Mad Men 2x07 Reaction
Added 2025-08-17 22:03:15 +0000 UTC
Comments
No mention of Brenda Lee's Break It to Me Gently at the end😔 A great song.
INFJ-T Tyrone
2025-08-22 03:37:03 +0000 UTCGoddamn this show knows how to end an episode. Jimmy vs. Don followed by Betty puking in the Cadillac. Yup. It's not a major beat in the episode, all things considered, but I love that conversation between Don and Cooper. "There are men who get to handle the levers that control the world, and now you get to be one of them." You just know that dude was in Skull & Bones or something. That conversation about powerbrokers and Don pulling back the curtain to join them is such a fascinating counterpoint to Don handing over the Martinsen's campaign to Kurt & Smittty and the counterculture. There's an obvious incompatibility between Bert's worldview and the 60-page "vision for a democratic society". You can already feel the early undercurrents here that lead us to MLK and Vietnam and Kent State in the years to come.
Mike
2025-08-19 02:47:23 +0000 UTCThey live in Spain now if I recall. But yes terrifying stuff
Dante
2025-08-18 15:19:27 +0000 UTCUnfortunately I can't imagine it's going to win, but it's without a doubt the correct choice after this. It's extremely up their alley.
Sebastian
2025-08-18 08:29:15 +0000 UTCI love the littering scene. I love how it's shocking without being offensive or violent. Just casual but completely out of step with modern expectations. I also love seeing Jimmy tell Don what he needs to hear. The'go to a whore' line probably resonated with him, knowing his background. Sal's story is tough to watch. It starts out kind of funny with his ears pricking up when Ken mentions West Side Story, then him flirting with Ken while Ken is oblivious and flirting with Jane. I think he represses himself to the point that he's acting more out of instinct, not really thinking about where it'll go. Same with marrying Kitty, he's not deliberately lying to her because he can't acknowledge his feelings to himself. His dinner with Ken is liking looking through a window at a life he can't have. More painful than just not looking at all.
Mark M
2025-08-18 07:07:32 +0000 UTCJust want to say I hope you two stay safe, I've been seeing some awful news and videos of the protests and police brutality over there in Serbia. Hoping the best for your country
Max Carter
2025-08-18 03:16:04 +0000 UTCVery excited for the next episode!
Zosko1
2025-08-18 02:11:05 +0000 UTCI KNOW! He was saying it and I was like damn I feel like I'm reading a F. Scott Fitzgerald book
bondbond53
2025-08-18 02:05:28 +0000 UTCI said this elsewhere, but you really have to see them in person. They're huge, and breathtaking, you can see the individual strokes and layers of paint. It's dope.
Kara
2025-08-18 01:43:11 +0000 UTCThere's a lot of modern and contemporary art that obviously is controversial and also is without a doubt a money laundering scheme but I personally see anyone that scoffs at a Rothko specifically such a knee-jerk reaction. Like of course you can simply dislike it but Rothko's paintings are such an experience of being in front of an impossibly large canvas and staring at the layers of paint and realising how intricate and deliberate each stroke is. How the colours he put in the layers behind the “obvious” colours come out in certain lights. "An abstract painting will react to you if you react to it. You get from it what you bring to it. It will meet you halfway but no further. It is alive if you are. It represents something and so do you. You, sir, are a space, too." If there's any non-"traditional" art that deserves a chance it's a Rothko so it's so funny that in this case specifically Bert sees it as only an investment.
bondbond53
2025-08-18 01:37:03 +0000 UTCI love the painting. The way the camera lingered and slightly zoomed in on it really showcased its beauty & oddly powerful presence.
Taya
2025-08-18 01:34:37 +0000 UTCI actually quite liked the painting. It's the kind I would put in the living room. Do I think that type of art is almost ever worth $100,000? That's another discussion entirely... but value is subjective, I guess.
Gaboxxy
2025-08-18 00:56:55 +0000 UTCRothko and 'modern' art as a whole picks up a lot of crticism. And I understand; to quote Jane "The Survivor" Siegel, it often just looks like some "smudgy squares". I thought so too before I saw one in person. This might sound like 'art school cringe' but seeing it IRL is different. You can move around the room and see the way the light hits the layers of textured oil paint. Looking at a Rothko - any painting really - in real light, with your real eyes is so different from looking at a jpeg on google search or a printed photo in a book, I legit can't explain. It's just not the same, you really do feel something. Still, I always smile at the reveal that it's literally just an investment piece, Bert Cooper would have loved Pokémon cards 🙏😩 Mad Men is so dense, every time I watch the full length i'm like "wait this is the episode where Sal courts Ken AND they do a rothko heist AND don buys a cadillac AND jimmy tells betty AND there's a flashback AND AND AND..." It reminds me of like peak Game of Thrones when the writing was good and 18 things happened in an episode but it all made sense and was paced well. I'm not a car person but the Newport Blue 1962 Cadillac really does something for me, it reminds me of the Fallout games, before every car looked like the same ugly oval. I like the touch to introduce that Don was a car salesman... he seems so much more dodgy trying to sell used cars than ads lol, I like to imagine him walking in and begging for a job. In the flashback he mentions a "new"(ish?) 1950 model, so we can surmise this was probably relatively soon after Don came back from the war, maybe '51, maybe '52. Being a gay man in 1962 sucks but being married to a gay man in 1962 also sucks, there are countless stories... it's understandable but you are depriving another person of real, reciprocal romantic love and life partnership. It's complicated, the best you could hope for besides being open and abandoning society + living in the village or w/e was a 'lavender marriage' between a gay man and a lesbian woman who are open with each other. Lola suggesting Sal is a 'gold violin' is such a good and obvious read, I'm shocked I never thought of it before. I love how Mad Men is able to dip in and out of different characters lives from episode to episode, like how Pete wasn't featured much (at all?) this ep, and when we see them again we have to figure out what happened (if anything) in the interim... It's very realistic, like we can go weeks or months of in-world time before seeing someone again and it all just makes sense. I envy you getting to watch like 3 in a row 😭 at least we get 2 a week!
Kara
2025-08-18 00:31:32 +0000 UTCI’m 28 and even I’m old enough to remember how 20-ish years ago it wasn’t that uncommon for adults to straigh up throw garbage out the window of a moving car like it’s nothing. And I don’t mean a can of soda, but like a whole McDonald’s meal’s worth of trash. People forget how quick western society as a whole has improved in terms of environmental awareness.
Gaboxxy
2025-08-18 00:23:31 +0000 UTCwhen the customer refuses to buy the cadillac: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FqJUVE-WcAAMUuv.jpg
Kara
2025-08-18 00:22:52 +0000 UTCYou might know the car salesman actor as Walter White’s former business partner Elliot Schwartz.
Patrick
2025-08-18 00:16:29 +0000 UTC"All I know is you know him and I know her and there they are and they don't care where we are." What a FANTASTIC line!
Taya
2025-08-18 00:01:18 +0000 UTCI always interpreted Betty's comment "You people" as referring to people in show business. And Jimmy's reply was said jokingly. But now I'm questioning that slightly lol.
Taya
2025-08-17 23:51:01 +0000 UTC"You're garbage. And you know it." That line is the core of the ENTIRE series. All of Don's flaws and self-loathing and general reprehensibility, and the fact that he can't even deny any of it himself. I think you want to say "court jester" (Or just "jester") to describe how Jimmy Barrett could only dance for the powerful people instead of being one of them. One of those very subtle moments in this episode is when Betty says to Jimmy Barrett "You people are ugly and crude". She pauses ever so slightly while saying "you people", and Jimmy snaps "What 'people'? You mean comedians?" Betty meant 'Jews', and we see that she fell back on reflex antisemitism when she couldn't think of any valid response to what Jimmy was saying. Betty is definitely the victim when it comes to her relationship with Don and how Jimmy approached her here, but that doesn't mean she won't instinctively punch down to make herself feel better. I don't think Sal was hitting on Ken in the sense of trying to seduce him romantically or sexually. Sal is VERY careful about not indulging his own desires because of his fear of exposure. He turned down a one night stand stand with that client last season because of the risks of being found out, and with Ken actually working in his own office those risks are massively increased. I think he only expected a family dinner like we saw, because that is the closest he can come to doing what he actually wants to do. Here he can PRETEND that he and Ken are on a date, without ever crossing that line. I think Sal likes Kitty more than Don likes Betty, which is heartbreaking all the way around. Sal is probably more considerate of Kitty in general, and we know he's not cheating or her, but we can see here that being generally pleasant just isn't enough. She doesn't want a friendly roommate, she wants a partner (In every meaning of the word). Kitty wants to be involved in Sal's life, just like Betty wants to be in Don's life, but while Don is choosing not to let Betty in, Sal CAN'T let Kitty in.
JBK405
2025-08-17 23:19:47 +0000 UTCyou have to watch six feet under after mad men you see you can trust us
Josip
2025-08-17 23:19:38 +0000 UTCSo the trash is because they’re rich but also because it’s the 60s it wasn’t so common to be aware about litter and it’s effects
Jude G
2025-08-17 23:12:17 +0000 UTCFascinating analysis of the trash scene in particular, thank you! Around 39:58, the word you're looking for is "jester".
Biberius Caldius Mero
2025-08-17 23:06:03 +0000 UTC
