02 Aug

Posted at 04:05h in Television by

  MAD MEN REVIEW: Season 7 Episode 4 — The 60’s were the era of re-defining what tells us who we are. The country was at war in more ways than Vietnam. Women fought stereotypes at home and in the workplace. The Black Panther movement empowered marginalized citizens. This country’s cultural revolution was a sign of just how much oppressive status quos would be challenged. People like Don Draper (Jon Hamm) live under similar but internal oppressive beliefs originating from childhood trauma. Don’s is the dark specter of “the unwanted boy”, now being repeated at Sterling Cooper and Partners. Will Don survive being...

02 Aug

Posted at 04:05h in Television by

  MAD MEN REVIEW: Season 7 Episode 3 — It could have been the perfect day. For the first time in his young life, Bobby has his mom along for a field trip and he couldn’t be more excited.  It’s all going so well, too. “Me and my mom are having a conversation,” Bobby tells his teacher on the bus. He’s a very happy little boy. He’s staking out a special spot for just the two of them (“No you can’t sit here. That’s my mom’s spot.”). All Bobby wants is a special place in Betty’s heart and today he thinks he just...

02 Aug

Posted at 04:05h in Television by

MAD MEN REVIEW: SEASON 7 EPISODE 5 — Jealousy can do it. Megan (Jessica Paré ) is taking matters into her own hands. It’s now tit for tat. She’s decided if she’s going to be with Don (Jon Hamm), she’ll be the one with the power. She’s done with being pushed aside and left out. In fact, she’ll make Don feel exactly the way she’s felt since she married him – a beautiful accessory but ultimately inconsequential. Yet, is she successful? The jury’s out on that one – at least for me as a psychoanalyst. But she’s certainly trying. As soon as...

02 Aug

Posted at 04:05h in Television by

MAD MEN REVIEW: Season 7 Episode 3 — Good relationships take trust and trust allows relationships to strengthen over time. As we’ve watched Don Draper over the years, we know he’s lied to the people in his life for complicated reasons. After suffering a series of humiliating defeats in Episode 3, it’s painfully illuminated to Don that the people who know him – from his wife Megan to his partners at SC&P – don’t trust him. Don is forced to face the reality that trust is hard to gain and easy to lose. Trust (and love) require being open to the hard work...

02 Aug

Posted at 04:05h in Television by

  MAD MEN REVIEW: Season 7 Episode 5 — Betty Draper Francis (January Jones) finally takes a stand in Episode 5 – and weren’t we all cheering? It’s 1969, after all, and the Women’s Movement is in full swing. Betty’s finally sick and tired of living under society’s expectations (not to mention her mother’s) of just what kind of woman and wife she’s supposed to be. She isn’t much happier about being Henry Francis’ surrogate Emily Post, either. Go girl! Or, should I say – woman … because at the height of the feminism of the late 60’s and 70’s none of us would...

01 Aug

Posted at 01:23h in Television by

MAD MEN REVIEW: Season 7 Episode 2 — Is there any hope for love in Mad Men Season 7? Maybe between Don (Jon Hamm) and Sally (Kiernan Shipka).  But, first of all, Don needs to stop lying – and, finally, he’s beginning to come clean. Don’s lies catch up to him when Sally comes on the scene for the first time this season in Episode 2.  Sally is a lost 15 year old, with no parents she can count on – smoking with her boarding school friends, and on her way to a funeral for her roommate’s mother. She says, with typical teenage sardonic bravado,...

01 Aug

Posted at 01:23h in Television by

MAD MEN REVIEW: Season 7 Episode 1 — Could Sterling, Cooper, and Partners be an even worse environment for – and especially the women – as we enter Season 7, 1969? Each of the main characters seems poised for the struggle of their lives – as Mad Men’s psychologically-minded creator Matthew Weiner hints: “This season is about consequences…We don’t just throw stuff away after it has happened. There are shadows over this season that go back to the first time we met Don.” The premiere, “Time Zones,” let’s begin to check in with Joan (Christina Hendricks), Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), Don (Jon Hamm),...

01 Aug

Posted at 01:23h in Television by

  MAD MEN: Season 7 Preview — Bob Dylan’s song, “The Times They Are A-Changin’” defined the 60’s and the Cultural Revolution taking place. These times were especially momentous for women in their roles in the work place and as wives. Enter the world of Mad Men  - and we are in the culture that fueled the fires for Friedan’s 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique. The Women’s Revolution finally laid bare what Friedan called “the problem with no name.” A culture dominated by male definitions of women’s happiness: being a wife, a mother, and especially being what men want women to be. The women of Mad Men –...

01 Aug

Posted at 01:23h in Television by

MAD MEN: Season 7 Preview — Don Draper (Jon Hamm) has been running from his past through the last six seasons of Mad Men. At least, he’s tried his best – amidst flashbacks and his brother’s return. To me as a psychoanalyst, there is no doubt he’s a traumatized man. A man using various methods, mostly affairs and alcohol, to convince himself it’s possible to forget what’s happened to him, even who he really is. His steady and sad decline shows us he is wrong. The lines he quotes from Dante’s Inferno at the beginning of Season 6 reference the very type of hell...