$250,000
May 7, 2012 5:03 PM Subscribe

How ‘Mad Men’ Landed The Beatles. Apple Corps licenses a Beatles track to Lionsgate for use on last night's Mad Men. It's the first time a Beatles master recording has been licensed for use on a television show.
posted by crossoverman (317 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite

And given the much-publicized budget/financing issues that delayed the start of the season, I can't help but feel the conversation during the Chevalier Blanc pitch meeting about being able to afford the Beatles was... a bit of meta-commentary by Matthew Weiner.
posted by hincandenza at 5:08 PM on May 7, 2012 [7 favorites]

a lot of this season's plots about the creative failures and struggles of SCDP read like meta-themes about the problems with the show itself.
posted by The Whelk at 5:10 PM on May 7, 2012 [4 favorites]

When Michael Jackson bought up the rights all those years ago I was expecting a lot more of this sort of thing. It's actually been pretty restraint considering.
posted by Bonzai at 5:11 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

That whole firm is doomed when someone falls down that elevator shaft. You don't even leave a note or an out-of-order sign?

/hates symbolism.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 5:15 PM on May 7, 2012 [7 favorites]

That's the beautiful thing, that they've held out this long ... except for advertising.
posted by user92371 at 5:17 PM on May 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

I was always told Jackson bought the rights to prevent the music from being overused in Ads and TV and the like and after his death we were all supposed to brace ourselves for more Beatles entering movies and TV - am I wrong?

Dunno, Mad Men is a good, artistically sound show. It's the type of creative folks you can trust to use the song right.

Hear a non-cover version in the background of a reality show? Now we have a problem.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 5:17 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

However this came about, I heartily approve. One of my most favorite of the collected songs of the Beatles or any of their solo projects.
posted by thanotopsis at 5:21 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

One of the first times I can remember my Dad being genuinely angry was when we were driving to school one day and some local car dealership (Sun Automotive or something like that) in Podunk, South Carolina had "Here Comes the Sun", the album version, playing on their shitty ad.

He grabbed the cell phone, which at the time was housed in a massive bag, and called the radio station. He's an actor by trade and does a lot of ad work, and knew for a fact those douches couldn't afford to license that song. He figured they probably jobbed out the production of the ad to the radio station, common practice, and some asshole over there thought he could just slap a Beatles track on an ad and it would be cool.

It was not cool. It was removed from the air less than a week later, very quietly. I remember not really understanding why he was angry at the time. Nowadays? That damn ad was was a regional market buy with a 12 month run. If every time I heard that song, I was reminded of a shitty car dealership (which thankfully I am not), I would be angry he hadn't called.
posted by lazaruslong at 5:25 PM on May 7, 2012 [7 favorites]

Mr. Weiner said he was told it was the only time a Beatles song has been in a television show, other than the band’s live performances.

False. The last episode of The Prisoner uses All You Need Is Love.

Whatever people think, this is not about money. It never is. They are concerned about their legacy and their artistic impact.

Also false, and obviously so, seeing as how a major point of the article is how much it cost to use the song.
posted by JHarris at 5:27 PM on May 7, 2012 [16 favorites]

yeah, the covers are everywhere - american idol has done beatles nights, for instance.
posted by nadawi at 5:28 PM on May 7, 2012

This would be somewhat more impressive/interesting had it not been for that Nike "Revoution" campaign that went on endlessly a decade or so ago.
posted by elizardbits at 5:28 PM on May 7, 2012 [3 favorites]

As I understand it, he didn't buy the rights to the master recordings. He bought the publishing rights...

Just after he did buy the publishing rights, came the "Revolution" ad, where Nike paid some surprising sum for a Beatle's track, which caused MJ's publishing rights to soar in value.

And after that I think the Stones got $2M, for the "Start Me Up" sample, from Microsoft.
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:29 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

They should've used the 'Start Me Up' guitar riff instead of that Brian Eno thing.
posted by box at 5:34 PM on May 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

Oh and just to clarify what "publishing rights" are: they don't prevent anyone from "covering" the song, and releasing their own audio version; they can prevent "sychronized performance" where the music is in a live show, or in a film or video. Syychronized usage goes for whatever the rights holder wants to ask, or not at all, at their discretion.
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:35 PM on May 7, 2012

Aside from songs that have been played in the occasional commercial or the Beatles cartoon series that was shown on ABC in the 1960s, the use of “Tomorrow Never Knows” on “Mad Men” is likely one of the only times that a Beatles track has been used in a TV show, music and advertising executives say.

Does the phrase "one of the only" mean anything here? Or anywhere, for that matter?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:40 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

False. The last episode of The Prisoner uses All You Need Is Love.

That's kind of an amazing moment too.

And this was really a rather special moment, for a variety of reasons. Also kind of weird for me as I am just leaving a job working on a website that handles music licensing, and ADVERTS using Herman and the Hermits when they can't get The Beatles is totally a part of my world right now.
posted by Artw at 5:40 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Wired: “Before Magical Mystery Tour, the Beatles were going to do another full movie like Help, and it was all going to be based on The Prisoner,” Dhani Harrison, son of Beatles guitarist George Harrison, told Wired.com in October, before his own Prisoner-inspired band thenewno2 kicked off its inaugural North American tour. “They were going to be in a movie written and directed by Patrick McGoohan in the same vein as The Prisoner, because they thought it was one of the best series ever. They were so into his psychedelic weirdness.”

Unfortunately, the Beatles project ultimately fell through. But not before McGoohan inspired the Fab Four to do something that they never did again. “What came of it was the [Prisoner] episode ‘Fall Out’ featuring ‘All You Need Is Love,’” Harrison said. It was the only time a Beatles song was licensed to a TV show.

The aborted Beatles collaboration was just one strand of The Prisoner‘s sonic reach. Shortly after it appeared, the classic series encouraged Roy Harper’s 18-minute epic “McGoohan’s Blues.” The show has also been mashed quite brilliantly with The Rolling Stones’ “2000 Light Years From Home,” which Mick Jagger reportedly wrote while in prison.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 5:41 PM on May 7, 2012 [9 favorites]

I hate that whenever I hear a Beatles song on tv or in a film, I immediately think about the licensing costs.

Something's wrong with this system.
posted by washburn at 5:41 PM on May 7, 2012 [8 favorites]

"I want to spend $250,000 on a Beatles song for the next episode."
"Cool. Which song?"
"'Tomorrow Never Knows.'"
"Which one?"
"'Tomorrow Never Knows.'"
"Never heard of it."
"It's from their 'Revolver' album."
"I've never heard of that, either."
"Oh, come on. 'Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream.'"
"Isn't that 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds?'"
"No, this one was from years earlier."
"You mean from 'Help'?"
"No, 'Revolver.' Jesus, fuck, you're an idiot."
"How about 'Hey Jude?' Everyone knows that one."
"It's the goddamn Beatles!"
"Yes, I know. I just thought...'"
"What? You thought what?"
"I just thought you would choose one that's more ... you know ... Beatles-y."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:46 PM on May 7, 2012 [29 favorites]

I am apparently Aaron Sorkin AND John Hughes.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:49 PM on May 7, 2012 [3 favorites]

When Don goes to sleep Sheep count him.
posted by The Whelk at 5:53 PM on May 7, 2012

$250,000 is a pretty good deal, given that they'd charge you one quarter of that just for file-sharing a single mp3 of the song.
posted by chortly at 5:54 PM on May 7, 2012 [3 favorites]

Yeah, as soon as you saw her pull out Revolver you knew this was not going to be what Don expected at all.
posted by Artw at 5:54 PM on May 7, 2012 [3 favorites]

Add a little David Mamet and you'll be all set.

Well, I did use the word "fuck." Maybe I need to add about five more?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:55 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

a lot of this season's plots about the creative failures and struggles of SCDP read like meta-themes about the problems with the show itself.

Could you expand on that, The Whelk? Problems with the show itself? Are you talking about production problems... or do you think there's a creative issue this season?
posted by crossoverman at 5:59 PM on May 7, 2012

I think the first few episodes where they're talking about the firm becoming complacent and not fighting and "success is just one step away from failure" they're also kinda of talking about the show itself. It's easy to imagine the conversations they keep having about the firms creative future are also conversations from the writer's room about the future of the show.
posted by The Whelk at 6:02 PM on May 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

Although it is rare for there to be an original Beatles version in a TV show or Movie, covers are fairly abundant.

I came here to mention this. The list of Beatles cover versions includes such TV soundtrack diversity as Pleasantville, Scrubs and... Alvin And The Chipmunks.
posted by rh at 6:05 PM on May 7, 2012

Also, as others have mentioned, the much more rapid pace of the WTF this season and heavily expressed themes seem to be the show answering critics that "nothing happens on mad Men" while at the same time showing how rapid and upsetting the cultural change of the era is effecting the stability of the characters.
posted by The Whelk at 6:06 PM on May 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

Beatles, Beatles, Beatles. And all this time the true artistry of the Rutles continues to be ignored.
posted by Fnarf at 6:09 PM on May 7, 2012 [8 favorites]

haha - the voice is doing yesterday right this moment.
posted by nadawi at 6:09 PM on May 7, 2012

They could've got a Rutles song for a...uh song.
posted by hot_monster at 6:13 PM on May 7, 2012

I can't help but like the title of the song they chose - "Tomorrow Never Knows"? The season has been stressing Don's bewilderment about the future, and his increasingly desperate attempts to keep his finger on the cultural pulse via Megan. They signaled this as far back as the last episode of Season 4, appropriately titled "Tomorrowland."
posted by Paragon at 6:18 PM on May 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

furiousxgeorge, that's amazing!. I really hope someone on Mad Men gets to watch The Prisoner.
posted by armacy at 6:36 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Excellent choice considering the theme of the episode. (And considering that Lennon wrote it on acid, perhaps a sly ref to Roger's lysergic epiphany a couple of episodes back?) My only nitpick is that they show Don placing the needle down at the beginning of the record (presumably Side A, the first tune of which is "Taxman", IIRC; and if he skipped right to Side B, it would be "Got to Get You Into My Life"), whereas TNK is the last tune on the LP. Just a little odd for a show that prides itself on attention to period detail.

(This was the second LP I ever bought. First was the Stones' "Got Live if You Want It".)
posted by Philofacts at 6:37 PM on May 7, 2012 [3 favorites]

furiousxgeorge, that's amazing!. I really hope someone on Mad Men gets to watch The Prisoner.

Well there is a certain TV loving adolescent who feels trapped in an arcane and restricting world without any explanation from authority about why crazy shit keeps happening.
posted by The Whelk at 6:39 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Nike thought they had the rights to use "Revolution", from dealing with Jackson and EMI, but they didn't exactly. Thus ever since we have been spared advertisements of sausages and women's underwear using Beatles recordings.
posted by caclwmr4 at 6:58 PM on May 7, 2012

Beatles, Beatles, Beatles. And all this time the true artistry of the Rutles continues to be ignored.

Lunchtime is over.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:03 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

I think the Mad Men staff understands psychedelic weirdness. Roger's sudden cut from normal to a crash psychological reboot minutes later resonates with my experience with psychedelic drugs. You take it, boom loud noise, everything is different and weird...
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:04 PM on May 7, 2012

My only nitpick is that they show Don placing the needle down at the beginning of the record

Actually, I just rewatched that scene, and Don clearly drops the needle at roughly the right place, unless the broadcast version was somehow different from the iTunes one.
posted by arto at 7:17 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Did you see what kind of record player they have?
posted by box at 7:23 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

I always thought a good project would be to assemble versions of each of the Beatles albums using only cover versions of the songs.

Collaborators could each nominate a favorite version and then (after a spirited discussion period) the final selection would be by majority vote.

Of course the song lists would be lists only, it would be wrong to assemble those songs into a torrent. Just plain wrong.

Only my laziness has prevented me from doing it.
posted by Bonzai at 7:27 PM on May 7, 2012 [5 favorites]

Just a little odd for a show that prides itself on attention to period detail.

THE IBM SELECTRIC II TYPEWRITER DIDN'T COME OUT UNTIL 1971

Sorry for pointing that out so irritatingly, but it's a hugely glaring error that shows the art directors basically don't give all that much of a fuck -- especially since the original Selectric is far better looking and not remotely hard to find. But, of course, even that model didn't come out until 1961.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:30 PM on May 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

I nominate Nina Simone's version of 'Here Comes the Sun.'
posted by box at 7:39 PM on May 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

I always thought a good project would be to assemble versions of each of the Beatles albums using only cover versions of the songs.

Somebody already did.
posted by jonp72 at 7:51 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

beach boys and the stones are sort of hipster signifers, they have a narrow signifer of a kind of reconsidering mid 60s aesthetics from a post-90s aesthetic, which is what madmen is doing--ignoring the beatles would have been more powerful.

also, the kinks
posted by PinkMoose at 7:56 PM on May 7, 2012

There's been speculation on the TWOP Mad Men forum that Lane's virtual "disappearance" during the past few shows is because they used the actor's salary to help pay for the Beatles song. Maybe they used some of January Jones' (Betty) salary too.

Also kind of weird for me as I am just leaving a job working on a website that handles music licensing, and ADVERTS using Herman and the Hermits when they can't get The Beatles is totally a part of my world right now.

On the daytime soap The Bold and the Beautiful there was recently an extended scene of a harried young ingenue being chased by paparazzi all over Aspen. The music used for the scene was Last Train to Clarksville by the Monkees. However, the scene was filmed in a madcap style reminiscent of the Beatles' 1965 film Help and many viewers were wondering why CBS didn't spring for rights to the title song. The lyrics to the Monkees' tune just made no sense in the context of the scene. After reading about what happened with Mad Men, I realize now that perhaps it wasn't simply about the cost.

I nominate Nina Simone's version of 'Here Comes the Sun.'

Richie Havens' version isn't bad either.
posted by fuse theorem at 8:01 PM on May 7, 2012

I'm waiting for Peggy's friend Joyce to introduce her to a scruffy puppeteer who looks suspiciously like a member of the Weathermen. This could happen around the time that Harry lands the Beatrice Foods account. Bam, comedy gold.

By the way, the Peggy lookalike in that early Muppet commercial was actress Beverly Owen, the original Marilyn Munster on the Munsters who later got replaced by Pat Priest. Owen was even partially responsible for getting Jim Henson hooked up with Sesame Street, because Owen was married to Sesame Street's first director/producer, Jon Stone. Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street mentions this historical background in passing.
posted by jonp72 at 8:04 PM on May 7, 2012

Many viewers had apparently never seen the TV show "The Monkees," which was basically modeled on Help and exactly like what you're describing.

That may be true but Last Train to Clarksville's lyrics just did not work with the scene whereas Help would have quite apt. To ignore the lyrics and just think back to a TV show which happened probably before most of the current viewers were born may have been too much for the producers of the show to ask of said viewers. At least with Mad Men a lot if not a majority of the audience lived during the time frame of the show and gets the musical references without much explanation.
posted by fuse theorem at 8:26 PM on May 7, 2012

THE IBM SELECTRIC II TYPEWRITER DIDN'T COME OUT UNTIL 1971

Well that's true, but those are Selectric I machines in the show.

Anyway, I was glad to see Don Draper's reaction to the Beatles is the same as mine: turn that hippie shit off.
posted by charlie don't surf at 8:33 PM on May 7, 2012 [5 favorites]

Next: Game of Thrones licenses "Wild Honey Pie" for epic battle scene
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:41 PM on May 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

This would be somewhat more impressive/interesting had it not been for that Nike "Revoution" campaign that went on endlessly a decade or so ago.

It was 25 years ago, and only aired for a year. Although to be fair, Nike did get it's money's worth out of it.
posted by billyfleetwood at 8:42 PM on May 7, 2012

Well that's true, but those are Selectric I machines in the show.

Not all of them.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:43 PM on May 7, 2012

My only nitpick is that they show Don placing the needle down at the beginning of the record

Wasn't there a whole thing about Megan saying "start with this one" and indicating the right place on the record? (Interesting to me: the lovely people at the A.V. Club have helpfully suggested that of course she being younger wouldn't have the mindset to realize that what she liked wouldn't immediately be accessible to her older, increasingly stodgy husband, which is a character detail I rather like.)
posted by psoas at 8:45 PM on May 7, 2012

Somebody already did.

Thanks!

Of course this gets rid of the crowd sourcing aspect, but it's a great jumping off point. I bet a lot of these would make the final cut doing it my way. He even went with my choice for Happiness is a Warm Gun (The Breeders)

Great find.
posted by Bonzai at 9:21 PM on May 7, 2012

Megan's shiny slick FUTURE coat is like the best thing.

Oh Peggy. You are so on track to being like the bitterist person who ever bittered a bitter.
posted by The Whelk at 9:22 PM on May 7, 2012 [4 favorites]

anyway the overall feeling of the episode was OMINOUS FOREBODING and having the weird eastern acid rock music at the end was the perfect chaser to THINGS ARE GONNA GET RIGHT FUCKED UP STARTING NOW the episode was ushing
posted by The Whelk at 9:24 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Well that's true, but those are Selectric I machines in the show.

Not all of them.

Hard to tell from this angle but that could be an early 60s low end Selectric Composer. Elite secretaries demanded them.
posted by charlie don't surf at 9:41 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

It was a rainy afternoon when my dad picked up Revolver from the "record store." I was 6 (or 7). Before putting the Beatles new record on the platter, he probably had to remove an album by Sinatra or Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. He turned the volume up LOUD and unbecomingly, lay down on the floor of the living room to listen.

Dad was banker.

Like Don, I'm not sure if he "got" it either. But he tried - he inhaled.
posted by noaccident at 9:52 PM on May 7, 2012 [4 favorites]

Megan's shiny slick FUTURE coat is like the best thing.

It's a raincoat! It's still pretty great, though.
posted by fiercecupcake at 9:55 PM on May 7, 2012

I just have to say that Don landing on Tomorrow Never Knows blew my mind, and it was no stretch that he gave up on it. If I could have jumped into a time machine and fished out a dime to call him and tell him to try another selection on Revolver I would have. But restarting the song at the point he stopped it at for the credits? Pure class.

I found it more interesting that they referenced the planet Earth picture that Neil deGrasse Tyson mentioned a few weeks ago in this speech at the National Space Symposium -- it's a key point in the early part of the speech -- but the actual 1966 photo that the characters would have been referencing wasn't in color. (Color was 1968, Earthrise.)
posted by Catblack at 9:56 PM on May 7, 2012

I like how everyone on the show is totally confused and bewildered by Megan, who is like an alien, just totally not cynical and hard working and honest and that freaks them the fuck out. Of course she likes Tomorrow Never Knows.
posted by The Whelk at 10:02 PM on May 7, 2012 [5 favorites]

I just finished rewatching ALL THE EPISODES (well, up to the current season, which I'm not going to watch again because, you know, I just saw them), a task which took about 3 weeks to complete. My brain looks pretty much like this right now:

mad men mad men mad men mad men mad men mad men daaaahn (ba dum da dum ba dum)

Anyway, that was a beautifully written ending sequence, though I think the writing has been a little on the nose, what with Pete all "I got a life insurance policy and WHAT DO YOU KNOW IT COVERS SUICIDE RIGHT NOW" etc etc.

Also, funny. I associate that song with being 12 and listening to my mom's records. It was pretty much a doorway into adolescence for me, to a time when music meant something. It felt fresh and startling then, too. Maybe it's just one of those songs that's always slightly alarming the first time you see it.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:03 PM on May 7, 2012

Also hey there was a scene with guys being catty about gays and Crane wasn't in it to do his YES I AM VERY HETEROSEXUAL song and dance what gives
posted by The Whelk at 10:03 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Or hear it, rather. Because, you know. Music.

Unless you're on acid, I guess.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:04 PM on May 7, 2012

PhoB, I was thinking about how much Joan Learning Humility was a larger arc in the series, what do you think? Cause people basically treat her like Mom now. Joan will know. Joan will do the right thing.
posted by The Whelk at 10:05 PM on May 7, 2012

Also I'm 90% sure that the first time Peggy got into an actual, no-I'M-right argument with Don.

And Beth is totally Betty but like a antic crazy version of Betty and hey, SO IS PETE so we get to watch this Folie à deux take place and it's super uncomfortable cause I think both parties are actually fucking crazy.
posted by The Whelk at 10:07 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

YES I AM VERY HETEROSEXUAL song and dance what gives

He's been hiding in his new pillar office so as to avoid Megan.
posted by drezdn at 10:11 PM on May 7, 2012

I think it's an interesting arc with Joan. She was made really, really vulnerable last season--I think we saw the narrative abyss for her character when she cried to Greg about how she can't stand the people in her office. The interactions with Joey really underscored the "mom" aspect (he said his mom was even a secretary who wore a pen around her neck so people would stare at her tits). I suspect that aspect of her arc is essentially completed now. Punting Greg is the beginning of rebuilding her confidence.

I'm curious to see if her perceptions of people remain accurate. That conversation between Peggy and Joan was really insightful, and I'd hate for the writers to just suggest that Joan's way of looking at the world is totally dated. I think that would be overly simplistic, for one, and I think it would be to underestimate the raw intelligence of her character, for another. But I could also see them giving in to that, and privileging Peggy's (formerly naive) idealistic view of the world instead from this point out. It is, after all, the 60s.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:12 PM on May 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

Mad Men is all about Peggy and Don hooking up. I JUST KNOW THEY WILL.
posted by Catblack at 10:13 PM on May 7, 2012

Also hey there was a scene with guys being catty about gays

It made me miss Sal.
posted by crossoverman at 10:13 PM on May 7, 2012 [8 favorites]

Mad Men is all about Peggy and Don hooking up. I JUST KNOW THEY WILL.

If this could not happen, that'd be swell.
posted by crossoverman at 10:14 PM on May 7, 2012 [8 favorites]

I think that scene between Joan and Peggy is more about Joan thinking of the best, most comforting thing to say to Peggy which is "Oh she's just a second wife they are flighty!" so Peggy doesn't dwell on the "Hey that girl who shot up the ranks and just comes up with brilliant stuff who everyone likes who is younger than you and stuff? yeah she thinks the job is boring and pointless and you've spent so long making it the most important thing in your life how does that fell?"
posted by The Whelk at 10:17 PM on May 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

It made me miss Sal.

OTOH I really liked the super porny look that guy gave Don as he shook is hand. It was as subtle as a wolf whistle, I loved it.
posted by The Whelk at 10:18 PM on May 7, 2012 [3 favorites]

Also, some love for Abe's ....non-intuitive logic jumps in conversation? We have al worked with an Abe.

OF COURSE HE'S A MUSIC SNOB.
posted by The Whelk at 10:21 PM on May 7, 2012 [4 favorites]

Also note Don's very small baby steps to growing as a person.
posted by The Whelk at 10:22 PM on May 7, 2012

I miss swimming at the gym Don, though.
posted by drezdn at 10:25 PM on May 7, 2012

Abe? You mean Michael?
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:27 PM on May 7, 2012

I mean Ginsberg.

It's late.
posted by The Whelk at 10:32 PM on May 7, 2012

Although Joey and his stupid shirts are growing on me. Can we just have a locked room episode with him and Michael?
posted by The Whelk at 10:33 PM on May 7, 2012

Also, some love for Abe's ....non-intuitive logic jumps in conversation? We have al worked with an Abe.

OF COURSE HE'S A MUSIC SNOB.

Was that the first time they used "fuck" in the show?
posted by dirigibleman at 10:34 PM on May 7, 2012

Was that the first time they used "fuck" in the show?

They bleeped Roger last season.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:41 PM on May 7, 2012

(Specifically when chewing out Pete for losing North American aviation.)
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:43 PM on May 7, 2012

I'm trying to remember the PBS docudrama that used the Beatles' "Sun King" in a dramatized sequence. It was from a woman's diary and in the narration she just says a Beatles song was playing and she started dancing to it. The song they dramatized this with was "Sun King" and the scene used a cinematic effect, the name of which escapes me at the moment, involving replicated frames a la Nude Descending a Staircase. All this is from memory. It was probably in the early to mid 1980s.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:10 PM on May 7, 2012

I just finished rewatching ALL THE EPISODES (well, up to the current season, which I'm not going to watch again because, you know, I just saw them), a task which took about 3 weeks to complete.

A couple of weeks ago, I watched all the episodes for the first time, back to back, over about 4 days. It was intense. And you know, I can hardly remember any of their names. I remember Don, Betty, Peggy, and Joan and that's about it. It took me some effort just now to remember Megan's name.
posted by charlie don't surf at 12:25 AM on May 8, 2012

"When Michael Jackson dies we're coverin' Blackbird."
posted by Threeway Handshake at 2:39 AM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

I can hardly remember any of their names. I remember Don, Betty, Peggy, and Joan and that's about it.

That was something that totally threw me for a loop for the first couple of seasons too: Don's the lead, and the women are all pretty distinctive (partly because (a) they've got signature colors and (b) they've been forced into archetypal roles that none of them are totally suited for) but the rest of the men are all something of a grayish blur, starting out as post-'50s company men, and take longer to differentiate themselves.
posted by psoas at 3:29 AM on May 8, 2012

Did anyone else find it a bit strange that Megan was able to go from a knock-down drag-out fight two weeks ago to being all smiles and love towards Don? I suppose I just expected a little more simmering resentment. To be fair, Don's trying with everything he has to make it work, I guess.
posted by Rhomboid at 4:35 AM on May 8, 2012

Can I just point out that I'm not a big fan of bands who are aggressively protective and restrictive of the use of their songs. They are perfectly within their rights to do so, but it is denying a lot of younger people from actually getting to know the music.

We were playing Beatles at work and an 18-year old kid didn't recognise them at all. It doesn't surprise me really as the songs don't appear in popular culture except as covers (though Beatles Rock Band helped). Same goes for Led Zeppelin.

Maybe you don't need to let Blackwater or Burger King to use your song, but I'm not sure who benefits having the songs locked behind inflated price walls and offline. Integrity is one thing, fading to obscurity is another.
posted by slimepuppy at 4:37 AM on May 8, 2012 [3 favorites]

I thought the choice of Tomorrow was inspired. I mean...Much of the episode dealt with Don realizing he is rapidly falling out-of-touch with the zeitgeist of the times, something that is death to a creative director. His look of befuddlement when his team are discussing music say it all.

Then, Megan hands him the copy of Revolver as a way to let him in on "what's going on". She points to a track and suggests he start with "this one." If you hark back to earlier in the show when they play a faux-Beatle track in Don's office...a mop-top-ish song...and Don declares "we know what the Beatles sound like." Well...now Don plays the track his young wife...who had just told him that his whole world, advertising, didn't do anything for her...suggested he start with. And it's mind-fucking Tomorrow Never Knows! Heh...Everything you know is wrong, Don.

I fucking loved this episode.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:38 AM on May 8, 2012 [5 favorites]

Oh, and Peggy's in-your-face verbal smack-down of Don while they were acting as a couple was priceless.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:40 AM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

For what it's worth, this was the first time I heard "Tomorrow Never Knows" and subsequently, the first time I feel the urge to give Revolver a listen.

Take from that what you will.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 7:53 AM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's not all like that - it's a pretty eclectic album with different bandmembers beginning to go in different directions - but at the same time I think it might be my favorite Beatles album.
posted by Artw at 8:27 AM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

For what it's worth, this was the first time I heard "Tomorrow Never Knows" and subsequently, the first time I feel the urge to give Revolver a listen.

Oh god. Don't waste your time with that hippie shit. Go listen to some people with actual talent at playing their instruments, and could do this live.

I have often dreamt of a world where the Beatles didn't have a stranglehold on the entire music industry and the musical imagination of the entire world wasn't shoved into Sgt. Pepper's straightjacket.

And that goes double for Elvis.
posted by charlie don't surf at 9:01 AM on May 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Oh god. Don't waste your time with that hippie shit. Go listen to some people with actual talent at playing their instruments, and could do this live .

Wow, I listened to about a minute of that and it was completely boring and ponderous.

Regardless of technical skill, the Beatles were amazingly gifted songwriters with diverse tastes who were unafraid to experiment. Dismissing them as "hippie shit" is redonk.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:05 AM on May 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Wow, I listened to about a minute of that and it was completely boring and ponderous.

Well what did you expect? They're covering a boring and ponderous Beatles tune. At least they can play their instruments.
posted by charlie don't surf at 9:09 AM on May 8, 2012

I'm just glad they included the little pops& hiss that happen when you put the needle down on a record. :)
posted by luckynerd at 9:16 AM on May 8, 2012

Nah, the Beatles song is awesome. Lennon's vocals compliment the music perfectly. The drums are driving and soulful. I could give a rat's ass about cool technical precision. What I care about is whether the music makes me feel something.

And Tomorrow Never Knows does.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:17 AM on May 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm not a huge fan, but Revolver was also always my favorite. It was the cool one.

For me, the ultimate Revolver moment was 12 years later.

what with Pete all "I got a life insurance policy and WHAT DO YOU KNOW IT COVERS SUICIDE RIGHT NOW" etc etc.

Seriously. Is Pete supposed to have Asperger's or some other dysfunction? He seems completely oblivious to any sort of social cue. I realize his dad was fucked up, but he seems almost like an alien. I generally like the acting for Pete, but the writing has been a little tough lately.

That scene with Harry and Pete at the phone booth was classic ("you called me over"). What does he even do there anymore?
posted by mrgrimm at 9:37 AM on May 8, 2012

Pretty sure they introduced 2 or 3 new things to popular music in the space of that one track - not something you see every day.
posted by Artw at 10:01 AM on May 8, 2012

They should've used the 'Start Me Up' guitar riff instead of that Brian Eno thing.
posted by box

That was actually the idea. It was shown like that on the pre-release TV ads. I don't know if it ever shipped that way.
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:48 AM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Pretty sure they introduced 2 or 3 new things to popular music in the space of that one track - not something you see every day.

They sure did.

"John, Paul, George, and Ringo manned the faders on the mixing console, while Martin controlled stereo panning and 19-year-old engineer Geoff Emerick kept “a general eye on the meters to make sure no one was doing anything excessive.” Rather than a group of kids banging on drums and guitars, the process conjures images of scientists in a lab, using technology to will a new sort of music into existence....“Tomorrow Never Knows” laid the foundations for much of the psychedelic music that followed—and its pioneering use of audio manipulation was a key moment in the development of electronic and dance music."
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:20 AM on May 8, 2012 [5 favorites]

/prefers the Brian Eno thing.
posted by Artw at 11:39 AM on May 8, 2012

Even people who like jangling guitars would come to hate it or find it inappropriate as a startup noise. And it would pretty much ruin the song if the majority of the personal computers in the world (including just about all the really sucky computers :P ) made that sound at startup.

(Venturing further off topic, the first thing I do on any PC, particularly if I'm forced to use windows, is turn off all automatic sounds in the OS. And if you work in a shared space you should do the same, as a mercy to your peers, or leave headphones connected at all times.)
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:17 PM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Can I just point out that I'm not a big fan of bands who are aggressively protective and restrictive of the use of their songs. They are perfectly within their rights to do so, but it is denying a lot of younger people from actually getting to know the music.

You say this and yet, when the Beatles' music was finally released on iTunes, they became one of the biggest sellers in that market. Maybe if The Beatles' songs were used in films and TV more often then more young people would hear about them... but I kinda think the demographic of people who haven't heard (of) The Beatles is pretty insignificant and not likely to change if their songs started to pop up on movie soundtracks.
posted by crossoverman at 2:06 PM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

i do know quite a few people, my age and younger, who think the beatles suck because they've only really heard shitty cover versions in countless shows and advertisements.
posted by nadawi at 2:55 PM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Has any actual, respected, technically-proficient musician ever disparaged the ability of the Beatles - particularly late in their career - to play their instruments?

Hey, even Glen Matlock eventually learned how to play guitar, late in his career.

I'm asking this honestly, and with no intent to disparage you or call into question your judgment or anything like that: Are you a musician? An instrumentalist? If so, have you actually listened to, for example, Abbey Road and concluded that the Beatles were not talented instrumentalists?

Why yes, I am a musician, I have extensive classical training in piano, cello, and classical guitar. Yes, I have heard Abbey Road to death, despite my efforts to avoid it. It is one of the more exceptionally annoying Beatles products. To me, it represents the death knell for music, when production became more important than performance. And don't even seriously try to argue that the Beatles had a reputation for virtuosity, I mean seriously, people constantly derided their skills. Viewed amidst their contemporaries in the British Invasion with musicians like Eric Clapton, Brian Jones, and Jeff Beck, they are laughable. But I will be charitable and rank them a close second to Herman's Hermits. And don't' try to impress me with the songwriting skills of a band that used a show tune from "The Music Man" as one of their breakout hits. Most of the career of the Beatles was Brian Epstein repackaging the work of his other, more popular, more talented Mersey band, the Dave Clark Five.

If so, can you please explain how you came to that conclusion, citing specific musical examples from Abbey Road?

I would rather spend an hour scraping my fingernails on a blackboard, than listening to that hippie shit to find examples for you. I gave you a counter-example with Brian Eno and Phil Manzanera (amongst others) performing live and they have more virtuosity and songwriting ability in their little fingers than the Beatles ever had during their entire career.

Look, I am of the generation that followed the Beatles, we grew up with our parents listening to that hippie shit and in reaction to our annoyance, many people like me became punk rockers, so we could show you the vacuous banality of the hippies and their pop music by reducing it to its core elements and then grinding it under our boot heels. For me, people still listening to sixties hippie music is as anachronistic as if people were still rabid fans of barbershop quartets. On behalf of my generation of punks, we apologize for failing to completely eliminate the stultifying influence of The Beatles for once and for all, despite our best efforts. It will take decades for all the hippies to die off and their music to be placed into the public domain where it will finally establish its proper position in the music world: it will become worthless.
posted by charlie don't surf at 3:18 PM on May 8, 2012

Dude, you do realize that Punk was not rebellion over 60s music, right?

Also, Why yes, I am a musician, I have extensive classical training in piano, cello, and classical guitar.

Because nylon strings are SOOOOOO punk.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 3:33 PM on May 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

ah, so you're having some sort of knee jerk reaction because the music happened to be in the 60s? i mean, when the beatles started they covered straight up 50s rock and roll, the same music that the 1st wave punks took and sped up. i mean, a change here and there, mostly in tempo, and the ramones and the beatles sound really freaking similar. then, yeah, there's some hippie shit (which comes down to a taste thing, not a question of talent with their actual instruments) but then there's things like helter skelter, back in the USSR, and revolution number 9 - how that can possibly be termed as hippie shit is just straight beyond me. do you consider all music out of the 60s hippie shit? jimi? janis? are they just as bad as john denver (who didn't peak until the 70s, but i think we can all agree that was some hippie shit)?

really, the funniest part is that your argument is that you say they can't play their instruments and then you bring up the beginnings of punk to make your point. hell, sid vicious often has his amp turned off because he couldn't play the notes.

i don't really understand any argument that directly or otherwise says that george harrison wasn't a fucking killer guitar player.
posted by nadawi at 3:37 PM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

I like punk, I like the Beatles. I don't like all punk, I don't like all the Beatles. But if I were to call the Beatles "hippy shit", I'd be considered an ignoramus by anyone who happens to understand music in general.
posted by furtive at 3:37 PM on May 8, 2012 [4 favorites]

Also, you held up Brian Jones as an example of someone who makes the Beatles' musical ability seem "laughable" by comparison? The guy who played the maracas and never wrote anything? Oh, sorry, sometimes he pretended to play guitar.

While I agree with everything you wrote, I'm pretty sure you've got Brian Jones confused with Davy Jones.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:42 PM on May 8, 2012

"Play with Fire" (Jagger/Jones/Richards)

And, I mean, dude. The song we're talking about, "Tomorrow Never Knows," yeah? All the sitars and stuff on there? Brian Jones did that first on "Paint It Black."
posted by Sys Rq at 5:00 PM on May 8, 2012

No, I was talking about Brian Jones.

How dare you diminish his recorder part in Ruby Tuesday?????
posted by Threeway Handshake at 5:00 PM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Various: when the beatles started they covered straight up 50s rock and roll, the same music that the 1st wave punks took and sped up. i mean, a change here and there, mostly in tempo, and the ramones and the beatles sound really freaking similar.

Yes! Now you're starting to get it. Go right back to the era before the Beatles ruined everything, start over with the same music and see what would have happened without them. We can start over and show what a bunch of losers the hippies were and how they never amounted to anything. So for example, glue sniffing Ramones existed to display the stupidity of LSD scarfing Beatles.

Also, you held up Brian Jones as an example of someone who makes the Beatles' musical ability seem "laughable" by comparison? The guy who played the maracas and never wrote anything? Oh, sorry, sometimes he pretended to play guitar.

I only thought of Jones because he played a mean sitar years before Harrison. Where do you think he got the idea from?

If, as you contend, the Beatles had no "actual talent at playing their instruments,"

That is not what I said. There is a difference between "no talent" and "untalented." For example, check the Wikipedia entry for a Beatle voted the "fifth-best drummer of all time by Rolling Stone readers," and then later down the page, it describes how their record producer brought in a session drummer because he thought Ringo couldn't play for shit. There is obviously a wide gulf of difference between popular opinion, and the opinion of people that actually recorded the Beatles.
posted by charlie don't surf at 5:07 PM on May 8, 2012

ringo doesn't equal the beatles. even john said ringo wasn't the best drummer in the beatles.

maybe it's just because you sprang your first nut to punk rock or something, but you've got this giant blind spot you're trying to pass off as a fully rounded opinion and grasping at the weirdest straws to back that up.
posted by nadawi at 5:12 PM on May 8, 2012 [5 favorites]

So for example, glue sniffing Ramones existed to ~~display the stupidity of LSD scarfing Beatles~~ rip off Sha-na-na and Suzi Quatro at the same time.
posted by Sys Rq at 5:24 PM on May 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

So for example, glue sniffing Ramones existed to display the stupidity of LSD scarfing Beatles.
I think you have a deeply misinformed idea of what punk music was about, and are wholly wrong regarding which types of music that it was rebelling against.

Where do you think he got the idea from?
Ravi Shankar
posted by Threeway Handshake at 5:27 PM on May 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

Well Johnny Ramone was always the extreme outlier in the entire genre.

Anyway, it is stupid to bicker about your sacred Beatles. I see people refer to them with titles like "St. George" and that really is stupid. You would think they invented music. They were just a prepackaged, well marketed product. Even Malcom McLaren did that better, without any actual pretension that he had a good product. And that was the point. You can only stack shit so high, unless you clearly point out that it's all shit and then it doesn't matter how high you can stack it because at least you're being honest about it.

Anyway, let's get this back on topic. I recall a scene where Don Draper actually went to see the Rolling Stones, although it was unclear if he actually got to see them. There was a scene where Don shows up with Beatles tickets and says he's taking Sally to the concert. If the show was set in 2012, he would have bought her Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus tickets. Megan was trying to turn Don on to a band he saw years ago and he was already bored with them.
posted by charlie don't surf at 6:19 PM on May 8, 2012

If the show was set in 2012, he would have bought her Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus tickets.

Did you just compare The Beatles to Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus? Seriously? I take nothing you have said in this thread seriously.
posted by crossoverman at 6:33 PM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

There was a scene where Don shows up with Beatles tickets and says he's taking Sally to the concert.

The point of that whole scene is that it was ZOMG THE BEATLES at a concert that he had no way of knowing was game-changingly huge because, y'know, it hadn't happened yet. To us, the Beatles at Shea Stadium was a thing that happened and we know how huge it was and it boggles our minds that DON DRAPER is taking his ten year old daughter to see this.

That, in the context of the show, was the point. To replicate that in 2012? You can't. For better or worse, we don't have an act anywhere near mid-60's-Beatles caliber. The point wasn't "Don takes Sally to see a band" it's "Don Draper ends up unwittingly and with very little comment at one of the defining musical events of the mid-20th century."

On the topic of this week's episode: the last few minutes gave me chills. One of the best montage scenes I've ever seen and I'm quite glad that the Beatles aren't used more often because damn if it wasn't more potent that it wasn't a song I'd heard in "End of Episode Montage" thousands of times before. (I loved the Weepies until "The World Turns Madly On" was used in the 9,878th "Emotionally Significant Montage" and seriously, if anyone ever does that again my eyes might roll so far into the back of my head as to get permanently stuck there.)
posted by sonika at 7:41 PM on May 8, 2012

There's always the One Guy Who Hates the Beatles at every party. I avoid talking to that guy.
posted by Curious Artificer at 9:32 PM on May 8, 2012 [13 favorites]

On the topic of this week's episode: the last few minutes gave me chills. One of the best montage scenes I've ever seen and I'm quite glad that the Beatles aren't used more often because damn if it wasn't more potent that it wasn't a song I'd heard in "End of Episode Montage" thousands of times before.

Absolutely. For one, it fed into the "we can't get the Beatles" conversation earlier in the episode, as well as the discussion between Don and Megan about when songs became important (?) - ie. when were jingles replaced by already-produced songs.

For another, because no one has ever seen a montage to that song before - extra bonus points. Weiner says, if he wasn't able to get that song, he would have had to change his script/story. It fits so perfectly because it was written with "Tomorrow Never Knows" in mind.

And the excitement was the fact it was a (basically) unique moment in television - even when the closing montage is an over-used device on television dramas these days. It was thrilling. And I will watch it over and over.
posted by crossoverman at 11:00 PM on May 8, 2012 [2 favorites]

The point wasn't "Don takes Sally to see a band" it's "Don Draper ends up unwittingly and with very little comment at one of the defining musical events of the mid-20th century."

Out of idle curiosity, I checked the story synopses, with quotes from the script. Don clearly knew the significance of the event in advance. Megan hands him the tickets (her first episode as his secretary). So Megan knew Don had seen the Beatles.

Anyway, I'm sure you've seen the films and heard the stories. I think it's hilarious that the distinctive feature of "one of the defining musical events of the mid-20th century" was that nobody in the audience could hear a single note of music over the screaming of girls the age of Sally Draper. And that's probably for the best. Listen to that clip, and I dare you to tell me they were on that stage because they were great instrumentalists. They can't even play and sing in tune.

Surely the defining musical events of 1965 were not happening at Shea Stadium. It was out in San Francisco, where bands like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane were starting the hippie scene. The Beatles would continue doing their Mersey sound for years before they gave it up and started doing that hippie shit.

And crossoverman, someone else already compared Justin Bieber to the Beatles: Justin Bieber.
posted by charlie don't surf at 11:36 PM on May 8, 2012

well, if you want to cherry pick their career i'm sure you can make it fit your narrative. doesn't make it the least bit accurate, though.
posted by nadawi at 11:41 PM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

Listen to that clip, and I dare you to tell me they were on that stage because they were great instrumentalists. They can't even play and sing in tune.

If you were an actual "musician," you'd know exactly why they (or anybody) would sound like shit on that stage.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 1:47 AM on May 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

And crossoverman, someone else already compared Justin Bieber to the Beatles: Justin Bieber .

I tend not to listen to Justien Bieber, either - for his singing or for his self-aggrandisement.
posted by crossoverman at 2:45 AM on May 9, 2012

For better or worse, we don't have an act anywhere near mid-60's-Beatles caliber...

Radiohead seems to fit that bill with caliber to spare.
posted by mrgrimm at 5:22 AM on May 9, 2012

Radiohead are a Can cover band.

Anyway, Revolver, fantastic album, but Taxman is a bit of a turd in the punchbowl - Harrison is a right moaning git.
posted by Artw at 5:26 AM on May 9, 2012

I would say they're more of a Roxy Music tribute.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 6:01 AM on May 9, 2012

Surely the defining musical events of 1965 were not happening at Shea Stadium. It was out in San Francisco, where bands like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane were starting the hippie scene.

Seriously? You want to look at the last forty six years of music and say that the Grateful Dead had a bigger impact than the Beatles at Shea Stadium? If that's how things work in your world, that's cool, but what I personally hear coming out of modern pop music is far more akin to the Beatles than the Dead. And I grew up with hippies! My parents were way into all that "hippie shit" and I hear way more echoes of the Beatles and the Stones in what's happened musically since the 60s than I do of the Dead or Jefferson Airplane.

But, y'know, that's just like, your opinion, man.

(I'm starting to be convinced that this argument is all some very well done performance art designed to get people riled up. And from that perspective, it's absolutely brilliant.)

Radiohead seems to fit that bill with caliber to spare.

This is a joke, yes? This is a very funny joke. I like this joke.
posted by sonika at 6:09 AM on May 9, 2012 [4 favorites]

Taxman is a bit of a turd in the punchbowl

Maybe so, but Revolution 9 stinks up the place from a whole other album away.
posted by Sutekh at 6:34 AM on May 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Beatles are the most popular band in the world.

When was the public ever right about anything?

He's being a bit gruff about it, but charlie makes a decent point.

This is a joke, yes? This is a very funny joke. I like this joke.

Not a joke. I see a lot of parallels between the bands, but Radiohead's output taken as a whole is much better in my opinion.

The thing about the Beatles is that they were the first mainstream, popular "rock band," as in an actual band (i.e. leaderless and playing all instruments). Sure, they played 15-hour sets in Germany for eight years first or whatever, but the big reason they got huge is I Wanna Hold Your Hand, etc. They became popular as a "boy band" with moptops and then went on to make some better (and some not better) music. OK.

But let's not pretend they make the greatest pop or rock music ever.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:17 AM on May 9, 2012

But let's not pretend they make the greatest pop or rock music ever.

This is some pro trolling right here.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:55 AM on May 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

the big reason they got huge is I Wanna Hold Your Hand, etc.

You have no idea what you're talking about. First of all, IWTHYH is a pretty great song, particularly by the standards of the day, and particularly in terms of how it SOUNDED. The reason they "got huge" is because their sound was impossibly fresh and different. In America, they made a lot of girls wet their panties but they also made a million boys go out and buy cheap guitars at Sears and bring them home to start a band in the garage. They MADE American rock music happen, as well as English music and everyplace else music.

Were there loads of other people making exciting music? Sure. Almost all of them stopped what they were doing and changed their whole way of doing things the very second they heard the Beatles.

It was out in San Francisco

It most assuredly was not out in San Francisco. San Franciso's music scene was mostly lame, for starters, but it wouldn't have existed without the impact of the Beatles. The real impact came when the scuffling song-plugger scene in LA (not San Francisco) got ahold of it, when Brian Wilson heard it, when Roger McGuinn saw George Harrison's twelve-string in A Hard Day's Night and bought one for himself. Folk+Beatles = folk-rock, and folk-rock is the sound that made the sixties happen. Even in San Francisco: Jerry Garcia was a folkie until the Beatles hit; the Dead were not psychedelic in 1964 or 1965. Marty Balin never would have had the idea for the Airplane without the Beatles (and the Byrds).

The Beatles made all this happen. None of the participants, the other rock pioneers, is confused on this topic. The Beatles set into motion the process of making rock music the soundtrack of our culture rather than just noise for children to bop around to. That hadn't happened yet by the time of this "Mad Men" episode, but it was getting there, from a thousand directions. All of those directions came out of the Beatles.

The kind of music the Beatles emerged out of, "Beat music", was widespread in the early sixties in England, which was considerably behind the US at the time; rock'n'roll was passe by then in America. The Beatles weren't even the first Merseybeat group to have a hit (Gerry Marsden got there first). But they were visibly and audibly different -- brighter, fresher, louder, more attacking, more exciting, punchier hooks, more richly varied in texture and chord changes and especially vocal harmonies. By the time of their fourth single, "She Loves You", it was apparent to everyone that they had broken the mold.

Were they "the best ever"? The question doesn't mean anything. Did they have the biggest impact? The question has no other answer.
posted by Fnarf at 9:28 AM on May 9, 2012 [6 favorites]

That's the beautiful thing, that they've held out this long ... except for advertising.

I've worked in UK advertising for four years, nearly. Except when I've been on holiday or off sick with JEremy Kyle on, I've seen every ad that goes on air over here. I don't recall a single one with a Beatles song. (I can't even remember a non-Fabs film that has the original recordings in the soundtrack, even.) In fact, I was going to post an AskMe on this very subject, as I thought it was licensing rather than cash. I don't know what the situation is in the US, but it is so rare to hear their music used on TV that I was convinced we'd never hear the needle drop into the groove.
posted by mippy at 9:31 AM on May 9, 2012

We have the PRS taking care of licensing here. Radio stations pay for a license - the costs paid to the rights owners differ depending on how much music is played on that station (Radio 4, being mostly speech-based, pays more than the music station Radio 1) but it covers almost anything they want to pay, so it's no more expensive to play the Beatles on the radio than it is NoWaySis. Individual shows, like Prarie Home Companion, are a different thing - they get cut for licensing overseas - but regular music airplay or the background music to open a radio play is covered.

I believe the BBC have a similar blanket license for shows like EastEnders, where you would expect to hear pop songs in the background in the cafe or the pub, so I wonder how that works in terms of tightly controlled licensing like this.
posted by mippy at 9:35 AM on May 9, 2012

I see a lot of parallels between the bands, but Radiohead's output taken as a whole is much better in my opinion.

I'd like to hear about these parallels because other than Chris Martin's kid being named Apple and the Beatles being on Apple records, I can think of exactly zero parallels. Oh, and they're British. That's it, that's all I've got. In all honesty - I am not seeing this.
posted by sonika at 9:36 AM on May 9, 2012

Just a little odd for a show that prides itself on attention to period detail.

THE IBM SELECTRIC II TYPEWRITER DIDN'T COME OUT UNTIL 1971

I believe the correct typewriters for the era were too noisy. If you want to be pedantic, we could talk about how the fonts aren't dead on either, but it doesn't ruin my enjoyment of the programme. And I am unbelievably pedantic about incorrect music and props being used in stories set in my lifetime.
posted by mippy at 9:38 AM on May 9, 2012

That scene with Harry and Pete at the phone booth was classic ("you called me over"). What does he even do there anymore?

HE'S HEAD OF TELEVISION GOD

Seriously, though, why didn't they get The Trade Winds in for their cologne ad, given Harry had somehow signed them up for Heinz?
posted by mippy at 9:43 AM on May 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'd like to hear about these parallels because other than Chris Martin's kid being named Apple and the Beatles being on Apple records, I can think of exactly zero parallels.

WHOOOSH. You just kinda made my argument for me. Music now is as much influenced by Radiohead as music in the 70s was by the Beatles. That's my gist.

They MADE American rock music happen, as well as English music and everyplace else music.

I admitted as much when I said they were the first "rock band" - everyone after was influenced by them. Having said that, their success (IMO) was much more dependent on factors other than music. That's all I'm saying.

And that compared objectively, the music of the Beatles isn't very exceptional.

(Please no one point my wife to this thread. I hope to speak of my true feelings about the Beatles here without getting an object upside my head.)

I'm starting to be convinced that this argument is all some very well done performance art designed to get people riled up.

If only there were some sort of commonly accepted term for that ...
posted by mrgrimm at 9:52 AM on May 9, 2012

compared objectively

Objectively. Uh-huh.

While you ponder what "objectively" might possibly mean in the context of listening to music, I'll just throw this out there: "Beatles", 229,000,000 google hits; "Radiohead", 82,600,000 google hits (but wait! The The, 5,290,000,000!

Better: OCLC WorldCat. Beatles 19,928; Radiohead 1,743.

You can get a friggin' master's degree in Beatles Studies. You could probably write a paper in business school about Radiohead, but that's about it.
posted by Fnarf at 10:21 AM on May 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh man, I mixed up Radiohead and Coldplay just then because somehow I remembered Apple Martin and Apple Records and yet my mind still valiantly repressed the existence of Coldplay. I really should be more embarrassed by this, but somehow...

Ok, so Coldplay is a shitty band who sound like Radiohead - who aren't a shitty band, but are also apparently pretty easily confused for their own knock-offs - and this proves that Radiohead has the kind of influence that the Beatles did?

I can think of two things that we've proved here, and neither of them is that Radiohead is of Beatles-caliber: #1) Coldplay is a shitty Radiohead knockoff band that should never be spoken of. #2) I'm kind of dumb sometimes.
posted by sonika at 10:23 AM on May 9, 2012

THE IBM SELECTRIC II TYPEWRITER DIDN'T COME OUT UNTIL 1971

Why is the IBM Selectric typewriter some sort of black hole ground zero of pedantry?
posted by Threeway Handshake at 10:28 AM on May 9, 2012 [7 favorites]

Why is the IBM Selectric typewriter some sort of black hole ground zero of pedantry?

Blame the Killian Documents about George W Bush and the Texas Air National Guard.
posted by charlie don't surf at 2:08 PM on May 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Why is the IBM Selectric typewriter some sort of black hole ground zero of pedantry?

It's only the "black hole ground zero of pedantry" in the specific context of discussions about period authenticity in the art direction of Mad Men.

To the show's credit, the Selectric II is one of very, very few anachronisms. It's not Happy Days or anything. But the show is set in the business world, where the typewriter is central. And that typewriter is just wrong. It's like setting a series in a records-and-tapes store in 1991 and giving one of the leads an iPod instead of a Walkman.

So, when people go on (and on and on and on) about how everything in Mad Men is so perfectly authentic to the period, well, no. Not everything.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:52 PM on May 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

And that typewriter is just wrong. It's like setting a series in a records-and-tapes store in 1991 and giving one of the leads an iPod instead of a Walkman.

Oh FFS no it isn't. It's like setting a series in 1966 and using a 1968 Volkswagen, and then pedants start whining that style of bumper didn't exist in '66.

Yes, everything in that world is very authentic, to the point where people who grew up in the 60s have nearly PTSD-inducing flashbacks. I remember one scene where little baby Gene is sitting in a high chair, with a chrome tray in front of him. He's banging repeatedly on the metal tray, Sally comes in and says "can't you make him stop that banging?" and Betty says, "it's either the banging or the screaming, take your pick." The moment I heard that banging, I instantly was jolted with a memory so strong I was nearly shaking. My family had the exact same high chair, with the same chromed metal tray, and my little sisters banging on it used to drive me nuts. I did not even remember that, until I heard the sound.
posted by charlie don't surf at 3:16 PM on May 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

You just dismissed attention to detail as pedantry, then went on on to perfectly explain the importance of attention to detail.

Cognitive dissonance much?
posted by Sys Rq at 3:32 PM on May 10, 2012

I appreciate that some people notice the difference - and looking at the Wikipedia page about IBM Selectrics, the differences are readily apparent. But I always think that suspension of disbelief has got to be attained for the majority and not the minority. It would be great to think that Mad Men did everything perfectly, but if you're trying to please the very small minority of the audience would would notice the difference between the Selectric I and II, I think you're spending just a tad too much energy when there's so much else that needs to be done.

I got into a similar argument recently about inaccurate archery technique in The Avengers. You know what? It's a superhero film. I'm suspending disbelief up to the eyeballs. More people are going to notice inaccurate archery technique than incorrect IBM Selectrics, but man - sometimes you just have to live with the fact that Jeremy Renner is not a professional archer.
posted by crossoverman at 8:34 PM on May 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

"Tomorrow Never Knows" was part of a paradigm shift that confused and alienated many a pre-rock daddy figure, but it wasn't the start of anything, nor would its experimental yet very shiny sound have likely alienated a quasi-hip city dweller like Don.

- "On 'Mad Men,' Beatles Tune Misses The Mark"
posted by mrgrimm at 10:44 AM on May 11, 2012

I'll just throw this out there: "Beatles", 229,000,000 google hits; "Radiohead", 82,600,000 google hits

Sorry, bro. How about adding some links so we don't take your word for it. And hey, let's remove the commerce links. Anyone can do SEO, and as this post evidences, Beatles Corp. monetizes as well as anyone.

Using, Give Me Back My Google, I get

Radiohead: 148,000,000 results

Beatles: 465,000,000 results

but wait a minute, is that entirely fair? After all "beatles" are a type of insect and Beatle Bailey is an extremely popular comic strip.

Anyway, there is 1 Radiohead; there are a million "Beatles" ...

I'll be honest. All I want is for the fans to admit the obvious: The Beatles are certainly important culturally, but NOT primarily for their music.

Also, I meant "You just kinda made my argument for me" as "you don't know what you are talking about" if you think Coldplay has anything to do with Radiohead.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:56 AM on May 11, 2012

(the bug is a beetle, not a beatle)

as far as important for their music - radiohead doesn't exist without the beatles studio work. i don't think some people understand how their recording methods changed the game from the ground up. that might not be specifically about the chords they chose or the words they sang, but it's just as much a part of the music as anything else.
posted by nadawi at 11:05 AM on May 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

Also, Radiohead is the name of a Talking Heads song.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 11:42 AM on May 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

"On 'Mad Men,' Beatles Tune Misses The Mark"

Don specifically thinks the song they listen to at SCDP - the one the client has requested for the ad - actually is The Beatles. He might have been to their concert at Shea Stadium, but that was notorious for nobody actually being able to hear them play because of all the screaming. If he thought that song was what The Beatles sounded like and then he listened to "Tomorrow Never Knows" - it's not surprising that he was a bit taken aback. He's already feeling out of it this season and now he doesn't even know what The Beatles sound like anymore.

Besides, a colleague of mine - a Beatles afficianado who has never watched Mad Men, made this comment after I discussed the episode with him: After hearing "Tomorrow Never Knows", that's when people realised the Beatles were on something heavier than cups of tea between recording sessions.

That song may not have been a big deal at the time, to be fair - but I think it is a distinct turning point in The Beatles' output. Last track of "Revolver" and their next two albums are "Sergeant Pepper" and "The Beatles" (aka The White Album). Things changed for the Beatles after that - they stopped touring and started really experimenting musically.

Things are changing for Don, too.
posted by crossoverman at 5:00 PM on May 11, 2012

He might have been to their concert at Shea Stadium, but that was notorious for nobody actually being able to hear them play because of all the screaming.

Well, Don also wore earplugs during the Shea Stadium concert. I imagine that didn't help matters any.

(Also the Shea Stadium setlist was pretty poppy.)

But yeah, 66 was a time of radical and rapid change for the Beatles. "Paperback Writer," released that May, was their first non-love song. And from all accounts even the Beatles were nervous about these developments--Paul McCartney was even embarrassed by Yesterday the year before!

I'm not surprised Don didn't get it. Dude keeps pitching print ads, as Tom & Lorenzo have pointed out. He's only a counter culture tourist.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 6:33 PM on May 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I was just thinking how the last time Don encountered the Beatles, it was the height of thier Who Is The Dreamist Mop Top Rock phase, to him it's not that long ago, why can't they do a jingle? But the culture is moving quickly, and Don isn't a part of it anymore, reference larger theme of him losing ouch with his growing daughter and his free spirited younger wife.

Re: Mad Style. Megan is seen waking Don up from slumber a lot. Like a lot a lot. Just sayin.
posted by The Whelk at 6:56 PM on May 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

He's only a counter culture tourist.

In this show, it's Draper's world. The counterculture wants to tour him. Remember Midge? He shapes the culture as much as it shapes him.
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:45 PM on May 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's interesting how the shows' characters sample the counterculture, partly out of thier job and partly not, but never bother to engage with it, which is an interesting motif for our Older Establishment Heroes and the ones who just kinda missed the party.

We need more of Peggy's art friends, basically. Or Megan's downtown scenesters, can we see that please? I know Roger opening the doors of perception is awesome, but I'd like some follow through.

And we still don't have a queer character despite Chevarile's dandy company man. I think I own that jacket...
posted by The Whelk at 9:59 PM on May 11, 2012

I just don't think that's how this show works, though. I mean, it's all very well to think of the counter-culture of the 60s, but I can very well imagine these are the kind of people who did miss the party - they weren't interested or had other priorities.

I'd like to see more engagement with and about the civil rights movement, but I think this season has established very well that these upper-class white people have only a marginal interest in that - and only if it directly impacts them. And I guess that was the reality of the times; nobody knows they are living through history when it's happening around them - except when the President gets shot. (And even Peggy missed that!)

Unless Weiner is really biding his time - really biding his time, since this is season five out of seven. But even though this season has really focused on Don and his contemporaries feeling out of place in this ever changing world, I can't imagine Weiner making huge changes to the way we see the world of SCDP.
posted by crossoverman at 10:23 PM on May 11, 2012

I'd like to see more engagement with and about the civil rights movement, but I think this season has established very well that these upper-class white people have only a marginal interest in that - and only if it directly impacts them.

Wut? Did you not see the episode where Paul goes to Birmingham to register black voters? Did you not notice the hiring of Dawn?

I don't think people are quite giving credit to the position of the advertising biz here. People are pushing them to use the Beatles for baked beans commercials. That's why the show is set in an ad agency, they're in the middle of the cultural pressure from all sides, and they are gatekeepers to some extent, reshaping that through the media.
posted by charlie don't surf at 10:47 PM on May 11, 2012

Oh no I totally agree, it's not what the show is about, its POV is totally different then most media we get about The 60s and that's or of the reasons it's interesting.

I still wanna see more art happenings however, like we got Peggy in the crowded car for a beach freak out trip for like two seconds. I have needs.
posted by The Whelk at 10:47 PM on May 11, 2012

How much did they have to pay Twitter for Bobby's use of the fail whale?
posted by drezdn at 7:36 AM on May 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

Huh, the killer smog of 66 was a real thing and not just a metaphor for Betty.

Retro episode! Kinda felt like season 4 or 2 with the slice of life not much happens thing.
posted by The Whelk at 7:49 AM on May 14, 2012

Retro episode! Kinda felt like season 4 or 2 with the slice of life not much happens thing.

It was so insanely tense! As my husband pointed out, every single story was about the old guard feeling insecure over the new guard. Cooper/Stirling over Campbell, Draper over Ginsberg, Francis over Calvet. Fascinating stuff.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:56 AM on May 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Also OMG Don's pitch for snoball was terribad. I still don't really get it.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:56 AM on May 14, 2012

Also OMG Don's pitch for snoball was terribad. I still don't really get it.

Aside from the Kodak Carousel, aren't most of his own pitches pretty shitty?
posted by mrgrimm at 10:52 AM on May 14, 2012

Hmm. The London Fog one was pretty good.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:55 AM on May 14, 2012

Also is it just me or is Peggy doing very little at work since Heinz besides drinking and smoking? I'm worried about her.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:12 AM on May 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

Ah ha...thanks PhoBee! Now, all I have to do is watch the episode, before I read too much here...

*Squints*
posted by Skygazer at 1:06 PM on May 14, 2012

Well Peggy is kind of defined by her job and she's increasingly worried that she's put all her effort into something she doesn't really enjoy anymore ( just cause you're good at something doesn't mean you should do it) and she seems to hit a plateau carrier wise. If she didn't go get stoned at a party or give out the occasional handyj she wouldn't do anything.

But we always see her working late, what is she working on?
posted by The Whelk at 3:02 PM on May 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Also, with Megan gone there isn't a "what's good for the agency is good for everyone!" voice in Creative, lookit Ginsberg, he should be happy they sold, not dick measuring that his boss injected his own idea - yeah it sucks but it's not worth getting on your bosses bad side about.

And as I said before, Peggy is gonna be Swedish Candy* if she's not careful.

*VERY BITTER
posted by The Whelk at 5:22 PM on May 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Wow, a full-on Beatles fight! Takes me back, yes it does. I can only hope for a licensed use of Sugar Magnolia in coming weeks to keep the popcorn in the air.

Kudos to Charlie for the innovative "they can't play their instruments" tack, well done! Charlie, what's your take on the work of the estimable Mr. Billy Childish, may I ask?
posted by mwhybark at 6:38 PM on May 14, 2012 [3 favorites]

I gave serious consideration to the Stuckists and decided that was more than they deserved.
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:30 PM on May 14, 2012

right, so "can't play," then?
posted by mwhybark at 9:22 PM on May 14, 2012

Also who knew instantly they wouldn't get into the article? SCDP used to at least pretend to be a cutting edge agency, at least compared to thier competitors, but the instant Bert corrected it to "hep" I knew they where dead in the water, most of SCDP's waves have been in inter agency politics and fighting, the letter, the ad, the Cilo awards, and in that time the culture has ramped up and moved on in a really big way.

And yes, being turned on by a New York Times mention is so Pete Campell.

Don's pitch was strange, do we need to go into the snowball chance in hell metaphor here? I didn't like either campaign to be honest, Ginsberg always goes for the least subtle, most direct approach possible and Don's was too abstract for kids. Peggy's pitch was the most..bean plate. She over thought it and made it purely a joke. Yes, that would be a pitch perfect NYer period cartoon, no it wouldn't make people think about snow ones as an extension of thier desire.

Desire is what makes advertising move and we've had two mentions of the Tibetan book of the dead so far, which is about again?
posted by The Whelk at 10:12 PM on May 14, 2012

Also voting Don's pitch as terrible.
posted by Artw at 10:33 PM on May 14, 2012

The clever thing was that it actually doesn't making any sense: you have a coincidentally weird phrase that happens to connect snowball and hell, and the fact that hell is hot; but Don's pitch doesn't actually make an actual connection beyond that. The fact that everyone goes along with it and agrees that it works, (until you think about it), shows that Don has lost his touch. Even more(!) Don's pitch relies on him acting like the devil, something that everyone who's worked with Don and seen his temper can identify with.

And despite his cold comment to Ginsberg that he doesn't care, we know that he showed up at the office on a Sunday on his good ol reliable Dictaphone, and we know that he bombed Ginsburg's superior pitch. This is the old guard fighting back, dirty.

Also, Pete was the only one who genuinely liked his idea better (ht T&L?).
posted by stratastar at 11:02 PM on May 14, 2012

I guess it means Don can still sell the hell out of a crap idea, so he has that going.

"Inner voice" would be the point in the meeting where I would be thinking "fuck this".
posted by Artw at 11:08 PM on May 14, 2012

I liked Ken jumping in an playing the Joan role of saying YOU'RE BOTH PRETTY PRINCESSES CAN WE GO cause he doesn't have a stake in this and like, actually has a functioning social sense unlike the Creative Team.

I kinda want an episode like The Zeppo but we just follow Stan Rizzo around- I have a feeling he's a graduate of the NYC era art high schools and his super blue color macho posturing is in part from him going into a different field and class strata than the rest of his family (I bet you any amount of money he describes himself to his folks as an Industrial Artist, emphasis first word) which could actually be interesting to contrast him with peggy, who has tried to dis-own her background as much as possible (and ...become Don, which is why when her Don-like pitch flops he's so upset, she's hitting the ceiling and doesn't know why).

Also, where does he buy his way too small shirts?
posted by The Whelk at 11:10 PM on May 14, 2012

Also I kind of left the room for the "next week" portion, but I like to think that was Lane calling from a Bangkok prison.
posted by Artw at 11:10 PM on May 14, 2012

Also as someone who has had....food issues in the past let me just say Betty's Put It In Your Mouth And Then Spit It Out! was...on target.

She just needs to keep food she really wants in a plastic bag and then sniff it at regular intervals but not eat it notthatiwouldknowanythingaboutthatthatiscrazyshutup
posted by The Whelk at 11:11 PM on May 14, 2012

ONE NIGHT WITH LANE CAN MAKE A STRONG MAN CRUMBLE
posted by The Whelk at 11:12 PM on May 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Not entirely sure that the writers don't just really hate January Jones.

Also Little Sally Draper is learning terrible things about life, as ever.
posted by Artw at 11:14 PM on May 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Also Megan seemed to react to Sally as a peer/older sister and not as An Adult and I think it was both bad (she reacted badly) and good (She actually talked about the issue a bit, every adult aside from Grandma Knifenpills just ignores and brushes Sally off)
posted by The Whelk at 11:52 PM on May 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Well, and Sterling.

Oh Roger...

There's a bit of an interesting fairytalereversal going on by having the step mother be the non- wicked one as well.
posted by Artw at 12:02 AM on May 15, 2012

Stan buys his shirts regular size but works out until they're JUST RIGHT.

Sally? How bad? Umm having sat in on an graduate courses in horrible people, she's now teaching seminars in mind-fucking every adult around you without a showing a hint of remorse.

Weinert has managed to make the "Next Week" segments relate no possible information, (they do allow preparation for the appearance of fat-suited January Jones, a plus). Aside, after ruining Emma Frost with her woodenness, I could no longer pretend that she was just... a cold actress. She plain sucks, and the writers have been dealing out schaudenfreude in coolwhip bomb and tiny stuffing portions.
posted by stratastar at 1:27 AM on May 15, 2012 [2 favorites]

I kept thinking of Megan - Sally interactions as deliberately sibling-like. Megan was wearing a super simple sweater, and was trying to connect to Sally as a peer, while Don was a generation away. More overt imagery. I'll bet that in the off-season after a gajillion re-writes, the writers lost complete sense of what we would call "a light touch."
posted by stratastar at 1:31 AM on May 15, 2012

Well if one person where to have some talk about some past contract arguments one could possibly reach a certain conclusion- but lets talk about Sally, I'm not used to widly confused cusp of teenhood ladies and their Deep Seated Family Issues They Are Trying To Work Out Cause No One Will Ever Talk To Them Straight but how bad was Sally's actions here? Cause I just put it under Lashing Out Teenhood and being Tired Of This Shit but I don't really have reference

In some ways, she's being a typical horrendous twelve year old girl. At the same time, this is the second time this season we've seen her lie easily either to hurt someone else (saying they looked at pictures of Anna) or to protect herself (saying that Grandma Pauline tripped on Gene's toy). The threatening behavior toward Megan was also fairly shitastic. She's picked up a lot of her parents' bad habits, and past episodes showed that she can occasionally be cruel to other children. I think she's got a mean streak, and I think we're seeing that develop here.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:11 AM on May 15, 2012 [2 favorites]

I like Ginsberg as a character a lot, but it just struck me that he's also the very of-the-moment pseudo-Aspergian character, as seen on (at least) Community and Big Bang Theory. He's a Martian, innit?
posted by mwhybark at 9:32 AM on May 15, 2012

The big theme in this last episode seemed to be about ownership. Who owns the past, who owns the narrative, and thereby owns the present and Don's soul? Who owns the ideas? Who owns the creative assets and the the creative well-spring? Where the hell did Don's creative spark go anyway??

Does Don own his past anymore, when it becomes ammunition for Betty to throw poison at what she sees as Don and Megan's, happy ultramodern swank home, with it's happy young French-speaking, sexy smart thin, new-Betty wife?

And who's story are we in at this point? Don's lost the perspective he allowed us as both witness and protagonist of this time and place he inhabits. He isn't at the emotional center of it anymore, because he's really gone from being outside of his time, and fully in control of his persona, and therefore able to truly see (as as survival necessity actually because of his need to maintain the integrity of his "persona"), to becoming institutionalized as this standard bearer of a certain "type" of man, and thereby developed blind spots to his own person. He's nowhere near it seems to me the sympathetic character he used to be, he's developed serious blindspots and is becoming weak in a way that's uncomfortable for anyone who saw him as the hero of this story.

I'm beginning to think he's an asshole, who's allowed himself to be co-opted, and is losing confidence in himself. Even the idea he had for the SNOBALL campaign is sort of him channeling what he thinks Ginzberg would come up with, and of course it's going to depend on a a kooky "devil" voice, and ultimately be nonsensical and a sad parody of "hip" or "Hep" or cutting edge or whatever.

The irony is that he's a victim of his own success in creating that killer Madison Avenue persona known as "Don Draper," so much so, that he's lost touch with his own roots and his own real backstory, which was something he struggled with mightily in the first few seasons, with his pain and hurt over his mother's and father's fucked up relations and his dirt poor country childhood. Don's lost touch with that, and he's lost touch with what was his well spring of creativity and "cutting-edgeness" and his own voice. His own voice is this weird disembodied parody at this point of a make-believe devil contemplating Snoballs in hell? Talk about wrong. Talk about symbolism, talk about a Genesis type story if we want to get biblical. Don's seriously in the stratosphere and I think he is probably capable and at risk of real "evil." We've had a bit of foreshadowing of that already with the fever dream he had of strangling an ex-lover. And isn't his fucking with Ginzberg in the way that he is, getting into his ideas and his psyche and taking him down a notch (or ten) every chance he can, to make himself feel better, isn't that evil? I think it is...I also think it's evil to look down an elevator shaft at certain death and not even mention it to anyone. How lost and morally deaf (yet "suave," and "cool," and "Don Draper" like) is it to do that??

Megan, is trying to wake him up as someone (Whelk-y I thinks) mentioned above. She wakes him from the murder dream. She also, wakes him to tell him of Betty's little salvo of poison via Sally (Ugh. Fuckin' Betty man, it's like her outer self now matches her inner ugliness...). I hope Megan can wake him up before something terrible happens, and this sort of weird calm right now where we're seeing this jockeying for OWNERSHIP, and general treading of water, seems to portend to being the calm before the serious storm, because once, Dick want's to come out of Don (not like that! Or maybe like that now that I think about it), again, I think Dick's going to be pretty angry at this Don persona he's entombed himself into....

Megan's become this island in a stream here, where she's getting it from all sides: Betty, Don, even little Sally and her actress/waitress friend in a soap opera. Even the environment is becoming toxic and she feels the need to shield herself and her "family" from it. (That's got to be a metaphor for the culture as well...and there's a lot happening "out there" that she and Don and Madison Avenue aren't touch with...Vietnam, Black riots in urban areas all over the country, the hard drug counter-culture)...

I think she loves Don for sure and is a real friend to Sally, but did she sign on for all this baggage he comes with?? Is it fair for her to be taking Don's hits? How long before she burns out on this drama? She seems very healthy and in charge of her own mind and heart and I don't think she's going to allow this to muck her up for long...

Sally. I think Sally is going to hit 13 and stab Betty in the neck. You know it's coming....

Peggy: I too had that moment where I said to myself "What the fuck is she working on all the time late in the evening with her Whiskey and sandwiches??" and the only thing I can come up with is that she's working on her escape plans for getting out of SCDP, as it seems her usefulness is long over there, and it would explain her phoning in her performance there and botching things up sometimes. She's either already working for someone else on a special project or sending out letter inquiries in strict confidence, of course.

Roger: Sterling man, you have to admire his sheer unthinking bloodymindedness. His materialism is his strength. Life and happiness are all transactional for him. He gives people money and they do what he says. Done and done. He doesn't worry about what he cannot see, he works off of instinct...

Ginzberg: Poor guy. He doesn't have much. Just his wacky ideas that make good commercials and he's proud of em, and even those get taken away from him from "guys with everything" like the "Don Drapper's" of the world. He's not going to put up with that long, and he's right not too. I think Don's making a bad bad business enemy in Ginzberg who's obviously talented. But yeah, he seems silly to care so much about who made the ultimate sale though...

Ken Cosgrove & Stan Rizzo: These are the guys who have somehow found a balance and facilitate keeping the wheels greased, cutting to the heart of a situation and keeping business moving forward. Cosgrove continually unsticks the ego gears and keeps things focused. Rizzo, never seems at a loss for understanding what's going on and picking up the slack on an idea or providing commentary on a situation at SCDP that sounds almost like the Wiener speaking through him Greek-Chorus-wise. His Shirts are too tight because he basically has been the same person since college and still wears the same youthful and unintimidating outfits, which announce, Hey, I'm a creative, I don't do power or ego scenes. I have known people like this, they're the real durable backbone of any "creative" business.

Pete Campbell: Has already given up on life and has reconciled himself to a sad unfulfilled life of fantasy and I envision he will soon collect a massive library of pornography magazines and films and frequent 42nd street often as one of those suitcase carrying business guys who used to go see porno films after work and wank off in the darkness. Before Disney bought up the place in the 90s.
posted by Skygazer at 10:26 AM on May 15, 2012

I wonder if the overall theme of this season is going to be Ego Death?
posted by The Whelk at 10:37 AM on May 15, 2012

Weinert has managed to make the "Next Week" segments relate no possible information

That is the main reason I watch anymore. I LOVE them. "On the next Mad Men ... a paint can is opened ...
posted by mrgrimm at 10:39 AM on May 15, 2012 [1 favorite]

Also, I am and ♥ Stan Rizzo.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:42 AM on May 15, 2012

HA, during the Chinese food scene a while back with Ginsberg Peggy Abe and Stan I just turned to the SO and went "Peggy is going to end up with Stan, calling it now." Glad to know other people thought the same.
posted by The Whelk at 11:22 AM on May 15, 2012

I like what January Jones is pulling off with the Betty character. She's really nailing the emotional arc. I can barely imagine her as the perfect beautiful wife she used to be any longer...and her metamorphosis feels authentic. I think in the hands of a lesser actor that Betty could just appear to be a caricature at this point, and not as grounded and real and connected to the Betty from when she was with Don.
posted by Skygazer at 11:59 AM on May 15, 2012 [2 favorites]

"Peggy is going to end up with Stan, calling it now."

Peggy should end up with Stan, but that wouldn't be as compelling TV as watching Peggy, Pete, and Pete-eggy join a commune together.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:55 PM on May 15, 2012 [1 favorite]

"i hope i’m not the only one anxiously awaiting the formation of Olson, Rizzo, Cosgrove: an ad agency specializing in sci-fi, pot, and pizza houses"
posted by The Whelk at 12:56 PM on May 15, 2012 [3 favorites]

also that tumblr informs me Mad Men fanfiction exists and I am telling myself I will not google that but we know that is pointless.
posted by The Whelk at 1:12 PM on May 15, 2012 [2 favorites]

the hell
posted by The Whelk at 1:22 PM on May 15, 2012 [1 favorite]

the hell

Excellent.
posted by Skygazer at 1:37 PM on May 15, 2012

the hell

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
posted by crossoverman at 3:25 PM on May 15, 2012

The last two episodes have given me the anxious feeling that SOMETHING REALLY BAD is about to happen. I spend idle time wondering what it could be. Pete shot by a jealous husband? Betty dwelling unheathily on Don and Megan's apparant happiness leads to tragedy? Roger does more LSD and a bad trip triggers a fatal heart attack?

And Don is following Jack Kerouac's story arc. The once hip, cool guy becomes the angry old drunk that just doesn't get what's happening with all the peace and love stuff.

It's been so long since I had a TV and cable plus a compelling show to watch, it feels odd to 'watch my stories'. But I am liking it.

posted by readery at 6:43 PM on May 15, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm beginning to think he's an asshole

geez, Weinert's really been pulling the wool over somebody's eyes (possibly Don included). Dick's opportunistic transformation into Don was by no means the act of a stand-up guy, as powerfully appealing as Weinert's vision and (*especially*) Hamm's performance makes the guy.

This season in particular there almost seems to be a war between Hamm's native charisma and appeal and Draper's anxious and self-absorbed entitlement, which is closely mirrored in Pete.
posted by mwhybark at 7:35 PM on May 15, 2012 [2 favorites]

So much of Don's character and his oily this-is-how-this-really-work-baby cynical charm is tied up in Hamm's performance. Example: Hamm has a really elastic face, great for comedy mugging, but he plays Don as very tight and controlled and still, so when the big loopy expressions come out briefly they highlight how false and static his face is "normally".
posted by The Whelk at 9:18 PM on May 15, 2012 [1 favorite]

exactly, The Whelk. There have been at least a coulpe of scenes where something happens and "Don" suddenly does this, idano, whole body exhale, and I find myslef looking at what I take for Hamm, but which in contextbI think is intended as Whoever might be beneath both Don and Dick, the man we imagine Don to be striving to be.
posted by mwhybark at 9:29 PM on May 15, 2012

mwhybark: geez, Weinert's really been pulling the wool over somebody's eyes (possibly Don included). Dick's opportunistic transformation into Don was by no means the act of a stand-up guy, as powerfully appealing as Weinert's vision and (*especially*) Hamm's performance makes the guy.

Don/Dick used to be a transcendent asshole though. Timeless. Perfect. He was like Batman or something...an impressive self-creation. A willed nervy act of self-transformation and self-actualization.

Don, now is...human, messy, flawed, driven by things he doesn't understand anymore and at their mercy. Tied up. Vulnerable and an Asshole, capital "A" Asshole.. benumbed and joyless. Without passion...

I may be overthinking this...
posted by Skygazer at 6:00 AM on May 16, 2012

how bad was Sally's actions here?

huh. I watched the episode last night waiting for Sally's "bad actions" ... hrm.

This stuff is "been there, done that" for most teens. I'm surprised she takes as much crap from Don as she does.

All she did was lie a little and be rude to Megan. Child's play. Sally's war of Megan-Don vs. Francis-Betty is one of the more interesting plot points for me.
posted by mrgrimm at 1:50 PM on May 16, 2012

DOCTOR PEGS, SCRIPTDOCTOR.
posted by Artw at 10:32 PM on May 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

KEN COULD'VE FIXED IT.

ALSO OH GOD OH GOD
posted by The Whelk at 10:37 PM on May 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

HARRY YOU ARE IN OVER YOUR HEAD THIS IS WHY WE DON'T GO DOWNTOWN

PETE YOU WILL NEVER BE HAPPY AND NO ONE LIKES YOU EXCEPT DARK BETTY MURDER-SUICIDE RORY

LANE. LANE. IS THE ENTIRE THRUST OF SCDP FIANCES BASED ON LIES AND FRAUD LANE? DO YOU WANT TO SHARE THIS METAPHOR WITH THE REST OF THE CLASS LANE?

WOULD IT HAVE KILLED YOU TO CALL DON? I KNOW THAT WAS ALL ABOUT PRTENDING TO BE BACK IN THE GOOD DAYS OF SEASON ONE BUT REALLY.

JOAN. JOANIE. STOP BEING SAD AND AWESOME IT IS MAKING ME FEELS.
BUT SERIOUSLY YOU SHOULD LET RODGER PAY FOR THE KID OR SOMETHING, PRIDE, DOWNFALL, ETC.

DAMN MEGAN STOP BEING ME AT TWENTY TWO OR I AM GOING TO HAVE SO MANY INTROSPECTIVE DRINKING SESSIONS LET ME TELL YOU
posted by The Whelk at 10:43 PM on May 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

I NEVER THREW A DISH HOWEVER, THAT'S TOO MUCH CLEANUP TO PROVE A POINT.
posted by The Whelk at 10:46 PM on May 20, 2012

AM I GOING TO GET A BAD CASE OF THE NEGRON COMPLEX?
posted by crossoverman at 4:07 AM on May 21, 2012 [5 favorites]

He really has it in him to write a truly awful social allegory episode.

Sadly I think the show gets cancelled before he can find his feet in Hollywood
posted by Artw at 6:07 AM on May 21, 2012

Someday Kinsey ends up writing the novelization of a David Algonquin film.
posted by drezdn at 7:23 AM on May 21, 2012 [3 favorites]

Someday Kinsey ends up writing the novelization of a David Algonquin film.

Someone add it to the wiki, please.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:42 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

At this point we've got a Chekov's gun rack.
posted by The Whelk at 8:20 AM on May 21, 2012 [2 favorites]

As with the AV club reviewer, yes, Don and Joan talking in the bar is the sexist thing ever filmed for TV. Just deal with it. The chemistry is that scene was magnetic, it causes me to mix science metaphors.

Pete is still stomping around wondering why people aren't kneeling before him like the golden idol he is(Hint: it's cause no one likes you Pete. No one but sad blank housewives with the words MURDER SUICIDE flashing over their heads) . Peggy gets exactly one scene in which her schadenfreude is showing (it's wonderful, no one liked Paul) and speaking of which - is giving Paul money and a ticket to LA the best idea? All he's got is a stained turtleneck and a terrible teleplay and while there are Krishnas in Tompkins Square Park, LA/Santa Monica in the late 60s is the epicenter of Eastern philosophies and meditations entering American life. Maybe he can do some breathing exercises with Isherwood or something.

I still don't understand Lane's actions. He's not acting like he's a major part of the company, he's acting like an interloper who doesn't want to get caught - just Tell Don the problem and you wont have to Tinker Tailor Solider Embezzler your way out of it. Or is asking directly just too American?

Note the back and forth "People buy things to feel better" and then dropping 6k on an E-type? Just saaaaying.

And finally, hey Don way to get everyone excited* about missing all their friends and loved ones during the holidays! Also nice way to avoid your new wife with whom you are having a less than stellar week with!

*Creative didn't look too happy about it, but no one on Creative has friends sooooo
posted by The Whelk at 9:10 AM on May 21, 2012 [3 favorites]

Don. Back in the driver's seat again. Nice. I like it when he rolls up his sleeves, vigorously works the stick shift and gets into the exhilaration of his ride. All puns intended.

And the scene with Joan in that beautiful bar in midtown? Wonderful. Pure fucking magnetism and magic is right. It was like seeing some long lost friends at their most charming together and being treated to enjoying a drink with them.

Joan and Don, are the heart and soul of that agency. Period. Oh sure, they can get accounts and get by on the smarmy salesmanship 101 of Pete, but for the work to be good, it's really about those two.

And someone slap me, as forcefully as Lakshmee, walloped Harry there (Gosh, Harry...what an interesting character, he is in his own right, when he gives Paul some hope and $500 bucks and tells him to go to L.A., in the hopes of getting him away from the "worst GF in the world.")...but did I hear the senior and junior partners announce the unthinkable in foregoing their bonuses in order to allow xmas bonuses for the rank and file. That's crazy, and Matthew Weiner is obviously a SOCIALIST!!

Lane's fuckin' whack. It makes no sense to not go to DD with the need for the 8k...as mentioned above.

Strange man. Seems like there's some skeleton's in his closet.

I've come to the conclusion that Peggy is working on a book is the reason she's always hanging out late...
posted by Skygazer at 11:12 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

Strange man. Seems like there's some skeleton's in his closet.

Lane is like, balls deep in organized crime, right? It's implied pretty heavily with Mr. Red Vest (I think I have that EXACT OUTFIT somewhere) and his actions make way more sense if the funding he's getting for SCDP is ...less than up and up.
posted by The Whelk at 11:16 AM on May 21, 2012

Also, Megan. Fighting for her man with the pasta on the wall. Drapper dug that! It centered him.
posted by Skygazer at 11:41 AM on May 21, 2012

and speaking of which - is giving Paul money and a ticket to LA the best idea? All he's got is a stained turtleneck and a terrible teleplay and while there are Krishnas in Tompkins Square Park, LA/Santa Monica in the late 60s is the epicenter of Eastern philosophies and meditations entering American life. Maybe he can do some breathing exercises with Isherwood or something.

I have an old friend in LA who has an Academy Award for Best Screenplay. That's pretty much how he started in Hollywood, back in the sixties.
posted by charlie don't surf at 11:52 AM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

Paul becomes a producer and insists every movie contain a battle against a giant spider.
posted by The Whelk at 11:53 AM on May 21, 2012 [3 favorites]

Wait now, I'm several thousand miles behind you lot. PAUL is back?
posted by mippy at 11:58 AM on May 21, 2012

WATCH AND RETURN MIPPY
posted by The Whelk at 12:02 PM on May 21, 2012

Peggy had also been publishing sci fi stories, except she uses the name James Tiptree Jr.
posted by drezdn at 12:08 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

*Creative didn't look too happy about it, but no one on Creative has friends sooooo

If I was on that team, I would've been cursing out Don so hard under my breath as being an utter narcissistic tool...
posted by Skygazer at 12:13 PM on May 21, 2012

So, what's the upshot on Lakshmee folks: Hot or NOT??

Or simply fucking evil??
posted by Skygazer at 12:14 PM on May 21, 2012

that scene told me way way more about Harry then I ever wanted to know. Madam Crazy Eyes is just Crazy.
posted by The Whelk at 12:30 PM on May 21, 2012

Never fuck a cultist.
posted by Artw at 12:32 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

After I saw that, I immediately thought "blackmail" and also "holy fuck what if they just delayed Harry's suicide a few seasons."

Because with a new baby on the way I could imagine that it would fucking devastate him if Jennifer kicked him out again.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 12:35 PM on May 21, 2012

God, I can still feel that slap she gave Harry...phew...
posted by Skygazer at 12:39 PM on May 21, 2012

I don't think we've seen the last of her...and I shudder at the thought of how she's going to get her revenge.
posted by Skygazer at 12:41 PM on May 21, 2012

Don and Joan talking in the bar is the sexist thing ever filmed for TV.

Freudian.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:49 PM on May 21, 2012

It's okay, I once did some copy writing for a show that promised the The best in Sexist Art

Thank god for editors.
posted by The Whelk at 12:50 PM on May 21, 2012

The Hari-Krishna details, from Lakshmee's dirty unwashed hair, to Paul's unwashed shirt, to the incense and saffron that you could practically smell through the TV were fantastic.. Until Lakschmee sent them out to a diner... they don't have their own lentils available to eat?! WHAT?!

I actually thought they were setting Henry up for a grift, and still don't think the sex scene made ANY sense. Harry voices outloud the truck driving through that plot hole.

On Lane, was it hinted at that it was his role in the SCDP duplicity in screwing the British overseer company that was the cause of his British tax problems?
posted by stratastar at 12:54 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Whelk - I like to go into episodes totally blind - they air on Tuesdays over here (in the walled garden of Sky Atlantic) and I like not to even know the title going in.

What annoys me from a British perspective is that the guy who did Notes From The Breakroom at the Guardian for the past few seasons has left and the new guy is shite. I relied on that blog to pick up on the little details that we would be less aware of over here but I couldn't take it any longer after new bloke thought that America's Favourite Photographer-Lesbian called Peggy 'Pagasus'. COME ON.

The AV Club reviews fill the hole, but it was great to find a discussion that didn't assume total familiarity with the pop culture/history of the time.
posted by mippy at 2:15 PM on May 21, 2012

She did call her Pegasus! it was adorable!
posted by The Whelk at 2:18 PM on May 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yes, Pegasus. Not frigging 'paggasus'. I'd expect a writer at the Guardian to have at least a working knowledge of Greek myths (cf. Alan Partridge)
posted by mippy at 2:25 PM on May 21, 2012

That's some old school Guardian copyediting, I suspect.
posted by Artw at 3:28 PM on May 21, 2012

I'm not so sure. (I'm also cringing at the use of 'top bantz'. I saw a guy in a T-shirt reading B.A.N.T.E.R from the bus today, wandering by grabbing his crotch.)
posted by mippy at 3:34 PM on May 21, 2012

Someone corrects him in comments and he agrees.

"Bantz" is deliberate awfulness though.
posted by Artw at 3:44 PM on May 21, 2012

I know, right? I really wish the guy who went to the Indie got them to take on the feature. I always got the sense that he had a pretty good grounding of the era, rather than this guy who carries the whiff of hasty Wikipedia searching on his collar.
posted by mippy at 3:57 PM on May 21, 2012

So, what's the upshot on Lakshmee folks: Hot or NOT??

You guys obviously don't live near a Hindu cult's international headquarters like I do, or you'd already know what Lakshmi means (and how it's spelled). I have known plenty of cultists like her. I could have sworn I heard her say something about giving him "something else" and I caught it as a warning she was giving him the clap or something. I replayed the scene and could not find it, maybe I misheard it.
posted by charlie don't surf at 4:41 PM on May 21, 2012

Notice how every secretary is mimicking the way Joan’s standing. Every single one. She is to those women what Don is to every man in the office: a stylish, good-looking, insanely talented person they all look up to and want to be.
posted by rewil at 8:06 AM on May 23, 2012

JOAN!!!!!
posted by drezdn at 7:49 PM on May 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Those exclamation points are from shock. What an over the top episode.
posted by drezdn at 8:03 PM on May 27, 2012

Wow Jon Hamm did barely concealed rage really well there.
posted by drezdn at 8:05 PM on May 27, 2012

What a creepy creepy episode.

Peggy grew up (Great mentorship from Freddie), the while rest of SCDP are trapped in a morass of their own making. Was it surprising that Roger voted yay? Poor ken and his broken pact.
posted by stratastar at 8:22 PM on May 27, 2012

All commercial transaction is prositution! This is the eyes wide shut episode here.
posted by The Whelk at 8:41 PM on May 27, 2012

We'll always have "Pizza House," Peggy.
posted by drezdn at 8:43 PM on May 27, 2012 [4 favorites]

I don't know whether to be ecstatic for Peggy or incredibly sad for us.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:49 PM on May 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

Part of what I like about madmen is how it uses foils as character exposition: Don took the almost diametrically opposite reaction to Sal's getting propositioned for Lucky Strike, while he physically threw money in Peggy's face without even remembering it. Everyone deserves better.
posted by stratastar at 9:02 PM on May 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

Don's face with Peggy. Man.
posted by rewil at 9:06 PM on May 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

The scene between Don and Peggy was perfect. From his suppressed rage, to the fact that he remained sitting in what started as a position of superiority that transformed into one of supplication.

Peggy wanted nothing more than for him to stand up and to shake her hand as an equal. Instead he kissed her hand in a sad act of a bygone age.
posted by stratastar at 9:16 PM on May 27, 2012 [3 favorites]

PEGGY'S THERMOS OF SADNESS.
posted by The Whelk at 10:19 PM on May 27, 2012 [4 favorites]

Is this the most explicit Theme Pounding we've had on the show so far? Girl=Car=Car Guys Are Gross=Prositution=Selling=Audition=Paint Spots On Me=Mistress=Car?

Also Jessica Emerald is now canon, deal with it.
posted by The Whelk at 10:22 PM on May 27, 2012

I mean he gave her a emerald, green on this show is always the color of money ( and the color we commonly see prostitutes in) and Joanie in her green Kimono......

Let's not even get into the money throwing,

Every interaction in this episode was about Selling, even more so than usual, and selling the parts you didn't expect to sell, from how you look in your audition dress to your friendship with your mentor.
posted by The Whelk at 10:26 PM on May 27, 2012 [4 favorites]

And even without the super gross plot points, anyone else thi Don's pitch was just so ...nakedly cynical and gross and base? The whole thing made me feel oily.
posted by The Whelk at 10:27 PM on May 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

On the pitch, oh yes; but that was the point:

“Jaguar: At last, something beautiful you can truly own.”

The emphasis is on truly. Because you can't own women... anymore.
posted by stratastar at 10:46 PM on May 27, 2012

I'm a little surprised dude wasn't into the whole GFE thing.
posted by box at 11:08 PM on May 27, 2012

Naw, he's too gross and obvious to be into anything else.

Can we note Ginsberg's campaign ideas and how they are all now 100% more blunt and disturbing then anything Don's oily mind has ever come up with? There isn't a throbbing psychosexual fantasia he won't hit, and he doesn't dress it up pretty like Don, he goes straight for the gut.

Peggy is again, intellectual and funny with her pitch, and again she's seen better working on the fly then over thinking it and draining the idea. I love how the show has consistent creative types who approach the problem in distinct ways.
posted by The Whelk at 11:24 PM on May 27, 2012 [2 favorites]

And again Pete keeps managing to find new and unexplored rock bottoms to bounce his horrible ego in.
posted by The Whelk at 11:29 PM on May 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

I don't think I've ever loved/hated an episode of television as much as this.
posted by crossoverman at 7:18 AM on May 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm picking out a Thermos for you. Not an ordinary Thermos for you. But the extra best Thermos that you can buy, with vinyl and stripes and a cup built right in.
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:26 AM on May 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

If SCDP did an ad for Sigg or Klean Kanteen, it would be about surreptitious daytime drinking.
posted by box at 7:35 AM on May 28, 2012

What was easy to miss about Peggy's fight with Don amid the money shower and blatant disrespect of it was the more subtle way he was ignoring their history together. He knows she's never been on a plane. She's been passed up for work trips before. Really hurtful.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:12 AM on May 28, 2012 [3 favorites]

Quick, name someone who is actually happy to be at SCDP!

I'll wait.
posted by The Whelk at 9:20 AM on May 28, 2012

Dawn.
posted by charlie don't surf at 9:53 AM on May 28, 2012 [3 favorites]

Bert? Harry? Stan? Ginsberg?
posted by box at 9:55 AM on May 28, 2012

Dale looked pretty happy. Especially since I bet he's about to get Peggy's job.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:36 AM on May 28, 2012

I completely lost track as to who dale was? The slightly Academic Fey older guy with the glasses?
posted by The Whelk at 10:41 AM on May 28, 2012

Yeah, he was a background character in a bunch of early episodes. The last time we saw him, he was getting splattered by blood from the lawnmower accident. Last night he was shown as a freelancer in the first few minutes and the camera focused on him in a kind of weird way. Since I just rewatched the series, I noticed that that's how they framed Megan's first appearance, too. Odd, pointed framing as if to say YOU WILL SEE THIS PERSON AGAIN.

Also he's pretty cute so I wouldn't entirely mind.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:46 AM on May 28, 2012

I don't think I've ever cried at a fictional character leaving their job before.
posted by crossoverman at 6:26 PM on May 28, 2012 [2 favorites]

I felt pretty sure that Joan was going to be made a partner this season, I just didn't realize they'd pick such a sleazy "significant" manner for it to transpire. I mean, it's almost the kind of thing that 20, 30 or 40 years into the future is the stuff of legend, and we all know Joan is on her way to becoming one of the most powerful women executives in all of media somewhere down the line and a legend I'm pretty sure that barring some illness she's going to be a real barrier busting pioneer for women, as is Peggy, yet one's staying and the other's going, and that shot towards the end of Joan registering Peggy's departure and knowing intuitively that it was significant...again, I feel like we're being presented with differing visions of feminism there, maybe?

And Peggy, wow. We really saw Don at his best and his worst on this show, a good friend to Joan, and an utter dipshit to Peggy, who really saved his ass on a number of occasions in the past and their connection was tight and deep and founded on a mutual sort of understanding that they had seen the other's deepest selves (Don and his created personality and Peggy's pregnancy and carrying to term of Pete's child), and yeah, I think he's going to regret how badly he's fucked up there, because Peggy was a true friend and more than that really, in that she was mother and sister and strong for him in ways he wasn't strong in the past and as much as superficially Peggy was his protege and Don the mentor, I wonder who was really the mentor there and if that relationship was so defined. and in terms of growing up, I feel like there was a transference of reciprocal qualities between the two.

And, this might sound strange, but I was way more grossed out by the way the casting douches treated Megan and made her "step forward and turn around," then of the manner in which the exec from the Jaguar dealerships treated Joan, which was really with like a great deal of care, except for the part of course were he couldn't hold back anymore and blurted out "...I can't wait anymore LET ME SEES THEM NOW!!" and goes to put his paws on her and she stops him, and he stops. I mean that to me seems at least more human and honest, than the clinical inspection Megan undergoes, before they even ask her to do any acting...

One last thing is all the exceptional acting Hamm pulls off in that episode, just with his facial expressions: the speechless admiration when Ginsburg nails the tagline for Jaguar and the depth of anger and hurt when Peggy tells him she's going over to his biggest competitor. Pretty great all that.

One final thing and that's Megan. This episode once again she's doing this incredibly fine tightwire performance that's trying to balance her heart and her head, and for once I feel like Don is actually really trying to understand her, unless it's just that he was so chuffed at getting Jaguar that nothing could bring him down, but it did seem like he was at least trying to be supportive.
posted by Skygazer at 8:57 PM on May 28, 2012

I don't think Peggy leaving is a failure of Dons. I think she just finally realized it was time for her to prove she could be a success without him.

This was such a great episode in such a disturbing way.

I think Joan is going to be affected by this in ways she hasn't even considered.

I am now actively routing for the failure of SCDP. Lane will destroy them, yay!

But again, just a great great episode. Outstanding.
posted by Bonzai at 11:25 PM on May 28, 2012

WAH! PEGS!
posted by Artw at 11:28 PM on May 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

Private Practice* style spin off series demanded at the least.

* apparently this is a thing that is still on the air. Like, WTF?
posted by Artw at 11:35 PM on May 28, 2012

I don't think Peggy leaving is a failure of Dons. I think she just finally realized it was time for her to prove she could be a success without him.

It absolutely is a failure of Don's, though. If he hadn't been so lax about supporting her recently. If he hadn't given Ginsberg some of the credit/jobs that Peggy should have gotten. If he hadn't yelled at her when they screwed up the Miracle Whip pitch. If he hadn't thrown money in her face in this episode.

Yes, she did finally realise she could leave and be a success, but there's really no reason she should have had to leave, if he'd been a better manager.
posted by crossoverman at 5:04 AM on May 29, 2012 [3 favorites]

It absolutely is a failure of Don's, though.

Depends on how much Peg is worth. Before this episode, it was like what the hell is Peggy doing all those late hours. I suppose that was the writers easy way of showing us she's still doing good work.

There's that hint that she does a lot more writing that we don't see, but I've never been that impressed with her productions they do show. And her management of Megan and Ben was nothing special.

She hasn't really shined since Stan showed up. Hmmmmmm.

She also needed a change of scenery. She has been so bitter for so lon.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:23 AM on May 29, 2012

The money in the face thing was a failure as a human and a manager.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:27 AM on May 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Whether or not Peggy had been pulling her weight in recent months is irrelevant. Don's history with her obligated him to a certain minimum level of respect and consideration, which he failed to show her, lapsing into the narcissistic, socially oblivious mode that is such a major flaw in his character, his very real capacity for empathy (e.g., with Joan) notwithstanding.

I think this episode, and Hamm's realisation of the writing for his part, did an excellent job of showing the contradictions and cognitive dissonance in Don Draper's character. This is a very believable character, a man who vacillates between trying to grow, motivated by his real needs (e.g., not wanting to lose the best woman - Megan - he's ever had in his life, or at least still has (some of the others arguably he should not have abandoned), and reverting back to his oily, manipulative, self-centered mode. His alternate strategies re Megan of trying to assert control vs. being supportive, whenever her needs, her career, etc. challenge his assumption that his needs come first in the marriage, illustrate this particularly well. It's an open question whether he will ultimately blow it all, ending up rich (if he's lucky) and alone. (Or at least with such a superficial partner - arm candy - that he might as well be alone.) Megan could very well be one of the next to give up on him. She wouldn't do so easily, but it could still happen.

If I was inclined to hyperbole, I'd say he's a symbol of the empathic void at the heart of capitalism. I'd be suspicious of any final resolution to the series where he simplistically ends up as an Enlightened Soul. (But I think the producer and writers are smarter than that.)
posted by Philofacts at 10:16 AM on May 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Hey hey, a new Mad Men post!
posted by box at 11:58 AM on May 29, 2012

Meh, looks like it's going to be full of assholes who don't watch the show being all pissy.
posted by Artw at 12:02 PM on May 29, 2012

DON'T TELL THEM WHERE WE ARE
posted by The Whelk at 12:12 PM on May 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

TEAM PEGASUS SECRET HIDEOUT
posted by Artw at 12:15 PM on May 29, 2012 [3 favorites]

WE'LL CALL IT....

PIZZA HOUSE.
posted by The Whelk at 12:16 PM on May 29, 2012 [6 favorites]

Aparently we have enemies... I am composing a list. PIZZA HOUSE WILL BE AVENGED!
posted by Artw at 12:25 PM on May 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

WE SHALL DESTROY THEM WITH OUR SOFT SOCIAL SCIFI AND ENDLESS JOINTS!
posted by The Whelk at 12:25 PM on May 29, 2012 [3 favorites]

But what of... THE PACT?
posted by Artw at 12:30 PM on May 29, 2012

Why was she so snippy to Ken, I knew she was upset but I didn't get that particular beat aside from Everyone Being Awful All The Time.

Poor Ken, the only happy person surrounded by these sad sacks.
posted by The Whelk at 12:34 PM on May 29, 2012

PFFFFTTT...

PEGASUS OLSEN DOES NOT NEED A PACT WITH KEN. PEG "PIZZA HOUSES" ALL OVER THAT SILLY CHILDISH PACT, PEG NO LONGER HAS TIME FOR CHILDISH THINGS, SHE SPITS SMOKE AND BREATHS WHISKEY. SHE TAKES THE DOWN ELEVATOR SHINING A BRIGHT LIGHT ON HER FACE and FUTURE AND PEGASUS SMILES BECAUSE HER FUTURE IS BRIGHT, AS IS MEGHAN"S, EVEN WHILE DON'S ONLY LOOOKS DOWN ON BRUTALIST NOTHING CABLES AND WORKINGS OF THE FUTURE AND ONLY SEES A SHAFT, AND A TERRIFYING VOID....

Dr. Freud, I presume??
posted by Skygazer at 1:41 PM on May 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

I definitely thing The Suitcase (forgot to mention it last night after watching the episode) is the analog to this episode in explaining what really happened here between Peg and Don. Abso-mo-lutely, because a special bond was created there in that moment and Don really forgot that, until too late. Until he's kissing her hand and on the verge of tears...

Man, anyone feeling that there's much much worse things you could do with your time then re-watch this whole season before the final two episodes??
posted by Skygazer at 1:45 PM on May 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

~~thing~~ think
posted by Skygazer at 1:48 PM on May 29, 2012

Maybe because Ken was in on the Jaguar pitch with everyone else, while she was alone?

I'd guess that getting Jaguar means Ken won't want to jump too right now, but I hope The Pact comes up at some point in the future.

I'm pretty positive--like 90% positive--that Peggy was the one who ratted out Ken to Roger about the short story writing. I think she's really pretty mad about that, since she brought it up during their argument.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 1:52 PM on May 29, 2012

GASP! THIS COULD TEAR TEAM PEGASUS APART!
posted by Artw at 2:03 PM on May 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

SMASH CUT TO WILDLY SUCCESSFUL PEGGY IN LA HAVING CRAZY 70s STYLE EXCESS

I'M PEGGY OLSON AND I AM A BEAUTIFUL ANIMAL!
posted by The Whelk at 2:07 PM on May 29, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty positive--like 90% positive--that Peggy was the one who ratted out Ken to Roger about the short story writing.

Could be...Peggy's been forced to learn to be a pretty good poker player it would seem, but it seemed settled that it was the odious Pete Campbell, The (sad little) Man with the Tiny Orchestra...
posted by Skygazer at 2:09 PM on May 29, 2012 [3 favorites]

I'M PEGGY OLSON AND I AM A BEAUTIFUL ANIMAL!

And the light shines bright on your future (and face) as you step out of SCDP forevah....
posted by Skygazer at 2:11 PM on May 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

ADVERTISING PEOPLE, DEAR READER
posted by The Whelk at 2:13 PM on May 29, 2012 [2 favorites]

...The forces are spread more evenly over the crankshaft, by producing smaller, but more frequent pulses of power...

What is the effect like? Well it's like a turbine. And it's something like an express elevator.

posted by Skygazer at 2:25 PM on May 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

There is nothing stopping us from making Wizard People, Dear Reader type commentary tracks for mad men episodes.

THE PEGASUS FLIES, SOARS, LOOK UPON ME AND DESPAIR
posted by The Whelk at 3:44 PM on May 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

I definitely thing The Suitcase (forgot to mention it last night after watching the episode) is the analog to this episode in explaining what really happened here between Peg and Don. Abso-mo-lutely, because a special bond was created there in that moment and Don really forgot that, until too late. Until he's kissing her hand and on the verge of tears...

Definitely. I was going to add that to the end of my last comment ... That whole hand kiss moment says so much about their relationship and history. And Peggy is still afraid to offend the person she respects so much and shares such a deep bond with. Great scene.

from the other thread:

"...we’re having a near-impossible time believing that she would do this... What surprises us is Roger’s reaction.

Oh, c'mon. Roger? Really? His reaction was perfect. He wants to go along with it, but doesn't want Joan to know he's going along with it. Pete was perfect too.

I don't think it was a highlight or a shark jump. I think it was a brave and very risky plotline. I think it was handled well.

I just really miss January Jones. She brings a surprising amount of depth to a 2D character. More Sally and her creepy boarding school friend would be good too.
posted by mrgrimm at 3:54 PM on May 29, 2012 [2 favorites]

I just saw X-Men: First Class. Boy is she a terrible actress.
posted by Artw at 3:55 PM on May 29, 2012

In a stunning third act reveal Sally developes mutant powers (exploding her mother in the process) and is sent to some werid boarding school upstate.
posted by The Whelk at 3:57 PM on May 29, 2012 [3 favorites]

SPOILER ALERT! .....Sally developes mutant powers (exploding her mother in the process)...
posted by Skygazer at 4:47 PM on May 29, 2012

Now you've got me feeling sad about poor old Rachel Summers.
posted by Artw at 4:50 PM on May 29, 2012

"mrgrimm: "I just really miss January Jones. She brings a surprising amount of depth to a 2D character. More Sally and her creepy boarding school friend would be good too."

Well, that's where Weiner has you fooled cuz January Jones is the ultimate 2D actor. I'm honestly amazed she didn't sink the show *dead* in the first season.

//

While blowing up Ken's spot may be a dark enough spot on her mind, the story made the point that it wasn't why she lashed out at Ken. I think she was yelling at her own weakness.
It was a fantasy that she clung to for her worst SCDP moments, but she had to leave by herself. It was her act of empowerment.
posted by stratastar at 10:55 PM on May 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

It being, the pact. I'm a terrible editor.
posted by stratastar at 10:56 PM on May 29, 2012

I can totally buy Peggy is just being shitty (and drinking!) in that scene, but how can you be shitty to Ken? Ken is literally the nicest person on Earth. It says more about the person getting mad.
posted by The Whelk at 11:01 PM on May 29, 2012 [2 favorites]

Peggy's totally lashed out at others immediately after Don lashing out at her. She takes that shit hard.
posted by stratastar at 11:47 PM on May 29, 2012

Guys. Please don't kick me out of team Pegasus , but I think I came up with a new Madmen inspired sexact: *rot13 for the squeamish*

Gneerq naq Qencrerq

*ducks*
posted by stratastar at 1:26 AM on May 30, 2012

Jung gur shpx??!
posted by Skygazer at 2:11 AM on May 30, 2012

Yeah, I wonder if that led to an internal moment for Peggy, like "What the hell, I just yelled at Kenny."
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 12:21 PM on May 30, 2012

V urneg GRNZ CRTNFHF.
posted by Skygazer at 1:10 PM on May 30, 2012

« Older The Distance of the Moon | Hook Up Your Slurry Tube And Chow Down Newer »

This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments

MetaFilter

$250,000
May 7, 2012 5:03 PM Subscribe

Tags

Share

$250,000 May 7, 2012 5:03 PM Subscribe

Tags

Share

$250,000
May 7, 2012 5:03 PM Subscribe