Mad Men: The Phantom

There were ghosts in the season finale of Mad Men. The Phantom floated and wafted through the lives of our SCDP team, still reeling from the suicide of Lane Pryce. Everyone is chasing him - Megan chasing her acting dream, Pete chasing a woman who is now a shadow of herself, as he wallows in the suburbs with a wife and child to whom he cannot connect. Even Don faced his demons in visions of brother Adam, the first suicide casualty caused by his need to alienate those who have emotions he will not touch, nor understand.  It's weighing on him like that toothache.

It was a lackluster episode with too much Pete and Beth and not enough Peggy, or Ginsberg, or as Mo Ryan of the Huffington Post put it perfectly - not enough Dawn, not just in this episode, but the entire season.  Although I've covered the goodbyes of season five (see Lane Pryce and Peggy Olsen's departure below), this series moved along like a slow ocean liner, lumbering on rough waves of 60's unrest, not being rocked or touched in any way. With the civil rights movement and cultural change, why are we seeing Peggy still dress in teased hair and boxy dresses? Why did we not see Dawn's dealings with the racial slur mentioned in the first few scenes of tonight's show from that idiotic client? At least we did see Miss Olsen, with that damn teased hair, struggle with the new initiatives of her new boss. There's still hope for Peggy as she spreads her wings, but how long will that last?

Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is expanding, and business, for now, is booming. We leave Don as screwed up as ever,  dealing with the complacency of marriage and fidelity.  Has Megan's expiration date passed?  When he walked away from the commercial shoot, was he walking away from that marriage? Walking away from the same vision that brought Betty into his life? (If you recall, she was a fledgling model he met at a photo shoot.)

With the ladies offering companionship in smokey bars, we can only guess the old Don will be back next year. This season's Draper was a mere ghost of his old self. Talk about phantoms.

Mad Men Finale: A Season of Goodbyes

Mad Men season five takes a bow tonight.  It took nearly two years to finally see this season come to fruition on AMC, and just like that - 13 weeks have gone by in a blink.

Some may have felt the season went by at a slow pace, dominated mostly by Megan's perfection and Don dealing with her as his wife. But within all the build up of story and every day angst, minutia and fat Betty, the season saw satisfying and devastating goodbyes to well love characters.

Those of us who have lived through the end of the 20th century, and now navigate the strange waters of the 21st,  understand that moving from one company to the next can be a vital step toward professional growth. When Peggy left Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce, it was a triumph, a righteous turn for a talented copy writer whose praise from Don was meager, and whose compensation did not match her ability. As Joan sold her body for the chance to be partner, Peggy moved on with dignity and a better future. Who knows how long SCDP will last? A future stake for Joan in an agency that might not survive another two years won't mean anything. But for Peggy, her career will last her as long as her personal drive. So long for now, Margaret Olsen.

Last week we said goodbye to a nice man whose inferiority complex took him to bad places. Lane Pryce was a sweet, emotionally brow beaten (literally by his father) Brit who came to New York and fell in love. Not with that cute African American Playboy bunny, but with New York and America. Leaving the stogy, class defined confines of the crusty middle class England from which he was bred, New York and all it offered allowed a fresh new start for Lane, where he embraced youth, sex and culture in a fresh new world where he could reinvent himself.  And that's the thing. During Don's confrontation and firing of Lance, he told him he could start over again. The problem was,  Lane already did. And in Lane's mind,  he couldn't keep up the pace and failed.

As we say goodbye to Peggy and Lane (with the possibility that Lane somehow returns in flashback, and Peggy still keeps in touch with her former colleagues), we say goodbye to another season of Mad Men, with another long wait to come for season six.

Hopefully with time permitting, I'll delve into tonight's episode tomorrow.

'Mad Men: The Christmas Waltz'

In last night's Mad Men, we were reintroduced to a lost, old friend. Paul Kinsey was a former member of the boys club of Sterling Cooper's hey day.  A struggling writer, eager to be the next Hemingway, Kinsey often found disillusionment when others who worked less hard excelled beyond him. When Don, Roger, Bert and Lane held a mutiny by unhinging themselves from the old agency to build their own brand new one, Paul wasn't even asked to join. Instead, he was left in the dust with the other drones Erickson would devour. As seasons marched on, the question hung in the air: Whatever happened to Kinsey? Did he fade off into the dust bin of the supply closet of life? While he was there, did he find Sal, hiding from his true self?

Then came last night. Harry answered a call to meet Paul at a gathering of the Hare Krishnas, and much to his and our surprise, Paul Kinsey appeared, head shaven and chanting his little heart out, while pledging his love for a Krishna patron known as Lakshmi. We thought he'd given it all up for chanting the Hare Krishna mantra all day, until he showed Harry his Star Trek spec script.

Poor Paul, even when he thinks he's found himself, he's still forever lost and yearning for someone to acknowledge his talents. But Lakshmi, a leader in Krishna consciousness,  a controlling fuck up who wanted to keep Paul in the Krishna group for her own means, had her talons lodged in his back. Her desire to control Paul was cloaked in a spiritual identity that must have been false. How can one be a devotee of pure God consciousness and want to control someone for their own gain?  George Harrison, a famous follower of the Krishna movement even called out this universal behavior in mankind in his song Beware of Darkness : "Watch out now. Take care, beware of greedy leaders. They take you where you should not go."

And Harry knew this. After his sexual encounter with the bargaining Lakshmi, he knew she was a fake.  Harry understood this female she-devil would ruin his lost friend forever. $500 and a ticket to Los Angeles while feeding Paul a big fat lie was better than watching his fading friend leave the secular world for Lakshmi's fake spirituality.  Now I wonder, how did Paul make it in the 70's? Did he continue, lost in the world, like some of my older brother's friends who hitched rides into the sunset?

This is the aspect of last night's episode that grabbed me. Yes, the moments between Don and Joan were incredible, showing how much they are alike spiritually, and how much they respect each other without having to grab a room and do the deed.  It was also maddening to find Lane Pryce struggle to pay the UK taxman by committing fraud. What repercussions will Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce face as a result of this?

But what grabbed me the most was seeing our lost friend Paul find the road to redemption through the hands of Harry, rather than by a false follower leading him to where he should not go.

'Lady Lazarus'

"Dying...Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. " Sylvia Plath 

Don Pushes an elevator button. The bell rings. He goes to the sliding doors to step inside, but the car is not there. Instead, he sees the deep, steep elevator shaft of the Time Life Building as the cables rattle down into the abyss. Could this be Don's downfall? A foreshadowing of a possible suicide? The tumbling silouette of Draper falling, falling, falling in the now iconic show opening? Don was letting go of Megan, and letting her go after a dream as he looked down into the void.

And then there's Pete Campbell. He's been a little jerk with a sex drive like a rapist, and the heart of a wounded child brat all wrapped up in a grown up suit. He's trapped. Coddled in wealth, molded to be the suited, Metro North riding ad executive with a house in the suburbs - just like Don, the man he strives to be. But Pete never had dirt under his nails, never drove a car, nor did he have to stumble to an outhouse in the freezing night like Dick Whitman. Nor did he have to hustle to get a job with Roger Sterling. Nope. Pete had uncle Roger and Bertie cut him out like a cookie to be an ad man. Then he wanted to be Don Draper. But Don Draper isn't even Don Draper anymore. He's moved on from the fucking, the blonde wife, the Ossining House to a young brunette and a lush life in his apartment on 72nd and Park, trying, at the age of 40, to hang on to what is real, what is hip, what makes humanity key in.

There's Peggy. She's a trailblazer whose succeeding in becoming Draper. Tirelessly working herself into a nub to achieve her status, she has to deal with Megan throwing away the same opportunity that was so easily handed to her. Joan has it right. These are the girls who marry the wealth, who become the ex-actress and never has to work again.

Alone in his swanky upper east side apartment, Don mulls over The Beatles Revolver album. He takes it out of its prestine cover and skips to side 2 - last song, "Tomorrow Never Knows". "Lay Down all thoughts, surrender to the void." Hmmm...could we connect the elevator shaft to this?  "It is dying...it is dying."  He lays back in his designer chair, still in dress shirt and loosened tie. Weird sounds and off beat drums fill the room. Revolver, being the transitional album that was on the precipice of the Beatles breakthrough before Sgt. Pepper, the album that turned the 60's from black and white into color. Just like the Chevalier cologne ad pitch.

Don should take a word from a scene from a Hard Days Night, when George Harrison stumbled into the office of a smarmy image maker who jabbered fashion talk to the clueless quiet one. As George leaves, fashion man said to his bored assistant, "Could he be it?" Assistant, "You mean an early clue to a new direction?"

Don listens to the tape loops and the tabula and Ringo's drums. The turns it off.

How did Matthew Weiner get a master recording of The Beatles on television? NYTimes.com has the answer. 

The Real Zou Bisou Bisou...

'Mad Men' Returns

It's been almost 18 months since we last laid eyes on a new episode of Mad Men. The wait is almost over. Mad Men season 5 premieres in a super sized two hour season premiere this Sunday on AMC at 9pm ET/8pm CT/6pm PT.

'Mad Men' and Mannequins

The newest publicity poster produced by AMC for Mad Men season 5 has media bloggers buzzing about what it all means. Don Draper's reflection in a window as he gazes upon two manequins that may or may not be a metaphor for his life and what's to be expected when the series premieres on March 25th. Could the naked female mannequin with lingerie dropped at her feet be Megan? Is the male dummy in a classy pajama and robe ensemble Don trying to make this naked undefined sex symbol of plaster something that he wants it to be? Maybe that's my take. The possibilities are endless, and that's what makes this scenery so intriguing.

Mad Men season 5 premieres March 25th at 9pm ET/8pn CT with a two hour special. The second episode to air the following week was directed by Jon Hamm.

'Mad Men' Teaser

Matthew Weiner and AMC are rewarding us for waiting so long for Mad Men season 5 by giving us at two hour premiere on Sunday, March 25th at 9pm!

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

'Mad Men' Season 5

'Mad Men' Season 5

Well hello, there Jon Hamm. There you were, being all funny on the Doug Loves Movies podcast and announcing season five of Mad Men will be premiere on AMC on March 25th.

Mad Men to Return

This blog would be remiss if it didn't mention the official announcement of Mad Men's renewal for season five. After AMC's budgetary issues, and show runner Matthew Weiner standing by his guns to maintain the integrity of the show, three more season of the insanely good drama have been locked in, hopefully insuring that Weiner's perennial visits to the negotiation table are over. This is indeed bittersweet. By "over", it's confirmed that these are the definitive last three seasons of Don Draper's and his peer's story. Three more seasons of evolving fashions, cultural movement and answers on what will happen to our protagonist as he, his family, his new wife and his minions enter a new decade.

The internet is weeping over how long viewers have to wait. Mad Men will not be returning until 2012. Now that contracts are set, Weiner and crew are just heading to the writers room (today) to break new stories.

Sundays this summer will be Don-less. But it will be worth the wait.

Here are links to articles to flesh out this week's backstage drama Mad Men negotiations:

NBCLosAngeles.com

Deadline Hollywood Daily

Mad Men Season 4 Finale Tonight

Season four of Mad Men is coming to a close tonight. What a topsy turvy season it's been. Don Draper struggled to rise from the ashes of disappointment in career, personal life, morality and mortality. Roger Sterling woke up to the reality that his suave, smooth, boozy devil-may-care attitude on life ran its course somewhere in 1960. Betty Draper found a decent man in Henry Francis, but she's still the Westchester housewife with a brood of children cramping her style. Peggy Olsen is blossoming as a strong, open minded woman of her generation, not only struggling to break down barriers in the boys club, but managing to fall in love, have lots of beach bunny sex and enjoy the revolution ahead of her. It was a heady feast of character growth and toil, satisfying with every episode.

As all fans of Mad Men know, Executive Producer Matthew Weiner puts on a pretty damn incredible and unforgettable finale. Although this season flew by in a flurry of fantastic storyline and performance, tonight's show will have high expectations on my part. I'm sure it won't disappoint.

Mad Men season finale tonight on AMC. (10pm ET/7pm PT)

Mad Men: Chinese Wall

"In business, a Chinese wall or firewall is an information barrier implemented within a firm to separate and isolate persons who make investment decisions from persons who are privy to undisclosed material information which may influence those decisions. This is a way of avoiding conflict of interest problems." Wikipedia

"This has nothing to do with the office" says sexy Megan, the wanting secretary who jumps like a puppy when Draper struts down the hall, carrying a billion thoughts on his mind. Her seducing him was a disappointment - as if Don, trying to stay on the straight and narrow, fighting clients who are dropping like flies, succumbed to his old rascal ways. There he goes again, cheating on another blond with a brunette. One can speculate that this "conflict" will create havoc down the road. From Roger and his embarrassing failure to not only lose the Lucky Strike account, but keep it a secret from his partners, to Pete being lured by his own father in law to jump from his "folly" of an ad agency and join a more solid firm, to Don using his dreamy bedroom eyes to get Faye to fess up on confidential client reviews, shows why code of conduct is beaten into the brains of corporate America. This lose way of handling affairs will burn them. Or at least I hope it does - not because I want them to fail, but imagine the drama. Will Megan's aggressive tactics to shag Don bring his trouble? Will Faye hate herself for facilitating a meeting with Heinz, like a roasted pig on a platter for a hungry SCDP? Will Roger jump off the Brooklyn Bridge? We'll see. I just hope Sally did get to see the Beatles at Shea last week with her dad, rather sit there alone while Don boinked an Usherette behind the beer stands in the Upper Mezzanine of that old place.

Mad Men "Public Relations"

"Who is Don Draper?" Don't ask. If you do, he'll pull up the Dick Whitman shroud of secrecy. You'll never get beyond that mysterious exterior. Cool, huh? It carried him through the past three seasons we've known him. But not this time, buddy. Don is now a leader and needs to fess up about his business, his professional past, and how he stays afloat. If he doesn't, big hitting trades like Advertising Age won't have any juicy Madison Avenue material to pump into Don's new venture. They need this publicity. The chance he's taken is a big one. He carries the weight of Bert Cooper, Roger Sterling, Lane Pryce, Harry Crane, Joan Holloway, Pete Campbell and Peggy Olsen on his shoulders. He made them take the plunge. Now he has to shed the cloak and dagger James Bond mojo and get real. They aren't the peons anymore. They are now Don's minion, and they want to succeed, for themselves and for him.

Don Draper seems to be undergoing a recession of the soul. Cutting back on his past fabulousness, he rents a furnished apartment in the Village, shines his own shoes, offers to sew on buttons for his son. Despite having a house maid (conjuring up images of The Courtship of Eddie's Father), he doesn't eat her cooking and barely acknowledges her housework. Divorced, dwelling within a non-descript bachelor, Don's new life appears to be as dark as the walls of his bedroom. He pays for sex now, with a regular high class call girl who provides an extra S&M bonus as part of her menu. It's not as if one cannot image Don being with a hooker before, but the fact he now has to pay for love making and accept blind dates from Roger Sterling's child wife - well, its a bit stunning.

Betty Draper has now taken on the surname Francis, replacing one husband for another in the same bed and the same house. Despite being told to move out by a certain date, Betty is not ready to move on, using the old I don't want to uproot the children right now excuse. Please, Bets. Why did you have kids? Don was a cad and it's good you divorced him, but you should have thought of plans for the kin before building your own lifeboat. Don, still paying mortgage and taxes for a house his ex-wife and new husband live in, is galling. When he demands they leave or else pay rent, even Henry agrees. But Betty is a needy, bitter child and refuses. Indeed, Henry's own mother has Betty's number, feeling the chill of her personality, her terrorizing of the kids, her prettiness allowing for men to drop all over her, swoop her up and rescue her frail bones from the harshness of the real world. I hope Betty didn't get rid of her fainting couch. She hasn't moved out of her damsel in distress phase yet.

Peggy Olsen is wonderful. She's come into her own with a more light hearted attitude, a little more comedy in her manner and a stronger sense of self. When her idea of hiring actresses to pose as housewives to go to stores around Queens and buy up loads of canned ham back fired, she handled it with comedic aplomb, the right dose of embarrassment and nada drama. (The actresses in question were a hoot, hating on each other, acting out like Danielle and Teresa in The Housewives of New Jersey). So, more power to Peggy. However, it doesn't end there. Both she and Pete are very friendly co-workers, but their past won't be easy to escape. There is something there. Even a call from Trudy sends Pegs out the door.

And Sally. Just you wait. This is the sixties. Historically we know what happened to the youth of that generation. She's going to come into the prime of her teenage-hood with a load of baggage from Don and Betty. It's going to explode in rebellious anger and hatred all jammed packed in a big wafting cloud of weed. I can see it now. She'll fall in love with per poster of Mick Jagger and be a Rolling Stones bad girl. Maybe even hitch a ride to San Francisco, be part of a cult or some underground political group, just to screw with her parents - Betty especially. I want Sally to evolve into the anti-Betty. No hairdos, dresses and manners, but unshaven body hair, nudity and fuck yous to society. Please, Matt Wiener. Make this happen.

Cutting back to the new agency, now located in the lush offices of the Time Life Building, Don is pitching a campaign to the very conservative owners of Jantzen swimwear. Having told them of their new two piece bathing suit line, they want to be all modest about the marketing of a product that is basically a cute little sexy Gidget bikini. Of course, Don ignores the safety of his clients suggestion and goes all 'sex sells' on them, to which they turn down his idea. After Don explodes and throws them all out of the office like a bunch of misbehaving school boys, we realize that Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce is not going to pander to mediocrity. There will be no more bowing to clients who beg for dumb ideas. No more bad calls on bad marketing campaigns that dangerously ruin SCDP's image. Call in the Wall Street Journal. Don wants to talk about the real Don Draper.

Mad Men: Get Ready!

Mad Men's new season premieres tonight on AMC at 10pm. Is it normal for a person to shriek with happiness every five minutes at the thought Sterling, Cooper, Draper and Pryce? So much to catch up on. I'm paralyzed with anticipation. I'll let AMC's video round up get everyone up to speed:

In Honor Of 'Mad Men' Season 4 Premiere

MA Men 2 from Joey McIntyre

The real Mad Men premieres on AMC this Sunday, July 25th at 10pm.

Mad Men: Season 4

The season four poster for Mad Men says so much: Empty new office, new possibilities, new horizons. As Don leaves the old school ad world behind, he's facing up to bright, cool modern days ahead. Goodbye smoke filled, yellow tainted curtains...hello clean floor to ceiling windows, light and opportunity. I cannot wait.

Summer Drama

As the mind blowing current series of Breaking Bad winds down to its season finale this Sunday (10pm - AMC), there is still much to look forward to in cable viewing as we get into the dog days. AMC specifically. Their original series have, so far, been stellar, beautifully written, produced and performed morsels of drama delight.

As Walter White's moral code crumbles further into darkness in the New Mexico desert, Madison Avenue of the sixties returns on July 25th (10pm) with the season premiere of Mad Men.

When we last left Don Draper, he went rogue on his British bosses and took the best and brightest of Sterling Cooper with him to begin his own agency. As he paves new ground in his professional life, his personal world will take a turn. Betty has left him for a new man, beating a retreat to Vegas for a quickie divorce, searching for something she'll probably never find. Don is now a single man living in New York City - free to boink any broad with a Dippity Do hairdo and pumps.

Since AMC is two for two in the groundbreaking department, their newest series, Rubicon, looks interesting and could round out the stats. Starring James Badge Dole as an intelligence code specialist, the program delves into paranoia and mind bending scenarios. (Special shout out to Miranda Richardson who also stars.) It premieres on Sunday, August 1stat 8pm and will continue to air in that timeslot.

Here's a sneak peek from AMC.

What Happens When You Get the Cast and Crew of Mad Men Drunk?

They create a "Bye Bye Birdie" tribute video to their creator Matt Weiner. Oh, and Rich Sommers apparently enjoys getting naked.

Mad Men Lets Batt Loose

As per TV Guide Magazine, not only has Mad Men's Salvatore Romano lost his job with Sterling Cooper, but Bryan Batt has lost his as well. Showrunner Matthew Weiner has confirmed that the character of Sal will not return to the show, much to Batt's surprise. “I was supposed to be notified by December 31, and nothing." Sadly, it meant he was not coming back for season 4.

What a shame. Although the firing of Batt's TV persona was sad, it worked well within the context of the times. However, Weiner has given us this character, a gay man living a lie in a world where he is yet to be accepted. It was expected that we'd see his personal tragectory continue as the cultural shifts of the decade unfold and sexual liberation prevades. The 60's ended with the Stonewall uprising in 1969 after all.

Surely, Sal could have snagged another job at another agency and found himself working competitively against Sterling, Cooper, Draper and Pryce? Advertising can be a small world. It's disappointing that we won't see Sal's character finding his own way among societal changes - especially with that heart of gold he carries around inside. My hope is that Sal found himself, lives the way he wants to live, with the person he wants to love openly - and is the wealthy proprietor of a Soho art gallery. In my mind, Sal lives righteously.