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Mad Men Episodes Ranked: 1-15

1. The Suitcase

The best one.

2. The Other Woman

"At last."

3. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

A perfect pilot.

4. Shut the Door. Have a Seat.

A thrilling heist.

5. The Beautiful Girls

"She was an astronaut."

6. The Wheel

Harry Crane can’t handle it.

7. The Grown Ups

Betty screaming “What is happening?!”

8. The Strategy

Pete ruins a cake.

9. The Jet Set

Don Draper is great at party games. “Oslo.”

10. Far Away Places

Beautiful HoJo set piece, Roger’s acid trip.

11. Seven Twenty Three

Don punched in the face, Bert’s killer instinct.

12. Waterloo

Bert’s killer dance moves.

13. Commissions and Fees

Lane Price [prayer hands emoji].

14. Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency

“He’ll never play golf again.”

15. Nixon vs. Kennedy

Harry Crane breaks his glasses.

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Notes:

"The Suitcase" is pretty much the consensus #1. I obviously agree.

Some may have Shut the Door Have a Seat lower but I can resist the Ocean's 11 vibe.

I gave bonus points to episodes that experimented on the technical/formal side like Seven Twenty Three and Far Away Places. For such a buttoned-up show, these flourishes are treats.

Seasons 3 and 4 with the most episodes in the pantheon.

Nothing from Season 6 cracks the top because that season is objectively the worst.

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Mad Men Episodes Ranked: 16-30

16. Three Sundays

Shout out to Colin Hanks

17. Souvenir

Betty’s Hair 

18. Indian Summer

Betty’s Washing Machine 

19. The Crash

An episode any professional creative will understand

20. A Little Kiss

Zou Bissou Bissou

21. The New Girl

“This is America. Pick a job and then become the person that does it.” 

22. A Day’s Work

“This Will Be Our Year” by Zombies is one of my favorite music drops.

23. Signal 30

Sweaty summer dinner at the Campbell’s, fisticuffs in the office.

24. The Gypsy and the Hobo

Betty confronts Don about his past, Don cries.

25. The Monolith

“Ballgame.”

26. Blowing Smoke

The Letter.

27. At the Codfish Ball

Not the boots and take off the make-up.

28. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

Peggy riding in circles in an empty studio. 

29. A Night to Remember

Hungover Betty in an dirty party dress.

30. My Old Kentucky Home

Racist Roger.

Notes:

I think Colin Hanks guest arc is very underrated. I also love Three Sunday's change in structure.

Season 2 is also underrated. Bobbie Barrett was a Draper doppelganger.

Lots of Season 3 and 4 here again.

Shows how good early seasons were with episodes like Indian Summer, A Night to Remember.

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Mad Men Episodes Ranked: 31-46

31. Public Relations

Reporter with a wooden leg.

32. The Doorway

Opens in the heat, closes in the cold.

33. For Those Who Think Young

Youth Invation

34. Time Zones

It’s a conversation piece.

35. Wee Small Hours

Bye, Sal.

36. Six Month Leave

Bye, Freddy.

37. The Hobo Code

Before the flashbacks got bad.

38. The Runaways

Scout, Ginsberg’s nipple, desperate group sex.

39. The Color Blue

Betty pukes.

40. Meditations in an Emergency

An international and domestic detente.

41. Hands and Knees

Lucky Strike fires SCDP, Roger sits in a booth.

42. Christmas Waltz

Don and Joan have a drink.

43. The Gold Violin

Sorry, Kitty Romano.

44. Tomorrowland

It’s just a milkshake.

45. Shoot

Betty smoking a cigarette, shooting pigeons.

46. Field Trip

Betty smoking a cigarette, drinking from a pale.

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Notes:

Oddly enough, a number of season premieres ranked in this group. For Those Who Think Young (S2), Wee Small Hours (S3), Public Relations (S4), The Doorway (S6), Time Zones (S7.1).

Season finales for Tomorrowland (S4) and Medidations in an Emergency (S2) as well.

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Mad Men Episodes Ranked: 47 - 61

47. Out of Town


Limit your exposure.


48. Maidenform


Duck and the dog.


49. The Rejected


These two frames.


50. Long Weekend


Roger’s heart attack, pony ride.


51. In Care Of


Hershey meltdown


52. Flight 1


“…the water turned plaid!”


53. The Phantom


Go Mets.


54. Mystery Date


American Horror Story


55. Chinese Wall


Roger’s not in Raleigh.


56. New Amsterdam


Enter: Glen


57. Collaborators


Conspiracies abound.


58. The Mountain King


Pacific Ocean baptism


59. Waldorf Stories


The Cure for the Common Breakfast


60. Babylon


Peggy becomes a copywrite

61. Love Among the Ruins


Peggy smokes marijuana, Paul sings.

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Mad Men Episodes Ranked, 63-83

As the final season of Mad Men approaches, I put together a very scientific and accurate ranking of all 83 episodes of the seven seasons. Here are the first 20 or so.

63. Christmas Comes But Once a Year

Cha-cha line, Santa brings cigarettes


64. Ladies Room

Numb fingers.


65. The Good News

Guy’s Night Out


66. 5G


Enter: Adam


67. A Tale of Two Cities
 

Don goes for a swim.


68. Red in the Face
 

Helen Bishop - that trollop.


69. The Summer Man
 

The Rolling Stones opener.


70. The Benefactor
 

Jimmy has issues.


71. Favors
 

“He looks like he’s in a band.”


72. Marriage of Figaro
 

Worst birthday party ever.


73. The Better Half
 

Peggy stabs Abe.


74. The Inheritance
 

Hofstadt sibling face-off


75. The Quality of Mercy
 

Kenny gets Cheney’d


76. To Have and to Hold
 

Vinegars, Sauces and Beans was pissssssed.


77. Tea Leaves
 

Fat Betty


78. The Arrangements
 

Sad Sally


79. Lady Lazarus
 

Pete hates his life.


80. Man with a Plan
 

Don takes a book.


81. Dark Shadows
 

Don’t open the patio doors.


82. The Fog
 

Two Genes


83. The Flood

It was a shameful day.

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This is my latest production reel with clips from a bunch of video projects I'm proud of. I would love for you to check it out.

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Feelings!

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Mad Men: Time Zones

The show has always dealt in perception vs. reality and all the messy, post-modern questions that underscore both the preoccupations with our own narratives and their emptiness.

"Don Draper" was always a construction, a projection. It seems fitting to begin this final season, Don/Dick/Whatever finds himself hopelessly lost among the sea of representations, representations of representations and representations of representations of representations. Don has been pretending to be Don Draper for so long, he's forgotten what that even means. With every Sally stink eye and coyote howl, Don xeroxes the xerox of his own life.

And in "Time Zones," that xerox looks like Freddy Rumsen.

Even for a show that deals so thoroughly in artifice and existentialism, this is a signal of just how lost Don Draper is.

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"Adding Social Media Icons to Edward Hopper Paintings Makes Them Extra Sad and Fantastic"

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'Mad Men’ Up Close

Photos From the Set of the Celebrated Show

© Alex Majoli/Magnum for TIME - Source

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Breaking Bad / S04E11 / Crawl Space

Buy on Society6 / Redbubble

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An Introduction

Over Thanksgiving in 1984, my parents announced they were pregnant with their first child. My grandmother Margaret knew before they opened their mouths. Allegedly, the giveaway was when my mom refused a glass of wine but I prefer to think my grandmother possessed a matriarchal foresight bordering on omnipotence - a kind of hyper-awareness of her own genetic material, a deep-seated knowing of self-preservation and instinct that has quietly powered human propagation for thousands of years. You just know.

My parents were a little nervous to break the news. Not that the child was conceived out of wedlock (actually, rumor has it conception occurred the night the Detroit Tigers won the 1984 World Series.) or under duress or had any prenatal health conditions, but the anticipated due date came smack in the middle of my grandparents planned months-long grand tour of Europe. It was the type of trip retirees plan years for, the kind seen in ads for pharmaceuticals or financial planning firms. Nobody called it a Bucket List then but this was *it*. Maybe it was the fact that this would be their second grandchild and the novelty had worn off, maybe it was because my grandmother had spent time teaching young, unwed girls in Pontiac, Michigan the tools and knowledge they would need to raise children alone or maybe it was because after decades of hard work and raising three children of their own, they were ready to indulge in a well-deserved vacation - they knew a newborn is little more than a flesh-bag with organs and he wouldn't mind if they met him when they got back from Europe. "Sorry I'm not sorry," they might have said today.

On the day the baby was born, my grandparents were in Paris. I assume my parents paid a small fortune for a long-distance telephone call to France to let them know - 10 fingers, 10 toes, happy family, etc. etc. "Black Irish," they'd say, dark hair, blue eyes, good lungs.

In the coming days, my father would snap photos of the new family, get them developed and put them in an envelope with the address for the American Express office in Paris on it, the place my grandparents were getting their mail and correspondence during that leg of the trip. During those same days, my grandfather would walk into that office each morning, eagerly looking for the envelope. "We're waiting for pictures of my grandson," he'd tell the teller. "Sorry, nothing today," they'd respond.

"Any mail?"

"Sorry, sir"

"Any mail today? We're waiting for pictures of my grandson."

"Je suis désolé, monsieur."

The baby was already delivered but the photos weren't until mid-July. Standing in the AmEx office, my grandfather snatch the envelope, flipped over to the back and began to unseal it. My grandmother snatched it right back and said, "Not yet."

They walked to the banks of the River Seine to sit down at an outdoor cafe. They ordered a carafe of nice white wine. I like to think it wasn't the nicest wine in the restaurant - they weren't a showy couple - but it was from nearby, well-made and good enough to do what good wines do: draw your attention to the value of the moment. When the waiter finished pouring the glasses, my grandmother took a sip, looked at my grandfather and said, "OK, now open it."

That's how they first laid eyes on me, their first and only grandson.

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Prochlorococcus

It produces so much oxygen that in fact one in every five breaths we take is likely produced by this tiny, single-celled oceanic creature—a creature that we only learned about twenty-five years ago.... That such a beast was not found until 1988—and to reiterate: it is presumably the most numerous creature on the surface of the earth; there are 100 million in a quart of seawater; the population can be counted in the trillions upon trillions—and that it was then discovered drifting blithely in the upper shallows of the sea, hardly hidden at all, is surely proof that the ocean that we think we know is more unknown in fact than we will ever realize. The ocean that is this creature’s home, and is home to a myriad things, living and not, of which we still understand so little, or nothing, is not merely a thing of power and danger and vastness: it is a place of profound unknowingness, with shallows unplumbed and depths probably unplumbable, for eons yet to come.

- Simon Winchester, "Open Waters"

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Cartel Goldfinger. CarsAndFilms by Jesús Prudencio

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Seven Four Thirteen

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The Atlantic’s InFocus Blog:

People ride the Luna Park Swing Ride as the Supermoon rises on Coney Island, on June 22, 2013.

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"Peggy is so charming and quick that every man who takes an interest in her thinks they are the first person to notice her semi-secret sex appeal. She leads with her personality, not her looks, which downplays how cute she really is. She has the ability to make anyone feel like they are the only person in the room, and to do so in a way that doesn't feel manipulative, even when it is. Her curiosity about other human beings and what exactly makes them tick is genuine. People get the sense that Peggy might be able to understand them in a way no one ever has before or possibly could." - Molly Lambert, Grantland.com