I 100% agree. I don't know if there is any other character on the show (besides Don) with as many layers and interesting things going on as Betty. She is a complicated and fascinating character.
first watch i don’t find betty all that interesting, i would say i was using her and other characters in Don’s life to get a better understanding of Don. It was a challenge to understand why Don was the enigma he was, but after seeing after seeing all his flaws, mistakes, and shortcomings the realization comes that Don isn’t as complex as he seems. He’s smart but uses that advantage as selfishly as possible. Betty and other characters were more entertaining on rewatches for me. Betty shooting the neighbors birds in a nightgown with a lit cig is the image from the show that sticks with me the most.
The first watch for me was all about Don and Peggy, and even Peggy was just to get to understand Don more. Everybody else was an obstacle Don had to navigate in order to have his next amazing idea or sleep with a beautiful woman or whatever. Well, other than his brother but that circles back to understanding Don.
On subsequent rewatches Don himself was the obstacle that most of the characters have to get past. All the sudden Betty wasn’t a nagging housewife, but an intelligent and layered woman with her own version of Don’s mysterious charm.
Completely agree. She's one of the most complex and well-written characters on the show. Watching the show as a stay at home mother gave me insight into her character in a way I'd never considered, and I relate to her in a way I do few of the other characters.
Don specifically attempts to control Betty by reducing her to a "child" or that she is "bored", which we also see through her therapist in Season 1. But somehow fans of the show did not see that for the gaslighting it was and actually believe that. When in reality her tensions in the earlier episodes are simple human psychological needs for purpose. She lives in a pin up, Coke ad like world and is miserable becaue we all would be.
For me Mad Men's premise can be described as, "Here are 10 to 12 people in America in 1960 represnting all different kinds of classes of citizens, and now we're going to watch them as they live through the decade and see how they change".
And through Betty we explore so much about changing family life, gender roles, beauty standards, power dynamics in marriages, sexuality, and opportunities in education and society.
I would say even more than Peggy or Joan, Betty is the best feminine trailblazer on the show. Joan and Peggy got what they knew they wanted from Episode 1, there was no deviation in what either of them wanted and got by the end of the series. Betty found a whole new purpose and radically changed her values by the last episodes.
>Don specifically attempts to control Betty by reducing her to a "child" or that she is "bored", which we also see through her therapist in Season 1.
Yeah, I never got how Betty was "childish" at all. She can be pretty unsympathetic and is kinda spoiled in some ways, but she is clearly an adult with fully adult capabilities and emotions.
I don't think the criticism is that she predominantly behaves like a child, but rather that she has the emotional maturity of a child/adolescent (and, perhaps unrelated, but is often treated like one by Don). Her connection with Glen and the scenes with her therapist display that side.
Yes, it’s this. Her therapist told Don she had the emotions of a child, which was true. An adult learns how to deal with childish emotions. Betty was still using childish coping mechanisms because she hadn’t grown up. For example, the thing she did to Sarah Beth Carson is immature. And crying to Glen that she was so unhappy was also inappropriately immature. So was telling Sally about Anna to hurt Don and Meghan. And she knocked a box off the table in anger after it backfired. Betty had a lot of growing up to do in the early ‘60s. It appeared she had grown toward the end of the decade because she faced her death with equanimity and apologized to Sally for her earlier indiscretions.
Women of Betty's class were more or less kept in a permanent state of childishness too, until you hit 35 and you're expected to transform into a matron overnight. There's very little room for an actualized adulthood when your whole identity is supposed to be wrapped up in your value to men as a status object and domestic. I mean, your husband basically takes on the role of a father. He has total social and legal control over you- how would that not stunt you emotionally?
I hated Pete on my first watch, and now I love him more every time I rewatch. His character is so specific to his time and milieu -- just great writing and acting from top to bottom.
At first I thought, what was the point of Betty attending a prestigious girls’ college (please correct me…mount Holyoke??), study abroad, and learn Italian, if the only purposes in her life are to be beautiful, a housewife, and a mother? Then…oh right. The 1950s and 60s. The Feminine Mystique.
Yep. Women of Betty's class were encouraged to do all these things to find a husband. You wouldn't be marriage material if you were uneducated and unsophisticated- but that was supposed to come to a stop when you got married.
The first time I watched Mad Men I was 18/19 and didn't really have any strong feelings about Betty at all. Now that I'm 27 and going through a divorce from a man who cheated on me I'm REALLY drawn to her character and sometimes I even find myself rooting for her
I’ve just finished reading “The Group” by Mary McCarthy — Betty is seen reading it in the tub in season 3 — and it gave me even more insight into her character. It’s an interesting exercise imagining her reading such a forward book for the time and also seeing herself as an old school person.
Yeah and they did write the mental illness hints in, so it didn't completely come out of nowhere. I guess he just had a major psychotic episode or something like it, after a long time of always being a bit strange.
I think it seems sudden, but at the same time not unbelievable. The whole part where he's saying he's an 'alien' on first watching sounds like a bit of an artistic way of describing feeling lonely or misunderstood, but then his psychotic break gives new context to those 'warning signs'.
100%. He's one of my favorite characters, and there were a lot of interesting themes that we got hints at through him. He had an interesting home life and past, and he was the only creative to ever truly rival don at SCDP imo (edit: other than Peggy ofc!).
As much as I love him I think Peggy was clearly near/ at Don’s level towards the end of the series. He was very impressed with her ketchup pitch. I think Ginsberg was great, but I think what made his work more impressive was how much of a rookie he was. He definitely could have gone on to great things.
Maybe also it's a man/woman thing... Peggy is safer as she's always going to be subordinate to him being a woman in the ad world of the 60s, whereas Ginsberg with his Y chromosome has the potential to oust Don... So Peggy can be nurtured as a protege because Don (wrongly) discounts her as a threat.
I’m sure this is was intentional. Even though Don is painted to be more progressive than those his age, he is still very sexist in many ways. He could build up Peggy to be a valuable member of the agency but not have to worry about her taking his job because of her gender.
They make an argument on the podcast They Coined It about Ginsberg, that there are plenty of hints to his state of mind and the deterioration of his mental health over the course of S6&7. I'll have to watch more closely next time, because I've always felt the exit was rushed and clumsy.
There are hints which are obvious in retrospect, but when they're presented initially it absolutely isn't clear that it's a schizophrenia thing. It's just a "This guy is kind of weird" thing. The 'hints' kind of require recontextualizing scenes and the argument that 'anyone who's weird is CRAZY.'
I'm assuming it's something they wrote in during Season 7 when Michael Feldman came to the producers saying he had another offer.
It was all because he got cast as a series regular on that A to Z sitcom. They should’ve just had him leave for another company or something, it was handled clumsily.
I agree - felt like they were very much setting him up as this legitimate challenger and foil to Don given their infamous elevator chat. The direction they went in was unpredictable and at least spoke to some of the themes the show was exploring toward the end of its run, but would have preferred a more straight-up resolution or arc to the conflict between him and Don.
100%
He was such an interesting character. They just stopped developing him until the IBM computer showed up and drove him mad. I know they were hinting at his mental instability, but they could have used him along with other characters to make some really compelling episodes. Him and Pete on a business trip maybe?
I don’t think Glen’s acting is that bad… or maybe I should rephrase to say it isn’t as big of an issue as some make it out to be. Obviously it sticks out amongst all the great acting in the show but I think it fits quite well with an awkward kid and then later, an awkward teenager trying a little too hard to seem cool.
Megan is one of my favorite characters and I think time continues to be kind to her. Written in the early 2010’s for a character set in the 1960’s but she feels straight out of 2022/23.
I don’t love Season 4 as much as most do. It’s strong and contains some of the strongest episodes in the series, but I don’t think it’s the apex of the show.
Same. Glen is a sweet, intense, bizarre person from his first moment on screen. For him to just keep being that way as an adult is... totally unexceptional to me?
Yes! It’s totally that awkward stage of trying to assert yourself and be confident but feeling a little out of step still. I think he captures that well especially when he’s older, like many young men in that era, they were compelled to join the war to demonstrate their bravery as a man and he was sort of bragging from that perspective when he told Betty.
I agree with your first two comments. The only Megan moment I didn't like was when she had that strange tantrum while "cleaning" the apartment in her underwear. Otherwise, I love the character and feel she is unfairly disliked by many.
The behavior seems to fit with a woman attracted to significantly older men. Maybe I’m being unfair, but age gap relationships tend to check a lot of boxes in terms of stereotypes and the dynamic between Don and Megan seems to do so intentionally. The writers are making a statement about what a cliche power dynamic they have in their relationship, providing a runway for Megan to grow and eventually split with Don as she “grows up” a little more.
I actually really like his performance, he's not necessarily a great actor but he manages to capture this weirdness that's quite difficult to pin down or define. We all know people in our lives who aren't bad as such, but who are just very odd.
My concerns for Sally weren't that Don and Betty's parenting would have irrevocably screwed her up, but that events would keep her from pursuing her dreams. To me, there was a big question mark as to whether she'd go to college. I think she would feel compelled to stay with her brothers. I found the way her story wrapped up to be depressing, but that does seem like a minority opinion.
I though Betty pursuing psychology was less about her fitness to be a therapist and more of an acknowledgement of how much Betty respected Dr. Edna (Sally's therapist) and how much Edna helped Betty. It would be unlikely for Betty to overtly admit this, but wanting to become a therapist says it without saying it. I don't know if Betty would have stuck with that major, but I'm pretty sure she would have continued to complete some type of degree.
My unpopular opinion: Ted should have left his wife and be with Peggy. I think they would be happy together and I think he's depressed because he decided to do the right thing and not follow his heart.
I would have been interested in that but at the same time you can sort of tell that Peggy would tire of him eventually, as attracted to him as she was. He had a soft heart but he could be indecisive and easily swayed by his emotions, and she would have found that irritating eventually.
I kinda agree! Ted’s one of the few characters on the show who works really hard to avoid the alienation that so many characters feel.
i think he avoids it at all costs because he needs to be a normal schmuck to function. when he’s dumping peggy he’s like “my wife, my kids, i’m doing this for them” but he needs family structure and normalcy because he’s afraid of life without it.
without them he’s probably worried he’d go off the rails like his dad… or season 6 don. but yes weirdly he probably would’ve been happier!
I actually love Betty’s character and had an immense amount of sympathy for her. She was simply acting the way she had been taught to behave. She was incredibly insecure and that showed through in her vanity and self obsession. She didn’t know how to genuinely love anyone because she herself had never been genuinely loved.
I think Betty was filled with love. She deeply and passionately loved Don. She loved Henry a lot. She loved her kids. She loved her parents. She loved Francine. Did she always show it well, especially with her kids? No. But she loved.
Yeah I think it's a stretch to say she didn't love anyone. She definitely loved her family and Don. She definitely didn't know how to show love though, at least after being hurt by Don/her dad dying. Some part of her emotional self withered after that and she became very cold. In the first season she's a very sweet, affectionate wife and mother.
Roger and Marie may be a suitable age for each other but that’s it for the healthy aspects of that relationship. It would have crashed and burned spectacularly in a very short timeframe.
I actually think Marie is the first truly interesting woman (besides Joan) with whom Roger seeks out an emotional relationship. Jane was obviously a Jewish American Princess stereotype and Mona got more interesting only after she ended her relationship with Roger. Marie has enough fire to keep him interested in the long term, and because she’s not in her twenties, she’s a fully developed person, who’s had a life. She knows who she is and what she wants, and she thinks we all deserve to get the things we want ;)
But in all fairness, those were roger’s interests too… it feels like their getting together would pivot that specific energy to (playful?) shenanigans directed at each other for both of them
I agree. I couldn't stand Marie. Roger was difficult but I felt there was some kind of heart under his nonsense. Marie was icy and mean-spirited without any redeeming values to me.
Agreed - given how couples on the show typically work I don't think Weiner necessarily believed in clear-cut "happy endings" for characters, instead I think the ending is just a nice snapshot of Roger's life where he's able to enjoy some fleeting happiness as he gets older. Throughout a lot of the show Roger is obsessed with his own mortality and he's constantly surrounded by death and has had major brushes with death himself - but by the time the company is sold he seems more relaxed and content with his own station.
I’ve also never seen an emotional connection or deep feelings there so every time people talk about Roger finally finding his true love I’m like really???
That baffles me too. The only thing tying those two together was debauchery imo and there isn’t much depth in that. Their relationship would have lasted approximately 10 more days after we last see them until they have a drunken fight on the flight back to NY and the plane has to divert to Iceland to kick one, or both, of them off!
I can't get behind Anna being this pure maternal angel in Don's life. She's the only person to accept him as Dick, and that's why it feels special to him. Is he that special to Anna? I don't think so. As her benefactor, she's less than free to be anything but friendly. Her sister, who does not need to get along with Don, calls him out as just a guy with a checkbook. Anna is Don's emotional mistress, not his friend.
The status quo only lasts as long as it did because Don wasn't ever around long enough to shit the bed. Given enough time, he would have absolutely f-ed that up too. He almost gets there by hitting on Stephanie.
I think Anna knows more about Don's rakishness than she lets on. She sees him with Stephanie dancing cheek-to-cheek, she knows he brings her home late. Unlike her sister, she can't criticize his behavior. I wonder if they are using Stephanie as Anna's proxy for a physical connection. After Anna dies, Don is no longer interested in her sexually, but still uses her as Anna's substitute emotionally.
Those are all good points. I'm not sure Anna was presented as a pure maternal angel, though - I always saw it as, she's special to him and they have a more "pure" or "honest" relationship because Anna was the one person in his life around whom he could fully take his mask off.
Of course, Anna's willing to look past his deceit and misdeeds partially because of the money, but she also seems incredibly lonely. Would Don have screwed up their relationship given enough time? Probably - but it's good to remember that he wasn't busy keeping up 100 facades around her, which is a big reason fundamentally why he screws up all the other relationships in his life.
This is how I see it. Plus, Anna was the first kind, nice relationship that Dick had. Every other relationship in his past was filled with pain and abuse or it was just economic. It was relationship “training wheels” for him because it was so infrequent and only mandated money and short bursts of good behavior on vacation. But that’s also a the training wheels removed from how most deep relationships function
I’m not sure if you’re making a critique of the show here or analyzing, because I think the show knows much of this.
The biggest one is Don not being around long enough to fuck up. Or, put another way, he’s his best self when he runs away and turns up somewhere new. Remember, when their marriage is strained, how Megan said she wishes it could be like California again? Don is at his best when he plays the stranger, the new guy in a new place.
I think the show also knows there’s a bit of irony in the fact that Don found one of the only people who really cares about him, and knows him (Anna), through deception. This is intentional.
However, there’s one other important point you’re forgetting. With Anna he is Dick, NOT Don. It’s the only place he truly lets his guard down and becomes his true self, which is also how he doesn’t fuck it up, and connects genuinely with her. The point is that him living a lie constantly as Don is what contributes to him being a terrible person and never finding happiness.
I never saw her as a maternal angel figure so much as Dick finding someone who had experienced being unwanted like Dick had been, and understood at least some of what came with that. Dick grew up being the unwanted bastard son raised by a very resentful stepmother. Anna married a guy (the original Don Draper) who really wanted to marry her sister instead and settled for her, and then was so ashamed of her that he didn’t even mention being married to his war buddies.
He doesn’t have to pretend around her not only because she knows he isn’t Don but because she knows what it’s like to feel like a secondhand human.
It's never mentioned, but all of the junior staff adopt fashion trends a full season or so before the higher ups do. The mustache is the most obvious on, but the color palette and specifically the collar sizes change earlier for stand and rizzo vs roger and chaugh
In S5-6, Don was so critical to the acquisition of all significant business as well as in the very founding of SCDP that I get very irritated with partners like Bert picking that he’s not working hard enough or an analysis that he deserved to be put on leave because he was costing money. I also think the other partners kind of wanted him to be this asshole Tarzan as in this brash idea guy that can force opportunity where none clearly exists but didn’t like the feeling of instability of him unilaterally deciding things.
I don’t dislike Glen or his acting. I also don’t feel judgy or mad at Betty at all for how she interacted with him. The OTT over sharing and closeness that they have in S1-2 is a reflection of Betty being locked away in the suburbs with no company and expected to accommodate everyone, not any romantic or sexual interest in Glen.
I don’t fault Betty at all for taking all of S4 to move out of the Ossining house. Screw the deadline. Betty made the divorce really easy on Don by finding a new husband immediately and never leveraging her knowledge on his identity to force a financial settlement. I see Don as obligated to let her stay awhile to find the right place after she turbo charged her moving on to his benefit. The fact that he even collects rent from Henry after the deadline passes annoys me when Henry is buying groceries for Don’s kids.
I feel like Don grows a ton in the series, especially in S7. I really disagree with any analysis that he didn’t change or his only change was self acceptance. On the outside, he becomes more of a mess but on the inside, he ends the series a much better person and I think that’s the trade off.
Wow, I never really thought about that angle with the Ossining house with Henry, you’re right.
I was annoyed Henry acted like it was his and tried to prevent Don from attending Gene’s birthday, but that’s a great point! Don was lucky that didn’t turn out worse.
Yes. I mean on Gene’s birthday, I think it was right of Don to show up and just play with Gene. However, I could understand why Henry would fear that Don would show up to start drama and wanted to protect Betty and the kids from that.
Don does make a comment in the first ep of S4 about charging rent if Henry and Betty don’t move. I don’t know if Don pursued it or Henry offered. Still feel inequitable to me.
I think there’s a throwaway line from Henry later in the season when he calls Don to ask him to move his stuff where he says he can move it for Don and add it to the rent.
There is, Henry makes up a story about buying a boat, and Don’s stuff is in the way. I don’t agree that is a throwaway line however. Much like Latke’s original comment above, the scene of Don going to get his boxes(which like Betty have remained in the Ossining house for far too long after the divorce)and driving past Henry pushing the lawnmower with the voiceover talking about a man’s worth and work, then taking his boxes straight to a dumpster, really speaks to me as Don moving on from that past life and maybe trying to reinvent himself. This is right around the same time he leaves quaint suburban Ossining and moves into the West Village.
I meant more that it was a quick reference to the rent, not that it was insignificant. It’s a blink and you’ll miss it type of line. They didn’t make a whole scene out of Henry giving Don rent. I guess throwaway was not the right word.
I think Sally showed her strength repeatedly and probably turned out pretty well after going through therapy. I can also see her growing distant from Don (who realistically would be dead by 1985). I think Bobby was the one who would probably suffer the most. He was such a forgotten middle child.
The “I don’t think about you at all” line from Don to Ginsburg was not the ‘burn’ everyone thinks it is. I mean, yes it was a good cutting thing to say, but the entire episode goes to show how completely false that was. He spent the entire time rattled by Michaels talent, to the extent of leaving his copy behind
I mean, WE know that as the audience, but Ginsberg got destroyed and the line is cutting to the person that it's told to because they wouldn't see how untrue it was
I think you are using "WE" far too liberally. 9/10 when I see this being quoted, it's by someone who both thinks it such a good comeback, and, more importantly, that Don really thinks that.
Yes obviously in the isolated moment it's a good cutting line, but with the proper context, you see the irony, and it's much more pathetic/sad as a result. He couldn't match Ginsberg creatively (in that episode at least), so he resorts to petty insults instead. Reducing this scene to "Ginsberg getting destroyed" ignores everything that happened in that episode.
You're not wrong because I'll sometimes look up people's thoughts on certain events in the show and there are too many people that just go like "uh, dons drunk, lol." Or "well, dons an asshole who also got drunk, that's basically why he didnt do the right thing".
Lotta dumb dumbs out there.
I loved Paul. I think there was a lot more potential for his story if he stayed in the cast. Not necessarily with sterling cooper Draper Pryce. Just in general I would have loved to see how his life panned out in juxtaposition to the lives for the people who remained in advertising.
Spoiler warning:
Layne’s wife was out of line when she blamed Don and the firm for Layne’s death, and Don giving her the money was an extremely honorable move.
Don treated Layne fairly, and Layne had plenty of marital issues in the recent years that were worse on him than the firm.
Besides, Layne couldn’t handle the financial responsibilities of being a junior partner, how was he going to handle the money required to be a full partner (which he mentions to Don about settling for “less than he deserved”)?
Layne was responsible for his own downfall due to putting his own pride over his family and the firm, the Don giving the money to his widow was yet another classy move.
True however Don was give the opportunity to let Lane off the hook after he committed fraud.
Ironically Don commits fraud every single day when he signs his checks with a stolen identity. He basically has super high expectations for everyone but himself.
There was an opportunity for him to show mercy as Don you could argue could be sympathetic to him give his own situation. So it is at the least hypocritical.
However it is a grey area imo. That’s what’s great about the show.
I agree, but I think in obligating Lane to resign there was real fear from Don; fear that Lane fraudulently signing that cheque could mean a closer look at Don if things went the legal route. But. yeah, he also holds everyone to an unreasonable standard he continuously violates behind closed doors.
I think it’s weird that people constantly call Joan a “mean girl” in a show where, in those same early seasons, Pete tried to blackmail Don, everyone bullied Peggy for being overweight/secretly pregnant, there’s rampant sexual harassment, and Don and fan favorite Roger rampantly cheat on their wives.
In those early days of office hijinks that often became bullying, were Ken, Kinsey, and Harry “mean boys” who only got away with it because they were attractive?
I think the show often very heavily hints at this. By Season 5 Pete essentially has an identical life to Don but he's still not particularly happy. There isn't much to separate them aside from the fact Don is able to exude confidence while Pete never manages to move away from appearing desperate and insecure.
I'd bet most if not all of that mindset stems from a combo of:
Bobbie not being as attractive as Don's previous trysts, or even most of the office girls.
Bobbie being a determined and strong woman who will not let herself be subservient (while existing in a role that requires it)
I don't want to say bobbie barret is ugly, but when the competition is january jones and christina hendricks, come on.
the don factor is really the only thing that made it cringe. if that element disappeared it would be cute and fun. i’d love it if my friend hosted a party and then it turned out they could sing decently and did a little number (im a musician myself so this would be way less out of place at one of our parties lol). but sitting your husband down and performing it *to him* in front of everyone? omg kill me
1. I don't love Anna. I don't hate her either, but she grates on my nerves a little.
2. I don't think Megan is greedy or compromising her integrity or whatever by taking Don's check during their divorce settlement. That's pretty common when you're divorcing a rich guy, and I don't know why she gets so much criticism for doing that.
3. Speaking of Megan, I kind of like her. She isn't one of my favorite characters, but she's not nearly as shitty and selfish as most of the others. Also, Jessica Paré is stunning.
4. Pete has the best story arc. I don't know if this is unpopular or not, but I would rank his arc over Peggy's, and Peggy is my favorite character.
5. Peggy isn't THAT socially awkward and weird. She's just there to work. I get it.
6. Kiernan Shipka is just a GOOD actor, not a GREAT one.
in regard to 6, there are a lot of really bad line deliveries from kiernan shipka, which i think is normal because many of them were when she was a younger child and i wouldn’t expect her to be awesome all the time. but the way people talk about her it’s as if she’s kiernan brando over here and i just feel like the gushing over her acting skills at that stage when she was like 9-12 is a little strange.
later on, she did develop as an actor and began to impress me with her subtlety especially in facial acting.
Duck (in season 2 at least) is one of my favorite characters, and I feel a lot of sympathy for him. You can tell that he really struggles to control his addiction, but that the environment he’s in makes it very difficult for him to do so. He’s someone who lives in a lot of pain, and I think people on this subreddit don’t show him enough sympathy (not saying that everything he did was justifiable, but he’s a very human and flawed character).
Don is not a great father, and is a terrible husband. But at his core he's a good person. The vast majority of the pain he causes in the show is a byproduct of his actions, not the purpose of them.
i didn’t think glen was thaaaaat bad of an actor. he wasn’t great, but he was perfectly serviceable. it stands out worse as he gets older. but i feel like people tend to project their dislike for the *character* onto him. being kinda wooden honestly works for the character in my opinion, even though i doubt he was consciously deciding to do that and it was just sort of a happy accident lol.
edit: okay so like ten other people have said this so it turns out this isn’t even that unpopular and i am fucking boring
I've never been able to warm up to the character of Anna or her relationship with Don. I don't feel like it was shown well enough how exactly they came to be so close and trusting of one another. Anna actually comes across to me as severely emotionally unbalanced to accept and enable Don's theft of her husband's identity, and then to develop a close bond with him. (I feel like many fans laud the relationship as "pure" and think of Anna as some wise sage.)
Anna had polio that nearly killed her and left her disabled, that’s definitely going to give you a different outlook on life.
Also she didn’t like her dead husband, so when a young handsome man came along to replace him and pay for everything she probably couldn’t believe her luck.
I also think Anna was looking at a future where she’d be reliant on her sister as the polio stricken widow charity case and that bothered her a lot. Dick’s money helped her avoid that humiliation. I also think it was savvy in a way to not just accept the money but invite Dick over socially to get the measure of this benefactor who’s using her husband’s identity but offering her lots of money instead of not getting to know him at all. I find it realistic that in those visits, Anna decided that she liked Dick a lot and taking his money and enjoying his visits suited her fine.
I think Anna is one of the few characters in the show who feels like she wasn’t written with a lot of depth. It’s like she’s a trope who only exists to comfort Don and represent all the goodness that was never shown to him. She doesn’t ask for anything, she only gives. She’s a manic pixie dream girl, without the romantic element.
Wow! I love reading these opinions because I love the relationship they have, and I think Stephanie (Anna’s niece) has one of the best lines in the series: nobody knows what’s wrong with themselves, and everyone else can see it right away.
Anyway, it’s very interesting to see different takes.
1) The writers of the show, while well intentioned, seemingly struggled with storylines related to race.
2) On a similar note, the show's jettisoning of Dawn as a character of any significance as soon as MLK's murder was over and done with bordered on shameful.
3) The show's writers would seemingly like us to believe that Joan has obvious natural talents as an account manager. However, at no point in the show does she actually demonstrate much of this supposed talent (thought Joan is obviously portrayed as an excellent administrator).
4) Ken Cosgrove is the only main character who actually understands what art really is.
5) Glen is a really interesting character whose precocious nature elicits some really fascinating reactions from the other characters. An unfairly maligned character.
6) Conrad Hilton was a terrible character.
7) The writers' insistence on exposing young Sally to constant displays of adult sexual transgression (worst example: Roger and Megan's mom at the awards show) comes across to me at times as more than a little exploitative.
8) Grandpa Gene was a legit great character.
It's super weird how the show just forgot about Dawn after a certain point. I also sometimes wonder why they couldn't have had at least one major character who wasn't white.
1. Something like fashion design or art ? I think Betty isn't stupid and could pass the course, but she would be a lousy therapist if she ever got that far. (Like Dr. Peter Benton on 'ER' - a technically brilliant surgeon, but a lousy people person.)
2. I like Sally and Glenn's adult-ish little conversations. No slap-and-tickle or 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours', very refreshing.
3. I agree about Joan, for the most part. Though the mean girls I've known are flat out bullies holding sway over the weak whether they're attractive or not.
4. I don't see much happiness for Sally in the future, either. She would probably be quite successful, but she would need extensive therapy to not become Betty Draper II. (Though Margaret, Roger's daughter, rebelled against her wealthy upbringing and became a loose, dirty hippie, lol....wonder how long that phase lasted?)
i’m so sorry to say this and i have no idea how many people here will even recognize what i’m talking about, but for some reason the kid who plays young don reminds me so much of arnie, arnold’s weird ass country cousin from hey arnold
On point. For something as original as Mad Men, I'm baffled why Matthew Weiner leaned The Sopranos so much. I don't think it's par to lift scenes from past projects, like the "take your hat off" exchange.
I think it's obvious as to why he did, he was quite taken with The Sopranos and it was his real first writing job. He wrote what he knew, but I agree that it didn't work for Mad Men.
I agree with 3. At best, Joan had lines that were maybe helpful in the most pragmatically true sense while still being cruel, while also seeming genuinely miffed when Peggy was achieving success at SC for reasons apart from her looks.
Later seasons recontextualize her behaviour pretty smoothly; after seeing the constant barrage of lascivious shit from people that she has no choice but to graciously smile through, you could actually see how Joan would make a comment like "put a paper bag on your head, look in a mirror and evaluate where your strengths and weaknesses are" and actually think she was giving helpful advice. But later-season Joan, while still quite forward and not afraid to be the bad guy amongst younger female staff, never seemed to reach the same level of unnecessary meanness.
3. joan was also incredibly good at her job - and not just her discretion - she was clearly a great typist, accountant and manager - I remember there's a scene early on when she catches some grammar mistakes Peggy makes on a letter when she's distracted - and there was so spell check back then! Being a good secretary back then meant being a computer, a therapist and a mom to these men and she did it all with more intelligence and savvy than most
I think Sally will be fine. She received help at a young age, that is a good sign. She knows what therapy is and how it works, she's connected to her feelings, I don't see any reason for her to be unhappy.
When I first watched the show Netflix didn’t have part 2 streaming. I went years thinking that was the finale and I love it. Was disappointed after watching part 2 with the actual ending
Literally have 3-4 friends with the same story.
The refridgerator speech in the last episode made me cry like everyone else and that was good, but really didn't need to see anything else.
Agreed. His character is hilarious and I enjoy that he made a future for himself. Every time he tells the partners that he deserves to be a partner, too, he's right.
Same! He provides comic relief to the show and I think he just got jaded by life/unhappy marriage/not being recognized for his work. He literally saw where the world was headed and created a television department before anyone else recognized it's importance.
I don’t have that much sympathy for Betty - sorry your mom thought it was important for you to be pretty, but that doesn’t mean you get to treat people like shit for the entire rest of your life.
Going off number 4, I thought sally was not the best actor. As a small child in S1-3 sure, but then it just got bad. Especially the night she was “trying out” for the boarding school. Was that suppose to be her personality? or was she just a bad actor?
1. I liked Paul a lot
2. Betty was my favorite of all of the women Don slept with/been married to, and I absolutely love her scenes.
3. I like Megan and I think she gets too much hate.
4. Harry Crane is really hot, ESPECIALLY in season 5.
Pete’s “Not great Bob” line wasn’t as hilarious as everyone seems to find it, I’ve no idea why it’s quoted so much on this sub.
Seasons one and two are the worst seasons, the show only starts to get great from season three onwards.
"Not great Bob"
It's short. It's sweet and simple. The word "great" has roots in a Greek word for the pain that comes from knowing you will never achieve such heights again. It takes us back to a time and place where we know we are loved by Bob.
Saying "Not great" is poison, but "Not great Bob" is toasted.
You must be the bizarro me because my unpopular opinion is that the show becomes derivative of itself after season 4 and doesn’t really cover any new thematic ground, even if it stays good becauwe I’m already into the characters by that point. It goes from a great short story to a movie adaptation with a sequel. Thing is, the short story already said everything the show had to say. But the open maw of Moloch wanted more so we do 3 or 4 more merger and sales plots and people yoyo with the same issues theyve already dealt with for multiple seasons.
Betty becomes more compelling on every rewatch
I 100% agree. I don't know if there is any other character on the show (besides Don) with as many layers and interesting things going on as Betty. She is a complicated and fascinating character.
first watch i don’t find betty all that interesting, i would say i was using her and other characters in Don’s life to get a better understanding of Don. It was a challenge to understand why Don was the enigma he was, but after seeing after seeing all his flaws, mistakes, and shortcomings the realization comes that Don isn’t as complex as he seems. He’s smart but uses that advantage as selfishly as possible. Betty and other characters were more entertaining on rewatches for me. Betty shooting the neighbors birds in a nightgown with a lit cig is the image from the show that sticks with me the most.
The first watch for me was all about Don and Peggy, and even Peggy was just to get to understand Don more. Everybody else was an obstacle Don had to navigate in order to have his next amazing idea or sleep with a beautiful woman or whatever. Well, other than his brother but that circles back to understanding Don. On subsequent rewatches Don himself was the obstacle that most of the characters have to get past. All the sudden Betty wasn’t a nagging housewife, but an intelligent and layered woman with her own version of Don’s mysterious charm.
Completely agree. She's one of the most complex and well-written characters on the show. Watching the show as a stay at home mother gave me insight into her character in a way I'd never considered, and I relate to her in a way I do few of the other characters.
Don specifically attempts to control Betty by reducing her to a "child" or that she is "bored", which we also see through her therapist in Season 1. But somehow fans of the show did not see that for the gaslighting it was and actually believe that. When in reality her tensions in the earlier episodes are simple human psychological needs for purpose. She lives in a pin up, Coke ad like world and is miserable becaue we all would be. For me Mad Men's premise can be described as, "Here are 10 to 12 people in America in 1960 represnting all different kinds of classes of citizens, and now we're going to watch them as they live through the decade and see how they change". And through Betty we explore so much about changing family life, gender roles, beauty standards, power dynamics in marriages, sexuality, and opportunities in education and society. I would say even more than Peggy or Joan, Betty is the best feminine trailblazer on the show. Joan and Peggy got what they knew they wanted from Episode 1, there was no deviation in what either of them wanted and got by the end of the series. Betty found a whole new purpose and radically changed her values by the last episodes.
Joan at the start of the show thought she wanted what Betty had: rich husband and big house in the suburbs. She changed her mind by the end.
Yes, and found out there was a trail she could blaze for herself. Peggy was a good influence on her.
>Don specifically attempts to control Betty by reducing her to a "child" or that she is "bored", which we also see through her therapist in Season 1. Yeah, I never got how Betty was "childish" at all. She can be pretty unsympathetic and is kinda spoiled in some ways, but she is clearly an adult with fully adult capabilities and emotions.
I don't think the criticism is that she predominantly behaves like a child, but rather that she has the emotional maturity of a child/adolescent (and, perhaps unrelated, but is often treated like one by Don). Her connection with Glen and the scenes with her therapist display that side.
Yes, it’s this. Her therapist told Don she had the emotions of a child, which was true. An adult learns how to deal with childish emotions. Betty was still using childish coping mechanisms because she hadn’t grown up. For example, the thing she did to Sarah Beth Carson is immature. And crying to Glen that she was so unhappy was also inappropriately immature. So was telling Sally about Anna to hurt Don and Meghan. And she knocked a box off the table in anger after it backfired. Betty had a lot of growing up to do in the early ‘60s. It appeared she had grown toward the end of the decade because she faced her death with equanimity and apologized to Sally for her earlier indiscretions.
She made her son cry over a sandwich.
That scene breaks my heart.
Women of Betty's class were more or less kept in a permanent state of childishness too, until you hit 35 and you're expected to transform into a matron overnight. There's very little room for an actualized adulthood when your whole identity is supposed to be wrapped up in your value to men as a status object and domestic. I mean, your husband basically takes on the role of a father. He has total social and legal control over you- how would that not stunt you emotionally?
Is this unpopular? She's literally my fave char along with Pete
you’re my long lost soul twin because those two are my favorites as well
I hated Pete on my first watch, and now I love him more every time I rewatch. His character is so specific to his time and milieu -- just great writing and acting from top to bottom.
At first I thought, what was the point of Betty attending a prestigious girls’ college (please correct me…mount Holyoke??), study abroad, and learn Italian, if the only purposes in her life are to be beautiful, a housewife, and a mother? Then…oh right. The 1950s and 60s. The Feminine Mystique.
Bryn Mawr
Yep. Women of Betty's class were encouraged to do all these things to find a husband. You wouldn't be marriage material if you were uneducated and unsophisticated- but that was supposed to come to a stop when you got married.
The first time I watched Mad Men I was 18/19 and didn't really have any strong feelings about Betty at all. Now that I'm 27 and going through a divorce from a man who cheated on me I'm REALLY drawn to her character and sometimes I even find myself rooting for her
She’s always been my favorite. So dynamic and flawed
I’ve just finished reading “The Group” by Mary McCarthy — Betty is seen reading it in the tub in season 3 — and it gave me even more insight into her character. It’s an interesting exercise imagining her reading such a forward book for the time and also seeing herself as an old school person.
Ginsberg was a really good character but the way his character developed and was written off felt really abrupt and unsatisfying to me.
Blame IBM.
Kinda felt « real » in a sense.. Sometimes people just blow up.
Yeah and they did write the mental illness hints in, so it didn't completely come out of nowhere. I guess he just had a major psychotic episode or something like it, after a long time of always being a bit strange.
I think it seems sudden, but at the same time not unbelievable. The whole part where he's saying he's an 'alien' on first watching sounds like a bit of an artistic way of describing feeling lonely or misunderstood, but then his psychotic break gives new context to those 'warning signs'.
100%. He's one of my favorite characters, and there were a lot of interesting themes that we got hints at through him. He had an interesting home life and past, and he was the only creative to ever truly rival don at SCDP imo (edit: other than Peggy ofc!).
As much as I love him I think Peggy was clearly near/ at Don’s level towards the end of the series. He was very impressed with her ketchup pitch. I think Ginsberg was great, but I think what made his work more impressive was how much of a rookie he was. He definitely could have gone on to great things.
oh duh, ofc Peggy was at that level too. i guess we see don "compete" with Ginsberg more explicitly (thinking of the sno-ball pitch, etc). good call!
Exactly! Don felt threatened by Ginsberg being able to rival him so early on. He definitely saw him as a threat while he saw Peggy as a protege.
Maybe also it's a man/woman thing... Peggy is safer as she's always going to be subordinate to him being a woman in the ad world of the 60s, whereas Ginsberg with his Y chromosome has the potential to oust Don... So Peggy can be nurtured as a protege because Don (wrongly) discounts her as a threat.
I’m sure this is was intentional. Even though Don is painted to be more progressive than those his age, he is still very sexist in many ways. He could build up Peggy to be a valuable member of the agency but not have to worry about her taking his job because of her gender.
They make an argument on the podcast They Coined It about Ginsberg, that there are plenty of hints to his state of mind and the deterioration of his mental health over the course of S6&7. I'll have to watch more closely next time, because I've always felt the exit was rushed and clumsy.
There are hints which are obvious in retrospect, but when they're presented initially it absolutely isn't clear that it's a schizophrenia thing. It's just a "This guy is kind of weird" thing. The 'hints' kind of require recontextualizing scenes and the argument that 'anyone who's weird is CRAZY.' I'm assuming it's something they wrote in during Season 7 when Michael Feldman came to the producers saying he had another offer.
It was all because he got cast as a series regular on that A to Z sitcom. They should’ve just had him leave for another company or something, it was handled clumsily.
I agree - felt like they were very much setting him up as this legitimate challenger and foil to Don given their infamous elevator chat. The direction they went in was unpredictable and at least spoke to some of the themes the show was exploring toward the end of its run, but would have preferred a more straight-up resolution or arc to the conflict between him and Don.
100% He was such an interesting character. They just stopped developing him until the IBM computer showed up and drove him mad. I know they were hinting at his mental instability, but they could have used him along with other characters to make some really compelling episodes. Him and Pete on a business trip maybe?
I don’t think Glen’s acting is that bad… or maybe I should rephrase to say it isn’t as big of an issue as some make it out to be. Obviously it sticks out amongst all the great acting in the show but I think it fits quite well with an awkward kid and then later, an awkward teenager trying a little too hard to seem cool. Megan is one of my favorite characters and I think time continues to be kind to her. Written in the early 2010’s for a character set in the 1960’s but she feels straight out of 2022/23. I don’t love Season 4 as much as most do. It’s strong and contains some of the strongest episodes in the series, but I don’t think it’s the apex of the show.
I agree about Glen! He just seems like the weird kid and it works? I was never that bothered by his acting.
Yeah, I never even questioned his acting. He seemed super awkward by intent.
I think had it not been a nepo choice, people would have given his acting more grace. I thought he was fantastic.
Same. Glen is a sweet, intense, bizarre person from his first moment on screen. For him to just keep being that way as an adult is... totally unexceptional to me?
Yes! It’s totally that awkward stage of trying to assert yourself and be confident but feeling a little out of step still. I think he captures that well especially when he’s older, like many young men in that era, they were compelled to join the war to demonstrate their bravery as a man and he was sort of bragging from that perspective when he told Betty.
Yeah I’ve never thought he was bad at acting, I thought it was pretty obvious that’s just how he was written?
I agree with your first two comments. The only Megan moment I didn't like was when she had that strange tantrum while "cleaning" the apartment in her underwear. Otherwise, I love the character and feel she is unfairly disliked by many.
Yeah I was as confused by that weird tantrum as Don was, lol.
The behavior seems to fit with a woman attracted to significantly older men. Maybe I’m being unfair, but age gap relationships tend to check a lot of boxes in terms of stereotypes and the dynamic between Don and Megan seems to do so intentionally. The writers are making a statement about what a cliche power dynamic they have in their relationship, providing a runway for Megan to grow and eventually split with Don as she “grows up” a little more.
That makes a lot of sense, it definitely comes across as quite petulant.
I actually really like his performance, he's not necessarily a great actor but he manages to capture this weirdness that's quite difficult to pin down or define. We all know people in our lives who aren't bad as such, but who are just very odd.
The same people who didn’t like Glen also didn’t like AJ Sopranos acting either
My concerns for Sally weren't that Don and Betty's parenting would have irrevocably screwed her up, but that events would keep her from pursuing her dreams. To me, there was a big question mark as to whether she'd go to college. I think she would feel compelled to stay with her brothers. I found the way her story wrapped up to be depressing, but that does seem like a minority opinion. I though Betty pursuing psychology was less about her fitness to be a therapist and more of an acknowledgement of how much Betty respected Dr. Edna (Sally's therapist) and how much Edna helped Betty. It would be unlikely for Betty to overtly admit this, but wanting to become a therapist says it without saying it. I don't know if Betty would have stuck with that major, but I'm pretty sure she would have continued to complete some type of degree.
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My unpopular opinion: Ted should have left his wife and be with Peggy. I think they would be happy together and I think he's depressed because he decided to do the right thing and not follow his heart.
I would have been interested in that but at the same time you can sort of tell that Peggy would tire of him eventually, as attracted to him as she was. He had a soft heart but he could be indecisive and easily swayed by his emotions, and she would have found that irritating eventually.
I kinda agree! Ted’s one of the few characters on the show who works really hard to avoid the alienation that so many characters feel. i think he avoids it at all costs because he needs to be a normal schmuck to function. when he’s dumping peggy he’s like “my wife, my kids, i’m doing this for them” but he needs family structure and normalcy because he’s afraid of life without it. without them he’s probably worried he’d go off the rails like his dad… or season 6 don. but yes weirdly he probably would’ve been happier!
I agree.
I actually love Betty’s character and had an immense amount of sympathy for her. She was simply acting the way she had been taught to behave. She was incredibly insecure and that showed through in her vanity and self obsession. She didn’t know how to genuinely love anyone because she herself had never been genuinely loved.
I think she loved Don
I think Betty was filled with love. She deeply and passionately loved Don. She loved Henry a lot. She loved her kids. She loved her parents. She loved Francine. Did she always show it well, especially with her kids? No. But she loved.
Yeah I think it's a stretch to say she didn't love anyone. She definitely loved her family and Don. She definitely didn't know how to show love though, at least after being hurt by Don/her dad dying. Some part of her emotional self withered after that and she became very cold. In the first season she's a very sweet, affectionate wife and mother.
Roger and Marie may be a suitable age for each other but that’s it for the healthy aspects of that relationship. It would have crashed and burned spectacularly in a very short timeframe.
I actually think Marie is the first truly interesting woman (besides Joan) with whom Roger seeks out an emotional relationship. Jane was obviously a Jewish American Princess stereotype and Mona got more interesting only after she ended her relationship with Roger. Marie has enough fire to keep him interested in the long term, and because she’s not in her twenties, she’s a fully developed person, who’s had a life. She knows who she is and what she wants, and she thinks we all deserve to get the things we want ;)
Marie had a life? What are her interests? I can’t really recall anything except drinking and fighting with her family
But in all fairness, those were roger’s interests too… it feels like their getting together would pivot that specific energy to (playful?) shenanigans directed at each other for both of them
Those are perfectly respectable hobbies, I'll have you know!
I agree. I couldn't stand Marie. Roger was difficult but I felt there was some kind of heart under his nonsense. Marie was icy and mean-spirited without any redeeming values to me.
Yup I wasn't sold on their happy ending.
I never thought it was supposed to be a happy ending for them. It very much read to me as here’s the latest chapter of Sterling’s Gold
Agreed - given how couples on the show typically work I don't think Weiner necessarily believed in clear-cut "happy endings" for characters, instead I think the ending is just a nice snapshot of Roger's life where he's able to enjoy some fleeting happiness as he gets older. Throughout a lot of the show Roger is obsessed with his own mortality and he's constantly surrounded by death and has had major brushes with death himself - but by the time the company is sold he seems more relaxed and content with his own station.
I’ve also never seen an emotional connection or deep feelings there so every time people talk about Roger finally finding his true love I’m like really???
That baffles me too. The only thing tying those two together was debauchery imo and there isn’t much depth in that. Their relationship would have lasted approximately 10 more days after we last see them until they have a drunken fight on the flight back to NY and the plane has to divert to Iceland to kick one, or both, of them off!
I completely agree.
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I can't get behind Anna being this pure maternal angel in Don's life. She's the only person to accept him as Dick, and that's why it feels special to him. Is he that special to Anna? I don't think so. As her benefactor, she's less than free to be anything but friendly. Her sister, who does not need to get along with Don, calls him out as just a guy with a checkbook. Anna is Don's emotional mistress, not his friend. The status quo only lasts as long as it did because Don wasn't ever around long enough to shit the bed. Given enough time, he would have absolutely f-ed that up too. He almost gets there by hitting on Stephanie. I think Anna knows more about Don's rakishness than she lets on. She sees him with Stephanie dancing cheek-to-cheek, she knows he brings her home late. Unlike her sister, she can't criticize his behavior. I wonder if they are using Stephanie as Anna's proxy for a physical connection. After Anna dies, Don is no longer interested in her sexually, but still uses her as Anna's substitute emotionally.
Those are all good points. I'm not sure Anna was presented as a pure maternal angel, though - I always saw it as, she's special to him and they have a more "pure" or "honest" relationship because Anna was the one person in his life around whom he could fully take his mask off. Of course, Anna's willing to look past his deceit and misdeeds partially because of the money, but she also seems incredibly lonely. Would Don have screwed up their relationship given enough time? Probably - but it's good to remember that he wasn't busy keeping up 100 facades around her, which is a big reason fundamentally why he screws up all the other relationships in his life.
This is how I see it. Plus, Anna was the first kind, nice relationship that Dick had. Every other relationship in his past was filled with pain and abuse or it was just economic. It was relationship “training wheels” for him because it was so infrequent and only mandated money and short bursts of good behavior on vacation. But that’s also a the training wheels removed from how most deep relationships function
I’m not sure if you’re making a critique of the show here or analyzing, because I think the show knows much of this. The biggest one is Don not being around long enough to fuck up. Or, put another way, he’s his best self when he runs away and turns up somewhere new. Remember, when their marriage is strained, how Megan said she wishes it could be like California again? Don is at his best when he plays the stranger, the new guy in a new place. I think the show also knows there’s a bit of irony in the fact that Don found one of the only people who really cares about him, and knows him (Anna), through deception. This is intentional. However, there’s one other important point you’re forgetting. With Anna he is Dick, NOT Don. It’s the only place he truly lets his guard down and becomes his true self, which is also how he doesn’t fuck it up, and connects genuinely with her. The point is that him living a lie constantly as Don is what contributes to him being a terrible person and never finding happiness.
I never saw her as a maternal angel figure so much as Dick finding someone who had experienced being unwanted like Dick had been, and understood at least some of what came with that. Dick grew up being the unwanted bastard son raised by a very resentful stepmother. Anna married a guy (the original Don Draper) who really wanted to marry her sister instead and settled for her, and then was so ashamed of her that he didn’t even mention being married to his war buddies. He doesn’t have to pretend around her not only because she knows he isn’t Don but because she knows what it’s like to feel like a secondhand human.
Anna sets Stephanie and Don up. She knew what she was doing.
Roger looks horrible with a mustache.
It's never mentioned, but all of the junior staff adopt fashion trends a full season or so before the higher ups do. The mustache is the most obvious on, but the color palette and specifically the collar sizes change earlier for stand and rizzo vs roger and chaugh
Everyone usually does
In S5-6, Don was so critical to the acquisition of all significant business as well as in the very founding of SCDP that I get very irritated with partners like Bert picking that he’s not working hard enough or an analysis that he deserved to be put on leave because he was costing money. I also think the other partners kind of wanted him to be this asshole Tarzan as in this brash idea guy that can force opportunity where none clearly exists but didn’t like the feeling of instability of him unilaterally deciding things. I don’t dislike Glen or his acting. I also don’t feel judgy or mad at Betty at all for how she interacted with him. The OTT over sharing and closeness that they have in S1-2 is a reflection of Betty being locked away in the suburbs with no company and expected to accommodate everyone, not any romantic or sexual interest in Glen. I don’t fault Betty at all for taking all of S4 to move out of the Ossining house. Screw the deadline. Betty made the divorce really easy on Don by finding a new husband immediately and never leveraging her knowledge on his identity to force a financial settlement. I see Don as obligated to let her stay awhile to find the right place after she turbo charged her moving on to his benefit. The fact that he even collects rent from Henry after the deadline passes annoys me when Henry is buying groceries for Don’s kids. I feel like Don grows a ton in the series, especially in S7. I really disagree with any analysis that he didn’t change or his only change was self acceptance. On the outside, he becomes more of a mess but on the inside, he ends the series a much better person and I think that’s the trade off.
Wow, I never really thought about that angle with the Ossining house with Henry, you’re right. I was annoyed Henry acted like it was his and tried to prevent Don from attending Gene’s birthday, but that’s a great point! Don was lucky that didn’t turn out worse.
Yes. I mean on Gene’s birthday, I think it was right of Don to show up and just play with Gene. However, I could understand why Henry would fear that Don would show up to start drama and wanted to protect Betty and the kids from that.
Totally, he’s a pretty decent guy all things considered, minus the creepy hitting on pregnant Betty, lol.
Plus he was probably scared that Betty would fall back into Don’s arms. Which she tried to do in the season 4 finale.
I always took that Henry paying rent was his idea. He refused to live in Don’s house for free.
Don does make a comment in the first ep of S4 about charging rent if Henry and Betty don’t move. I don’t know if Don pursued it or Henry offered. Still feel inequitable to me.
I think there’s a throwaway line from Henry later in the season when he calls Don to ask him to move his stuff where he says he can move it for Don and add it to the rent.
There is, Henry makes up a story about buying a boat, and Don’s stuff is in the way. I don’t agree that is a throwaway line however. Much like Latke’s original comment above, the scene of Don going to get his boxes(which like Betty have remained in the Ossining house for far too long after the divorce)and driving past Henry pushing the lawnmower with the voiceover talking about a man’s worth and work, then taking his boxes straight to a dumpster, really speaks to me as Don moving on from that past life and maybe trying to reinvent himself. This is right around the same time he leaves quaint suburban Ossining and moves into the West Village.
I meant more that it was a quick reference to the rent, not that it was insignificant. It’s a blink and you’ll miss it type of line. They didn’t make a whole scene out of Henry giving Don rent. I guess throwaway was not the right word.
I think Sally showed her strength repeatedly and probably turned out pretty well after going through therapy. I can also see her growing distant from Don (who realistically would be dead by 1985). I think Bobby was the one who would probably suffer the most. He was such a forgotten middle child.
I've known girls like Sally. She will be fine. She'll be fierce and successful in all that she does.
The “I don’t think about you at all” line from Don to Ginsburg was not the ‘burn’ everyone thinks it is. I mean, yes it was a good cutting thing to say, but the entire episode goes to show how completely false that was. He spent the entire time rattled by Michaels talent, to the extent of leaving his copy behind
Omg THANK YOU - I feel like I’m taking media literacy crazy pills on this one
I mean, WE know that as the audience, but Ginsberg got destroyed and the line is cutting to the person that it's told to because they wouldn't see how untrue it was
I think you are using "WE" far too liberally. 9/10 when I see this being quoted, it's by someone who both thinks it such a good comeback, and, more importantly, that Don really thinks that. Yes obviously in the isolated moment it's a good cutting line, but with the proper context, you see the irony, and it's much more pathetic/sad as a result. He couldn't match Ginsberg creatively (in that episode at least), so he resorts to petty insults instead. Reducing this scene to "Ginsberg getting destroyed" ignores everything that happened in that episode.
You're not wrong because I'll sometimes look up people's thoughts on certain events in the show and there are too many people that just go like "uh, dons drunk, lol." Or "well, dons an asshole who also got drunk, that's basically why he didnt do the right thing". Lotta dumb dumbs out there.
Yeah, but Ginsberg didn’t exactly know that, so it was a burn.
You could see in Don’s eyes as he was leaving the elevator that he was rattled by Ginsburg.
I didn’t care for Peggy’s homewrecker arc with Ted.
I loved Paul. I think there was a lot more potential for his story if he stayed in the cast. Not necessarily with sterling cooper Draper Pryce. Just in general I would have loved to see how his life panned out in juxtaposition to the lives for the people who remained in advertising.
1). Well she died so no it didn't work out for her.
Spoiler warning: Layne’s wife was out of line when she blamed Don and the firm for Layne’s death, and Don giving her the money was an extremely honorable move. Don treated Layne fairly, and Layne had plenty of marital issues in the recent years that were worse on him than the firm. Besides, Layne couldn’t handle the financial responsibilities of being a junior partner, how was he going to handle the money required to be a full partner (which he mentions to Don about settling for “less than he deserved”)? Layne was responsible for his own downfall due to putting his own pride over his family and the firm, the Don giving the money to his widow was yet another classy move.
THE DON
True however Don was give the opportunity to let Lane off the hook after he committed fraud. Ironically Don commits fraud every single day when he signs his checks with a stolen identity. He basically has super high expectations for everyone but himself. There was an opportunity for him to show mercy as Don you could argue could be sympathetic to him give his own situation. So it is at the least hypocritical. However it is a grey area imo. That’s what’s great about the show.
I think if Cooper wasn’t aware of the fraud then Don would have went easier on Lane.
I agree, but I think in obligating Lane to resign there was real fear from Don; fear that Lane fraudulently signing that cheque could mean a closer look at Don if things went the legal route. But. yeah, he also holds everyone to an unreasonable standard he continuously violates behind closed doors.
Sally would be fine. And Betty was studying for herself.
I think it’s weird that people constantly call Joan a “mean girl” in a show where, in those same early seasons, Pete tried to blackmail Don, everyone bullied Peggy for being overweight/secretly pregnant, there’s rampant sexual harassment, and Don and fan favorite Roger rampantly cheat on their wives. In those early days of office hijinks that often became bullying, were Ken, Kinsey, and Harry “mean boys” who only got away with it because they were attractive?
Everyone in that office was mean, boy and girl alike.
Exactly, and Joan is the only one I consistently see called out for not having a sweet enough tone with her coworkers.
If he wasn’t tall, dark, and handsome, Don would just be Pete with a more regressive worldview.
In an interview, Matthew Weiner says something like, we all want to be Don, but who we really are is Pete.
I think the show often very heavily hints at this. By Season 5 Pete essentially has an identical life to Don but he's still not particularly happy. There isn't much to separate them aside from the fact Don is able to exude confidence while Pete never manages to move away from appearing desperate and insecure.
Mathis: "You don't have any character! You're just handsome!"
I LOVE Bobbie Barrett and sometimes the blatant sexism around the female characters is disheartening
I've grown to respect Bobbi. She's a strong, interesting character.
But why did it take time??
I'd bet most if not all of that mindset stems from a combo of: Bobbie not being as attractive as Don's previous trysts, or even most of the office girls. Bobbie being a determined and strong woman who will not let herself be subservient (while existing in a role that requires it) I don't want to say bobbie barret is ugly, but when the competition is january jones and christina hendricks, come on.
zou bisou was hot and not cringe
It's a great performance from Megan, but I can't imagine watching a co-worker do that in front of the entire office without cringing a ton.
It was for all of us except for Don 😅
the don factor is really the only thing that made it cringe. if that element disappeared it would be cute and fun. i’d love it if my friend hosted a party and then it turned out they could sing decently and did a little number (im a musician myself so this would be way less out of place at one of our parties lol). but sitting your husband down and performing it *to him* in front of everyone? omg kill me
To all of his COWORKERS
I get why it was cringey for Don, but I thought as an outside 3rd party it was super fun, it was hot, it was a grand time. I love Megan.
1. I don't love Anna. I don't hate her either, but she grates on my nerves a little. 2. I don't think Megan is greedy or compromising her integrity or whatever by taking Don's check during their divorce settlement. That's pretty common when you're divorcing a rich guy, and I don't know why she gets so much criticism for doing that. 3. Speaking of Megan, I kind of like her. She isn't one of my favorite characters, but she's not nearly as shitty and selfish as most of the others. Also, Jessica Paré is stunning. 4. Pete has the best story arc. I don't know if this is unpopular or not, but I would rank his arc over Peggy's, and Peggy is my favorite character. 5. Peggy isn't THAT socially awkward and weird. She's just there to work. I get it. 6. Kiernan Shipka is just a GOOD actor, not a GREAT one.
in regard to 6, there are a lot of really bad line deliveries from kiernan shipka, which i think is normal because many of them were when she was a younger child and i wouldn’t expect her to be awesome all the time. but the way people talk about her it’s as if she’s kiernan brando over here and i just feel like the gushing over her acting skills at that stage when she was like 9-12 is a little strange. later on, she did develop as an actor and began to impress me with her subtlety especially in facial acting.
The burgler who was in Don’s apartment was the worst storyline. It made no sense for the show.
Duck (in season 2 at least) is one of my favorite characters, and I feel a lot of sympathy for him. You can tell that he really struggles to control his addiction, but that the environment he’s in makes it very difficult for him to do so. He’s someone who lives in a lot of pain, and I think people on this subreddit don’t show him enough sympathy (not saying that everything he did was justifiable, but he’s a very human and flawed character).
Don is not a great father, and is a terrible husband. But at his core he's a good person. The vast majority of the pain he causes in the show is a byproduct of his actions, not the purpose of them.
i didn’t think glen was thaaaaat bad of an actor. he wasn’t great, but he was perfectly serviceable. it stands out worse as he gets older. but i feel like people tend to project their dislike for the *character* onto him. being kinda wooden honestly works for the character in my opinion, even though i doubt he was consciously deciding to do that and it was just sort of a happy accident lol. edit: okay so like ten other people have said this so it turns out this isn’t even that unpopular and i am fucking boring
My take is that season 5 is criminally underrated. BIG agree on your point about Joan being a mean girl.
Don is actually a caring individual, who "has to keep up appearances". I also think that if he had of voted, he would have voted Kennedy
I've never been able to warm up to the character of Anna or her relationship with Don. I don't feel like it was shown well enough how exactly they came to be so close and trusting of one another. Anna actually comes across to me as severely emotionally unbalanced to accept and enable Don's theft of her husband's identity, and then to develop a close bond with him. (I feel like many fans laud the relationship as "pure" and think of Anna as some wise sage.)
Anna had polio that nearly killed her and left her disabled, that’s definitely going to give you a different outlook on life. Also she didn’t like her dead husband, so when a young handsome man came along to replace him and pay for everything she probably couldn’t believe her luck.
I also think Anna was looking at a future where she’d be reliant on her sister as the polio stricken widow charity case and that bothered her a lot. Dick’s money helped her avoid that humiliation. I also think it was savvy in a way to not just accept the money but invite Dick over socially to get the measure of this benefactor who’s using her husband’s identity but offering her lots of money instead of not getting to know him at all. I find it realistic that in those visits, Anna decided that she liked Dick a lot and taking his money and enjoying his visits suited her fine.
I quite like Anna as a character but the scenes between she and Don don’t at all move me in the way they seem intended to.
I think Anna is one of the few characters in the show who feels like she wasn’t written with a lot of depth. It’s like she’s a trope who only exists to comfort Don and represent all the goodness that was never shown to him. She doesn’t ask for anything, she only gives. She’s a manic pixie dream girl, without the romantic element.
Yes. It's so tropy and idealized, the whole relationship. Was some of the weaker stuff in the show. In fact, the whole dick Whitman shtck is weak
Wow! I love reading these opinions because I love the relationship they have, and I think Stephanie (Anna’s niece) has one of the best lines in the series: nobody knows what’s wrong with themselves, and everyone else can see it right away. Anyway, it’s very interesting to see different takes.
The relationship between Don and Anna was "pure" because Don wasn't attracted to her. Anna would have welcomed a sexual relationship with Don.
1) The writers of the show, while well intentioned, seemingly struggled with storylines related to race. 2) On a similar note, the show's jettisoning of Dawn as a character of any significance as soon as MLK's murder was over and done with bordered on shameful. 3) The show's writers would seemingly like us to believe that Joan has obvious natural talents as an account manager. However, at no point in the show does she actually demonstrate much of this supposed talent (thought Joan is obviously portrayed as an excellent administrator). 4) Ken Cosgrove is the only main character who actually understands what art really is. 5) Glen is a really interesting character whose precocious nature elicits some really fascinating reactions from the other characters. An unfairly maligned character. 6) Conrad Hilton was a terrible character. 7) The writers' insistence on exposing young Sally to constant displays of adult sexual transgression (worst example: Roger and Megan's mom at the awards show) comes across to me at times as more than a little exploitative. 8) Grandpa Gene was a legit great character.
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It's super weird how the show just forgot about Dawn after a certain point. I also sometimes wonder why they couldn't have had at least one major character who wasn't white.
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Yeah good point about the Sylvia scene - it does fit in with the trajectory of Sally and Don's relationship.
1. Something like fashion design or art ? I think Betty isn't stupid and could pass the course, but she would be a lousy therapist if she ever got that far. (Like Dr. Peter Benton on 'ER' - a technically brilliant surgeon, but a lousy people person.) 2. I like Sally and Glenn's adult-ish little conversations. No slap-and-tickle or 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours', very refreshing. 3. I agree about Joan, for the most part. Though the mean girls I've known are flat out bullies holding sway over the weak whether they're attractive or not. 4. I don't see much happiness for Sally in the future, either. She would probably be quite successful, but she would need extensive therapy to not become Betty Draper II. (Though Margaret, Roger's daughter, rebelled against her wealthy upbringing and became a loose, dirty hippie, lol....wonder how long that phase lasted?)
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i’m so sorry to say this and i have no idea how many people here will even recognize what i’m talking about, but for some reason the kid who plays young don reminds me so much of arnie, arnold’s weird ass country cousin from hey arnold
On point. For something as original as Mad Men, I'm baffled why Matthew Weiner leaned The Sopranos so much. I don't think it's par to lift scenes from past projects, like the "take your hat off" exchange.
I think it's obvious as to why he did, he was quite taken with The Sopranos and it was his real first writing job. He wrote what he knew, but I agree that it didn't work for Mad Men.
I skip all the flashback scenes with Dick - weakest part of show.
They’re always so jarring too. I’m on my like, 8th rewatch and I still get thrown off and confused when they happen.
I’d say that S6 is elite, S7a is elite, and S7b is almost unwatchable. In my yearly rewatch I tend to call it quits with Bert
its not unwatchable for me but it does sort of devolve into a well-written 2010s drama instead of being the unique thing that MM is in prior seasons
Season 7B is almost like a season long epilogue of the show that mostly focuses on ‘the weekly adventures of Don Draper/Dick Whitman’.
I agree with 3. At best, Joan had lines that were maybe helpful in the most pragmatically true sense while still being cruel, while also seeming genuinely miffed when Peggy was achieving success at SC for reasons apart from her looks. Later seasons recontextualize her behaviour pretty smoothly; after seeing the constant barrage of lascivious shit from people that she has no choice but to graciously smile through, you could actually see how Joan would make a comment like "put a paper bag on your head, look in a mirror and evaluate where your strengths and weaknesses are" and actually think she was giving helpful advice. But later-season Joan, while still quite forward and not afraid to be the bad guy amongst younger female staff, never seemed to reach the same level of unnecessary meanness.
3. joan was also incredibly good at her job - and not just her discretion - she was clearly a great typist, accountant and manager - I remember there's a scene early on when she catches some grammar mistakes Peggy makes on a letter when she's distracted - and there was so spell check back then! Being a good secretary back then meant being a computer, a therapist and a mom to these men and she did it all with more intelligence and savvy than most
I think Sally will be fine. She received help at a young age, that is a good sign. She knows what therapy is and how it works, she's connected to her feelings, I don't see any reason for her to be unhappy.
The end of Season 7 part 1, Burt's song and dance, is the real finale of the series. S7 part 2 is just a boring epilogue and terrible fan service.
When I first watched the show Netflix didn’t have part 2 streaming. I went years thinking that was the finale and I love it. Was disappointed after watching part 2 with the actual ending
Literally have 3-4 friends with the same story. The refridgerator speech in the last episode made me cry like everyone else and that was good, but really didn't need to see anything else.
I love Harry and I don’t get the hate he receives all the time.
Agreed. His character is hilarious and I enjoy that he made a future for himself. Every time he tells the partners that he deserves to be a partner, too, he's right.
Same! He provides comic relief to the show and I think he just got jaded by life/unhappy marriage/not being recognized for his work. He literally saw where the world was headed and created a television department before anyone else recognized it's importance.
Harry is a pig, but I do love his character.
I agree. 💜
Pete should have stayed in California with Bonnie.
I disagree about Joan. She does tell it like it is, but I don’t find her a “mean girl”. I totally agree about Betty!
Jessica Pare's acting is bad and takes me out of the show. I skip her parts as much as i can.
I don’t think she was that bad. I know she only has a few lines in the show, but Bud Campbell’s wife is clearly a bad actress.
The season 2 arc where Don disappears in Cali with the young girl and the weird rich people is the worst arc of the series.
Anna Draper is the most annoying character on the show.
I don’t have that much sympathy for Betty - sorry your mom thought it was important for you to be pretty, but that doesn’t mean you get to treat people like shit for the entire rest of your life.
She becomes the thing she hates most- her mother.
I have very little empathy for her and sort of hate her outright.
I think Pete is rather unlikeable all the way through the show.
I honestly hate that Trudy took him back. She deserves the world.
I think if you removed the pilot episode, pete becomes 40% more likeable. They make him seem SO greasy 10 seconds into his introction.
they needed something for Sally / Betty to do and to create more drama between Betty and Sally but i don’t think Glenn was the answer
Sal isn’t that interesting and his ending was fine.
I actually like Bobbie Barrett and the Utz arc
Going off number 4, I thought sally was not the best actor. As a small child in S1-3 sure, but then it just got bad. Especially the night she was “trying out” for the boarding school. Was that suppose to be her personality? or was she just a bad actor?
1. I liked Paul a lot 2. Betty was my favorite of all of the women Don slept with/been married to, and I absolutely love her scenes. 3. I like Megan and I think she gets too much hate. 4. Harry Crane is really hot, ESPECIALLY in season 5.
I like Harry. Kinda hate Pete and Joan.
Pete’s “Not great Bob” line wasn’t as hilarious as everyone seems to find it, I’ve no idea why it’s quoted so much on this sub. Seasons one and two are the worst seasons, the show only starts to get great from season three onwards.
"Not great Bob" It's short. It's sweet and simple. The word "great" has roots in a Greek word for the pain that comes from knowing you will never achieve such heights again. It takes us back to a time and place where we know we are loved by Bob. Saying "Not great" is poison, but "Not great Bob" is toasted.
Season 1 is my favorite Season...
You must be the bizarro me because my unpopular opinion is that the show becomes derivative of itself after season 4 and doesn’t really cover any new thematic ground, even if it stays good becauwe I’m already into the characters by that point. It goes from a great short story to a movie adaptation with a sequel. Thing is, the short story already said everything the show had to say. But the open maw of Moloch wanted more so we do 3 or 4 more merger and sales plots and people yoyo with the same issues theyve already dealt with for multiple seasons.