Basket of Kisses

Hi hi hi! Welcome to the Basket of Kisses eastern time open thread for episode 5 of the 4th season.

5G, The New Girl, The Fog. This is our fifth episode legacy. If nothing else, this one sets a record for most syllables.

A reminder that we now have two open threads. West Coasters have their own open thread so that they can discuss the episode live, as it airs for them, without spoilers from us Easterners who see it sooner.

Open threads appears each Sunday that a new episode is aired, starting at 8pm Eastern. If you’re new, please read our comment and spoiler policies.

Please note that anything that has already aired on the screen you’re watching on is welcome for discussion and not a spoiler.

Gather ’round. It’s gonna be a great night.

So here’s how this works. West Coasters who don’t want to be spoiled by the earlier air time can chat here. This episode airs live for us at 10 PM Pacific (11 PM Mountain). If you have seen this episode before that time, KEEP YA MOUTH SHUT!

Before jumping in, please read our comment and spoiler policies.

Please note that anything that has already aired on the screen you’re watching on (provided you’re not one of the lucky Westerners who gets the East Coast feed!), is welcome for discussion and not a spoiler.

K have fun!!!

HELLO!!!! Love me some season 4 and looking forward to tonight’s episode.

A reminder that we now have two open threads. West Coasters have their own open thread so that they can discuss the episode live, as it airs for them, without spoilers from us Easterners who see it sooner.

Open threads appears every Sunday that a new episode is aired, starting at 8pm Eastern. Before jumping in, please read our comment and spoiler policies.

Please note that anything that has already aired on the screen you’re watching on is welcome for discussion and not a spoiler.

Pour yourself a tall one, kids, and let’s get this party started.

Welcome to tonight’s open thread. We are down to it, folks. Three to go. No one knows what to expect, except we’re pretty sure we can count on change.

Our doors open every Sunday at 8pm Eastern (during the active season, of course). Say whatever you like, provided you’ve read our comment and spoiler policies. If you’re watching from another time zone, be aware that our discussion includes everything that has already aired on the East Coast.

If you’re new, take the tour. Check out our exclusive interviews and About sections. The Cultural References might interest you. Or the Episode Guide. You might also consider clicking a category from the right sidebar, or searching on an episode title.

And most important, if you don’t know about the season finale viewing party we’re hosting, you should, because you’re invited!

Pull up a chair, poor yourself an old-fashioned. Smoke some marijuana. Make sure you write the big idea down. Enjoy!

Here it is, folks, the oft-pivotal fifth episode of the season.

For those who are new to the Basket, we open the doors at 8pm eastern, and Basketcases just start adding thoughts as they come; while they are watching, and then long through the week. Sometimes Deborah and/or I are here, sometimes not. Doesn’t matter. This is your time.

Have a look around. Old posts a’plenty, exclusive interviews, and a newly revamped (thank you Deb) About section, which serves as a little bit of a BoK tour, and includes our terribly important comment and spoiler policies.

So grab a gimlet and enjoy!

Fill your whiskey glasses with watered-down iced tea, spark up those lame herbal cigarettes, and pull up a couch. Two hours until Episode 3:02 begins. Let’s follow along together, shall we?

(For my prepwork I am watching the Hammeriffic episodes of 30 Rock.)

For those of you who are new to the Basket, we put one of these here open threads up every week around 8pm Eastern time. This is a spoiler zone; people will talk about what they’ve seen as they’ve seen it, so if you’re not in Eastern time or don’t have your TV on, beware!

In honor of the ‘holiday’, we’ve decided to link to the For Those Who Think Young open thread.

Call me sentimental, but looking back on that night, I feel like I thought so much younger then. About the pending events of the season, and about this show in general. I am much more patient for Season Three than I was for Season Two. I was like, dying. I’ll be okay this year.

Go. Read through the comments. It’s fun to remember the freshness and exhilaration.

And of course go. Watch the episode. All the Valentine’s Day couples; that wonderful sequence around the White House tour, as we visit with Joan and Greg, Pete and Trudy, Salvatore and Kitty, and of course Don and Betty.

And I’ve mentioned it before, but it warrants repeating. Everything in that episode themes out through the season. Go watch Don’s speech to Peggy about advertising and think about Duck in the finale:

Just so you know, the people who talk that way think that monkeys can do this. And they take all this monkey crap and just stick it in a briefcase completely unaware that their success depends on something more than their shoeshine. You are the product. You feeling something. That’s what sells. Not them. Not sex. They can’t do what we do, and they hate us for it.

Beautiful episode:

Don Draper (narrating, reading from Frank O’Hara):
Now I am quietly waiting
for the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.
The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.
It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.

And perhaps my favorite quote from the episode:

Where the hell is Dale?

Welcome to the final episode of Season Two.

It has been quite a season. Also, it has been quite an experience at the Basket.

For a little history recap, this blog began after the finale of Season One. We spent the better part of a year discussing the intricacies of those 13 episodes, as well as reporting news about the show and its stars, both on and off screen. Basket of Kisses was getting a lot of attention from the media, and a favorite in the industry (Weiner was loving us!) all without a frigging show on the air!

And so as we approached the second season, we had a decision to make about how we wanted to handle the episodes. ‘Cause of how we’d never done one!

Do we ‘liveblog’? That’s a hella commitment. Do we guarantee a proper recap the next day?

It was Deborah’s idea to post the open threads. And with the first, the Basket entered a whole new… something you enter. Basketcase John Rothchild generously describes the pheneomenom:

This blog and the comments are wonderful and for me an important companion to Mad Men. I’m impressed by the topic choices, layout, and format. Bake of Kisses supports BOTH readability and comments, that’s very difficult to do.

He corrected ‘Bake of Kisses’ in the subsequent comment, but this was too cute for me to tamper with.

Thanks every single Basketcase, be it frequent commenters or those still lurking in the shadows, for creating such a magical space.

Deborah and I won’t be on the thread tonight, as we’ll be partying like 40somethings with day jobs rock stars.

Tomorrow we speak with Matt Weiner, so around 1pm eastern time, start looking for snippets of that conversation. Matt has a lot to say, so it will take a little time for the full interview to post, but we’ll get it done.

Stick with BoK year-round. We’re only just warming up.

For tonight, sit back, light up an herbal cigarette, pour some water into a martini glass and drop an olive in, and keep your laptop within hand’s reach.

Enjoy the finale!

We are on the edge our collective seats. Eleven down, two to go.

I’ll repeat directly from last week:

If you’re new to the Basket, make yourself comfortable; poke around. Visit our About section to learn more about who we are and what we’re doing here. (There will be a test on the Spoiler policy.) Check out our ever growing show bible, which includes character bios and the like. (Yes, yes, we have much to do in there to capture all the information from Season Two, not to mention a bit of fill-in from S1, but it’s still chock full of goodies.) Read about (and maybe attend?) our Season Two finale party in Manhattan. And check out our exclusive Basket of Kisses celebrity interviews (scroll down our left sidebar to find them). Very important that you come over to the Basket in the days following the season finale (airing 10/26) to see what Matthew Weiner has to say to the Lipp sisters about the finale, the season, and overall the past, present and future of Mad Men.

Enjoy tonight’s show!

Oh and hey! While you’re in front of your TV, set your DVR or whatever to record SNL next week. Hosted by Jon Hamm.

(sigh.)