Mad Men Forum

Season 1 Episode 1 - "Smoke gets in your eyes"

Right from the outset mad men presents us with the smoky, boozy yet elegant scene which most of us associate with the period. It's a revered time now, a time in which men were suited, brylcreemed and brash while women were subservient and passive. It's interesting that even at this early stage, the show displays both the charming era which we all expect and the misogynistic, antisemitic reality which we would rather forget. We are instantly drawn to emphasise with the brooding Don Draper, as he sits alone, mysterious and intently ruminating on some inner enigma. As he brushes off a racist waiter to engage in some faux banter advertising reconnaissance with a chastised black waiter, he immediately becomes a surrogate for our modern sensibilities in this whirlwind world of racism and various indiscretions unthinkable by today's standards.  
                                                        
 
This episode portrays the two sides of women in this age, we have Joan who believes that a woman's place is on a man's arm, and we we have Rachael Menkin, an oddity in that she is a successful businesswoman who both defines herself on her own terms and see's beyond the minutiae of reserved 60's life (something which makes her and Don kindred spirits). Don once again seems to be a modern man trapped in an exquisite suit when he comes to the aid of his naive new secretary Peggy, defending her from the brash advances of his swaggering yet weaselly underling Pete Campbell. However this idea is confounded during Don's initial altercation with ms Menkin, and by the late reveal that he is in fact married. Don Draper is still the promiscuous, savvy and conscientious man  he appeared to be earlier, but our view of him is complicated throughout the episode. Draper is nothing but a complicated amalgam of persona, and as the series continues this is what is likely to draw most viewers in beyond the kitsch of the setting.
 
 
 
 
 
By no means have I addressed the numerous facets and details which make this episode, and mad men as a whole so rewarding, but as much as can be made of the convoluted world of mad men none of it can compensate for the personal and unique meaning drawn from each viewer. It is unlikely that two people will reach the same conclusion on any episode of mad men and it is that intimate personal opinion which draws so many dedicated fans to the show, and the reason that you too should take a seat, have a drink and let yourself be mesmerised by smoke and suits.

 

Roger's Sterling one liners

•  "Honestly it can't be that difficult to convince America that Dick Nixon's a winner?"
•  "Have we ever hired any Jews? It's just our 11oclock is with Menkins department store and I wish we had someone to make them feel welcome."
•  "I don't know Don ... can you?"
  

"How was the Fuhrer's Birthday?" 
"May he Reign for a thousand years." 
- 
"Why is it whenever I come in here it looks like you're not working?" 
-  
"Join or die? Jesus Cooper, he was doing a better job." 
-  
" We even brought tea."
 (Countless sexual advances from Sterling) 
I'm not one to remember quotes but Roger Sterling is the exception. Good show.

@Feser:  I almost exploded after the fuhrer line, last weeks episode had a ridiculous number of one liners. This episode is pretty frugal with Sterling, pretty sure he starts turning up more often from the next episode onwards.

As much as it's tough to watch, Don Draper's downward spiral this season has been magnificently written and acted.
 
I'm not sure Jon Hamm has ever been better then the car scene last night when he finds out Anna has cancer, just pure shock and horror. 
 
Oh, and seeing the other side of Lane Pryce was pretty enjoyable to.

@GhostyGhost:  I liked that last episode, it jumped around in tone spectacularly. The Lane Pryce boys night out was hilarious and still ended up being depressing in the end.
 
I think I might just switch and blog about the newer season instead, there's probably gonna be a little more interest in that and I'm watching those anyway.

I'm loving this new season and how it's portraying Don Draper. 
 
As men, I think many of us tend to idolize him because he's smart, talented, rich, charismatic, modern (sort of), and always successful with the ladies. But this season it's forcing people to step back and look at who he really is: an aging alcoholic womanizer, someone no one should really idolize. 
 
The characters around him are beginning to see that (his receptionist especially) and now I think he is too. Like Anna's niece said in the last episode: 
 
"No one can see what's wrong with them, but everyone else can see it right away." 

I've enjoyed watching the tragic decline of Don Draper.   In the end, I think that he will kill Don off, perform a second metamorphisis and emerge as a new Dick Whitman.    

@JokerSmilez: I really don't like that idea. Maybe it's because I've spent too long bickering with a feminist about the show but what I see in this season is that as much of a bitch as she is, Don genuinely loves, or loved, Betty and he's just reeling from it.

@HandsomeDead:  I agree that Don had real feelings for Bettie, and despite all of the affairs that doesn't mean that he didn't love her just that he was driven to adultery because of the pressure of his double life. I think he's probably dealing with the loss of someone he cared for more than he realised, and a life that meant more as well.

@WalkerTR77: It seemed to me that as confident as he is as Don, he is still Dick Whitman and he's kind of insecure and so he cherished having Betty and the kids as they were real even if Don Draper isn't. With the adultery, I think that's a combination of the kind of culture the Fifth Avenue workplace and, well, it feels good and he's good at it so it's a combination of what he's been forced into and what he enjoys only now, he's not enjoying it because there's no love there and it shows. 
 
On an unrelated note, this season has really made me wonder how Jon Hamm was getting rejected from auditions before Mad Men. His Wikipedia says he was dropped from his agent in 1998 after getting no work but you look at him and he's classically handsome, then you see him in interviews and he's funny and, while I've always thought he was a good actor, this last episode really showed what he's capable of. How was he ever unemployed? It really shows that Hollywood is all about who you know, not what you can do. 
 
And, by the way, are you going to keep doing this as an episode by episode review thing because if that's the case, maybe it's best to open an actual Mad Men thread rather than keep taking your recaps off track.

@HandsomeDead:  Well I think that rather than doing a retrospective for the older episodes, I'll start recaps for the new episodes starting with next weeks. That's actually what would make more sense right now and obviously that's where the conversation is.
 
Should I also start up a general mad men discussion thread you think? Also these were supposed to go  in the mad men board, but it hasn't materialised just yet.

@HandsomeDead: I've also spent plenty of time defending the show from women who saw half of the first episode and think it's awful and misogynistic. If they actually watched it, they'd probably enjoy it, to see what times were like right before the Women's Lib movement and what life was like for women (and men) then, but I disagree with you. I don't think he loved Betty at all. I think he loved (and misses) the idea of having a normal life and a "happy" home with a wife and kids, but I don't think he actually loved Betty as a person. 
 
That's why he was always attracted to women who were the opposite of Betty (smart, sophisticated, independent). He married her when he was young and she was a trophy wife. But as he matured, he realized he wasn't satisfied with her as a "life-partner" and starting look elsewhere. He's not like some of the other guys in the show who just like to sleep with young girls. He went after women who's personality he was attracted to. 
 
That's why I love Don as a character. He's complex with lots of layers. I think with this season his secrets have caught up with him, and not just his affairs, and his outer shell is cracking (would he have ever slept with his receptionist in the first season?). He's on a downward spiral, but not because he loved and misses Betty. He loved and misses his "normal" life because he used it as a shield to prevent everyone (especially himself) from seeing who he really is - Dick Wittman, the bastard child of a prostitute and an alcoholic womanizer.

@JokerSmilez:  I always felt that he idolized Betty as the perfect wife, and perceived her as very innocent. As the perfect mother that he never had and he had to go outwith her to satiate the lusts of his Don Draper persona, and to preserve that innocence. 
 
I didn't really mention it but in comparison to the rest of the series, the pilot is really heavy handed with the misogyny.

My wedding dress is a Mad Men copy ;) 

@WalkerTR77: I don't really see Don as being overly lustful, but being genuinely unhappy with Betty and looking for someone that interested him. It's never been about the sex for him, at least not until recently. I think he always saw Betty as a trophy wife, two dimensional and completely unsatisfying. 
 
And yes, exactly. The pilot of any show is always heavy handed. For example, every pilot on Showtime has more nudity in it then the entire rest of the first season.

Damn, this weeks episode was the best of the season. Excellent work by John Slattery as a first-time director.  
 
My theory on the theme of this season is continue to play out (Don Draper is a bad person after all). 
 
Alexa Alemanni is excellent this episode. 
 
Also, some of the best camera shots of the entire series. Phenomenal framing. Blown away by this episode.

This one was one of my all time favorites.  I love the opening conference call with Lee Garner Jr.  Roger and Don are the ultimate duo.   
 
I like the conflict over the Ponds campaign.  Peggy went to great pains to develop a hypothesis that validated her own existence and the idea that modern women are motivated by their own aspirations and self interest, separate from matrimony.   The hypothesis was rejected by the research group.    All signs pointed to women wanting husbands.    
 
On first appearance, Don seams arrogant for not accepting the obvious.  What's really going on is that the secretaries in the research group, and women of the time in general, are simply responding to the expectations that have been fed to them previously.   Don's own experience with love and marriage has biased his opinion but he's smart enough to know that expectations are rapidly changing and that SCDP won't get anywhere by reiterating old campaigns. 
 
Peggy's arc has embodied the change.  When she was working out her ritual campaign for Ponds, she was also working out her own personal conflicts with matrimonial expectations.  Events conspired to make her doubt her own hypothesis.  Don has looked after Peggy like a daughter and he's understood the value of her life experience and perspective.  In the end he'll trust her instincts, even when she begins to doubt them.
 
This hooks right back into the theme for the season, understanding the difference between what you want and what is expected of you.

I have to say, honestly, Don needs to do something soon because as much as I love the show and Jon Hamm, I just feel like they're just treading water in his story line. He needs something to kick him into gear in the next episode or two and his response to Faye's idea of going back to an old ad campaign is hopefully an imminent foreshadowing. On a semi-related note, it's been three weeks since I last saw Betty Draper and I couldn't be happier about it. The show needs less of her being a bitch for no reason and more of Ken ripping into Pete without him even realising.

The preview for next week aludes to a conflict within the agency over whether to take on an African American client.  Roger is shown firmly in the opposing camp.  Don's motives are unclear but he will take a stand one way or another.  It would be great to see him team up with Pete.

@Scotty_Gun: 
 That picture was the first thing that came to my mind. I was planning to do a recap of the latest episode but the blog wasn't working properly, so I'll start writing recaps as of next Monday hopefully.