Comments on: What Do You Think? Mad Men Season 3 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2009/11/09/what-do-you-think-mad-men-season-3/ Responses to Media and Culture Fri, 12 Feb 2016 19:35:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.5 By: Matt Sienkiewicz http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2009/11/09/what-do-you-think-mad-men-season-3/comment-page-1/#comment-15 Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:36:54 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=169#comment-15 Just caught up with Mad Men. More than anything, I’m pleased that the Dear Penthouse narrative formula seems to have subsided. On the one hand I enjoyed Don’s weekly parade of Housewives and Barely Legals as much as the next guy who would never admit to that out loud, on the other hand it I’d lost patience trying to make meaning out of the various Freudian role plays. The Mom, the Lost Childhood, Le Belle Juive and so on. In the end it was amounting to little more than really well lit softcore with a discouragingly handsome man.

As much as I like Slattery, the two wives and the daughter are insufferable. I’m kind of shocked it took this long to bring Hendricks back into the mix. There’s a legitimate depth to that character that has yet to be investigated.

The hostile takeover finale was excellent, but really because it was the opposite of what most of the series is. It was fast, clear, to the point and had a resolution. Like a little sports movie in the midst of the not quite Dreyeresque talk-talk-sigh-talk that the middle of the season was. But maybe that’s just what they were setting us up for.

]]> By: Nick Marx http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2009/11/09/what-do-you-think-mad-men-season-3/comment-page-1/#comment-14 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:02:50 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=169#comment-14 I agree with all of the above except JFK. Felt tacked on, and it was foreshadowed waaaay too much in preceding episodes. It seemed only to exist to disrupt the Sterling girl’s wedding and toss us one of those “HEY EVERYONE, REMEMBER THE 60S??” bones.

Also, the more backstory I get on Don, the bored-er I get. I waited for Betty’s confrontation with him re: the Dick box (see what I did there?) to be a little bit more, um, confrontational. I get it, the show’s about subtlety and slow-burn, but Don’s still not been made to suffer any real consequences for his transgressions past or present, and we’re 3/5 of the way through the series. Does anyone really believe that the Henry/Betty thing will last? Aren’t we drawing a Tony/Carmella arc of winning-back-the-wife for season 4?

Also, it’s a great show etc. etc. etc. Just wanted to pick nits.

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