广告狂人 第六季

2013.5.27

感情的流逝是如此迅速。你听到背后有人喊你，转身想要抓住，却发现斯人已远；你沉浸在私欲和虚荣之中，恣意索取、挥霍着感情，偶然一次打开心灵，却发现那里面已经空空如也。曾几何时一瞬间的心有灵犀，再也无法找回。本集Mad Men，献给那些回不去的曾经~

Don与Betty仍有旧情，两人与儿子一起唱歌，感觉还像是一家人一样温馨；Betty稍加引导两人便如干柴烈火一般重拾旧情，两人的爱就像那双不知不觉便已紧握不放的手一般，从来没有消失过。Betty仍爱着Don，但选择了“身在曹营心在汉”，不离开Henry；她知道Don的天性无法维持一段专一的婚姻。她能否发觉自己一直对Don还有情意，她能够一直对自己的心情如此操纵自如吗？Henry察觉到自己无法遮挡Betty在人群中散发的魅力，也察觉到可能忙于工作冷落了Betty，但他是公众人物，有选举重任在身，在发泄恼怒之余，没有任何办法。

Peggy与男友的生活理念本身就不合，在被Ted强吻后她越发对男友不满，可她应该知道对Ted这样已婚多年、事业有成的男人，顾忌太多，下决心开始一段新感情并不是容易的事情。她最终离开了男友却发现Ted对她只有暧昧没有行动，为支持Ted还失去了Don的信任。留给她的只有懊悔。

Peter和Roger同时认识到家庭的重要，却再也无法挽回各自的爱人。Peter得到Duck的建议重视家庭，却发现自己已经得罪了每一个家人。Roger上了年纪，越发的渴望一个后代。但他多年来生活方式过于随意、以及极度缺乏责任感，不能让女儿和Joan放心，没人愿意让孩子和他相处。男人要承担自己行为的后果，无奈的Peter和Roger肯定对这点深有感触。

Megan独自在家时，编剧的夫人来访，索取Megan的身体。现状很明显，如果她得到Megan的身体，就会向编剧求情，Megan的角色就不会被拿下，如果得不到，Megan的前途就危险了。Megan本想不依靠Don，闯出自己的天地，但外面的世界很险恶，任何人只要对你好，就必定想从你身上得到什么，对Megan无限付出不求回报的只有Don。但她现在发现，过去的任性已经深深伤害了Don，自己和Don之间的感情早已不复存在。她想挽回Don的心，这会像她第一次得到Don的心一样顺利吗？

广告狂人第六季结束了。爱的人更爱了，恨的人更恨了。
冲着剧名来学做广告的，失望着没看到大放异彩的创意；冲着男主来看艳遇的，被一个老女人的床戏深深伤了荷尔蒙。如果你只看到了这些，或许并不能说你没看懂Mad Men，但至少可以确定，你还没读懂Don Draper。

Don有过很多女人。你可能惊艳于风情不变风尘不染的Betty，你可能因那段挥之不去的Zou bisou而默认Megan的性感，你还可能沉迷于海洛因一般迷恋Midge，你还可能感激Faye为爱不顾一切的痴狂，还有田园诗歌般的小学老师，还有娇柔放浪的异国空姐，还有渴望婚姻的犹太女人，还有不谙世事的普通秘书，还有莫名其妙的加州艳遇，还有太多太多...
虽然不是每个女人都足以惊艳时光，但的确每一个都可谓一芳尤物。但所有的女人之于Don，都只是一个过程的存在，就像酒吧摇曳的红唇里突出的那股袅袅的烟圈 “Are you alone？”

但如果只能选一个最特别的女人。我想一定是Anna。只有你读懂了Ann对于Don的意义，才会读懂第六季老女人那句“Find your peace”，才能真正读懂了那个从高处坠落，又被轻柔唤醒的Don Draper.

其实，Mad Men无关广告人。
从头到尾，它只讲了两种人，男人和女人。

第六季终于结束了。季末的Don，可谓中年危机的一次爆发。情人在败露后彻底崩了，女儿还偏偏撞见，这等羞惭事也亏得是Don能撑住。女儿在boarding school停学，自己本来想远走加州，又让給了ted。回来家，Megan对他的出尔反尔也是忍无可忍，估计这婚姻的分崩离析也不远了。I don't know Don. We don't have kids. 人家Megan都说的很明晰了，美剧又不是过日子，一般台词都是草灰蛇线，何况Mad Men编剧一直水准颇高。

这部剧播到第六年，Don为首的这群mad men,也从上升期到了鼎盛期，现在已然是强弩之末。对生活的激情早已耗尽，哪怕是对广告本身，也未必再如以往那么创意无限。不过多年经验积攒下来的老辣，倒比创意本身发挥的作用更大。看这一季合并之后的Don和Ted,Don阴谋阳谋一起，把Ted收拾了个服服帖帖。最后俩人因为心理处境的相似，反而惺惺相惜，也是Don愿意把去加州的机会拱手送给Ted的原因。Don到了此时，对对手就不再咄咄相逼了，能举重若轻抹掉威胁，又能在关键时刻伸手相帮，是精明老辣，反过来看，也是一种心灵救赎。

同样强弩之末的也是Ted. 他虽比Don小几岁，人看来也直接单纯得多，没有Don那种心里能藏事的本事，这次和Peggy的确是玩得太过火了。他一边强调是真爱，一边回家看到妻儿还是觉得以全局为重。Peggy就更是了，穿着性感洋装和丝袜故意甩脸给Ted看，没让我觉得可爱，反而有一种desperate的感觉。而最终在办公室里加班的落寞，更是有种清冷，前尘已了，怅然若失。

最后孑然一身的Don选择了带着孩子去回顾自己的过去。正视历史，等于重新定义现在。同样地，讨人厌的小背头peter，还有和得罪了女儿的Roger，都定格在和孩子一起的时刻。和孩子在一起，是不是暗示着他们已然没有多少未来可盼，或是暗示着他们都得重头再来，从能从目前这份迷惘里跳脱出来呢。看着Don长大的妓院残破不堪，门口却又坐一个小黑孩，仿佛看到不断闪回的那个穿背带裤脸色苍白的童年的Don。愿他能通过“过去”，搭上那辆开往未来的车，能reconnect to this world.

Mad Men 609 'The Better Half' Recap


So. This was the episode that Mad Men went totally MAD.

‘You obviously had a traumatizing experience.’ Peg said.

‘Don’t patronize me.’ Abe answered.

S6E9 revisited the traumatizing experience, casting the shadow of confusion, chaos and violence on those who were not on the spot and claimed that a few lunatics would not ruin their gorgeous nights.

As if answering to Don’s epiphany in the last episode - It is nothing but history that holds people together, people of the past did appear or was mentioned in this episode. Here was Duck. And they mentioned the late Pryce and Gleason and Robert Kennedy.

Due to its role that drew people together, the past was obliged to be something precious and wonderous. Or, as the popular ‘Planet of the Apes’ indicated, the past was ‘the paradise’. Soon after Duck disclosed that the wellspring of his confidence was his family, we saw a family-reunion - in a camp site or a countryside b&b. Lost in the amazement of the oozing sweetness of Bobby and his handsome father and beautiful mother, we found ourselves cannot but agree with Duck- Family could be paradise-y.

Or could it?

Because it was an episode about the collapsing of family and of loving couples. Its theme wasn’t Duck’s motto, it’s Betty’s - ‘Loving you is the worst way to get closer to you’.

The couples, if not families, broke up. It sent a thrill down the spine of mine to see Abe accused Peg ‘you are always the enemy’. Maybe he was confused, or maybe it was true and it was because he said nothing and we couldn’t tell that he had long been frustrated about his girlfriend being a conservative high-brow bread-maker. But the accusement still was horrible, as horrible as the stabbing (why people keep stabbing??), considering of the high possibility that he might not survive and the accusement would hurt and haunt Peg, for, like, ever. To quote Arlene, you could not disagree, but you didn’t have to embarrass or in this context destroy, her. This scene resembled the previous quarrel between Pete and Trudy. Pete could not tell Trudy the unspeakable deeds of her father, yet he did. Anyhow, thanks God Abe made it.

Then it was the issue between Peg and Ted. It did not work out. It was like a blow in the face to see two men closing the door with unconscious indifference in front of Peg, in the acme of her vulnerablity. But in the end, there was nothing wrong with Ted being the guy who went to bed before 2 p.m., otherwise it would be too confusing.

To stop the confusion, Joan asked Roger to stop dropping by without notice. ‘I know you want to. But I can’t count on that’, Joan shrugged when Roger claimed that he only wanted to be around.

‘The forbidden zone is once a paradise.’ This depressed episode was a manifesto of the invalidity of love of all sorts, showing that love was a mere intermezzo, a midway thing. It was in the constant threat of violence - the robbery, the neighbourhood chaos, the stabbing spines, the words of wrath. Midway it was cut short. And you went astray, finding yourself alone in the darkness of the forbidden zone.

Maybe Matthew Weiner was confused or maybe it did happen. Alert when you are in love, but the other part just says ‘I missed you.’

Don’t count on that. Take a note.

MM 613 'In Care Of' Recap


The last episode of season 6 of Mad Men encapsulated runaway of all forms besides showing all the serious and casual commitments being made and broken.

‘If you wanna run, I’d do it now.’ - Pete

S6E13 wrapped up the whole season of the mad late 1960s showing the aftermath of being casual at decision-making whilst tagging the whole period as ‘not serious’.

‘Hershey’s isn’t serious’ about advertising. Teenages were not serious about drinking and law; men were not serious about their families and children; people were not serious about making promises. Don, the most notorious among all, breached work taboo and were considered not serious about clients and campaign presentations (Hershey’s, Sheraton, newspaper and tabacco, to name just a few). All they wanted was run.

Ted promised that he would leave his wife and escaped to Hawaii with Peg. Don told Megan they would move to L.A. and be happy again. Sally went to a boarding school to stay away from her always-occupied-and-couldn’t-pick-her-children mother and her ‘immoral’ dad. Even Pete’s mother ran away and got married with Manolo, both of whom ended up disappearing into thin air. Trudy said to Pete, who lost his mother, left his families and moved to the south, ‘You are free from everything.’

The men made decisions easily. To shoot two not one presidents, to start a war, to kill civil rights leader and innocent people on a foreign land. They were the decision-makers. And those who were being made the decisions were voiceless and vacant in the pictures.

‘You probably dictate the memo right to her and had no idea she’d be affected.’ - Stan

Stan’s remark was not just about Dawn, whose appearance and subplots in the whole season were disappointly scarce and had no punchline whatsoever, it also rang true for Peg and Ted.

Though I was for a moment believing that Ted would leave his wife and be with Peg and got really excited for the next season of this couple-to-be, I felt punched in the face when the guilty-look Ted showed up in Don’s office asking Don to put three hundred miles between him and Peg. But you must admit, what Ted did was right. Nevertheless, whatever he decided to do, the memo of divorce or breaking up would still hurt the other woman in his bed, badly.

The words were broken. The women were left to be disappointed. Yet as Roger pointed out, ‘you learn more from disappointment than you do from success’, will the women whose husband, lover, dad failed them, stood up and learned something? Looking at the silouette of Peg in Don’s office, I knew she would (and Peg&Elizabeth Moss was never an disappointment on the screen). Sally was looking at her father in the eye before the deserted two-story house that had once been a brothel and home to her father. I hoped she would pull her young self together and saw something big from the experience that her father went through, from a ragged boy to a man in clean suits and tie and hat. As Meg darted out of the flat, I was fingercrossing and wished she would not be written off the show(as what was done to her part in her show). The scenario of Don taking away Stan’s opportunity bore a resemblance to what Megan did to her European friend in the last episode of season five, yet we failed to see more dark and manipulative side of Megan this season. I hoped to see the independent-minded Megan of power return next year.

SC&P decided that they could survive with a casual vacancy. And indeed, it would not be too much to ask that this casual vacancy could remind Don of his responsibility since he would sure see the firm run normally, if not perfectly, without him.

Take a break.

‘Don’t you always go home, though? ’ - Peggy

最好的剧集将细节抓得最仔细，确保每一件道具、戏服、台词不仅都能符合史实，更能推动剧情。这种火眼金睛（或是过度阐释）不是一下子练得出来的，但一旦练出来，绝对能提升不少观剧的感受——前提是这部剧能保证给你这一番感受。

《广告狂人》就是这样一部剧，禁得起剖析、解读，不断有惊喜，有新发现。观看《广告狂人》就好像在同时上美国历史课、电影课、写作课，收获绝不亚于一部优秀的电影能带来的收获和思考。

MM丰富的观剧体验离不开精彩剧评的点播。在这里推荐两个recap网站（没有看完S6的建议打开这些地址时迅速下拉，迅速找到你看到的那集的评论，目不斜视，不看任何其他集的标题和图片）：

Vulture：http://www.vulture.com/tv/mad-men/
Nelle Engoro: http://open.salon.com/blog/silkstone

Vulture是个很棒的MM信息平台。Matt的剧评除了深入挖掘和分析MM里对照（mirror/doppelganger）的角色经历，对MM本身他常毫无保留的持批判态度(如他把乱来一气的第8集比作怀特大神写剧本时会遭遇的灵感枯竭和混沌状态）；对Don批评起来也绝不嘴软。

他在第7集痛骂Don：
Speaking of Don, the guy’s a horrible, horrible, horrible asshole, just horrible. Horrible! Did I mention he’s horrible? A hollowed-out shell of a handsome man. A tyrannosaurus rex among bastards. Sick. Hateful. A selfish prima donna and reflexive user of other people. Toxic beefcake. He should have a warning label on his forehead.

除了挖掘和分析MM里对照（mirror/doppelganger）的角色经历，Matt经常妙语连珠，比如在第13集中，他指出：
The preacher's line in the mandtory whorehouse flashback really stuck with me.'The only unpardonable sin is to believe God cannot forgive you.' Substitute 'the viewer' for God and you've got cable's philsophy of drama.

在Nelle的博客中，可以发现，她很早便开始写MM的剧评，她对于MM第四季的recap大受欢迎，出书成册。

她的剧评很有个人特色：紧扣台词。Nelle的recap以各种明显的punchline与不易察觉的台词串成一幅很有逻辑的画面。Nelle的另一个特色是她经历过60年代，常常拿出自己的亲身体验做参照和对比。

Nelle的解读非常细致，也有一些自己独到的理论（把Don落水解读为Don经历的一次重新改过、埋葬the false self的洗礼），很妙的是，Nelle的评论本身就极具文学性，在写到Don在第13集里讲述自己的童年经历和好时巧克力棒（Hershey's bar）的苦甜交织的记忆时，指出“bar”的一语双关：

A bitterness not alleviated by the other kind of bar we’ve often seen him hitting, especially this season


将Matt和Nelle的剧评放在一块儿看，可以发现两人对一些情节的理解和猜想的差异，Matt认为Bob Benson是一个良性的sociopath，并认为在Bob&Pete的膝盖戏后，Bob走出时是一种平静的姿态，而Pete可能是一个深柜gay，最后发现并接受自己的这一身份能帮助Pete重新lovable。
Nelle则认为Bob在膝盖戏后走出Pete办公室是很不安的，因为他猜错了，Pete并不弯，并担心Bob是否保得住饭碗。

最后揭晓，两者都有猜对的，和猜错之处。而两者早早看出Bob和Don的mirror，则是两者都猜对的地方。

Nelle在S6的recap外，还每集录制了一集 Mad Men Talk（http://www.blogtalkradio.com/madmentalk）,可以晚上睡觉听。


MM美轮美奂的戏服也是一大看点，推荐两个评论MM戏服的网站：
http://www.tomandlorenzo.com/category/television/page/3 （其中的Mad Style系列）
服装设计设Janie Bryant讲解MM的戏服：http://blogs.amctv.com/mad-men/fashion-file/

Mad Style有着丰富的截图，将戏服对人物性格、剧情推进的作用挖掘做到了极致：绿-蓝象征的adultery，黄-红为SCP的公司主色调；黄-蓝象征unconnect的人际关系；波点VS条纹；不详的Sharon Tate的暗指…

两个戏服评论一起看，也能看出一些相同的或是不同的见解：

对于E13里Megan在早上与在监狱了呆了一晚、决定改过自新的的Don谈话、拥抱的一幕，Janie动情地写道：“她穿着白裙，他穿着西装，清晨的阳光照进来，这就像一个婚礼。”
Tom&Lorenzo则刁侃“Megan就缺一对翅膀和一个光环了！”

对于后来Don改变主意，决定留在纽约，Megan穿着海军蓝的毛衣愤怒摔门而去的一幕，Janie说，Megan的蓝色毛衣切合着本集sink, boat, water的motif，暗色调也与早晨的白裙相反，可以从一个角度上解释为Don&Megan婚姻的死亡。

但是，Tom&Lorenzo则有着相反的、乐观的推断，他们注意到Megan的海军蓝、灰色、白色和Don西装、衬衫、领带的三色完全匹配，Megan的三角形领口对应Don的西装领口，他们是connect的、有未来的一对。

另外可以加强观剧体验的当然就是看怀纳大神以及众卡司的采访，这些都可以在AMC和Vulture的MM页面上找到。


最后，最能提升观剧感受&能力的，就是自己动手写一篇剧评！没有什么更能比在观剧后写recap，对照自己的recap和Matt&Nelle的recap，更能提升自己的观察、梳理以及英语能力的了。

这一季我写了五篇recap，后三篇比较像样的放在了豆瓣上：

【607 Recap】Above the Cloud http://movie.douban.com/review/6187903/
【609 Recap】A Traumatizing Experience http://movie.douban.com/review/6187908/
【613 Recap】‘If you wanna run, I’d do it now.’ http://movie.douban.com/review/6187912/

当然和Matt&Nelle&Tom&Lorenzo的评论的洞察力还远不好比，但至少形式上慢慢地比较有章法了（偏向Nelle的台词摘录法）。



看到这里的Mad Mania们，送你们一颗（需要翻墙的）彩蛋：
Peggy十年奋斗史：
http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/06/watch-peggy-olson-break-the-glass-ceiling.html



图文版：http://www.douban.com/note/292004705/