While not as enchanting as Lane “Belt Buckle o’ Beef” Pryce’s erotically charged Dance of No Veils (sit down, Salome!), Peggy Olson’s variation on the Twist (let’s call it the Hot ‘n Awkard) with her pinko-rag-writing boyfriend Abe Drexler is certainly the most hypnotic Mad Men GIF since Peggy rode that motorcycle. Really, those moves: so socially anxious, and so hot right now! (“Now” being 1966, of course, though I hear vintage is in this season.) Besides, if nothing else, it’s nice to see I’m not the only one who dances like they’re in desperate need of a neck brace. Dance, Peggy, dance! Shake, Abe, shake! And for the love of those fabulous window treatments, DON’T SPILL THAT MARTINI!
I know I should be catching up on irresponsible Mad Men recaps as previously promised, and we’ll definitely get there (sometime before the fifth season, guaranteed!) at some point, but sometimes blog promises of catching up are meant to be blog broken, and this GIF of Peggy Olsen riding around on a red motorocycle is one of them. From last night’s Mad Men episode, “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,” comes the new Mad Men GIF hotness, Peggy riding about on a Honda motorcycle:
So see? I told you it was your new favorite.
And as for GIF of Pete Campbell dancing? You know I love you, baby, and you’ll always be my first, but I think it’s time we started seeing other people.
Oh man, y’all. If there’s one thing that’s great about summer Fridays at my place of work, it’s that I get every other Friday off of work. If there’s one thing that’s not the new hotness, however, it’s that putting in the extra hours to get those precious Fridays off has made me a raggedy-ass bitch when it comes to tending to this particular corner of the interwebs. Blog productivity has shamelessly fallen to the wayside, egregious errors have been made, and I still haven’t gotten around to discussing the eagerly anticipated/probable train wreck that is Burlesque. Sure, this little blog may not buy my bacon and eggs, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel obliged to those of you out there who so kindly indulge my crazy. Anyways, apologies are like the Lost series finale (obligatory, yet wholly unfulfilling), so point being: IT’S TIME TO BUST SOME BLOG ASS AND START GETTING CAUGHT UP ON EVERYTHING. (That’s my motivational speaker voice.)
In the mean time, though, let’s all ponder the following important question:
I remain of the opinion that there’s no such thing as being too sexistMad Men strives to create an accurate–not revisionist–portrait of the 1960s, and leveling charges of sexism at Mad Men confuses the sexual and gender politics of the era with those of the show itself. Mad Men‘s “sexism” is in fact a meta-commentary on sexism, if you will, but that’s just my interpretation. That being said, let’s go watch a short video that attempts to get to heart of the matter:
Well well well, we finally have a recap for “Public Relations” nearly a week after the fourth season of Mad Men premiered? Looks like somebody has certainly been slacking off as of late, and I’m not talking about Don Draper:
Okay, maybe just a little, but the man’s probably been day drinking, so give him some slack. I, on the other hand, have no excuse save for the fact that irresponsible recapping–much like love or hating on sweet potato casserole–means never having to say you’re sorry.
Anyways, the fourth season of Mad Men premiered this past Sunday, which means a whole lot of this was happening, particularly when this scene happened:
Okay, I lied. When Don had The Luckiest Streetwalker in the World (that’s my name for her because that’s what she is) over for a little Thanksgiving stuffing and face slapping, my brain stopped exploding because I was too busy with all the rage strokes. Seriously, someone in Mad Men gets paid to have sex with Don Draper AND slap him across the face, even though anybody in their right mind (or naughty bits) would do that for free? There’s only one acceptable response in situations like this:
Remember that one time in Mad Men‘s second season when Kurt proved himself to be Peggy’s number-one ‘mo and gave her a much needed makeover via one ferocious bob? Of course you do:
It was one of the rare SQUEE!-worthy moments on Mad Men that doesn’t involve Joan saying something bitchy, Trudy wearing an incredible hat, or Peggy being be totally gangsta. Seriously, this was one of the great moments in Mad Men that came as such an unexpected delight that you’d never forget it. Unless, of course, you hadn’t got that caught up in the show yet and I totally ruined the surprise for you, in which case you only remember the incontrollable urge to punch me in the face. Rage blackouts: they happen.
ANYWAYS, The Hollywood Reporter‘s blog The Live Feed has a few new pics from the upcoming fourth season of Mad Men. Most of them are of the non-descript, non-spoilery here’s-Don-Draper-in-a-suit variety, but one of them contains a TOTAL GAME CHANGER, by which I mean Peggy Olsen’s rocking a fabulous new ‘do, bitches:
Let’s just start off by addressing the moment I’m sure we’ve all been buzzing about from last night’s season finale of Mad Men:
That tea set is gorgeous, and those scones look scrumptious. If you’re going to let a person know that you’re selling their company after barely a year of ownership, you damn well do it with fine china and tasty pastries. That’s not good business, y’all. That’s just good manners.
Anyways, in not-as-exciting-as-scones developments, Sterling and Cooper and Draper voted to start a new ad agency, and Lane Pryce is coming along as well:
Seriously, watching the four of them scramble to get everything lined up for Puttnam, Powell, and Lowe was nearly as delicious as I imagine those scones to be. Pete in his bathrobe negotiating his role in the new firm and getting Don to acknowledge his talents? Delightful, and only surpassed by Don’s plea to get Peggy on board as well. But obviously the best part about the forming of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is the fact that–by episodes end–nearly everything I love in this show is all under one roof:
While much of this season, from the utter shock of the John Deere accident to the abject horror of Peggy taking a roll in the hay with Duck Phillips, much of this season of Mad Men has been one surprise after the next; however, one thing that had been foreshadowed from the moment we saw Margaret Sterling’s wedding invitation flash across the screen was John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Well, it finally happened in this past week’s episode:
While my irresponsible blogging instincts have me inclined to skip all the way past all of this quagmire of historical seriousness and get straight to the matching shoes and dress Trudy was going to wear to Margaret’s wedding before Pete decided he was kaput with Sterling Cooper (seriously, that blue was fabu!), I think the above image really sums up what this past week’s episode was actually about, which was watching television.
Seriously, if we weren’t actually watching archival news footage reporting on JFK’s assassination and the subsequent murder of Lee Harvey Oswald this past, we were likely watching someone watching news coverage. While Don assured his kids that everything would remain the same, and Joan assured Roger that the world was still turning as usual, the near omnipresence of the television in this past week’s episode served as a reminder of how things really were changing in the 1960s, and how integral a part television (and particular televised news) would play in this cultural shift that has led to our current era of media oversaturation.
There’s something so antiquated yet prescient about being reminded of a time where news didn’t travel by Facebook or 24-hour news network. Added to that, seeing the phones at Sterling Cooper go dead from the overload was comically surreal in that it was like seeing 1960s version of Twitter go down, but nobody turned to Western Union telegrams to vent their frustration.
My goodness. Has it really been nearly a week since this past week’s Mad Men? Shitfire, y’all, it really has been! And even though the interwebs have already had a week to give us thoroughly considered and Does that mean this week’s Mad Men won’t be recapped? Absolutely not! But does that mean this week’s recap is going to make like a Talking Heads’ concert film and stop making sense? You’d best believe it!
First things first, serious talk and schadenfreude :
I mean, I hate to sound like an unsympathetic monster, but there was something waaay too satisfying having to watch her walk back home after spending half an evening hunched down in the passenger’s seat of Don’s car. Seriously, I’d about had enough watching Don and Suzanne wreak havoc on my eyeballs plan their romantic getaway vacation this episode, but fortunately Betty and the kids came back early from their trip to Grandpa Eugene’s house, which brings us to the serious talk:
Responsible Mad Men recapping blogs probably try and follow the narrative arch of the episode, and they’d probably delve a little more into the fact that Sterling Cooper is once again up for sale, which makes Lane Pryce sad and his wife very happy. I am not that blog. Now let’s do this thing irresponsible style!
So Paul Kinsey was intimidated by Peggy and her keen improvisational skills, and then he got too drunk while working on his Western Union account. This taught us all the important lesson that you should always write down the brilliant ideas that you have when you’re drunk so you don’t forget them. If he had written it down, we’d have instead learned the equally important lesson that the brilliant ideas that you have when you’re drunk are never as brilliant in the sober light of day, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyways, Peggy fortunately used his screw up to save him, and I was I left baffled that telegrams were something people still actually used in 1963. Also, maybe it’s just me and my love of all things of questionable taste, but Aquanet is doing wonders to Peggy’s hair.
In other plot lines, Don’s relationship with Suzanne Farrell unfortunately continues to happen:
I find this plot to be like the narrative version of Ipecaca, and I blame this largely on the fact that Ms. Farrell hasn’t once seemed interesting enough to warrant such of devotion. A scene with a Maypole, a drunk dial, and a few lines of straight up crazy is all it takes to have Don Draper all up in your lady business in a serious sort of way? I’m deeply unimpressed with the both of them. And the fact that the writers continue this charade.
The lone silver lining to their bumping uglies, though, came in the form of Suzanne’s epileptic brother, Danny, who was helped by Don to do what else? Pull a Don Draper. That’s just him being philanthropic by sharing his secret to happiness and success: it comes from running away from the unpleasant parts of your identity. Or, in Don’s case, all of it. You may be constantly haunted by your past and incapable of genuine human intimacy, but at least you’ll get signing bonuses and shiny awards at the fortieth anniversary Sterling Cooper parties. Fair trade, I’d say.
And speaking of fortieth anniversary Sterling Cooper parties, Trudy Campbell’s party ensemble was some kind of wonderful:
