Episode 12, Just killer, I can't remember the last time I couldn't wait to see the next episode of anythign. As you know, this is more than TV, it's literature. The Emmys are so small compared to what this is. Thanks.

Oh my gosh! Does this mean that Don Draper is going to disappear? MW just says at the end that he may transform into another person!! Not like he hasn't already. Why go back to Dick Whitman when you tried so hard to hide it and when your brother came calling, you tried to buy him off? He kills himself and it takes him 2 years to finally come to grips with this and decides to be himself. Very bizarre. Plus, how will he come to face his children? He has children to answer to. I wonder how he'll do that?

3rd season preview

death of the president, march on washington,
mini dress, pepsi generation, american bandstand,
civil rights act, ford mustang will be the companys main
product, the end of roger opens season 4

Hello, I am new to this blogging. I watched the entire last season online, as I don't actually have access to a cable system on TV. I saw the season 2 premier online but thought that the next show wasn't going to be on until October sometime, and they have never had another show on their website as a 'full episode' - what's up with that?
Anyway, now I find out the second season is well underway, and now they no longer have it available online...anywhere that I can locate. Does anyone know where I can watch from 202 onwards? I'm so bummed out about this. This is my favorite show.
HELP!!!!!

I don't often laugh out loud while watching (usually I'm too busy holding my breath), but last night, one line was said with perfect timing, "Kurt's a homo."
Great delivery.
Also, I have to comment on what Hawk08 said. Mad Men is more than TV, it's literature.
Yes. Well said. I couldn't agree more.

Timid among friends, even more timid among strangers, the reference to William Faulkner's, The Sound and The Fury, by only her first name Joy leads me to believe Don aka Dick now aka whom is about to reach back in time. If you know or have read this terrific story The Sound and The Fury, about a truly disfunctional family in the south told by four points of view from four different characters in the book you will see where Dick Whitman might be going, and the last scene in which his last belongings are sent to prior home leads me to believe Don or Dick is going on an adventure. The Firm being bought out will happen leaving Don's prior family well off or so it seems. This episode leads more to the imagination than any previous episode. Jon Hamm aka Don Draper or Dick Whitman is about to leave for few episodes as he is a key figure in the Up Coming Big Screen Adaptation " The Day the Earth Stood Still" due out on December 12th, 2008. So writers needed an out.
My Kudo's to this show and the odd way of twists in each persons life, leaving nothing unturned, similiar to the writer mentioned in the last episode, William Faulkner. The book shown in this episode was written and published in 1929 and until Mr. Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for writing most of his novels and short stories were not even thought about as well written. Like Faulkner this show has several meanings wrapped up in one. Sigmond Frued said dreams are condesending as well. So many meanings can be had by one simple scene. The Writers, Cast, and Crew have produced one of the best shows ever on any network. This Ranks Higher than "MASH", in content and meaning. The acting is great on all levels. I rarely am pushed to write a blog on anything. But here I am doing it. I write myself and have two books written and will not send any of these off to publishers until I have 6 books written. Something I wanted to do. It will show my growth as a person and writer once the first one is published. Besides all my books always leads to the other, but none of them are sequels or follow-ups. As with this show each week something is new but will give you a glimpse into what is about to happen in an abstract way.

I doubt the writers are going to change the whole universe so Don and pretty much the rest of the cast will have to be in a setting and that would be Sterling Cooper. I hope we get to see scenes from Don's and Joy's Excellent Adventure.
A guy like Don could disappear forever...but that would make for a bad show.
I imagine that in any incarnation of Sterling Cooper, that Don is indispensable (many of their clients probably won't stay without him) which could make it really interesting if Duck puts through a deal, the clients call for Don asking what's up, but Don's out of town. That could fuck a Duck (sorry, I had to).

Obviously, Sterling's in deep Kim Chi. Its funny to think that a person such as him didn't know how screwed he could be but then I guess divorce was relatively uncommon then. I'm guessing he won't be able to afford Jane.

At one point, in the morning scene where Don Don and Joy were discussing Faulkner as I recall, there was some dialog I couldn't make out. Anyone with a transcript.

And what was so fascinating about that cup that Don was looking at in the pool. He was focused on it so much that I rewound a couple of times but I didn't see anything.

Certainly there are many possibilities. Some of them are rather drab. Three possibilities as I see it.

Don is living the life of the character in Bob Dylan's Tangled Up in Blue.
"But all the while I was alone
The past was close behind,
I seen a lot of women
But she never escaped my mind, and I just grew
Tangled up in blue."

Second Don is a spook. They took away his identity after the war, and they gave him a number. All of his romantic interests, are potential enemies of the state. The beatnik bohemian girlfriend, the Jewish store owner (Rosenbergs), the actor black list. Communists. Don always seems to have a concern about the cold war. Even at the country club, when Crab(I think) was talking about the Bay of Pigs bugled affair, Don seemed somehow engaged. Plus I never want to look back and see the city disappear as I am flying away./ I always want to see the city appear that I am going to.

3rd: It's a dream; he is sleeping on the plane. Let’s face it everyone is acting as he sees them I think. Roger wants the 20 year old. Pete is basically incompetent. Peggy needs ahaircut. He surely suspects Kurt is gay. He sees his wife as a rich girl comfortable at a fancy hotel.

Don is an actor, playing many roles, hoping one is the right one. He does not really know who he really is. As a young boy, he probably pretended he was someone else living somewhere else to escape the abuse he was living with. He went for the fairy tale with the fairytale princess wife, the two kids, the dog and a happy home in the suburbs, but he is getting tired of playing his role as all American dad and happy husband. He keeps trying on these new woman and their lifestyle to see if it fits--but he is going to have to learn that happiness comes from within and not from other people. Don is going to have to make peace with himself before he can make peace with his life and those around him.

All I can say is "wow." Perhaps my favorite episode of the season!

With the flashback Don had at the Cadillac dealership, and his odd behavior with the creepy "family" of Joy's, looks like he's headed for some scary times. When he woke to find the "doctor" with a hypodermic ready at his arm, it looked as if Don might hit the road, and head back to his version of reality. There's a spiraling in progress...looks downward for sure...for Roger and Pete as well.

no great insight here, but i cant imdb whether viscount willy is the mustache rides german guy from super troopers. i think he is.

Anyone have a clue where they actually filmed the Palm Springs segment? Looked like one of the Modernist houses now "historic" in Palm Springs.

i love how mysterious the group is, and how don just allows himself to be carried away with them. i think the flashes of betty at the bar was great.

I can't believe no one is wondering who "Dick Whitman" called on the phone at the end of the episode. Any guesses?

I'm wondering if the "family" are part of the blacklisted Hollywood group. Also, does anyone know what that music was that was playing when Don was looking at the pool?

Brian-

I belive it is Laura Ramsey...

Anyone know who the actress playing Joy is? She's not on IMDb.

katherine...Peggy got a haircut from Kurt...but, you probably know that by now, huh?
And like jamm54 has already posted----now she needs to get rid of those bangs!

Posts' times are screwed up once more....help AMC/Clayton!

In late 50's early 60's I was working for an ad agency in downtown Chicago. The office set in Madmen is so correct for those times and the politics and dynamics are perfect. Your advisor for the show knew his/her stuff. I love the show and am also wondering who Don called using his real name - Dick Whitman. I have never looked so forward to Sunday night as I do now. Thank goodness for On Demand so I can watch it again on Monday morning. Great program and I hope it goes on forever. Peggy should get a new hairdo, however.

Does anyone know who that guy was who showed up at the pool with the two children? The one Don gave his and Joy's room to?

What was that mysterious Egyptian type music playing when Don first met the international swingers?

Hey - Mike Avera - I loved your picking up on the metaphor of the Sound and the Fury - and I think you're right - it's definitely a clue as to what is going to happen to Don/Dick. Certainly a mysterious episode.

I am confused, however, was "the jet set" a phenomenon in the 60's? I feel silly asking that, but I'm just not familiar with this particular history. I know the term was coined in the 50's, but did it really refer to nomadic, jobless, wealthy people? Everything else that happens on Madmen is so grounded in reality, it just felt like such a left turn.

It certainly added to the surreal when Don flipped to Dick Whitman at the end.

Thanks, Insman2006!

I think the "mysterious Egyptian type music" was a slowed down,bossa nova version of Dick Dale's surf rock classic "Miserlou". The original can be heard on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack.

ProfLisa, yes the "Jet Set" was a true phenomenon...the "idle rich" jetting all over the place trying to spend their millions...sounds glamorous but it had to get boring after a while.
Then, again, I guess there are lots worse ways to be bored! lol

As usual, this was another brilliant and mad-men-ing episode. Maddening! Mysterious! Marvelous! Betty told Don once, about seeing other women, "You just can't help yourself." That Don would free fall and put everything he says he values in jeopardy -- his marriage and kids, his job, even his health (well, okay, he never said he values his health) -- is beyond reckless and bizarre. The Jet Set people he falls in with in Cali couldn't be stranger, all of them, and it makes you wonder why he would go there. I can understand sex with a stranger -- he's done that before -- but he just seems lost and abstracted within himself with and without Joy. Though dreamlike in many ways, I doubt this ep is a dream sequence. That would cheapen the series' originality (think "Dallas") and not make much sense. Betty's conspicuous absence throughout -- except for the doppelganger at the hotel bar -- is also deliberate. Don's not really thinking about anyone he left behind, including the pitiful and hapless Pete, who's left to fend for himself poolside. On the one hand, the ep was wrapped in mysterious layers, on the other it was a stripping away to essentials. For example, in the last minute or so, with an undraped Don on the sofa, partly wrapped in a sheet or something resembling a sheet. His body is as beautiful as the David statue, and, even better, tanned. And then he introduces himself to someone on the phone as Dick Whitman, reverting to his old "original" self. Can't wait 'til Sunday. SO JUICY. LOVELOVELOVE this show.

Another clue we can't miss was when Pete commented about Don's taking off "he's done this before." Don seems to be on another fact finding mission about himself.

I love how they interwove the "Jet set" into this episode. We are getting a brief look into the weirdness of the 60's that is yet to come. The Sound and the Fury metaphor resembles all the dysfunction that the 50's represented and the results of waking up from this family and social dysfunction is marvelously played out through all the characters. This was a time of huge contrasts and beauty on the surface while the ugliness swirled beneath.

Don desires to be a bohemian but he ultimately knows that being free from responsibility is not being free. This is the reason why the guy shows up with the kids and he sees Betty at the bar. Did anyone else think that Joy was the mother of those kids and that was her husband? Or is it supposed to be her sister's kids? Thought I heard him mumble something else to her that was inaudible to me. I believe that ultimately Don will grow tired of the jet set although we will see them on another excursion.

Does anyone see his call as Dick Wittman to a friend and the subsequent preview of him visiting a military base as insight in him drumming up more business for the company? Don is ultimately a company man and he will return to the company.

We absolutely adore "Mad Men". It is a brilliant piece of work sorting through the confusing and transformative age of the 60's and all the social upheaval that occurred. It utilizes sexism in the show to demonstrate how it infiltrated all aspects of life, and both women and men were supposed to "act" in a way that was commensurate with society's expectations. Nobody is left unscathed. What a treat for Sunday night before going back to the real world of work.