S4E8 – The Summer Man

A thing like that, we managed to get to "The Summer Man" before the end of the summer. That's right, this week we dig into the eight episode of the fourth season of Mad Men, in which Peggy is on "fire" and Don faces his toughest nemesis yet: sobriety.

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: 

• Is it fair to compare "The Summer Man" to Season 1 episodes of the show?
• What is the point of all the voiceover narration?
• How well does Jon Hamm handle Don's journey to sobriety?
• What is the true nuance of Peggy and Joan's complicated work relationship?
• Does this episode work as a follow-up to the well-regarded "The Suitcase" in the previous episode?

Extra credits:

Matthew Weiner created Mad Men, which aired on AMC from 2007 to 2015. Phil Abraham directed “The Summer Man” and Matthew Weiner co-wrote the script with Lisa Albert and Janet Leahy. 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).

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