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REVIEW – Mad Men Season 5 ‘Far Away Places’ Episode 506

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 23:50:30 +0000

Editor’s Note: Matt Hardeman is a lover of all things music, movies and TV. The following post is from the HDROOM blog and is reposted with permission.

The following review contains MAD MEN spoilers, do not read any further if you have not yet seen this episode!

“Everyone has somewhere to go today.” – Bert Cooper

This week’s episode of Mad Men, ‘Far Away Places,’ was by far the most daring and, dare I say, experimental of the series. Taking a narrative page from Kurosawa’s Rashomon, this episode focused on the same 24-36 hour time span for three different characters and the journeys they took within that time. This was a bold move for a show that’s normally very cemented in its storytelling methods, and I think it turned out wonderful.

Peggy kicks off the episode, panicking about her latest pitch to the Heinz company whilst fighting with her boyfriend Abe over whether she values her job more than him (news flash, Abe: she does). Just before the meeting Don announces he’s going out of town and taking Megan with him, leaving Peggy down a team member and now running the show. Despite delivering on everything Heinz asked for at their last meeting, they still aren’t convinced and this send Peggy into a tirade, berating them for continuing to turn down good work. It’s a move that’s worked for Don in the past, but Peggy’s not Don (not yet, anyway) and Heinz leaves flustered and Peggy gets booted from the account.

Having to get away from the office before she has a complete meltdown, Peggy heads to the movies. She notices a nearby patron smoking a joint that he gladly shares with her just before moving to sit beside her. He starts to slide his hand up her skirt, but Peggy quite literally takes matters into her own hands and shows that she’s the one in control.

Roger starts the day with a plan to get out of town and a dinner date with Jane and her friends by visiting a nearby Howard Johnson motel and taking Don with him. Don, in turn, steals the idea and heads out but, as we saw earlier, takes Megan instead. Roger reluctantly attends dinner with Jane, unaware, in part to his lack of paying attention, that he’s also about to do LSD.

The entire tripping scene is exquisitely put together, at times having an almost Lynch-ian feel. This scene, and frankly the whole episode, feels as though it was intended to make the viewer go through their own sort of reality displacement. Stoli bottles blasting opera when opened, characters speaking without opening their mouths, an instantly smoked accordion cigarette. Reality is played loosely, but somehow remains grounded and never topples over into the absurd. It’s also refreshing to see Roger, who’s had a pretty rough go of it this season, being on top of the world and enjoying life.

Roger and Jane end up back home and finally get to the heart of what Jane really wanted, for them to have a moment within “the truth.” The pair has a casual, yet heartfelt conversation about where they are with their relationship and how they both know that it must come to an end. Although they wake up the next day and Jane doesn’t recall the conversation, she admits that it was all true and that, not much to Roger’s surprise, that it will be expensive.

Don and Megan finish out the episode, and their part, to me, is the weakest. Having embarked on their weekend getaway, it’s evident that their “honeymoon period” is officially over. As in control of the relationship as Megan has seemed this season, it’s Don who is still calling the shots and his bossing around is driving Megan crazy. She wants to work and be a part of the team, but is constantly pulled away by Don, which causes her much embarrassment.

All of these issues come to a head during an argument that ends with Don driving off and leaving Megan alone in the Howard Johnson parking lot. Once Don calms down, he returns but Megan is nowhere to be found. Don becomes distraught and is thinking the worst. After seven hours of waiting, he finally gives up and heads home to find Megan in their apartment. On the way, he thinks back when he and Megan began this relationship, on the road back from California. Don loses his cool when she refuses to unchain their door and he kicks it in. They collapse in a huff. Don attempts to console Megan by assuring her it was just a fight and that “it’s over,” but she points out that each one of these fights “diminishes” what they have. Don clutches her tightly, saying that he thought he had lost her. Don comes off as an almost broken man.

They return to work the next day, both wearing forced smiles. Before he can make it into his office, Don goes into the conference room to talk with Bert Cooper. It’s here that Bert finally lays some truth on Don that he has needed to hear all season. “You’ve been on love leave,” Bert tells him, noting the obvious laid back approach Don has taken on since marrying Megan. The work hasn’t been as good and Don’s been none the wiser. Bert leaves him in the glass room, and Don just stands there, watching all of the up-and-coming employees pass right by.

Other notable moments:

- Peggy’s laugh when Ginsberg begins his “Mars” tale.

- Ginsberg’s story itself and the truths it revealed

- Roger intentionally saying “Frank Lloyd Rice” to Jane’s friends just to make them angry.

- The Beach Boys ‘I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times’ playing during the tripping scene not only worked within the scene, but was another perfect example of a song fitting this season as a whole.

- Megan gorging down all of that orange sherbet made my teeth hurt just to look at.

- I’ve seen it mentioned elsewhere, but could Megan’s reaction to cigarette smoke, immediate hunger and tasting perfume be nods that she might be pregnant?

- Don whistling “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”

- Bert Cooper telling Don to wake up and reminding him whose business SCDP is.

- That final shot of Don in the conference room. It’s this whole season in a quick glance.

- From the mouth of Roger Sterling:

“You always say I never take you anywhere.” (as he and Jane both take their hits)

“Well, Dr. Leary, I find your product boring.”

“I’m sitting here listening to these people have a conversation that has nothing to do with me. That’s incredible!”

“It’s gonna be a beautiful day!”

All in all, I felt ‘Far Away Places’ was another great Mad Men episode. I loved the narrative switch and thought it was pulled off beautifully. I did find the stories to be a tad uneven in their effectiveness, though. Roger’s was a homerun. I could have watched his side of thing for hours. Peggy’s worked the most towards growing her character even more. She’s becoming more and more like Don, for better and for worse. Don’s story fell a little flat for me and in some aspects seemed forced. He’s always been one to keep a moderately cool head, but this season he seems ready to snap at any second. On top of that, he’s almost childish in his reactions. I’m hoping that between Megan letting him know she’s not his slave and Bert reminding him he has a job to do that we see some of the old Don return. But if some comes back, does that mean all of him will?

- Matt Hardeman

Cheers:

The time jumping narrative was a wonderful change of pace

Roger’s LSD scene was golden.

Ginsberg’s story helping make him a person rather than the over-the-top character he’s been was refreshing

Jeers:

Don’s story felt a bit forced and slightly out of character.

After being such a strong part of last season, I’m missing Sally

Overall:

9.0

REVIEW – Mad Men Season 5 ‘Signal 30′ Episode 505

admin — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 17:21:51 +0000

Editor’s Note: Matt Hardeman is a lover of all things music, movies and TV. The following post is from the HDROOM blog and is reposted with permission.

The following review contains MAD MEN spoilers, do not read any further if you have not yet seen this episode!

“I know cooler heads should prevail, but am I the only one that wants to see this?”

Not at all, Roger. I’m pretty sure we’ve all been waiting for this.

It’s taken five seasons to get there, but in this week’s Mad Men episode, ‘Signal 30,’ Pete Campbell finally caught the punch in the face he’s been asking for since day one. It was just as glorious as I’d always hoped it would be.

There’s not a complete satisfaction with it, though, as there is something about Pete that also makes you care about him. Under all the smarm and incessant power tripping, there is a guy that has everything, yet feels like he has nothing.

The idea of that isn’t initially easy to agree with. On the outside, his life is damn near perfect. He’s got a lovely and loving wife, a new child, a wonderful new home in the suburbs and is well beyond secure in his work and dealings for SCDP. One would be hard pressed to find a shortcoming within all that.

Yet, Pete is filled with them. He never wanted the baby in the first place, and, as indicated in this season’s premiere, having the baby has made Trudy less concerned about her appearance than she was before, which is getting to Pete. He’s always very conscious of the surface. Pete also never wanted to move away from the city, but now he has to please his wife. He basically has the perfect life, save for the fact that it’s not the life he wanted.

I’m honestly wondering if said life is one Pete wants to keep living. At every turn that he sees as a high note, he’s torn down by those around him and his own expectations. He begins taking a driver’s education class and flirting with a young girl in the class, only to be shown up by a younger, “handsome”-er guy. He invites the Draper’s and the Cosgrove’s over for a dinner party, only to get shown up by Don when the sink he “fixed” breaks again. Later he partakes of some prostitute fueled infidelity, surely thinking himself as one of the gang, only to feel shame and judgment from Don, who has surprisingly become the pillar of sainthood in the office. The final straw was insulting and demeaning Lane in front of his peers, which led to some office fisticuffs and Pete picking himself up off the floor.

It is Pete himself that actually led to his office beat down. If not for his insistence that Don, Roger and he take over for Lane when it looked like he couldn’t close the deal, the whole thing could have been avoided, at least until something else came to pass. The Jaguar man’s wife discovered his night of infidelities, not only negating any business that could have transpired, but also humiliating Lane in the process. Pete takes this opportunity to kick Lane while he’s down, and Lane realizes the monster that he has helped Pete become.

As Pete has climbed the ladder, he’s carried and kept fewer and fewer friends along the way. Yet, he’s almost always looking for someone to back him up, and never realizing why it is that no one does. When he insults Lane, he’s looking for everyone else to agree, yet gets stone faces. As they are about to fight, he looks at Don to save him, but that’s just not going to happen.

Once the day ends, Pete drags himself out of his office and shares an elevator with Don, hoping for something. He stands there, defeated inside and out and tells Don that he “has nothing”, which we all know is furthest from the truth, but Pete doesn’t see the truth. Either that or, as I’ve mentioned, it’s a truth he doesn’t want.

Either way, I’m starting to think it wasn’t mere coincidence that Pete was asking for a window in his office earlier this season. The broken man that he is now is just a few short steps away from calling it quits for good.

Other notable moments:

- The entire dinner party was wonderfully set up and paced, with just the right amount of camaraderie and awkwardness.

- Don’s jacket. It deserves its own sitcom.

- Neither Don nor Megan knowing Ken’s wife’s name was hilarious, made even more so with Don’s “Hey, you!” line and Megan blurting out “Cynthia!” once she realizes her name.

- “There are a lot of varmints. ” Oh indeed, Pete.

- Cynthia accidentally calling Charles Whitman “Widmore/Whitmore”: intentional conversation flub or LOST reference?

- Did anyone else think Pete said, “Dick!” when he walked in on the broke sink, spilling Don’s big secret? I’ve watched it over and over and I’m sure he’s saying “damnit”, but it caught me off guard initially.

- Don fixing the broke sink assuredly created some handsome plumber fantasies. He made the ladies of the party swoon and, in the process, made Pete look even more like a joke in his own home.

- Don’s doodle of the noose. Is it a callback to his murderous fever dream revealing there is something dark inside or is it simply displaying how he feels in these meetings? I’m leaning towards the latter.

- I like that Peggy and Ken still have their pact, although I don’t think they will ever need it.

- Roger showing Lane the ropes was an incredible scene and gave an excellent peek into how Roger works. Sure, we’ve seen him in action, but hearing his steps and tips showed why he’s the best or was at one time.

- If you’re ever in dire need of a high class whorehouse, Roger Sterling is your man.

- “You’re a grimy little pimp!” – Lane Pryce

- “Because he was caught with gum on his pubis!” – Also Lane. He’s giving Roger a run for his quotable money.

- Once Lane assumed old-timey boxing stance, I knew Pete was done for.

- Joan telling Lane after the fight that he’s a better man than all the others, only for him to immediately and awkwardly kiss her on the mouth.

- Ken using Pete and his depression as the inspiration for his new story. “It might have been living in the country that was making him cry. It was killing him with its silence, and loneliness. Making everything ordinary too beautiful to bear.”
- From the mouth of Roger Sterling:

“Listen, honey, I’m not going to bore you with compliments.”

“Cup of what?” (in response to Layne saying England won the World Cup)

“The last words I want to hear out of his date’s mouth is ‘Next!’”

“I don’t know about you two, but I had Lane.”

This Mad Men episode, directed by none other than John Slattery himself, was, in my opinion, the best of Season 5 to date. While it focused heavily on Pete, the story managed to include just about everybody. Even more impressive is that it managed to do so with more than half the episode taking place outside of the office itself. All of the pacing and editing, which has been a bit shaky so far, was absolutely on point this week. Vincent Kartheiser continues to turn out impeccable work as Pete Campbell, the man who has everything but, as in his mind has nothing. Alison Brie did some stand up work with her bit of screen time as Trudy. I enjoyed her assertiveness and hope she continues to get her moments throughout the season.

- Matt Hardeman

Cheers:

Top to bottom the best episode of the season (so far)

As much as one can hate him, Pete Campbell makes for some good storytelling

Excellent editing and pacing throughout the episode

No Betty or Michael! Hooray!

Jeers:

Not a single one

Overall:

9.8

What do you think?: Mad Men Season 4 (spoiler alert!)

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 05:22:22 +0000

AMC’s hit advertising show Mad Men is off to a great start

AMC’s hit show Mad Men started its fourth season this last Sunday and my wife and I were bursting with anticipation. The last season ended with the future of the fictional ad agency, Sterling Cooper, hanging from a thread and it felt like an eternity of waiting to see what would happen next.

If you’ve missed the last three seasons, just know that I’ll be spilling the beans on some happenings in the first episode of season four below…so if you hate spoilers: READ NO FURTHER. For those of you who don’t mind, the backdrop for the show is important to know before reading on: The show takes place in 1960’s New York, specifically Madison Avenue, the hub of western advertising, especially back then. The show is filled to the brim with alcoholism, sex, infidelity, excitement and a look at the workings of ad agencies.

For those of you who are avid watchers of the show… did you like the new episode or did you think it was lacking?

I thought it was great. The new season started off with a bang; all sorts of PR problems and growing pains of a fledgling advertising agency make the screen burn with conflict. My favorite part of the whole show was when the protagonist (Donald Draper played by 2008 Golden Globe winner John Hamm) throws a client out of the office for being so stuck in their ways that they can’t think outside the box.

I got such a rush from that scene! I think all creative department workers dream of doing this to a client at one point or another, even though they probably never have. It can drive one crazy when a company, who by the way is coming to you because they need to change their strategy, are unwilling to listen to the creative ideas that will help them reach their market.

Sometimes, all the client really wants is a new production of an ad they’re already running. It’s as if they expect to turn a huge profit on the same ad. Many times these same clients then act totally surprised when the same ad produces the same results.

I’ve lost hundreds of hours on rewrites just because the account executive is scared he’s going to lose a client. And truthfully, I don’t mind rewriting an ad if it’s in the name of progress. After all every business should be involved in their own advertising campaign and should help come up with concepts that will attract more customers. That and, well, the more I write, the better I become in the long run.