It seems almost silly to point out that this episode dealt heavily with secrets and how they can weigh a person down. After all, the entire series of Mad Men is largely about secrets and how they can weigh you down. It’s as if this episode is meant to be considered something of a...

Slap on those brooches and let’s get to reading, ladies. Betty working her icy blues again. It’s an interesting dichotomy, the floral themes rendered in icy colors. If we had to pick two surface qualities of Betty that define her, we’d say it’s femininity and coldness....

It’s a testament to the complex and subtle writing on Mad Men that they can do a show about the secret sisterhood of women and explore the ways in which women navigate or are pushed through the world, and they can present this heavy-handed topic so deftly that until that final shot, we...

It’s all about the ladies this time. It’s comforting to know that Betty can still step it up when she needs to. You don’t lose those trophy wife skills overnight. This is a pretty stylish, pretty fabulous, dinner in the city kind of look. And yet it still has a maturity to...

It feels like this season has been, in part, a response to some of the critics of the show, especially those who felt it glamorized things like the alcohol abuse, adultery, and misogyny that seems to characterize the time and setting of Mad Men. No one could argue that we haven’t seen...

Nothing could illustrate the wave of change that’s coming in men’s fashion than these shots. In a couple of years, they’ll have the option of wearing bell bottoms and Nehru jackets, wild paisleys and wide ties. For now, you can see how the choices in menswear are increasing....

Tense and sweaty and a little teary-eyed, we looked at each other as the credits rolled last night and asked “What the hell was that?” Like Sonny Liston, we were knocked flat by the end, exhausted and a bit exhilarated by both the performances and the writing. We’re past the...

You know, for all the shit she gets from reviewers and fandom, at the end of the day, Betty’s anger is usually pretty understandable, at least as it pertains to Don. He’s proving himself to be as reliable and accessible an ex-husband as he was a husband. Here she is having her...

We’re nothing if not completely oversensitive here, so when there was a tiny bit of complaining last week that our weekly Mad Men recap/review had gotten a little long on the recap and a little short on the review, we threw wineglasses into roaring fireplaces and rent throwpillows in...

…and the Sword. There’s a whole lot of groovy going on in the offices of CGC. Four men and 3 turtlenecks (both real and mock), people. They really are similar in a lot of ways to SCDP, aggressively pushing this NEW and MODERN concept to its limits because they know it’s an...

…the Sword. It is impossible for us to sit through an entire episode without shouting out encouragement and support to these characters, as if we were watching a prize fight. When the chips were down once again for the SCDP crowd and they stood in their gleaming Potemkin village of an...

“Do you want a Miltown? It’s the only thing keeping me from chewing my nails off.” It’s a credit to Anne Dudek, who plays Francine, that she’s such a memorable character. In putting together this post it struck us that while she appeared in a lot of scenes, many...

Cover your Selectrics and meet us in the conference room, girls! Bring your cigarettes! Her Christmas party dress was in blue and green and we asked back then, what is it about the ’60s that made blue and green work so well together? And in a range of shades? We think it must have had...

With each episode this season, we thought, “Wow, Don’s really hit rock bottom this time” but each week he surprises us and manages to dig a little deeper. This week was the first time we were alarmed at how bad he looked and how fucked up he is, in every sense of the phrase....

Just a quick once over for Allison. She definitely favors mixing shades of blue. Not to mention she and Peggy could get into a pussy bow battle if it came to it. These are good girl clothes. Just enough style but not too flashy. Smart work clothes. A couple shots of Harry in his gold-toned...

Each season of Mad Men had its share of “moving the pieces around the board” episodes that rarely ever appear in anyone’s Top Ten list of favorites. Not particularly heavy on the themes or motifs that drive the show, these episodes almost always turn out to be setups for the...

“The hardest part was realizing you’re in charge.” There are so many aspects to Mad Men that make it a superior television series, but one of our favorites is the pool of rich peripheral characters who support and enhance the storylines, giving the main characters someone to...

Get out your shiny dresses and plaid tuxedos! Here’s Allison as the perfect secretary, both efficient and comfortable in her role as “office wife.” Outfits like this were worn by women long after they went out of style. We entered the workforce in the mid-eighties and older...

In yet another a testament to the Mad Men creators’ tendency to avoid cliches, this episode was NOT entitled, “Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot,” although it really could have been (or “You Can’t Go Home Again”). Old faces were coming out of the woodwork...

“Do you even see me here?” With a show as full of nuance and shades of gray as Mad Men, it’s expected that the viewer understands the imperfections and contradictions in all the characters. And while Mad Men is essentially a night-time soap opera, it remains refreshingly...

Darlings, welcome to Mad Style, Phase 2. Here’s how it works: we’re going to continue the Mad Style series until we go insane or until our typing fingers fall off. Phase 1, will continue with retrospectives on various characters like Kitty Romano, Helen Bishop, various prostitutes...