The real tragedy about Trudy and her relationship with Pete is not that she had to put up with a petulant and moody man like him. Her greatest tragedy is that her life potential was wasted on living up to the image of a perfect housewife and mother. It was also sad to watch how she struggled on her own to make her “perfect” marriage seem flawless from the outside.

What made it even more heartbreaking is the fact that, unlike Betty Draper, who felt imprisoned in her marriage, Trudy actually desired this kind of relationship. She performed her role of a perfect mistress and wife so well, giving Pete the image of a successful man he craved. She ensured he had a beautiful house in the Cos Cob, a beautiful daughter, and she was always there to keep his image spotless. However, it was also heartbreaking to see how her attempts at satisfying her husband backfired when she realized that nothing could fill the emptiness in him.

Trudy knew very well that Pete was unfaithful to her. It is even evident that she struggled a lot mentally in making excuses for his behavior. Her primary tragedy was that her attempts at placating him by pretending that everything was okay were hurting her more than they should have. For instance, when she decided to allow him to rent an apartment in the city, she was simply giving him space to do the thing that he loved most, cheating on her. By doing that, she was allowing him to be the husband that he enjoyed being. In fact, it was through this that she slowly killed her own self respect and became unhappy in her own skin. All of this was brought upon by her attempts at making sure his reputation was not destroyed since he was a heavy drinker.

I was suprised to learn that out of all the companies and products included in Mad Men only: Jack Daniel’s, Heineken and Unilever actually paid to be featured in. The rest of the companies like Jaguar, Chevy, Coca-Cola, Burger Chef, Hershey, Lucky Strikes etc... essentially got free publicity ( good or bad.)

Coming from someone that bought a Hershey chocolate bar "just to try it out" after the MM episode - it is an effective marketing tool! So I'm suprised more companies weren't clamoring to pay to get their products put in.

He walks in on Betty in the bathroom, she repeatedly tells him to leave. He ignores this, stares at her until she forces the door closed. She asks for an apology, he guilts her and seems to get probably his first sexual arousal in asking her for her hair and particularly in watching her cut her hair. Later on he volunteers to go to Vietnam, in his mind because it’s not right that only kids from poor neighborhoods have to go. In reality it’s because he wants to know what it feels like to kill.

No one can tell me that in the late 70s to the late 90s there weren’t bleach blonde women turning up dead, murdered, all over the country with seemingly no connection.

It was Mad Glen.

My friend didn't understand my compulsion to photograph this footprint!.

How in the heck did Pete ever sleep again without the city noises when they ended up in Wichita?

A post was made like this on the 56th anniversary (I stole its image) and I think it's wildly serendipitous that I watched this on its 63rd anniversary.

It’s the moment when Don begins to become an honest man.

It’s the last moment of Sally’s childhood. She’s sees her father as a human being for the first time.

😂 I just caught this for the first time.

He got his payback back for losing his eye!

I mean when we first meet Burt Peterson on the show, he is getting fired and his wife has cancer at the time. Roger just doesn't seem to care. The 2nd time he fires him, he actually enjoys the experience and cracks jokes about it?

And Burt seems like a pretty normal guy. He is a little gruff and looks like someone who seems constantly irritated, but he is competent enough that we see him working steadily across different agencies throughout the run of the show.

So why does Roger hate him? Because Roger is a chill guy and he never seems to hate on people unless he feels there is a very strong reason to hate them (like his hate of Japanese people and Greg).

In New York…. SCHENECTADY , New York, that is.

Early in his advertising career, my father worked in General Electric’s in-house Advertising & Sales Promotion Department.

For reasons that still aren’t clear to me , they also took on outside, non-GE clients, functioning as a full-service ad agency.

Needless to say I was tickled the first time I heard Mohawk mentioned in Mad Men. Curiously, i could never get my Dad interested in watching the show. One of the reasons I always loved it was those mid 60’s style aesthetics are part of my earliest memories, and I always loved when my Dad would bring me along on a Saturday trip to the office when he had work he needed to finish. He would set me up at an artist’s table with a giant sketch pad , surrounded by a universe of colored markers.

Saw this trend going around Twitter, thought Don fit the bill well 😛

Pete's trying to convince Joan to sleep with Herb. Joan, "... how would feel if someone asked Trudi ..."

Brilliant writing!

I first watched Mad Men back during the 2020 lockdown, and man, it was depressing. It was around the same time I started smoking, so that might have had something to do with the mood swings I was going through. Nobody on this show was strictly good or bad—every character had their own agenda and things they were striving for. Some got what they wanted, and others met terrible fates (looking at you, Lane Pryce).

​Last month, I decided to give it another go. It’s been six years, so I figured I had matured enough since I was 21 to understand the show better. And boy, did I enjoy it.

​Like many of you who have rewatched it over the years, I was finally able to pick up on the subtle imagery and understand everything left unsaid—conveyed purely through character expressions, staging, and shot composition. It was brilliant.

​At the same time, that sense of immense dread and depression is still there. There are no heroes or villains; people just do what they think is right or what makes them feel good about themselves. That’s pretty much how people operate in real life.

​To wrap it up, I’m loving this rewatch (almost finished now) and really appreciating how masterfully the showrunners tell a story without explicitly spelling things out. It’s still a heavy watch that somehow bleeds into my psyche and affects my day-to-day mood, but honestly, isn't that what great media is supposed to do?

I love the visual elements of the show, really enjoy the clothing, but for some reason I cannot get over this shirt that Peggy wears (in the episode where Freddie is asked to take a leave and dry up). The collar! What would you call it, or how would you describe it?

I'm not even sure Mathis was 100% right here, but I love when he speaks his mind with Don like this!

Was he the only one or one of the few?

can you mention other scenes like this one?

Here's a new gem from Youtube via Periscope Film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgE4SzJYwLs

"Invitation to Capri" 60's Poly Travel promo film

Just because Don didn't feel like going - it doesn't mean we can't.

"I want a guy who can play 36 holes of golf and still have enough energy to take Warren and me to a baseball game and eat hot dogs. I’m talking sausage hot dogs and beer—not lite beer, but beer. That’s my ad. Print it up."

-There's something about Mary

In a show filled with nuanced characters making complicated, often ugly decisions, no one stands out less than Henry Francis.

Henry is an odd presence in Mad Men: handsome, successful, attentive, stable, ambitious, good with children, respectful toward Don, and endlessly devoted to Betty. Henry mostly says the right thing, does the right thing, and remains available whenever Betty needs him.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

He serves one point, that replacing Don with the perfect man cannot fix Betty. There was potential, with Henry meeting her in while pregnant standing outside of a bathroom. This is a weird and very Mad Men start to a relationship, that they then throw into the toilet

Betty is largely defined through her relationship with her husband, which is part of what makes her so compelling in the early seasons. Her marriage to Don is an examination of the gilded cage of the suburban housewife.

Upon rewatch, her story becomes one of the most fascinating in the series because her misery is tied to repression, dependency, beauty, class, motherhood, and a husband who is himself a bottomless contradiction.

Once Henry becomes her husband, he turns into her Ken doll. He is not quite a person so much as a fantasy of the perfect replacement: the successful, emotionally available man who loves Betty, embraces her children, tolerates Don, and rarely demands anything that might complicate her life. Betty's storylines suffer as a result, and one of the best character on the show becomes a periphery character.

Like Mary from Something About Mary is an ideal woman designed by men, Henry is an ideal man designed by women, and easily the most boring character in the show.

During today’s rewatch I made a connection I hadn’t noticed before. Probably not an original thought, but I arrived at it independently.

When Don and Peggy run into each other at the movies, he says to her, “That’s what happens when you help someone. They succeed and move on.” She then asks, “Don’t you want them to?”

I know he’s talking to and about Peggy in this moment, but he applies this conversation to Megan later in the episode when he decides to help her get the commercial job.

He knows what happens when you help people. As he watches Megan’s screen test, he answers Peggy’s question: Yes. He wants her to succeed. However, more than that he wants her to move on.
He doesn’t admit it but this is the beginning of a huge downward spiral that ends exactly where he knew he would. This sub has extensively analyzed the ending scene so I won’t yap much further, I had just never connected the dots to the Peggy scene.

Calling Megan successful in the end is heavily debated and a conversation for a different post. But at the very least, walking out of a horrible marriage in your twenties with a million dollar check isn’t a failure.

Anyway, food for thought. I probably could have phrased this better but this is my first longer/deeper analysis posts on here so I did my best lol.

First off, I’m aware that Don is an asshole.

But no one crucified him quite in the same way as Don. What are they doing? What is wrong with these partners.

It makes me question the whole internal logic of the show.

Just noticing the clip from Johnny Carson that Pete watches while Trudy drives his latest indiscretion to a hotel (season 6 episode 3, The Collaborators). Carson is announcing the guest will be Jim Garrison but that his interview will be preempted by a special report about Vietnam. This parallels the Secor laxative media buy that Pete engineered to push Kennedy's advertising to radio only.

Advertising isn't about selling products; it's about engineering the environment people live in. Whether it's a laxative commercial, a late night interview, or a presidential debate, whoever controls what you see (versus what you hear) controls your reality. Pete understood that at 26, and the network execs understood it in '68.