I watched it, but I missed much of last season and a few episodes this season (they don't replay nearly as often as HBO and Showtime do), so I was always half-lost. Either that, or there's not much plot. Which I think is equally likely.

For instance, I saw the flashbacks about that one girl getting knocked up, but I never knew until last night who did it. Was that common knowledge?

i can't get through to the article but could we put a spoiler in the header? So i don't spoil it?

I watched it, but I haven't seen the first season so there were several plotlines that didn't make total sense to me until recently -- Pete being the father of Peggy's baby and Don's false identity the big two. Now I just have to wait for the Season 1 DVDs to come back to the library (I've been waiting all season!)

mudpuppie, the episodes are available on demand through some cable operators (not mine, sadly).

I didn't get to see it because of the stupid Phillies and their stupid AWESOMENESS!! Hopefully I'll be able to watch it tomorrow on OnDemand.

Also...GO PHILS!

scody, you have to put "spoiler" in the title to hide the comments in recent comments - "spoilers" won't do it.

Sheesh, dg, you could at least capitalize "Poss. Spoiler"! I mean, scody's the editorial type. You just gave her a second-hand capitalization error!

That was her error, not mine. My editorial style is to make minimal changes for functionality. I'm not your proof-reader and, in any case, if I had edited it for style and correctness, I would have changed the style to open punctuation ;-)

oopsie! That was me. The spoiler part was supposed to be in small text, which I swear I've done before in headers, but it dint take. I'll put it in parentheses...

ah. I think it was going over the character limit or something.

Sorry 'bout that! For some reason, I don't use recent comments as frequently on Mecha as I do on Mefi, so it wasn't even on my radar screen.

Mad Men seems to definitely one of those shows -- much like the Sopranos, but possibly even more so -- where the major plot points from one season kind of go undercover in the next, so they become essential to the subtext without being made explicit again in the main narrative until a key moment (like Peggy and Pete last night).

On that note, though, I actually assumed throughout this season that Pete had been assuming Peggy had been pregnant with his child! After all, there had been some snide jokes around the office surrounding her weight gain --> disappearance --> reappearance as her old slim self. Later on, when Pete and Trudy were trying to get pregnant, I read his "relief" at finding out that he wasn't the one with a fertility problem as insincere (as so much of his behavior is) -- in fact, I saw it as a kind of confirmation of his hunch that he'd already fathered a baby -- which would only matter to him as a symbol of his virility, not as an actual child with whom he could have had a relationship (since he's so utterly incapable of relating to people that way).

So my only shock in that scene was Pete's shock -- because I had actually read a different angle into the whole Pete-Peggy subtext throughout the season.

OMG, it looks so much better that way. It probably didn't matter to anyone else, but I'm having a nitpicky day (just ask the gf) and it was bugging me. Thank you, metachat, for acceding to my entirely irrational needs.

Back on topic, the Salon article had two minor mistakes that even I, an only occasional viewer, noticed. First off, it was a bellboy, not the bartender, who showed disdain for Betty's impromptu liaison. Also, the writer called the agency "Cooper Sterling." Come on! Even I know it's "Sterling Cooper"!

...the major plot points from one season kind of go undercover in the next, so they become essential to the subtext without being made explicit again in the main narrative until a key moment...

I think that probably makes it more rewarding if you're a dedicated viewer. But if you go back and forth, it only seems to reinforce the perception that there's no real plot. I can't remember the word that Jon Hamm used to describe the show on SNL -- it was 'subdued,' or 'restrained,' or 'understated,' or something like that. Whatever it was, it was spot-on.

I like 30 Rock more than I like Mad Men. I know this probably makes me lame. I never really got into Mad Men, I don't know why. it somehow looks contrived to me; I know so many really cool people -- like scody -- who love it, though. I'm clearly the one who's wrong here.

First off, it was a bellboy, not the bartender, who showed disdain for Betty's impromptu liaison.

I just re-watched that scene a couple times and I'm pretty damn sure the guy who catches Betty coming out of the back room is the same guy who served her at the bar earlier in the scene. His uniform definitely looks more like a bellboy's than a bartender's though.

I like 30 Rock more than I like Mad Men. I know this probably makes me lame.

30 Rock is a damn good sitcom, but why are you comparing it to Mad Men?

I just re-watched that scene a couple times and I'm pretty damn sure the guy who catches Betty coming out of the back room is the same guy who served her at the bar earlier in the scene.

Really? Well then, I stand corrected. I could have sworn they were different people.

Maybe I don't watch the show regularly because I'm just not *smart* enough.

Repeating mullacc and waiting before i do go on.
Because, oh, how i do go on.

I just watched the episode. I agree - the salon article does nail it.

At one point, it seemed they were turning Betty into Carmela, and i saw a woman being penned in by circumstance in a well appointed cage she'd picked out piece by piece. i'd missed the beginning and caught it later, but it never seem so much like the Sopranos as it did last night.
Still Betty's so very Hitchcockian, she flickers through a series of heroines, all who are suppose to run and never fight.
i'd really like to see her beat the living shit out of someone.
Don's gotten more and more emotional, and i don't really like it. That self assurance and seamless confidence are Don Draper, so the contrast of his open fear is more disconcerting.

i was surprised that Pete would say he loved Peggy, except i didn't believe him. He might have thought he meant it but i don't think he's really capable of love. He's a lost child who never had parents and wants them badly. The way he and his brother are look like school buddies who survived together, but there's no love in his life that amounts to more than an acquisition. So i easily see him wanting the kid, childishly, vengefully, and as an act of desperation and maybe a misguided search for self.
i'm still not sure quite what Peggy meant, because her character goes deeper and gets more and more clever with itself, so i'm never sure what to expect from her.
That Hanks boy bugs me.

The bearded copywriter surprised me most, when he asked about loyalty. Saying he liked it the way it was was the most sincere emotion anyone's expressed in words. They are his family, he loves them like one, brothers and sisters to compete with and hassle, bosses to duck and please like parents.

i wonder if there is an overall arc besides weaving them into historical events and seeing how they react.