Throwback Thursday: Mad Men Season 2 review: Yes, I’m obsessed

Last week I expressed my love to the first season of Mad Men, and just a few hours after I published that piece, I started watching season 2. It may not have been as brilliant as the first season, but it was definitely brilliant – and goood. The betrayals, the lies, the confrontations, and the secrets are there in every drama we watch on TV. But none are as cleverly written as on this show.

Characters I Grew to Like: Pete Cambell and Peggy Olson

I have to admit, I didn’t really like either of them in the first season. But they were two of the best things about the second season of Mad Men. We saw them both grow and mature, and I liked that.

Peggy became the character we knew she’d become someday: the independent career-driven woman. Episode after episode, I grew not to only to like her, but to respect her as well. She made herself a leader in a world and a community dominated by men. She became a copywriter after being a secretary and started landing accounts on her own. She even got her own office. It was so fulfilling seeing kick ass.

What I also love about her: her loyalty. When Freddy peed himself in the office and was fired, Peggy lost it on Pete for telling on him. She wanted to protect him because it weren’t for him, she’d still be a secretary. And she went out of her way to help Don after his car accident because that’s just who she is. (More on that later.)

And Pete, yes, he still had his annoying moments when I wanted to punch him in the face, but there were moments when I wanted to hug him. (And there were A LOT of moments like that.) After his father died in the plane crash, Pete tried to pour his heart out to Don. He hates Don because of how much he respects him and his opinion. He wants Don to like him, and he wants Don to think he’s ready to be big. You could see his face brighten when Don told him that he’s ready to fly on his own. He wanted to hear that from Don, and that’s why he told him that Duck was going to become President after the merger. He felt like he owed him that. It felt like he was no longer a child like everyone thinks he is.

I also loved them more because of one of my favorite scenes in the finale, “Meditations in an Emergency”, when Pete told Peggy he loved and he wanted to be with her. He told her she was perfect, and you could see it in his eyes. But then Peggy told him about the baby and how she gave it away and you could see how the color just fade away from his face. His heart broke. The scene was so well-written and so well-acted.

Peggy: I could have had you; I could have shamed you into being with me. But I didn’t want to… I had your baby, and I gave it away.
Pete: Are you serious? You can’t be serious.
Peggy: I wanted other things.
Pete: I don’t understand.
Peggy: Well, one day you’re there, and then all of a sudden there’s less of you, and you wonder where that part went, if it’s living somewhere outside of you. And you keep thinking maybe you’ll get it back, and then you realize it’s just gone.
Pete: Why would you tell me that?
Peggy: I’m sorry, Pete.

A character that pissed me off: Don Draper

To be honest, in season 2, I felt like besides sleeping with Bobby, Joy, and disappearing, Don did nothing worth mentioning. He slept with two women he had no feelings just for the fun of it – there was no romance like he had with Rachel. And when Betty told him she knew he was having an affair with Bobby, he simply denied it. He just kept lying and lying to her making her sound crazy every time she talked to him about it – which pissed her and me off. He even shoved her once when she mentioned it. And in the season finale, he just waltzed in back to her life.

Plus, somewhere along the season, he just lost his appeal – this undeniable charm that made him Don Draper. I don’t know if its when he ran away to California and simply abandoned his world or when he stopped having this superiority at work, but this charisma he had just disappeared.

(By the way, this in no way means that I don’t like Draper anymore. For some reason, I just can’t hate the guy.)

A Friendship I liked: Peggy & Don’s:

When the show first started, I could sense a connection between Peggy and Don, but I didn’t pay too much attention to it. I wasn’t going to ship on this show. But then in season 2, this connection grew stronger. They became more than just a boss and a secretary – especially that she was no longer a secretary – they became.. friends.

In season 2 episode 5, “The New Girl,” When Don was with Bobby Barett, one of his flings, and crashed the car, Don called Peggy for help. She bailed him out and let Bobby sleep at her place. She was his friend. And from that moment, he was longer Mr. Draper to her, he became Don.

We also discovered that he was her friend, too, at some point. When she had her kid and was at the hospital lost and alone, Don visited her. He told her to be strong, to forget that everything that had happened to her – to move on. And she did.

(Now can we please get a Joan and Don friendship? Thank you.)

Storyline that made me go, “OH MY GOD!”: How many rapes are there on the show?

I wasn’t a fan of Joan and Roger’s breakup. I liked them together. So I wasn’t Greg’s biggest supporter, but I didn’t hate him. I was very indifferent to his and Joan’s relationship. And then..he raped her.

While Joan was at work, Dr. Greg stopped by to take her out. He brought flowers and looked more handsome than ever. She introduced him to Roger as her fiance and you could sense just a little tension arise. And that’s when he asked her to fix her a drink, in Don’s office. Reluctant at first, she agreed. But that’s not all he wanted. He wanted to hook up right then and there, and she didn’t want to. But he did not care. It was like he was using her past against her. He was using her image as the mistress to bring her down. The way she just stared away – it was so heartbreaking watching someone so strong become so weak at that moment.

Later on, when Peggy complimented her fiance, Joan couldn’t stop bragging him and telling her how difficult his work his. She told her they were marrying in Christmas when Peggy asked. But you could see the sadness in her eyes. And that’s what I think is brilliant about this show. As much as some of the plot are baffling, they’re opening our eyes to a world and time so different than ours. She did not break up with him or humiliate him as I imagine any woman in our time would. She just shrugged it off and moved on even though she’s hurting inside.

In an interview with Vulture, Christina Hendricks, who plays Joan on the show, said that she doesn’t think Joan looks at this incident as a rape. She probably looks at it as a bad date. She doesn’t think Greg believes it’s rape either.

This was actually not the only rape incident in the season. Let’s not forget the time Don tried to teach Bobby a lesson. It was scary and my face was emotionless for like a minute.

Storyline That Made Sense But I Just Didn’t Like: Roger Plus Jane, Minus Mona

I understand that this storyline was purposefully portrayed this way to show the difference between Don and Roger. Don told Roger to move forward, not to look back. So Roger did. He left his wife, and he decided that he wanted to with a 20-year-old. (I hated Jane by the way.) But Don couldn’t actually do it. He couldn’t leave his wife even though he was miserable with her. He walked away and then walked back in into his sad, sad life.

But I just didn’t like that they had to make Roger sound like an old man who wanted a young piece of ass. I like Roger, and I liked the way he cared about Joan. I liked how he bought her the bird in season 1 to keep her company. It was sweet. He was sweet. But here, he wasn’t. We didn’t see the way he cared for her. We just saw how infatuated with her he was – just like a teenager.

A Piece of History I Loved Seeing on The Show: Marilyn Monroe’s Death

With the attention Marilyn Monroe is getting nowadays: Smash & My Week With Marilyn, it was nice to see what people actually felt like when she died instead of just hearing about it. I know it’s a fictional show, but it somehow reflects a real life that existed in the 1960s. I loved hearing the different opinions of the characters. The men thought it was not a big deal. She was a famous actress who had everything she wanted, and she had it coming. The girls were crying: they saw a woman they idolized just fade away.

We could especially see that in the scene between Roger and Joan when Roger walked into his office to find Joan lying on his couch depressed. When he dismisses her sadness and mocks it, Joan tells him, “One day you’ll lose someone who’s important to you. You’ll see. It’s very painful.”

I’d imagine we’d feel the same way if an iconic symbol like that killed herself today. But, wait, do we have an iconic symbol today? I don’t think so.

It’s now your turn to share your thoughts about the second season of Mad Men!