that show since Zube Zo. I expected it to be polorizing but I found it sexy as hell. There's nothing wrong with a little role play when kept in perspective between consenting adults and damn if she wasn't consenting... at first. Remember its just entertainment, not a love note to the Marquis De Sade.

Worf

 

[AmateisGal]

I don't find that surprising... The whole "Dom/Sub" by-play was the hottest thing on that show since Zube Zo. I expected it to be polorizing but I found it sexy as hell. There's nothing wrong with a little role play when kept in perspective between consenting adults and damn if she wasn't consenting... at first. Remember its just entertainment, not a love note to the Marquis De Sade.

Worf

While that is true (consenting adults, role play, etc.), I saw it more in the context of him reliving some aspects he saw of his childhood, i.e. growing up in the house of prostitutes. I've also read a couple of different theories on why he did this: 1)Don was teaching Silvia a lesson after he heard the argument between her and her husband, and showing her that the man is in control or 2) he wanted to push Silvia into breaking off the relationship because his possible mistress might become a problem if she left her husband. It would threaten his own marriage.

Either way, as a woman, I didn't find it alluring at all - just creepy. I think to begin with, it was kind of fun, but when he told her to get on her hands and knees and get his shoes, I literally wanted to throw something at the screen. That was too much for me personally.

 

[Lily Powers]

While that is true (consenting adults, role play, etc.), I saw it more in the context of him reliving some aspects he saw of his childhood, i.e. growing up in the house of prostitutes. I've also read a couple of different theories on why he did this: 1)Don was teaching Silvia a lesson after he heard the argument between her and her husband, and showing her that the man is in control or 2) he wanted to push Silvia into breaking off the relationship because his possible mistress might become a problem if she left her husband. It would threaten his own marriage.

Either way, as a woman, I didn't find it alluring at all - just creepy. I think to begin with, it was kind of fun, but when he told her to get on her hands and knees and get his shoes, I literally wanted to throw something at the screen. That was too much for me personally.

I saw it more as Don realizing that with the merger, his control, power and king-of-the-hill status was dwindling. He was totally hooked when Sylvia (whose role in "Freaks and Geeks" I can't get out of my head, no matter what she's doing to or with Don) said "no one buy you will do." He thought he'd feel secure if he could control Sylvia - crawl on your hands and knees, get undressed, wait in bed...

Creepy characters or not, I'm really intrigued with where this season will go as it leads into next season's series finale.

 

[Young fogey]

Drugs and psychologizing in the most recent episode. Flashback: why Don's a sociopath. Don's losing it and it almost hurt his kids.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

This episode was strange, too much filler for me. I felt the last two episodes were mostly just dragging on. The only major thing to pull from it, I thought, was that Don is derailing and is gonna crash in a hurry.

 

[flat-top]

I was on the edge of my seat for this entire episode; not knowing what any of them might do next, especially Don, was quite suspenseful.

 

[Young fogey]

It was fairly obvious from a few episodes back that Don's first sex would be with Amée the prostitute. The suspense with the burglar reminded me of my first favorite show set in the golden era, 'Crime Story'.

This is the worst I've seen Don; right after the divorce was second. I dig Sylvia too (yes, the affair is reprehensible, but sexual attraction is usually like that; nice guys like Arnie finish last) but hey, this is or was the Don. Guess he really fell for her. But hanging around outside her back door like a loser stalker? Come on! Not the Don I knew. The drugs worked for the story line, if it was a little pretentious in its effect. It exaggerated Don's derailing. The dodgy doctor seems based on Dr Feelgood, I forget his real name, who served President Kennedy.

Bet that crazy stuff at the office really happened then. Madison Avenue was insane. Great soap-opera material.

Again, the control scene last week didn't turn me on. What strikes me is it does turn on a lot of women, which is why they watch. There are lots of Sylvias. Beta affection, flowers and poetry, doesn't work on them.

My guess is the show is ultimately about Don the anti-hero's coming unglued (another casualty of the Sixties?), which explains the theme of the opening credits, and will wrap up next year (Matthew Weiner's said next season will be the last and he's written the ending) with him losing everything (Megan, kids, even the job he's gifted at) but finding some kind of redemption so the audience isn't completely let down.

 

[AmateisGal]

Good episode. Strange, but good. The longest elevator ride ever, though! I had to laugh at Betty - "Do you know Henry's running for office?"

 

[Bruce Wayne]

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/culture/mad-men-season-6-episode-8?src=spr_FBPAGE&spr_id=1456_8853345

 

[Bruce Wayne]

 

[AmateisGal]

lol lol lol

That was awesome!

 

[AmateisGal]

I have to admit that I'd rather the writers quit trying to be so "experimental" with Mad Men. Some of these episodes are hard to follow and just too "out there." Just give me a good story with characters that I care about and you'll be doing your job.

 

[Kirk H.]

I have to admit that I'd rather the writers quit trying to be so "experimental" with Mad Men. Some of these episodes are hard to follow and just too "out there." Just give me a good story with characters that I care about and you'll be doing your job.

I am with you on that. Last nights episode had me going what the heck.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

It was very hard to follow. I watched the encore presentation, too, and still was having a hard time with it.

I have to admit that I'd rather the writers quit trying to be so "experimental" with Mad Men. Some of these episodes are hard to follow and just too "out there." Just give me a good story with characters that I care about and you'll be doing your job.

 

[tonyb]

If the writers were aiming for CREEPY, they succeeded.

Just thinking about it leaves me wanting to take a shower.

 

[Worf]

When I was the ONLY teatotaller in college and the Army, many a weekend was spent witnessing similar spectacles in real time. Trying to keep folks who are "highdy high" from killing themselves... or each other... or some innocent civilian is hard effin' work. I hadn't thought about my time doing "weekend round up" duty in decades until I saw that episode... it's like trying to corral cats on cocaine. I wound up smiling in the end... I must admit though that the idea of "Mammy the Maid Turned Cat Burgler" was absolutely hysterical. Don's daughter's sharp though she did just what she was supposed to do... called the Po Po.

Worf

 

[The Good]

If the writers were aiming for CREEPY, they succeeded.

Just thinking about it leaves me wanting to take a shower.

They certainly did. Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (or what it is now) is full of creeps.

Bet that crazy stuff at the office really happened then. Madison Avenue was insane. Great soap-opera material.

Did advertising agency employees in New York do drugs nearly as much as the show portrays in the late '60s? How much of this is true?

 

[Hemingway Jones]

This show definitely has the most pro-drug agenda on television. If this show were true, there would have been no reason for kids to rebel; their parents were using more drugs than they were!

I have always thought that this show was over-rated because it has a veneer of over-wrought pretentiousness and the pacing of paint drying in winter. -And then Roger Sterling shows up and I don't care.

 

[tonyb]

... Did advertising agency employees in New York do drugs nearly as much as the show portrays in the late '60s? How much of this is true?

Can't say that I have any firsthand knowledge of drug use in NYC ad agencies in the late 1960s, but I can offer that some illegal (and legal) drugs carried a certain cachet then (due in no small part to their novelty, I suppose) that eventually wore thin. Perhaps people in "creative" fields were likelier to jump in. Seems plausible.

If this past Sunday's episode did anything to glamorize drug use, it was wasted (har har) on me. Whatever "mild stimulant" that quack administered to the staffers may have kept them up and jumping for a couple of days, but, as the Jim Cutler character observed once the crew crashed (the episode was titled "The Crash"), what they produced over those speed-fuelled days was mostly gibberish. And it turned them erratic, reckless, and creepy.

What I'm not seeing is much of the downside of alcohol and tobacco use (excepting the Roger Sterling character, whose smoking and drinking pose the real likelihood of putting him in an early grave). But then, we mostly ignored (or denied) the consequences of those habits, even as recently as, say, 20 years ago. Having once worked in a place that ran on booze and cigarettes, I find the show's portrayal of that sort of thing quite credible. It would be even more credible if they were to check in with the characters 20 years down the road, to see how many of them had emphysema and/or heart disease and/or cirrhosis and/or cancers of one sort or another.