Okay, what the hell was up with that conversation Betty had in bed with Francis about Sally's friend? Was it supposed to be a joke? Are we supposed to be even more worried about Betty now? Because I totally am. Holy shit, girl.
Betty is mad at life and she's very depressed. She was joking, but she's also pretty genuinely misanthropic and specifically pretty misanderic, I think. She didn't want to be a housewife and probably didn't want to have kids at all, but she got stuck in that role, like so many women did at that time, and she's bitter and resentful.
She's joking and trying to make Francis uncomfortable, but there's a grain of truth to it. She really thinks people are evil because everyone around her has treated her like shit.
Henry hasn't treated her like shit. The closest he ever came to a dick move was when he told her he was going to take care of her and her children so she didn't need Don's money. It was paternalistic and controlling, but not in an ugly way and it was entirely in keeping with her plan. Like Don said, she was building a life raft, securing the loving Daddy Don had proved not to be.
A few things I really liked about this episode: the return of old friends -- Mohawk Airlines! Burt Peterson! -- what a phenomenal sarcastic teenager Sally is and how frikking old she looks, Peggy on the phone gossiping with Stan late at night, Peggy getting a great idea.
True, he hasn't really treated her badly, but she still doesn't really seem to like him much.
She's pretty much the archetypal frustrated, bored housewife, and she's been burned by a man before. She's really proud of the few things she did before getting stuck in that role--her college education and her modeling--but all of her potential is gone now and she needs a man to take care of her. So she's going to resent that man, no matter what, and to add to that, he's also an old man and kind of paternalistic, like you said, which probably adds to her frustration and boredom.
So I think she was sort of joking, but she also really does sort of mistrust and dislike him.
Having never seen Mad Men, I may be the only person in the world whose first thought upon seeing Christina Hendricks on The Daily Show was "Hey, she's from Firefly!"
Dude, when Peggy says, "What are we doing? They're really still having the awards?" and then Don says, "What else are we going to do?" I was like, yep, that's pretty much it.
Also, I think Peggy's opinion of her boyfriend is not that different from Megan's opinion of her papa. Intellectual, applauding the escalation of decay. Only not as mirthless. Maybe mirth goes with age.
True confession time. When I was a child my mother had to replace the wallpaper in our bedroom because my sister and I kept tearing it off. I'm told my brother, who is not far off Bobby Draper's age, started the practice. It was even blue and beige, like Bobby's, only ours had ugly blue pineapples on it. It also had cowboy paper underneath, which is why we kept tearing it off.
In short, I found this episode wandered into the uncanny valley for me.
__________________
"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
True confession time. When I was a child my mother had to replace the wallpaper in our bedroom because my sister and I kept tearing it off. I'm told my brother, who is not far off Bobby Draper's age, started the practice. It was even blue and beige, like Bobby's, only ours had ugly blue pineapples on it. It also had cowboy paper underneath, which is why we kept tearing it off.
In short, I found this episode wandered into the uncanny valley for me.
Holy crap, J.
My sister and I had horrible wallpaper in our bedroom, too. Ours was raised white squiggles on a blue background. The design was supposed to look like it was random and non-repeating, but it was just repeated over a large area is all. And it also didn't line up, like with Bobby's, so it drove me crazy and I tried to subtly 'repair' it by scratching off some of the squiggles and extending them using lines of white Elmer's glue. You couldn't even tell that I'd modified it unless you knew what to look for, but it made the wallpaper slightly more tolerable for me.
But wait. One year, I came back from spending the summer at my grandparents' farm, and my mom told me she had redecorated my bedroom as a surprise! I WAS SO HAPPY until I saw it. She'd somehow managed to find a slightly different blue wallpaper with random white squiggles on it, with a slightly smaller repeating pattern, and it was misaligned in different ways.
It was as though she'd said, "Hey, Lisa, let's go to the stables to pick out YOUR NEW PONY" and then we got there and she was like, "LOL JK, actually you're just coming to this place to have all of your skin slowly peeled off one tiny ragged strip at a time!"
We should start a support group for people who survived shitty wallpaper as children.
Oh yeah, Mad Men. As a Betty defender myself, I really like this article about her. That's a lot closer to my interpretation of her than most I've seen. The biggest difference is that I actually do sort of like or at least empathize with her character.
Is it just me, or have all Don's pitches this season been the same idea? I really think the man is slipping. Every pitch he does is just about leaving everything to the audience's imagination.
__________________
"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
I had to have it pointed out to me (), but no, it's not just you. He left the hotel out of the Hawaii ad, and he didn't put the bottle in the Heinz ad. Were there more?
The GM pitch was all excited faces but no car for a couple weeks before they showed the car.
__________________
"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
Now that it's all over and everything I decided to give it a look and see what all the fuss is.
You guys. GUYS. You are not going to believe me when I say this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ensign Steve
I have watched seven episodes, and I'm enjoying it immensely.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ensign Steve
liv conned me into watching this show. It's about Madison Avenue advertising execs, and it's set in 1960. Per liv, they drink and smoke like it's going out of fashion, and "the furniture is immense hotness." Per myself, it is absolutely racist and sexist, and the period clothes and hair-styles are to die for.
Despite myself, I do love Peggy. She reminds me of what Pam from The Office could be, if Pam wasn't such a giant wuss. And Pam doesn't even have the excuse that it's fucking 1960 to remain on her duff and be afraid of the big bad world.
Also Christina Hendricks (Saffron of Firefly) is fucking phenomenal. Obviously. Like she has a choice.
It's available on AMC On Demand, if anyone else is interested.
Ensign Steve is very smart and I agree with everything she says.
Because of my intentional ignorance I thought it was just about Madison Ave and advertisement stuff so I purposely skipped it because BORING. I continued ignoring it when all the accolades for the setting and the actors were going on just because I'm stubborn. And at this point, seven episodes in, I kinda don't like anybody except Peggy.
Forgive me for I have sinned; it's been eleven () days since my last confession.
Re: Mad Men
), but no, it's not just you. He left the hotel out of the Hawaii ad, and he didn't put the bottle in the Heinz ad. Were there more?
for I have sinned; it's been eleven (
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