S4E1 – Public Relations

This week on Mad Men Men, we kick off Season 4 with “Public Relations,” which is pretty much a pilot type of episode smack dab in the middle of the whole series. In case this is your first time digging into our podcast, we recap Mad Men from the perspective of a first-time watcher, someone who only watched the show once while it was airing, and a superfan who watches excessively instead of having a functional social life.

Discussion Points: 

• How is “Public Relations” like a pilot of its own?
• Does Matthew Weiner prefer writing pilots over season arcs?
• Why is Don so resistant to dating after his divorce?
• Why is Don, a character pretty used to reinventing himself, so resistant to change in this episode, like with the reporter?
• Is Peggy now the Season 1 Don?
• What do we make of Joey in his first appearance?
• Why didn’t the new agency hire Paul and Ken?
• Why doesn’t Betty want to move to a new house with Henry?
• Should we compare Peggy and Pete to Sally and Bobby when it comes to the effects of Don’s divorce?
• How did the 60s change after JFK’s assassination?
• Is the Jantzen ad good or not? Modern or not?

Extra credits 

Matthew Weiner created Mad Men, which aired on AMC from 2007 to 2015. Phil Abraham directed this episode — “Public Relations” — and Matthew Weiner wrote the script. The show stars Jon Hamm, January Jones, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, Christina Hendricks, John Slattery, Robert Morse, and many more. Our intro music is “Mad Men Men” by Tom Davidson, which is an original remix of the show’s opening theme “A Beautiful Mine” by RJD2. Podcast illustration is by Jon Negroni. Our podcast hosts include Jon Negroni (Podcast Editor of InBetweenDrafts), Will Ashton (cohost of the Cinemaholics podcast), and Michael Overhulse (a guy who’s addicted to working at startups).

We’ll be back soon to discuss Season 4 Episode 2, titled “Christmas Comes But Once a Year.” Subscribe to Mad Men Men on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever else podcasts are, ahem, advertised. You can find our conversations about the first season on our podcast feed, as we are now on a new website.

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