Mad Men

Parent Cafe
601

<p>I loved the episode. Probably too many thoughts about it to put down.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I loved the way they left out just the right amount of the company conflict. We see Cutler staring out the window a lot and clearly he’s been plotting how to get CGC leverage. But then it shifts to “Sterling Cooper & Partners” … SC&P … which implies the kind of bargain you need to make to keep a Chevy and not be scrambling all the time. The firm looks more and more like a partnership between Don and Ted, which may be the writers putting their own belief system in place, one in which creative runs things. It may also reflect how they view the times. </p></li>
<li><p>It fascinated me they chose to show more of the 1968 Convention - in August - than of any other event. I gather that joined together the war, the chaos, etc. symbolically for them. And they used it to show Megan and Don seemingly back to a honeymoon phase, with Megan joking about how her going with him to CA was the worst thing in her life. And in contrast to Don being unable to hear Megan when she was talking to him, they have trouble ending a phone call, holding on in silence as they share across the continent, back when long distance actually was. (BTW, I remember that well. Sitting in the living room on Martha’s Vineyard. The police rioted. And the last day, Daley stuck his grim-faced supporters in every seat so there would be no doubt, none, about who was in charge. Humphrey never had a chance after that. For all the violence, that last day showed a softness in the Democrats, that they could be bullied by a single mayor in a single city.)</p></li>
<li><p>I’m somewhat amazed by the Peggy / Joan thing. Men don’t care what has happened to get to x point. They keep hashing it over. I don’t know if that’s supposed to reflect the era or if it’s writers trying to make women characters act “womanly” or what. Contrast Bob’s cheerful acceptance of being poured into the black hole of Chevy after trying to deflect Ted from Jim Cutler’s screw-up - all of which didn’t matter anyway because that account was, as Roger noted, going bad anyway. They haven’t done enough with or to Bob for me to think more of it.</p></li>
<li><p>I can see Ginsburg’s problem: born in a concentration camp, he must ask himself as he watches the war on TV if he’s now becoming like the people who killed his family. They do work for Dow. Dow made Agent Orange. </p></li>
<li><p>Pete is the focus of the negative plot lines now - and has been. He doesn’t want to be head of new business. I assume he wants to be head of accounts but that’s obviously Cutler because of the merger and Pete is knocking around in frustration. The harassment of Joan is overdone: he only cares about protocol because he’s getting screwed (in his mind) and he’s grasping at this to make his own point. Truth is that bringing in Avon would be great and it would be a great strategy to have Joan and Peggy lead in this client whose entire business is selling to women … if Pete got his head straight. I think that in many ways is the meaning of the end scene when Pete takes Stan’s joint and starts puffing. Take another little piece of my heart now baby. He is mixed up and desperately unhappy. I think Don’s comment about leaving was intentionally written to bring out the ambiguity: leave what? The firm? Go where? Do what? Family? </p></li>
<li><p>And that connects to the Sunset Boulevard scene of Don watching Don floating face down in the pool. The wonderfully hallucinogenic scene where Don imagines Megan - and she says her pregnancy is “a second chance” - and then she becomes PFC Dinkins who says his girl thinks he’s MIA but he’s really dead and then drops the bomb on Don: Death doesn’t make you whole. Hawaii may be “the stepping off place” but if you’ve lost an arm it isn’t growing back and if you’ve screwed up as a parent you don’t get to do that over and if … no wonder Don ends up in the pool. It’s part of the continuing season of revelations for Don, the most we’ve had for the character, all compressed into a few weeks when we’ve seen his life in the whorehouse and his relationship with the mother/whore/lover and mother/abuser and now he seems to be told by his own self speaking through PFC Dinkins: Death doesn’t make you whole. </p></li>
<li><p>On a lighter note, I can’t understand Roger’s torture of Danny. For a guy who has tripped 5x - he says so - and who has been in analysis probably for decades - and who was married to Danny’s cousin - why be such a complete jerk? I loved Harry Crane’s role in this episode: you can see why he annoys them.</p></li>
</ol>

602

<p>Lergnom - I logged on CC this morning just to read your evaluation! :slight_smile: I also liked the episode a lot (I’ve been reading the thread but first time posting). I liked, but could hardly keep up with, all the symbolism, secondary glances (the secretary and Joan locking eyes after she is pushed aside by Pete re: the Avon meeting), hidden meanings. </p>

<p>I loved/had these observations: </p>

<p>When Cutler checks in with Ginsberg re: preparation for the client meeting and it ends up being a confrontation with Ginsberg ranting out of frustration, Cutler handles him calmly and professionally, without much judgment (especially considering how completely out of line Ginsberg is to a superior) until the final hypocrite comment, but then flies off the handle completely by shouting at Bob for venturing down a floor. Then Bob covers for Cutler by lying to Ted that he had talked Cutler out attending of the doomed client meeting. Love the Bob character for some reason; he seems so honest and genuine in a business full of manipulation. He is the only one who can calm Ginsberg down in his moment of real panic, with levity and seriousness all at the same time.</p>

<p>How annoying Harry is as a character, yet he really is useful to the firm.</p>

<p>The entire scene on the airplane on the way to California between Roger and Don, so funny (“well Gollyyeee” and the “ties his pants with a rope” retort). Roger was in rare form in that conversation (and him being so is rare in itself).</p>

<p>Joan’s ballsiness in the Avon business; will she ever move past earning partnership via prostitution? And the Joan/Peggy interactions were priceless. Liked how they eventually had each other’s back; liked how Joan sits down and “takes it like a man” when Ted and Pete confront her, both standing over her and Pete berating at her as she just sits there and takes it.</p>

<p>Pete is being forced out, but not by anyone in particular, merely by the nature of the merged business and his own restlessness.</p>

<p>Roger actually working.</p>

<p>Ted’s reaction to the Avon news: “That’s groovy!” Didn’t realize anyone beyond the hippies used that term in everyday conversation, but I guess if everyone is smoking dope then everyone is using the lexicon of the day. (I was still a kid in ’68).</p>

<p>I also liked the quiet of the Don-Megan discussions as compared to the constant sirens in the background in last week’s episode. Interesting how Don and Megan are completely back to being so connected again.</p>

<p>The political discussions throughout…. and how back in the day it was bad form to discuss politics in any way whatsoever in a business setting (I suppose it still is, though you’d never know it sometimes).</p>

<p>How Don and Megan couldn’t talk long on the phone because it was long distance and “costs a fortune.”</p>

<p>The girl climbing out of the pool when they venture outside at the “Hills” party looked liked Megan (then Megan shows up in the hallucinogenic scene).</p>

<p>So is Megan pregnant?</p>

<p>I missed Betty and the kids in this episode, but realized I did not miss Henry at all. He is not a likeable character, and I wonder how/why he gets to dislike Don so much when he is the one that started an affair with Betty when she was pregnant with Don’s third child. I guess he is just standing behind his woman, and she hated Don for so long that he does too, but now she’s moved beyond it and Henry hasn’t.</p>

<p>P.S. When did Megan get her teeth sort of fixed? They aren’t perfect, but the gap in her 2 front teeth seems smaller than when she first was introduced (I’ve been watching earlier season episodes again just for fun).</p>

603

<p>Could Betty’s third child be the result of the one fling she had in a bar while she was married to Don? I always wondered.</p>

<p>I wonder if Peggy’s baby with Pete will resurface? I believe the baby was given to Peggy’s sister.</p>

<p>The other baby that I wonder about is that of Joan & Roger? </p>

<p>What are your thoughts?</p>

604

<p>Betty found out she was pregnant and then had that weird sex encounter to get back at Don. That was clear. She didn’t want to tell him until she evened the score.</p>

<p>I was amused Bob listens to Dale Carnegie records. </p>

<p>If there was a point in Cutler listening to Ginsburg’s breakdown, I thought it was Ted’s reaction to his desire to clear out creative while Don was gone. He didn’t take it seriously, said that Ginsburg is “lightning in a bottle” creatively and told Cutler to stop trying to divide the firm. We know so little about Cutler’s character that we can’t read his motives … except he’s creepy and Peggy says he’s Roger with bad breath.</p>

<p>I liked the choice of Carnation because they introduced the instant breakfast in 1964. I looked up the company history and found they played it on screen in a way that agreed with the very traditional nature of the company; it was still run by descendants of the founder and lifetime close associates.</p>

605

<p>I just had a really morbid thought - could a schizophrenic Ginsburg be the Manson to Megan’s Sharon Tate (if we’re even buying in to that line of possibility)? Or would that be too weird even for this season of Mad Men?</p>

606

<p>

People will put up with a lot from someone if they are good at what they do. Harry can be shallow and smarmy (sp?) just like the TV types he deals with so he is successful and makes money for the firm.

So was I and I remember using it - still do occasionally, usually ironically, as in saying “Oh, Groovy!” to bad news.

I don’t think he’s anything like Roger. Roger may be an oblivious skirt-chaser but at heart he’s a decent person. Cutler’s malicious and definitely has an agenda … and while we’re on the subject, it’s good to see Harry Hamlin back!</p>

607

<p>Couple of notes in addition. I saw the last part over and noticed that Cutler and Ted were talking about power within the firm and that they needed something to distract “them” meaning the SCDP people. That is where the name comes from. I’m not sure where that leads. The firm is “large” because it combines the two firms. One firm tends to be the bigger winner and in this case we know Bert Cooper is really not there and … if Pete leaves then … but the show is really about Don Draper and in the end what matters is how this affects him. If it means he loses control of the agency or … beats me. These agencies go through upheaval after upheaval. Think of accounting: for years it was a semi-stable Big 8 and then poof.</p>

<p>I also mis-stated the line; it’s “dying doesn’t make you whole.” </p>

<p>If you want to read a funny book about this era in advertising, read Jerry Della Femina’s From the Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor. The line is an I assume fictitious but funny story about saying that to Panasonic.</p>

608

<p>I can’t figure out Bob Benson but I am extremely wary of him. He is so relentlessly opportunistic and manipulative and we know he lied about the male nurse he was recommending to Pete, so I can’t help but think he is dangerous in some way. I just hope that Joan doesn’t get hurt in the process but I think the agency will suffer as a result of his not being laid off.</p>

<p>The Joan/Peggy action was also really interesting. For the first time I can remember, Joan is totally in over her head. She didn’t even realize that she wasn’t on a date with the Avon executive until he began asking her serious questions about SCDP,…etc and even then she really couldn’t even give a clear answer about her role in the firm. At the later meeting with Peggy along she actually shut Peggy down when Peggy was talking about her memories about her mother and sister and the Avon lady. That was great stuff and just the kind of scenario that we have seen win accounts when Don is in charge. Poor Joanie just doesn’t have the experience to recognize opportunities like this and hurt her own prospects and the agency as a result. I share Peggy’s hope that Avon really does call to save her neck. She could have easily been fired without Peggy’s ruse.</p>

<p>Much as it pains me to say it, Pete is right about his needing to be there and while I understand why she did it, Joan totally screwed up in excluding him. In fact, Pete is the only one who seems to understand how much danger the agency is in because of the underlying conflict between the two factions and especially because Cutler is clearly trying to destroy the Sterling Cooper creative department while Don, Roger and Harry are on their ultimately pointless (to the business, not the show :))boondoggle to California. Since Pete is so whiny and unlikeable, it’s easy to dismiss his sounding the alarms but the fact is, he’s right. At the end, he seems to have decided to just give up and get stoned, but I think that the chickens are rapidly flying home to roost and ultimately they will wish they had taken him seriously.</p>

<p>As for Ginsberg, for the first time I think that there is seriously something wrong with him. We know he’s not on drugs but that was not just a big creative-stress type meltdown. There’s been some foreshadowing of mental illness with his character that I fear will lead to big trouble.</p>

<p>What a great episode; so many thoughts on all the characters.</p>

<p>PS. I read the Jerry Della Femina book Lergnom recommends years ago and strongly agree. It is a fabulously fun read and a great supplement to Mad Men. In fact, I’m going to see if I can dig it up for a re-read.</p>

609

<p>The natural power lines should be Pete and Don/ Ted and Jim but it hasn’t worked that way … maybe it won’t. Pete was head of accounts at SCDP. He clearly believes he should be at SC&P but he’s been pushed into the role of “head of new business”. In the real world, it really doesn’t matter: account managers that had strong client relationships, like in law or accounting or haircutting, have their own businesses within the business. Ad agencies don’t sell a product like a car so they naturally divide into fiefdoms, with big accounts - like Chevy would be if you did all their work - requiring big staffing. I knew people who did that work, who grew up in those families in Detroit. I knew the people at the car companies too. I don’t recognize the portrayal of Ted’s experiences with Detroit wild men. These were the guys who came home at night to our neighborhood and I went to school with their kids (and then their bosses kids). </p>

<p>But Roger did rope in Chevy, despite what Cutler says, and the firm relies on being “big”, which seems to mean in TVworld’s version of reality that it has twin creative engines.</p>

610

<p>It’s really too bad that Pete lost the Vicks account, not due to failing to serve the business but his failure to honor his personal life (and his father in law’s hypocrisy). As we saw in the scene with Duck last week, that has really hurt his value in the marketplace and within the agency. I think Pete’s really good at his job but so terrible at his relationships, personal and otherwise, that when he fails no one will be willing to cut him much slack.</p>

<p>I’m glad to hear that the real Detroit executives weren’t the animals they are portrayed as in MM. It’s kind of funny that the show persistently shows them as immoral scum given that Lincoln is a major sponsor. They’d never have gotten away with that in the real Mad Men era ;)</p>

611

<p>There is truth in the layers of bureaucracy at GM in particular. Or Ford. Remember, Chevy then would have been the largest car company in America on its own. I know from personal relationships how difficult it was to get approvals. </p>

<p>In GM’s case, they have grappled for decades with the conflict between engineering coming uphill and finance coming down at the product and then marketing coming in from the side. The Vega is a good example: it was conceived and first executed as a much sportier, lighter car that was then overloaded with requirements that then drove cost changes and so on. I always thought of GM’s issues as reflecting a wealth of everything: too much money plus too much product plus too much choice meant lots of doing this that doesn’t pan out and that which doesn’t pan out and then this. </p>

<p>Ford by contrast focused much more on manufacturing efficiency. That was their history: build the cars and do fewer models with fewer redesigns. The Ford product cycle was longer. Even when the Japanese companies were thriving, Ford plants - like Taurus assembly in Atlanta - were competitive … but the product cycle was 2x as long and was inefficient. Heck, Henry Ford shut the company down for months to retool for the Model A.</p>

<p>And Chrysler always scraped by. They didn’t have the money or the resources so they focused more on engineering and putting more change into their cars.</p>

612

<p>Joblue - I agree with each and every one of your very astute observations, including the wariness about Bob, who is so very likeable but I wait for the other shoe to drop and as much as he seems non-manipulative, I sigh and agree that he probably is.</p>

<p>Lergnom, I also saw the dichotomy between the “account men” and the “doers” of the business in my early days in a large NYC law firm. There was constant, nearly daily bickering and push-and-pull between the real rainmakers of the firm, who practically trolled for new business and clients, and the hard-core partners who really handled the meat of the legal work. It was so interesting to watch as a young lawyer, and something I hadn’t ever considered or thought about as being part of the legal profession (the “business” of the law, or at least a law firm), at least when i was in law school.</p>

<p>I had the opportunity to work for a firm that represented a large advertising agency back in the day, and while it wasn’t as far back as Mad Men, of course, there were similar personalities and power struggles, and there are often references to agencies or campaigns that remind me of the work we did back then. This show is so amazing.</p>

613

<p>Joblue, I think you’re right on the money about Ginsberg and mental illness. Schizophrenia often shows itself in people about that age, and he’s made some unusual remarks about his personal history in the past - such as being from Mars and being born in a concentration camp. I hope they continue to develop this over the last three episodes.
I loved the ending song this week, and it was so appropriate for Pete this season. I’m no fan of his but I almost, but not quite, sympathized with him. Everying he touches seems to turn to **** lately.</p>

614

<p>I read a review - I think in Slate - which discussed the actual record Bob was listening to, the one I described as Dale Carnegie because it’s in that vein. The person argues that Bob stands in contrast to the rest, that Pete whines and Cutler manipulates but Bob is a true American salesman. The argument says the world depicted is corrupt and he’s set as a contrast. </p>

<p>I don’t read it that way but I thought it was interesting. </p>

<p>BTW, I knew a guy who listened to stuff like Dale Carnegie. He had a little tape recorder on which he’d put exhortations. But then we had a housekeeper for a short time who’d walk around the house saying “Thank you Jesus” over and over and over and over and I don’t think it helped her much.</p>

615

<p>Dale Carmegie is still with us. I go to Toastmasters, and members will often say they came after they read How to Win Friends and Influence People. </p>

<p>I’d call thst a success 80 years after the book was published. It struck a chord in Depression Era America. And maybe in the Great Recession. It’s very Protestant Ethic. </p>

<p>There’s an historical connection between Carnegie and Toastmasters. The Dale Carnegie Institute runs a competing, but similar, public speaking program. Self-help–books, videos, classes–is a growing multi-billion industry.</p>

616

<p>The actual record was by Frank Bettger on an album from his book How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling, 1949. I checked the article about it.</p>

<p>These motivational styles have a long history but we seem to trace a lot back to </p>

617

<p>ok, you’ve convinced me; my original instinct was correct - Bob IS a nice, genuine guy in the midst of conniving, immoral business behavior. (ha ha, I’m hoping… I don’t WANT him to be manipulative like the others)!</p>

<p>My dad listened to Dale Carnegie before switching careers in midlife. Dad had a difficult childhood and was not college educated; he had been working since about age 12. He was a hard worker and fast learner, so rose to management in his first job, then completely started over and became quite successful in his second career. He is the story of the “American Dream,” I think. He helped raise 4 very educated children (along with my education-emphasizing teacher mom). Of course, there was a flipside… he fell in with a bad crowd in job #2 - a bunch of salesmen (I’m being facetious) - and left his family (that part is sort of accurate)… think the way the Mad Men men drink all the time and treat their spouses, it rings too true. I was about Bobby’s age in '68. Anyway, I remember him listening to D. Carnegie before the switch; it was fascinating.</p>

618

<p>More theories on Bob… Government Spy? From Yahoo today:</p>

<p>Are we making too much of Bob Benson?
The mysterious Sterling Cooper & Partners employee who always seems to be on the wrong floor has captured the imaginations of “Mad Men” fans like no other character this season. And TheWrap spoke with the show’s creator, Matthew Weiner, in search of answers.
Long story short: No comment.
There are many theories about Benson, played by James Wolk. But the most persuasive, furthered by Vulture, Rolling Stone, and the sleuths at Reddit is that he’s a government spy.
Why would the government spy on an ad agency? Perhaps because Don Draper lied when applying for security clearance in Season 4 as he pursued North American Aviation as a client. (Don is secretly Dick Whitman, and stole his identity when the real Draper was killed in the Korean War. The FBI has already gotten close to Don, interviewing his ex-wife about him.)
We know Benson is a skilled liar: At the wake for Roger’s mother, he sent a lavish spread, saying he remembered his father’s death. But later he told Pete his father was in good health. And he told a clever lie to get Joan admitted to an emergency room. (Wolk told The New York Times that his favorite Bob theory is that he’s Peggy’s time traveling son.)
Weiner knows how to strategically mislead – he created Don Draper, after all – but we tried to get a sense of what to believe about Benson:</p>

<p>“Yeah. He’s definitely a liar. I hope that you caught that. And I hope that you caught that he – you don’t think he seems like an ambitious person jockeying for a job?”</p>

<p>Q: I thought he was at first, but then he made so little progress. But then he did in the last episode.</p>

<p>"Uh, yeah! With Chevy? I think he’s making a ton of progress. [Laughs.] I don’t know, you know? We’ll see. I’m not going to comment on whether or not he’s a government spy, but James is a great actor, and he is definitely mysterious. And that’s deliberate.</p>

<p>He has very good manners, and that seems to be working for him."</p>

619

<p>What do you all think of this theory that Megan is dead:
[Compelling</a> Evidence Mad Men’s Megan Draper Is Already Dead](<a href=“TV – UPROXX”>Reading Too Much Into ‘Mad Men’: Compelling Evidence That Megan Draper Is Already Dead – UPROXX)</p>

<p>I found it pretty compelling!</p>

620

<p>H has been maintaining for weeks that Megan is a Sharon Tate figure, so if in fact she was killed while pregnant (just like Tate) he will be very smug!</p>