Comments on: Favorite Season 2 scenes

By: hullaballoo

hullaballoo — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:06:29 +0000

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.

By: Brenda

Brenda — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:58:37 +0000

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.

By: Brenda

Brenda — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:57:23 +0000

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

By: Rosie

Rosie — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:41:48 +0000

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"

By: Melissa

Melissa — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:56:36 +0000

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?

By: Frank Bullitt

Frank Bullitt — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:16:09 +0000

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.

By: Deborah Lipp

Deborah Lipp — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:04:30 +0000

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.

By: Meowser

Meowser — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:05:51 +0000

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.

By: hullaballoo

hullaballoo — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:51:26 +0000

Yeah, Peggy's stretch was a pretty cool moment. Almost as good as Pete's shrug from S1.

By: Deborah Lipp

Deborah Lipp — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:51:45 +0000

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.