Margaux and I return to where it all started, as we review Mad Men‘s midseason premiere.
Trevor: It feels great to be back reviewing Mad Men with you. That’s where all this co-reviewing madness started, when season 7A started – holy shit, a year ago? Fuckin Matthew Weiner.
Margaux: It’s a ballsy move to assume your audience will still be there, waiting, nearly a year later just to see Mad Men end, but that’s the kind of hold Weiner has on us with these characters.
I will say, save for forgetting about the McCann-Erickson merger, not much has changed. I almost felt like we were back at the start of Mad Men in the opening diner scene with Don, Roger (and his Sonny Bono mustache) and their ladies for the evening. Lo and behold, it can be 1960 or 1970 and these characters are usually exactly as we’ve left them.
Trevor: Yes, we need to talk about the mustache situation. It’s just so great. Roger is even more of an irascible prick with some facial hair. God I missed him. Even Ted seems to have embraced his inner Ron Burgundy; he seems a lot looser and more easygoing. Remember, he’s the guy who killed the engine of a plane that he was flying last season. 7A, whatever. (I fucking hate this split-season trend. THANKS OBAMA.)
But you’re right about “Severance” ably picking up where 7A left off. Right away, it feels like 7B will be its own beast – the time jump is largely responsible for that – but if the premiere is any indication, season 7 as a whole could be weirdly cohesive. (This is always a show that’s played fast and loose with reality anyway, so if you were binge watching this season I don’t think it would be that jarring to have a time jump right there in the middle.)
Margaux: For whatever it’s worth, it does feel like the show is wrapping up any loose ends; I was surprised to see Rachel Menken’s ghost make an appearance, but she has always had that, One Who Got Away vibe to her, so it was a pleasant surprise to have that neatly tied up. And in a show where almost all of its main characters always come up short on their version of happiness, it was nice to know that even though Rachel had passed away, at least someone on this damn show got a “happy ending”.
It sure as hell ain’t gonna be Ken, who is the one I’ve always secretly hoped would escape Ad agency life and finally become some L. Ron Hubbard-esque successful sci-fi writer. Maybe I just side with his wife because she was Alex Mac on The Secret Life of Alex Mac, I just trust someone who could turn herself into a liquid for some reason.
Trevor: Holy shit, she totally was. What is up with Mad Men casting 90s stars? They had Rory Gilmore on last season, and I think in season five Mr. Belding played a market researcher.
I liked seeing Rachel too. Very unexpected. I mean, Mad Men has always been obsessed with death – it’s in the damn opening credits – but it wore its heart firmly on its sleeve in “Severance.” When that stewardess spilled the red wine on Don’s rug, it very much looked like a bloodstain. And what was that waitress called? Oh right, Diana, but naturally she goes by “Di.” Oh, and the title of the episode was “Severance,” for Christ’s sake!
And I think you’re forgetting about a little Star Trek spec writer named PAUL KINSEY, the real sci-fi king of Mad Men. Goddamn did Ken get shit all over last night.
Margaux: Speaking of opening credits, I’m starting to think Don is more likely to die of syphilis at this point than suicide. But I digress…
The waitress named Di, another woman Don manages to make accidentally feel like a hooker, was a little on the nose. But Don’s obsession of “knowing her from somewhere,” while grappling with seeing ghosts, is an all too familiar flaw of Draper’s that made me go, “oh geez, this again.” Not really in a bad way, juxtaposing Don’s familiar sexual harassment with Di later on, with the opening diner scene of Roger and their 70s ladies; Don is telling lighthearted tales of growing up in a brothel. Which was sort of shocking to hear coming from Don’s mouth, since we’ve long come to know his past as Draper’s Secret Shame. It left me wondering how much of Don has really changed. He’s still banging through most of New York and sleeping all morning in his office, in between fur coat castings, it’s all coming full circle for Don. I guess the question becomes, how much longer will be he able to keep it up?
Trevor: Those are all good points. It was kind of weird to hear the word “whore” tumbling so freely from Don’s mouth. It seems like a weird hybrid Don, where he’s regressed to season one’s womanizer, but he’s also embraced this new, freer, ethos of the 1970s (notice that he didn’t share any scenes with Peggy, who has always been his best foil). His behavior, coupled with Rachel’s death, is a nice return to season one, but it has an edge to it. Di has sex with him in an alley because she believed he paid her to; Rachel dies from leukemia – I’m thinking that Don is a literal poison, something that degrades anything it touches.
Margaux: Well, this review just got 100% more depressing.
Trevor: “Severance” really wanted us to hate McCann-Erickson, didn’t it? The marketing guys were so vile and sexist that it turned the corner into dark comedy, and Donnelly fired Ken over a spat they had six years ago. (I did love Ken getting his revenge by becoming Dow’s new marketing guy. I also love that he’s still rocking the pirate patch.)
Margaux: I was initially giddy at the idea of Ken making Roger and Pete do little tap dances for him, but then, it ended up actually making me very sad for Ken. I completely understand the feeling of, ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’, after 20 years and Ken’s eyeball, Roger just folds like a house of cards and lets some prick at McCann-Erickson fire Ken over some dumbass grudge from a zillion years ago. But Ken WOULD look so cool on a book jacket with his eyepatch, taking the job at Dow just to fuck with Roger and Pete, long-con style, I can’t get behind it. Like I said, I really was hoping Ken would be the character to fart on everyone’s desk, while flipping double birds, leaving the office – never to come back.
Trevor: Happy endings are unlikely on this show. It traffics in ennui and existentialism too much. I think it’s telling that “Severance” was bookended by Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is?”
Let’s talk about Peggy’s date and trip to Paris (?). Of pretty much everyone, I want Peggy to have a happy ending. Girl has a weird life.
Margaux: With the exception of Abe, Peggy has a knack for going out with guys that come across weak-willed yet also, rapey. Seriously, if you didn’t order the veal, why the shit are you going to eat someone’s else dinner? I just…didn’t understand that. And I was happy when Peggy turned down Mathis’ offer of setting her up at first, given how…emotional Peggy can get around the office when her love life is going south (ahem, Valentine’s Day Rose Gate 1969), she will DEF take it all out on Mathis.
Also, have I mentioned I found her date to be very creepy? Peggy likes the creepy-weirdos.
Trevor: She should have jumped on the Rizzo train when he kissed her. Did you see how good his beard looked last night?
Peggy’s love life has always been one of Mad Men’s weirder facets. In the first episode, she tried to sleep with Don (because it was expected of her), but ended sleeping with Pete and having his baby. She also at one point gave a handjob to a stranger in a theater, and she and her last boyfriend broke up when she STABBED HIM. Goddamn, on paper this is a really weird show.
Margaux: I wonder what Peggy’s Tinder profile would read like.
Anyhoodle, speaking of Peggy’s relationship carry over from season 1, doesn’t seem like her and Joan will ever end up getting along long enough for their Catholic Schoolgirl vs Popular Mean Girl differences rear up. And Peggy says some straight up, sexist shit right to Joan’s face. Yay, sisterhood?
Trevor: Yeah, it was like Peggy was weirdly…jealous? That the M-E guys weren’t objectifying her. I’m sure I’m oversimplifying her thought process, but that scene in the elevator could possibly spawn a thousand think pieces, and the Internet doesn’t need any more of those.
Margaux: I agree that Peggy is and has been lime-green jelly of Joan since Joan, in Peggy’s eyes, easily went from secretary to partner. The way Peggy spits out, “you’re filthy rich,” hints at way more than Peggy being jealous of Joan’s objectification – Peggy’s sort of been through that, she totally ignored those M-E frat-douches and their lazy, sexist jokes. I think Peggy wants Joan to be thrown in the fire more, so to speak; Peggy doesn’t think Joan is worthy of her post yet, she hasn’t earned the way Peggy has.
And Joan, no matter her wealth or rank, will always be the Mean Girl. The way she clapped back at the shop girl about not needing a discount nor has she ever being in the position of debasing herself to take a – gasp – job as a salesgirl.
Trevor: That’s absolutely true. And I think Peggy will always harbor a deep-seated resentment towards Joan, because Peggy worked her ass off to get where she is, and Joan, for all her qualifications and intelligence, literally slept her way into a partnership.
Goddamnit, I could talk about “Severance” all day. Our Mad Men reviews are consistently the longest on the site. Pretty sure we’ve done Bad Movie Reviews that aren’t as long.
Margaux: This is going to sound like a lie, but I think I missed the nonsensical Mad Men previews for next week. It’s nice that our longer reviews aren’t just 1000+ hate-words on Snow Day anymore.
Trevor: The “next week on” always plays like a subtle fuck you to people who need some sort of incentive to tune in.
You wanna talk stars? I’m thinking four and a half.
Margaux: I want to knock off some stars because AMC made us wait so long, only for there to already only have 5 episodes left, but I won’t get take my anger with the network out on “Severance” – it was just too good. I second your four and half stars.
About Author
