This show premiered ten years ago today.
It’s one of the greats.
It really, really, really is. I think it was on a little too long, and it got repetitive on occasion, but it’s still the best non-HBO drama ever.
I think it exists as an inflection point between what TV was, and what TV was about to become. It wasn’t as heavily serialized and didn’t have the propulsive momentum of a BREAKING BAD or a GAME OF THRONES, but it didn’t always fall into the rhythms full-on repetition like, say, THE WEST WING. But I’ve been on record as saying the series was the best when it let its characters go off on these little side journeys, exploring themselves and the world around them, trying to make sense of it - the two-parter with Don in LA in season two, the return to California in season four, the tryptich where Roger takes LSD, Pete in Driver’s Ed… - I could go on. And the fact that the show was allowed to take those journeys is, and remains, remarkable.
It’s been fascinating, at least for me, having watched this show since roughly it was on - I missed the first season when it was live, but devoured season one on DVD the following summer - to see how my own reactions towards the characters have grown and changed over time. The more time I spend with the show, the more empathy I have for Pete Campbell, for example. He’s become one of the show’s most compelling characters, and perhaps the character that got the worst rap.
Harry Crane, however, remains the worst.
Between this and his projects since, Rich Sommer might be TV’s biggest asshole.
Which is so funny to me because in interviews he comes off as very down to earth and delightful!
Guess who’s finally gotten around to watching Mad Men?! While I’ve seen sporadic episodes over the years (and liked them!) this is my first time watching from beginning to end.
And I love it!
I only have one episode of Season 1 to go but this show is incredibly engrossing. Complicated and multi-faceted characters that manage to be fascinating to watch…even if they’re kind of total shitbags for the most part with the exception of Peggy and Joan (and even Joan’s not a saint herself). Just great stuff.
And while the 60’s might not have been a great time for women, people of colour, LGBT individuals or Jewish people, goddamn was it a good time for style. This is just a blast for the eyeballs and I love how everything looks.
Every time I watch this show, it gets richer and more meaningful for me. It’s one of those works of art that grows with you. Unfortunately, I had a really hard time with the recent revelations of Matt Weiner’s on-set behavior last fall and it’s made me hesitant to go back to it.
Wait…did Peggy not KNOW she was pregnant? 
I know a lot of people have ragged on Betty on the internet but I have to say I just find her fascinating to watch. Helps that January Jones is goddamn luminous but I find her character a really interesting angle on the kept housewife of the 50’s/60’s.
Chucklefuck Gang rankings from most odious to least:
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Ken Cosgrove
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Pete Campbell
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Paul Kinsey
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Harry Crane
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Salvatore Romano
Haha, oh, Codename, ranking Harry that low.
By the end of the show, Harry is by far The Worst.
Interesting! At this point (I’m on S02E04 now) I’d actually say, despite his infidelity which he felt incredible guilt over and told his wife about which automatically makes him better than most of the other men, he and Kinsey are my favourites of the gang. Looking forward to seeing what makes him so despicable (no spoils plz).
It must be something to top the rapeyness of Ken or the…fucking EVERYTHING about Pete. Although not gonna lie, Pete dealing with his dad’s death on Flight 1 was fucking great.
I mentioned the rewatch - and Pete is one of those characters that has grown deeper and richer with each successive rewatch. I have tremendous empathy for him, despite him doing some truly monstrous things.
In my limited experience so far…I think one of the best things about the show is that, even if a character is truly scummy or evil. They’re never one dimensional. Each and every one feels like a real person through and through.
To use the example of Pete, seeing him dealing with the trauma of his dad passing really resonated with me because so much of what’s going through his head are things that went through MY head when my parents passed. Just stellar writing on display to make me really feel for a character I HATE on a deep, personal level.
It’s even better exemplified in Don. Don does a lot of stupid and malicious things. But everything revealed about him so far just paints a more complex and human individual that you STILL manage to empathize with despite the horrible shit.
It’s really the goods.
Wait till you get another couple of seasons under your belt, then read this: Tiger Beatdown › No-One’s Ever On Your Side: Betty Draper Francis Still Needs Your Love
Fantastic argument for Betty.
Yeah, even someone like Harry, who is truly scummy, just the worst, has enough dimensions to him that you understand why he’s so scummy or evil. I won’t spoil it, but one of the most fascinating things about Pete’s character arc is how they shade that character with, if not progressivism, enough political and cultural nuance as the show moves deeper into the 1960s. Pete’s defining character trait, I think, is his inherent belief in “fairness.”
KEN!.. Cosgrove… gets quite endearing as the show goes on. And the mean streak the show has towards him means he doesn’t really get off lightly, it’s just that life kind of whips him into shape.
I finished Season 3 last night.
Wow…
Like…
Wow.
There’s almost too much to love about that season.
All I can say is:
Jesus, poor Sal…
Also, despite the Draper marriage finally imploding, that Finale was one of the most fist pumpingly awesome finales I have ever seen.
Ok some more rambling thoughts:
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Boone is bang on right about Pete. He’s absolutely fascinating while still being FUCKING PETE! That stuff with the German Nanny being a perfect example. He was SO CLOSE to generating real care from me. My thought process went; “Oh wow, Pete’s actually doing something good and dec-NOPESTILLAPIECEOFSHIT!” but then he feels real guilt and comes clean to poor Trudie and I still kind of get his character and don’t get incredibly angry when he shows up. This is the balancing act the show pulls off with everyone so, so, well.
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I do agree, Fuck Harry for his limp dick shit with Sal.
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Jarred Harris as Lane Pryce is fantastic and I love his addition to the cast. “No one here has once asked where I went to school” is such a great line that perfectly captures his motivations and why he’d want to sell the Brits up the river and stay in the US. His sheer joy at basically telling Mr. Sheffield from The Nanny to fuck off was delightful.
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Don finally coming clean to Betty was just powerful acting by Hamm. The best I’ve ever seen from him to be honest. That whole scene was something else.
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I’d actually seen the Kennedy episode before but watching it again with proper context made it even better. The way it tied into the plot was masterfully done as most of the 60’s references have been. There tends to be this habit with a LOT of shows or movies set in the 60’s to hit the “highlight reel” stuff i.e. Civil Rights, Vietnam, Woodstock, JFK etc. that never feels real or authentic to the period but Mad Men tackles that stuff better than anything in my memory. I can totally believe that this is how most people reacted to these things.
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Reading the original S3 thread and others I see ‘The Fog’ getting a lot of hate but I liked it a bunch actually. Very surreal and it admirably foreshadows that baby Gene isn’t going to fix any of the Draper’s problems.
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I’m STILL not getting the hate for Betty to be honest…in fact, she’s actually one of my favourite characters.
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Peggy Olson = GOAT. Always and forever. If they rebranded this as a Mary Tyler Moore knockoff called The Peggy Olson Show I would not mind in the least.
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Biggest Piece of Shit Award goes to Joan’s fuckhead rapist husband. I hope he gets his legs and dick blown off in 'Nam.
Oh, and ‘Guy walks into an Advertising Agency’…HAHAHA, what a morbid delight that was! Fuck, Lois is probably the one character with the WORST luck on this show.
Season three is one of the strongest seasons - I prefer the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce years, where it gets truly weird and dark at times, but three is remarkably solid from start to finish.
And believe it or not, Pete gets even more shaded and sympathetic as the series goes on. Three’s the one where he can’t understand why the TV company doesn’t want to sell its sets to African-Americans, right?
Fuck Harry to death for his part in Sal’s firing, but to me, “You people” is an all time “Don Draper Is The Worst” moment.
You’re right that the Kennedy episode is one of their strongest, and Joan’s husband Doctor Dickhead is definitely one of the show’s most hateable characters - even more as the series goes on, if you can believe it.
The “Don in L.A.” two-parter that ends season two is probably still my favorite set of episodes from the show.
Yes! Season 3 has “Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency.” That’s one of my favorite episodes of the show. The people I originally watched that with looked at me like I was crazy when I burst out laughing at the John Deere accident.
Guy has that big climactic moment that everyone remembers, but what sticks with me about that episode is Lane being told he has to pack up and move elsewhere and do it all over again, and that great moment between Don and Joan at the end. Everyone loves the Don-Peggy relationship, and I do, too, but there’s a real warmth and joy to the scenes that Don and Joan have together, particularly because I think those characters have known each other a while, been around the block and been through hard times, and there’s this whole history we only get hints of. Which is also shaded by the knowledge that Hamm and Hendricks were both working actors for years, and there’s an element of “can you believe we got a part this good” to their interactions.
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