The best scene of all time? Mad Men - Lost Horizons

HOW THE FUCK IS THIS THE BEST SCENE OF ALL TIME

That was me at corporate meetings. The writers of this show were very good.

Btw, that close on his face in the meeting is reminiscent of the close dolly in to his face in the Lucky Strike meeting in the pilot. It's the bookend of his career. This show is so well done.

Another scene. Another day Don Draper shows no depth.

It's hard to relate when you spend your life being someone else.

“We all know this man because there are millions of him.” Don realized they felt the same way about creative directors.

Plane of possibilities, square thoughts and room that fits in box lunch. Ted knows it but it’s safe, Don nope. I’ll take my lunch to go

Watched this many times; I think watching it this time I have a different view on it. “Is this every creative director in the agency?” “This is only half of us” - Don seemed as though having that many creative directors reduced his importance, whereas for Ted is seemed to release the stress and tension caused by being “the” creative director.

i just noticed that the plane seen behind the empire state building is heading west

I love how Jon ham has that look when he goes into a room and is like wtf is this waste of time for a meeting haha

I noticed that Don is wearing gray while everyone else is wearing white or black. Perhaps he doesn’t fit in anymore?

Is that Captain America from Generation Kill at the head of the conference room table?

In 1960 there weren't homosexuals except well hidden. I swear I saw a show about frontier life that tried to sell that it was normal then! Hollywood huh?

That guy was on Malcolm in the middle

Miller High Life: Everything you've always wanted in a beer, and less .

1:55 he loves som pulp

I think about this scene alot when I am stuck in a boring meeting.

The meeting when Don realizes he's just a trophy and nothing more to Jim Hobart

I'm going to describe a man to you. A very specific one. He lives in Wisconsin. Michigan. Ohio. Some call it The Heartland. Some call it the Bearbelt. He has some college. Makes a good living, but it doesn't feel like it because he has to work long hours. He has a lawnmower, and a bunch of powertools in the garage that he never uses. He loves sports because he used to play them, and he likes dogs because they don't talk. We all know this man. Because there are millions of him, and he drinks beer. Not just any beer, it has to be his brand. And what is his brand? The one he drank in college? The one his dad drank? The one that comes in the best bottle, can, tap? It doesn't matter because that's it and it's not open for discussion. Now, you all know that that's not true. But how do you make him open his mind? Better have something more. Or in this case, less. And that's tricky.

Don was the only person there besides the speaker who looked dressed for a meeting

If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.

Don ain’t buyin’ what they’re pitchin’

I love how Don didnt give a damn. He walked out of that room and left behind millions of dollars. Ted knew that he wasnt coming back, and what he was leaving on the table. Thats why he smiles.

Why is Captain Dave America McGraw there

This should've been the end of the series

Perhaps I’m wrong, yet I read something else in this scene. Don commands the room, he likes to go in with one idea, focussed, strong. This room was anything but & as such, he lost interest, the glance at the plane was all he needed to take flight.

Don looks up at the Empire State building and realizes, this company is nowhere near the top.
All the coke cans on the table symbolize that this is as good as it gets, the top floor for them, sweet success, and the low calorie beer is the elevator going down -watered down bitter and flat.
Don figures he sees no point hanging around for this. I'm getting off on this floor. That's what this episode Lost Horizons means, chasing what's beyond will not always get you there. It can even get you lost after you've already made landfall.

I miss advertising.
I got paid for being creative

They are all wearing a stripe tie just different color

freedom: crying while withdrawing from alcohol at a hippy retreat and getting his car stolen by family

It’s like Ted knew Don was leaving for good and the odds of him never seeing Don again were very high

No. Best scene of all time was when Salvatore's wife suddenly realizes he's gay.

Don watching 30 versions of him at a large table...listening to a guy talk & come up with what used to be Don's lines, for his creative guys. At this point Don realizes he is hopelessly redundant.

If you walk into a room and 30 seconds later you don't want to be there, leave. Sam Sheppard

I see a lot of people saying the same things about this scene, and they’re all true…but nobody seems to bring it the fact that only Don and the market research guy running the meeting are wearing jackets. It’s a minor but super obvious choice that makes it all the more obvious this guy is doing the job Don sees as his. He’s at the head of the table, pitching the men who are supposed to be the ones DOING the pitching. He’s replaced Don and made him redundant and Don doesn’t like it. He’s not going to sit there being told “Imagine this man”….he’s the one who tells the client what to imagine.

What does he say is this every what ?

I like the Hershey scene more than this

You could do 12 hours a day of acting school for five years and never be able to duplicate Ted's look, the grace note at the end of the scene. That look says everything. At that moment Ted is the wisest man in the entire room.

the scene is powerful... but it's teddy that seals it

how is this the best scene of all time??

Wonder if any company sponsored this

It blows my mind that he's giving his speech and they're reading his script at the same time.

I love how Roger later remarks, "he does that." This is Don's process, and Ted knows it by now. Don is a true creative, and will get nothing out of this sterile, carbon copy conference room. And we know its just not him. Yes, he runs again. But he comes back with the greatest ad idea ever. And Ted knew that was all about to start.

It's obvious they bought Don's agency just to eliminate him as their principal competition. And that's in addition to how disrespectful and unfocused this 'committee' approach is. I would have left, too.

Leave the gun, ….take the box lunch

Everybody talks about the plane, but nobody mentions the fact that it's flying past the Empire State Building, a symbol of the highest achievement, of Dreams made real, and the biggest cock in the world.

What Bill is describing is what we call, on marketing, a buyer's persona.
It reflects a world where we no longer can reach understanding through substance, which is the basis of all thought and ideas by the means of reflection and contemplation, but we assume that everything is given and all knowledge is based upon infinite absorption of data and sensitive intuition rather than reason.
Marketing does not create anything, it bases its choices on sensitive and accurate data, algorithms and numbers, sailing through trends of human behaviors, making bets on what is the next thing.
It suggests ideas that are nonetheless already there, that are sought for by whom it already belongs and for whom it concerns.
It's goal is to increase sales and enhance target precision, locating its consumer basis and managing expectations whilst offering, in exchange, accessability and practical search.
However it limits creativity — as no sensitive information or perception leads to real knowledge, the data still has to be understood and organized and in humans as opposed to computers, this process is organical and self-discovery and understanding are limited; in the other hand, computers can process information quite fast and its capacity for synthesis and inference is as fast as it can be — which only by deduction and experimentation human life can efficiently produce real knowledge...
This scene reminds me of the painting "The Man Above The Sea Fog", in such a way that Donald Draper's intelligence trancends the redundance of logical and perpectual presumptions such as: this is our client, this is who he is and what he wants... Draper realizes that his world has become too small and that by limiting creativity to a niche or this or that data that presumptiously explains a consumer behavior and why he buys your beer, not only undermines the entire whole and diversity of experience but it models and directs it to wherever one in power wants it, (Donald Draper didn't understand that of course), I believe he understood the redundance, a world he does not wanted to live in, wherein creative's work is substituted and tossed aside by some machine.
Conceptual thinking and formal intuition are a gift of humanity, and is only through the faculty of judgement that the capacity to synthesize and combine elements of perceptual and sensitive reality under strict rules of existence that we can reach understanding.
The fact that Donald Draper is a thinker whilst being an ordinary man couterparts the actual moment wherein intellect is an exclusive attribute of ivey league students or academics in general... Our society is collapsing whilst those in power and those who have formal education are lost in dreams of ideology rather than the factual and practical use of their knowledge, such its use to society.

Always loved that he took the free lunch with him

Don Draper was the best creative because he lived a life, in the world outside. Instead of sitting in an office.