Mad Men: Season three, episode five
Five episodes in, and Mad Men has already given us flashbacks and now a dream sequence. Is the drama losing its snap? Or are dream sequences cool again? (Please, no one tell Grey’s Anatomy.) Our top five moments from last night’s Men:
10:06pm: The rep from Sterling Cooper’s parent company, Lane Pryce—we like to think of him as the British nanny sent over from the home office—rips up his employees’ expense reports and announces that he’s investigating the “conspiracy” of a missing credenza. Knowing Mad Men, that missing credenza is going to go off in the last act of the season. Maybe it’s where Peggy’s baby has been hanging out for two seasons? Read more »
Carin Baer/AMC
Mad Men (Season three, episode two)
Don Draper and Co. continued their long, solemn march toward Emmy Awards this week. Don was lusty (again), but things are really getting humming on the business end of things at Sterling Cooper. Our five most exciting moments of the episode (yeah, Don’s father-in-law dealings didn’t make the cut. Yawn!):
10:02 One of the metaphor-heavy clients this week is Patio, a proto–Diet Pepsi. The client wants a commercial that apes Ann-Margret’s performance in Bye Bye Birdie, so in Peggy’s words the firm has to “find a girl who has Ann-Margret’s ability to look 25 and act 14.” In 2009, they’d have to settle for the opposite—preteens that act near-middle aged are a dime a dozen now.
10:04 And the second anvilicious client of the night shows up: Madison Square Garden. They need some PR repair since they’re destroying beautiful Beaux Arts Penn Station to build the future venue for Stephon Marbury’s temper tantrums. Paul calls the MSG design “ambitious, pedestrian and dull,” and he hasn’t even tried to buy a beer there yet. While spewing themes about the passing of the old guard and New York City’s Don Draper–like reinvention, the whole story line just makes us sad about visits to the new underground Penn. Read more »
How ready are you for the big Mad Men premiere on Sunday? Check out our exclusive coverage:
• A premiere preview
• Vincent “Pete” Kartheiser in the Hot Seat: “Our audience might think of [Pete] as slimy and squirmy and kind of weaselly—and he can be all of those things.”
• John “Roger” Slattery answers bold questions: “Am I really going to jump in the sack with this hooker and then go home to my wife?”
• Info on a Mad Men–themed shindig at the Roosevelt Hotel
What are you waiting for? Grab a highball and go to town.
SUNDAY: Mad Men (10pm on AMC)
While we (in the present day) are dealing with job insecurity, so too are those at Sterling Cooper as Mad Men kicks off its third season. When our well-groomed, boozy friends left us, they were mid-merger with British advertising company PP&L. And, as expected, there’s some house cleaning to be done when season three premieres. It’s a hearty serving of juicy office goodness, sexual debauchery, the pop culture evolution of Popsicles, and more insights into the man that was Dick Whitman but is now sexy adman Don Draper.
Who stays and who goes at SC? Anyone hoping to see Pete Campbell’s pink slip is in for a disappointment; he gets some good news, which he then turns into bad news in a way only Pete Campbell can do. (Actor Vincent Kartheiser has plenty to say about his weaselly alter ego.) Back in the burbs, Don and his preggers wife Betty seem to be at peace—but was that lengthy time apart enough to scare Don off his unfaithful ways? Do you really want to bet on it?—Lisa Freedman
For more Mad Men coverage, check out the insider info we scored from the randy half of Sterling Cooper, Roger Sterling (er, actor John Slattery). Can’t get enough ’60s swing? Check back Monday for our day-after episode recap.
The annual Shushan Channel Purim parody party takes on Mad Men in this tease; Amy Sedaris helps.
Mary-Louise Parker at the 2004 Golden Globe Awards
What’s fancy, drunk and ultimately kinda pointless? No, not a New York socialite—it’s the Golden Globe Awards! After being reduced to a press conference last year due to the writers’ strike, the entertainment industry’s loopiest awards show returns in full regalia, Sunday 11 at 8pm on NBC.
Put on by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the show is often giddier than the Academy Awards, and stars have looser tongues—Mary-Louise Parker, left, once thanked “my newborn son for how good my boobs look in this dress.” For the television invitees, the Golden Globes are a somewhat random highlight between annual Emmy Awards. Full nominations are here, but these are our picks for the TV Golden Globes:
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