TV « In Which Never Go With A Hippie To A Second Location »
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 6:17AM 
Who Knew Duck Had It In Him?
by MOLLY LAMBERT
Oh shit flashbacks? Mad Men is getting LOST up in this bitch. What's next, smoke monsters? Polar bears? Alternate histories? What if Chauncey the dog never really did run away? What if he's actually the new head of Sterling-Cooper? Then they could change the title of the show to Mad Dogs And Englishmen.
Let's be honest. Peggy only fucked Duck because Don negged her. Haven't we all done this? Transferred the neg from the person we actually like onto whoever happens to be around? Jeez though Peggy, just because you're being a slut doesn't mean you have to fuck everybody. I mean, it's Duck. He's gross and terrible, even if he does want to tear your clothes off with his teeth. He makes Pete Campbell look like a sensible choice.
He likes the smell of liquor on your breath. Run away Peggy! Run away!
Duck Phillips is a slimy creeper. Don doesn't read the bible. Betty is a child. Joan is MIA. I am starting to relate most to Bert Cooper. That guy knows what the fuck is up.
What are you going to be doing three years from now? Three years ago, what did you think you'd be doing now? If you want to retain personal independence and ultimate freedom, you better not let your boss know about your secret identity. Maybe it's because if you start thinking further than a week down the road it makes it a lot harder to justify boinking the hot elementary school teacher.
This is not Californication, Don! There are rules!
"They want me, but they can't have me," says Don. Don only knows what it's like to be wanted. His life is filled with stewardesses, Jewesses, Greenwich Village poetesses, and sundry other tang. Don Draper has never woken up next to a bad decision. Even his mistakes (Bobbie Barrett) don't seem to bother him very much. Don cannot possibly understand how Peggy feels about a number of things.
Some people get mad at Mad Men for being too oblique, setting up scenes that are shot suspensefully, as if something might go one way, and then it goes entirely another. This was also some people's criticism of There Will Be Blood, one I never agreed with. I'm not sure what to call this genre. Post-suspense?
We are often shown guns that never go off, usually to distract us from the unforseen ones that eventually do. Mad Men is full of red herrings and dead ends. In that respect it reminds me of the work of Paul Auster. However, two characters that seemed to serve no purpose initially, Henry Francis and Conrad Hilton, have both turned up.
Matthew Wiener has learned from David Chase the extreme comedic value of objects. The fainting chaise that Betty has now made the hideous new centerpiece of the hearth is a gag, of sorts. The lawnmower last week was an excellent gag. Sopranos objects of value that I recall are Gloria Trillo's steak, the Russian's leg, and Big Mouth Billy Bass. A well placed object can be poignant and funny instead of theatrically "symbolic."
Like the ghost of your father in a rocking chair with a jar of hillbilly moonshine?
Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She tumbls here.
mad men, molly lambert
Reader Comments (6)
There were no hippies in 1963. Beats, yes. Bohemians, yes. Bums, yes, Grifters, yes. Scammers, yes. Hippies, no.
It looks to me like Don picked up Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate. He was lucky to wake up with just a bloody nose and a Phenobarbitol 'n' booze hangover, instead of dead.
If he had, the rest of the series would have been little Bobby seeing HIS dad materialize with a bottle of Canadian Club, instead of a jug of corn likker.
Not one, but TWO bum links... ahhh, you kids today know how to use Wikipedia. Guess it's time for us ol' hippies to hit the ice floe.
no angry enough
The elephant slash orca the killer whale in the room is how did Conrad Hilton wangle the bartending gig at Sterling's wedding?
Oh man, Peggy was negged so hard. So hard. Nailed it, Molly.
Starkweather and Fugate wouldn't work anachronistically - I don't see Weiner going the way of putting direct interactions with historical figures (beyond the Medgar Evars flashback).
Don driving on 'ludes was brilliant but even moreso was his negging of Peggy. Am I wrong to think she sorta deserved it?