'Mad Men' Discussion: 'Take Me Like This'

It’s probably a pretty safe bet that the Hare Krishna Wikipedia page has received more traffic in the past 24 hours than it has in quite some time, if not ever, right? With that said, I still have no freaking clue what a Hare Krishna is. And why aren’t they around anymore? (Or are they?) Didn’t they used to hang out in airports looking for people to convert? Were they replaced by the yoga movement or something?

Anyway, here are a few notes I made during last night’s Mad Men about characters, scenes, etc. I found interesting for one reason or another.

– Nice to see Harry Crane, arguably the most overtly horny Mad Men character, finally get some strange. I like how Matt Weiner let’s just about every character explore their tawdry fantasies. Can’t wait to see what he has in store for Rizzo and Ginsberg.

– I don’t know who she was (and was I the only one who thought she was Juliette Lewis at first), but that actress who played Paul Kinsey’s object of affection/scammer was a damn good actress.

– Now that I’ve got my obligatory Weiner praise out of the way, a criticism: what the hell is up with Lane having money problems so severe that he borrows fifty grand secretly so he can then embezzle money from the firm? I mean, where did that come from? Was there any groundwork laid on this storyline previously? It just seems to have come out of nowhere, as if Weiner was sitting around one day and suddenly he thought, “Oh sh*t we haven’t done anything with Lane in a few episodes,” leading him to dream up the tax thing. Frankly, Roger seems to me to be the most likely candidate to be faced with money problems. Also, why couldn’t Lane just go to Don or Roger or Bert or all three and ask for a loan, seeing as how he may have been facing prison time? It all just seems — dare I say it — like lazy storytelling to me.

– With all of that said, maybe it’ll be Lane and not Pete who’s gonna be the one to leap to his death from an office window?

– ROGER STERLING’S CHRISTMAS SHIRT FTW!

– I’m too lazy to research this, but I think Don has been shown napping in his office in every episode this season.

– Nice to see sh*t-faced Don Draper return to action, driving drunk and stumbling home. We don’t get to see that side of him much any more now that he’s happier and doesn’t live in the suburbs.

– It was also nice to see Megan fully embracing being an actress. If you’ve ever dated one, you though all-too-well that most women who call themselves actresses tend to be a little crazy, and Megan seems to swing wildly from being a rock of stability to being a fragile egg ready to crack at any moment. Remember the HoJo incident?

– Moar Joan going off on SCDP underlings, pleez!

– Also, I’m sure it wasn’t a coincidence that Joan crashed a model plane — likely a Mohawk Airlines one — when there’s a Mohawk airlines plane crash looming in the next few months. I suppose one could argue that it also foreshadowed the news later in the episode that Mohawk was suspending its advertising because of a strike.

– OH OH OH…maybe the receptionist whose desk Joan crashed a plane on will die in the Mohawk crash of ’67 and Megan will come back to SCDP to take her place?! Just a thought.

– Finally, we now know for sure that Roger knows that Joan’s baby is his. I take comfort in that.

– “The only sin she’s committed is being familiar.” — Joan Holloway

– Don and Joan make SUCH a great couple. Their chemistry in the rare occasions when they’re alone together is undeniably electric. (Remember them together in the hospital waiting room after the lawn mower incident?) It’s so good that I wish it would happen more often while also happening that it wouldn’t — for the sake of keeping such scenes kind of special occasions — at the same time. Does that make sense? One thing I am sure of: I do not want them to hook up. Ever.

– “My mother raised me to be admired.” — Joan Holloway

– Can I get in a quick word about Veep and Girls? First off, the delightfully profane Veep may be the funniest show on television right now. Seriously, that riff on fat people during the closing credits last night was f*cking gold. And about Girls: is Lena Dunham trying to break some sort of nudity record or something? It seems like she’s naked in every episode! Also, did we really need to see Peter Scolari’s goddamn penis? I can’t unsee that sh*t and neither can you. Thanks a lot, Lena Dunham!

“Last year at this time, whether you knew it or not, the survival of this company was on the line. I look at the faces in this room who have given their all to this tenuous recovery, and I say, prepare to take a great leap forward. Prepare to swim the English channel and drown in champagne. There are six weekends between now and the pitch. We are going to spend them all here. We are going to celebrate Christmas here. We are going to ring in the New Year, together. And in the end, we will represent Jaguar, and it will be worth it. Every agency on Madison Avenue is defined by moment they got their car. When we we land Jaguar, the world will know we’ve arrived.” — Don Draper

Mad Men spinoff idea: “The Redemption of Harry Crane,” a show in which Harry Crane goes around righting all the wrongs he’s committed in his life.

Your thoughts/feelings/observations are of course welcome in the comments.

(GIFs via Chet Manley)

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