Mad Men S5E7 “Lady Lazarus” [IB]

“Tomorrow Never Knows” is not my favorite song by The Beatles. Not by a long shot. In general I’m not a fan of their drug-inspired work, but I recognize how Revolver, and, specifically, “Tomorrow Never Knows”, is the turning point for the band (for the record, Rubber Soul is better than Revolver).

It’s also the obvious choice for a song by The Beatles that would completely alienate Don.

All season long we’ve been seeing old Don. Prior to this Don was actually pretty cool. He had a lot more success with women and the 60s didn’t actively hate him. Now the youth of the country is aggressively turning against him. Megan and Ginsberg seem to regard his distaste for youth with incredulity and horror. I mean, Ginsberg drops an F-bomb, he’s so mad (really, censors…did we really need to cut the audio there?). In the direct aftermath of last week’s episode, Megan decides that she truly does hate copywriting and advertising in general and she wants to act. It’s just so…I dunno. Everything that Don wanted, Megan had. She had the beauty and grace of Betty and the desire to write copy and intelligence (and skill) of Peggy, but now the life that Don has so enjoyed is abandoning him. Hence the open elevator shaft…

I loved the way that Peggy dressed down Megan for rejecting the thing that she and Don value so much. Both of them cannot understand a world where advertising doesn’t take precedence, but at least Don was supportive and didn’t squash her dream like he did with Betty. Peggy and Joan also had that lovely interaction where they discussed the modern woman and Megan’s squandered talents. Joan’s view of her is far more pessimistic, perhaps given her older age and the fact that she’s seen so many of these marriages go the same way, but Peggy sees a woman who has everything, but cannot be satisfied with what she has.

Meanwhile, Pete and Rory Gilmore (not really, it’s Alexis Bledel playing the role of Beth) are engaged in extra-marital activities. When Pete’s train buddy decides to spend the night with his mistress, she gets revenge by sleeping with Pete, but he’s not able to let go quite so easily. He is constantly overaggressive with women, isn’t he? After a season of just tearing him down, at least Harry gets a chance to drop some wisdom about women with Pete. It’s a pretty good scene that Pete doesn’t take to heart. No, he’s not satisfied with women being in control and deciding the way things go. It reminds me of his scene with the prostitutes earlier in the season. He wants to be in charge. So when Beth draws the little heart to Pete and then erases it with the power windows…what Pete sees as hope is instead further demonstration of his lack of power.


Posted

in

by

Comments

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.