Mad Men 3x01 Reaction
Added 2025-09-12 00:30:00 +0000 UTCkens full name is kevin if you didn’t know
Comments
Pretty sure Bert Peterson has been mentioned before, possibly as far back as season 1. We’ve just never seen him till now.
Julien
2025-09-12 14:12:28 +0000 UTC“My people are Nordic”
Julien
2025-09-12 14:10:53 +0000 UTCThis show isn’t for everyone but I keep hoping that other thoughtful reactors like TBRSchmidt will pick it up. I should probably go spam them about it.
Julien
2025-09-12 14:09:50 +0000 UTCSeeing your reactions to the show made me realize how rough Ken was in seasons 1 and 2, not too far removed from Paul Kinsey. This is more the version of Ken I remember.
Erik D
2025-09-12 13:44:24 +0000 UTCThe poster in Oslo is because Betty’s people are Nordic
bondbond53
2025-09-12 13:05:48 +0000 UTCCan’t believe we’re already on season 3. Seems like only yesterday I thought this was an absolute pipe dream but here we are. The show only gets better and there’s so much to see but it also makes me sad how quickly we’re going through it. Nevertheless, I am going to enjoy every minute of it and especially Sally’s lisp while it lasts
bondbond53
2025-09-12 13:03:42 +0000 UTCAlso for more context about Jimmy Hoffa one can watch Martin Scrorsese’s “The Irishman”
bondbond53
2025-09-12 12:55:07 +0000 UTCSeeing your feelings on characters do 180s in the span of an episode reminds me of why I loved this show so much in the first place. One week a character is our hero, the next they're the heel. And it never feels out of character.
Mike Conlin
2025-09-12 12:26:12 +0000 UTCI love the rivalry between Ken and Pete haha they're so funny together Bout time my boy Ken gets some love 🙏😂
TylerNorCal
2025-09-12 12:08:10 +0000 UTC*Kevin
Taya
2025-09-12 11:16:44 +0000 UTCTrudy's affection for Pete is one of those brute facts of the Mad Men universe we just have to accept. Somehow the whiny little baby ends up with the perfect wife and does nothing but complain. Which is hilarious.
Sebastian
2025-09-12 10:10:29 +0000 UTCResident Oslovian here, trying to figure out why they'd put Mad Men in the National Museum. From what I can gather, it's just one poster that's part of their design collection: https://www.nasjonalmuseet.no/samlingen/objekt/NMK.2024.0033 I don't think there's that much of a connection between the show and Norway, apart from the previously mentioned Ibsen reference in season 2. And Peggy's got Norwegian ancestry I think. Also, god damn season 3 here we go. This is where the show slowly climbs from great to all-time amazing.
Sebastian
2025-09-12 09:49:35 +0000 UTCBeen waiting for this episode to share this meme from the Mad Men reddit page - https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fqyx53m38olke1.jpeg
Mark M
2025-09-12 05:34:16 +0000 UTCThe scene with Ken and Pete in the elevator both giving patronizing compliments to each other thinking they're the only head of accounts always gets me😭
Eric Viola
2025-09-12 05:03:04 +0000 UTCVery funny move by Mad Men to create a new character named Bert, and to immediately put him in a scene with Old Burt, and to make that a firing scene, so New Bert is immediately off the show. Why would you do that? Well, why not? Great Pete episode. Kartheister is a gifted physical performer (more to come, iykyk) and his celebration dance here is an all-timer . "Why can't I get anything good all at once?" Yeah, man. I feel you. And shout out to Trudy's hat.
Mike
2025-09-12 04:33:42 +0000 UTCHaha jinx
Mike
2025-09-12 04:19:50 +0000 UTCAbout the opening "flashback", of course Don wasn't actually present (or sentient, at least) for these scenes -- but the show is still presenting them as his memories. It's kind of fascinating to consider if these are moments that Abigail conveyed to him, or if he is dreaming up his own origin story. In Season 1, he told Roger that he was like Moses: a baby in a basket. Here, he is delivered to Abigail in exactly that manner. So is this the chicken or the egg? Does he know the story, and he was (kind of) telling the truth to Roger? Or is that how he now imagines things happened?
Mike
2025-09-12 04:15:27 +0000 UTCI am 100% going to start going by Ken now.
Kevin
2025-09-12 04:05:11 +0000 UTCJames "Jimmy" Hoffa was a very powerful figure in the USA in the '60s as the head of the Teamsters, one of the most powerful labor unions in the country. His actions were very intertwined with organized crime, and his power struggles with the Mafia in the '70s lead to his mysterious disappearance in 1975. His body has never been found and it has never been definitively proven that he was murdered. He has become a byword for famous missing persons and organized crime 'blowback' in the USA. In the '80s, '90s, and '00s there were references and jokes galore in popular culture about finding Hoffa's body. I do think Don's quiet, deliberate ignorance about Sal is the best that we can expect from him at this time. Not acknowledging it and not talking about it is probably better than we can expect from anybody else at S&C. I find Don's scene with Betty in the opening so fascinating, because we see him apparently giving it a real honest effort. He seems to have a real honest affection for her. But when he's not with her, he cheats just because....because. He seems to want to be a better man than he is, but he just doesn't know how to do it.
JBK405
2025-09-12 03:59:51 +0000 UTCI don't know how Trudy didn't get the biggest ick watching her husband act like an entitled baby in front of her, I can't imagine ever being attracted to a person again after seeing that. God, your options were dire in that time period.
Nina
2025-09-12 03:58:29 +0000 UTCHow in the heck did the order of the episodes get switched? Was that an intentional decision like the removal of S03 E03? I watched this while airing - gosh I wish that LM could experience the "next time on" segments that were on AMC since Matt Weiner hated those and would put together a smorgasbord of random unrelated clips - and didn't realize there were so many issues with the transition to streaming.
Sekraan
2025-09-12 03:57:47 +0000 UTCTwo administrative points: I'm not sure how you two are watching the show at this point, but some services completely skip Season 3, Episode 3. You should, uhh, not do this. And even more egregiously, Netflix has (had? I think the show is totally off Netflix now?) the order of Episodes 11 & Episodes 12 *switched*. I would extremely recommend that you watch these episodes -- all of the episodes! -- in order.
Mike
2025-09-12 03:49:53 +0000 UTCyeah he is great, I love him in this and the expanse
T0ast
2025-09-12 03:43:28 +0000 UTCthat's wild, I never saw that, so cool!
Kara
2025-09-12 02:41:16 +0000 UTCLola: "oh my god how did the bellhop know???" Lola roughly 15 seconds after meeting Sal: GAY!!!! 👉📢🏳️🌈 God this is such a good episode, there's a million things I could say. The direction is perfect, the magical realist flashback, the shot down at Sal's feet at the bellhop approaches, the perfect little setup details like Lane Pryce's first dialog being about how 'London Fog' is unrealistic, instantly telling us something about the character. Don has another small 'progressive' moment here with "Limit Your Exposure", essentially telling Sal he's "ok" with it but to keep it quiet while also creating a banger ad. You can picture Sal sketching the advert and remembering Don's words. The discussion on how much leeway to give characters is always really interesting to me. Take something like The Sopranos - set in 2000s, we know these characters are sociopathic mobsters, and we accept that and find ways to empathise with them, we accept in part they are products of their environments and upbringings while also condemning their active bad choices. It's the same here imo. The version of Ken we see in this episode - thoughtful, measured, relaxed - this seems to me like the sort of person who wouldn't necessarily be homophobic if he was raised in an environment where being gay was normalized. Of course I can be wrong and "nice" people can also be sexist, racist, homophobic etc. But it feels pointless to apply strict modern standards to people born in 1920, 1930, 1940 etc, and more interesting to view who is "progressive" or "conservative" for 1963. A fun little thing but thanks to this community, a couple weeks ago I did a deep dive and found out that Don's real birthday (from this episode) is April 10th! I believe I'm the first person on the internet to discover this (I posted on Reddit but won't link because it has season 5 spoilers). For astrology fans this makes Don an Aries btw! I agree, it's just a deeply sad moment that he can only share his real birthday with a stranger (and maybe Anna). Bonus thoughts: Sally finding the stewardess' stray pin "gift" calls back to S1's Mohawk Airlines ad "What did you bring me Daddy?". Matthew Weiner agrees with the girls and thinks this is the farthest Sal ever got with another man (source: 3x1 Alan Sepinwall interview) he also thinks because Sal is Catholic, he thinks the fire alarm was like divine punishment 😔 Don looks soooo much like his dad in the opening scene, with the hunched posture and flat hair. Mr Cooper presents Joan's idea to have a guest office as his own idea, a tiny example of men stealing women's ideas without credit.
Kara
2025-09-12 02:40:16 +0000 UTCThe main reason I love this episode is that I first saw it at Times Square with a crowd back in 2009. They set up a screen outside for the premiere in front of the stadium seats. You wouldn't think watching Mad Men outdoors with a big crowd would be fun, but it was wonderful. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/arts/television/24arts-MADMENPREMIE_BRF.html?unlocked_article_code=1.lU8.Z9HH.5KwOPBFLuxYw&smid=url-share (Edit: that article is actually about the fouth season premiere)
Julien
2025-09-12 02:19:16 +0000 UTCHell yeah Lane Pryce. His character is such a great addition to this show.
Chris B
2025-09-12 02:16:37 +0000 UTCAs a gay girl, Betty's joke is just legit fire, it's hilariously not homophobic enough for the time.
Nina
2025-09-12 02:05:46 +0000 UTC"Oh Peter, don't go to the well. There's no water there." -all time Trudy Campbell line "She's taken to your tools like a little lesbian." -all time Betty Draper line
Taya
2025-09-12 01:38:58 +0000 UTCNormalize throwing a tantrum when you get fired, threaten to do it beforehand to prevent them from firing you.
Nina
2025-09-12 01:30:02 +0000 UTChell yeah
Eric Viola
2025-09-12 00:37:27 +0000 UTCour former president Jair Bolsonaro sentenced to 27 years in prison for attempted coup d'état, Trump and his government realizing that their threats and complaints don't work with us and LM updating Mad Men, honestly what a great day for a Brazilian like me
Bernardo
2025-09-12 00:35:36 +0000 UTCme and taya just be posting sad memes on discord at this time twice a week
Kara
2025-09-12 00:34:51 +0000 UTCHi girlies, leaving an early comment to say that Netflix in some regions has the wrong episode order - it should be The Gypsy and the Hobo and THEN The Grown Ups. ALSO 3x3 "My Old Kentucky Home" is removed from streaming in some regions, it's obviously a full episode of the show and essential viewing. These should be the only weird changes for the whole rest of the show ❤️❤️❤️
Kara
2025-09-12 00:34:30 +0000 UTCYeah this is important
Jay Craig
2025-09-12 00:33:03 +0000 UTC**HEADS UP LM** Episodes 11 and 12 of season 3 on Netflix MAY be out of order. It should go The Gypsy and the Hobo (11) and then The Grown-Ups (12). Make sure !
Eric Viola
2025-09-12 00:31:33 +0000 UTCI feel like I need an intervention, because I'm out here waiting for these Mad Men reactions to drop like my dealer is running late
Chris Truex
2025-09-12 00:31:32 +0000 UTC
