Mad Men
On Sunday's Mad Men, two of the show's strongest female characters decided what they were worth — in two very different ways.
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Let's start with the sadder (and perhaps less believable) of the two story lines. Joan (Christina Hendricks) has always been the "dynamite redhead" with whom many an adman and client would kill to spend a night. As such, Herb, the head of the dealers association, who perhaps senses Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce's desperation to win the Jaguar account, demands Joan's sexual services as a way to persuade him to vote SCDP's way....
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Peyton List and John Slattery
I'll have what he's having. (Well, maybe not the divorce.)
Roger Sterling's exhilarating LSD trip on Sunday's Mad Men set the tone and raised the bar for another wacky week in the world of TV. The disorienting centerpiece of another masterful episode exploring the needs and dashed desires of its central characters, Mad Men's acid trip (played to the tune of The Beach Boys' "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times") was harrowing
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Jon Hamm
And you thought we weren't going to get any Mad Men dish before the Season 5 premiere.
So what if only some of it pertains to future episodes? You already know that they don't do spoilers. Does that mean you don't you want to know who series boss Matthew Weiner considers to be the healthiest person at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce? Not curious about the real basis for Don's diary last season? And what about Kiernan Shipka's take on whether or not little Sally is doomed with parents like hers? Isn't it just fun to hear Weiner and the cast talk about making the show?
Exactly. To further whet ...
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Cloris Leachman, Joan Cusack
Cloris Leachman appeared in almost every Raising Hope last season, while Joan Cusack could be seen in virtually every episode of Shameless. And yet, both scored Emmy nominations Thursday in the guest star category...
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Mad Men
Another week, another Mad Men photo for us to overanalyze.
After releasing a promo poster last week featuring Don Draper (Jon Hamm) in an empty office, AMC has unveiled the Season 4 cast photo that may offer some insight into the new season. (Click here to see a larger version of the photo.)
What does the new Mad Men poster tell us?
Here's what we're thinking:
1. First and foremost ...
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Bryan Batt in Mad Men courtesy AMC
As glittery and shiny as the spanking new 1962 Coupe de Ville that Don Draper buys (and whose new-car smell Betty ruins in the stunningly appropriate final scene of Sunday's episode), as rich and textured and ambiguous as the modernist Mark Rothko painting Cooper displays in his office, AMC's Mad Men is firing on all cylinders midway through its second season. Sunday's brilliantly structured episode, another home run in a recent string of winners, had me looking anew at the show as a work of art, something transcending mere TV. I could devote an entire column to quoting great, meaningful, loaded dialogue from this episode. Surely they'll publish collected scripts of Mad Men some day. It will make great reading, possibly even as satisfying as watching it.
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Jon Hamm by Jim Spellman/ WireImage.com
Jon Hamm, a Golden Globe winner and likely Emmy nominee, isn’t taking the critical success of Mad Men for granted. “It’s phenomenal. It’s a wonderful experience. But the swirl that happens around the show exists outside the show.” Still, as he quotes his co-star John Slattery, “It makes you feel like … you’re not crazy. Other people like good stuff too.”Critics certainly like good stuff, and AMC’s session promoting Mad Men’s upcoming second season was easily the biggest lovefest so far in the TCA press tour, currently in its first week devoted to cable presentations.The group laughed when a critic challenged the show’s famously tight-lipped creator Matthew Weiner to explain to fans why the mystery surrounding what happened to Peggy’s illegitimate baby — the jaw-dropper of the Season 1 finale — remains unresolved by the end of the July 27 season opener. “I would say, trust me. I will give you the informat...
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Jon Hamm in Mad Men courtesy AMC
You could get vertigo tonight, scaling the heights of the finale of Mad Men on AMC, and then plumbing the depths of the tone-deaf misfire that is Viva Laughlin, premiering on CBS in the plum slot after CSI before moving to Sundays. There, only those with the most morbid curiosity to watch a show’s slow yet hopefully quick death are likely to follow (unless every critic I know is totally off the mark).First, a salute to the best and most fascinating new show to arrive on TV this year (and I’m even including my quirky new treasure Pushing Daisies in that equation). Mad Men, so hypnotic in its look and style as it recreates a classic movie-worthy image of 1960 Manhattan, is a period piece that says volumes about today, or about any era in which salary and status is tied to self-worth and where people construct a false reality to sell themselves on the American dream.Don Draper (instant star Jon Hamm) would seem to have it all. Besides the movie-star looks, he enjoys upward mo...
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