dex14

The way they incorporate flashbacks are always so odd. Like the whole thing with Joan last year. You really have no idea what's going on until you go back and rewatch it again.

bluetoast

I have a Koss Headphones poster hanging up in my room. I don't know about their headphones, but this image is a favorite.

ericmylad

Classic Roger last night.

One line I haven't seen mentioned yet:

Old lady in wheelchair at the funeral: "Excuse me, I have something to say".

Roger: "Well, wheel yourself on over here then".

boogieman03

That was great.

That rape conversation was bizarre, though. Jeez.

Roger Sterling always has the best lines.

Mike86

Good episodes for the most part. Like others some things threw me off like the scene with the doorman. I had no idea what the hell happened until I went back and rewatched it. Also the Sandy character (Sally's friend) was an odd thing to throw in with no background information and at first I was wondering if she was a character introduced last year I had forgotten or what.

Other than that though good stuff all around. I kind of expected Don to go back to his old ways again but I also half expected the writers to surprise us with the fact that he wasn't cheating on Megan.

Roger is always entertaining too. I like others in here found it pretty hilarious that he barely cared about his mother dying but the shoe shiner dying brought him to tears. Such a bastard.

I liked the episodes but kind of missed some of the more minor characters. The shows were basically Don, Roger, and Peggy centric. Yet oddly they still gave Betty quite a bit of screen time when she feels like she should be a more minor character at this point.

dave94

I'm surprised that several people are reading his reaction that way. Isn't it clear that he's such a stoic, uncaring person as a defense to actually feeling anything and the shoe shine's death just triggered all the emotions he was holding in about his mother?

dex14

Exactly. They had just had a scene where he states all that is left for him now is to lose things. The loss of a beloved shoe shine just triggered it. It was almost like a higher being taking a jab at him, going for the the little things in life that he enjoyed.

bunkaroo

That's the way I took it. Just the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm sure what wheelchair lady said about him being his mother's life took a toll since it seemed like he didn't really see her much.

Oh, and talk about running the gamut on Megan, these episodes showed her at both her hottest (side boob!) and with one of the worst close ups yet of those choppers. Fix those Chiclets!

bluetoast

Yeah, it definitely was a culmination of all he was going through.

andicus

Holy shit, I didn't even realize it was her...

Geofferson

Agree with the last few posts about Roger. His breaking down was about the overall sense of loss he's going through and the insignificance of everything. Both his trips to his therapist illustrated this and his break down followed a couple noteworthy scenes with his ex-wife and daughter that kept with this same theme.

Throwing Copper

Could someone explain to me what I missed with the doorman thing, that people are having to rewind to figure out?

I've already deleted the episode from my DVR.

I hope it wasn't something significant that went right past me.

DJariya

It was a flashback to the doorman suffering a heart attack that was edited together with the scene of Don and Megan returning from Hawaii. It was just a strange transition since Don and Megan were wearing different clothes. It's believed he suffered the heart attack before they went on vacation.

dave94

Yeah, the edit was very abrupt, from Megan asking how he's feeling to an immediate cut to the doorman collapsing. It threw me off until I rewound and saw that they were in different clothes.

cleaver

Supermallet

I loved the way the flashback was integrated. I wasn't sure if it was a flash forward at first, but then when it cut back it was clear that it had happened before they went to Hawaii.

dex14

Geofferson

Impressed with those numbers -- I expected them to be a little less actually. I know AMC promotes its shows on its network. However, it seemed that those that may not watch The Walking Dead could easily have gone without knowing Mad Men returned last night.

I talked to my in-laws (avid MM fans) an hour before it aired and they had no idea it was on last night. I suspect they weren't alone.

kaisha no saru

The flashback and the rape conversation really threw me...I was wondering if they were doing an "alternate realities" thing and it we were going to find out it was somebody else that had the heart attack or they were showing folks with weird inner dialogues or something (I really thought that the whole rape conversation was going to be something in Betty's imagination, just didn't seem realistic).

I was also really confused by the young violinist, I was reading through episode guides trying to figure out if I was supposed to know who she was and I was totally forgetting her.

Other than all the WTF moments I had I thought it was a solid premiere and look forward to the rest of the season.

Geofferson

Another good one-liner from Roger that I forgot about. After Don's failed pitch attempt to Sheraton, Roger comments, "We sold death to Lucky Strike for 25 years. Know how we did it? We ignored it."

sherm42

I kind of wish the show was a bit more subtle. How many death references could they fit into one episode? The heart attack, two off screen deaths, Don's suicidal ad pitch, Betty driving recklessly, Don asking the doctor about death...

It's like last season's repeated allusions to suicide leading up to Layne's suicide.

OldBoy

Liked the ep. pretty well. Wasn't overly awesome, but I was still most amused by it all. What year are they in exactly? Late 60's or did they just ring in 1970?

dave94

This episode ended on New Year's Day 1968.

Jimmy James

Peggy's work on Koss frankly I think may have surpassed anything we've seen Don do. Talk about pulling yourself out of the fire.

I seriously missed Joan.

Coral

I love how Peggy's kicking ass at her job. She's essentially Don at this agency.

Another 1.5 years ahead in the timeline and I'll have been born. I wonder when the time comes if they'll reference my birth somehow.