Mad Men: Pete and Beth Dawes

[sistermagpie]

So Season 5 of Mad Men is over which means I have a little bit of my life back where I'm not constantly obsessing, but there's still a lot to chew over. Especially with my boy, Campbell. Because I've read so many reviews that either ignored his story as concluded in the finale or dismissed it as confusing and meaningless. Which I do not get. Maybe

Comments

[sistermagpie]

People really do like to see him as a 2D villain. It was amazing after The Other Women how quickly this different episode was created with Pete taking on all of the villain roles. Suddenly Lane didn't go to Joan and tell her all the partners agreed: Pete did. The partners didn't want to make Joan an offer to see if she could change her mind: Pete tricked them! I even saw someone saying that it added up to Pete coercing Joan into doing it. Yeah. It was so quick it totally colored my memory of the ep too. I was amazed when I happened to see the clip of Pete talking to the partners online and realized wait, he didn't mislead anybody. He gave them a totally accurate reporting of the situation. "She said we couldn't afford it" was clarification of the earlier "It's MY OPINION she could be convinced" or whatever.

Of course, I also saw Pete accused of assaulting Beth in LL.

Those things can't really be blamed on the show!

I so love that MW quote. Like you, I don't think I've ever really been surprised by or disagreed with stuff either MW or VK says about Pete. And I totally agree with this view on him as depressed. One of the fun things about the show, I think, is the way they can use problems like that but put them in the context of the time where they didn't have all the narratives we have about mood disorders or addictions, you know? So on one hand what we've seen of Pete completely lines up with him being depressed--which MW also agreed he was--but he's never going to define himself as that, so he's going to work it out some other way.

I really hope they do something interesting with this. I mean, as VK and the Roger storyline pointed out, having an epiphany about yourself doesn't always lead to making changes in your life. But Pete seems to have a hard time lying to himself once he knows the truth about something, and he has moved on from things in the past. No longer having some goal that he believes is going to fix him once he get it doesn't seem like something that can't change him. Seems like he's got to find something to fill those hours when he's not focused on work. On one hand he doesn't seem like a good candidate for any 60s cliches like Paul's Hare Krishna or Roger's acid devotee. But otoh he's kind of living out the whole "the traditional life has left me empty" narrative.