Started a Mad Men rewatch

I rewatched it earlier this year. I’d forgotten about the tension between Don and Roger through much of the series. It’s such a great show.

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I rewatched it earlier this year. I’d forgotten about the tension between Don and Roger through much of the series. It’s such a great show.

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There was a mutual respect and friendship between them, but there was a little more jealousy from Roger.

Money, women and power.

Recently started a rewatch this month too, truly one of the greats and a show I’ve rewatched maybe more than any other, at least any other long form drama

The show really hits its glide once they move past the Dick Whitman stuff in season 1.

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always wondered why they went with the crazy military situation. Seemed over the top for such a grounded show. Couldn't he have just been a whore house boy with a fake background/name?

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I mean thematically it’s a really nice thesis to his character overall. His flaws and insecurity all come from his abusive upbringing and constant need to pretend he’s someone he isn’t and hiding his true feelings. I think later in the series the dick Whitman stuff is done really well and important to his character arc. If he didn’t assume a dead man’s identity and war medals, im not sure he’d so easily get a chance at a place like Sterling Cooper on a whim. That plot point was probably the selling hook for the show at its original conceit but the rest of the cast was so strong they realized they needed more room to run on the plot outside of Dons past

My comment is directed more specifically at the season 1 arc of this background, where there is so much anxiety about people finding out who he is, that it like a pressure release when it gets outted and they are like “yeah idc”. People not caring but don still being so deeply affected by this persona he’s adopted actually makes it way more interesting. And in the downstream of that, it just allows the plot to be a lot more free as a workplace drama

The first two episodes are way over the top / heavy-handed with the male chauvinism.

Even Don has a line where he's like, 'I'm not going to let a woman talk to me like that.' Think it was to Rachel Menken actually.

The show creator has said he looks back and cringes at some of the stuff from the early episodes.

I was thinking the other day about how the show actually has a lot of brighter shots being set in California in the later seasons, more sunshine, but it actually gets sadder. The passage of time, things ending, the 60s ending, etc. The show called it with the Carousel nostalgia pitch.

They did a good job of making McCann seem like some oppressive corporate place to work--compared to what they had at SCDP.

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If he didn’t assume a dead man’s identity and war medals, im not sure he’d so easily get a chance at a place like Sterling Cooper on a whim.

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The war "record" was definitely important to Roger's ability to relate to Don. He said something to Don about other people not being able to understand them because they weren't in the war (even though they were in two different wars). So I think that was important to Roger helping Don get hired and stay with the firm after some embarrassments.

The final season was excellent considering how much time they took off between seasons. I forgot why but vaguely remember a substantial gap leading to the final season and was shocked how well it wrapped up.

Can’t remember the name.

The guy that leaves to run off in the sunset with Lainey Wilson.

The wife and I just started a rewatch this week. Man the pilot was rough, and being a pilot a lot of things are different from the rest of the series, like the office is pretty different from what it becomes later. Obviously it takes a while for a show to gel, but Don is a lot different in the earlier episodes. The guys holding down Ken to put the spray deodorant on him, and Don is sitting there chuckling. If that happened in later seasons, he would've kicked them all out.

The one thing that drives me nuts about Mad Men is the geography is so off in the show. In the pilot Pete shows up at Peggy's door out in Brooklyn. She lived in Bay Ridge, that's a long haul from midtown to show up on the step of girl you met that day. Also whenever Don leaves from Ossining to go back into the city, they make it seem like it's 15-20 minutes and it's more like an hour. The worst one is when Don takes the teacher's brother to Massachusetts for a job, Bedford is a little northwest of Boston, and yet he gets him up there and back like it's nothing. It's a little thing, but I always notice it when I rewatch it.