Mad Men "The Suitcase"

If you have never watched "Mad Men" please do so at your earliest convenience :) We just watched an episode from season 4 titled "The Suitcase" and I have to say it is the best writing for a t.v. show I have seen in a long time. In order to better appreciate it, you would have to see the previous seasons, I admit. On it's own, it was like a post modern Tennessee Williams play, but including more winks and nods towards the impending doom of modern times (Mad Men takes place in a 60's Manhattan ad agency, but there's so much sub plot nodding to race issues, gender issues and it's a general last hoorah of an age before the hippies come in...and they do. As beatniks, and they are not the enemy here, trust me.).

This show represents two decades after WWII when people thought they would live forever, have sex without consequences, and marry without doubts. I love how the writers show women trying to find their way, using their brains and their other attributes to get ahead, and without being judgemental. The men do the same thing, and in this show, all is equal in the end. Whoever has the brains, in each story line, gets a prize. But is it what they really want, or what society is telling them what they should have?

Besides that, the corporate sessions they have of actual ads (Samsonite, Playtex, Ponds, Pan Am) are great , the story boards of old, the radio and tv ads being drawn up and played out in offices that are in the end, million dollar accounts, all with some cocktails at lunch hour and real life history (freedom riders) thrown in to make it seem "real."

I never thought a team of such great writers and actors could be assembled for one place. And it is here. "Mad Men" is for the curious, the open minded, the people willing to revisit a past they may not have known, but their parents did. It is a place to laugh and sometimes get a tear jerked out by scenes that are artfully carved. And, it is art. I said it- there is art on tv. "Mad Men" deserves all the critic's awards it has gained, and it's fan are rabid. I'm on the leash. It's that good.