Mad Men 1x05 Reaction
Added 2025-06-25 22:35:21 +0000 UTC
Comments
Adam's kind honesty stands out compared to the lying and competing in this episode. Heartbreaking to watch. Jon Hamm's acting is so good, repressing the conflicting emotions and pain. Also I thought it was funny that Lola specified the difference between pitiful and pathetic in regards to Pete. I can see that coming up again lol. Loved the reaction, it's only up from here IMO.
Mark M
2025-06-26 08:09:20 +0000 UTCNo man deserves trudy
cheech
2025-06-26 06:20:08 +0000 UTCWe barely see Betty's meal but it looks fine. They've already mostly cleared their plates but we see a meatloaf (or whatever), veg, bread and wine. The kids aren't there and there's no place setting for them - she probably fed them earlier and ate with Don when he got home late (again). https://i.imgur.com/CvKnmOE.jpeg Trudy's looks somewhat nicer sure but she's a newlywed still in the honeymoon phase, trying to be a good wife with no kids. Betty has been married years and has 2 kids to feed every night forever. Kids like spaghetti and jar sauce.
Kara
2025-06-26 02:49:16 +0000 UTCOh, to clarify, "Boy's Life" was the official magazine of the Boy Scouts of America. It has had many very prestigious writers published there, including Nobel Prize-winners and ALL THREE of the "Big Three" writers of science fiction (Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke). So the magazine is not something to sneer at. But Pete can't accept that. The title of the magazine was changed to "Scout Life" in 2021 because the Boy Scouts of America began accepting girls, and the organization itself changed to "Scouting America".
JBK405
2025-06-26 02:32:56 +0000 UTCI think the most effective aspect of this episode is that we -- the audience -- never once think that Adam is here trying to extort money from Don or blackmail him by threatening to reveal his past. They structured it so perfectly that we can always tell that Adam is sincere and just wants to reunite with his long-lost brother. In a different scenario we would wonder "Can we trust this guy or not?", but they made it crystal clear that he has no ulterior motive. For some context, Cape May is a seaside town down at the veeeeeery bottom tip of New Jersey. It's past Atlantic City to the south. It's a status-town and resort for people with money. The distance from NYC is part of the status. It's a three-hour drive from New York City each way.
JBK405
2025-06-26 02:26:24 +0000 UTCWell I'm glad I read the comments first, because you basically covered everything I was going to say. Of course this whole episode also happens under the spectre of SC pitching the "executive account", where men can privately manage their finances and spend their money on what's *really* important: paying off their long-lost brother instead of buying a summer home for their wife. I do find it funny that, while Don is at work pitching copy to a bank, he also just has ~$50,000 (present value) sitting in the drawer in his office. The man likes to stay liquid!
Mike
2025-06-26 01:55:20 +0000 UTCyep!
Luis
2025-06-26 01:32:32 +0000 UTCFirst of many!
Infode
2025-06-26 01:30:43 +0000 UTCA thing like that!
Taya
2025-06-26 01:26:06 +0000 UTCAm I understanding correctly that when Trudy says there’s a $40 fee she means Pete would have to pay $40 to have the story published in Boys’ Life?
JojoPotato
2025-06-26 00:54:57 +0000 UTCLove to see the contrast between the feast that Pete's wife Trudie prepared compared to what little Betty has prepared for her family. Maybe because she thinks Sally needs to lose weight? It also calls to mind last episode where Betty was struggling to put pasta on the table for her family with a bottle of Ragu clearly visible on the counter. Also I like that Peggy is wearing the same dress that she wore in episode 3. Can't help but wonder if Don drank a little too much and let a Dick Whitman joke slip out with that 4H reference early on.
Luis
2025-06-26 00:43:43 +0000 UTCPete can’t be the most pathetic person when Paul is still in the room.
Luis
2025-06-26 00:07:33 +0000 UTCThe show is very intentionally trying to make you think Don is gonna shoot Adam, based on other hyper-violent dramas. In my opinion it's a big bold statement: that it ain't that type of show, kid. I wasn't expecting you to emotionally connect with Adam so vividly here but I should have. This bodes really, really well for the full 7 season run of the show. If you're connecting this deeply right now, imagine when you have many seasons of buildup.... god it's gonna be so good lol. Mad Men is fun and dramatic but also filled with pathos and emotion and tiny details. Even in season 1 it just ticks all the boxes for me and scratches a deep itch in my brain... the pain from an old wound, perhaps. I truly, truly love the other shows the channel has covered like Mr Robot, Better Call Saul and others, but Mad Men is my fav show because of episodes like this, which deliver an incredible character-driven experience and nobody has to pull a gun out of a bag. Don throwing money at the problem is veeery Tony Soprano. After an episode of sympathy, Pete immediately burns it all by being the most pathetic person ever. You are so right Peggy and Joan are so funny and Peggy is showing she's smart and adaptable... even asking Joan for advice was smart. Peggy mentions she's from a neighbourhood in Brooklyn which has been fully gentrified these days but back then was a working class borough filled with 1st/2nd/3rd gen immigrants and she gets a long train to work each morning, it's considered far out and not as modern / "progressive" as Manhatten (the central island of New York). It might be helpful context to understand a little more about how New York City is laid out: there's 5 boroughs, Manhattan is the main one, "the city" island that we see in most media. Times Square, Empire State, Statue of Liberty, GTA 4 and Mr Robot etc. But NYC includes these 4 other boroughs that are more like urban "suburbs", extensions of the city with different cultures. And further out to the left we have New Jersey where the Sopranos is set. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boroughs_of_New_York_City Someone else posted this in a previous thread but married women couldn't even open a banking account without a cosign from their husband until 1974 (with some exceptions). Every single common sense human right we have today (that are being systemically stripped away in many western countries) was hard fought for, won and then consumed by the corporate capitalist machine. I'm sure in 1974 someone like Don was sat in a room telling a banking client that they should launch a new Family Account product, for Women.
Kara
2025-06-26 00:03:07 +0000 UTCForgot how uniquely iconic Joan is, there's no character in any tv show like her. Love how in this episode she's a rascal and a pain in Peggy's ass but at the same time Joan makes it a perfect learning moment for her and later telling her this is how it's gonna be. She's out here to have fun but she takes her maternal role for the other women in the office seriously. Also completely forgot about the Adam storyline, they really made him as heartbreaking as possible, down to not caring at all about the 5k, he just wanted his brother back.
Nina
2025-06-25 23:49:02 +0000 UTCYeah they definitely were playing into that. Maybe even Matt Weiner cheekily nodding to The Sopranos? But this is a show about white collar men and here crimes are mostly done with money
bondbond53
2025-06-25 23:40:44 +0000 UTCWatching Mad Men means constantly having an Inflation Calculator tab open at all time. According to it, $5.000 amounts to roughly $54.000 today which is obviously a massive amount of money and as Don said life-changing really. But this just highlights Don's tendency of acting like money can solve all his problems. I mean it seems to have worked for him - his success has landed him a new life, a new family and the luxury of never having to think about his past again. Don said 'I'm not paying for this lunch because this never happened'. An important line for his character which shows that he doesn't even want to move beyond his past, he actually wants to pretend it never happened. But Adam can't be like him. He's not buying into Don's American Dream. It seems Adam is longing for connection. With his parents dead, having moved to the big city of New York, working as a janitor and living in a tiny room, it seems like Adam is lost. Instead of seeing opportunity in Don's money he's asking 'What am I going to do?'. Such a sad meeting between the two of them indeed. On a side note, I love how Don's reaction to the note with Adam Whitman's name on it is portrayed. You can viscerally feel the colour draining from his face and his uneasiness. Jon Hamm is a damn good actor.
bondbond53
2025-06-25 23:33:51 +0000 UTCYeah, I thought Don was grabbing a gun as well the first time watching it haha.
IanJ
2025-06-25 23:22:00 +0000 UTC"I don't want to hear the bubbles", was just a joke because he's hungover, sound sensitivity
Eric Viola
2025-06-25 22:51:02 +0000 UTCOther points: -The social status of Pete and Paul being threatened at the advent of Kenneth being a writer mirrors somewhat with episode 103 where all the women in the kitchen are bitching about Helen, who they clearly feel threatened by. It's fun to see the dynamic apparent between the two groups. - When Peggy hears the phone call between Don and the girl that he sees, I think it serves as a great encapsulation of Peggy's character. There's a part of her that is genuinely naive, and then I think there's another part of her that's just kind of playing into being more naive than she actually is, which might make a character like Joan kind of stand out to us a little bit more as this character who's able to see right through her. - As we're transitioning into the scene with Don and the girl he sees, we hear the Miles Davis recording of Blue In Green. I thought the show had bent the rules a bit here to allow for it, but lo and behold it actually comes from '59, earlier than I thought. Kudos to the showrunners for accuracy. - The scene where Adam comes to the office and we get the explicit reveal that Don is lying about his real identity. Yeah, I'll be real and say that this did take me by surprise because up until now I was sticking to my own theory of the guy who thinks Don is someone else on the train was merely a reflection of how all these men's identities just kind of bleed in and out. The casting is unbelievable for the brother, he literally looks like the type of character you'd see in so many 50s and 60s movies. He looks like an actual grown up iteration of a little boy. I have to give Jon Hamm props as well. His acting when he said "Can I help you?", the look in his eyes of just how afraid he is. It's really, really excellent. - Joan just really putting Peggy through it just for the sake of it. Well, I suppose it will teach her a lesson... The actor for Joan is fantastic at playing that type of character. The way she so brazenly rings Peggy saying, "How's it going?", and Peggy's replies, "I'm staying in, thank you!". And then just walks away from the phone, they do make a good odd couple. - In the scene where Betty is going through the photographs that they took with the maid, she says, "Our husbands, they're better out here, aren't they?" What exactly does she mean by that? - The scene where Paul comes in and he rips a story out of Ken's magazine and all the girls just giggle at that. What the fuck is that about? Why are they giggling at that? That's not charming! lmao - Rewatching the scene where Paul apologizes for being a bear and that he hates being in competition with other people, and Ken looks at him real smug and just goes, "You lost". Even on the rewatch, I literally went "HA!" out loud when that happened. Love that for Ken. - The final scene between Adam and Don: first of all, I think it was a really great red herring that they gave the audience thinking that he's bringing a gun, and using dialogue in the build up to him taking out the money whilst implying that he is this "tough guy" and he is able to do what needs to be done. The exposition that Adam doesn't have anyone is very, very strong, and ties in well with us seeing how Don *does* care about his brother, but he knows that this is the life he needs to live. - The final scene between Don and Betty has this great gelling of those two storylines because you have Betty talking about: I just like seeing my dad and, of course, that's happening on the heels of everything that Don has just gone through. But then when he says "we don't have the finances for that...", and how that links with the idea of setting up the private account, how 'only the man knows where all his money is going...' and that kind of thing. She's reliant on him to know what's happening with the money at all times.
TeaDrinker3000
2025-06-25 22:37:07 +0000 UTC- The scene between Don and the girl he sees on the side (sorry, I forgot her name), I found the dialogue incredible. Her saying "I can always see when you turn, it's like I can see the wheels turning in your head when you're so preoccupied, and then you're just able to snap out of it" and then even going further to say "I like being your medicine". It's such an interesting dynamic in that so many of the women in the show see completely through Don, and in a way they're able to accept him the way he is. Most of the characters in this show are transparent to each other in a way where all aspects of performance and behaviour are part of a game that almost everyone is already aware of, be it publicly or privately. - The compelling aspect of Don, is like that Scarface quote of "I always tell the truth, even when I lie". The idea that Don is very much keeping up this barrier between him and the real world, only for the real world to come knocking down the wall in a way that he can't cover up. Don actually being able to acknowledge the fact that he misses his brother I found quite moving, it's a really great creation of mystery for the character in a way where the subsequent clues will be revealed organically. - There's also something very darkly comic about Don being confronted with the family member who he left behind, and that being juxtaposed with the ad they're selling in this episode being for an insurance company where you're "keeping your private life private". And of course the fact that he ends up giving so much money away at the end that was inteneded for his public family to his private one from the past. I'm sure there's a bit of cruel symbolism going on there. - Seeing the further interaction between Joan and Peggy about the unwritten rules of a secretary, I don't know if Peggy is intentionally written to be someone either on the spectrum, or adjacent to the spectrum, but there's definitely an autistic coded thing going on here with regards to Peggy not being able to pick up on these subtleties and social cues. Regardless of intention, it acts as a very nice contrast between herself and Joan in that sort of way. It works as a great audience surrogate dynamic as well. - The dinner scene with Pete and Trudy was rough to watch. Bad enough him saying "You don't want me to get what I want", but her then saying "Why would you put me in that position?", in the context of... exactly what it means... It's a really great use of implication and restraint, keeping the focus on how the characters feel and react to one another. Other shows definitely would have pushed both the meeting scene with Trudy, as well as this dinner scene, and allowed something more graphic and/or volatile to do the heavy lifting. The show is instead creating a much more grey relationship, which honestly I love. -There's this really nice detail where when Don leaves Adam turns to look at him, but then very quickly turns back while exhaling, as if he's kind of already accepted the fact that Don doesn't exist. "Don is dead. Don is a ghost. That's all there is to it." It's already showing how Adam cares about his brother so much and, of course, his own well-being that he's willing to do the really brave thing for them both. It's a very, very sad and heartbreaking scene. Terrific casting and performances, both here and the whole show really.
TeaDrinker3000
2025-06-25 22:36:36 +0000 UTC
