Mad Men (TV Series) The Color Blue (2009) User Reviews

The Beginning of the End

[borowiecsminus · 8/10 · 20 August 2016]

I'm assuming that that's what this episode is. I love it when the endgame to a season of a show finally kicks off. It's so wonderfully satisfying. All the slow moments of the year are gone; all that's left is intensity. And that's what "The Color Blue" is. The end of Season Three began the moment when Betty found the key in the washer.

The episode opens with the titular question, "is your blue my blue?" And Don has a frankly, beautiful answer: "Even if people see things differently, I don't think we want to." The episode is essentially the beginning of the end, as I said before. Sal, Gene, Joan, Connie, and any people not necessary for the chain of events about to come have been removed. Only those truly worthy stick through to the Endgame.

The highlight of this episode was Betty finding out not about Don's affair, but about Dick Whitman (something I wasn't expecting her to know until at least season six), and best of all, Don not even knowing what she knows. Hats off one hundred percent to January Jones and Jon Hamm for being true masters of body language in acting.

There isn't much else to say here. I absolutely LOVE the slogan "you can't frame a phone call," and I'm now convinced they must have an actual ad man on their writing team, because that is frankly genius (and I checked, "Mad Men" did make that up).

This is what episode ten should always look like. (in a 13-ep drama)

How do you see blue?

[toadwriter · 10/10 · 19 October 2009]

The color blue as told by Miss Farrell (the school teacher), while in bed with Mr. Don Draper.

Does everyone see blue the same way?, the boy asks. It's such a simple, sweet question, yet the answer is not simplistic. In fact, the teacher has been posed a question by an 8 year-old that she rightfully does not know the answer to. This simple question takes her back to the roots of curiosity; back during that time when the smallest of detail and the most innocent of thoughts could bring a smile to one's face. He's so cute, sweet, and smart, she thinks. Her mind is taken to that magical spot where fascination with simplicity has reached beyond the philosophical ... to a place that's made her ponder, imagine, and curiously contemplate the very depths of the human spirit.

I watched every showing of this episode this evening (3 of them) and I hung onto every word, every detail, and I tried to read every thought in everyone's minds.

I love the glaring, staring eyes. I could mute the sound and know every thought in everyone's minds because I know how they all think. That is fascinating.

Here-for-to, if you have not seen this episode, you probably won't want to read on. I may spoil some of the mood you'll encounter.

Two parts of the show I could have lived without: The teacher's brother (who we may never see or hear from again) ... and Paul Kinsey's bout with the bottle... I do not like the way he pours a drink and frankly we saw too much of him. However, I do like how his bout ends in Don's office. "I had a great idea, and then nothing". But in the end, he has something: Resolute with his fellow employee, who was never trying to back-stab him in the first place... and some direction on an idea that stemmed from a simple line he quoted from someone else.

It's not so bad after-all.

I love the chemistry between Don and Miss Farrell; the way she whispers in his ear, I want you to stay the whole night. Then in bed, Don says, nobody gets as much pleasure out of their job as she does. "That's so sweet". She is curious how he would have been at 8; Don begins dozing off and says how he would have liked her, "that long curly brown hair, nobody has brown curly hair anymore". She softly kisses his lips.

What a dazzling, screen-capturing moment. That is the type of scene that makes an episode great.

Last week's previews had that fateful knock on the door, and the momentary panic of Don and Miss Farrell in bed. The obvious answer, and honestly the only answer was Betty. As it turns out, we were sold out by the irrelevant brother. That was disappointing.

So it wasn't Betty Draper; she didn't find a piece of paper with a phone number or an address, but what she did find were the keys to Pandora's box.

Betty didn't have a chance to interrogate Don about her findings from his stash because they had to go to a function that Don would be speaking at.

In the end, we see Betty's eyes glaring at this stranger named "Don Draper". Her deep, brown eyes reveal intensity, rage, hatred, deceit, and sheer curiosity... the same curiosity that makes an 8 year-old boy wonder if we all see the color blue the same way.

Intriguing episode.

Countless poetic meters of writing and acting skill

[Ry_Asty · 10/10 · 1 May 2023]

Utilizing Richard Feynman's simplicity Miss Farrell's 3rd grade school student rather brilliantly poses the perception question which everyone should consider about everything. The color and the frequency 450 nanometers to 485 nanometers, is perceived differently by everyone. Colorists are trained to recognize panel samples and refer to them in a uniform language. Therefore the assumption everyone sees the same thing. Slightly off topic is the fact when a rainbow appears, everybody sees a different one.

This episode has so many references to "blue" integrating them is task for a literary expert, a group not inclusive of me. The mood blue could describe Rebecca Pryce and her dress when bemoaning NYC is not London. Not exactly news on either side of the Atlantic as emphasized by Magnum's J. Q. Higgins longing for High Tea and, no doubt, Cricket.

Paul was probably listening to Bill Evans' Blue In Green from Miles Davis' Kind of Blue although difficult to discern from the partial bar audible to me. The music augured Paul's forgetting his terrific idea of the previous night.

Don was wearing his blue robe when accessing his locked desk drawer containing key documentation to his past as Dick Whitman. His attention was distracted away from his desk, remembering to lock the drawer but not removing the keys from the robe. Betty finds them and uncovers Don's deepest secrets.

She confronts him with a prosecutor's precision eliciting admission, tears and 10 to 15 seconds of the finest silent acting since Steve McQueen and Yul Brenner loaded up before reining the horses to pull the hearse up to "Boot Hill" early in The Magnificent Seven. Facial expressions by both Jon Hamm and January Jones were worthy of a classical portraitist. The session proves to be the final straw, sucking the remaining portion of love for Don from her. Needless to say both feel moods of blue. There's probably a more elegant way of writing the above and honest criticism is welcome.