Talking ‘Mad Men’: Catching Up Before the New Season Begins

Ron Jaffe/AMC Jon Hamm as Don Draper in “Mad Men.”

Editor’s note: The author Sloane Crosley and the journalist Logan Hill are friends and fellow “Mad Men” obsessives. (There are fans and then there are those who try to find a poster seen in the background of an episode. That’s Ms. Crosley. Mr. Hill once came up with a list of books Don Draper might read.) Each week, they will chat here about all things “Mad Men,” from Don Draper’s affairs to Trudy Campbell’s outfits. In advance of the sixth-season premiere of the show this Sunday, they’re looking back and offering some predictions. Read on, check out Alessandra Stanley’s take and then return Monday morning for their post-premiere analysis.

Sloane Crosley: Greetings and salutations.

Logan Hill: Hello, Hello. I’m drinking a fancy “Mad Men”-ish drink with rye, blackberry liquor and bitters.

SC: That’s a lot of ingredients. I am drinking straight bourbon. So should we start at the very ending, with the finale

LH: Yes, let’s talk about Season 5. It’s the only season that didn’t win an Emmy for outstanding drama series. And quite a few of my friends were disappointed. Were you Matthew Weiner was just complaining about it to ArtsBeat. But he won’t get much sympathy. 4 of 5 Emmys Boo-hoo. He’s the Yankees of highbrow TV.

SC: I was really surprised and moderately disappointed. I also wouldn’t be shocked if that public snubbing didn’t directly contribute to his excessive privacy now. I think he has a semiunderstandable, “Fine, this is why we can’t allow you to have nice things” attitude about his show.

LH: His concern with spoilers is absurd: It’s not like zombies are going to eat one of them. And every prediction I’ve ever made about this show has been utterly misguided, anyway. I was sure Roger would commit suicide, not Lane.

SC: Yes, there was much doom and gloom and even minor characters claiming, “I’m sick of this whole dynamic.” But I certainly didn’t see Roger going. At least not on purpose. I could see him accidentally cutting off his own arm with a corkscrew while tripping. That has a logic to it. But you think Weiner’s being absurd!

LH: I suppose I actually think he’s a sadist, who likes controlling and playing with the audience. Watching “Mad Men” is like working at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. As the immortal hellcat Ida Blankenship said, “It’s a business of sadists and masochists and you know which one you are.” As a fan, I’m a masochist.

SC: Speaking of sadism, I do think the show has reached a “Twin Peaks” crazy-fans-going-through-the-trash-at-the-studio level. Weiner’s P.R. mistake, if I may, has been that he’s so public about his fears. And after all that, are they justified The spoilers are pretty weak. They go to Hawaii.

LH: Yes. The spoilers just don’t matter, but “Mad Men” fans are crazier than “Lost” fans, maybe because they think the answers are really out there-in 1968 or whenever. Like those Kubrick nuts in the new documentary “Room 237,” they (um, we) are that rare breed of conspiracy theorists who trust the system.

SC: No one will claim the dog dreamt this one up; I’ll give you that. There is that issue with historical shows where there’s almost a parallel show people are watching. A show where the audience is on a treasure hunt for the reality of the past. As any Pavlovian rat knows, it’s a lot more dangerous to give the audience the cheese 1 out of 100 times than no times. So the show is tethered to history just enough to make everyone crazy. I remember the Joan Baez poster backstage at the Rolling Stones concert during the Harry Crane White Castle episode. I actually tried to find it.

LH: Ha! I once Photoshopped a fictional Don Draper shelf of books he might have been reading.

SC: Of course being in the dark about historical reveals is only mildly irksome. What’s really bothering people is that we can’t predict what will happen with these fake people.

LH: I’m also less interested in how the 1968 Democratic National Convention works its way into the show than what happens with, say, Peggy, now that she’s out of the office. That little strut into the elevator to the crunchy guitar of the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” Killed me.

SC: I did love that. Though I also remember my pride for her being tinged with fear that she would cannonball into the Matrix of nothingness when the elevator failed to show up. See I like a few scenes prior, when Don kisses her hand. It’s just such a fitting tribute to their dynamic. You see it again when they run into each other at the matinee. (Did we ever find out what they were watching) I hope for more of that this season.

LH: Yes! (And, yes: “Casino Royale.”) In the first season premiere, Peggy flirted and touched Don’s hand, and Don pushed it away. And in “The Suitcase,” he kissed it. I do hope she becomes his legitimate rival. In 1968, by the way, Virginia Slims launched its “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” campaign. Who better to coin it than Ms. Basket of Kisses

SC: Alternatively, the whole thing could open in 1980. Peggy crimps her hair with star shapes. Pete discovers White Snake. Sorry. Moving on, can we have a frank conversation about prostitution Do we see the fact that Joan has prostituted herself out coming back and biting her

LH: The Joan plotline shocked me, more than anything else on the show. Though I did rewatch the series premiere, in which her first advice to Peggy was, “Go home, take a paper bag, cut some eyeholes out of it. Put it over your head, get undressed and look at yourself in the mirror …”

SC: I was distressed but not shocked at all. Joan comes from such a traditional and close-minded “women are good for X” background. If fans want more of a peek into the motivations behind their favorite characters, they have to look at the more minor cast, the older generation. Megan’s mom and her relations with Roger are not nearly as important as her comment that her daughter has the temperament of an artist without the talent. Or Betty and her father before he died. Or Peggy and how she had to escape the outerborough thumb of her mother. It’s all there.

LH: Oof! The thought of all those hateful parents makes me want to rebel and drop acid myself. But do you think that Megan’s mom is right

SC: Oh, definitely. This is why it hurts. Show me a world in which Megan is perfect for a TV spot as a Swedish yodel-person and I will show you a world in which Dawn runs SCDP.

LH: But she’s so European, Sloane! They needed a “European girl!”

SC: I’ve said it before and I will say it again. Or, rather: Je me répète: Megan is French CANADIAN. Her blood runs thick with maple syrup, not red wine. So let’s knock off the idea that she is an exotic creature of some kind.

LH: And what about Pete He’s likely going to have a new corner office and a Manhattan bachelor pad. How much trouble do you think he’ll get up to

SC: Well, the interesting thing about Pete, to my mind, is that his Machiavellian antics have given way to a real sadness. While I liked seeing him in touch with his feelings at the end of Season 5, I hope he doesn’t get so inspired by reading bedtime stories to his kid that he turns into a bowl full of mush himself.

LH: As Peggy said a few seasons ago, “Every time something good happens, something bad happens.” The more Pete gets everything he ever wanted, the unhappier he becomes.

SC: Though he’s marrying Alexis Bledel in real life!

LH: Which makes me wonder: Will Roger really drive a Lincoln (like Slattery, who endorses them) Will Don sell Mercedes (like Hamm) And will Glen become an American Apparel model with that awful mustache

SC: Peggy (Moss) will do infomercials for an alien-based newfangled religion! So. What are you looking forward to

LH: It’s sick, but I’m looking forward to Don having illicit sex again. I think that once he stopped sexing up the Midges and Bobbies of the world, the series slowed down.

SC: I would like Don to have illicit sex so long as it’s totally out of character (see also: Jewish mistresses). In the final scene of Season 5, he’s tempted by a girl at the end of the bar, who is a poor man’s Megan. Where’s the fun in that Given the times, I would like to see at least a meaningful flirtation between Don and a woman of color.

LH: And Betty Fat Betty Skinny Betty

SC: I think Betty will get a larger arc this season and I don’t mean the curvature of her rear. Medium Betty. Her food issues are marvelous. What about Pete

LH: Pete, I suspect, will become a creature of even more pure greed in the next season. He’s always seen himself as such a victim. That self-pitying line in the finale about his marriage being “some temporary bandage on a permanent wound” Poor little rich kid…

SC: Trudy will become one giant pastel ruffle and we won’t see her face anymore. They’ll replace her with a different actress and we won’t even know.

LH: Her pregnancy outfit seemed to be confected from meringue.

SC: Betty would swallow her whole.