Hello, and welcome to TV Tuesday- today I’m going to be talking about the sixth season of the hit AMC drama Mad Men!

I can’t believe I’m nearing the end of this series! Feels like I only just started.

Season six starts at Christmas time, the office has gotten an upgrade, as they now have more space, and clients are happy. Don is on vacation in Hawaii, but it’s not really a vacation since he’s there for work. SCDP is in the process of gaining a Hawaiian resort as a new client and Don and Megan make the trip. Don has a great time, and that’s where we find out Megan is now a more well known actor.

She’s getting more roles, and more edgier roles, and Don does not like that. He can’t stand her kissing and fooling around with other actors. I didn’t think Don would ever cheat on Megan, but he’s back to his old ways. He’s now sleeping around Sylvia, their neighbour, and friend. Bleh. I’m not caring for them this season so far.

They have this episode where he’s very demanding of her, and that scares her that she breaks up with him. He is crushed; I don’t think we’ve ever seen Don so crushed by this.

Later on, Sylvia’s son Mitch comes into play as he’s dropped out of school, but is also trying to run away from the army, which is a big no-no. It’s Don to the rescue, he ends up finding him a job, and she is so grateful that they hook up, or almost, guess who finds them… Sally. That poor girl keeps walking in to things. Now things are weird between her and her father, and I guess Megan.

Betty’s plotlines seem to start and then get dropped. We meet Sandra, one of Sally’s friends, and Betty really takes an interest in her. When Betty finds out her plans doesn’t work out, not getting into Julliard, Betty takes in upon herself to try and find her at a halfway house. All she ends up finding is her violin, and then that plot is dropped, I hope we get more on that. Another big thing for Betty is her brown hair, and I think she looks good with it.

She’s also skinner, and everyone notices. Her and Don go to Bobby’s camp to visit him, and we get the cutest scene where they’re together as a little family having something to eat.

Then Betty and Don hook up, and it feels right somehow.

Poor Megan getting cheated on, at least her acting career is going places. She’s moving up and has more roles, but the actor who plays Megan, Jessica Pare, can’t act being an actor, those scenes are horrible to watch. She does a great job playing Megan though. One of the girl’s she works with keeps trying to put the moves on her, which I find funny.

The company goes through some rough stuff with Heinz. The guy who runs beans hates the guy who runs ketchup, and so SCDP can only represent one, but they try to secretly represent both, and that just backfires and they lose both accounts.

Who gets the account, Peggy’s firm Cutler, Gleason & Chaough. Peggy is doing well for herself. She’s the boss almost, since she’s Copy Chief now, and the copywriters are afraid of her. Oh Peggy. She’s still with Abe, who would have thought? Abe has a new hairstyle going for him.

  The two of them move into an apartment on the sketchy side of town. This leaves Peggy on edge all the time, and well leads her to stabbing Abe. Holy crap, then to top that off he breaks up with her because it’s then he realizes they are on two different people, and he can’t be with her anymore. Woah.

It doesn’t help that she has feelings for her boss, Ted Chaough, and he for her. They kiss one late night, and they know it can’t go farther than that, but Peggy thinks now that she’s single that changes things- silly girl.

Now that new character Michael, it looks like they’re trying to get him off the ground, but his plots are a little strange. His father is trying to find him a girl, and is setting him up with girls. I don’t know where they’re going with this plot just yet.

The season also opens with Roger loosing his mother. That shakes him up so much. It’s one of the only times we see him be vulnerable, it’s almost nice to see.

He’s still pining after Joan, but when he sees her with Bob, well that turns things- he can’t be with her anymore. This season he craves to be a fatherly figure, it’s a little strange, he gets an episode with his grandson (who knew his daughter had a four year old son?) but when that goes horribly he tries to get Joan let him se Kevin, his real son. She says no because she wants Kevin to think his father is a war hero. (Greg puke).

The show takes an episode to relive the shooting of Martin Luther King. That, like the Kennedy shooting, and Marilyn Monroe’s death, really shakes characters up. The end of season five they get black people to start working for them, and Don’s new secretary is a black girl named Dawn. So when Mr. King gets shot there is looting and fires in the streets, and everyone really feels sorry for Dawn, like it was a personal hit. The hug between Joan and Dawn was awkward. I like how Peggy and Dawn are friends and when they hug it feels true and real.

At the end of last season Pete was to get his own place in the city so he doesn’t have to commute as much. Well this leads to more cheating from Pete, and with an obscene scene, Trudy finds out and it’s just a downward spiral. Not only does it suck for his marriage, but for the company (because as you know, everything is for the company).

On top of that Pete is having issues with his mother, and is forced to get a nurse, which Joan helps him out with. She knows Bob knows a guy, but the nurse he picks, a guy named Manolo, makes his mother too happy. She thinks she she’s in love with him, and that scares Pete. That is until Bob tells him that Manolo is gay, which leads me to think is Bob gay? The way he looks, and rubs his knee with Pete, what about Joan?

Speaking of Joan, she hasn’t had a very big season yet; she’s been doing her job. Her big plotline so far is I believe she’s starting to date a guy named Bob from the office. He helps her out one day when she has to go to the emergency room, and from there he’s been with her. He’s so sweet.

She also does something stupid, she tries to get Avon Cosmetics all by herself. She brings Peggy into it, but leaves Pete out because she thinks she can do it. Instead she gets yelled out, and Peggy has to save her. Hopefully everything works out.

But damn SCDP go through a HUGE change. It all starts with Don firing Jaguar, and I say good riddance. Poor Joan, she did all that she did for Jaguar for nothing. Then they loose Vick’s chemicals because Pete’s father-in-law finds out about him and Trudy. Man what is keeping this company alive anymore? Well thanks to Roger’s savvy skills he finds out about Chevy. But what do they do, they go in with Cutler, Gleason & Chaough, their enemy. After that meeting they come out merging the two companies together. Don asks Peggy to come up with the name. I guess she doesn’t do a good job because no one can figure out their name. They come to a vote and they are now Sterling Cooper & Partners.

We haven’t gotten much Sally. Her biggest scene so far is when she says with her father, and both Megan and Don are out, and a black older lady who claims to be Don’s mother robs them. At first I thought it was the real Don Draper’s mother, but then the woman starts acting weird and erratic, and I knew she’s trying to rob them. Later she decides to go to boarding school to get away from her father, where she sees Greg once more.

 
In the season finale, a lot of drama ensues. First Pete looses his mother! Holy cow, she falls off a boat, with, yes you guessed it, Manolo. The two of them got married! Well this sends Pete into an uproar with Bob. But now Pete isn’t the only one who is against Bob, Roger is too. He sees him being sweet to Joan, and Roger flips. Apparently Joan wants little Kevin to know Bob, terrible mistake, he’s not looking so sweet anymore.

Then we have Don who is willing to pack up and head to California to start work on Sunkist. Megan is all ready to leave, quit her job, when Don tells her it’s not happening, harsh.

Although I think Don did a good thing, he’s letting Ted go instead because Lord knows Ted needs it. He finally slept with Peggy, but he has a family to think about so he needs to put space between them. Oh Peggy is furious and thinks it’s all Don’s fault. Ugh Peggy really irritates me, I hope next season she’s what she used to be, a stand for women in a man’s world, and not trying to be a man.

And let’s not forget, the guys at Chevy, shot Ken in the face! I thought he was gone for, but turns out, just his eye was affected. What a crazy plot twist.

We finish the episode with an intervention pretty much for Don, as throughout the whole series we’ve been getting flashbacks of his past to find out who he is, and how he came to be the asshole that he is now. He’s let slip his upbringing in a client meeting with Hershey’s, and everyone at the office thinks he needs some time off.

I hope next season we get to know why we’ve seen so much of his past, more than we really need to see; I still think we’re missing something. The final season looks to be very promising.