On the surface, everyone looks great. They have fine suits and slick cars and tight haircuts. They are masters of their industry and serious people. The slightest ding chips the paint, though, and we see that there are serious fissures beneath. It could all crumble at a moment’s notice, and the dust will run through Don Draper’s hands.

We all deserve a little fun before the disaster, though, and Peggy Olson is having hers. After a day at Jones Beach, Peggy and the gang pile into Joyce’s car for the drive back into the city. Peggy ends up on the lap of — who else?? — Abe, who is more than happy to accommodate. After a bumpy ride with a gal on your lap, what’s a guy to do but follow her up to her apartment for a quick roll in the sack? And who can blame these kids? It’s 1965 and shit is about to hit the fan. Better make good on the positive energy that friction produces before it gets too hot for everyone and the real sparks start to fly.

Continue reading Mad Men – Chinese Wall →

Behind every good man is a better woman. It’s true of all men and especially true of “Mad Men.” The women incite and temper the men; they inspire and confound them. They are why we exist.

Don and Dr. Miller have fallen into a full-fledged affair with afternoon quickies, shared keys and everything. When she told Don a few episodes back that he’d be married within a year was she laying the foundation for herself to fill the role of the new Mrs. Draper? Her special skill is drawing information from people, often without the subject realizing it. Will she work that voodoo on our Man of Steel and to what end? Who cares, they’re knocking boots on a workday. God bless ’em!

Continue reading Mad Men – The Beautiful Girls →

Don Draper is a problem solver. It’s what he does for a living and it’s how he’s defined himself as a human. It is how he described their roles as advertisers to Peggy when she was striving for more art than science in her work. For his clients, Draper applies his creative force to make ads that solve business problems. In his life, he’s applied his charm, powers of persuasion and financial wherewithal to everything from caring for senile family members to rearranging the living room furniture. For a man whose very identity is based on intricate lies that continually cause problems, Don Draper is an adroit problem solver.

Of course, there are some problems in life that have no cure and for people like Don that is crushing.

Continue reading Mad Men – The Good News →

I love Christmas. I always have. I especially like pop music Christmas songs from the late-50s and early 60s. They sound so perfect, so happy, and so…well, jolly. But the best of the lot generally include a naughty wink and a nod or a touch of sadness at the thought of loved ones you won’t be seeing this year or ghosts of Christmases past. It is these songs that make up the soundtrack of Christmas 1964 at Sterling Cooper Price & Draper.

What better image of the ideal mid-century American Christmas than that of tree shopping with the family? There they are: Sally, Bobby, Betty and…Henry (AKA, New Daddy). And who should emerge from the shadows but poor, damaged Glen Bishop, the boy the whole neighborhood felt sad for as the product of [gasp!] DIVORCE. Now it’s Glen who’s dishing out the sympathy to young Sally, herself just recently entering this broken family world. Glen drops some wisdom on Sally to score the guilt gifts now before Betty and Henry start in on Family 2.0. Gotta hand it to him, the creepy little bastard is smart.

They’re singin’ ‘Deck the Halls’

And all the fun we had last year

Continue reading Mad Men – Christmas Comes But Once a Year →

There was a scene sometime back where Don Draper is in an elevator with a woman and two dopes who are regaling in sexual conquests and fantasies about office girls. The woman is clearly uncomfortable with the conversation and Draper responds with a pointed but subtle gesture by telling one of the cads to remove his hat in the presence of a lady. He puts a fine point on it by removing the hat for him and shoving it into loud mouth’s chest. It was what Mad Men creator Matt Weiner described as an illustration of “the coarsening of America” that took place as a bi-product of the liberated 1960s. From the looks of season four’s premier, that coarsening has infected Mad Men itself.

Season Three ended shortly after the Kennedy assassination, putting it in late 1963. Given the fact that Don Draper is talking to an Advertising Age reporter about the crazy year his upstart agency has just had (culminating in what appears to be a ground breaking ad for Glo-Coat Floor Wax), we can guess that we’re somewhere in 1964 or so. That means it’s a Mod Mod Mod World and by the looks of the décor at the new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce’s headquarters, Manhattan has gone Pop Art.

Continue reading Mad Men – Public Relations →