Finally getting into Mad Men

Better. The next 3 or 4 seasons especially, and the last couple of seasons were for me the most uneven (if not unrewarding.)

I agree with R1. It's almost a flawless show.

The rest of the seasons are as good as the first. But none of the seasons reach the depth and excitement of staring at your wall and watching paint dry.

Give it time. Do you know how long it takes me to get into my girdle?

Thanks r3!

You remind me how disappointing it is that the DL has a wit and wisdom button but none for witless and stupid.

[quote]Are the rest of the seasons just as good?

Yes. You are in for a fun ride.

Also, don't forget to pat yourself on the back while telling yourself how smart you are if you really want the full Mad Men experience.

I have never watched Mad Men. I think I'll give it a shot, too.

“It will shock you how much it never happened.”

"Finally, after all this time, we've become mad men!" Seriously, that's how they chose to end the show?

How much Hamm VPL please? It will help me decide if i should watch the show.

Didn't they end the show with Alice Cooper and her companion singing a cover of Pussy Riot's "Straight out of Vagina" and the entire show was just in Gene Draper's imagination?

I remember it pretty well because the Mad Men was the last time I took LSD.

YES. The series becomes much more interesting as the sixties progress. Season one is just setting the table and establishing the characters.

Just wait for the riding mower scene.

Some of the writing got clunky in the last two seasons, but I always loved it.

There were a few characters and storylines I could have done without, but I loved it all the way through.

Imagine a “Mad Men” with no Meghan. Though I guess she did illustrate certain things about Don. Not interesting as a character in her own right, though.

r8 Watch Succession instead. It's about a million times more interesting.

[quote] Just wait for the riding mower scene

“One second you’re on top of the world, the next one you get run over by a stupid secretary on a lawn mower”

It was good until the end, in my opinion. Like a lot of long-running shows it peaks in the middle (seasons 3-4).

Spoilers: all they do is have Jon Hamm's character get moody and leave town and then come back. They do this at least twice, one of which being the plot of the last season, IIRC. They didn't know what to do with the story.

Draper grew tiresome, but the other characters saved it for me.

It was great until Meghan showed up

Pre-Megan Mad Men: Seasons 1-3. Mad Men with Megan mostly in the background, until close to the end: Season 4. Mad Men, the Megan era: Seasons 5-7.

She was the worst major character on the show. I actually felt bad for Jessica Paré, with the way Matthew Weiner pushed her so hard. Season 5, especially, made it seem he was so eager to share with the world this exciting discovery he felt he had made, at the expense of the show. Then it wasn't enough that she was in most of the Don scenes; they brought her parents on, and followed her into different career situations with her own supporting characters.

It's a great series overall. It's just better in the first four seasons than it ever is again. Pace an earlier comment, I actually think this show did "early '60s" better than it did "late '60s." Sometimes in the later seasons (entirely separate from the Megan issue), they'll have young guest actors playing hippies, and their mannerisms and cadences are not convincing at all. They're more like hipSTERS.

EXCELLENT series, OP.

Mad Men and The Wire are two of the best in their generation.

It's a good series and fun to watch it unfold. Lots of twists and memorable scenes. Great characters and great performances from the actors playing them. Plus the costuming, sets and period-perfect artifacts? Icing on the cake. Enjoy, OP.

Don’s backstory and the flashbacks got tiresome. Peggy became the series’ most compelling character.

I thought Vincent Kartheiser was the stealth MVP. That was great counterintuitive casting: a charmless character played by an actor who has charm to spare...yet we always believe the situations he gets himself into. His comedic timing was impeccable.

I did think the aging of him in the later seasons was a little much. It's been a while, but weren't they padding him and shaving his hairline back?

Meghan was fine. I didn’t like how Peggy didn’t care about her discarded child. She seemed a little psycho. And the exit of the gay was abrupt and weird. The show creator seemed a little gay. Surprised he ended up having some weird thing with a woman.

He did put a lot of gay characters in the show, both men and women. I don't want to name them, because some of them are intended to be surprises, and OP might not want to know before he meets them.

But yeah, I think Weiner is straight, and Mad Men strikes me as a straight TV-auteur's baby. It was always kind of male gaze-y, for all its progressivism. And God, that season-five episode of Sopranos he wrote, "Sentimental Education"...that definitely was the work of a straight man. A somewhat bitter one.

I forgot all about the Megan character.

That’s how poorly written that character was. I blocked her out of my memory.

The Rachel character was executed perfectly. Probably one of the better, if not best mistresses Don had. I liked Bobbi as well. She was fun.

Sally became my hero in the end. She was annoying as fuck, but the kid had the most fucked up parents a kid could have, so I gave her all the leeway in the world.

My favorite of all was Joan. She did what she had to do to become partner, and still rose up with dignity through that humiliation they put her through. It was all she had in a time when women were given almost nothing to work with.

My favorite storyline was the opposite end of the spectrum- the guy who was fired for rejecting the advances of the cigarette mogul dude. I forget his name, but I loved his character.

My god, that poor man just could not win. He was stuck in a world where no matter what he did to survive in it, people shit on him, left and right. His poor frau beard was also suffering due to his selfishness, but what could he do? Well, turns out he did what 99% of gay men did back then: get married. But his character and his storyline still broke my heart and stayed with me long after the show. Don was a wimp for not saving his ass like he had with Peggy and her secret pregnancy/birth.

Roger was always a male chauvinist pig hoot. Loved the character despite his assholeness.

I never loved Peggy. I respected her, and wanted to see her triumph, but I never loved her.

Peter was a POS I wanted to see get punched in the dick/balls every single Sunday- no question.

I loved the Palm Springs trip. The shots were cool AF and it’s my favorite architecture era.

There’s so much more to write. The show was rich and textured in so many ways.

Enjoy the ride OP. It’s not a perfect show, like The Wire, but it really does get close, and where it doesn’t go neck in neck with The Wire, it makes up in other ways.

"Megan" was an odd name choice for a French-Canadian girl.

The name Megan was terrible. Megan wasn't even a common name in the Anglo speaking world circa 1967, much less the French one. That being said I didn't really mind the character or the actress, though clearly that's an unpopular opinion. She did seem like the modern type of woman Don would have married as a second wife. I've heard complaints that the character was too idealized but I thought she was actually pretty layered. They showed her flaws just as they showed Betty's.

Pay attention to wardrobe decisions. Mad Men had nearly flawless costuming.

It's hard for me to think of a bad episode. Maybe the ones that focus on Pete's affair with forehead girl?

R35 Her name is Rory Gilmore!

Costumes and sets only get you so far. The writing was incoherent, discursive, whatever you want to call it. I call it "slower than Better Call Saul". And I couldn't care less about big boob lady either. Roger was consistently amusing, but rich entitled white men get old.

Where is the Norwegian Catholic I’m all of this? We had ENDLESS threads about it.

I think the writing for the most part was excellent. Economy of language. I wish people spoke like this in real life instead of rambling on incoherently to make any kind of point.

It would have the most sense historically to make Peggy Irish American. Or Polish or Italian or even German... But Norwegian? Gurl it's 1965 you should be a native of South Dakota not Brooklyn! Otherwise I thought Peggy was a well written character. Interesting that Elizabeth Moss was the biggest breakout star on Mad Men.

I did appreciate as a whole how flawed and nuanced the characters were. For the most part very few characters were unrealistically pure or cartoonishly malevolent.

Edit : I feel dumber than Meredith. In just googled and apparently the character was only part Norwegian and the other half Irish. Still think it would have made more sense to make her fully irish based on the demographics of Brooklyn at that time.

I remember watching this show and thinking Kiernan Shipka was going to do well in the long term, that she'd be someone like Jodie Foster who makes the transition to acting as an adult.

But then I saw her as Bette Davis's daughter B.D. in that miniseries with Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange, and what she had had as a child actor hadn't carried over. She was one-note, flat. I haven't seen anything more recent.

Sally gets caught fingering herself during a sleepover by her friends mother.

I was fine with Megan, actually, until she and Don separated and she moved to California. From me it's only the last two seasons (which is really one season split into two) that are weak. I like the stuff with their new high-rise apartment and her working at Sterling Cooper (or whatever it was called when she worked there--it went through so many name changes).

Don only likes the beginnings of things.

Cosign Joan being the best character. I also loved Betty, but I know she's controversial.

Joan and Pete were my two favorite characters.

But I loved all of them.

Except perhaps Peggy. I always rooted for her, but she’s just so humorless.

I really like Henry and Henry's mother and her interactions with Sally.

There are good episodes in every season. A tiny wee bit of padding around season 6 and early season 7 - things that maybe could have been told a wee bit more concisely and one character that definitely outstays their welcome.

But minor quibbles for a very good show - and there are always at least 2-3 episodes each season that just crush it, completely.

R46 Betty is my favorite character, too. She's such a tragic figure; albeit deserving of scorn. I kept rooting for her to become a better person.

My favorite show. Loved all the characters even the annoying ones.

Betty was the luckiest bitch ever. She had Don AND Henry's cocks.

That bitch!

Betty got good dick that's for sure! Henry is just as hot as Don but not a self destructive asshole. Altho probably still a narcissist.

[quote]It would have the most sense historically to make Peggy Irish American.

Peggy was Irish American, through her mother. It's not that big of a stretch to believe an Irish Catholic woman married a protestant who happened to be Norwegian and insisted that their kids be raised Catholic. There were lots of families like this back in the day.

Not a stretch if you possess the slightest bit of intelligence and common sense. This being Datalounge, however....

OP- I have watched that show 3 times from episode 1 to the finale, and its my 2nd favorite show of all time after The Comeback (The Sopranos is my 3rd)

I loved every season, even the seasons that some did not like.

And Betty was my favorite character, but I still really enjoyed another actress who everyone here hated, as well as her relationship with another major character. (I don't want to spoil anything. I watched this show very late- started in 2014 and never read a spoiler or detail about the show. That was why it was so good- I knew nothing.

The show is special due to its attention to detail- not just the time period but to the characters. There are wonderful idiosyncrasies, small and large plot twists, and just really wonderful truthful moments and a lot of subtext. I liked how the show in many respects wasn't "talky" as that is what those times were like. People said far less- that is why the show really really works on a subconscious level. There is a lot unsaid- Especially with Joan, Betty, and Don- it makes the characters extremely compelling.

A very special show and NOT overrated. It will also age very well.

R54 I agree. My family was one like this!

[quote] YES. The series becomes much more interesting as the sixties progress.

Although I loved the show, start to finish, I actually found the setting of the early 60s to be more interesting.

Mad Men moves at a snail's pace.

It's like watching paint dry.

S1E1 Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is such a great episode. And tonight I saw the movie that song is from on TCM - Roberta (1935), as sung by Irene Dunno who was referenced in another Mad Men episode.

You know what's not Mad Men? The Old Man (2022) with Jeff Bridges. Watching E1 now. Have no idea what is going on and not interested to find out.

Riding lawnmowers are fun!

I love Mona.

R55, can you just say the female character's name? I'd like to know who you mean. I agree with most of what you said.

When I think of "Mad Men," Betty is definitely the image that comes to mind. I don't know why she looms so large to me.

[quote]I don't know why she looms so large to me

The fat suit.

We heard you already, r58. Go watch power rangers then put your jammies on, it’s almost bedtime.

r65 I was the first one to say that. r58 is a different poster. But great minds think alike!

Ida Blankenship was a Datalounger.

Also, Don and Henry were old and gross. The only fuckable ones in the cast were Bob, Ken, and Michael Ginsburg.

Super exciting, r66

[quote]The only fuckable ones in the cast were Bob, Ken, and Michael Ginsburg.

IMO, the hottest guy on Mad Men was that dickish young illustrator who wasn't impressed with Joan. The one who called her "the big Ragu." Peggy fired him for making a sexually harassing drawing.

r70 Also, the lifeguard that Betty tried to fuck after she saw Sally had a crush.

How’s about the guy Betty fucks in the bathroom at the bar, he was stunning.

It's a good series, worth a watch, but very spotty.

I miss Betty. I've been contemplating a rewatch as well.

Don was an alpha stud. When he fingerbangs that woman and rams it in her.....I got wet!

r75 When was this?

Fan fic?

Very depressing series.

No, not fan fic. Bobbie was the character.

You see them in a restaurant restroom, both standing up, and you can tell that Don is finger fucking her. It's really hot.

I forgot that part - Roger's BJ blotted it out.

I introduced my Dad to "Mad Men", who was young in the 60s, he liked the show, of course, but one of the comments he made was "I don't get why they smoke and drink on every scene". Also he loved Megan, so it must be a straight men thing, I can pass her small teeth, big gums and awful acting.

Like everyone else I loved Mrs. Blankenship, but her ditzy replacement Meredith never got the same level of fan love, which is a shame. She was hilarious as a dumb blonde receptionist.

In hindsight, I feel the Megan character is actually perfect. Maybe I’m assuming too much, but feel as viewers, we build up Don to be God like and anything less than a Marilyn Monroe goddess is not good enough for him.

Megan is a blunt reminder that Don isn’t that great and is just human line the rest of us.

Go visit her, r74.

I’ve never understood the hate for the Megan character. I suspect it might have something to do with jealousy thar someone else was getting Don’s big D?

Megan represents all the lazy bitches who just latched onto a man to make their way in the world. Worse, she had the nerve to be unhappy after winning the lottery.

See also that annoying skank on “White Lotus” who married a rich jerk then proceeded to complain CONSTANTLY about how he wasn’t kissing her ass enough.

r79 I would give Don a fingerbang.

I thought Betty learned of Don’s deceptions too quickly, it almost seemed like a rash decision tbe writers made to wrap that up so fast. And in my opinion, the show never recovered. They certainly never knew what to do with the Betty character after that.

I would let Roger jizz in my mouth.

[quote]I’ve never understood the hate for the Megan character. I suspect it might have something to do with jealousy thar someone else was getting Don’s big D?

Nah. A lot of women on the show got that, and some of them were popular.

The only Don love interest I found even more boring than Megan was that waitress in the last season. Diana, I think?

I would have appreciated Megan more if they hadn't drawn out her story so long.

Betty was hated initially and then people started to see that she was a product of her times.

Megan is exactly what a second wife would be for someone like Don. But the main thrust of her story was spent relatively quickly, and should have ended. It would have been something if one of the women Don used showed the repercussions of that more vividly.

The problem with Megan was bad casting. I never found her likable or sympathetic. Hamm and Jones are not great actors but they were perfectly cast in their roles and it shows.

The first three seasons are some of the best tv ever, then it goes downhill.

Do we suppose Don chose sex as the primary outlet for his dysfunction because he grew up in a whorehouse?

Sure, he is probably also an alcoholic but not a Freddy Rumsen alcoholic.

Women were Don’s real addiction.

They dropped a thousand interesting plot points and retold the same story on a loop over and over and over again. Nice set design tho.

It would taste like cigarette ash, R89. But I agree in principle.

My favorite series of all time.

Watched it as it was airing and have binge watched it several times as well.

The first four seasons are fantastic. The finest television writing! Superb. Layered and textured. So much of this show is about what's not said rather than what is said.

When the show came back for Season 5 after a year-long hiatus, it somehow lost a lot of its mojo. It was still good. Still better than 95% of what is on TV, but it wasn't up to its pre-hiatus levels of quality.

Most blame that loss of its mojo on the Megan character. I'm not going to disagree, but I didn't hate Megan the way so many others around here did.

Season 5 is actually my favorite season.

Deeply weird, uneven, and disorienting.

Much like the era it depicts.

Loved the show and glad I watched it. I had an unnatural fascination with Manhattans and Old Fashioned when the show premiered. I would order them when out with friends. Got a lot of weird looks from my friends AND bartenders!

I think this is the last show I watched in real time.

Don certainly became a Freddy Rumson alcoholic as the show progressed. He crashed his car while drunk and was later thrown in jail after a boozy baron brawl, for God's sake! As a whole, the show warned of the dangers of drinking and smoking, though it seemed on the surface to glamorize them.

I really liked Megan and she absolutely would've been an appropriate second wife to someone like Don. But the point of their sudden marriage was that they didn't know each other at all and that should've been the realization the story led to. Instead, Weiner kept Megan on - and on the other side of the country! - long after she should've been gone.

I always found Don as a single man far more compelling. Season 4 Don - newly divorced and horribly adrift emotionally - is his most fascinating iteration.

Bay Ridge Norwegian Catholics

The Conrad Hilton episode (when they first meet) is one of my favorite episodes.

Played by both actors perfectly

I loved - and miss - Mad(ison Avenue) Men.

Don Draper should've just blown his brains out around season 5. I got tired of his sad, schleppy ways--poor me, I'm so misunderstood. I had had more than enough of him by the final season when he was fucking that equally annoying sad sack waitress.

We certainly weren't as stylish or aware as some of these upper middle class types as shown in the show...

....but still, Don and Roger both remind me of my father, and a lot of other men from that era.

Hi R63- See R83 to see who I was referring to.

I am serious about how much better this show is without spoilers...

R97- ME TOO!!!!! Is that Fat Betty ? or is that the season after

I recall during Season 5 going I LOVE THIS SEASON..

Its been 2 years since I last watched straight thru and I think I will revisit during the holidays this year!

I think Mad Men is best watched binge-style.

I watched it regularly as it came out over all those years, and I honestly couldn't remember some of the minor reappearing characters and why the hell they were there.

R108- I agree- the details on the show are best caught with consistent watching. Its its own vibe. Like a long movie. Its pretty impactful.

My favorite was Mama Francis, Henry's mother. Remember when he and Betty came home and his mother was holding a knife and Sally was hiding underneath her chair because she told Sally about the murderer?

R63 I didn't see your post waaay back but yes it was Megan

I liked Mrs. Blankenship .

VERY weird - a YOUNG Mrs. Blankenship in the 1984 movie The Karate Kid.

Betty was an interesting character but hated her ending. The washing machine scene made me laugh. And the fainting couch.

Dr. Faye "I hope she knows you only like the beginning of things" is now on Stranger Things

It’s MISS Blankenship.

I hated the teacher Don had an affair with. I used to watch Rectify and it took me a long time to warm up to that actress because I disliked her on Mad Men.

For Betty, I liked that bittersweet episode where the rival Ad firm lured her out of model retirement for that Coca Cola advertisement to try to woo Don to jump agencies and join them, and then when that didn’t happen they dropped her like a hot potato.

I also liked when she realized that Don was getting reports back from the psychiatrist and she started to make up “fuck you” stories to tell him.

If you grew up with a cold mother you could relate to Betty. January Jones was perfect for that part, unfortunately most in the cast will never do better than that show.

I loved the show from beginning to end, though I really wish they had ended with Season 6 and then returned 10 years later with Season 7.

This thread prompted me to skim and rewatch a few episodes. The first episode is absolutely perfect. They establish all the characters and plot lines with deft confidence, only revealing at the last moment that Don is married. The show revealed a deep heart and conscience, but that first episode is brilliantly chilly and on point.

I could spend a week watching the show straight through with some edibles and good snacks and be perfectly happy. Maybe the next time my partner is out of town I will lol. The world it creates always seems so enveloping and strangely comforting, like whatever problems you have are not new and the world is just the way it is, figure out where you fit and deal with it.

R121 thanks to the pandemic I've still not had TV Me Time since 2019. I love my partner but I need him to go away for a few weeks and see his family.

It was weird that Megan remained part of the ensemble in season 7, when the end of season 6 had provided a perfect out for that character. I remember the mass groans on social media whenever she appeared, especially when they would cut away to her place in California.

Maybe Weiner was dangling a spin-off about '70s Hollywood ("Better Cast Megan"?) and AMC didn't bite.

[quote]Dr. Faye "I hope she knows you only like the beginning of things" is now on Stranger Things

I had first seen her as Christopher's post-Adriana wife on The Sopranos.

Not necessarily the best episode, but my favorite episode was Season 7's Faraway Places. When Roger and his wife take the LSD trip, (I barely noticed Peyton List until this episode, where I thought she was amazing); and Don loses Megan in the Howard Johnson's parking lot.

SPOILER ALERT:: The finale when he finds she's home and maniacally chases her around the apartment was the most terrifying we'd ever seen Don. And the way each of the three stories is told in complete, using major players in quick supporting cameos, building the tension. It was sublime. I've watched it at least 20 times.

^^Sorry. Season 5. My favorite season. Also, The Other Woman.

There's a Bob Dylan song with the line "Can you cook and sew, make flowers grow? Do you understand my pain?" It was sexist AF, but to me, that was Don when he married Megan. He was only thinking about his own wants and what he saw in this inept secretary with a nice body. He "cast" her in a role. She was good with the kids, she hung on his every word, she wiped the baby's ass, she didn't make demands or ask questions like Dr. Faye. He married her on the basis of a weekend in which she was there as an employee on best behavior. The next thing he knew, he had a much younger wife who was into pop culture things he didn't like or understand, expected him to support her flailing acting career, had little/nothing to do with his kids, and made plate after plate of dry spaghetti when she cooked at all.

It wasn't a bad idea for a story, because it proved to viewers that Betty wasn't all of the problem in the collapse of the first marriage. But Jessica P. wasn't up to everything she was asked to do, and Weiner's crush on her kept him from seeing that. There was too much of her and it went on too long.

The Babylon episode in So blew my mind the first time I saw it. That coffee house song is so haunting and perfectly sums up the tone of the characters and their relationships.

Of course The Suitcase is a masterpiece - forget which season. So much happens it feels like a 3 hr movie but it is regular episode length.

^^That's S1 not So. Sorry!

Love Duck Phillips. Big talker! Sexy voice. Doesn't like anything on his desk but ashes. They don't make them like that anymore.

yeah, he's so hot!

Except for when he tries to take a shit on the couch.

[quote] Of course The Suitcase is a masterpiece - forget which season.

Season 4. Fittingly, overall it's episode #46 of of 92. Bang in the middle.

Oh, Betty, you have such bad luck with entertaining.

You'll be married again within a year.

This is America. Pick a job and then become the person who does it.

I like being bad, then going home and being good.

Dr Faye would have been Don’s best match. But I don’t know why she would want him.

Dr Faye was too smart and good for Don. Not a match.

Bobbie was right on his level.

If Don could have learned to bond with people over positive things (maybe he and Dr Faye both came from difficult backgrounds and then became very successful— her ambition came from somewhere) his life might have been entirely different.

Mind you, I don’t have this skill either.

Bobbie Barrett was so great!

Please refresh my memory. Who was Dr. Faye?

Dr. Faye Miller worked at a consumer research firm that did work for SCDP in season 4, R141.

Season 4 was the season in which Don was newly divorced, and several women were in and out of his orbit. Phoebe, the cute nurse across the hall at his new apartment building. Alison, his long-time secretary. Bethany, the "young Betty" type who lived at the Barbizon. Even Midge from season 1 was back in the mix for an episode.

Faye seemed to have a better shot than any of the others, because they connected as professional equals, like he did with the great Rachel Mencken. And he shared with Faye some very personal details.

But replacement secretary Megan was the dark horse in the home stretch.

Faye Miller is the blonde Jewish psychologist who specializes in consumer behavior. Don had an affair with her while he was single and dumped her for Megan. Faye is one of the few people in whom Don confided about his identity switch.

She and Rachel were by far my favorites of Don’s girlfriends.

Bobbie Barrett was a great character. Her idiot husband (forget his name) was repulsive

Wonder if these characters were based on real people in the industry

Rachel Mencken was also waaaaay too good for Don. RM fucked ol' Don and gave him cuff links but otherwise didn't debase herself for him. As soon as Don showed up and wanted to run away and desert his wife & kids and wanted her to desert her dad & job responsibilities, the shine and luster vanished and Don was just a sweaty desperate guy.

Dr Faye gets to see sweaty, bleary Don panicking over the g-men investigating him, and he is even more pukey and shaky and at his worst of the whole series. Don deserved this torment and so much more.

R145---He was Jimmy Barrett---an insult comic so maybe based on Rickles or some other Casino lounge performer of the time.

Thanks r147

His character was so gross. Even through 1960s vision , he was charmless

Duck was the worst! Out of contempt for ex wife’s new marriage, he let his own dog loose on Madison Avenue! Fuck.Him.

I loved Glen.

And the housekeeper. Betty was unfair to her.

Housekeeper is Carla and yeah, she got fucked over. And had Betty not fired Carla and told Don he couldn't take her to California to watch the kids, he'd not have taken snaggle tooth Megan in her place, making Don googly-eyed enough to marry her in five hot minutes.

R151 Yep, Carla was fucked over. But karma is a bitch and Don paid the price with toothy Megan.

It was well known back during the show's run that Weiner cast Jessica Pare and then changed the storyline to expand her role because he was so hot to fuck her. So well known, even CDAN posted a blind item about it:

"This show creator of a hit cable show admitted that he let his peen get the best of him when he cast this B- list mostly movie actress in a role for which she was not suited. She said she would sleep with him if she got the part and he really wanted to, she got the part and was hated. She slept with a cast member to get him to stick up for her, but he just blew her off when she tried to get him on her side and keep her on the show."

Typical Hollywood. He also cast his son as the creepy Glen, another move that resulted in criticism at the time.

Elizabeth Moss a couple of years ago hinted there's talks about doing some sort of a Mad Men reunion show. I'd love to see a one-off or short series taking place in the decadent 70s. That could be very fun.

I would watch a reunion show--see how the Draper kids came and who raised them, see which marriage Don is on. Is Peggy head of her own agency? Has Harry been cancelled for harassment? Did Pete and Trudy die in a Lear Jet crash?

Re: Jimmy Barrett, I've seen Patrick Fischler in so many things over 20+ years, but to me he'll always be the guy who was terrified of the monster behind Winky's in Mulholland Dr.

Jimmy was a boor most of the time, but then he did have that one scene in which he told Don off beautifully, concluding with "You're garbage and you know it." An example of Mad Men at its best in those early seasons: even this character had his complexity.

R154 The gang could gather to say goodbye to Don, who’s dying of lung cancer.

R157 YES! Including the characters who died. They could all let their true feelings out in the end, for better or worse.

Salvatore (Brian Batt) was a great character, well-written and well-acted.

I never understood the Bob Benson (James Wolk) story arc in S7 (?) I need to watch it again but would also like to read any opinions on it.

Bob Benson (BB, as in DD for Don Draper) was there, as Pete clearly indicated, to illustrate the fact that Don's put-on persona was not a one of a kind phenomenon, and, among other things, to show how Pete evolved in his responses to both of them.

R157, Don Draper would’ve died of lung cancer years ago.

Betty dying of lung cancer was more than enough to make the point that smoking had consequences.

I'd like to think that Don defied the odds, as MM was essentially his story. A doddering old nonagenarian sitting on his front porch in Florida, with his fourth, much-younger (70ish) wife reminiscing about his life.

R161 I really need to watch that season again. I didn't connect on the intersecting Pete arc.

He was a hard drinker. Unless he got and stayed sober, he'd be dead by 1985

OP, you should move on to Mad Max after this!

I loved the first season, then I felt it started to get progressively worse. By the 3rd or 4th season I could barely watch it anymore. I watched when it was airing so binging might be a different experience.

R167 I agree. It started with a bang and then fizzled for me. Maybe bingeing a few episodes at a time will be better.

You gays are tempting me to do a rewatch! It's been years.

[quote]It started with a bang and then fizzled for me.

You only like the beginnings of things.

No, I agree. Whenever I think about watching it all again (and it's been long enough now that I'm tempted) I wonder if I'll be able to keep going when I get into seasons 5-7.

It's similar to The Sopranos that way, although there, what keeps me from doing a re-watch isn't the weaker later seasons as much as all scenes and stories involving Meadow and AJ.

[quote]You only like the beginnings of things.

R170 Very profound. I agree with that assessment (and the rest of your post).

I have a feeling if there were a "Mad Men reunion" of the kind Moss mentioned, it would be more like the Friends reunion or the Harry Potter reunion. Interviews, discussion of the show's impact/legacy. Maybe the starring cast (minus the dead one) back together in the same place and answering questions. That seems more likely to me than everyone getting back in character as older versions circa 1980 for a miniseries (like Twin Peaks: The Return) or open-ended series (And Just Like That...).

R172 I agree. It seems a bit like The Sopranos, where the creators want to leave stuff open to interpretation rather than show everyone the play by play of what happened to each character.

I desperately want a comedic spin off with Meredith the secretary. Make this happen Change.org!

Too bad Betty died. I would love to have seen that character in the 80's.

They did Bryan Batt's character so wrong. Just dropped him completely. And instead we get hours of Don's moody staring and clinking ice in glasses from your grandma's bar set.

A weak season of Mad Men featuring tons of Meghan is 1000x better than most other shows I have watched.

Mad Men is so fkin good. It was the first show that I experienced that came CLOSE to the Sopranos in realism, writing, acting. I used to think Jon Hamm was J hot as fuck. The episode where Peggy leaves the agency almost made me cry. I know Mary. I might binge watch from the beginning. Thanks Op.

I loved the episode when Joan slept with the gross Jaguar dealer in exchange for a partnership in SCDP. I remember being shocked and watching the show again when it reran that night because I wanted to see it again.

R176 I agree. I loved Sal and wanted more of him.

I am rewatching old “Bewitched” episodes.

Parts of “Mad Men” are lifted directly from “Bewitched.” Especially some of the set design.

Yes, I know I’m not the first to notice.

OMG, there’s even a “creepy Glen” so on “Bewitched”!

Seasons 1-5 are truly great. Season 6 is where you notice the decline. I’m halfway through Season 7 and not loving it.

I've yet to see it. Thinking about it.

The ending is cynical as hell. Damn.

Great show overall.

Just finished a binge rewatch of the series and think that it does play better as a binge as you can remember minor characters that make a return in later seasons.

Missed the first time that Miss Blankenship is mentioned and makes small appearances in the earlier seasons. Also got to ff through the waste of Creepy Glenn appearances

There's a quick throwaway line in the middle of the seasons where the character states that Don is pathetic. Think on first viewing, the show glamorizes Don too much, but the binge really highlights that Don was always a wasted trainwreck and the show and the characters who seldom call him out on that were right.

I still could have done without the final ending and stating that anyone can be a "new man".

R153- Hot 🥵 to FUCK her?

Weiner sounded quite effeminate to me in interviews - a CLOSET QWEEN.

Harry Crane- There’s an episode that’s set around 1965 which suggested that Harry was a HOMO. He says to one of the young good looking copyrighters - You’re SO HANDSOME you should be a model. Said copyrighter sniggers behind his back and calls him a Fairy 🧚‍♀️. I wish they had gone further with his GAY flirting but they went no further with it. He could have been the Gay replacement character for Sal.

R75- Finger FUCKS not Finger Bangs.