The title ‘The Other Woman’ is of course a reference to the angle the SCDP creatives originally take when brainstorming for their Jaguar pitch: positioning the E-Type as a beautiful, exciting mistress. However, it also brings to mind the inevitable comparisons the episode raises between Peggy and Joan. Following up on the diverging paths the two women have taken throughout the series, ‘The Other Woman’ focuses on sudden, unexpected progressions in their respective careers, and—more to the point—how those progressions are achieved. Peggy, after nearly an entire season of being passed over, under-appreciated, and now downright disrespected by Don, is once again encouraged by someone else to do something about it. Freddy Rumsen, her first champion all the way back in the ‘Basket of Kisses’ days, offers her a solution. Peggy wants to seek offers from other firms to metaphorically throw in Don’s face after he literally throws money in hers in an unwarranted fit of temper. Freddy feels that Peggy is being held back at SCDP and can really ‘shine elsewhere’, so suggests she …

1In a recent article about Mad Men published in The New York Review of Books Daniel Mendelsohn settles the score with the show’s writers and creators.2 Startled by the unanimous global praise of the show, and horrified by what he sees as an uncritical mass following (exemplified not only by the audience ratings, but also by the commercial success of Mad Men-inspired commodities), he sets out to solve the mystery of the show’s popularity.3 Mendelsohn’s opinion about  the show is best summed by this dense and jarring quote, which sets up the scene for the reviewers’ interpretation of the popularity of the show: “The writing is extremely weak, the plotting haphazard and often preposterous, the characterizations shallow and sometimes incoherent; its attitude toward the past is glib and its self-positioning in the present is unattractively smug; the acting is, almost without exception, bland and sometimes amateurish.” Since Mad Men, according to Mendelsohn, doesn’t fulfill any  standards of a good TV show, standards, he as a critic is qualified to assess, there must be some other …

Firmly ensconced in the middle of the 1960s, the fifth season of Mad Men has begun to reflect some of the “youthquake” that shaped much of our popular perception of this period.  Don and Harry tried to recruit the Rolling Stones for a Heinz campaign, and Don’s birthday party which started the season visualized the culture clash through the wardrobe of the revelers.   Pete and Trudy, whose masterful Charleston had once cleared the dance floor in season 3 (3:3 “My Old Kentucky Home”) at Rodger’s country club party, are no longer the center of the party.  They have been replaced by Megan’s distinctly inter-racial group of friends in their slim slacks, mod prints, boas, and mini-skirts. 1 Pete’s loud madras plaid sport coat speaks to the peacock male trend among young men, but in a distinctly conservative way (new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce employee Michael Ginsberg embraces the look more fully with his pattern on pattern looks this season).  Trudy’s bright flower mini-dress hints at psychedelia, but its flower print and modest cut make it down …

In this week’s episode each of the characters featured in “Far Away Places” have a moment where their self-understanding is challenged by a reflection of something else. Peggy listens to Ginsburg, but watches him in a window while he relates his hope that he is an alien, and not an orphan born in a concentration camp. She then decides to cling to at least some traditional femininity in her relationship with Abe in order to keep Ginzburg’s ghostly loneliness away. While tripping on acid, Roger speaks in a mirror with the Don Draper that lives in his head. He chooses to speak to his wife that night with only the truth in mind; they decide to divorce. Don looks out of the meeting room and sees the skyscrapers of Madison Avenue, which reflect back onto him. Don remains silent, implying that he must decide if the business will define him, or he it.     We came back to this season not knowing what to expect in the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce family. Historically, 1966 …

At the outset of season five’s seventh episode, Sally and Glen have a phone conversation wherein Glen makes a sure-fire prediction: “You’ll see when you break up,” Glen says. “It hurts.” Instead of commiserating with Glen, Sally puts up a front. “Not for the girl,” she replies. Instantly, the show sets up its interest in emotional pain and, moreover, how that pain registers within the awkward transition from girlhood to womanhood. By the end of the episode, Sally is back on the phone with Glen, having just returned from the Cancer Society dinner where she accidentally discovers Roger, her pretend-date, receiving oral sex from Marie, Megan’s mother.   “How’s the city?” Glen asks. Shaken by the experience, Sally articulates her feelings metaphorically: “Dirty,” she replies. Cut to black, roll credits, leaving us wondering why she uses that word. “Dirty” doesn’t capture the look of horror on Sally’s face earlier in the episode, when she’s trying to process the image of Marie’s head bobbing up and down over Roger’s lap. Nor does it describe Sally’s dejected …

  Mad Men, of course, has always been a show about work. And although the characters seem to like one another, or at least many of them do, their connection, after all, isn’t so much friendship but a common pursuit – they work in an advertising agency together. Viewers have had pretty good access to the home of Don and Betty Draper during the first three seasons of the show, but Season Five of Mad Men has repeatedly taken us into the homes of its main characters in a way that it hasn’t before – as a means of delving deeper into their stories and giving us further refractions of their selves. What has been especially compelling about these at-home moments has been the tension between what we know of the characters from work and how we see them at home. From the very first episode, which began with Sally Draper awakening in an unfamiliar apartment and wandering into Don and Megan’s bedroom and culminated with its amazing set piece of Megan’s surprise party for …