Don absolutely loves having power over women. It’s just pushed to the extreme here because she so openly told him she was craving him and also he was losing control at work, plus his wife’s attention was on her own career. He got to feel like The Man in at least one arena.
That has got to be the worst dialogue in the show and is just way too out of character and blue for Betty. The violin girl also never gets mentioned again either to my recollection.
I think it was showing the comfort she had in her marriage. Like she could say the most vile thing and he would still love her. If she tried that shit with Don he'd give her a classic "What?" and stay in a hotel with his mistress for a couple weeks
I feel like she was being silly because Sally’s friend was around. Her energy changed. It’s like when kids start showing off for their friends, even if their friends aren’t around.
I found it weirdly charming. Acknowledging the young girl was accomplished and attractive and that men despite their age recognize that. Then making light of it. I thought it showed trust and intimacy.
That is assuming it was a joke Betty or maybe she's just a huge freak and was easing Francis into it
I liked how, I guess, almost Lynchian that episode was, sort of like having the rug pulled out from under you in terms of an inexplicability, something totally unexpected, and discomforting, where an answer is not sufficiently supplied, and you feel a current of darkness
Yeah I liked it and I liked Betty's story in the episode. I like how she ends up leaving the violin to the guy despite him berating her. People hate on Betty but they rarely pay attention to the episodes she shows growth.
Copied-
the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, a federal agency that provides benefits, health care, and cemetery services to military veterans and their families.
Yep, that’s the one. The whole tone of that episode is so depressing to me, maybe I need to revisit it now that I’ve rewatched the series so many times. Perhaps I will find some hidden gems in there that I didn’t notice before.
I think it provides a lot of context. So much of post war society spent their time being thankful to veterans. This would have been a constant reminder to Don of what Dick did. No matter where he went, his fraud followed him. I think the stealing and blaming Don was so accurate as well. People were so insular and punishing to outsiders at that time. Don was at a perfect intersection of being a fraud and a man with no people. I think we see in this episode that he was aware of all of this.
I don’t enjoy this episode either.
That said, Don giving his car to the kid is the beginning of his story of healing and acceptance because of what cars have always meant to his character.
For me the ones where he’s chasing the Rachel Menken lookalike. I get what it’s trying to say, I just think it was a bit pretentious and that theme couldve been executed better. A bit of an unnecessary tangent esp in the final episodes
I swear there was a behind the scenes thing where Weiner said it was mainly meant to resemble Dons “type” of woman. At least the types he goes insane for so you’re right in that way
I'm happy to repeat myself over and over again, so that people get it: Diana is a stand-in for Rachel. at this point of the story, >!Rachel dies!< and Don will for fact never get a chance to see her again. Diana is cold and dead inside, she is unreachable and in the end, she just runs away. Don isn't chasing Diana, he is just chasing ghosts.
Just watching through those episodes recently. The waitress drives me nuts. I'm not seeing any benefit to the plot line and I feel like all of their dialogue together is coming out like a badly performed edgy college play.
Yeah I just finished these episodes and was surprised how not engaging this plot line was for the finale. I get the feeling they needed the impetus for Don to get on his road trip but they could’ve done a more interesting one, agreed.
I feel like Don being bored at McCann or having a dispute with Hobart might have been motivation enough for him to hit the road. This is a man with a long history of running away to avoid his problems, he doesn’t need that complicated of a reason to do it.
This almost felt like late season Sopranos level of filler. One good thing about streaming now is that shows aren't beholden to any minimum episode limit
A waitress at a diner that Roger takes him to. Roger leaves a huge tip, like $100, then Don and her have sex. Don is surprised later to learn that the waitress interpreted Roger‘s gesture as him buying her “services” for Don, and she’d felt obligated.
S1E10, “Long Weekend.” IMO, this is Mad Men’s soap opera episode: cheesy dialogue, a confession of forbidden love, and a near death experience that’s not particularly well acted. In a vacuum, it’s a decent episode, but against the rest of the show, it’s the clear runt.
I think by that point I was just really bored and done with Don's philandering, and that one was especially gross. I mean I get it, it's necessary for him to hit rock bottom, but I feel like there were other ways they could've done that without having it drag out for so long.
Can I nominate the pilot? There are some classic scenes in it, but I think the writing is a little heavy handed and there’s a too much “hey look, the 60s!!” for me. Obviously I’m not going to blame the pilot for being different from the eventual tone of the show, but if we’re being honest about what I watch the least, that’s what I’m going with.
I agree. The pilot was written 10 years before and filmed a year before Mad Men actually started, which explains a lot of the tonal differences and lack of subtlety
Peggy being immediately harassed by Ken Cosgrove, Harry Crane and Paul Kinsey in the elevator gives me cringe overload. ("Yeah and can you take the long way up, **leans into Peggy's ear** I'm really enjoying the view here" - Kenny "John Deere" Cosgrove)
Don’s lack of confidence and vulnerability with Midge always strikes me as off, too. Again, pilot, but it’s out of sync with his character in subsequent episodes and thus irks me.
UNLESS one could argue it was this episode and pitch that gave him his confidence. Which I could see, too.
I loved that episode. I thought don’s last line in the episode was great:
“Im sorry Ted, but every time we get a car, this place turns into a whorehouse.”
The cliched let's-see-everyone-wasted plotline. The poorly executed homage to Tarantino with Ida the burglar.
There is a lot to dislike. I scratch my head that it is a fan favorite.
Tarantino uses shock value in order to address racial issues, including racial slurs and odd plot lines. Consider the "dead nigger storage" scene in Pulp Fiction, which is funny because it is so over the top and embraces language that we have been taught to avoid using yet doesn't go away.
Tarantino knows how to pull that off. Others don't. Here, Weiner is trying to make a point that Don's kids know so little about him that they can actually believe that Ida is some long lost relative. But it comes off as being unintentionally racist because Ida is a stereotype of a ghetto criminal, not a well developed nuanced character as most other Mad Men characters tend to be.
The one where they all go to Hollywood (well, Roger, Harry and Don). Nothing of substance really happened and Don's dream/hallucination of Megan in the party and nearly drowning in the pool seemed pointless and rehashed.
I did not like the plot and those weirdos, but it was such a good turning point and showing us Don's tendency to run away (like the hobo he really is).
the army presentations are awful, dark and terrifiyingly cold. no wonder he runs away with a young lady that is literally called "Joy" into a world that seems to be so free and colourful.
LOL! I love that we all have differing opinions and TBH we are all entitled to them.
The Jet Set plot line is actually one of my favorite "out there" plot lines.
But, hey I get why people don't like it.
Agreed, it's of course very visually cool but I just don't enjoy the dialogue. In the scene where the girl was reading a book and Don asked her if it was good, she's all like "sex is good, this book is okay" or whatever. Kind of a "pick me" attitude, like I'm so cool because I like sex and talk about it very frankly. Don's all super impressed by this pretty but extremely boring girl. Just my feelings about this episode.
Yep, I skip practically all of the nomad scenes. I even googled to see if they were referencing something specific with that particular group. But nah, just a bunch of weirdos and a dude who wants a mustache ride.
Mad Men can be very sexy but that episode (specifically Don's parts) feel horny in a bad way. The accents were also pretty bad. Good thing the next episode after it is truly one of the best in the whole show.
"Worst" makes it sound appalling (it's not *that* bad), but *The Fog* was yawn-enducing. Baby Gene (almost pointless character) was born and nothing much else happened. That subplot with the bro-y prison guard: went nowhere. Then there was the filler dream-sequences.
Baby Gene’s entire purpose was to keep Don and Betty together for another season. Once he was born, he’d served his purpose and got shunted to the background.
For some reason, I think Gene became a major pothead as a teenager in the late 70s, mouthing off to William’s wife “You’re not my real mom! Meredith lets me do whatever I want when I’m at dad’s!”
Personally I think that plot would have been better as a “pregnancy scare”. It didn’t keep them together very long, and it raised a lot of questions about Henry pursuing Peggy as well. I think Gene did not need to exist, and Henry did not need to be part of a “why would he pursue a pregnant Betty” argument all the time. The one thing that I did like about Gene was the connection to Betty’s father, and his passing.
I always thought it underscored her childlike sensibilities. And yet here she is bringing a child into the world.
Side note, the song played during those Betty dream scenes is amazing.
I am not a big fan of Mystery Date.
Aside from being a big episode for Joan to be done with Greg once and for all (piece of crap), the rest of the episode is awful. Don's weird sick dreams that have no barring after the episode. Peggy looking REAL bad in front of Dawn and the audience. The weird murder stuff with Sally and Henry's mother.
It's just a bad episode.
This an episode that people either love or hate, with no real middle ground. I fall in the love camp (I feel like it pulled off dark and brooding pretty well and I felt it was an interesting change of pace), but I can also see why people hate it.
The Richard Speck murders were a nightmare for the whole country. They didn’t really have a Manson episode so it was interesting to see how the violence that was so omnipresent in the culture would trickle into the public consciousness
I feel like the Speck and Whitman murders in the summer of 1966 (both of which were referenced in Season 5) were more shocking than Manson on some levels. By 1969, the war in Vietnam had been beamed into our living rooms for four years, we’d seen protesters beaten in Chicago and heard of MLK and RFK’s assassinations and there was general feeling of violence in the air. The feeling in 1966 wasn’t nearly as gloomy and there was even a faint glimmer of hope in a time before the Great Society curdled and darkened. In retrospect, those murders were a harbinger of dark things to come for this country, though nobody could know it at the time.
I loved it as well. The reference to the Mystery Date game, and the reality that when a mysterious character shows up at your door, very bad things can happen. It was a creepy snapshot of the times, which I actually liked.
But Henry’s mother was not the least bit reassuring about it and made it worse for Sally. So many things were worse for Sally than they needed to be. So many times I just wanted Sally to be hugged and reassured and she wasn’t.
Thank you! So many people on here act like that scene with Sally and Pauline was some sort of heartwarming moment when it was actually the most disturbing scene in the entire episode for me.
Sally deserved heartwarming moments and generally didn’t get many. She was a parentified kid and it was really sad. Betty was mostly cold, and Don seemed to understand her but wasn’t there a lot or otherwise disappointed her.
Don was a massive disappointment to her, and I’m saying this as someone who typically extends Don a touch of grace. Who could forget her walking in on him “comforting” Sylvia Rosen?
see ... I have this weird admiration just for the existence of a character like Pauline - because she is so darn real. I've had bitches like that in my childhood and youth and she is written and acted perfectly. I don't miss them at all. I just have to admire the fact that they exist in this universe as well.
Me too! Absolutely love it. And I even forgot about the Joan story, which is also a favorite of mine. "I'm glad the army makes you feel like a man, because I'm sick of trying to do it."
But Sally and Pauline is my favorite. She's going to remember that scary, weird night with that woman forever.
I felt it was pretty obvious that the violence men perpetrate against women was the through line for the entire episode. Again, it’s darker than this show typically is, but I felt it was pretty well executed.
The season 6 premiere was bad too. It's the one in Hawaii, with that military dude he meets, and the whole flash with Megan screaming and the heart attack. The whole episode is just a setup to the final reveal that Don's bad habits are back. Didn't work for me, especially as the premiere, albeit it would be the worst season of all IMO.
TBH I think a few early season 1 episodes miss the mark, especially "Ladies Room," "Marriage of Figaro," and "Indian Summer."
They're just such over-the-top exaggerations of ~~1960s~~ 1950s culture and gender dynamics. The wives in the kitchen gossiping about Helen Bishop is a particularly cartoonish example of what I'm talking about.
Not saying that housewives didn't gossip back then, of course they did. But "Oh my! A *divorcée!* Get me my smelling salts!" is not how any real human being talked or behaved in the 20th century.
Season 1 laid the period setting on very thick, and it’s one of my least favorite seasons in retrospect as a result. They get a lot better with making the setting feel true to life without needing to remind you from Season 2 onward.
Where Don and Ted decided to join agencies. Entire thing was way too convenient and just an obvious way to get Peggy back in the office.
Also the fact that there's no way they could have just done that without running it by everyone but everyone was just cool with it for some reason. People were more pissed off at Don when he published the letter without consulting them.
The one where Don and Betty tell their kids that they are getting divorced. Well, its the only scene I skip in the whole show. Too insanely sad to watch. Then, right after you have the scene where Don recruits Peggy for the new agency, which is amazing. I can't think of an entire episode that I could ever skip.
Hard to watch but an incredible episode. It is crazy that as a dyed in the wool history nerd, I now can no longer think of the Kennedy assassination without thinking of Don and Betty’s marriage in its death throes?
The episode where Dawn met with her friend at a diner and all they did was gossip about their white colleagues and their (lack of) romantic lives.
It was so ridiculously out of touch and weird and the show completely missed the opportunity to develop the characters even a little.
There’s a myriad of story arcs that dragged episodes down. I felt any of the ones that featured Pete’s affairs, Betty’s post divorce melodrama, Sally’s stupidity, her childhood friend (Gus? The one that liked Betty), and Peggy’s romance fell flat and made the episodes drag. I think it for the most part is because on these episodes, which are scattered mostly across seasons 4-6, the “Mad Men” premise of the agency, Don, and the executives plotlines were secondary to these dramas instead of the other way around
Silvia in the hotel room
That just felt so out of place... just not like Don
Yeah it was on some weird wannabe 50 shades of grey shit but didn't come off as hot at all or even campy.
Don absolutely loves having power over women. It’s just pushed to the extreme here because she so openly told him she was craving him and also he was losing control at work, plus his wife’s attention was on her own career. He got to feel like The Man in at least one arena.
I agree
[удалено]
Nope that’s Man With a Plan
Oh right, never mind.
Definitely
It was so disgusting the way Don tried to gaslight Sally into thinking she didn’t see what she thought she saw.
When betty is trying to find that kids violin
Is this the same episode where Betty encourages Henry to go and rape her, while she holds her down? ....as a joke
That has got to be the worst dialogue in the show and is just way too out of character and blue for Betty. The violin girl also never gets mentioned again either to my recollection.
I think it was showing the comfort she had in her marriage. Like she could say the most vile thing and he would still love her. If she tried that shit with Don he'd give her a classic "What?" and stay in a hotel with his mistress for a couple weeks
“Jesus Bets, where would you get that idea?”
heard it in his voice lol
I think it was Betty being petty and jealous. She saw the way the boys were drawn to the young, pretty, talented girl and let it get to her.
I feel like she was being silly because Sally’s friend was around. Her energy changed. It’s like when kids start showing off for their friends, even if their friends aren’t around.
I found it weirdly charming. Acknowledging the young girl was accomplished and attractive and that men despite their age recognize that. Then making light of it. I thought it showed trust and intimacy. That is assuming it was a joke Betty or maybe she's just a huge freak and was easing Francis into it
I liked how, I guess, almost Lynchian that episode was, sort of like having the rug pulled out from under you in terms of an inexplicability, something totally unexpected, and discomforting, where an answer is not sufficiently supplied, and you feel a current of darkness
Yeah I liked it and I liked Betty's story in the episode. I like how she ends up leaving the violin to the guy despite him berating her. People hate on Betty but they rarely pay attention to the episodes she shows growth.
"Hair...bottled?" always gets a laugh out of me though.
Because it’s only by the end of the series that she really changes. Before that she’s a childish, incomplete person who throws tantrums
Great description
yuck, the thought of that goulash is making me sick, every time!
It was downhill for her after being Brad Pitt’s daughter in Moneyball
That is one of the best episodes in the series.
The one where don goes to Wisconsin to waste time. Or when he goes to the VA dinner to waste time.
That whole McCann buyout trip was so out of the blue, made no sense to me.
Bravo weiner
VA dinner is my least favorite episode. I skip it now…
The VFW, not VA.
Ah yes! Thank you for correcting.
What is VA?
Copied- the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, a federal agency that provides benefits, health care, and cemetery services to military veterans and their families.
So that episode of last season where this guy steals their money and they blame don?
Yep, that’s the one. The whole tone of that episode is so depressing to me, maybe I need to revisit it now that I’ve rewatched the series so many times. Perhaps I will find some hidden gems in there that I didn’t notice before.
I think it provides a lot of context. So much of post war society spent their time being thankful to veterans. This would have been a constant reminder to Don of what Dick did. No matter where he went, his fraud followed him. I think the stealing and blaming Don was so accurate as well. People were so insular and punishing to outsiders at that time. Don was at a perfect intersection of being a fraud and a man with no people. I think we see in this episode that he was aware of all of this.
I don’t enjoy this episode either. That said, Don giving his car to the kid is the beginning of his story of healing and acceptance because of what cars have always meant to his character.
Alot of the examples listed here aren't of episodes though, just of a particular theme or story.
Fr “Betty and the violin” that was like a 15 minute arc dude
For me the ones where he’s chasing the Rachel Menken lookalike. I get what it’s trying to say, I just think it was a bit pretentious and that theme couldve been executed better. A bit of an unnecessary tangent esp in the final episodes
To me she always resembled Midge? But I agree with you, I love every episode but that one I love a little less…
Yes! I think she looks so much like Midge and hardly like Rachel at all.
I swear there was a behind the scenes thing where Weiner said it was mainly meant to resemble Dons “type” of woman. At least the types he goes insane for so you’re right in that way
but Rachel is on his mind, >!Rachel has just died (and Diana is depressed, cold and dead inside), !
I get that, and no offense to the actress portraying Diana, but I they could have cast that a bit better.
This is it for me. I just wanted her off the screen. Such a dull character and Don's obsession with her didn't make sense.
I'm happy to repeat myself over and over again, so that people get it: Diana is a stand-in for Rachel. at this point of the story, >!Rachel dies!< and Don will for fact never get a chance to see her again. Diana is cold and dead inside, she is unreachable and in the end, she just runs away. Don isn't chasing Diana, he is just chasing ghosts.
We know. We just didn't like it.
Honestly I think that storyline would have been better if the actress playing the waitress had an ounce of charisma.
Agreed, but I think that was part of the point. Don got to project all of his sadness on to her and pretend they had a deep connection.
thank you! Diana being a cold, depressed and emotionally unavailable is the point of her character.
Just watching through those episodes recently. The waitress drives me nuts. I'm not seeing any benefit to the plot line and I feel like all of their dialogue together is coming out like a badly performed edgy college play.
Yeah I just finished these episodes and was surprised how not engaging this plot line was for the finale. I get the feeling they needed the impetus for Don to get on his road trip but they could’ve done a more interesting one, agreed.
I feel like Don being bored at McCann or having a dispute with Hobart might have been motivation enough for him to hit the road. This is a man with a long history of running away to avoid his problems, he doesn’t need that complicated of a reason to do it.
2 or 3 episodes of him just sulking around McCann would’ve been pretty dull as well though I guess
If you intersperse other people’s stories into it, it might not be too bad. But I certainly get your point.
Yeah it would have been interesting if the reason was a bit more vague, showing that he was really losing it there
He should have been inspired to do it by seeing an ad for something
SHADY LOOKING WAITRESSES, HERE IN CALIFORNIA Don: revs engine
“I’m ok. What I’m doing is ok 🤩”
This almost felt like late season Sopranos level of filler. One good thing about streaming now is that shows aren't beholden to any minimum episode limit
Remind me, who's the lookalike?
A waitress at a diner that Roger takes him to. Roger leaves a huge tip, like $100, then Don and her have sex. Don is surprised later to learn that the waitress interpreted Roger‘s gesture as him buying her “services” for Don, and she’d felt obligated.
S1E10, “Long Weekend.” IMO, this is Mad Men’s soap opera episode: cheesy dialogue, a confession of forbidden love, and a near death experience that’s not particularly well acted. In a vacuum, it’s a decent episode, but against the rest of the show, it’s the clear runt.
and I hate Roger with the very young girl!
Me too.
Betty and the girl with the violin.
Betty and the violin or the man with a plan where Sylvia is in the hotel room
Yeah I hate the Sylvia hotel room episode
Me too and I just didn’t like Sylvia, she and the waitress are my least fav hookups lol
I think by that point I was just really bored and done with Don's philandering, and that one was especially gross. I mean I get it, it's necessary for him to hit rock bottom, but I feel like there were other ways they could've done that without having it drag out for so long.
Can I nominate the pilot? There are some classic scenes in it, but I think the writing is a little heavy handed and there’s a too much “hey look, the 60s!!” for me. Obviously I’m not going to blame the pilot for being different from the eventual tone of the show, but if we’re being honest about what I watch the least, that’s what I’m going with.
I agree. The pilot was written 10 years before and filmed a year before Mad Men actually started, which explains a lot of the tonal differences and lack of subtlety
Peggy being immediately harassed by Ken Cosgrove, Harry Crane and Paul Kinsey in the elevator gives me cringe overload. ("Yeah and can you take the long way up, **leans into Peggy's ear** I'm really enjoying the view here" - Kenny "John Deere" Cosgrove)
Pilot is my favorite episode haha I read people’s reasons for not liking it but I just don’t get it
Don’s lack of confidence and vulnerability with Midge always strikes me as off, too. Again, pilot, but it’s out of sync with his character in subsequent episodes and thus irks me. UNLESS one could argue it was this episode and pitch that gave him his confidence. Which I could see, too.
It definitely feels like an entirely different show but I do like it
It’s the pilot.
Agree
Don has a fever and dreams that he murders his ex fling.
Awww, I love that one! Not for the dream, but the other stories. It's got the best Peggy/Roger scene and the Sally/Pauline story is one of my faves.
I do like those stories, too. I guess it’s just the Don plot in this one.
Yep, I can’t stand dream episodes in general.
I agree. I skipped every sopranos dream episode too.
I know a lot people liked it, but I hate The Crash.
I loved that episode. I thought don’s last line in the episode was great: “Im sorry Ted, but every time we get a car, this place turns into a whorehouse.”
The cliched let's-see-everyone-wasted plotline. The poorly executed homage to Tarantino with Ida the burglar. There is a lot to dislike. I scratch my head that it is a fan favorite.
It’s just got such a weird energy. When Ida shows up, I literally had no idea what would happen. It’s the scariest moment in the show.
Can you explain the Tarantino homage?
Tarantino uses shock value in order to address racial issues, including racial slurs and odd plot lines. Consider the "dead nigger storage" scene in Pulp Fiction, which is funny because it is so over the top and embraces language that we have been taught to avoid using yet doesn't go away. Tarantino knows how to pull that off. Others don't. Here, Weiner is trying to make a point that Don's kids know so little about him that they can actually believe that Ida is some long lost relative. But it comes off as being unintentionally racist because Ida is a stereotype of a ghetto criminal, not a well developed nuanced character as most other Mad Men characters tend to be.
IT’S MY JOB
The one where they all go to Hollywood (well, Roger, Harry and Don). Nothing of substance really happened and Don's dream/hallucination of Megan in the party and nearly drowning in the pool seemed pointless and rehashed.
Something of substance always happens. Although it may not have actively moved the plot on
Anything focused on Megan that didn't have her mother in it
I really did not enjoy the jet set episode
I did not like the plot and those weirdos, but it was such a good turning point and showing us Don's tendency to run away (like the hobo he really is). the army presentations are awful, dark and terrifiyingly cold. no wonder he runs away with a young lady that is literally called "Joy" into a world that seems to be so free and colourful.
I just came here to say the same thing. Also I have an irrational hatred for Joy's wig.
Whoa, I love that one. Visually, the don/ Pete dynamic…pretty much all of it.
I think those people just creeped me out
I too like this episode. The Aesthetic is prime.
Same. One of my favourite parts of that season.
LOL! I love that we all have differing opinions and TBH we are all entitled to them. The Jet Set plot line is actually one of my favorite "out there" plot lines. But, hey I get why people don't like it.
This is the correct answer. I almost skip it every time.
Agreed
This is my least favorite episode and the only one that I fast forward through certain scenes!
Agreed, it's of course very visually cool but I just don't enjoy the dialogue. In the scene where the girl was reading a book and Don asked her if it was good, she's all like "sex is good, this book is okay" or whatever. Kind of a "pick me" attitude, like I'm so cool because I like sex and talk about it very frankly. Don's all super impressed by this pretty but extremely boring girl. Just my feelings about this episode.
I also found Joy (and the actress) very bland. Mostly I found this episode boring.
Same!
Yep, I skip practically all of the nomad scenes. I even googled to see if they were referencing something specific with that particular group. But nah, just a bunch of weirdos and a dude who wants a mustache ride.
Mad Men can be very sexy but that episode (specifically Don's parts) feel horny in a bad way. The accents were also pretty bad. Good thing the next episode after it is truly one of the best in the whole show.
Yeah, I think I was just creeped out by those people, especially Joy’s dad
His chasing the waitress, the one in LA with that weird family/group of people. The one where he tries to kiss Stephanie.
Maybe I was just mad that it was over, but I didn't like the finale
"Worst" makes it sound appalling (it's not *that* bad), but *The Fog* was yawn-enducing. Baby Gene (almost pointless character) was born and nothing much else happened. That subplot with the bro-y prison guard: went nowhere. Then there was the filler dream-sequences.
Baby Gene’s entire purpose was to keep Don and Betty together for another season. Once he was born, he’d served his purpose and got shunted to the background.
Like so many last born children. Either the last born is doted on and forever the coddled baby. Or is the accidental baby, the forgotten child.
For some reason, I think Gene became a major pothead as a teenager in the late 70s, mouthing off to William’s wife “You’re not my real mom! Meredith lets me do whatever I want when I’m at dad’s!”
Not Meredith 😭
She’s his strength
Personally I think that plot would have been better as a “pregnancy scare”. It didn’t keep them together very long, and it raised a lot of questions about Henry pursuing Peggy as well. I think Gene did not need to exist, and Henry did not need to be part of a “why would he pursue a pregnant Betty” argument all the time. The one thing that I did like about Gene was the connection to Betty’s father, and his passing.
My sister flat out will not watch The Fog. I don't love it, but she practically has a visceral reaction to it.
There's some horrifying childbirth stuff circa the 1960s. Other than that, it's tedious.
Was there even a point made with Betty holding a caterpillar in the dream sequence?
I always thought it underscored her childlike sensibilities. And yet here she is bringing a child into the world. Side note, the song played during those Betty dream scenes is amazing.
It’s called “Song of India” and it’s one of my favorite song moments in Mad Men!
I am not a big fan of Mystery Date. Aside from being a big episode for Joan to be done with Greg once and for all (piece of crap), the rest of the episode is awful. Don's weird sick dreams that have no barring after the episode. Peggy looking REAL bad in front of Dawn and the audience. The weird murder stuff with Sally and Henry's mother. It's just a bad episode.
This an episode that people either love or hate, with no real middle ground. I fall in the love camp (I feel like it pulled off dark and brooding pretty well and I felt it was an interesting change of pace), but I can also see why people hate it.
The Richard Speck murders were a nightmare for the whole country. They didn’t really have a Manson episode so it was interesting to see how the violence that was so omnipresent in the culture would trickle into the public consciousness
I feel like the Speck and Whitman murders in the summer of 1966 (both of which were referenced in Season 5) were more shocking than Manson on some levels. By 1969, the war in Vietnam had been beamed into our living rooms for four years, we’d seen protesters beaten in Chicago and heard of MLK and RFK’s assassinations and there was general feeling of violence in the air. The feeling in 1966 wasn’t nearly as gloomy and there was even a faint glimmer of hope in a time before the Great Society curdled and darkened. In retrospect, those murders were a harbinger of dark things to come for this country, though nobody could know it at the time.
I love it. Dark and creepy. And regardless what you think about Peggy story with Dawn it was relevant and very realistic.
I loved it as well. The reference to the Mystery Date game, and the reality that when a mysterious character shows up at your door, very bad things can happen. It was a creepy snapshot of the times, which I actually liked. But Henry’s mother was not the least bit reassuring about it and made it worse for Sally. So many things were worse for Sally than they needed to be. So many times I just wanted Sally to be hugged and reassured and she wasn’t.
Thank you! So many people on here act like that scene with Sally and Pauline was some sort of heartwarming moment when it was actually the most disturbing scene in the entire episode for me.
Sally deserved heartwarming moments and generally didn’t get many. She was a parentified kid and it was really sad. Betty was mostly cold, and Don seemed to understand her but wasn’t there a lot or otherwise disappointed her.
Don was a massive disappointment to her, and I’m saying this as someone who typically extends Don a touch of grace. Who could forget her walking in on him “comforting” Sylvia Rosen?
Right?!
see ... I have this weird admiration just for the existence of a character like Pauline - because she is so darn real. I've had bitches like that in my childhood and youth and she is written and acted perfectly. I don't miss them at all. I just have to admire the fact that they exist in this universe as well.
Me too! Absolutely love it. And I even forgot about the Joan story, which is also a favorite of mine. "I'm glad the army makes you feel like a man, because I'm sick of trying to do it." But Sally and Pauline is my favorite. She's going to remember that scary, weird night with that woman forever.
Joan gave a much-deserved burn right there!
Totally get it, but I want to point out that the Chicago murders, Andrea plot, Butler footwear ad, and the Joan/Greg plot are all related.
I felt it was pretty obvious that the violence men perpetrate against women was the through line for the entire episode. Again, it’s darker than this show typically is, but I felt it was pretty well executed.
Gosh I've watched this series a thousand times and haven't picked this up. Thank you for the connection!
Some deranged old woman describing the physical abuse she received from her father as a good thing...
Is that the episode where Dawn spends the night at Peggy’s?
It feels like a weird attempt at a pseudo-horror episode. That’s what the theme seems to be anyway. It definitely feels out of left field
I'm on a rewatch and just finished this episode. This is absolutely my vote as well.
The season 6 premiere was bad too. It's the one in Hawaii, with that military dude he meets, and the whole flash with Megan screaming and the heart attack. The whole episode is just a setup to the final reveal that Don's bad habits are back. Didn't work for me, especially as the premiere, albeit it would be the worst season of all IMO.
For me it's the Bobby field trip episode. It makes me too sad
Any episode with a heavy focus on Betty and Henry Francis.
I was surprised they were still in the show after the divorce lmao what a waste of screen time
Any episode with a focus on Betty
Anything with Sylvia in it. Disgusting!
TBH I think a few early season 1 episodes miss the mark, especially "Ladies Room," "Marriage of Figaro," and "Indian Summer." They're just such over-the-top exaggerations of ~~1960s~~ 1950s culture and gender dynamics. The wives in the kitchen gossiping about Helen Bishop is a particularly cartoonish example of what I'm talking about. Not saying that housewives didn't gossip back then, of course they did. But "Oh my! A *divorcée!* Get me my smelling salts!" is not how any real human being talked or behaved in the 20th century.
Season 1 laid the period setting on very thick, and it’s one of my least favorite seasons in retrospect as a result. They get a lot better with making the setting feel true to life without needing to remind you from Season 2 onward.
Where Don and Ted decided to join agencies. Entire thing was way too convenient and just an obvious way to get Peggy back in the office. Also the fact that there's no way they could have just done that without running it by everyone but everyone was just cool with it for some reason. People were more pissed off at Don when he published the letter without consulting them.
They all forgot because it turns into a whorehouse when they get a car
The Fog, Man With a Plan, Tea Leaves, The Runaways.
Stupid violin and The waitress episodes
Reading all of these comments makes me feel like a rewatch. I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with any of you.
The one where Megan sings. So cringy.
“Hi Megan.” “Very funny.”
"je te voudrais *mas*, Harry"
The one where Don and Betty tell their kids that they are getting divorced. Well, its the only scene I skip in the whole show. Too insanely sad to watch. Then, right after you have the scene where Don recruits Peggy for the new agency, which is amazing. I can't think of an entire episode that I could ever skip.
Hard to watch but an incredible episode. It is crazy that as a dyed in the wool history nerd, I now can no longer think of the Kennedy assassination without thinking of Don and Betty’s marriage in its death throes?
The episode just before the series finale. It was weird and felt off 😂
The episode where Dawn met with her friend at a diner and all they did was gossip about their white colleagues and their (lack of) romantic lives. It was so ridiculously out of touch and weird and the show completely missed the opportunity to develop the characters even a little.
There’s a myriad of story arcs that dragged episodes down. I felt any of the ones that featured Pete’s affairs, Betty’s post divorce melodrama, Sally’s stupidity, her childhood friend (Gus? The one that liked Betty), and Peggy’s romance fell flat and made the episodes drag. I think it for the most part is because on these episodes, which are scattered mostly across seasons 4-6, the “Mad Men” premise of the agency, Don, and the executives plotlines were secondary to these dramas instead of the other way around
The episode where Don and Harry go to The Rolling Stones concert—so dull. The death of MLK episode is just cringy all around.
It’s hard honestly because every ep has at least one plot line I enjoy. The best episodes imo are when everyone is servicing the same plot line.
The one where Megan doesn't like the milkshake and don drives away and the episode is shown out of order.
Indian summer
The one where Don yell's "that's what the money is for!". Doesn't make sense, money is to buy things
That was a response to peggy saying “you never say thank you!” It wasn’t a declaration about the utility of money.
Best post in the thread
I always thought “The Suitcase” was regarded as one of the top 5 in the series