Raw Data: In Care Of - Part 2

This is part 2 of the observations for the Season Six finale of Mad Men, "In Care Of".

Part 1

If you have not seen this brilliant "he was dead the whole time" video essay from Forrest Wickman and Chris Wade on Slate, do check it out.  I had originally planned to write up a general post about the season as a whole, but I do not think there is much I can add now after focusing on Don in Part 1 and watching that essay on Vietnam.

• Don wants another fresh start, to go to California.  Back in Season One he begged Rachel Menken to run off to Paris with him.  He had his walkabout in Season Two, touching base with Anna.  In Season Four, it was the fresh start he needed to begin a new marriage with Megan, and this season Hawaii was the high point for him and Megan.  Go West, young man, and try again...
• The episode takes place sometime between Election Day (Nov. 5) and Thanksgiving (Nov. 28) in 1968
• Did not detect an exact date on the prominently featured correspondence
• The episode may, at least literally, refer to the c/o addressee on the mail and telegram received by Don and Pete
• Figuratively, unsure
• Don pours booze into a coffee cup in what is possibly the first time anyone has bothered to hide or be ashamed of their own alcoholism
• His hand to his face during the meeting is the same reaction he had in the elevator trying to chase down Sally in "Favors".
• Almost like a private moment
• SC & Partners is located at 1271 Avenue of the Americas, but we knew that already
• The Depression era scenes always make me want to give Carnivale another try
• That show was super weird and I did not understand it at all, but maybe I am wiser now
• Don taking his kids to see his old house makes me think of Tony Soprano taking Meadow and AJ, at different times, to the old stone church which takes us back to this this and this
• The church was built by Tony's grandfather who was a stone mason from Avalino
• Tony uses the church to illustrate the value of hard work and to show them the old neighborhood
• It also touches on an early theme of the show which is being in on something from the ground up, while Tony laments he's at the end of the good times.
• I also just really really like talking about the Sopranos
• Both old neighborhoods are now black ghettos
• Sally all but threatens her father mentioning she should tell "what she saw"
• Harry Crane appears long enough to make his "I'm totally straight!" comment of the week
• I remember thinking, "meh, that didn't really warrant a comment" except to note how out of character it was for Peggy in the work place
• I don't want to think about what weird comments Harry would make about Megan's sleeping attire
• And once I started thinking about this, I though more about the dark and light colors they were wearing
• A contrast which was also noticeable when Ted plead with Don to let him go to California
• Peggy sits in Don's office and her last shot is the female version of it all
• Pete and his brother Bud are understandably angry, but it quickly morphs and it's interesting to see them, uncomfortably, rationalize that they shouldn't spend time or money to bring their mother's alleged murderer to justice.  Neither one of them were too happy with her when she was alive.  In fact, she was so miserable, she made Pete seem sympathetic
• Polar opposite outcome of the end of Season Two, following the sale of SC to PPO
• Don used to be indispensible.  However, he's become more and more disponsible this season, backing away from work and letting other fill that void, in addition to being an outright liability
•  Don removed himself from the process, saying he would only continue to review work because it is his job.  Meanwhile, colleagues more and more went to Ted with their problems.  Not being busy is a good way to get yourself axed
•  At the end of Season Two, Don, who is even allowed to work without a contract, is crucial to the company.  When he threatens to walk away the entire restructuring, with Duck as president, is re-done.  Like with anything, the bigger SC & Partners gets, the less important he, or any one individual, is
• Burt Cooper, the man without an office, willing to take his name off the firm for the sake of sanity, sits in the lobby still reading his newspaper, and wields enormous power.  
• Real power is knowing when you can give some up, at least superficially 
• Cooper still sits with his finger on the button to destroy Don at whatever moment is most convenient to him
• Loved  "Both Sides Now" at the end.  If only because it was on my dad's Folk Favorite's of the 60's and 70s'.   The point is, Don is trying now.
• We had the tapes, not these fancy CDs, and wore them all the way down
• Try to find a better mix of songs, you won't.
• I wish we didn't have to watch promos over the credits, and these songs could just play out, like on HBO.  

Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all

Raw Data: Favors

These are initial thoughts and observations for Mad Men episode 6-11, "Favors" written by Semi Chellas and Matthew Weiner and directed by Jennifer Getzinger, who did "For Immediate Release" earlier in the season.

• The episode concludes on September 20, 1968
• At the end of the episode, several different characters are watching television.  A few clues in the conversation like "intelligence" "governor" and "extended finger into the Pacific" give it away.  What sounds like "Garret" is actually "McGarret."  They are watching the pilot episode of Hawaii Five 0, aired on that date on CBS.  
• We're about at the point where The Wonder Years takes place.  The first episode of Wonder Years is set at the start of the school year in 1968.  Winnie's older brother has been killed in Vietnam.
• 1968 was the highest casualty year of the war in Vietnam.  By over 5,000.
• The Wonder Years broadcast 20 years after it was set
• Speaking of other media set in the 1960s, the scene where Don and Art are having drinks it sounds like this is playing in the background
•  The "daed si lauP" theory doesn't seem to hold in this episode which has Megan interacting with a plethora of characters
• Bob, don't go for Pete.  You can do better.
• And, how about Pete's completely blase reaction to him?  One would expect Pete to pitch a fit.
• Also perplexing is why Pete would believe anything his mother would say about Spanish Tom Buchanan 
• Compare this rebuff from Pete to the rebuff from Sal to Lee Garner Jr.  While the client-advertiser relationship is different than that of junior partner-account exec., it's still a wildly different reaction
• I don't thinks this is the whole story on Bob, and I think he may even be not gay.  I think he has a larger con going on.
• Bob was a lot more forceful with that scene, ordering Pete to "Sit Down!" 
• It is almost like Bob is trying to incite a certain reaction from people by acting differently to each one (Joan, Ginsberg, Pete)
• Or maybe he's just a red herring
• Don made a very clear statement "War is wrong" that we haven't heard him make before
• Peggy is sitting home alone with a cat, which her mother advised her to get and replace as they died every 17 or so years.
• Pete's apartment is much improved.  He seems to have accepted he's there for the foreseeable future.  Though it's not clear anyone else knows that.
• A while back I read that Matthew Weiner likes to incorporate people's real life talents in the show (and I'm trying to find an article stating that).   It came on the heels of the episode where Joan plays the accordion because Christina Hendricks can play the accordion.  So I always think of that when I see Ken Cosgrove tap dancing or Roger Sterling juggling and think it's some random thing the actor learned in their years
• Ironically, Jessica Pare is not a dancer
• While Don tested the water to see if anyone at GM had connections that could help his friend in question, they all shift uncomfortably in their seats, silent, knowing their business at the moment is reliant on all those kids, like the one Don is talking about, being shipped overseas for fodder.  But GM doesn't want want to admit it, or even think about it.
• Isn't Pete's friend at DoD the same friend he involved with Don's background/desertion?