<p>^^^Also, after the merger last season, their eyes were opened. They worked withTed and saw there was another way to do things, and that one didn’t have to be drunk and unrelilable to be creative. Ted was a lot more approachable and down-to-earth and they liked that. It also made them finally wonder why they put up with Don’s crap for so long.
As for Lou Avery, I think they (especially Jim) brought him in because he isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. He’ll be easier to stay on top of than Don or even Ted and they don’t have to worry about Creative running away with the agency any more. </p>
<p>I’ve been wondering why Lou is there besides to aggravate Peggy, your theory makes sense and fits with what I think was Cutler’s remark-- “Lou is adequate.” It does seem like they don’t want creative to run away with the agency anymore, and they seem to not be priority anymore now that they got rid of the bullpen for the computer. Then again, it sounds like maybe the creative isn’t so good these days-- I can’t tell if it’s Lou keeping them down or if they’re just not very good. Maybe this is where Don’s return comes in. I can’t tell where they’re going with this, which I suppose is how it’s supposed to be!</p>
<p>I think back to Peggy the secretary and Peggy in the hospital with Don sitting by her bed, and think that she owes him a lot. She should find a way to treat him better. She should at least have a conversation with him about the place they find themselves in. She owes it to him.</p>
<p>Regarding creative running the agency: what creative creates is their product. Sure, market research is important, as is managing the relationship. But without creative, they have nothing to sell. Market research isn’t confined to ad agencies.</p>
<p>I am kind of surprised Peggy forgets how much she owes to Don. What is with that? I don’t think she is forever indebted to him or any such thing, but that comment about “can’t say we missed you” just struck me as needlessly nasty. Their ousting of Don feels PERSONAL in a way, based on the way they are reacting to his return, that doesn’t quite jive with my sense of things. I don’t get it. I get why they’re not falling at his feet, I don’t get the vitriol. </p>
<p>I haven’t watched Mad Men in recent seasons (no time), but from reading the descriptions above I think I know why they treat Don so badly. When someone is up on a pedestal, people feel like they have to bow down before him/her, and they resent that, and when the person falls off those underneath often look for any way to degrade him/her the way they felt degraded, they felt like they had to grovel at his feet, and suck up to him, so now it is payback time to them, even if, as with Peggy, Don had done a lot for her. What is it someone said about American society, we love putting people on pedestals and then love even more knocking them off?</p>
<p>I have felt like we were stuck behind a funeral procession all season, until last night when we got past it and the speed picked up to interstate levels! Can’t wait to hear what Lergnom has to say. One question though - was the little boy Bobby or Gene?</p>
<p>Great Ceasar’s Ghost!
The two wildest things ever to happen on Mad Men and I’m staying with my mom and watching the show with her. She was paying more attention to her book, though. It was good to see Harry do something decent. He was a nice guy until the fifth season or so, and I’d like to see that side of him again. </p>
<p>The boy was Bobby who is obviously still hurting from the horrible way Betty treated him on/after the field trip (in addition to the horrible way she’s treated him most of his life). Little Gene is still being treated with kindness, as far as we can see but it’s just a matter of time before Betty casts him aside, too.</p>
<p>The whole Megan-in-California thing has had a creepy, ominous vibe all season. It has to be costing Don a fortune to keep her out there where she doesn’t seem to be having much professional success. She seems to be in a downward spiral personally and she’s engaging in behaviors she completely rejected when she was in NY. The interaction with Stephanie was sort of confusing in that she seems to be jealous of her and basically threw her out with a fair bit of money but when we see Stephanie call Don the next day she appears to still be on the street. Also, didn’t she basically tell Don the marriage was over last time he visited?</p>
<p>There’ve been signals all along that Ginsberg was mentally ill but last night his breakdown was horrible and very disturbing. I wonder if he’s sort of the canary in the coalmine of SC&P. Also, has Roger just decided to hand his agency over to Cutler without a fight? Mad Men has gone very dark this season and after last year, that’s saying a lot.</p>
<p>And what is it with Ginsburg and “homos”? When he flipped out last season and Bob Benson tried to calm him down the first thing he asked was “You’re not a homo are you?” Now he’s convinced that the computer is turning everyone into homos … maybe this whole meltdown is about latent homosexuality issues. </p>
<p>Can’t post much because I’m in the hospital. Saw the episode twice in the ER but didn’t focus on the layers. </p>
<p>I echo Harry: why is Don in NYC? Why does he care so much about staying at SC&P? I don’t get it. And cigarettes? All tv and radio ads were banned at the end of 1971, a year plus away. It seems gains may be temporary: the Chevy they won is the Vega, a huge flop. </p>
<p>Again, I don’t buy the seamless transition from 2 agencies driven by creative to a hack and accounts firm. </p>
<p>I’m unclear about Megan. Part of me thinks she wants Don to loosen up, to be happy and she’s desperate because he can’t let go of the idiocy in NYC. It’s a weird mirror of Ted who is in self exile in LA while Don is in imposed exile in NYC. Ted belongs in NYC and Don in LA. </p>
<p>I remember Ginsberg was a holocaust child survivor adopted from a transit camp. That’s his machine metaphor: the work and death camp. It was his mother and expelled him broken into the world. His nipple represents that - on Mothers Day no less - so he has to cut it away. Is the machine in the office the death of creative flowering (of the 60s)? And the mother of data analysis advertising?</p>
<p>Take care of yourself Lergnom </p>
<p>Feel better, Lergnom!</p>
<p>I think I’ll be alright. I have so much antibiotic in me I’d be surprised if anything biotic is left. It’s really boring being hooked up to an IV pole: can’t roll over, can’t move much at all. They had a channel that showed a picture of a clock. The TV was in front of the clock on the wall: same clock face, different time. It was perfect.</p>
<p>Yesterday saw a disney trailer with Jon Hamm. I thought it looked cute, but probably wouldnt go to the theater.
Also rewatched an episode of Firefly with Christina Hendricks.
She was bad. ( I mean her character was devious).</p>
<p>I want to see God’s Pocket - She’s in it and John Slattery directed. I think it’s great to see actors we’ve come to love getting such good opportunities. </p>
<p>All the characters seem to have followed the white rabbit down the hole. When Don went to California a couple of seasons ago, he had a fantasy of Megan being excited to see him with another woman. Now that she has him “swinging” in the canyon, if only as a desperate attempt get his attention, it is nothing like what he dreamed. The whole thing - Don’s out-of-body feeling in the office, that performance with the cigarette client, Megan’s manipulations when she was one of the few people who was honest with him in his life - is a twisted version of what went before. Not to mention Ginsburg! Whoever called him out as potentially schizophrenic many pages back in this thread - good one. </p>
<p>I actually don’t see Megan as trying to get Don’s attention - quite the opposite. She’s done with that relationship. She tried being the well-to-do business-executive’s trophy wife, and didn’t like it. She likes living in a funky little house, wearing hipster clothes, hanging out with the hipsters in “the Canyon.” She encouraged Don’s niece to leave (with his money) because she truly thinks Don would exert pressure on the young woman to live on his terms, something Megan herself is rejecting in a big way. She’s young, and wants to live that way. Even when she seduced Don it was on her terms - not his. The threesome was as clear indication that Megan doesn’t really care anymore who Don sleeps with. </p>
<p>I prefer to think that Megan wants Don to be happy. She says “this is the best place to be right now”, which I took as referring in part to his weird life in NYC. Since they’re together after the big blowup when he reveals he’s been “on leave”, I think she’s trying to get him to put that all behind him, to leave NY. With his looks and charm, he could be a hit in LA - as the agent says, “The husband is a matinee idol.” Remember, he said he wasn’t with any other girl, that he’d been at home not fooling around … so she wants him to come out to LA where if they want they can fool around together. She’d have to be stupid not to realize that he’s given her this big chance to be in LA - from getting him her first commercial work and on - and she’s not stupid. She used to think he had another girl or girls in NY but to realize that he’s staying there to “fix” his world at SC&P, that he’s flying coast to coast over and over to see her …</p>
<p>I disagree Katliamom, I think Megan cares a lot. Why else drive Stephanie (?) away after she dropped that comment indicating she knows Don/Dick better than Megan does. Why else throw her cigarette butt down in frustration after Don says that Harry told him something important and he has to get back to New York right now. </p>
<p>Megan made a mistake moving to California. She had an acting gig in NY with people coming up to her in Hawaii asking for her autograph. In LA she’s a nobody with problem teeth. </p>
<p>Would someone please explain the cigarette scene better to me. It lost me. Don finds out that they are pitching a deal with the cigarette company to force Don out becasue of his problems with the Cig company last time. So, Don goes in to try to save himself…but I’m unsure of what his pitch was to the CIg Company and how it would save him. I’m routing for him all the way. </p>