It was very funny from start to finish. Melissa McCarthy is my new role model for swearing for comedic effect.
P.S. If you haven't seen any James Bond (especially with Daniel Craig), you may be missing out a little. The movie makes fun of Bond films quite a bit and does it well.
Saw this on the plane as well. Loved it. It held my full attention almost the entire time (my first-order estimate, if you will, of a movie's quality).
Hopefully Benedict Cumberbatch was thus inspired to do more Sherlock.
Saw it on the plane. Think it flew over my head a little. Didn't find it all that captivating, to be honest; the voices in my head were very distracting. Meh.
It's probably not a good sign that I actively eschew watching or reading things with a heavy dose of romance yet find it a little more tolerable when it's not two single people finding each other, but one single person and one married person. I mean, I thought the ability to rise above carnal instincts was one of the things that separated us from the beasts. Some of you may find refusing to suppress that part of you romantic—I say it's unsophisticated.
I guess the Mad men have mad cow disease or sumthin.
Anyway, moving on, here's what happened.
1-03: Draper visits the store of that woman from earlier episode and sparks fly. He goes home for his daughter's birthday party and is lovesick.
1-04: We learn Pete Campbell is from a super influential family and Betty has to babysit Helen Bishop's kids.
1-05: Peggy learns about Draper's affair. Draper's long-lost brother pays him a visit...but in the end, Draper is the one doing the paying (to get his brother to leave New York and never come back).
1-06: We learn Roger and Joan are banging like an old Model T. Draper has to try to sell Israeli tourism and starts thinking about women.
More ways in which Draper sucks
a) He built his daughter's playhouse with cigarette perpetually in hand and lots and lots of beer. Aren't you not supposed to use power tools when drinking? (On the other hand, if you need beer to build things, that would explain my competence in middle school shop class.)
b) He wakes up at home and his wife is in a maid outfit? This just after hitting on a woman who likes to give men orders (to paraphrase his description) ? Make up your mind, man.
c) He handles his lovesickness really poorly. Listen dude: If you're quiet all the time then no one will know, but someone will notice if you're normally somewhat nice and talkative. (Speaking from experience.) You're lucky your wife is too head-over-heels in love with you to think about it, but she's noticed. (Aside: You don't deserve her.)
d) He just left the party, drove around, and came back with a dog. What the hell. It's your daughter's birthday party. Isn't she more important than a second mistress?
e) I get that Draper can't paint his long-lost brother like one of his French women, but really, otherwise, couldn't he at least have a affair-type secret relationship? What could possibly be so bad that he can't see his brother ever again?
More ways in which Draper is amazing
a) Draper: "We're almost as happy to have him as you are."
Campbell's wife: "That's not possible."
Draper: "Well, maybe you're right."
b) "Listen to me, Pete. I need you to get a cardboard box and put your things in it."
c) He built a playhouse in a morning. That's some Phineas and Ferb-level productivity right there.
Pete Campbell: lots of possibilities
And by "possibilities" I mean slightly differentiated copycat behavior. Colleague writes a story? He wants to, too. He's arrogant, yet impressionable—a curious combination. He's needy and entitled, which isn't surprising, perhaps.
It's so obvious he's gonna drive his wife into the deep end and then blame her.
Schools of secuction
Draper: Work. "I'm married." Work. Lunch. Wait. Or, alternatively, come home to a loving wife.
Campbell: Talk to impressionable secretary. Show up at her door, drunk, later. Get it in. Or, alternatively, ask dad for financial help. Get turned down. Lie about asking. Obtain the coitus.
I hope Trudy has a good Relationship Agreement.
Glen Bishop and Betty Draper (1:30)
That was uncomfortable.
Stringing strings together
So we have two romances in which it's the woman who wants no strings attached (Draper + mistress and Roger + Joan) and one in which it's the man who wants no strings attached (Draper + Jewish department store woman). Another way in which the show is making gender dynamics more nuanced than just nonstop misogyny.
Some more assorted thoughts on relationships:
Forbidden love? Start with lunch. It's just work. Then hold hands.
Peggy's face when she hears the phone sex omg
OK, so Joan tells Peggy she can't help unless she tells her where Draper went. Then the firehead tells Peggy to just do what she would've done anyway and then
makes her feel guilty for telling her about Don's affair. Diabolical
and also perverted.
A conversation I liked, between Roger and Joan. "Roger, i know as much about men as you do about advertising. Sneaking around is your favorite part." "I have a lot of favorite parts." --> Yes, thank you. I can think of two favorite parts at least when it comes to an affair with Christina Hendricks.
"I don't know what to say." Loved Betty Draper at that moment.
lol at the comment that Israel and America have a love affair. It's only
what, the late 1950s? It ramped up quite a bit in the coming decades. At any rate, good thing BDS wasn't a thing back then. Would've had a field day with the gripes and antisemitism.
I still don't get why Roger told Pete that Draper fought for him.
I <3ed the back-and-forth between Don and Roy.
It doesn't go unnoticed, Mad Men.
You know what does, though? An advertising company having a room with one-way glass. That has gone unnoticed all these years? Why would Sterling Cooper need such a thing? Is that the office vroom vroom party starter room?
So I was originally planning on starting with Seinfeld, but then I got hosed in a deal wherein I watch Mad Men in exchange for one of my good friends (you know who you are, sunshine!) watching Star Wars before The Force Awakens comes out in December.
For the record: I'm not soft enough that one peer can entice me into that sort of commitment. (Just check out my relationship history.) But there was another mutual friend who encouraged me as well, and I broke at his behest.
Oh well.
I'd heard Mad Men was a great series—a couple of years ago it, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones seemed to be all the rage—but I didn't know anything else aside from it being generally about an advertising guy named Don Draper, set in mid-20th century New York.
Episode refreshers:
1-01: Don is trying to figure out how to sell cigarettes. He comes up with a solution in the nick(otine) of time. We learn that the advertising business is cutthroat. We're introduced to his new secretary Peggy. Don gets mad at a department store owner who's a woman and is less-than-impressed by him. Pete Campbell is getting married.
1-02: Don is secretive. We discover his wife, Betty, is having nervous issues, perhaps triggered by the thought of being a divorced mother with kids. Don tries to figure out a way to sell a deodorant aerosol.
First off, that opening I feel could have come out of a Bond TV series, if such a thing existed. Or a mystery series, something involving Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes. So mysterious.
The actor for Betty (Don's wife) is named January Jones. One of the Bond girls in The World is Not Enough: Christmas Jones. Coincidence? As a detective, you can't believe in coincidences. But I'm not a detective, so of course.
The other general early impression I got is that this series isn't exactly addicting. It's interesting and things develop quickly, but so far, at least, the overarching stories don't seem that compelling. This isn't Veronica chasing down her best friend's murderer.
Moving on:
Don Draper is an interesting character but he also sucks
I always root for cute kids and Draper has cute kids and he still spends nights in the city doing the sex with his boo while his wife seems to think he needs to work late. Never trust a guy who is handsome and successful and charming and cutthroat with regard to his work and liberal with his social values. (Aside: I am the exact opposite in every way.)
I mean, he suggests to his lady friend that they get married. Fortunately, she doesn't even entertain the possibility, because in E2 we learn that Betty is petrified of becoming a divorced mother (or, at least, that sort of thought triggers her nervous problems).
(Potential future employers: The work comment was a joke.)
He is very smart, it seems—or, at least, superb at riffing. (It didn't even occur to me that the deodorant should be marketed to women since they're the ones doing the shopping.) But he also sucks.
I did love the line about marketing people inventing this idea of love as someone who takes over your thoughts and feelings 24/7. I don't think it's right (consider peeps like Lord Byron or those Renaissance or Romantic romantics who came earlier) but I want to believe there's some truth to that and that's the reason I'm wedded to emotional apathy.
I also feel like Don is gonna become a better dude as the series progresses. He did defend Betty from Pete the first time, after all, and does seem reasonable—open, for example, to his wife seeing a psychiatrist, and giving a legit reason (when irritated) for why he trashed the "death wish" stuff that woman was recommending he use to sell the cigarettes.
Betty Rubble
So Betty lets her kids climb around in the car while she's driving in her neighborhood, huh? Does she realize that if she stops suddenly, her kids will be flung forward at ~20-25 mph? It's a wonder they weren't badly hurt when she drove off the road.
Also, hands shaking is a weaksauce reason. She lost focus on driving. Guess driver's ed back in the day didn't hammer into you that cars are 2k lb weapons. She should stay focused on her kids.
Look at how easily America is enthralled by the lone kid of a minority, (apparently) stereotype-breaking couplein a non-marquee market.
Pull it together, woman. Seeing a shrink is a good first step. I'm rooting for you since you're not a terrible person as far as I know.
Peggy
First off: Why is she a thing. She hasn't done anything.
She seems impressionable, but also nice and conservative. Then she gets a prescription for contraceptive pills, gets seduced really easily by Pete Campbell (who is a bad human being as well), then rejects the dude in E2. Peggy Carter she ain't.
I'm not as frustrated by her values as by her lack of conviction—it took me three years to become this liberal in college, and it only took her like two weeks to go from conservative to liberal to utterly confused and possibly in love with a newlywed man.
Is she just the mahayana secretary for the social values to come through?
At any rate, I suspect her terrible role model had a big part to play...
Joan
The more I think about it, the more I admire Joan. I mean, I think she has terrible moral values (like pretty much all of you), but the way in which she uses her sex appeal and confidence to manipulate men (and women!) into doing things for her while remaining independent is pretty baller.
In 9th grade English I remember one day we analyzed the first few minutes of The Empire Strikes Back. One moment I remember—Leia comes rushing after Han as Echo Base is under attack to shout at him. The teacher asked who was being aggressive—most people thought it was Leia, but based on body language, it was Han, who used his height to tower over her as much as possible. (The exact sequence I'm thinking of didn't make it into this video, but you can see similar.)
In the same way, Joan doesn't have to really speak to be aggressive—she plays things cleverly to get the results she wants, even in an aggressively misogynistic environment.
She also sucks, though, and is not what Peggy needs in her life. (I only care about Peggy insofar as she doesn't seem like an awful person.)
New York
There's one scene showing Draper walking into the office. Sidewalk I think is supposed to seem busy, but does it ever seem positively tame. That's what half a century will do.
I didn't used to do the binge watching/watch a series from start to finish/read an entire series thing. But at this point I don't have the patience to watch TV, really (aside from winter/spring sports), and with the summer doldrums approaching, I'll probably become a serial series monogamist. (Lord knows that's the only form of monogamy I'm practicing these days.)
Since I sometimes have thoughts, and I only plan on watching/reading top-notch series which cause wild thoughts to appear, I thought I may as well collect them, here, to serve as a record for both of us. Don't expect them to be deep or particularly thoughtful; hopefully, as my grip over my emotions loosens, they'll be visceral. And also quirky—chances are we, dear reader, approach life very differently.
My plan is to blog after every episode or group of episodes. Or just episodes I find interesting. Expect irregularity.
To give you a background, here's what I've done in the past few years:
Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra Veronica Mars Parks and Recreation Sherlock
Orhan Pamuk's novels
Here's what's on my list now: Mad Men Seinfeld Phineas and Ferb (just need to finish) Breaking Bad Curb Your Enthusiasm
I'm full of obscure allusions, bad puns, and subtle satire, and I'm also relentlessly self-deprecating and pretentiously cynical. Hope you're into that. I don't like stupidity sans humility. Hope you're not into that.
Finally, in case you didn't guess: there will be spoilers. I imagine that won't be a problem for most of you since I'm only getting to these way after you are, but fair warning.
