Mad Men 4x05 Reaction
Added 2025-11-09 00:32:38 +0000 UTC
Comments
Speaking of turning the story over to Sally, it struck me how this episode ends with a Sally moment, walking into the therapist's office. I don't know if we've see that before -- a Sally storyline, not a Don or Betty storyline about Sally, getting the cut-to-black place of prominence. It absolutely does feel like a shift in the narrative.
Mike
2025-11-09 21:27:13 +0000 UTCBetty to me is right in line with the conversation about "strong female characters" a few episodes ago. She's complicated, and flawed, and the show lets he be that way. It would have been easy to tell a straightforward "1960s wife divorces his philandering husband" female empowerment story with her, but the show never takes the easy street. She can be a terrible mother and cruel to Don, too. *That* is a strong, three-dimensional female character.
Mike
2025-11-09 21:25:25 +0000 UTCwe all just want someone tall + handsome to pin us to the bed and give us reasonable advice from a position of experience
Kara
2025-11-09 16:27:37 +0000 UTCThere is no non-misogynist reason I can think of for hating Skyler, especially pitted against Walter. There are reasons to hate Betty, even pitted against Don. That’s why I love Betty’s character - because she was written and acted to be the opposite of what you want in a onscreen mother/wife. But if someone said “I hate Betty Draper,” I fully understand and wouldn’t really argue it.
distant lights
2025-11-09 15:25:57 +0000 UTCFirst Dr. Lyle Evans mention what a time
Isaiah Bryant
2025-11-09 13:11:28 +0000 UTCGOOD AFTERNOON YOUR DAUGHTER'S PSYCHIATRIST CALLED 😄 I like that Don just accepts Mrs Blankenship as his penance for sleeping with Allison. I love the fake ad in this episode. Don says about Ted "The minute he declared himself the competition, suddenly we were equal". You see that a lot in this show - Peggy becoming a copywriter, Harry becoming the tv guy. If you don't make these things happen then they won't. Unless you're Roger Sterling. I love the duality of Don talking to Faye while Betty talks to Sally's psychiatrist, both with plausible deniability that they need it. They're both dealing with their scars and Sally's the one getting hurt. I love her psychiatrist, another person with a very kind way about her, just comes across as someone who knows how to work with kids, which is what Sally needs.
Mark M
2025-11-09 08:09:57 +0000 UTCMy empathy for Betty diminished every time she was cruel to Sally. I think to me, Betty’s story has now become Sally’s story. Now that Betty is divorced, her story is turned over to her daughter. Which makes sense. The generational trauma is something that they wanted to explore with Sally and make the connection with Betty’s own. So far the story is great.
Haye Zeus
2025-11-09 06:06:56 +0000 UTCGiven Roger's intense hatred for the Japanese, it is quite surprising that he never expressed distate for Cooper's love of their culture. It may be possible to craft an in-show rationalization for this but the likely simple reality is that the writers probably never foresaw they'd be writing this episode some day when they established Cooper as weeaboo at the beginning of the show.
Julien
2025-11-09 05:29:43 +0000 UTCYou know Blankenship has the best gossip on the street
My Toasty Toast
2025-11-09 03:43:15 +0000 UTCWait, why is Henry kinda...
Jamie
2025-11-09 03:27:55 +0000 UTCIf you mean the scenes where Carmela talks to Melfi and then later her own therapist, those were in S3 which would predate Weiner's Soprano (S5-6) days.
Jamie
2025-11-09 03:16:29 +0000 UTCGreat ep! We all stan Ida Blankenship! Not too much to add this week, I feel like the better the eps, the less I have to say because y'all cover everything in the discussion so well. I guess after 3+ seasons we're all also dialed into the storytelling now. Someone else pointed it out but OG Sterling Cooper was a massive company with 100s of people across 3(?) floors. SCDP is microscopic in comparison. Don Draper is a colossal fish in a tiny pond and now has to compete with people like Ted Chaough (had to search how to spell that 💀) nipping at his heels. "Sacagawea carried a baby on her back all the way to the Pacific Ocean. And somewhere that baby thinks he discovered America." When Don screwed up at SC he was on someone else's shoulders, at SCDP if they fuck up too many accounts.... the company dies. Such is the vibe of running a small business. Nice to own what you work on, though. Not a novel thought but they got so lucky casting Kiernan Shipka as Sally in S1. Casting kids is always a gamble, most of the time it's messy and mid but every now and then like here or Stranger Things, GoT, you touch the face of god and find good Actors. Betty and Don are both unsure about therapy then both find themselves yapping + spilling personal secrets to someone then feeling better. At least Edna gets paid in money, Faye got paid in Sake + office banter 😩 Bonus Thoughts: Henry keeps racking up Ws tbh, he's said like 10 things total and 9 of them sound reasonable. Betty slaps Sally (oof) and Don gets to be the nice parent who never hit her, a "win by default" as he put it earlier. Don takes Bethany to Benihana restaurant so he can "research Japan" 😬 multitasking king I guess? Bert's eccentric gilded age orientalism actually comes in handy. Pete is goofy as always but he's trying really hard to make this circus work.
Kara
2025-11-09 03:12:04 +0000 UTCAmen! Let’s go. Needed a new Mad Men ep. Let’s just finish season 4 by end of week. (lol) Does anyone know if they’ve mentioned Pluribus? For such big BCS fans …
ruseka
2025-11-09 03:10:24 +0000 UTCIn middle school someone said they could never be friends with me because of what the Mexicans did at the Alamo 😂
My Toasty Toast
2025-11-09 03:07:49 +0000 UTCMy memory is fuzzy but in the Sopranos, did Camerla have a scene similar to Betty's convo with the Sally's prospective therapist? If so then that has to be the inspiration for this scene given that Matt Weiner worked on the Sopranos. For all I know he wrote that Sopranos scene and is just aping his own work.
Julien
2025-11-09 03:00:36 +0000 UTCmad men mpreg 😩
Kara
2025-11-09 02:46:36 +0000 UTCI'm expecting a child!
Scott
2025-11-09 02:17:44 +0000 UTCEnglish is such a funny language because why do you need so many letters to spell what is basically Chao
bondbond53
2025-11-09 02:14:39 +0000 UTCThe whole "kids doing stuff at sleepovers" thing is timeless I think. I'm sure almost everyone has a story.
Kara
2025-11-09 02:14:37 +0000 UTCI had an online friend back in the 90's AOL days. She was appalled that I liked anime because she hated Japanese people. I asked her why and she said because of WWII and Pearl Harbor. Even at 11 years old I knew that opinion was completely absurd lol. But in the context of this episode I completely understand Roger's perspective and feel sympathy for him. It can't be easy to get over something like that, and 20 years flies by like it's nothing. Thankfully he was willing to let his grudge go and listen to reason.
Taya
2025-11-09 01:57:09 +0000 UTCYes, Henry is undoubtedly the best parent that Sally and Bobby have ever had. Unfortunately. Betty mentioning how close Sally was with her father gets me to repeat something I said back when he first passed: He was the only person whose ACTIONS showed that he loved Sally. He spent TIME with her. That's what a kid can understand. His stories weren't always appropriate, and his memory wandered, but his every interaction with her SHOWED that he cared for her. Betty & Don both say they love her -- and they each think that they're great parents -- but saying it does bupkiss if the kid can't understand it. Faye Miller even said that if Don loves Sally and she knows it, then things will be fine. But Sally DOESN'T know it, because none of his actions demonstrate it. Betty would benefit immensely from getting qualified psychiatric help, because she is traumatizing her children and doesn't even realize it. And hopefully Dr. Edna Keener can help both her and Sally. Cutler, Gleason, and Chaough (CGC) are an interesting rival to SCDP, because they didn't USED to be a rival. They're much smaller than the firm used to be when it was just Sterling Cooper. But now that they're so much smaller, suddenly they need to worry about competition that they used to just ignore. So it makes sense that CGC is trying to START a rivalry, because if they become rivals then it means that they've "made it". SCDP, meanwhile, is worried that if they admit that CGC is a rival then it will confirm just how far they've fallen.
JBK405
2025-11-09 01:54:40 +0000 UTCI love love love how this show explores Sally growing up. It's done in such a realistic way but it never crosses the line into weird territory. TMI but I personally vaguely remember being in kindergarten during sleep time (idk if they do that everywhere else as we do in Eastern Europe), being unable to fall asleep and discovering that I felt good when I rubbed myself a certain way. Needless to say, I did it at home as well and my mom actually caught me once. It was such an embarrassing moment and, while she wasn't as stern as Betty, she told me not to do it. I like how honest this show is in showcasing a little girl's exploration of self. Kids discover these things very early unlike what conservatives tell you when sex education is proposed for elementary school children. It is upon the adults to guide them and help them.
bondbond53
2025-11-09 01:51:27 +0000 UTCAh there it is: my childhood. So nice of you to post it here for me.
Michael M
2025-11-09 01:41:51 +0000 UTCAmong Roger's many funny one-liners this more serious one is among my favourite dialogue of his no doubt
bondbond53
2025-11-09 01:41:38 +0000 UTCI watched the first two episodes yesterday. So far, so good. It has the potential to be great. We'll see.
Michael M
2025-11-09 01:41:00 +0000 UTCMiss Blankenship is Don's secretary's name
Taya
2025-11-09 01:38:57 +0000 UTC"I feel like Sally did this to punish me somehow, for everything." Betty coming in hot in her first meeting with a children's therapist with the most narcissistic take Dr. Edna will ever hear from an adult.😭
Eric Viola
2025-11-09 01:34:10 +0000 UTCI thought it was a little sad that he couldn't tell his war story to Joan, I'm not sure he has anyone to talk to like that (including Jane). Obviously Joan stopped him for good reason though.
Nina
2025-11-09 01:32:03 +0000 UTCI really love this episode cause it explains a lot about why Roger is the why he is. His constant chase for the past and his refusal to grow older. World War Two was very traumatizing and since therapy was so taboo, many people just tried to bury what it did to them.
Jude G
2025-11-09 01:25:40 +0000 UTCFather who refuses to spend time with kids says he doesn't see them enough.
Nina
2025-11-09 01:20:47 +0000 UTCMother who has tried nothing is all out of ideas.
Nina
2025-11-09 01:12:55 +0000 UTC"These are not the same people." "How can that be? I'M the same people!"
Taya
2025-11-09 01:10:49 +0000 UTCI don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but Vince Gilligan's new show "Pluribus," featuring Rhea Seahorn, Kim from BCS, just premiered with a 100% rotten tomatoes score and glowing reviews. Wondering if you would consider reacting to it in the future.
Gangster Pikachu
2025-11-09 00:36:16 +0000 UTCSally Draper's dilemma: absent father = trauma present mother = trauma
Bernardo
2025-11-09 00:35:48 +0000 UTC
