I am rewatching Mad Men and think Don Draper seemed constipated

Mad Men was like watching paint dry.

Overrated clap trap. Peggy was tedious as fuck — acting kind of above it all for an office slut who abandoned her baby fur her carer. I only liked Slattery’s wife. We saw far too little of her. And Robert Morse. He was fantastic. But CHRIST, the tedium.

Do any of you have anything intelligent to say?

I'd blow out any blockage he has with my 10' cock.

Elizabeth Moss makes Luna Dunham look like a feminine jezebel.

Elisabeth has had too much lunch.

She's preggers, right?

Are you watching it for free, OP or paying for each episode on Prime? I’m trying to find it free.

I would have liked Peggy if a different actress played her

R7 I hope so.

She had a cute figure 10 years ago - not skinny, but a figure.

Poor Don grew up in a whorehouse!

Dick, not Don R12

R11, it's from all of those egg salad sandwiches from the lunch cart.

Overrated. Topped out in season 3. Moss creeped me out.

People who think Mad Men is boring lack any attention span or care for nuance, and definitely don't like female characters.

R15 Season 4 was probably the peak.

I enjoyed Mad Men all the way to the end and I thought it had a very satisfying final episode. The only one I lusted after was Ken Cosgrove.

People who constantly throw around the word "nuance" are pretentious Karens like R16.

The final episode was great but season 7 was a slog.

It was all downhill after the lawnmower.

I liked it all the way through and have re-watched all seasons at least twice now.

And will again.

I hated the Megan years and the ending. I wanted the rumors that Don Draper was D.B. Cooper to be true.

This thread sure isn’t bringing out the deep thinkers on here.

"deep thinkers on here."

Oh Dear.

How about this nuanced criticism of Mad Men:

Mad Men is like a crisp autumn day outside while watching paint dry inside.

I really enjoyed the series.

Remember the “Next on ‘Mad Men’” previews that were edited so that they’d totally misdirect you about the next week’s episode.

Those became a running joke.

There were several ridiculous story lines for how well plotted the show was supposed to be. Betty would not have gotten fat. Don might have married Megan, but she was insufferable and sucked all of the energy out of the show. Joan sleeping with the client was gross and too over the top. The “mystery” of Don ran on way too long and lost momentum for any kind of satisfying ending. I liked Pete’s story arc though.

The first time I watched the show (as it was airing) I was appalled and repulsed by Pete. Years later and several re-watches, he's become one of my favorite characters.

Megan was the absolute worse. I wanted to smack her face and kick her ass down the elevator shaft.

I liked how Wiener dropped plots and whole characters without any explanation or followup and when you complained about it, his fan girls would say "it's just like life, sometimes that happens!" And then we got 7 episodes about his weird kid Glen.

R31 Her huge teeth would break her fall.

Another Ken Cosgrove fan here!

R20 or anyone: what did you like about the last episode?

Din had a good ending on that last episode!

R35, I enjoyed the end (unpopular opinion). Don was unwraveled and done for until he came up with the idea for the most successful advertising campaign of all time. It lets you run your imagination about a Don Draper version 3.0, reinventing himself and becoming even more successful during his tenure at McCann Erickson.

I was dickmatized by Don Draper.

But Ken Cosgrove could also get it.

I watched Mad Men last spring, right after I finished reading Anna Karenina. They make for fascinating companion pieces, a protagonist who creates their own misery through blind pursuit of desire.

Then Meghan showed up and everything got a bit corny.

I saw the ending as Don facing that his personal life was full of demons that he could only soothe through work. He was damaged and couldn’t get better, especially because the people who understood his damage were gone.

I loved most of the show's run.

That being said, I think it had a similar trajectory to Downton Abbey: the first few seasons seemed to have a trajectory to it, but when the show became popular, the stories were slowed down and stretched out, and it sagged in the middle.

For MM it was very solid seasons 1-4 but 5 and 6 had a few saggy points.

I agree Megan was the worst and most boring thing about Mad Men. It would have been more realistic if she left Don as soon as her acting career took off. The Megan character should have been left as the gorgeous girl at the front desk - a glamorous cipher. I thought it was cute when Peggy's lesbian galpal brought her colleagues into the lobby to get a gander at Megan.

Don's affair with the downstairs doctor neighbor's wife was unbelievable as well - not the sex, but the fact that Don was crestfallen regarding being cut off by his paramour. Don seemed to genuinely admire the husband and I think he, too, would be relieved to end the affair.

Glad to see all the Megan hate, the worship of her from both the director, the writers and Don nearly ruined the show for me, especially season 5. Its the one season I can barely bring myself to rewatch.

Other than that, I still consider it the greatest american drama of all time...certainly the best written...though it did take a bit of a dive in quality season 5 and after...seasons 2-4 are jyst preposterously good.

I own a cc of the series. It was a fit of enthusiasm as it dropped off netflix. I found out it was just like almost any other tv series--stupid and forgettable after you've seen it a couple times. It's there now, but I only watch it from time to time. When I watch a series it becomes old like gum and I hafta spit it out. Nobody chews old gum.

I loved Mad Men. My only wish is that was an HBO series and we got to see Jon Hamm's cock.

The show was well done but Don Draper annoyed me to no end. His droopy dog, poor-me schtick grew to be more than tired after a few seasons. He needed Cher to come in and slap him--"SNAP OUT OF IT!" He made what was a fun and interesting show unwatchable for me.

If I got going I could talk an hour but I won't. Megan--big mistake, for everyone. Even herself. Peggy--I liked her looking out the motel room window and seeing two dogs fucking. Perfect. Don or Roger will pour you a good stiff drink. Pete runs on vaseline and slides along like a snail. The Old Robert Morse was talented beyond belief. Then Megan's teef blinded me and she sang that fucking song and nobody shot her.

I think Megan was an interesting part of the story - and exactly the woman Don would have married for a second wife - but her story ran for WAY too long. Weiner had a bone on for her, obviously.

Betty was my favorite character because her outfits were gorgeous and she just made sense. Her storyline was perfect, a wasted life in suburbia.

R48 I agree about Megan being the type Don would marry after Betty but the mistake was giving her so much airtime and attention. Betty warranted it because she was an infinitely richer character...Megan was....not

Joan was my fave the first couple of seasons, then it changed to Betty and by the end Joanie was my least favorite.

And I was probably the only one that knew Stan and Peggy were going to get together...it was pretty obvious if you paid attention. Though I wish we could have gotten Sal and Stan working together.

I detested Betty most of the time. World’s worst mother.

[quite] World’s worst mother.

What? I fed those little shits and let them live.

R35 I loved how the last episode circled back to the season 1 “carousel” episode and Don’s genius at selling a feeling—his true talent. Still he remained a tortured but not especially deep character.

Otherwise, I hated the Dick Whitman backstory—it was so unnecessary. And Pete was in many ways the most interesting—despicable in many ways and yet oddly the least racist among the main characters.

I never got the billing I deserved.

R54 I liked how they had Pete slowly redeem himself throughout the show's run. It didn't feel forced, it was very organic. It's funny how the oppisite happened with Harry, who started the show as a genuinely good guy trying to do whats right and ended up a total sleazeball.

That scene with Sal and the bell boy was sooo hot. You could sense Sal losing it at the touch of a man, probably his first.

Set design and wardrobe were the whole bloody show.

R57 and Sal broke so totally that he ditched his wife and started cruising the parks!

R59, do they establish that Sal left Kitty or was it implied?

He should have been with the Belle Jolie guy who was sweet and understanding, wanted to "show him" and had an apartment overlooking the park. Poor ole Sal was perhaps not ready for all those leather daddies waiting to fist him in his last scene

R60 I don't know if he actually left her - I was kinda joking.

But his last scene was him calling her while at a payphone near some cruisy park. So I think he was probably on the road to exploring that.

Unpopular opinion...Sal should've fucked Lee Gardner.

R54 - The premise of the show revolved around Don not being who he says he is.

R54, the only time I found Don interesting is when he returned to California to see Draper’s wife and he could be his Dick Whitman self (falling asleep on the couch as soon as he arrived) but the rest of his tortured childhood didn’t seem real. I guess because we never saw the transition from born-in-a-brothel kid to slick Don Draper. A couple scenes where he worked for the fur company, that’s all I remember, and he was already pretty smooth. When/how did he learn to speak/dress/act?

[quote] I own a cc of the series.

Huh?

Remember when everybody thought Megan was going to die like Sharon Tate and she even wore a t-shirt that made a connection?

And then nothing happened.

Sal was one of those Freddy Rumsfeld characters who was totally abandoned.

One of my favorite shows. The casting was just about perfect. January Jones reminded me of my Silent Generation mother.

John Hamm is handsome but when you look at his face not all of his features are great. He's not as beautiful as the guy who played Bobby Benson.

I loved Sal Romano's Ann-Margret dance.

I never bought into those fan theories R67...they were uncharacteristic for the show.

R69 JJ was/is a limited actress but by god her Betty was a masterpiece. She was so good in that role.

Joan should have accepted Bob Benson's marriage proposal.

It's

JON

Hamm.

JON.

JON.

Don and/or Pete should have accepted Bob Benson's offer of daily office blowjobs.

"Not great Bob!"

R68 Freddy Rumsen came back for some episodes late in the show’s run. Sal just completely vanished for good.

I still dont know wtf was the point to Bob Benson and him asking Joanie to be his beard was uncharacteristically cliche and melodramatic for the show. The hate shared between him and Pete was funny but again, pointless.

R78 Maybe it was just to underscore the difficulties of life for homosexuals in that era.

A lavender marriage might seem "uncharacteristically cliche and melodramatic" for the show but that was the reality of the era. Businessmen were expected to at least have a wife, if not a family, and this was an expectation across all white-collar industries. The same applied to military officers

R80 Maybe but like I said, it read as cliche to me and Joan's "I wont give up on love" speech even more so.

R79 there were probably more creative ways to do that, like they did with Sal

r76 sometimes when someone asks me how I'm doing and I'm having a shitty day, I answer with "Not great, Bob!"

Or, if it's someone i particularly don't like, i have to stop myself from growling "GOOD ENOUGH" a la neighbor "Martin" from Seinfeld.

The sexiest Don ever was in a scene was when he was in the restaurant restroom with Bobbie.

When he stuck his hand up her skirt and started to finger her right there, like he was gonna fuck her.

I wish a better looking actor was casted to play Sal. Bryan Batt was too queeny looking so I knew he was gay the minute his character was introduced. The whole storyline with the bellboy was not a shocker.

*cast (my error)

We'll forgive you since you "Oh, dear"ed yourself, R85.

R65 - Don/ Dick is a keen observer and quick study.

R74 = Jon Hamm

No deep thoughts here… just more appreciation for Kenny Cosgrove who seems to be surprisingly — and deliciously — hairy.

Love a hairy blond dude.

[quote] Love a hairy blond dude.

Same here. Love the blond innocence coupled with the hairy manliness around the crotch and ass when they spread their legs.

It was good until Megan and her teeth came on

R81 I agree Joan's love speech was stupid and clichéd, especially for a cynical woman like her. I don't think the marriage proposal was clichéd, that actually did happen IRL.

As repellent as he was, I found Roger to be more engaging than Don, but probably because Slattery is a better actor than the Hamm.

I used to enjoy some of the ridiculous observations on Datalounge.

-Carla GROUNDS the show.

-Don has a DEEP PSYCHIC CONNECTION to his children.

-Pete Campbell will be FIRED after dancing the Charleston at Roger's party.

R75 yeah Johahann Ham is very particular about his name which is derived from Johhhannathan so to keep it simple he goes by Jan.

Pete dancing the Charleston was to indicate his extremely closeted and repressed homosexuality. Trudy was his muse. He threatened to bust Don's cover because in actuality he wanted to be plowed by Don.

I’m a huge MM fan and will defend the show against its critics, but I agree that Megan ruined the show.

I have a hard time believing Don would have married her. She was NOT attractive, she always reminded me of Freddie Mercury in drag.

Don could’ve had any woman he wanted and he married her?! Her personality was whiny and off-putting. I never felt sorry for her in the same way that I felt sorry for Betty.

Betty didn’t know what she was getting into but Megan did.

What I think of every time I see Megan:

I grew to like Megan and her fragility and childish self centeredness, she had some funny scenes.

I loved when she was crying in the bathroom at work and told Peggy that no one there ever smiled, they all just smirked.

Or when she was having the spat with Don at the Howard Johnson's and he pleaded with her to at least try the Orange Sherbet, and she dramtically started shoveling it into her mouth and pretending to love it.

"I loved when she was crying in the bathroom at work and told Peggy that no one there ever smiled, they all just smirked."

That is exactly why I hated her, we were supposed to see her as a better person and feel sorry for her because she wasnt as cynical as the others, it was very heavy handed and just made me hate her more. That and the fact that she was written as a Mary Sue that could do no wrong, they even had her being a secret copy writting wiz that won awards, even if she really wasnt interested in the work. That after seeing Peggy struggle for years to get recognition was not going to sit well

The realistic thing about Megan was how she feigned interest in Don's kids until she snagged him. After that they were a burden.

Peggy was mildly interesting in Seasons 1 and 2 but then she just became more of a cunt with each episode. She was more of a nag than Betty, and at least Betty had reason.

If Shelly Duvall and Linda Evangelista had a baby it might look like Megan.

I enjoyed this compilation of Michael Ginsberg's scenes. Interesting story.

Ben Feldman is an under-rated actor.

Jon Hamm has no lips. He is lipless. Clooney also suffers from the same unattractive lip deficiency.

I didn’t mind Megan the first watch but when I watched Mad Men again I found her really irritating.

Ida Blankenship was my spirit animal.

I loved Lois. I wish they'd used her more.

I remember when January Jones take downs started after Season 2 or so and people fell out of love with the actress and Betty the character. Both were good, always.

I don't know why they went hard on Megan. I don't know a single fan who liked her. I liked her mom though.

They were constipated in the 50's. They ate a lot of white bread. Fiber wasn't invented til later. It's method acting.

[quote] Remember when a few tinhats thought Megan was going to die like Sharon Tate and she even wore a t-shirt that made a connection?

FIFY

I wish Don had killed Megan and we had a whole season of Joan helping him get away with it. Framing Peggy. That would have been a dream season.

I wish Don had torn Pete's pants off, bent him over his desk, and giving him a solid hate fuck.

"Take it you little bitch. TAKE IT LIKE A MAN!"

Pete was gross.

Whatever the hell Vincent Kartheiser did on the Titans set must've been worse than reported because he hasn't worked since 2021.

I’m also rewatching—AGAIN—and I still pick up on things.

I’m watching the S1 episode where Pete returns the Chip & Dip and gets a shotgun. He’s in his office with the other guys and starts playing like he’s shooting at them and Ken Cosgrove ducks and reflexively covers his eye! We know that a few seasons later he actually DOES get shot in the eye.

A thing like that.