就像劇情進(jìn)展的態(tài)勢(shì)一樣， 整部劇的宗旨并不只是don身上的善惡毀滅希望并存因而造就了一個(gè)性格豐富的主角，他做這些事的目的，歸根結(jié)底的利我性推動(dòng)了他自己的生活，也反映了整個(gè)廣告圈的運(yùn)作模式，好時(shí)想植入一個(gè)關(guān)于父愛童年的廣告觀看聯(lián)想，don可以毫無(wú)破綻地編造出，因?yàn)檫@是他的職業(yè)素養(yǎng)，也是作為don draper這個(gè)編造的身份應(yīng)有的童年——中產(chǎn)階級(jí)的，家庭和睦、童年完整的，但是骯臟齷齪的童年，那種只有通過(guò)躲在妓院幫妓女偷錢才能吃到一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)好時(shí)巧克力的孩子其實(shí)更加記得那個(gè)味道，記得巧克力的甜蜜與美好，這可惜麥迪遜大街乃至整個(gè)世界都不會(huì)關(guān)照弱者，他們會(huì)為馬丁路德金被殺而悲慟，卻不愿意和街上的黑人說(shuō)話，商業(yè)社會(huì)只有利益支撐，don沆瀣一氣地“我受夠你們了我要發(fā)泄我要做真實(shí)的自我”換來(lái)的也許是在場(chǎng)每個(gè)人的同情心一分鐘，但轉(zhuǎn)而就會(huì)變成一分鐘的利益流失。他們不需要同情心，不需要真實(shí)，廠商和廣告人，他們只需要美好。為了更多地利益他們投入更多的錢去買一個(gè)更虛華的故事，而作為廣告人只能被卷入這個(gè)利益圈套里喪失自我。

Mad Men 609 'The Better Half' Recap


So. This was the episode that Mad Men went totally MAD.

‘You obviously had a traumatizing experience.’ Peg said.

‘Don’t patronize me.’ Abe answered.

S6E9 revisited the traumatizing experience, casting the shadow of confusion, chaos and violence on those who were not on the spot and claimed that a few lunatics would not ruin their gorgeous nights.

As if answering to Don’s epiphany in the last episode - It is nothing but history that holds people together, people of the past did appear or was mentioned in this episode. Here was Duck. And they mentioned the late Pryce and Gleason and Robert Kennedy.

Due to its role that drew people together, the past was obliged to be something precious and wonderous. Or, as the popular ‘Planet of the Apes’ indicated, the past was ‘the paradise’. Soon after Duck disclosed that the wellspring of his confidence was his family, we saw a family-reunion - in a camp site or a countryside b&b. Lost in the amazement of the oozing sweetness of Bobby and his handsome father and beautiful mother, we found ourselves cannot but agree with Duck- Family could be paradise-y.

Or could it?

Because it was an episode about the collapsing of family and of loving couples. Its theme wasn’t Duck’s motto, it’s Betty’s - ‘Loving you is the worst way to get closer to you’.

The couples, if not families, broke up. It sent a thrill down the spine of mine to see Abe accused Peg ‘you are always the enemy’. Maybe he was confused, or maybe it was true and it was because he said nothing and we couldn’t tell that he had long been frustrated about his girlfriend being a conservative high-brow bread-maker. But the accusement still was horrible, as horrible as the stabbing (why people keep stabbing??), considering of the high possibility that he might not survive and the accusement would hurt and haunt Peg, for, like, ever. To quote Arlene, you could not disagree, but you didn’t have to embarrass or in this context destroy, her. This scene resembled the previous quarrel between Pete and Trudy. Pete could not tell Trudy the unspeakable deeds of her father, yet he did. Anyhow, thanks God Abe made it.

Then it was the issue between Peg and Ted. It did not work out. It was like a blow in the face to see two men closing the door with unconscious indifference in front of Peg, in the acme of her vulnerablity. But in the end, there was nothing wrong with Ted being the guy who went to bed before 2 p.m., otherwise it would be too confusing.

To stop the confusion, Joan asked Roger to stop dropping by without notice. ‘I know you want to. But I can’t count on that’, Joan shrugged when Roger claimed that he only wanted to be around.

‘The forbidden zone is once a paradise.’ This depressed episode was a manifesto of the invalidity of love of all sorts, showing that love was a mere intermezzo, a midway thing. It was in the constant threat of violence - the robbery, the neighbourhood chaos, the stabbing spines, the words of wrath. Midway it was cut short. And you went astray, finding yourself alone in the darkness of the forbidden zone.

Maybe Matthew Weiner was confused or maybe it did happen. Alert when you are in love, but the other part just says ‘I missed you.’

Don’t count on that. Take a note.

MM 613 'In Care Of' Recap


The last episode of season 6 of Mad Men encapsulated runaway of all forms besides showing all the serious and casual commitments being made and broken.

‘If you wanna run, I’d do it now.’ - Pete

S6E13 wrapped up the whole season of the mad late 1960s showing the aftermath of being casual at decision-making whilst tagging the whole period as ‘not serious’.

‘Hershey’s isn’t serious’ about advertising. Teenages were not serious about drinking and law; men were not serious about their families and children; people were not serious about making promises. Don, the most notorious among all, breached work taboo and were considered not serious about clients and campaign presentations (Hershey’s, Sheraton, newspaper and tabacco, to name just a few). All they wanted was run.

Ted promised that he would leave his wife and escaped to Hawaii with Peg. Don told Megan they would move to L.A. and be happy again. Sally went to a boarding school to stay away from her always-occupied-and-couldn’t-pick-her-children mother and her ‘immoral’ dad. Even Pete’s mother ran away and got married with Manolo, both of whom ended up disappearing into thin air. Trudy said to Pete, who lost his mother, left his families and moved to the south, ‘You are free from everything.’

The men made decisions easily. To shoot two not one presidents, to start a war, to kill civil rights leader and innocent people on a foreign land. They were the decision-makers. And those who were being made the decisions were voiceless and vacant in the pictures.

‘You probably dictate the memo right to her and had no idea she’d be affected.’ - Stan

Stan’s remark was not just about Dawn, whose appearance and subplots in the whole season were disappointly scarce and had no punchline whatsoever, it also rang true for Peg and Ted.

Though I was for a moment believing that Ted would leave his wife and be with Peg and got really excited for the next season of this couple-to-be, I felt punched in the face when the guilty-look Ted showed up in Don’s office asking Don to put three hundred miles between him and Peg. But you must admit, what Ted did was right. Nevertheless, whatever he decided to do, the memo of divorce or breaking up would still hurt the other woman in his bed, badly.

The words were broken. The women were left to be disappointed. Yet as Roger pointed out, ‘you learn more from disappointment than you do from success’, will the women whose husband, lover, dad failed them, stood up and learned something? Looking at the silouette of Peg in Don’s office, I knew she would (and Peg&Elizabeth Moss was never an disappointment on the screen). Sally was looking at her father in the eye before the deserted two-story house that had once been a brothel and home to her father. I hoped she would pull her young self together and saw something big from the experience that her father went through, from a ragged boy to a man in clean suits and tie and hat. As Meg darted out of the flat, I was fingercrossing and wished she would not be written off the show(as what was done to her part in her show). The scenario of Don taking away Stan’s opportunity bore a resemblance to what Megan did to her European friend in the last episode of season five, yet we failed to see more dark and manipulative side of Megan this season. I hoped to see the independent-minded Megan of power return next year.

SC&P decided that they could survive with a casual vacancy. And indeed, it would not be too much to ask that this casual vacancy could remind Don of his responsibility since he would sure see the firm run normally, if not perfectly, without him.

Take a break.

‘Don’t you always go home, though? ’ - Peggy

       享受著夏威夷碧藍(lán)的天空、大海，金色的沙灘，還有年輕的Megan穿著比基尼陪伴在身邊，Don的所讀所想和周圍的一切格格不入。是什么讓Don始終無(wú)法和Megan一樣盡情享受這個(gè)由資本打造出來(lái)的夢(mèng)幻天堂？或許是因?yàn)樾蚜说娜嗽僖不夭坏綁?mèng)中，Don在Mad men里一直扮演的就是清醒、無(wú)畏的戰(zhàn)士，正是作為一個(gè)從不自欺的人，他才有能力制造出令人沉醉的商品廣告，就像魔術(shù)師通曉表演的背后的玄機(jī)。在酒吧里，Don遇到了一個(gè)將赴越戰(zhàn)的士兵，他似乎說(shuō)出了Don欲說(shuō)的臺(tái)詞：“他們送我到這里來(lái)度假，難道沒(méi)發(fā)現(xiàn)這里和那兒（戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)）是一樣的嗎？”地點(diǎn)、風(fēng)景、身邊的人在不斷變化，生活卻始終是生活。區(qū)別僅僅在于，在戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)上死亡和生活的無(wú)常顯得如此真切，而在這個(gè)夢(mèng)幻之島上生活的陰暗面被一張帷幕遮蓋了起來(lái)，只剩下舞臺(tái)前的狂歡和欲望。
　　　　回到紐約，這張帷幕也一直懸掛在每個(gè)人的生活中。Don公寓的保安突然倒了，Roger舉行了告別儀式，擦鞋匠的工具被送到了Roger的辦公室，人們一邊經(jīng)歷著這些無(wú)常的變化，另一方面則竭盡全力為去滿足自己的野心和理想。Roger的女兒想投資創(chuàng)業(yè)，Megan的表演事業(yè)有了突破，Don公司里的小職員看準(zhǔn)時(shí)機(jī)想升職，Peggy為一個(gè)廣告放棄了假日，來(lái)Betty家過(guò)節(jié)的小女孩離家闖蕩。這帷幕的兩邊似乎永遠(yuǎn)對(duì)立、不能并存，因?yàn)橐坏┥喜∷赖恼鎸?shí)被人窺見，這些野心和欲望即成為了虛無(wú)；只有忘記了生活的真實(shí)面貌，夏威夷的昂貴之旅和紐約的名利場(chǎng)才有了光輝的意義。
　　　　但是，若沒(méi)有這舞臺(tái)前的光鮮亮麗，誰(shuí)能忍受帷幕后的真實(shí)呢？Betty在拉小提琴的女孩身上看到了曾經(jīng)的自己，女孩卻對(duì)Betty說(shuō)，她不想重復(fù)那種上大學(xué)、結(jié)婚生子的生活套路。后來(lái)，Betty到紐約去找離家的女孩，看到了一個(gè)破亂公寓里年輕人們混亂的生活。這種生活不是比那種老套的人生更艱苦嗎？但是小女孩卻寧愿選擇離開家庭的保護(hù)，去迎接社會(huì)的冷漠和殘酷。因?yàn)檫@種殘酷是由一個(gè)理想的外衣所裝飾的，自我實(shí)現(xiàn)的可能性吸引著一無(wú)所有的年輕人，意味著新的經(jīng)歷、意味著自身的改變，而按步就班的生活就僅僅是生活本身罷了。
　　　　人們希望通過(guò)理想超越生活，編劇通過(guò)Roger在心理醫(yī)生那兒的獨(dú)白為這種行為潑了一盆冷水。Roger說(shuō)那些經(jīng)歷什么都沒(méi)有改變，門開了又關(guān)上，自己卻還是自己。以Roger和Don的年齡和閱歷，似乎該有的經(jīng)歷都已經(jīng)體驗(yàn)了，卻依然很難面對(duì)帷幕后那真實(shí)的一面。Don從夏威夷回來(lái)，有種感覺(jué)一直伴隨著他，于是他把這種感覺(jué)做成文案給客戶看。但是，客戶想要的卻不是所謂的真實(shí)，他們想要的是那面帷幕。Peggy的創(chuàng)意也暗含著這一層面的信息，廣告是為了把耳機(jī)賣給那些將赴越戰(zhàn)的士兵等男性用戶，畫面上一個(gè)男人帶著耳機(jī)，沉醉在自己的世界中，觀眾卻聽不到音樂(lè)。這是一個(gè)可以不用窺視真實(shí)的人，越戰(zhàn)士兵戴上了即可以無(wú)視那帷幕后的生活。而觀眾看到的永遠(yuǎn)是外在的表現(xiàn)，比如一些人在夏威夷和紐約盡情享樂(lè)、成就自我，至于帷幕前的人們心中在想什么，是不可能被觀眾聽到的。
　　　　Betty去尋找那個(gè)女孩，就像是去尋找一個(gè)曾經(jīng)的自己，想把那個(gè)迷路的自己帶回家。從紐約回來(lái)，Betty躺在丈夫的懷里，感受著家庭的溫暖。她也曾經(jīng)一個(gè)人在紐約做模特，歷盡艱辛，作為一個(gè)體驗(yàn)過(guò)帷幕前光鮮亮麗一面的人，如何能勸告一個(gè)未曾體驗(yàn)的女孩不要去經(jīng)歷這些呢？回到Don在片頭讀的那段臺(tái)詞：“在人生的旅途中，我偏離了大路，醒來(lái)后發(fā)現(xiàn)自己在黑暗的森林里孤身一人?！痹谀轻∧簧陨岳_，舞臺(tái)上的幻景慢慢稀釋的時(shí)刻，人們才開始懷念生活的真實(shí)，想要回到家里。問(wèn)題是，家在哪里，又如何回去？Roger在感嘆自己和家人在一起的時(shí)間太少了，對(duì)他感到失望的人又太多，Don則選擇去扮演陌生人的家人。這兩集里面唯一回到家里的人是Betty，一個(gè)內(nèi)心從未長(zhǎng)大的女孩，或許只有孩子才更容易回家吧。

D: What are you thinking right now?

B: I'm thinking about how different you are, before and after, I love the way you look at me when you're like this. But then I watch it decay. I can only hold your attention so long.

D: Why is sex the defination of being close to someone?

B: I don't know, but it is for me. It is for most people.

D: Just because you climb a mountain dosen't mean you love it.

B: Climbing a mountain? Is that what making love is to you?

D: If we'd lied here together with you in my arms, I would have felt just as close. Not the rest of it. I don't know. It doesn't mean that much to me.

B: Is it the same with Magen?

D: Why do you want to talk about that?

B: That poor girl. She doesn't know that loving you is the worst way to get to you.

2013.5.27

感情的流逝是如此迅速。你聽到背后有人喊你，轉(zhuǎn)身想要抓住，卻發(fā)現(xiàn)斯人已遠(yuǎn)；你沉浸在私欲和虛榮之中，恣意索取、揮霍著感情，偶然一次打開心靈，卻發(fā)現(xiàn)那里面已經(jīng)空空如也。曾幾何時(shí)一瞬間的心有靈犀，再也無(wú)法找回。本集Mad Men，獻(xiàn)給那些回不去的曾經(jīng)~

Don與Betty仍有舊情，兩人與兒子一起唱歌，感覺(jué)還像是一家人一樣溫馨；Betty稍加引導(dǎo)兩人便如干柴烈火一般重拾舊情，兩人的愛就像那雙不知不覺(jué)便已緊握不放的手一般，從來(lái)沒(méi)有消失過(guò)。Betty仍愛著Don，但選擇了“身在曹營(yíng)心在漢”，不離開Henry；她知道Don的天性無(wú)法維持一段專一的婚姻。她能否發(fā)覺(jué)自己一直對(duì)Don還有情意，她能夠一直對(duì)自己的心情如此操縱自如嗎？Henry察覺(jué)到自己無(wú)法遮擋Betty在人群中散發(fā)的魅力，也察覺(jué)到可能忙于工作冷落了Betty，但他是公眾人物，有選舉重任在身，在發(fā)泄惱怒之余，沒(méi)有任何辦法。

Peggy與男友的生活理念本身就不合，在被Ted強(qiáng)吻后她越發(fā)對(duì)男友不滿，可她應(yīng)該知道對(duì)Ted這樣已婚多年、事業(yè)有成的男人，顧忌太多，下決心開始一段新感情并不是容易的事情。她最終離開了男友卻發(fā)現(xiàn)Ted對(duì)她只有曖昧沒(méi)有行動(dòng)，為支持Ted還失去了Don的信任。留給她的只有懊悔。

Peter和Roger同時(shí)認(rèn)識(shí)到家庭的重要，卻再也無(wú)法挽回各自的愛人。Peter得到Duck的建議重視家庭，卻發(fā)現(xiàn)自己已經(jīng)得罪了每一個(gè)家人。Roger上了年紀(jì)，越發(fā)的渴望一個(gè)后代。但他多年來(lái)生活方式過(guò)于隨意、以及極度缺乏責(zé)任感，不能讓女兒和Joan放心，沒(méi)人愿意讓孩子和他相處。男人要承擔(dān)自己行為的后果，無(wú)奈的Peter和Roger肯定對(duì)這點(diǎn)深有感觸。

Megan獨(dú)自在家時(shí)，編劇的夫人來(lái)訪，索取Megan的身體?，F(xiàn)狀很明顯，如果她得到Megan的身體，就會(huì)向編劇求情，Megan的角色就不會(huì)被拿下，如果得不到，Megan的前途就危險(xiǎn)了。Megan本想不依靠Don，闖出自己的天地，但外面的世界很險(xiǎn)惡，任何人只要對(duì)你好，就必定想從你身上得到什么，對(duì)Megan無(wú)限付出不求回報(bào)的只有Don。但她現(xiàn)在發(fā)現(xiàn)，過(guò)去的任性已經(jīng)深深傷害了Don，自己和Don之間的感情早已不復(fù)存在。她想挽回Don的心，這會(huì)像她第一次得到Don的心一樣順利嗎？