Jun 122009
Since it was mentioned in Mad News, I thought it would make a nice discussion. What is your favorite scene from Season 2?
I’m going with Don visiting Peggy in her hospital room. So packed with meaning.
#2 is Kurt coming out.
#3 is Don and Anna at Christmas.
I mean, I could go on. It’s Mad Men ferfuxake, it’s full of great scenes. But these three.
47 Responses to “Favorite Season 2 scenes”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
I've been pondering the same thing, and it's SOO hard to pick one! I thought maybe I should go back and look at the episodes to refresh my memory, but I guess the test of a truly powerful scene is that it sticks with you even when you aren't reminded. I'll pick three, too.
Pete and Peggy's candid conversation (oh, the alliteration)
Betty vs. Chair
Sal and Kitty's dinner party
All good choices.
I did take a quick look through our S2 episode list before deciding.
It's hard to choose not only due to so. many. great. scenes. but also, you want to choose the ones that make you feel good when you hear the word 'favorite'. And so many of the best scenes do not. Like say, Don shaving. That was one of the most powerful moments in the season. And Joan soothing her bra strap wounds. And Betty coming to Don in her white robe.
Hmmm, interesting.
A scene that stands out for me is Don and the hot rod guys in "The Mountain King". Thematically, it gets at Matt Weiner's view of Kennedy-era America as a place where people believed that you could re-engineer anything, making the past irrelevant. Once this car was a slow, poky 1936 sedan; now it'll scare you on the road.
1.) The apartment scene with Bobbie and Peggy, where Bobbie tells her she'll never be a man.
2.) Betty asking Don if he hated her after she spends the day getting sauced and being depressed.
3.) Don talking excitedly about his new relationship with Betty to the real Mrs. Draper, it was just so jarring to see him look happy.
I think the character of the year was Betty Draper who really came into her own in season, and something about the jewel-encrusted madness that is Betty finding Sally lighting up in the bathroom rocked my world. It is hilarious and heartfelt by equal measure; it starts as a laugh-out-loud surprise and ends speaking volumes about Betty's inner turmoil. It also sets up her "grown up" talk with Sally later on.
There are so many great scenes to choose from. Drawn-out sequences make MAD MEN unique, and like the show itself many of its scenes creep up on you. The *restraint* is what makes it such classy drama.
Betty at the bar, with the crossovers to Don and the kids at the hotel.
Betty on the bed in her day old party dress, with Don's stuff strewn around her. That furious, heartbroken glare she gives him.
Ken at Sal and Kitty's for dinner. Specifically the look on her face as Sal leans over and lights Ken cigarette for him.
The scene in Six Month Leave where Roger finds Joan lying on his office sofa.
Betty and Helen's conversation at the end of The Inheritance.
Jimmy telling Don that he's garbage and he knows it.
I can't really pin point everything at the moment but
1) Betty waiting for the bathroom before having sex with that guy at the bar
2) Telling Don to leave after coming home from her father's
3) Peggy telling Pete she had his baby and gave it away *tear*
4) Betty finding Sally smoking
5) Kurt coming out
6) Betty and the chair
7) Joan getting raped in Don's office…its not a glorious thing or anything like that…I just LOVED the acting and the subtleness…no screaming, running, crying…it was subtle.
1) Betty going medieval on the chair: she couldn't unleash a damn thing until she'd done that.
2) Don and Bobby discussing daddies.
3) Sally deciding not to watch her father shaving … and the look on Don's face afterward. Facing himself, in the mirror.
4) Peggy and Pete, that quiet talk in the office. Beautiful.
5) Three-way tie: the Joan series. (a) Joanie in Roger's office after MM's death: her quiet dignity in the face of so much pressure and pain. (b) The light going out of her face after being told she'd lost the best job she'd ever had, to a man. (c) The light going out of her eyes, on the floor in Don's office.
Christina Hendricks is a treasure … and such a class act, evidently, that she continues to see the best acting in others.
Anne, thanks for remembering the daddy discussion. Gods, that was beautiful.
Agreed that this was the season of Betty. And even though I'm still not completely on the season 2 love train (I'm chasing the caboose, though), there was some outstanding, really haunting imagery this year. I don't think I could limit myself to just three picks, so here's my top five…or so:
1) Don mailing the letter in FTWTY as he recites Meditations. The scene was so somber and lonely, yet there was the mailbox in the midst of all that grayness, glowing bright red, and spotlighted by a street lamp. It felt both menacing and hopeful, mysterious yet familiar — nostalgic, really. And bittersweet. What a way to foreshadow all the things to come.
2) A Night to Remember: Betty breaking the chair. Classic. As good as Betty shooting the pigeons from season 1. Just all around awesome.
3) Six Months Leave: Don and Roger giving Freddy the send-off in the back alley. Again, the scene was so gray and heavy, then the bright yellow cab showed up, it's on-duty light blaring — almost as a reminder of why they were there at all. On duty…
4) ANtR: Betty arises from bed in her day old party dress, and cuts her foot on a toppled wine glass. She kneels on the floor to pick up the pieces, but she's just exasperated — her life is shattered. She reminded me of this doll I had as a child. I hated that thing. She wore a beautiful dress, but her hair was all crazy and her eyes were sad, and my brother used to torture me with it. I'd hide it in the deep nether regions of my closet, but he'd fish it out and put it on my bed, pretending that she did that on her own, as if she were some precursor to Chucky.
5) The Benefactor: Bobbie Barrett shoves her nose right into Don's face. Shocking. Such an invasion of personal space. Of course, what he did later was much worse, but DAMN! This set the tone of their entire relationship. No holds barred.
6) Meditations…: Pete, alone in his office, clutching his rifle. If I'm not mistaken, this was a clone of the scene from season 1 after Trudy berates him for trading in the Chip N Dip (we got two). This and projectile vomiting seem to be something we can look forward to every season. Yay.
Hull, I love how much of your perception is based on color palette and composition.
I'm not 100% on the S2 love train; I am not all there on FTWTY and a couple of other episodes. But I think we had maybe 9 or 10 flat-out great episodes out of 13 (whereas I think S1 had 10 or 11). I happen to dislike the Freddy send-off, just too spelled-out. If only if only if only Freddy hadn't SAID "If I don't go into the office, who am I?" That so desperately needed to be implied.
You're right about the rifle scene parallel, and it follows the earlier parallel from the same two episodes — Pete and Peggy on the couch, which I posted about recently.
hull,
GREAT story about the doll. What a terrifying little childhood totem!
When I was a kid, some relative gave me this doll with a head that you had to pull from the body. As a string retracted the head, the doll would say awful passive-aggressive things: "I'm falling apart, woohoo." "Where did I leave my head?" "Not again, what shall I do."
Little redheaded nightmare, that doll. I think my kid brother finally threw it over into somebody's backyard. It became somebody else's Twilight Zone episode.
Thanks for the memory!
Too…many…scenes! In no particular order, voila.
1) Joan telling asking Kinsey for his badges back, because I like revenge with a smile.
2) Joan's rape.
3) Pete and Peggy's shared look in the strip club.
4) Every scene with Betty could fill this list, but I loved her callousness in the post-affair phone call with Sarah Beth. It sticks with me whereas sometimes her mid-season breakdown feels like one continuous scene.
5) Duck releasing Chauncey.
Boy, Mari, you sure do love misery!
Hull, I don't think *anything* is as awesome as her shooting the birds. But Chairgate comes close.
Deborah, if I liked watching happiness, I wouldn't be watching 'Mad Men'. You're right to pinpoint Anna and Don's wonderful happiness at Christmastime, but there aren't many other scenes to compare that to happiness-wise.
Ooh, the environmentalists' despair picnic should be mentioned, too. That was so horrifying.
I had forgotten about the Jimmy/Don smackdown. That was a virtuoso performance by Patrick Fischler. I can actually feel Jimmy's bile rising in my throat just thinking about it.
So many favourite moments! More than 3!
1) Pete/Peggy confession scene. Sorry to be obvious.
2) Betty Vs Chair, Betty drinking cola with Glen, Betty saying she is NOT profoundly sad it's just that her people are Nordic. Lots of great Betty moments in S2.
3) Jimmy Barrett clueing Betty in on Don and Bobbie's affair and then telling Don that he's garbage. Actually any S2 moment with Jimmy. I may have been the only fan who loved his character.
4) Pete telling Don about his father dying in the plane crash and asking what he is supposed to do. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
5) Jane, Ken, Sal and Harry sneaking a look at Cooper's new painting.
6) The Peggy & Don talk in the psyche ward.
7) Any scene with Anna Draper. She was the coolest.
Freddie playing Mozart on his zipper.
…okay, better stop there before I'm listing my top 30 moments.
@ #15:
Oh yes, definitely, Deborah. For me, season 2 was all about the imagery — the way it looked on my TV screen, and the way those images affected me. So much of the visual style and symbolism just haunted me. Not so much the story itself or even the implications of the story. In that sense, there were a lot of eye rolling moments. Yes, there were some really poignant, heart wrenching bits, but mostly it was just too draining and required too much effort. I was still invested in the characters, but they were all so…annoying. Despite that, I still felt MM season 2 was the best written, most beautifully rendered show on TV.
falafel, I second your #3 … for Betty watching Jimmy's ad on TV.
"Am I crazy? I don't think so." We could almost feel that dead-on question and answer, going right through her. She knew.
And Pam, while I'm with you (and many others) on the Peggy-and-Pete confession scene, to me Peggy's admission of having had the baby "and given it away" was a very different moment. It did not feel, to me, like Peggy admitting to any kind of pain. To the contrary: I saw her disclosing a moment of strength so great Pete could barely get his mind around it.
To have a man's child, give it away, and head on back to life and work a few weeks later, without a word of explanation to anyone (including the father): that is badass in the extreme.
While that scene was both tender and confessional for both Peggy and Pete, Peggy was also letting little Pete see what she's made of — in no uncertain terms.
Peggy is a woman in an office full of men, sure. But she also has a set on her, and they are made of solid brass.
Pete and Peggy's conversation is definitely my absolute favorite moment of the entire show. Their entire storyline just came to this crashing confession, and honestly, it made me sob. His single tear? Oh, God. Amazing. Everything is changing between them. The power in the quasi-relationship has completely reversed, and I can't wait to see what he does next. (It seems like Peggy is more at peace, throwing all her problems at Pete to now deal with.)
Peggy being visited in the hospital by Don is a close-ish second. I love their strange closeness. All those little moments where he actually shows respect for her–or Paul saying "He won't yell at *her*"–all those little moments are great because they're subtle, but they add up.
- Peggy and Don in the hospital wasn't my favorite moment of season 2, but I've been going through a really traumatic breakup, and "Get out of here and move forward. This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened." has become my mantra of strength and survival. Sometimes the best way to deal with sorrow is to force yourself forward. (And yes, I'm healing in other, more traditional ways as well.)
- Joan's rape: when the camera becomes her perspective and the background noise escalates, because she desperately needs to focus on anything else. Wow.
- Alice and Bertram Cooper talking before the shareholder's meeting. I hope we see more of her; she's a true class act (I love her little remark about Roger only having one child; YA BURNT!). And I love how he softens when she mentions his cattle.
- Harry and Cooper talking about the painting. They're two of my favorite characters.
- I'm a bit surprised that nobody mentioned Don and Joy's kiss when they're sitting at the dinner table, and everyone else is playing that silly game. Just the way that the names of all these exotic cities are flitting around in the background like aural butterflies lends such a sense of fantasy and romance to the moment, and then when they go to the bedroom, and there's this exchange: "Who are you?" "I'm Joy." Well, she really is joy, now isn't she. I wasn't fond of the Don Gets Spirited Away by Faeries storyline, but it was an incredibly beautiful and evocative sequence.
- Dinner with Father Gill at the Olsen residence. My parents are from Peggy's generation (my mom grew up in Brooklyn), and I saw a lot of them and their attitude towards the clergy in Peggy's mom and sister. (I'm more along the lines of Peggy when it comes to the Church.)
- Paul's party, and Peggy's fantabulous rejection of her would-be suitor. (Season 3: Peggy finds a copy of The Feminine Mystique.)
- I can see how the dialogue in Freddy and Don's parting was a bit ham-handed, but to me, it had a very Arthur Miller feel (although that could have been the acting). "Goodnight, Freddy," and then the heaviness in Freddy's response: "Goodbye, Don." In my mind, that was more effective than actually showing Freddy committing suicide.
- Don and Betty driving home in the closing scene of The Benefactor. What an elegant and romantic slice of a bygone America (thanks a bunch, mandatory seatbelt laws).
Agreed, Anna B. The Utz commercial and Betty's reaction to "Am I crazy? I don't think so" was such a brilliant moment. The Barrett storyline came full circle and exploded Don/Betty's marriage. A lot of fans complained about the Don/Bobbie ship, but I think the effect Jimmy had on Betty was the most vital and powerful part of this story arc.
Falafel, totally agreed. I loved Jimmy/Betty, and the whole season I wanted more scenes between them. I always saw him as very much like her, except *he* had a societally sanctioned outlet for his anger at his cheating spouse–one that made him more powerful instead of less.
"- I’m a bit surprised that nobody mentioned Don and Joy’s kiss when they’re sitting at the dinner table, and everyone else is playing that silly game. Just the way that the names of all these exotic cities are flitting around in the background like aural butterflies lends such a sense of fantasy and romance to the moment, and then when they go to the bedroom, and there’s this exchange: “Who are you?†“I’m Joy.†Well, she really is joy, now isn’t she. I wasn’t fond of the Don Gets Spirited Away by Faeries storyline, but it was an incredibly beautiful and evocative sequence."
I really hated this episode when it first aired, I actually said it seemed like filler…but now that I have had time to reflect on the season, it's one of my favorites. I really like the characters and how free spirited they are and how Don can so easily be seduced by a specific type of woman. Like January said in a recent interview, Don "cast" Betty in his perfect ad campaign of a marriage but he's attracted to the complete opposite…all these free-spirited women who do what they please.
Finally: Don's goodbye to Rachel.
6) Going to the gentlemen's club with Roger and Freddy, the way he said her husband's name. "Tilden Katz." Smiling, as the other men laughed.
It was the way people smile sometimes when doing a shot of hard liquor: a smile that is almost a grimace.
Say it. Down the hatch …
I loved the unexpected, joyous singing and guitar playing of Father Gill. Behind closed doors, he can express his spirituality the way he wants, not the way the old traditionalists in the church continue to insist upon (like Betty's mother: "very nice, NOW will you say grace?"
Ooops, of course I mean Peggy's mother!
I've got to say Don's visit to Peggy in the hospital. It answered the question that was uppermost in my mind from the start of the season, "What does Don know about what happened to Peggy," which I thought was even more important than "What happened to the baby." Don reveals, if obliquely, his secret past to another person (or, at least, he lets her know that he has a secret past, something that "never happened"), which matches the secret he knows about her. I find their relationship the most interesting on the show, and that sense of being Secret Sharers is at the heart of their loyalty to each other.
I also loved the Bobby/Don discussion about daddies, if only for Bobby's heart-breaking line "We have to get you a new daddy." Makes me tear up just thinking about it. And, again, it has Don revealing a bit about his past to someone who needs to hear it.
The thing I love most about the Don/Bobby scene is how surprised Don was to discover he had these memories. If you'd have asked him, he'd have said he hated his father and had memories only of beatings and meanness. But when asked to remember specifics, there they were, in vivid, evocative detail.
Only me going for the boardroom denouement scene when Duck manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? Must be the Brit in me!
Slattery's far-end of the angle, tooth-pick, teeth-rasp as Don announces that it's not the type of agency he wants to be part of was just priceless (indeed Slattery's face language facing down Duck over the desk when he originally asked for a partnership during Jet Set was an equal tour-de-force).
But the whole PPL/SC boardroom merger scene was magnificent in tone, subtlety and execution (Bert's plaintive about turn to Don after the "I don't think I heard the word 'client' once" anxiety cry was just pitch perfect as was Don's browdown "what?" expression response) and perhaps the best bits were those parts left unsaid.
"He never could hold his liquor."
Ace.
I am so enjoying reading through these. Anne B @27–you know that's some of my favorite stuff too. I tear up thinking about it. Right now, there are tears.
Also Peggy alone at night in the office, finding a cigarette and doing that wonderful stretch. Which turns out was a prequel scene to her getting her own office, another treasure. And Peggy telling Pete she's been sleeping with Don! Her first joke–I know it's Betty's season, but I do love Peggy.
And Joan.
And Harry and Sheila and Don and Bobbi and, y'know. I love this show. A lot.
Roberta, I almost included Peggy's stretch. Since the actors were asked for only one, I thought confining myself to three was fair, but I really wanted Peggy's stretch in there.
For me the moment of the season was Pete and Peggy – "I had your baby and I gave it away" – Just devastating. And I love what the scene tells us about the new, grown-up Peggy, not to mention how perfect Elisabeth Moss is.
But my other favorite one is the Don and Betty shoving match. It was a perfect representation of the long-simmering resentment in their marriage, but it also showed Betty just how much Don is holding in, and how scary it would be if he let it out. It's a real turning point for her and the marriage.
I'll join the chorus and say that my favourite scene is Peggy's confession to Pete about the baby.
There are so many fabulous other moments that have already been noted (Joan fingering her bra strap mark, for one) but I'll add one more which I don't think has been mentioned: Peggy calling Don, Don.
My two favorite moments both involve Peggy. One is the conversation she and Bobbie Barrett have in the apartment. The other is when Peggy asks for Freddy's old office, and gets it. Roger was impressed that she asked. It was clear that whoever asked him first would get the office
I also thought Sal's reaction to Kurt coming out was so heartbreaking.
Two of the moments I find most memorable in S2 are a) Freddie wetting his pants and b) Joan being raped by her boyfriend. I find it hard to call either of them fabourite moments because they made me feel so bad. When Freddie had his accident, I was torn between shock, concern and even bursts of laughter at the farcical way Peggy, Pete and Sal reacted. In the scene where Joan was raped I just found her silence and blank expression more horrific than if she had screamed or cried. Two of the most affecting scenes, even if they made unpleasant viewing.
Yeah, Peggy's stretch was a pretty cool moment. Almost as good as Pete's shrug from S1.
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the scene where Joan tells Paul what a poseur he is for flaunting his involvement with Sheila, that he'd never in a million years have any more than a passing interest in Sheila if she was white. Boy, she nailed him there.
And almost every scene with Peggy in it is great, including the Pete confessional (you wonder if Pete is going to be the one who winds up in the psych hospital after that one). But I especially love it when she tells Father Noseypants that she doesn't buy that God is going to punish her for not spilling the beans to him (to Father Noseypants, that is — surely he doesn't want her to confess to any other priest?).
But Kurt's coming-out scene, that just RULES. I mean, the look on Sal's face, like, "Here I am killing myself trying not to be found out, and here this guy just waltzes out of the closet." And then to hear his mancrush Ken saying he didn't want to work with "queers," with Smitty's capper: "Oh, come on, don't tell me he's the first homo you ever met in advertising." Bryan Batt could teach a whole acting class based on that one scene.
Meowser, when I asked him about it, he said they did a zillion takes, and all he remembers is poor Rich (Harry) had to eat a donut every time.
The look on Don's face in the Jet Set as he watches the slide show for the Multiple Independently Targetable Re-Entry Vehicle (MIRV) and its ability to deliver fourteen nuclear warheads. As the Kodak Carousel clicks in the background, all I could think about was the irony of "it takes you to a place you want to be." Talk about Kubrickian humor of the darkest kind.
I've been thinking about that Pete & Peggy scene more and more since this conversation started. I t just strikes me that Pete and Peggy are so incredibly young. I mean, not like teenagers or anything, but until late in S2 I'm not sure I saw either one of them as an adult. They've seemed so thoroughly and woefully unprepared for their lives, sort of playing grownup. Then the hard knocks came, and all of a sudden, there they were, not only adults but old and battered. Peggy's risen from the flames, and I've got to hope that Pete will, too.
And while Moss and Kartheiser are practically decrepit by Hollywood's youthful standards, how often do actors under 30 get such meaty, mature stuff to sink their teeth into?
Hmmm . . . favorite scenes.
1) Betty tells Don not to return home in "A Night to Remember"
2) Jimmy tells Don that he's garbage in "The Gold Violin"
3) Bobbie's "act like a woman" speech to Peggy in "A New Girl"
4) Pete handling business by the Beverly Hills Hotel pool in "The Jet Set"
5) The Jane/Joan final confrontation in "The Gold Violin
6) Roger's Duck and Crab intro in "A Night to Remember"
I have a few that are a bit different:
1) the opening montage for Maidenform with The Decemberists singing The Infanta behind it, and seeing Peggy put on panty hose (!)
2) the newly pregnant Betty looking longingly at the two mannequins in Meditations on an Emergency, and realizing she is no longer a model, but a housewife
3) Don standing on the wet sidewalk outside the blind pig after Freddy's cab drives off
4) the establishing shot of the Jet Set enjoying the pool in Palm Springs
5) Peggy's face when Kurt starts to cut her hair
and just to follow up: I realize most of my scenes have no dialogue. It illustrates how cinematic Matthew Weiner's direction is. You remember the images as much as the lines.
Oh, right Brenda. The imagery was stunning. That's definitely what stayed with me this year. It was all so cinematic. Not in the contemporary let's go see grown men acting like 14 year olds in a dickflick at the movieplex sense. But in the old-fashioned CinemaScope movies were an event to behold sense:
Peggy, hung over after Paul's party, sprawled across her bed in her party dress.
Father Gill handing Peggy a blue egg on Easter.
Sally carrying that filled to the brim with vodka bloody Mary across the living room to her parents lounging on the couch.
Don, munching on M&Ms, watching Betty empty the trash, then pause for a cigarette break. Was the smoke that circled her head coming from the cigarette or was it Betty's seething anger, finally coming to the surface?
They may have seemed insignificant at the time, but those scenes, as well as the others I mentioned were absolutely captivating. They said so much, had so much meaning, without saying much of anything in terms of language or dialogue. That's great stuff.