Month: September 2016

Mad Men s1e4: New Amsterdam

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Let’s take a look at everyone’s favourite asshole, Pete Campbell– this episode shows that he’s not your average boorish dickbag. Pete’s waspy parents are over the top to a T with the boat shoes, shite comments, and plaid. It’s conveyed that they’re true Manhattan royalty, dating back many generations; what a shadow to live underneath. And his dad’s a total dick, natch; those dudes always are. “We gave you everything; we gave you your name. What have you done with it?”

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Well, this is sufficiently uncomfortable.

image courtesy of Mad Men Wikia.

What’s in a name, anyway?

How can Pete individually define himself, as his own separate entity? He wants something different. Thus far, we’ve only seen Pete as a snarky weirdo who’s boned Peggy and been a general smarmy creep. However, no matter how hard he tries, his father is not impressed with his job (or him). Pete has to work his ass off to be one iota as charming and suave as Don, which is probably why he admires him. His wife’s family is ready to help at the drop of a hat, while his own parents do approximately fuckall in that department.

Looking at Pete’s parents versus Trudy’s parents, it’s essentially night and day. Pete feels like a heel, unable to buy the apartment on his own. He also assumes the cash from the in-laws comes with several strings because his own parents are lunatic WASPs.

In the midst of all this, Betty and Helen have a moment where she learns why Helen is divorced. “Turns out none of them were men”. Simple, but enough of an “oh fuck” moment for Betty, getting the wheels turning.

Trying to regain some sense of the upper hand, Pete pitches copy to a vaguely unhappy client, “cousins” included for a night of boozin’ at the St. Regis. Ah yes, the Bethlehem Steel schmuck and his hookers– he’s quick to dismiss Pete’s idea and get it in with the 19 year-old to his right. “I would’ve thought you slept all day and bathed in milk”.

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image courtesy of Reddit

The next day, said schmuck is suddenly SUPER into Pete’s idea and Don is livid. Don attempts to fire Pete with Roger on board, but Burt puts the kibosh on it due to who he is and his connections. Ironically, Pete’s name-identity has saved him much to Don’s chagrin. It reminds Don that he comes from nothing, and that the silver spoon types tend to get ahead in life no matter what, regardless of talent. Oy.

In their new apartment, Trudy and her parents are flitting around, delighted. Pete isn’t necessarily thrilled that their old bat neighbour is so into his lineage, but he’s lost in thought staring at the Manhattan skyline. Maybe his name has done something useful for him after all.

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image courtesy of Mad Men Wikia

PS, this episode concludes with one of my favourite songs in life. Give it a whirl!

Mad Men s1e3: Marriage of Figaro

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This episode opens on the train, Don staring at that ironic Volkswagen ad in his Playboy. He gets called Dick Whitman by some schlub rando, and he’s visibly rattled. More on that to come!

Oh hey, it’s Sally’s birthday! Time for Don to get absolutely shitfaced and assemble a playhouse. #men

From the women of the club, we hear about the arresting suburban scandal of Helen Bishop .. AND HER WALKING.

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I CAN’T FEEL MY FACE

image courtesy of Imgur

A lot of this episode centres around marriage and where these characters fit in. It’s pretty plain where Don fits vs. where he doesn’t fit; at work, and at home. He’s in charge of it all at the office, but at home he’s relegated to filming the party, building the playhouse (yet he’s not permitted to wash his hands with the weird porcelain-handheld soap), being told repeatedly to pick up the cake.

Don doesn’t wear a wedding band (and is continually losing his cufflink in this episode), but Pete Campbell actually digs it.

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image courtesy of 9gag

Ladies and gentlemen, Pete Campbell. He’s back from his honeymoon and trying to clumsily navigate being a married guy in a post-banging Peggy world.

Speaking of Peggy, she is trying to figure out where she fits in at Sterling Cooper. It’s clear that she’s very different from the other ladies in the steno pool; Pegs is cut from a different cloth.

The way Don’s written is fascinating. Here we have our main character, the guy we’re ostensibly rooting for; he’s simultaneously good and infuriating, yet we can relate to all of it. Who hasn’t just wanted to ghost on some garbage party filled with a simulation of friends? These people can be absolutely exasperating in reality, yet he’s relatable in this instance. Sneaking a peek at his world allows us to see the motivations behind bouncing, his desire to get way the hell away from those faux friends.

Pausing on that secret kiss he captures with the camera – Don feels a pang, and he feels even more isolated. Maybe he’s realising that love he haughtily claimed he created for products may be legit. But then again, Don is a guy that so clearly does not understand intimacy in real life. You can’t be ~mysterious~ and play everything so close to the chest but also have true intimacy; shit just doesn’t work that way. Gotta give some to get some. At first, Don is cloying with Rachel, listening and probing with questions like a fun flirty first date but revealing nada of himself, and she already seems to be over it. Especially when he pulls the “I’m married” card. Mess.

As he’s watching the train to Manhattan blast by in Ossining, I bet he’s thinking of trying to reach Rachel somehow. How to Human, 101.

Hours later, daddy saves the day by bringing home a dog for Sally. Betty is seething with palpable rage. He’s thinking back to when he snogged Rachel Menken on the rooftop, and her saying that, “For a little girl, a dog can be all you need. They protect you and they listen”. She told all her secrets to those dogs, apparently; and Don knows that he’s probably total shite at being a father to Sally, so uh.. here’s a dog.

But where in the fresh hell did he get that dog? Did he just jack someone else’s Golden Retriever from their yard? Fucking bizarre.

Mad Men s1e2: Ladies’ Room

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“What do women want?

Any excuse to get closer.”

ladiesroom-boobs

image courtesy of my Insta

Ah, the ladies’ room.. the place where ladies go for some Real Talk(TM), or to cry uncontrollably because of Feelings(TM). Literally nothing else happens in a ladies’ rooms, guys. This is the first episode where we get to know Betty, and while she looks the part of pristine Stepford perfection on the outside, there’s a glimpse to her depth and sadness within.

At the forefront of Betty’s anxiety is her hands, something that’s apparently been going on for awhile. Her mother died recently, and it’s implied that they had a complicated relationship. Though a little on the nose, her shaky hands are the physical manifestation of her internal conflict. Seeing the actual imperfect reality versus what she was led to believe her adult life would be like if she ticked those boxes – handsome husband, house in the suburbs, 2 kids. This is what she was told would make her happy, yet here we are. Hello, 1960!

More than anything, she comes off as deeply disappointed with how mundane it all is. Betty’s essentially been stranded on an island at arm’s length by Don, no wonder she’s disillusioned. He’s a man infatuated with aesthetics, so this Perfect Wife(TM), home and kids are enough and he doesn’t seem to give it another thought.

Betty truly wants to know Don, to really understand who he is but she has no idea where to start. “Who’s in there?”

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image courtesy of Imgur

So, Betty knows approximately fuckall about her husband’s childhood and past, and Don dismisses it as being in the same realm as “politics religion or sex: why talk about it?” This sounds just as completely outlandish as you think it would, my god.

She’s living in this suburban small town world accompanied by Francine throwing shade at Helen Bishop, the new divorcée on the block. Like Helen, Betty doesn’t truly fit here, but she’s been told that she is supposed to want these things, this life. Don expresses to her that she’s got all these things, how could she possibly be unhappy? He’s trying to practice what he preaches, but he must know it’s hollow as hell.

Weirdly, Betty and Don have more in common in that arena than they’ll ever know. Betty will battle with what’s expected of her versus what she really wants and who she is, an omnipresent theme in the rest of the series.

At the office, Don is trying to connect with Roger and gain some insight. Who could not be happy with all this? Relying on material things, “it’s just more happiness”, and Roger ends the conversation right there.

“What do women want?”

“Who cares?”

The closest Don gets is when he’s in a meeting about spray deodorant. After all, Don speaks most candidly via copy more than he ever would directly to Betty.

“What if they want something else, inside that mysterious wish we’re ignoring?”

 Hey-o, thanks for reading! More next week.