Mad Men 1x04 Reaction
Added 2025-06-23 21:37:08 +0000 UTC
Comments
Underrated line Cooper: What do you know about Pete’s family? Don: Nothing except they put out a mediocre product.
JojoPotato
2025-06-24 15:31:45 +0000 UTCThanks for commenting! Are you a first-time watcher? It's gonna be really interesting hearing your perspective as the show evolves.
Kara
2025-06-24 13:23:34 +0000 UTCI'm sure this is what you're saying (not trying to explain the world to you haha) but yeah, the definition of whiteness greatly changed especially in the 20th century. Famously a London boarding house in 1950 had a sign saying "No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs". We see several times in Sopranos Irish-American characters discussing the strife earlier Italians had in integrating into US culture. My favorite fact: when olive oil was first introduced to US, it was placed in the "exotic / ethnic foods aisle" of markets, then osmosed its way to just being a "normal white american product". Pizza, Pasta and olive oil as "exotic racial foods" is just a funny image to me. Race has always been a social construct and this is why white supremacy, on top of being disgusting, is also hilarious... you're riding for an ideology that only added Italians and Slavs and Irish folks within the last century because they needed to shore up their anti-Black numbers!
Kara
2025-06-24 13:21:53 +0000 UTC"He's so nice, not at all what I imagined" Trudy baby he just laid me out emotionally and he does this every day in every meeting 😭
Kara
2025-06-24 13:15:01 +0000 UTCactually even mama dykeman gets a couple soft passive aggressive digs in, "I do hope you and Trudy will make it out to the house this summer... I'd hate for you to miss the blackberries", she places a coaster under his drink cuz he didn't bother...
Kara
2025-06-24 12:45:07 +0000 UTCGreat reaction! I love how Mad Men can do a "Pete" episode but still weave in other stuff that all ties around a central theme. It gets really, really good at doing this eventually. This season starts in Spring 1960 (we can know this from the show by this point). WW2 was 21-15 years ago, Korea was 10-7 years ago. 16 million men served in WW2, 4.7M served in WW1, 5.7M served in Korea. A large percentage of men in Don and Roger's cohort fought in a war like in Band of Brothers and then had to come home and figure life out. And of course all the women that age also served in their own way during wartime back home. It's hard to pinpoint exactly exactly why Roger and Don can't stand Pete, but the generational difference between those who fought in war and those who were kids in it is massive... like they can feel what they did start to fade away, the next generation after Pete's wont even remember wartime... until Vietnam picks up. Until the gulf war. Until the forever war invasions of the 2000s. So it goes. Pete is born too young to fight in Europe/Korea, born too early to fight in Vietnam, born just in time to independently invent Direct Marketing on a 3500 USD salary. A thing like that. I don't think it's a coincidence that Pete's dad is awful and also says something racist, whereas his father-in-law Tom seems nice and doesn't say anything racist. Yet Pete doesn't care because his dad's money is HIS money, whereas Trudy's money is like... another L in his mind, he can only buy an apartment with the help of the WOMAN he married's parents... Patriarchy again. It's a small detail but they also confirm that the Dykeman family is on his mother's side, so his horrible father married into this prestigious NY family name and is then like "we gave you your name".... no bestie, his mother gave him the name which saved his job, which you actually erased (Campbell is from the father and at work Pete goes by Peter Campbell, not Dykeman-Campbell or anything). "New York City is a marvelous machine filled with a mesh of levers and gears and springs like a fine watch, wound tight." NYC is a major part of the show so far, not just a backdrop but also one of the great cities of the world, the greatest city in America and even in 1960 before its modern renovation as a rebranded fairytale playground for tourists and billionaires, is still a marvelous machine. A place where endless capitalistic aspiration caused the buildings to scrape the skies. I don't know what Pete's thinking at the end 100% but I imagine every time he looks out at the view he remembers growing up here, the stories of his ancestors owning half of Manhattan, the weight and expectations of that, how he feels he's failing them and himself + how he'll basically never escape it, he can't even escape looking at it. New York, New York.
Kara
2025-06-24 12:37:57 +0000 UTCme when i have an idea, google it and see there's already a Kickstarter
Kara
2025-06-24 07:58:46 +0000 UTCI love that you guys don't hate Pete immediately. Gives me a lot of hope for this reaction. Betty too.
Yannis
2025-06-24 05:10:32 +0000 UTCDyckman aside, I imagine Pete’s background isn’t that different from any of the other “young executives”. The only thing Don seems to know about Pete is that he’s *annoying*. He’s either blatantly kissing his ass or undermining him.
JJ
2025-06-24 03:28:34 +0000 UTCPoor Pete took it on the chin from everyone but his mama in this episode lmao
Truemeathead
2025-06-24 03:25:45 +0000 UTCI do get why he was about to get fired, though. Pete had already been out of line in the Lucky Strike meeting, and this is the second and third time he undermined the authority of his boss despite being a Junior executive just starting out. It sets a terrible example. Even on a modern company it could've set grounds for firing. Thankfully, his surname saved him, so ironically his family did "give him something".
Gaboxxy
2025-06-24 02:21:19 +0000 UTCWe don't know a lot about Don's childhood and backstory yet, but I think it's fair to assume already that he didn't have his life handed to him on a silver platter. (He didn't even have a nanny!) Whatever he did before the show started, he has earned his money and his success. With him also living under a false identity, the comparison to Jay Gatsby is only natural... Which makes the animosity between Pete and him feel just as inevitable. Like Jay Gatsby, Don's success has him moving in moneyed New York circles, but there is a higher rung that he can never reach: Old Money. Pete, meanwhile, was born on third base with his famous name, and here we see that it's both a blessing and a curse. It saves his job and ingratiates him with his new neighbours, but his parents' expectations are out of step with how he wants to live his life. The twist on Gatsby is that Pete isn't a Tom Buchanan figure; he's the son of one. (Shout out to that casual racism!) And the real irony is that Pete's father isn't even the parent with the *real* famous name -- though the Campbell's are undoubtedly an important family, considering he is married to Dorothy Dyckman. (There's an intersting parallel here with Don, where's Pete's "true identity" as a Dyckman is hidden by his own surname.) We'll have to track Pete's relationship with his father & mother as the show progresses, but the funhouse Gatsby/second-generation Old Money aspect is set up nicely in this episode. You can see why he struggles with his place in the world (and at the office), and why Don might have a problem with him* even before he starts pitching copy to the client. *Or rather, Don has a problem with the *idea* of Pete. I don't get the sense that Don really knows much about Pete as an individual. He knows the outline -- that he's a silver-spooned, college-educated junior exec who is eyeing his office -- but he certainly doesn't understand how Pete is wrestling with that part of himself. On a totally separate note, I wonder if Don's fixation on the romanticism of Bethlehem -- compared the sterner "backbone idea" -- is tied up in his feelings for Rachel?
Mike
2025-06-24 02:17:24 +0000 UTCWhy tell them when the show ends? Why limit their scope of the show?
JJ
2025-06-24 02:00:46 +0000 UTCVery well, then. Comment deleted. JFK announced his candidacy for president on 2 January, 1960.
Thomas Fahey
2025-06-24 01:46:08 +0000 UTCUntil Don brings cocaine to the US and creates the tag-line "Frost Yourself" to promote it.
Luis
2025-06-24 00:53:48 +0000 UTCBest character along with Peggy
Diego Castillo
2025-06-24 00:14:07 +0000 UTCI'm pretty sure somebody mentioned it in a comment on an earlier episode, but here we see that Pete is from Old Money. The Dyckman family is a real-life family with historical roots in New York, and there's streets and landmarks in NYC named after the family. Old Money has a very specific context in USA society. It's not the same as having an official nobility, but there's a lot of Influence from being Old Money that New Money can't match. Even though New Money is often richer -- and that usually comes with more concrete power -- Old Money has the soft power like this of getting accepted into places based purely on the name. This is one of our first real looks at Bert Cooper. Even though Roger Sterling's name is first in the company name ("Sterling Cooper") we see that Bert's the real power here. He doesn't even give Don and Roger an order. He says what he wants, and he waits for them to say that they agree with him. Pete did legitimately cross a business line by pitching his own idea in that context. It may not have merited being fired, but it would have merited discipline even if Don wasn't insecure and lashing out. He's so determined to "prove" himself that he's like a child insisting he's a grown up: All it does is make you look immature in the eyes of the actual grownups around.
JBK405
2025-06-24 00:07:45 +0000 UTCPete is definitely a very compelling character. Don’s subtle digs are the the most impressionable part of their interactions thus far, so it’s very easy to look past Pete undermining Don in almost every business meeting they’ve had so far. It’s not one-sided on Don’s behalf. And that’s putting aside everything about Pete on a personal level.
JJ
2025-06-23 23:57:06 +0000 UTCWhen Pete's dad says, "no job for a white man" re. being an account man for advertising, it was always weird to me as who else? But obv. he's referring to WASP men and not for example, Italian, Irish, German and Scandinavian-American men (2nd generation onward)
Infode
2025-06-23 23:26:20 +0000 UTCThat's a direct cost not taking into account actual real estate prices. The real world cost of that apartment now is likely several million dollars.
Luis
2025-06-23 22:59:54 +0000 UTCPete's $30,000 apartment is around $325,000 in today's money. There's definitely a sense of both looking at things from today and putting yourself in the mind of the past when watching this show. Glad they're enjoying it so far. Definitely my favourite episode of the four.
Mark M
2025-06-23 22:55:16 +0000 UTCHow was Pete’s day? NOT GREAT, BOB!!
Kalcatalc
2025-06-23 22:54:00 +0000 UTCI do agree that Pete projects his relationship with his father onto his relationship with Don, but I think the biggest difference is that Pete still very much admires Don and seeks his approval whereas with his own father, he has given that up long ago. Just with the way he said "Why is it so hard for you people to give me anything" you could see he was very much detached from his family. He has already separated himself from his family but with Don, he still has that childlike admiration, and I love how Lola mentioned him sounding like a child when talking to Don because in almost every interaction they have, to me ,Pete always seems to revert into a childlike state with Don. With Don though, I wouldn't say he resents Pete, it's more like he doesn't see the value in Pete and until he sees the value in you, you won't mean a thing to him, and this seems to reflect in all his relationships. Also that whole interaction between Betty and Glen was so uncomfortable to watch, and I was disappointed in how Betty handled that situation because 1) She should never given him a lock of her hair , and 2) She should have told his mother immediately. These conversations are about to get more and more interesting as this show plays out, I can't wait.
Nyeisha Melvina Clark
2025-06-23 22:51:38 +0000 UTCFor people who prefer plot-heavy shows with lots of action & suspense, this show will NEVER pick up, it'll remain "slow" from start to finish. The pacing of these first four episodes is more or less how it remains, however, what makes the early episodes feel a bit slower is that you simply don't know these characters well enough to have a deep vested interest in their stories yet. Once that develops, nothing that happens could possibly be slow or boring. What's great about MM is that relatively mundane events like a couple having a fight, a meeting with a client that goes wrong, people getting drunk at an office party etc. are as exciting and enthralling as the train heists and near death experiences going on in other shows, lol. If you guys are really enjoying it after four episodes then that's a great sign, because it just gets better and better from here!
Taya
2025-06-23 22:47:37 +0000 UTCOnly on a recent rewatch did I notice that when Don and Roger take off their shoes to enter Cooper's office Roger can be seen decreasing in height a bit which means he wears insoles in his shoes
bondbond53
2025-06-23 22:25:35 +0000 UTCThus we witness the first of many iconic lines by Pete Campbell: "Direct marketing—I thought of that. Turned out it already existed, but I arrived at it independently."
bondbond53
2025-06-23 22:18:38 +0000 UTC?
bondbond53
2025-06-23 22:17:05 +0000 UTCSurprise! There's a Mad Men reaction here to see you!
Jenny D
2025-06-23 22:11:17 +0000 UTCWatched the full episode with you guys when I should have been sleeping! Loved the discussion, I knew this was about Pete's insecurities but never realised quite how much he was constantly stomped on this episode. Loved your review can't wait for you guys to get further in
Zosko1
2025-06-23 22:07:35 +0000 UTCI think it’s safe to say that LM loves the beginning of things.
Luis
2025-06-23 22:05:23 +0000 UTCAs a big supporter of For All Mankind, I got excited when the girls keep mentioning how they are enjoying Mad Men because of all the female characters. In For All Mankind, Joel Kinnaman is probably the main character but there are so many great female characters too. In fact, one of the reasons why the show is so great is the female characters. Karen, Ellen, Tracy, Margo (an absolute legend), Molly (an absolute badass), Danielle, Aledia! They are all such rich and interesting characters. I'll definitely be reminding LM of this next year when they are looking for a new long show.
Damien Fenton
2025-06-23 21:49:34 +0000 UTC"Mad Man", just one.
Hollow
2025-06-23 21:40:52 +0000 UTCOther comments: - I love seeing Alison Brie, my face just completely lit up when I saw her for the first time. It's hard to kind of place my finger on her personality wise. When Pete is near her he seems to be something approaching a respectable man. I'm assuming that maybe with her seeming to be very stable that she's going to operate as some sort of foil to how his character is going to go towards the rest of the season. - The scene with Rachel Menken took me quite off guard. I'll be honest and say that even with what we saw in the previous episode, I wasn't expecting her to be that emotionally affected by the rejection from Don Draper. I think having that less is more approach worked so, so well because they really could have milked a scene like that for emotional pathos. And as an aside, I think that the actor is unbelievably gorgeous, I also really love the production design and how they present her like with this totally different ensemble each time. And I love it when shows are able to hold back like that. - The fact that Betty has to walk that goddamn dog that Don brought home... - Oh, Jesus Christ, that scene between Pete and his father. People like that just make my goddamn skin crawl. Just the smirk and condescension and superiority complex and just all the bullshit emanating from him is disgusting. I haven't much intellectual to say about all that, just really grosses me out. - Likewise, I liked seeing this more, I suppose you could almost say "tender" side to Pete when he's alone with Trudy. I am glad that they are fleshing him out. I don't want to completely write him off just because of his locker room talk and office behavior, but the way he treated that woman in the burlesque place in the first episode was inexcusable. Nonetheless I can only imagine the degree to which so much of this is going to come down to his identity as a man and a lack of approval from his father, and then of course, from Don and how much is happening there. In the same way, just looking at the meeting scene with Walter, trying his very best to work with Don. - I can't tell you how happy I am with a character like Saul. The bitchy gay archytype can become overused in othershows, and often unfortuantely in a way that's problematic. But here I really, really appreciate it, as they show restraint with him too. -Of course Don is just sitting on the couch as Betty's doing all the work, Jesus Christ. - I love the details of something like Trudy's father willing to front the money up front. And Pete, of course, viewing that as a challenge to his self-identity is really great. It's another point that really enforces his character. - In the scene with him and Trudy in the car, I really enjoy seeing how those aspects of traditional patriarcha/slash misogynist tropes that do come out when he's speaking to Trudy, and how she's able to knock them back in a way that is always showing compassion. There's nuance here as I don't know if you would necessarily say those times are toxic, but they're kind of toxic adjacent. And likewise, you wouldn't necessarily say that she's being taken advantage of, in my opinion. I just think that there is a lot more that she kind of has to put up with. And you see, again, this is why it gets complicated. You're also just looking at the type of career that this type of guy is doing and the way he has to act. Then, of course, you have the aspect of him being in his own head and thinking it's the way he has to act. And how that compares to the likes of Don's boss, as we see as the episode goes on and even the talk from the previous episode or rather the episode before about how there is a strong belief that psychiatry is bullshit and the conversations of this generation does nothing but look at its own wounds. - Tiny nitpick, but these are the things that do stand out to you once you've seen enough television: you really know that this was their first season budget-wise because there is a close up shot of Betty when Glenn is asking for a piece of her hair and she says no, and it's strikingly out of focus. - Again, just as a tiny detail, I love the music that they're using in the show in the transitory scene from Betty leaving Helen's house to coming home to see the Don snuggly asleep. The chimes alongside the small bit of woodwind melody is just absolutely gorgeous. This is lovely little flourish that operates in the background to give us breathing room, rather than just making everything sound dark and looming for dramatic tension all the time. - Speaking on Saul for a second time, his scatching comment to Pete about how he 'chose the wrong time to look for an apartment' is exactly the level of fleshing him out I was referring to. He's not just a comedic archytype to relieve tension, he actively adds tension by being needlessly cruel to Pete in that moment. - From a screenwriting perspective, using something like the comedy record at the beginning of the episode and then bookending it being thrown out of the office when he's in that state of emotional disarray was a nice little before and after for the audience to understand his mental state. - With Betty in the psychiatrist scene: first of all, yes, it's very telling that Betty used to be in a sorority. Second, the subtext at the scene's final line "that boy is just not getting what he needs", and linking that not only to Don's role as a parent, but also "What did Don get as a child as well? What emotional neglect was there?", was both apt and appropriate. - When Pete is being dressed down by the white haird guy (sorry i don't know names), I don't know if this is going to do him the world of good, or exacerbate the insecurity that he has. This might've been the slap in the wrist he needed, or it could have been hurting him to the point where now he's going to be carrying this injury with him. Somewhat fitting now that this transitions us into the scene where Don and white haired guy are talking about this generation licking their wounds. He even says "I know your generation went to college instead of serving, this man is your commanding officer". - Don saying "Kids today have nothing to look up to. I guess they're going to look up to us". And then the white haired guy literally passing him the empty glass, that level of symbolism of 'what you're inheriting from the old generation is going to be an empty glass of whiskey'... - I love the fact that they very deliberately structured this episode in that first, you get a sense of how important the father is. Then, you see how important Pete actually is to the company as a result of his name. Finally, the episode ends with a bitter affirmation as to what degree Pete truly realises (let alone allows himself to admit) that the only reason he is truly here is because he's his father's son. How much can he truly accept that he's not only replacable, he's actively a detriment. You just get this really sickening feeling when you watch Trudy interact with the neighbor who's just "so thrilled to have a Dykeman living in the building". It's putting forth the idea that your name is putting you on a pedestal where yes, you *are* above other people, but you can't at all move from that position lest you fall down further than anyone else. The others have a fear of not being man enough, Pete has the fear of being a disgraced Dykeman.
TeaDrinker3000
2025-06-23 21:39:01 +0000 UTCSorry my comment on the last episode was so long, I forgot that not everyone is on a device that can scroll past comments without the entire thing opening up. From now on if I go past 1000 words (let alone 5000 lmao) I'll post the rest in the replies so y'all don't need to scroll that much. Likewise, the most important bits I'm going to comment here, and then post the rest I have to say in the replies. I'm absolutely in love with this show and it's even though it's only episode 4, I can't help myself typing for hours about it... - There's this really lovely scene between Helen and Betty after her ex-husband has been looking for her that showcases the subtextual conversations that occur as a result of foramlity. Betty pretending that she has no idea what Helen is talking about before Helen says "I was at the window", Helen making a crass joke about her husband dying at which Betty kind of looks to be a bit uncomfortable at it in a way that seems forced. Perhaps the best example is when Helen says "I might as well tell you, I know you've all been talking about it", and Betty says "No, we haven't all been talking...". Even if it means outright *lying* to the other person's face, and both of them are aware of that, it's quite striking how Betty is constantly holding up this particular mask. I'm so interested to see who Betty is were she to drop the facade altogether. I'm assuming that there's going to be kind of a big climax of that, if not within the season, then certainly within the series. - Speaking of facade, I'm finding Pete to be a very interesting character so far. He's really sort of a teenage 'go-getter', truly naive. But the fact that there's this tangible arrogance too, I find it difficult to discern who he 'really' is thus far, which is why I think this is why it's such a well-written show. And I have to give the actor his flowers as well, he's doing a terrific job. Pete's very much putting up this facade that everyone's able to see through, even himself. But it's the idea of "so long as I keep holding up the mask, no one can really fault me. Even if people can see past the edges of the mask and see my terrified face, I'm still holding up the mask." Pete's a lot of things, but you can't say he's not resilient from what we've seen. - What makes the writing so strong is that the show isn't just presenting these outdated perceptions on emotional maturity, and masculinty merely to scoff at how ridiculous it is. Even when the tone is sardonic, they're approaching this from the position of "these are competent characters, and this is as far along as their social-science was for the time". At least in so far as a very white, very rich ad agency was going to go, they really truly believed that this is the way the world operates. I mean, they kind of had to. They had to go through a world war all over again, which itself wasn't that far along from the Great Depression. I find it really fascinating and nuanced for the writers to have had this approach. - I'm sure there is not a lot I need to say necessarily about the scene with Glenn overall. I just feel so sorry for this child who has had so little social interaction that not only would he be so enamored by having this lock of hair, but also doesn't have the social etiquette to know why that would be very strange for him to ask. I found it to be a very difficult scene to watch. - When Pete introduces Walter to the blonde woman and says "this is my cousin", am I a little bit face blind or was this not the woman that he was being horrible with in the burlesque club in episode one? - When he says to Don "You're competing with Pete, not on a personal level, but for the world". How do you make a distinction between those two things? That's what I'd like to get other people's opinions on as well because I found that to be a really fascinating line. - When they entered the office of the man who has his shoes off (sorry I'm bad with names), I noticed as soon as we see it that he has a painted replica of 'The Dream Of The Fisherman's Wife' above the couch. This is one of the most widely recognised and influential pieces of erotic art in the world, but what's interesting is that this level of explicit depiction of sex existed for hundreds of years in Japan in a medium known as 'Shunga', and crossed all social classes without at all being seen as taboo. In contrast, it only became socially acceptable in the west in the mid-19th century, when Mad Men takes place, and would have occupied a state of either being regarded as 'high-art', or 'smut'. To this day it's debated within feminist circles as to whether or not it's adhering to patriarchal tendencies, or repurposing them for female-agency. I'm assuming it's in the office merely as decoration, and presumably as novelty given that we've seen their views towards ""orientals"" in the previous episode. For a show like Mad Men, it's such an interesting piece of art to suddenly appear, as it's every bit as timeless and beautiful as it is socio-politically complex.
TeaDrinker3000
2025-06-23 21:38:03 +0000 UTC
