TV In Which I Could Have Had You In My Life Forever If I'd Wanted
Monday, November 3, 2008 at 9:00AM 
I Landed The Popsicle Account
by Molly Lambert
Jon Hamm was the host of SNL last week. We were warned by Paul Rudd, but yes Hamm is indeed naturally very funny and charismatic. As one ONTD commenter who watched Hamm's SNL performance put it, "He's super handsome but I feel like the episode would have been better if I actually watched Mad Men. In other news he is still super freakin handsome." Indeed.
Alex's Mad Men finale review is on Gawker.
ONTD commenters break it down:
"Peggy fuckin' rocked that shit last night. i know that's not very eloquent of me, but it's true."
"Don's like a really sexy professor who you imagine having sex with during class. he's just that handsome"
"I've only seen this show like twice but omg that lady with the red hair is so fucking fierce."
This last episode from last week was called "Meditations In An Emergency." Bridget Moloney wrote about Frank O'Hara on This Recording. Like Don Draper/Dick Whitman she also debated the respective merits of Los Angeles and New York.
Betty Draper, wishing the examination table vibrated
Betty's olde-tymey hospital room reminds us that hospitals were not always clean and white and germophobic looking. It's so claustrophobic with the heavy curtains and patterned wallpaper. It's so cold that Dr. Paternalism has to wear a little plaid scarf.
Peggy loves nothing more than hanging out with the boys. Pete trying to get sympathy from Peggy is so ridiculous. Another one of Don and Peggy's similarities is they both give out advice that they don't really believe in order to comfort overly emotional people, which those people take really seriously and make life-changing decisions based around.
"Trust me, I'm an extremely handsome man"
Duck and Pete boozing it up and bonding over their failures as men. They bonded before over Chauncey when Pete said he thought having a dog in the office made it more down to earth and folksy. I imagine Duck and Pete both feel sorry for each other, which is kind of even more pathetic.
"If Don shows up he'll fall in line." Fall in line? Did Tony Soprano fall in line? Did Jimmy McNulty fall in line? Did The Fonz fall in line? This is Don Draper. He brushes past you cutting to the front of the line and then winks and you shiver in erotic terror.
Take the edge off with some Mad Men fan fiction we found. This Recording loves fan fiction because it's literary outsider art. Here's that Salvatore Romano/Ken Cosgrove slash you've been dreaming about since "The Gold Violin."
Bill Hader, looking like Sal from Mad Men mixed with Silvio Dante
Another sixties setting cliché explored, the suburban beauty shop, "Betty you're wan" I think they're playing Ennio Morricone in the background of this scene. There was too much Sarah Jane and not enough Francine Hanson this season.
season 2 Betty Draper has been all "betch plz"
"Sometimes the best thing is just to do nothing and wait." Can we agree that while this statement might be true in some other circumstances, it is not sage advice for a pregnant person?
Bets goes looking for Mr. Goodbar
Betty staring in the window at the mannequins with a jazzy horn playing, going into a bar alone. Inside the bar it looks like an ad for scotch, while Betty orders a gimlet and smokes alone. Then she learns the first rule of bars, if you are a girl by yourself in a bar some dude will decide it is his job to befriend you.
A Cobble Hill bar like the one Betty Draper cuckolded Don in
Luckily for Betty, her Goobdar is a junior Don who buys her drink. Betty, newly empowered and turning down strange left and right, tells this guy to go fuck himself and sadly waits for the bathroom to stop being occupied.
wait on second thought actually hayyyyyyyyyy
Junior Don kisses her in the foyer and she's pretty into it. She can't be that drunk off of one (delicious) gimlet. She tells him she's married and they go in the door to fuck in the, where we are reminded of the complicated machinery that was 1960s hosiery. Meanwhile the little Drapers watch TV. The Beav berates a girl into dating him.
Peggy's new haircut is fierce. I wish Father Colin Hanks wouldn't go so hard on her. "Hell is serious and very real." "I understand that father but you're upsetting me right now." Peggy is the best.
Betty eats a seductive midnight drumstick of sin like that time Don drank the wholesome milk of evil-minded adultery.
As always, Pete is such a snitch. "Why are you telling me this?" because I have a hot man bonar for you Don, no "I just thought if I was you, I would want to know." You will never be Don, Pete, because you suck at keeping secrets (among other reasons).
I'm writin u a 4 page letter, and I enclosed it with a kiss
OMG Don is apologizing in a letter on hotel stationary. "Without you I'll be alone forever. I love you, Don." If this were 2008 would he be like texting her all "BETTY ILU".
Wow at Duck calling out Don's artistic temperament. "because he loves this room and hearing his own voice and saving the day." I kind of love those things too. In case you didn't know, Alex Carnevale is now the Don Draper to Nick Denton's Roger Silver at the Gawker Corporation.
Oh Pete. You missed your window budday!
Peggy delivers the verbal smack-down to Pete we've been waiting for all season and it's even better than I expected. This is on the level of the time Irene told Steven he was a homosexual on The Real World Seattle and then he threw her teddy bear off the bridge. Peggy is too good for Pete anyway.
Peggy crossing herself before she goes to sleep. She unburdened herself, not to Father Creep but to her original creepy man-friend Pete. For some reason the smart funny and adorable Peggy attracts only weirdos and gay guys as partners. I have no idea what that must be like. We're holding out for a Peggy Olson/Ken Cosgrove OTP.
Oh Betty. "I...I'm pregnant." She should've kept riding horses, maybe they could have dragged Don's fetus away. Nobody wants Don and Betty to stay together. It was cool when she shot that bird that one time but we are ready to see her with her top off at Woodstock. And on a Richard Yatesian note of despair, season two is over. We'll have to find something else to oversaturate this site with coverage of.
Christina Hendricks w bf Geoff Arend
"Our group really enjoys a party. let's just say that."
- Xtina Hendricks
The aftershow segment was cute. Everyone looks weird in modern clothes. I will really miss this show during its lengthy hiatus. Don't fuck up Matthew Weiner's contract, Lionsgate!
Matthew Wiener is hilarz. Vincent Kartheiser calls Matt "a big poppa bear." Elisabeth Moss has the creepy no-stare of a scientologist but always looks so pretty in real life and is such a good actress. Robert Morse is chill. John Slattery is a fox. All the office boys look weird with modern day floofy hair.
A very Sopranos-y tone to this finale. Sort of that ambiguous changing of the seasons feeling we all love. Not the stone cold masterpiece that last season's ender "The Wheel" was, but second seasons are always hard. You're changing and finding yourself. Kind of like the characters of Mad Men. Or the tumultuous nineteen sixties. I'm already nostalgic for season 2.
Alex asked me what I thought about all this stuff I just finished telling you about. I didn't know what the hell to say. If you want to know the truth, I don't know what I think about it. I'm sorry I told so many people about it.
About all I know is, I sort of miss everybody I told about. Even old Joy and Anna Draper, for instance. I think I even miss that goddam Bobbie Barrett. It's funny. Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.
Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording
The Yellow Princess - John Fahey: (mp3)
Lion - John Fahey: (mp3)
Irish Letter - John Fahey: (mp3)
PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING:
Gossip Girl: Spotlight On Chuck Bass
Who The Frick Let Betty Drive That Thing?
This Recording Votes Obama/Biden/Finger/Deldeaux In '08
Reader Comments (1)
A lovely wrap-up, thanks.