Sep 072008
The theme of the episode is given away by Ken: “The Gold Violin” is solid gold but it doesn’t make music.
There it is at the end, Don in his tux (actually a dinner jacket, whatev), just as Cooper promised, in the Cadillac, just as Roger promised, and there they are, in all that misery; it’s gold but it doesn’t make music.
There’s Kitty and Salvatore. They really do love each other and their marriage is solid gold. But it doesn’t make music.
Joan has everything she ever wanted. She’s the office manager and she’s got a bigass rock on her finger. Why is she angrier than ever?
And Roger knows there’s nothing but the gold, and no possibility of music. It’s enough to make you puke in a Caddy.
38 Responses to “The Gold Violin: "Theme" Music”
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Ooh ooh ooh!
Cooper too… the art, and all its mysteries, were just for the investment. And an added bonus, he gets to torture people with it!
I love this show.
And, of course, as others have pointed out, the beautiful family on a beautiful picnic, yet they leave all the trash behind (literally and figuratively).
Oh! And I forgot to mention Jimmy. I mean, I hadn't even thought of Cooper, and you're 100% right, but I originally intended the post to include Jimmy Barrett. "You've gotten me everything I wanted." Including a cheating wife.
Britni, I hadn't made that connection, and that is SO smart.
I don't want to be the "iTunes person" each week, but has anyone noticed that Season 2 now has disappeared from the iTunes store? I'm nervous about what that means for our scheduled downloads of this episode. I need to see it again to soak it up and I don't have cable (I watch it with friends each Sunday)!
I disagree about Roger. He's always hoping for music to strike again, that's why he's always after the pretty skirt.
Wasn't it Joan who told Peggy after her promotion that once you achieve your goals, you realize how limited your goals were? Maybe she's feeling that way these days.
This is probably exactly what you've said but when I first read this post it made me think of gilded, more specifically the Gilded Age of American History(history nerd strikes), where everythign looked great on the outside but if you dug just a little underneath you saw the real problems that were there. Everything in the Mad Men world looks great: Don's new car, Don and Betty, Sal and Kitty. But underneath, there are troubled couples, secrets, lies; all the recurring themes of the show. There is no music, and in essence there is no soul to some of these things.
I hadn't thought about the fact that Joan was angry, esp post-engagement
She was a huge bitch to Jane, and Jane fought back
To me, Joan's angry because she's played out! Younger and more attractive ladies like Jane are nipping at her stilettos! And despite the rock and doctor fiance, Joan's losing her Alpha Female status.
Have to admit how cool it was for Jane to take her cleavage to Sterling and get her job back! Joan needed to brought down a peg–or ten!
Well with Joan gettin' played out. it's like what you hear men say all the time
new p***y is always better than old p***y
but i wonder if Jane realizes that she now "owes" Sterlin some booty.
I keep wondering if Joan bought that rock herself and is playacting the engagement. She said she'd keep working after her marriage, which was unusual then. I predict a fake elopement before the end of the season.
Jane is my new hero, a budding Joan. No wonder Joan hates her. I also think it was Roger's way of getting back at Joan a bit, as well.
^ good points.
why have we not even see her fiance?
does he even have a name?
I can't find season 2 on itunes. I just downloaded Maidenform two days ago and expected the new one to be there and all I can see is Season 1. Help – I live overseas and didn't get to watch it!
We have seen the fiance briefly; they were making out on the couch in the first episode.
Re: #14
Joan's fiance is supposedly the guy she was making out with on the couch while watching Jackie's tour during the first episode. Both Paul and Roger knew he's a doctor during their conversations (read: verbal sparring) with Joan, though his name escapes me.
But yeah, you'd think that Joan would quit her job and enjoy that doctor's wife reflected glory (no offense to any doctor's wives here, I'm sure you guys are cool).
I took Betty's "you people" as a way to insult Jimmy and have it both ways. It is anti-semitic, but she can always defend herself by saying she meant "show business people."
Joan likes her power at SC. That is why she stays. Jane is now a threat to that power because Jane has the balls to stand up to her.
"It has a headlight sensor that dims the lights when another car approaches."
I was curious of your input re the above line.
Is this in reference to Jimmy's intuition- that he was onto Bobbie and Draper from the start (especially at the Lutece dinner)? He remained quiet although he clearly saw Don approaching onto his territory? Or
Was Don’s figurative headlight dimmed, that he couldn't see Jimmy's confrontation coming?
Donny Brook – I think you are right about Joan. I think she is telling a lie about the engagement.
This last Sunday's show was so good but like every Sunday night it ends with me sad wanting more.
I was so shocked to see them toss the trash in the beautiful park area. I am 43 years old. I was born in 65. I grew up with all the save the earth commercials on TV – The Crying Indian. We never tossed trash so it was strange to see this man obsessing on his car yet throw his beer can to the wind. He got it in the end with puke all over his new car.
I would love to wear these styles again. Love them.
I never saw Peter in this past Sunday. Strange.
Now for next Sunday!
Good observation Britni–I connected leaving the trash with Jimmy telling Don "You are garbage" and then Betty puking because she knows it is true. She didn't grow up that way but she sees they are all being dragged down into garbage. The little girl drinking in an earlier episode is another data point.
In 1968 this is going to be one of those horrible suburban gothic families like that PBS series of the era "An American Family." Anybody remember that?
I hated reading Fitzgerald and all those lost generations authors, but this series is the same thing and I love it so much having lived in the world they portray and seeing how they get so much right.
Superb post, Deb … such a great theme this week.
Don throwing the beer can was quite in line with the other "wtf" moments that jar us into realization how much the world has changed (kids climbing over car seats, plastic dry cleaner bags), but this time it kind of made me cringe … like "is that how we really were?"
Betty's comment to Jimmy was so multi-layered – "you people": Jews, comedians, showbiz types, people that don't censure themselves, short people, the list goes on.
There's a connection between Jimmy (this season) and Helen (last season)? Both represent Betty's fears as a wife and mother. Each, in their own way, tell her that she's not good enough.
Re #25- I agree, she likely would have gotten a warning. Peggy disagreed with Joan's methods, but was smart or submissive enough not to directly challenge her. "What's wrong with you?" in that tone are fighting words. I think I said "Oooh, oh no she didn't" out loud at home.
Oh, Deb.
"It's gold but it doesn't make music." Beautifully written post. Thank you!
This episode was every warning I have ever tried to give our girls. Not that they really need the warnings: they're smart. The thing about growing up among rich kids is that you do end up knowing what money cannot buy. And what misery looks like: though that part is unfortunate.
Let's just say my kids have seen a lot of puke on floorboards. Thank God both have always belonged to other people.
Jane Siegel is a cool, brave customer. She's almost too bright for Sterling Cooper. What on earth are they going to do with a woman like that?
Finally: I watched this episode with my baby sister. Different experience. She had never seen an entire episode before (though a former "Sopranos" fan, she now watches things like "Date My Ex"). My kid sister is 31 — a decade younger than I am — and very much about the light, not the dark.
I practically raised my sister, so she does not remember my own parents' dark phase. The picnic scene was shocking to her: Don and Betty's lack of response to Bobby's little acheivement, the tossing of the beer can, etc. Now, my sister is the loving, involved working mother of a happy toddler. She can't imagine being as disconnected from her child (and the environment) as those people were.
And of course, she doesn't remember a time when that lack of connection was anything near normal. So she asked me about it.
Here's what I think I remember: in those days, adults related more to one another than they did to their own children. Parents' relationships with their children were different: stunted, in the case of many mothers, by the forced sole responsibility of being housewife and mother, and limited by fathers' work schedules.
When I show my kid sister movies made from around the time she was born ("Jaws" is a good one), she can see how that culture looked as it was melting away. The dinner scene in that film is classic: the child imitating his father's gestures, the tender way the whole thing ends. Especially when you know that this film was made by the child of a single mother, it's a poignant moment.
Finally, about Joan's fiance: yes, we have seen him making out with Joan. That's how I prefer to put it. he was getting amorous with her; she was watching Jackie Kennedy lead a televised tour of the White House.
It's already a fake engagement if she doesn't love him, IMO.
Sorry about the two "finallys" … I always mean to end posts long before I do.
Anne, good thoughts about the non-response to Bobby. I couldn't quite process that moment.
This whole fake engagement notion strikes me as silly. Joan went out and bought herself a diamond? How? She doesnt' make enough and a single woman in those days couldn't get credit. A year or more's income just to pretend she's getting married? Wacky.
Diane, I didn’t think anything of the headlight line, but it’s very interesting that you find it symbolic. You never know where symbolism is hidden around Mad Men.
ST, yes, it was the Loud family.
Cooper, thanks. I cringed SO much at the littering. Great insight about the connection between Jimmy and Helen.
does any one else think that if jane hadn’t given joan lip, joan wouldn’t have fired her?
Deborah –
I agree. Given that time period, there's no way she could afford a lie of that magnitude.
I think she feels the limitations of her age and looks crashing in on her given the gender roles of that time.
Joan may not be in love with the Doctor, but see's what he has to offer with regards to stabilty. Im not sure she really thinks she has to give up her job because of marriage and perhaps announcing the engagement to the office had a worse effect than the girls finding out her age. Now, they may not take her as seriously because she is on her way out and perhaps that loss of power is starting to dawn on her.
There used to be an adult world and a child world and somewhat limited interactions between the two, and MM shows that brilliantly. A child was good when he or she didn't enter adult world longer than it took to ask if they could go over to a friend's house or have a Popsicle, and when they did they were to act as little ladies and gentlemen. Then they went back to child world and went all Lord of the Flies.
When adults commented on my advanced vocabulary, I knew it was largely the because I knew I was not invited to participate in adult conversations too often, so instead I listened to them a lot.
There were no well-planned playdates or any interest in what a child did while out playing. The playground's ground cover was gravel — seriously.
Adults believed they supervised their kids, believed in sincerely, but not so much. We were usually in sight or hearing of someone's parent, as we tended to gravitate to our various yards, but since parents weren't really focused on us it wasn't really supervision by 2008 standards, and they'd be more likely to tell us to keep it down than anything else.
Which meant there was plenty of time spent stumbling in and out of dangerous situations that would terrify modern parents.
I was 8 in 1962 and this show is so dead on it is scary. Historically it is very accurate and the writing is phenomenal.
I think Joan is engaged. She is at the age (at least back then) that you had to be married or people would start to snicker that she was an "old maid". True story…when I bought my first home with my fiance back in 1973 I was classified as a "spinster" on the deed as we weren't married.
Can't wait for next Sunday!
There is definitely something nagging about Joan’s situation, and I can’t put my finger on it. The fake engagement story is plausible, if she’s using perhaps a family heirloom or if she had some other access to the hardware.
Whatever it is it definitely is tied into her wasteline, which is another brilliantly subtle non-verbal clue from Weiner & Co.
Her comments about said engagement are all too perky and conformist for Joan.
I love all the stuff everyone’s saying about the picnic. I thought it bookended nicely with Betty’s Coca-Cola photo shoot picnic: just another shot fired through a facade.
Re #33- I agree. If she wasn’t still on the pill (as far as we know) I’d think that maybe the doctor knocked her up and left. With the fake engagement she could keep her job and income while figuring out what to do.
Ms. Darkly,
About the child world and the adult world: that is exactly what I remember. I also remember that we (the children) generally had the outside, while adult-world was pretty much indoors. The adults of my formative years were none too comfortable outdoors … unless there were chairs.
Call them the patio-furniture generation.
The daily goal of every child I knew was to get outside. That was it: outside was freedom, honesty, life as it was meant to be lived. Sure, there was a Lord-of-the-Flies quality to it (especially given that even our toys were designed to kill us), but at least we knew where we stood.
My best friend’s mom, on the other hand, reacted to her divorce by sitting in the same chair by the pool all day, smoking and talking to me as if I understood what she was talking about. I felt like a potted plant … probably because I once caught her continuing the conversation with the plant once I walked away.
Yeah. What she was smoking? Not cigarettes.
So adults were weird. We knew this. Which was why, on the very rare occasions when something happened that required adult assistance, we knew where to go for help. Some doorbells you never rang, and you knew why — even though those people were home. There was normal parent, like mine; weird parent, like my best friend’s; and wacky hatstand nuts parent, like Dougie’s.
The police knew the wacky hatstand nuts parent. Yes, even then.
Modern parents, by comparison, do an absolutely incredible job with their children. The changes that have occurred between then and now are mindblowing. Parents, I mean this: hats off to you all.
Anne B,
Your last comment re: “modern parents”…as a teacher, all I can say is the helicopter parents and their overcoddled children are not necessarily an improvement on MM parents Don and Betty- they just exemplify a different set of neuroses! As with everything else in life, every era has its upsides and downsides. Frankly, I like the boundaries between adults and children of the MM days… I’d prefer a little more communication and affection towards the children in the Draper household, but they are WASPs, don’t forget, LOL. These days, many “grownups” still want to act like their children’s peers, instead of their parents. “Parental wisdom” is starting to feel like an oxymoron at my school (generalization, but generally true)
lisak,
I also see parental coddling go too far. During my older stepdaughter’s college orientation this summer, there was a father who became unglued when his daughter had to go into the orientation room alone.
“But she’s in there without me,” he insisted, as he kept trying to get in. “She’s ALONE in there.”
His kid was in a brightly lit room, surrounded by about 200 other young adults. Alone? Hardly.
So I get it.
But in general — as I have said before — I think that demonstrating love and connection is a good thing. Doing more of that as opposed to less is even more of a good thing.
Yes, allowing your child room to grow and explore is important. I’m just saying that I see more parents asking themselves, now, whether they are doing a good job with their children, and making changes to do more. In the world of my childhood, that question simply didn’t get asked. People assumed that their children were fine and proceeded with that assumption — whether or not it was correct.