"Hei-i-inze is on my side," is the client Heinz's idea for an ad campaign, replete with The Rolling Stones, who sang "Time's On My Side," doing the jingle. The Heinz guy's daughter loves The Stones, Megan's knows their music, and that's enough for Don to give it a shot - try to get The Stones, who will be performing in NYC, to do the spot.
Harry and Don go to the concert, get back stage, and it seems for a brief while that Harry has actually gotten The Rolling Stones on board. Alas, it's The Trade Winds, a group I vaguely but likely you never heard of, and Harry consoles himself with a whole bag of White Castles. One of the better threads on this episode, but I was hoping we'd somehow get a look at someone playing the young Mick Jagger.
Otherwise, Mohawk Airlines is back with our firm, and Peggy is tasked with hiring a new copy writer. Enter young Mike Ginsberg, who has the worst New York Jewish accent I ever heard. (Actually, I'm sure I never heard an accent like that from a real person, and I've lived in New York all of my life.) But Mike has a crazy spark - he irritates Peggy, doesn't antagonize Don, and gets the job.
The most serious story tonight is Betty's. First, actress January Jones is pregnant, and has put on some weight. Rather than have Betty pregnant, Mad Men decided to give her a tumor on the thyroid, which is causing her weight gain. It could be malignant, and before she and Henry and Don learn that it's not, we see some rare glimpses of humanity. Betty's worried about what will happen to her kids, Henry is loving and supportive, and even Don can't quite do business as usual. But when the good news arrives, and Don calls, Henry tells Don that Betty's ok but deliberately neglects to let Betty know that Don called. Henry's not such a decent guy after all - at least when it comes to keeping Don out of Betty's life.
As I often find myself thinking, there's not a thoroughly or even mostly nice person on Mad Men, and that's part of the show's charm.
Here's The Rolling Stones' Time Is On My Side ...
See also Mad Men Season 5 Debut: It's Don's Party
And from Season 4: Mad Men 4.1: Chicken Kiev, Lethal Interview, Ham Fight ... 4.2: "Good Time, Bad Time?" "Yes." ... 4.3: Both Coasts ... 4.4: "The following program contains brief nudity ..." 4.5: Fake Out and Neurosis ... 4.6: Emmys, Clio, Blackout, Flashback ... 4.7: 'No Credits on Commercials' ... 4.8: A Tale of Two Women ... 4.9: "Business of Sadists and Masochists" ... 4.10: Grim Tidings ... 4.11: "Look at that Punim" ... 4.12: No Smoking! ... Mad Men Season 4 Finale: Don and -
And from Season 3: Mad Men Back for 3 and 3.2: Carvel, Penn Station, and Diet Soda and 3.3: Gibbon, Blackface, and Eliot and 3.4: Caned Seats and a Multiple Choice about Sal's Patio Furniture and 3.5: Admiral TV, MLK, and a Baby Boy and 3.6: A Saving John Deere and 3.7: Brutal Edges ... August Flights in 3.8 ... Unlucky Strikes and To the Moon Don in 3.9 ... 3.10: The Faintest Ink, The Strongest Television ... Don's Day of Reckoning in Mad Men 3.11 ... Mad Men 3.12: The End of the World in Mad Men ... Mad Men Season 3 Finale: The End of the World
And from Season Two: Mad Men Returns with a Xerox and a Call Girl ... 2.2: The Advertising Devil and the Deep Blue Sea ... 2.3 Double-Barreled Power ... 2.4: Betty and Don's Son ... 2.5: Best Montage Since Hitchcock ... 2.6: Jackie, Marilyn, and Liberty Valance ... 2.7: Double Dons ... 2.8: Did Don Get What He Deserved? ... 2.9: Don and Roger ... 2.10: Between Ray Bradbury and Telstar ... 2.11: Welcome to the Hotel California ... 2.12 The Day the Earth Stood Still on Mad Men ... 2.13 Saving the Best for Last on Mad Men
And from Season One: Mad Men Debuts on AMC: Cigarette Companies and Nixon ... Mad Men 2: Smoke and Television ... Mad Men 3: Hot 1960 Kiss ... Mad Men 4 and 5: Double Mad Men ... Mad Men 6: The Medium is the Message! ... Mad Men 7: Revenge of the Mollusk ... Mad Men 8: Weed, Twist, Hobo ... Mad Man 9: Betty Grace Kelly ... Mad men 10: Life, Death, and Politics ... Mad Men 11: Heat! ... Mad Men 12: Admirable Don ... Mad 13: Double-Endings, Lascaux, and Holes
20-minute interview with Rich Sommer (Harry Crane) at Light On Light Through
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Harry and Don go to the concert, get back stage, and it seems for a brief while that Harry has actually gotten The Rolling Stones on board. Alas, it's The Trade Winds, a group I vaguely but likely you never heard of, and Harry consoles himself with a whole bag of White Castles. One of the better threads on this episode, but I was hoping we'd somehow get a look at someone playing the young Mick Jagger.
Otherwise, Mohawk Airlines is back with our firm, and Peggy is tasked with hiring a new copy writer. Enter young Mike Ginsberg, who has the worst New York Jewish accent I ever heard. (Actually, I'm sure I never heard an accent like that from a real person, and I've lived in New York all of my life.) But Mike has a crazy spark - he irritates Peggy, doesn't antagonize Don, and gets the job.
The most serious story tonight is Betty's. First, actress January Jones is pregnant, and has put on some weight. Rather than have Betty pregnant, Mad Men decided to give her a tumor on the thyroid, which is causing her weight gain. It could be malignant, and before she and Henry and Don learn that it's not, we see some rare glimpses of humanity. Betty's worried about what will happen to her kids, Henry is loving and supportive, and even Don can't quite do business as usual. But when the good news arrives, and Don calls, Henry tells Don that Betty's ok but deliberately neglects to let Betty know that Don called. Henry's not such a decent guy after all - at least when it comes to keeping Don out of Betty's life.As I often find myself thinking, there's not a thoroughly or even mostly nice person on Mad Men, and that's part of the show's charm.
Here's The Rolling Stones' Time Is On My Side ...
See also Mad Men Season 5 Debut: It's Don's Party
And from Season 4: Mad Men 4.1: Chicken Kiev, Lethal Interview, Ham Fight ... 4.2: "Good Time, Bad Time?" "Yes." ... 4.3: Both Coasts ... 4.4: "The following program contains brief nudity ..." 4.5: Fake Out and Neurosis ... 4.6: Emmys, Clio, Blackout, Flashback ... 4.7: 'No Credits on Commercials' ... 4.8: A Tale of Two Women ... 4.9: "Business of Sadists and Masochists" ... 4.10: Grim Tidings ... 4.11: "Look at that Punim" ... 4.12: No Smoking! ... Mad Men Season 4 Finale: Don and -
And from Season 3: Mad Men Back for 3 and 3.2: Carvel, Penn Station, and Diet Soda and 3.3: Gibbon, Blackface, and Eliot and 3.4: Caned Seats and a Multiple Choice about Sal's Patio Furniture and 3.5: Admiral TV, MLK, and a Baby Boy and 3.6: A Saving John Deere and 3.7: Brutal Edges ... August Flights in 3.8 ... Unlucky Strikes and To the Moon Don in 3.9 ... 3.10: The Faintest Ink, The Strongest Television ... Don's Day of Reckoning in Mad Men 3.11 ... Mad Men 3.12: The End of the World in Mad Men ... Mad Men Season 3 Finale: The End of the World
And from Season Two: Mad Men Returns with a Xerox and a Call Girl ... 2.2: The Advertising Devil and the Deep Blue Sea ... 2.3 Double-Barreled Power ... 2.4: Betty and Don's Son ... 2.5: Best Montage Since Hitchcock ... 2.6: Jackie, Marilyn, and Liberty Valance ... 2.7: Double Dons ... 2.8: Did Don Get What He Deserved? ... 2.9: Don and Roger ... 2.10: Between Ray Bradbury and Telstar ... 2.11: Welcome to the Hotel California ... 2.12 The Day the Earth Stood Still on Mad Men ... 2.13 Saving the Best for Last on Mad Men
And from Season One: Mad Men Debuts on AMC: Cigarette Companies and Nixon ... Mad Men 2: Smoke and Television ... Mad Men 3: Hot 1960 Kiss ... Mad Men 4 and 5: Double Mad Men ... Mad Men 6: The Medium is the Message! ... Mad Men 7: Revenge of the Mollusk ... Mad Men 8: Weed, Twist, Hobo ... Mad Man 9: Betty Grace Kelly ... Mad men 10: Life, Death, and Politics ... Mad Men 11: Heat! ... Mad Men 12: Admirable Don ... Mad 13: Double-Endings, Lascaux, and Holes
20-minute interview with Rich Sommer (Harry Crane) at Light On Light Through
Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic
The Plot to Save Socrates
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
Enjoy listening to audio books? Get a free audio book copy of The Plot to Save Socrates - or any one of 85,000 other titles - with a 14-day trial membership at Audible.com ...
1 comment:
You forget Anna. Anna is nice - thoroughly and transformatively. Really, 'nice' is an inadequate description.
More accurate than not nice, is to say that every character in Mad Men is flawed. Think Achilles (not Paul Kinsey's night janitor, per se).
Anna's husband (the real Don Draper) was in love with her 'twin sister', who had 2 good legs. But she bore no grudge.
Alone of the characters, she saw everyone and everything, including herself, as neither right or wrong, rather as perfect (in the sense of whole and complete, the way they are and the way they are not). By offering no resistance to reality, she embodied compassion for all.
The story that is the consequence of the characters' flaws almost writes itself from the style sheet, and it is what makes Mad Men interesting. We recognize our own life in the lives of others.
Don has achieved a degree of freedom recently. He had been attempting to hide his identity since childhood (Dawn Draper, get it?). Ironically, what he is hiding is no revelation to anyone: he is smart and thinks with his penis (Dick Whitman, get it?).
Anna gave him the space to be himself, without shame. Betty can not because she hides a dark secret known only to her parents and that negro servant at her home. No doubt we will discover Megan's flaws, but she is comfortable enough with her self that Don sees the 'Anna' in her.
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