Anyone watch Mad Men?

[chickatee]

Is it good? I have happened across a couple of episodes from Season 2 and it looks like something I might like, but I have no idea what is going on plot-wise. I thought it might be worth looking for the first Season on DVD if it's recommended here.

[Starbear]

'nct73' Enjoy the furniture and frocks, why not? Go on be shallow like me
I've got to say I don't care about the charchters as much as those in 'larkthingy to Candle thingy' But MM, is refreshing.

[swanriver]

It is getting a bit gloomy though. Poor Don, I just want him to find some peace. And run back to Betty and realise she is his saviour.
So terribly embarassing the scenes in the hot house, are we coming full circle where he is learning to appreciate surburbia?
For the first time beginning to understand how awful it must be for dh to come home to wife moaning about behaviour of small children and generally attention seeking, even if it is not her fault.
And Roger is toe-curling.

[swanriver]

I think what I like best about it, is that the relationships between the men & women are always shifting. They keep misunderstanding and then understanding each other. It is quite optimistic really. Don really does love Betty, although at the beginning of the series you wouldn't have thought so.

[Nancy66]

do you think so Swanriver? Because I think he really despises her - and that he's incapable of making any emotional connection with anybody.

[itchyandscratchy]

God I LURVE MM. Don in the last episode was just so fecking sexy - we got him in his suit and in his trunks and all post-coital and looking vulnerable after he fainted.... all in one episode.

Agree he is emotional fuck-up. and all the sexier for it.

POSS SPOILER ALERT

I thought the phone call was giving his real name (before he stole Don Draper's identity) and he was speaking to the woman that came into the car showroom that was shown in that flashback a few weeks ago. She came in and he introduced himself and she looked at him and kind of laughed and said "You're not Don Draper".

[swanriver]

I think he despises himself for making an emotional connection, well not despises but doesn't think it is possible that anyone will listen or care, therefore discounts. That's why he delibarately blew the relationship with the rich Rachel in previous series, because he had told her everything about himself.
I don't think he despises her, but I think in the opening episodes we were encouraged to think "less" of her for being a SAHM and slave to surburbia, and smallminded, caring only about looks.
Now we don't think that anymore about her, the writer has changed our view, and I think we assume there is more to Don's relationship with her, just that he can't see it himself yet.

[swanriver]

Also we can see him having made previously an emotional connection with the man who killed himself, despite buying him off in desperation, and with all children, and with Peggy and even Pete (when his father dies).
That's why he is good at advertising - he has empathy. He is redeemable!

[itchyandscratchy]

I'd redeem him good

[Starbear]

OMG I must, must buy the first eposide on DVD. I think I'll enjoy it more for the fact I know what's going to happen later. Nothing that has been said in the last 3-4 posts makes sense to me.

[Nancy66]

Something is brewing with Peggy and Pete and the baby isn't it? Fact that Pete's wife can't have kids etc....

[itchyandscratchy]

Pete doesn't even know about the baby. No-one does apart from Peggy's family. Peggy herself even calls him her nephew. Her sister has kind of adopted him. Think something might happen there as far as the priest is concerned. Not sure if it will be relationship-wise but a friendship that might lead to a confession by Peggy maybe? I loved the way they had that scene of the priest playing his guitar the other week.

Is very interesting seeing how backwards society was in many ways - the way Pete's mum was so awful about he and his wife thinking about adopting, for instance. It's 1963 at the moment and adoptions were at a peak in the 60s (before abortion became more readily available in some states).

Kennedy's going to get shot in the next episode or two isn't he. It's summer at the moment - August - as Marilyn Monroe's just died.

God I lurve this programme. As every single episode end, dh and I both say - "well that was just brilliant."

[Nancy66]

I can see Pete confessing to Peggy that he and his wife can't have children and that they are looking into adoption - and Peggy then offering him the baby. She doesn't appear to like her own family much.

Also, much has been made about Pete's snooty mother saying that he should not raise a child that wasn't biologicially his. This solves the problem.

[Starbear]

I agree Pete has to find out about the baby.
Who is Peggy going to get to shag her? Will he change the way she looks or behaves or will the gay guy do it?

[Babbity]

I thought the sister was pregnant when Peggy was - so the child she calls her nephew actually IS her nephew. I think her own child has already been given away.

When is Betty going to have an affair? - seems inevitable. I thought it was going to be the young man at the stables but I think not, now.

And poor Sal. So sad.

[Nancy66]

Babbity - no, Peggy's child is definitely being raised by her family.

[swanriver]

What an interesting twist Nancy66, it could be that we assume it is Peggy's but in fact Peggy's disinterest is in babies of that AGE because hers HAS been adopted. Family is so blase generally about the child and its relationship with Peggy, that doesn't seem quite right for such a strict catholic setup?
More examples of us assuming things that aren't necessarily true just because we want "answers" to what happened to Peggy's baby.
For example sister doesn't say, I've had to bring up a baby that isn't mine when complaining to priest about how Peggy is having her cake and eating it in the confessional. Sounds more like she is just dicontented with her lot as a housewife and jealous, not having to actually look after that baby.

[swanriver]

I mean interesting twist Babbity.

[itchyandscratchy]

But I thought Peggy had to hold her own baby on her knee at church one time and it made her really uncomfortable. Just because they're Catholic doesn't meean they would have disowned her. I think that makes it even more likely that they took the baby in as their own, maybe? and it's like the elephant in the room that no one ever mentions so that's why her sister never complains.

It's no good, I'm going to have to try and find out if this is true. Back after a quick google...

I like the idea about Pete taking the baby... would Peggy's family let this happen though?

[itchyandscratchy]

Ahhhhhhhhhh...

Well I won't say too much as some it is revealed during the 2nd series finale. But she doesn't give the baby up for adoption 'until season 2' according to wikipedia so he was at least 2 or 3 before he was adopted as he was born 1960. So the boys we've seen at her sister's could well be her real nephew and her own baby.

[Babbity]

It's soooooooooo good. This was the penultimate episode! They've so much to get through next week....

[Nancy66]

Great episode last night....hope Don/Dick wasn't going to top himself.

[littlepollyflinders]

No! There's a third series and they can't do it without DD.
He was merely washing his sins away in the tide .

It is SO brilliant.
Dp was all 'what's all that about Betty bleeding?' I said it's a cleansing thing because she's owned up to the truth when telling her daughter.
So they're both being cleansed.

I agree - Don IS redeemable.

[Nancy66]

but evil Betty is going to send Sally to boarding school isn't she?

[southeastastra]

sally was funny having a fag in the loo

[ahundredtimes]

Have you discussed her phone call with her friend? What was that about? Can someone explain. Why did she set them up for lunch, was it because she had some weird thing going on about infidelity? To see if it would happen?

And WELL DONE Peggy. I do like Peggy so much, and now she's got a foxy haircut and a swanky desk. I worry about her come the merger though.