Just when you thought it was safe to visit CliqueClack without being subjected to my negativity regarding Mad Men, I’m back with Season Two! But seriously folks … as much as I enjoyed how the second half of the first season progressed, I was disappointed by the first episode back. I appreciated “Flight 1″ a lot more, but was still frustrated by a couple of what the characters were doing. Mad Men is universally loved by the seven people that watch it. Please, tell me: what am I missing?
“For Those Who Still Think Young” Season Two, Episode One
I usually think that I’m a relatively smart guy. I’m certainly not joining MENSA anytime soon, but I’d like to think that I can walk and chew gum at the same time. When I watch episodes of Mad Men like this, I feel pretty damn stupid. This particular episode had nuance and subtext practically bursting from the seams. The bad part is that I see it but think that it’s wasted on me. It is obviously complex, and I’m not entirely sure I want make the effort to understand all of the subtlety that washes over me during these episodes.
On the other hand, certain themes and story lines hit us like baseball bats beating the dead horse normally reserved for CliqueClacker Michael Noble:
“Flight 1” Season Two, Episode Two
Now this episode was a completely different story than the first. Watching the two side by side, it is easy to see the difference: Something actually, you know, happened. The crash of American Flight 1 affected the crew at Sterling Cooper in several ways. My favorite was easily the death of Pete Campbell’s father. Not because I’m a sadistic bastard, but because it was nice to see some emotion out of Pete.
He may have never gotten along with his father, but I can only imagine what going through that seminal moment in a man’s life is like (Nor is it anything I want to sign up for anytime soon, you hear me, Dad?). I’d imagine that I would handle things much like Pete did as he first learned the news: confusion, and a total lack of ability to put together coherent thoughts. He surprised me, though, when he discovered that his father was pretty much broke. I guess it is a by-product of not expecting to see any of that money anyways.
I loved his eventual decision to join Duck at the American meeting. I had little confidence in Duck’s ability, and thus Sterling Cooper’s chances, at landing the account until Pete walked in the door. If they are able to pull off sincerity, the “I know what you are going through” approach is one heck of an ace-in-the-hole.
We had honorable Don Draper this week. He comforted Pete (to a point, and not the second time when he really needed it), and he was legitimately pissed about dumping Mohawk. Plus, he looked down on Carlton’s infidelities. Next week, who knows what version of Don we’ll get.
I’m still a little confused about Peggy. That her family kept her child wasn’t exactly what I expected, but her coldness towards the child was. I’m not sure what changed her mind, in the end, deciding to attend mass with her family. This is the kind of character choice that I don’t enjoy on Mad Men, the one there’s no apparent motivation or explanation for.
Clacked by Ivey West 
on Aug 03, 2011 @ 16:30 EST5EDT
The most important thing to remember about MadMen is that Matthew Weiner is a disciple of David Chase and came out of “The Sopranos” writing room. The two shows are spiritual brothers in the sense that they expect vividly drawn characters living out their lives in an alien (and therefore interesting) setting trumps a more plot-driven story.
This isn’t immediately noticeable with “The Sopranos”, but when you consider how many episodes consisted of quiet character moments that existed outside of whatever arc they were building that season. If you’ll remember, this was a source of a lot of fan consternation (especially during the fourth season, which consisted of lots and lots of these moments with an almost indifferent attitude toward the mob plot).
I think we tend to forget this about “The Sopranos” because when they did decide to move the plot along, it wasn’t people angling for promotions so much as it was Italian men shooting each other. So maybe their plot moments were big enough to make us forget all the wheel spinning they did in quiet, sometimes unpredictable character moments.
Let me put on my east coast intellectual snob hat for just a second (excuse me while I drink this special white wine that you can only buy if you voted for Obama AND attended at least one “Take Back the Night” rally) and say that this kind of character over plot focus is a more European approach to entertainment. American TV tends to shy away from this approach, with the most striking example being the current supremacy of the TV procedural. “Law and Order” and its many spinoffs and imitations eliminate all but the bare minimum of character in favor of plot, plot, and more plot.
(Now that I think abut it, “Law and Order” is to plot what one of those “Nothing but Facials” porn videos is to 70s era porn. Maybe that’s a labored analogy, but I’d feel bad if I wrote all this without having at least one porn reference in it…)
Now, I’m not going argue a point of taste here — either you enjoy character over plot or you don’t — but I do think that standard TV viewing leaves you unprepared for enjoying a show like “Mad Men”. What I mean is, if you’ve experienced American TV, you’re expecting plot to be at the forefront. You’re expecting all the little moments to build to something meaningful, because PLOT is the paradigm American TV follows.
There’s no better example of this than Melfi’s rape during the 3rd season of “The Sopranos.” It frustrated viewers because they simply could not believe something as traumatic and huge as that rape wouldn’t come back at some point. Surely Tony was going to find out about it or Melfi was going to let it slip. Instead, the rape plot was over the moment Melfi decides that she isn’t going to tell Tony about it. The CHARACTER had made a decision, and since character was the prime motivator on “The Sopranos”, that meant that storyline had already had its beginning, middle, and end.
If you can open yourself to the idea that “Mad Men” is more about these small character moments than big complicated plot-driven story lines, I think that the show will be that much more compelling.
(Addendum: I also think that the need to put plot above character in American television sometimes works against it. Take “Lost” for instance — that’s a show that excelled in small character moments, but that stumbled when they tried to bring all these moments together into a coherent storyline. Not a perfect example because “Lost” was always about the plot and its shortcomings were more about the story getting away from the writers than putting emphasis on the wrong story element, but still, how much more fun would “Lost” have been if they threw away the idea that every last thing you saw was meaningful to the story and just concentrated on showing us how these different characters reacted to the island?
Maybe not fun, but at least more European. And when I say European, I mean, far more likely to have body odor.)
*POST AUTHOR*
A) It isn’t an East Coast thing. it’s a Yankee thing. I’m just saying.
B) You know, I’ve always been known, to the point of Keith never letting me forget it, a self purported “character guy” when it comes to my fandom. But developing characters at the sake of actually telling story (you know, plot isn’t a good balance to me. I watched a lot of the Sopranos, but not all of it. And I enjoyed it, to a point, but was never head over heels for it like the rest of the planet. I thought the other big drama that started that year was a considerably better show, top to bottom (including the inferior last 3 seasons).
But wouldn’t you agree that developing a character is the same thing as telling a story, just a little more quietly?
What I mean is that what I’ve always loved about Mad Men isn’t where the characters physically wind up, but rather their reaction to the journey that got them there. When the plot moves, great — but when Don decides to go to California and not do much of anything, that’s great too, because Don is so well written and because John Hamm is almost as good as Gary Johnston at ACTING, I really don’t need anything else except a skinny tie, some Scotch, and whatever existential meanderings his soul wants to take.
This isn’t true of every show — I’d argue that the only three shows to _ever_ have been able to do it were a) “The Sopranos”, b) “Mad Men” and (possibly) c) “Breaking Bad.” (The last of which is starting to get some internet grumblings of “NOT ENOUGH HAPPENING”, just as Mad Men and The Sopranos did before it). I think the reason why the fans love it so much despite its molasses dripping plot is because of the rarity of creator, star, and network support that’s necessary to get something like this on the screen.
Just as a thought experiment, try to imagine “Mad Men” as a network show (actually, we might not need to imagine that because we’ll be seeing “Pan Am” and “The Playboy Club” in the near future, right?), with all the notes pouring down on the creators to “make more happen” and “move the story along.” The show would probably be more watchable, in a traditional sense, but I think it would also be fair to say that whatever makes the show unique would be killed as well.
(To put it another way, watching “Mad Men” and saying “This show is great, but it would be so much better if more stuff went on” is essentially saying “This show is great, but I wish they would take the thing that makes it great and got rid of it so it would be better.”
A simplistic analysis, to be sure, but also consider that I’m like 100 mg deep in my nightly trip down Benadryl lane.)
And on a personal note, I am such an East Coast, Yankee, snobbish, white, intellectual elitist that I am typing this reply to you on a Macintosh, while I sip a wine that’s made by mixing boysenberry with the tears Ann Coulter cries whenever she reads about a poor child eating breakfast on the government’s dime. It’s just who I am.
jay black, you’re my hero.
What Bob said.
I’ve been re-watching the series since it’s arrival on Netflix watch instantly. Still love it. I had forgotten about the subtle things in the first season that had made it so interesting to watch just on cultural evolution alone. (Like Sally running around with a dry-cleaning bag on her head and Betty not batting an eye. Little stuff like that always strikes me.)
I have a hard time with Pete. Probably because I can’t get past him as Conner on Angel, and that is not a positive association. He does get better though. I think I stopped wanting to slap him all the time in Season 2.
On Don lecturing Carlton – Carlton was cheating where he lives, and you know the saying about you don’t s@#* where you eat. To Don, Carlton is asking for discovery, hurt and messiness. Don’s infidelities are removed from where he lives, so to him, it is completely different.
As far as Peggy goes – I don’t know if you have gotten to the flashback scene to where Don visits Peggy at the hospital. It explains her behavior towards her son.
A lot happens this season, you might actually start to enjoy the show.