It was actually the third episode, so it's out of sequence and a week and a half ahead of the air date.
Also - I saw the episode last night, so I'm not worried about spoilers. But why not put the actual spoilers after the jump, so that people who are just coming on to read Gawker can choose whether they want to see Mad Men spoilers.
I have a question for everyone and my apologies in advance if this has already been discussed at some other time.
Are there people out there who think, like me, that Vincent Kartheiser, who plays Pete Campbell, is a terrible actor? He just makes me cringe - and not in the right way. I'm not thinking I can't stand Pete Campbell, I'm thinking I can't stand Vincent Kartheiser's portrayal of Pete Campbell. He just doesn't seem in the same league as the other actors in the series. I feel like I'm watching the performance of a lousy high school actor.
@intime: Funny, I've always admired Vincent Kartheiser precisely for his creepy portrayal of Pete Campbell -- I've always felt his cringe-worthy scenes are his interpretation of Pete as a person who is so self-conscious, and so alienated from others by his ambition and his aggrieved sense of himself as a person whose brilliance is unjustly unrecognized, that he can't ever just "be himself." In other words, I see it as Vincent playing Pete as someone who is himself always playing the part of Pete. But that's just my opinion.
@intime: It's not so much that I find him to be a bad actor as that I find him to be a stage actor on a TV show, which I just think is a bad combination. I think he'd be fantastic for Broadway Presents: Mad Men, but right now, I just find him kind of hard to watch, though he sure plays an asshole well.
@robotwaste: I thought we learned that Don was a "whoreson" in season 1... whatever episode where the drifter, uh... drifts through in his flashbacks? I like the fact that not only does Don Draper not have "people" because he's living a dead man's life, he wouldn't really have had "people" even if he'd stayed Dick Whitman.
Time to place Mad Men next to cigars, Cake and Star Trek on the shelf for things that I like that are very nearly ruined for me by the other people who like them.
To me, one of the most interesting lines of the episode was the scene where Betty remarks to Don that their daughter has been playing with his tools "like a little lesbian." I was like, way to enforce dominant heteronormative attitudes on your child!
Which in turn got me thinking that maybe the rigid enforcement of male and female stereotypes that are considered such a huge part of '50s morality came about in reaction to the growing awareness of the existence of heterosexuality and other "deviant" behaviors. Don & Betty's grandparents probably wouldn't have worried if their daughter was a "lesbian" because it's likely they would not have known such a thing existed, or could possibly exist. But thanks to psychoanalysis and other cultural trends beginning around the turn of the century, by the 50s such "deviant" behavior had become familiar, if not yet accepted ... In other words, maybe the reactionary repression of the '50s was a kind of preemptive strike against the countercultural storm that was brewing and would hit a decade later ... I dunno, just the first thing that came to mind.
I'm sorry that some fans didn't get anything out of this episode. We, on the other hand, were falling out of our chairs. Tentacle porn? Turquoise cushions on a mustard-yellow couch? Trampy stewardess naked in her London Fog as inspiration for Don's ad, to save Sal's face (or put him in danger)? Joan in houndstooth putting smarmy John in the doghouse? Pete whining like a bitch? Looked, sounded and felt like excellence to me.
@Occula: The best/scariest thing about that scene was Pryce practically licking his lips while taking in the tentacle-porn print, his eyes opening to whole new levels of misogyny that he couldn't have conceived of before. I think Jared Harris has the potential to turn Pryce into one of the better evil characters on the show.
@antisocialite: I have a soft spot for Jared Harris, maybe coz he always looks the same age...which is weirdly ageless, like his dad but with eternally red hair.
08/20/09
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If Gawker has to include comments like this, must you link them to Jezebel? We're not into it.
08/19/09
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I'll bring the steam roller out for this eisode. All aboard!!
08/19/09
08/19/09
Also - I saw the episode last night, so I'm not worried about spoilers. But why not put the actual spoilers after the jump, so that people who are just coming on to read Gawker can choose whether they want to see Mad Men spoilers.
08/19/09
"I feel like Dorothy. Everything just turned to color."
And of course there was the Beat guy telling Don he couldn't leave the apartment because the police were there, and Don replies, "No. YOU can't."
Ha!
08/19/09
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08/19/09
"Well put."
08/17/09
08/17/09
Are there people out there who think, like me, that Vincent Kartheiser, who plays Pete Campbell, is a terrible actor? He just makes me cringe - and not in the right way. I'm not thinking I can't stand Pete Campbell, I'm thinking I can't stand Vincent Kartheiser's portrayal of Pete Campbell. He just doesn't seem in the same league as the other actors in the series. I feel like I'm watching the performance of a lousy high school actor.
Does anyone else feel that way?
08/17/09
08/17/09
08/17/09
08/17/09
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08/17/09
08/17/09
08/17/09
08/17/09
08/17/09
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08/17/09
Which in turn got me thinking that maybe the rigid enforcement of male and female stereotypes that are considered such a huge part of '50s morality came about in reaction to the growing awareness of the existence of heterosexuality and other "deviant" behaviors. Don & Betty's grandparents probably wouldn't have worried if their daughter was a "lesbian" because it's likely they would not have known such a thing existed, or could possibly exist. But thanks to psychoanalysis and other cultural trends beginning around the turn of the century, by the 50s such "deviant" behavior had become familiar, if not yet accepted ... In other words, maybe the reactionary repression of the '50s was a kind of preemptive strike against the countercultural storm that was brewing and would hit a decade later ... I dunno, just the first thing that came to mind.
08/17/09
08/17/09
08/17/09
08/17/09