Mad Men Season 4 Unpopular Opinions

[sunclouds33]

Here are my Mad Men Season 4 UOs. My UOs came out easier for early West Wing and later Mad Men....

Comments

[sunclouds33]

I agree that Roger is capable of considering a reduced status pre-losing Lucky Strike. When the PPL left him off the flowchart in their S3 visit, a bunch of points when he felt professionally spurned by Don. However, I just don't think Roger thought *Pete* had the standing to reduce Roger's standing by comparison. IMO, Roger still thought of Pete as an employee in S4 instead of a partner i.e. high-handedly informing Pete to fire Vicks to make room for Ponds, Roger dictating to Pete to halt his relationship with Honda, how Roger grasped to upbraid/abuse an employee in Pete on losing North American Aviation so Roger could self-soothe at losing Lucky Strike. IMO, Roger considered all of Pete's business to be Roger's business (that Roger just didn't need to service or consider). It took losing Lucky Strike and the agency (very much including Pete) reiterating that one Accounts partner had most of the business and it pointedly wasn't Roger for Roger to see Pete as not just a partner, but someone with his own much great portfolio and relevance.

Interesting point about the car-issue. However, I don't even think Roger was on top of that. Like, *Pete* is always playing this chess in his head and he was originally sour about Lane bringing in Jaguar because he didn't even want to consider Lane as the guy who'd bring in the car account. However, I really think Roger thought any car account that Pete would bring in would just be part of *Roger's* profile because Pete is Roger's employee.

Moreover, IMO, Roger's "grander" preoccupation with objecting to Honda AS PROMISE TO HIS MURDERED BROTHERS-IN-ARMS and to DEFEND THE AMERICAN WAY was so over-powering and sincerely felt that it crowded out business considerations through Roger's tantrum with the Japanese. At least through that scene, I see Roger as "seeing so red" that he didn't even have the mental real estate to be calculating and to consider his future. He was just that emotional.

Although, I can agree that Pete's comment and certainly Bert's talking-to reminded Roger of his business considerations enough to inform the partners he was going to play nice with Honda and perhaps enough for Roger to even ponder Pete's comment, after the fact. Although maybe Roger did ponder Pete's comment, but of course, he didn't follow any anxiety about Pete usurping him through in his actions until he lost Lucky Strike. But as you said, Roger could totally feel that anxiety but not do anything about it because he's lazy.

S4-7 Don/Peggy is great because there's always validity AND ridiculousness to their positions on totally emotionally and on totally calculating business conflicts and you don't know where's the line between the concepts. I heart them so much. For the last four seasons, they're always going to be a major component of my UOs.

[bellesbells]

Yeah, that's true, I doubt Roger was that on top of things at that point. :D

I heart Don/Peggy so much too. They always maintained such an interesting relationship throughout the entirety of the series.

[sunclouds33]

Roger was really out of it then. I think Roger has above-average-intelligence, arguably even clever (certainly with wit)- but he never though he had to consider strategy like Godzilla just stomping around with his natural heft and importance ("HAYAWAJAKAZAWAKA...MONSTAH!").