<p>Will the resignation letter nullify the firm getting thelife insurance Pete had discussed on the train?</p>
<p>Sally: “is that a mustache… I don’t like it”
was a great Betty like line…</p>
<p>Funny too, Don not remembering Glen.</p>
<p>The previews for the next show had Megan on the phone saying she could hear someone breathing. Is it Glen or Ginsburg?</p>
<p>I think Don not remembering Glen is typical of 1960s - early 1970s Dads. Although he’s a caring father Don’s focus is his life.</p>
<p>Don seemed to also never be home until after the kids were in bed, or at least until dinner time. I imagine Don has very little idea what kinds of things the kids were into while he and Betty were together. I doubt if he was ever home early enough to have laid eyes on Glen… he apparently either didn’t remember or didn’t know (or didn’t care?) that Betty would have hit the roof if she’d known Glen and Sally were together.</p>
<p>I thought the scene at the end where he let Glen drive was really cute. It was a nice bit of relief after how heavy the rest of the episode had been.</p>
<p>I wasn’t angry with Lane - I sympathized with him, and can understand why he did what he did. Not to put too fine a point on it, my own life has had its ups and downs and sometimes you get to a place where you just don’t see any other way out. Yes, he could have reached out - to his wife, to the partners, to Joan. But you get to a point where the reward of reaching out is overshadowed by the risk of rebuff, of not being taken seriously, of loosing face. I honestly don’t think he was trying to get back at anybody. He was in so much pain and thought he had so little support that he had to do something. I just hope his wife and son get something from the wreckage.</p>
<p>I wonder if Joan thinks she had something to do with Lane’s demise.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What his wife and son and all his co-workers and friends will get from the wreckage is guilt, anger, sadness, betrayal. Nothing good. </p>
<p>And I am kinda amused by the fact that we are all having this conversation like these are real people we are talking about. In my head, I hear my beloved late Mother-in-law discussing her “soaps” with my sister-in-law. They used to sound as if they were talking about their best friends…</p>
<p>On a more positive note, I was excited to see Don get angry in Roger’s office-- I don’t want Jaguar, I want Chevy! It would be nice to see Don get his groove back, even if it’s just in closing the deals while the youngsters are the creative genius… I think it’d be interesting to see how a little more career success would fold into his “new leaf” in his personal life-- would it all fall apart? Could he balance that with the new reality that he is no longer as relevant as he once was? And I wonder if the series can last with Don being all washed up for good… we can’t do same old same old forever, and I get that, but up until the last two episodes I was getting a little bored.</p>
<p>I’ve been reading a number of reactions to the show - elsewhere - that get a lot of things wrong:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The subtext between Glenn and Sally is that he’s disappointed she doesn’t see him that way. Any guy that age of that era would feel disappointment. So he says Sally is like a younger sister. There’s truth in that because he can talk to her, but he wants her to see him as a man - thus not shaving. He goes to a boys school. I went to a boys school just after that era. Though we had a nearby girls school, we would not see a girl until maybe 10th grade and then maybe 1 or 2. Glenn would have seen none. Ever. Hotchkiss didn’t go co-ed until the 70’s. Sally is a way for him to test being a man. And she runs off. He must think it might be because of their conversation. Can you imagine him searching the museum for her thinking the worst? In case I didn’t mention it earlier, the hazing Glenn gets at school was normal for the era, especially at an east coast big name boarding school. I would think lacrosse in those days was really, really brutal. And of course Sally is reacting to what he said about sex because she describes him as her “boyfriend” and dresses for him but isn’t ready for a real boyfriend in any way.</p></li>
<li><p>The Ken / Roger “promise” is more about Ken and his father-in-law than Pete. Ken’s father-in-law has made his business off limits. Imagine how it feels for an account executive in advertising to have a massive account in your family and not be allowed to do anything about it. His father-in-law doesn’t even seem to help him with his vast array of contacts. It’s freaking Dow Chemical. As for the partnership, I think one truth is that Ken doesn’t need the money and he wants respect in his family. He wants Dow to know that it’s him as their account manager. Remember, Pete is old New York but has little cash, just the heritage. One of the great things about the show is that it speaks to the characters’ internal motivations. We get to see inside Ken’s issues in that scene. </p></li>
<li><p>Remember that Don paid Pete’s share to extend the line of credit. Lane knew this. He told Pete what happened. Much of Lane’s life was pretense. My take is that when Don hears Lane’s story it drives home to him how much Lane has kept to himself and that makes clear how little Don can trust him. If I were in Don’s place and the guy opposite me told me about how he’d been losing money for 3 years, that he’d been pretending to be a big shot for that long, that he’d had this resentment inside for that long, I would think, “This guy’s not there.” Lane mentions how the partners “lined their pockets” when the old firm was bought … except Lane was the guy brought in by the buyers to run their company. He was part of the buying team. Now he expresses old resentments that extend past Sterling Cooper. How do you trust a guy like that with your finances? Don’s speech to him about starting over is real in that context, not just a pep talk: start over, don’t make mistakes like this again, I learned, you can too. </p></li>
<li><p>Maybe the best comment of the year - one filled with great lines - was Don saying to Megan after the birthday party that these people all have their own problems. It’s typical in film/tv for characters to have fairly extensive biographies developed. They are sometimes charted as a list of characteristics - like vain about hair - so the writers can get to the reactions appropriate to each character and can develop those into story lines which fit and coordinate. They are sometimes books that talk about where they grew up, went to school, etc. This is a huge part of writing for tv. You don’t make up Lane as you go. You know his background, probably his father’s job and personality, who his mother was, and so on. When the Jacquemettons say they spent weeks talking this over, put yourself in the writers’ room - it’s an actual room - with charts and whiteboards and research and the group spending 16 hour days working on all the script problems. TV is a consuming business, especially if you try to do it right. For example, a half hour single camera show - like Modern Family - shoots each week and that may require 100 hour weeks from much of the crew and production staff. They’ll typically shoot 3, take a week, shoot 3, etc. Mad Men takes a week of shooting for each hour, which is really tight for twice as much air time. Finished scripts may only be a few weeks ahead of shooting, which is really intense. Mad Men takes a huge amount of research. They have advertising people attached to the writing. They’re fortunate to do most of their shooting on a small number of permanent sets, which really helps production, but it’s a ton of work to make a show with so much subtext.</p></li>
<li><p>I thought Don’s reaction to Lane still hanging in his office fit both Don and Lane. Don knows Lane cares deeply about appearances. He wants the partners to find him, to be disgusted by what they have, in his mind, forced him to do. He wants Don to know what he caused; people strike out at those they see as responsible though of course we can see that Lane was responsible at each step for every choice. Even at the end, he could have admitted what he’d done to Don instead of trying to lie and then to his wife. Don has many flaws but he’ll pick up the responsibility, literally by acknowledging Lane’s death by lifting his body. It’s not only about Lane’s dignity in death but Don’s and the firm’s dignity; he doesn’t want to be the guy who left a man hanging in his office. Remember how Don’s father died: kicked in the head by a horse because he was resisting selling the crop for what he believed to be an unfair price. That is the importance again of the character development necessary for really good tv writing; the actions and responses fit. Note that Don and Roger move Lane. Both are war veterans.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>“Note that Don and Roger move Lane. Both are war veterans.”</p>
<p>The single most significant scene this season.</p>
<p>Legrnom, fascinating analogy! I love this show and I love how it’s discussed. USA Today has an interview with Jared Harris and his explanation of the characters suicide.</p>
<p>@churchmusicmom -what I meant was I hope that they would be taken care of financially. A former co-worker committed suicide a few years ago and his wife and seven children lost his military pension, insurance, everything.
And I, too am amused that we seem to treat MM characters as real people. This is why the show has won the Emmy just about every season it’s been on. Matthew Weiner is a genius and so are his writers and actors.</p>
<p>Nice summation Lergnom.</p>
<p>There’s a comparison of madmen and game of throne characters, pairing them off according to similarities in personalities, etc…pretty clever</p>
<p>Don was very real in this episode, they all were really were</p>
<p>And another genius is the costume designer…she does an amazing job</p>
<p>I felt like Don gave Lane an out when he said he could make up his own exit. He was going to protect him and not disclose that he had embezzled and forged Don’s signature. I don’t think Don has anything to feel guilty about which, of course, doesn’t mean he won’t feel guilty.</p>
<p>Ken lives in Queens. He made the comment at a dinner that his in laws do not help them. </p>
<p>…and I can’t believe that I remember this…</p>
<p>Oh, great discussion!!!</p>
<p>I thought it was another terrific episode, I am not sure anything will ever compare to last week’s. </p>
<p>What I thought was particularly well done was seeing the desperation and the anger that drove Lane to commit suicide. His anger at Don was irrational in that he had to know that he would never be allowed to stay in the firm if her were caught. Don was actually very generous considering it was HIS signature Lane forged. He could have had him arrested, told the other partners, but instead he allowed him to resign. </p>
<p>I was also moved when Don and Roger cut Lane down and placed him on the couch. For two cads, they certainly seemed more substantial than the younger men. Yes, both were in the military, but also as a generation, they were men who took care of things. </p>
<p>And then Sally. Oh, that poor kid. Yes, Betty showed a modicum of compassion - but I kept thinking, “Oh, please don’t tell your mom about Glen!” I doubt that Betty’s moment of tenderness will last much more than a moment.</p>
<p>Lots of rumors going around on whether Elisabeth Moss has left for good or not. Jared Harris did an exit interview and sort of mentioned that she left and then compared it to other actors who have left the show. Honestly she left for character development and the fact that filming for a BBC series started in New Zealand right at the end of Mad Men’s filming. Hopefully she will not have left forever. Peggy Olson is one of my main reasons for watching Mad Men. </p>
<p>Jarred Harris did an interview with Vulture about his last episode and his character. Great insight here ([Mad</a> Men?s Jared Harris on Lane?s Sad Fate – Vulture](<a href=“http://www.vulture.com/2012/06/mad-mens-jared-harris-interview.html]Mad”>Mad Men’s Jared Harris on Lane’s Sad Fate)). </p>
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</p>
<p>Here’s an article linking to another interview he did mentioning Moss ([Should</a> You Be Worried About Elisabeth Moss on Mad Men? – Vulture](<a href=“http://www.vulture.com/2012/06/is-elisabeth-moss-staying-on-mad-men.html]Should”>Should You Be Worried About Elisabeth Moss on Mad Men?)).</p>
<p>I think it would be a mistake to not have Peggy. I feel that of all the characters she most reflects the changes that women went through during that time and that her character is really essential.</p>
<p>@mdemvizi, Funny quote from Harris above!</p>
<p>“For two cads, they certainly seemed more substantial than the younger men.” - worknprogress2</p>
<p>Don is constantly doing the upstanding thing despite his flaws. Your comment brings to mind a scene from last Sunday’s morning re-run where Don is in an elevator and two guys are having some locker room talk and don’t stop when a woman enters the elevator. The one talking has his hat on and after it is apparent they are not going to stop Don sternly says, “Take your hat off.” The guy says, “Pardon?” and Don removes the guy’s hat and forcefully thrusts it into the guy’s chest. This stuns and silences the guy. You think, “What a decent guy!”</p>
<p>OhioMom - Watching Mad Men has been great fun, but it has also prompted me to examine my relationship with my dad. He would be about Don’s age and I would be a year or so older than Sally. My dad was from a small town and NOT an executive (or a womanizer), but watching the show makes me realize that to this day many of our issues originate from his attitude towards women. Even though Don respects Peggy’s talent, respects Peggy, he can’t let her be in charge and he would certainly never be able to accept supervision from a female. The scene where Don made Sally change her go-go boots was one straight out of my life. White go-go boots and a short dress - had to change. </p>
<p>They took their hats off for us, gave us their seats on a bus or train, held open doors, and carried out bags. They also liked to control us. Different generation.</p>