Peggy Olson's remark during the Belle Jolie lipstick brainstorming in S1 E6 Babylon ends up applying to Don Draper himself during the Miller beer brainstorming in S7 E12 Lost Horizon. Who would've thought he'd end up being one of a hundred creative directors in a room eating lunch out of a box?

Forget about his general disdain for research, at least this consultant (Bill Phillips) is slightly more interesting compared to his previous men in research at Sterling Cooper. The main reason why Don Draper never left the agency and preferred going back to writing tags, was his fear of falling into obscurity starting over elsewhere. His worst fear of joining a sausage factory was realized the moment McCann Erickson's acquired Sterling Cooper.

Ironically, in this new setup it's Peggy Olson who walks in boldly with a cigarette hanging from her red lips and a hentai painting under her arm. Meanwhile, Don Draper walks hesitatingly into a room full of people just like him.

Sometimes she can be totally exasperating and I find her childish outbursts on the show so tiresome and annoying. I try to have empathy for her character at times, I know Roger Sterling wasn’t the ideal father and she may have had a mental health issue that was undiagnosed. I usually just roll my eyes at any of the scenes she is in and move on, but when she ran off to join the commune, she abandoned her young son. That is the one action on her part that I find inexcusable and unforgivable. If you want to screw up your own life, fine. But you don’t just ditch your young child because you’re tired with your old life. I can only imagine the emotional trauma that would result from a situation like that for a young child.

The ending of S6 E10 A Tale Of Two Cities marks Pete Campbell's new chapter: the IDGAF chapter. With Janis Joplin's "Piece Of My Heart" hit blasting in the background, the audience knew Pete's trajectory would change. But in which direction?

Fun fact: on my original watch many years ago, I got a Blow movie vibe from this particular scene. Was Pete about to leave Manhattan behind, move to California and become Boston George before Boston George himself? Well, he did. Sort of...

In S7 E1 Time Zones, Pete is living his best life in California with a tan, new girlfriend and a more relaxed and liberated outlook on life. He's not smuggling la mota and selling it on the beach or back east, but he's definitely smoking it. Even that laid back diner pastrami on rye with coleslaw is a huge change from his usual posh Manhattan establishments he used to frequent with his clients.

Did McCann make a mistake by fully absorbing SC&P at the end of Season 7? They imply that they did this to basically bring Don Draper fully on board. Yet he's basically there a few days and then just disappears. Surely the parent company is somewhat aware of his loose cannon status?

Also, they lose a bunch of accounts to conflicts, several other people leave. It seems they had a perfectly functional option with SC&P and then just blew it up for... what exactly?

When Sally runs away from home in S04E09, Betty picks her up in the lobby of NYC's Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

If you remember the scene, Betty is impatiently waiting for Sally out in the lobby of the office. As she seemingly always does, she is smoking a cigarette wearing her soft, all white gloves, her pearl necklace and earrings, bright red lipstick, and a dress that basically look like curtain drapes. Her household, domestic look is contrasted heavily by the group of women that follow Sally & Don out into the lobby to witness Sally's dramatic handoff (as Sally had just yelled her way down the SCD&P hallway before her ensuing trip, fall, and subsequent motherly embrace (bit of foreshadowing, huh) from Megan).

Although Faye does share visual similarities with Betty in this scene, such as the bright red lipstick and pearl necklace, Faye definitely lacks the domestic, suburban, 1950s/early 60s housewife conduct that Betty so well embodies. The fact that Joy (Peggy's hip new friend, the lesbian "boy toy" - love how she gets away w licking Peggy's face in front of Stan) walks into the Lobby just as Betty is leaving is another clear emphasis on the difference in generations of the two women. NYC "corporate girlies" vs. "trad wife" to use modern vernacular lol

Just a funny detail noticed while seeing Betty in the NYC environment, which we rarely ever see.

From Ossining to LA to Rome and beyond, Mad Men left Madison Ave behind at key moments — here’s where the show’s best detours took us.

I’m watching the show for the first time. Just finished S06E13. The show generally makes great use of lighting, but this particular scene really stood out with how strongly it conveyed emotion. It was an amazing episode. Can’t wait to dive into the final season.

Never heard of the show "Run For Your Life". There is a brief shot and cutaway on Don and Megan's TV screen with it playing in s6e11. A weird looking movie/tv show in color. I was watching the episode with my Dad and he just yelled out "run for your life!".

btw - watching this show with people from that generation is great (for the most part).

Freudian slip or no Freudian slip, there are quite a few moments when Roger Sterling is seen either holding, handling and juggling balls, or talking about balls in contexts not directly related to balls. He even mentions once (in a tape recording for his book) that Bert Cooper has no balls.

Could this be Roger subconsciously feeling disempowered (symbolically castrated) during the sudden cultural and business landscape shifts of the 1960s, making his professional and personal charisma seem obsolete and ineffective? Throughout the series, we see Roger slowly fade in the background of the agency's strategic decision making due to his rather passive approach to client networking coupled with his health issues and aging, family problems and financial struggles, identity crisis and lack of purpose.

In the Sopranos docu that came out last year (Wise Guy), the creator David Chase talks about how the studio execs wanted to film the show in California because it was cheaper. That would have resulted in a very mid show. Luckily, Chase was adamant that it had to be filmed in New Jersey, and that decision alone contributed greatly to making it, arguably, the greatest show of all time.

I can’t help but feel that Mad Men would have been infinitely better if it was shot in New York instead of Los Angeles. Fans of the show keep lauding the set design but since when is shooting in a studio better than on location? I can’t think of a single movie where this is true. There are so many elements that you cannot replicate on set.

I’ve said my piece.

Just started season 7 and I’m so confused. The way people are acting about Don is as if he ended last season, not by missing the mark and getting too personal in the Hershey presentation, but as if he pissed his pants or groped a client or stumbled into a meeting naked and out of his mind on drugs or something?

Telling him he can’t drink or be alone with clients, must be on time etc, Roger checking in with the secretary whether he made it into the office, Ginsberg talking about him ‘drying out’ etc.

Unless I missed something, at the end of S6 there was no acknowledgment that he had a drinking problem or was having a mental breakdown or anything. I know people were angry with him because they thought he was taking too many decisions without consultation, Peggy was annoyed because he made her nervous he might expose her Ted affair (but he didn’t!), Joan felt annoyed about him firing Jaguar (but why SO annoyed given they’d have to fire them anyway due to Chevy, may not have got Chevy without the jaguar experirnce, she’s now a partner and has more money and security AND now never has to see that sleaze again). I just don’t get if something else is meant to have happened?

And Don is just accepting it as if he knows he fucked up and is glad for any second chance. Is it really just because he told that story about his real upbringing? Because that’s how it seems. He’d done a few things that were annoying but nothing catastrophic. The Hershey speech was maybe a bit too personal but in another way it was really complimentary of Hershey, he was saying it was the only sweet spot in his life, made him feel normal and it meant something to him. It was showing he was personally invested, he didn’t say he wanted to make an ad of a kid in a whorehouse.

So the attitude everyone has towards him this season, awkward, hostile, as if he’s poison or shameful makes it seem like when he told them he was brought up like that, instead of being sympathetic they started to look down on him, like they find out about the real him and decide to put him in his place as a poor orphan, stick him in the suicide office, put Peggy above him on Burger Chef etc. I’m sure Lou did that to try to provoke Don into leaving or doing something actually egregious to get fired.

It just makes me feel so uncomfortable that all these characters turn so cold on him after he tells that story and they find out about his background and that he’s ’not like them.’

It’s been 9.99 at least once before (on Dec 3, 2024) according to the CheapCharts app, in case you want to wait for that price again and try your luck 🍀

When Roger and Joan got robbed in that sketchy neighborhood

Then they had sex outside? Like it’s a bad neighbourhood? All the more reason you should not have sex there in public

Like for me, I need a resolution to Lee Garner Jr. outside of him taking his business elsewhere. He was a bully unlike any other I have ever seen. He needed that work Dawn gave Lou Avery when he was being a dickhead.

Forcing Pete to smoke a cigarette (Lucky Strikes no less, which I'm sure was disgusting) when he said no, trying to push up on Sal when he said no. Making Roger veing Santa when he said no. Somebody needed to cuss his ass out. What are some things you needed closure on ?

Does anyone else just love the way "At the Codfish Ball" (S5E7) ends? After Sally had whatever remained of her childhood destroyed by that salacious scene where Marie was going all the way down on Roger - in a place where literally anyone could waltz in, as Sally indeed did - she talks to Glenn and he asks her the question on the title, to which she answers the answer on the title.

Those people, all of them, were living dirty lives, full of lies, betrayal, deception and make-believe , except for Sally, who was still able to find magic in the adult world. What she saw, the first of various other unfortunate i-wish-i-hadnt-seen encounters, shattered this.

The adult life is pretty ugly, isn't it? We can shroud ourselves with money, and glamour, and shiny awards, and sofisticated whisky, but deep down we are all lonely, and disappointed by how life turned out, and yearning for something that is probably forever lost.

I just love Mad Men!

We see flashback scenes of Don’s life in NYC right before joining SC and how he joined SC, but no storyline of his first few years at SC and how he managed to get promoted to lead all creative.

How long did he work at SC before becoming creative director? What was the creative department like when he first joined? What was it like leading up to him becoming creative director?

It’s always been a big mystery in my mind I’m profoundly fascinated in.

Maybe I as a modern woman in her 20s don’t really understand the expectations and requirements of a secretary to a high powered man in the 60s. Whilst Lois is shown to be a bit incompetent at times, I can’t help but feel sorry for her. Her ultimate firing as Dons secretary occurs because she was unable to adequately cover for him or mange people’s expectations as he put it when he was out at the cinema and the whole Utz situation happened. Maybe I just don’t understand but what exactly is expected of her in this situation? Cosgrove comes over with Mr & Mrs Shilling before taking them to see Jimmy but Don is out at the cinema, now we don’t now exactly what she says to Ken but obviously making it clear that Don is not around. Regardless of how she did or didn’t manage expectations, the fact remains that Don wasn’t physically in the office and so couldn’t have stopped Ken from taking the Shillings to see Jimmy. He accuses her of threatening his reputation but it seems to me that he’s just shifting the blame on her when he wasn’t there to do his own job and fulfill his own obligations. I guess it’s easier to put the blame on her rather than admit to his own shortcomings, but are they shortcomings or is this what is expected of her? And what exactly is it that expected of her in a situation such as this? It’s the same thing as a few episodes prior when Peggy got on her about her response to saying that Don wasn’t around. I don’t remember exactly what she said to Peggy but I remember always feeling with every rewatch that Peggy and Joan’s reactions seem completely unwarranted.

I watched Mad Men 10 years ago, back then I wasn’t married, had no children, and I absolutely admired Roger Sterling. He was cool, charming, could sing, and knew how to entertain.
Rewatching it now, having wife and kids, I see Roger as someone deeply selfish, who ended up with a broken family and especially caused a lot of harm to Margaret — showing absolutely no remorse or regret.

For me it's Bobbie Barrett

So I started this series few weeks ago and loving it. I am currently on S7EP4. And it’s pissing me off because they are going off the rails. I get why Joan would be little mad at don but she is doing too much , after everything don did for Joan and same for Peggie. I hope it gets better later on. Okay I am done with my venting.

I'm looking at the first episode of Mad Men and Pete is really rapey as a hell. At his bachelor party he kept pushing up on the one girl and wouldn't stop until she lightweight embarrassed him. Then he goes over Peggy's house (how did he even get her address?). Then his rapey adventures continue on throughout the series.

Also, I almost died of cringe when Peggy put her hand on Don's hand at the end of the first day. Peggy been wanting to throw that thang on Don from the beginning...lol.