Mad Men Revisited: Season 5
After a long hiatus I’ve started to watch Mad Men again. I don’t know what made me stop for so long but somewhere around season 3 the bloom began to come off the rose. I no longer found it as appealing as I had when the show was at its Seasons 1-2 heights. I think they lost me when characters started losing toes.
Anyway, so I am now in midway through Season 5 and holy hell did this show ever come back from seeming defeat. Pete Campbell’s banging hookers, Roger’s dropping acid, Peggy’s giving Alanis Morrisette-esque HJs in the movie theaters. All this while Don is in a stable monogamous relationship. WTF?!
To that point, I have to give props to the show writers, Don and Megan have the healthiest most fully realized dom/sub relationship I’ve ever seen portrayed in media. It’s just adorable. And she’s Canadian no less. Omg and her mom is Julia Ormond who seems to be getting hotter with each passing year. I love her as Marie, I love that Marie decided within seconds of meeting Roger that she was going to blow him. I love decisiveness in a woman.
But that is neither here nor there, some of the episodes in this season have been series highs. Signal 30 which gives us this bleak portrait of Pete Campbell’s burgeoning existential crisis. His heartbreaking and pathetic crush on that plucky little tween. His apathy as the party hooker flips through her rolodex of personalities. Poor Pete life was never going to be as great as he thought it would be.
Side note: how cool did Layne get? Look brauh, someone needed to pop Pete in the mouth at some point. BEST. SCENE. EVER.
I love Pete and Roger’s ongoing fight. Pete jockying for position, and Roger Willy Lomaning out and making vaguely racist war jokes.
A Christmas Waltz is also an amazing episode. I think if you like to play the match/mismatch game like I do (rate couples based on their relative level of attractiveness to one another ex: Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thorton= mismatch v Angelina Jolie and Jenny Shimizu= match) You have probably considered that Joan and Don are kind of perfect, both hot, both reckless in shockingly similar ways. Both are hot, oh did I mentioned that they’re hot? Like how have they not hooked up just out of mutual curiosity?
Anyway, I like their little ‘Christmas Waltz’ in the bar, I love how airtight that dialogue was how it starts with Don not understanding the appeal of the zippy red Jag he had to drop $600 to take for a ride. Then ending with him visibly enjoying working that stick shift into a higher gear on his ride home. It was nice fan service. Speaking of fan service Paul! Krishna! Star Trek! WHHAAATTT?
Ok well that’s all from me I am going to finish this episode.
