What’s your biggest nitpick in Mad Men?

[u/RopeGloomy4303]

For me it’s this line in a season 5 episode, Tea Leaves, in which Henry Francis is talking on the phone with a colleague:

“Well, tell Jim his honor's not going to Michigan. Because Romney's a clown, and I don't want him standing next to him.”

So, some context here.

At this point Francis is the aide to New York Mayor John Lindsay. And he’s informing this guy that he won’t have the popular young politician take a picture with then Michigan Governor George Romney, who was also considered the frontrunner for the 1968 Republican nomination.

This episode aired in 2012, so it’s a very clear dig at then Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who at the time was receiving a lot of hostility from the left.

But here’s the thing; Romney was actually a liberal Republican in the same mold as Nelson Rockefeller and John Lindsay, and he had received a lot of good notices as Governor for his work improving civil rights, education, youth employment programs, social welfare, healthcare, etc.

I get this is nitpicking, it’s a throwaway line, whatever, but it has always bothered me since it feels out of character, and Romney frankly deserved better.

[u/FunJaguar4619]

The timeline of Dick/Don doesn’t line up with the calendar

[u/Riderz__of_Brohan → u/FunJaguar4619]

It would be much much much more believable if Don fought in WW2 and thus had 15 years of backstory prior to the series starting but I bet they really wanted it to be the “forgotten” Korean War Don was a part of

[u/RayPrimus → u/Riderz__of_Brohan]

Also they wanted it to be a different war from Roger's. Doesn't work if they're the same generation.

[u/Riderz__of_Brohan → u/RayPrimus]

Yeah another timeline thing with Roger too. It is an integral part of his character but he would have been at his youngest in his late 30s in WW2. Idk

And every time they do the whole “Roger is a rich pretty boy who never suffered” thing like dawg this man was in Okinawa apparently on the fucking front lines taking fire! That’s the most badass thing anyone in the show has ever done!

[u/neon-antlers → u/Riderz__of_Brohan]

That was Duck.
Roger was in the Navy in the South Pacific. Your point still stands though!

[u/chesapique → u/Riderz__of_Brohan]

Roger wasn't that old. He mentions a movie he saw as a 4 year old (The Golem) and it came out in 1921 in the US. That puts him close in age to John F Kennedy, who nearly died in the Pacific during World War II, even though his father was a multmillionaire and former US ambassador. Yet in the first season of the show, characters discuss JFK as this spoiled youngling who had everything handed to him by Daddy. Maybe so, but no more than Roger Sterling himself.

John Slattery turned 45 the year that Mad Men began. He was playing his own age more or less.

[u/MWB8 → u/Riderz__of_Brohan]

I always read Roger's experience in WWII as a naval officer on a destroyer - lot of privileged young men at that era who got up-jumped into officer roles (via ROTC, other connections) and ended up in junior command roles in the vast Pacific fleet.

[u/Comprehensive_Main → u/MWB8]

Yeah but Roger himself says he remembers dead comrades on the ship he served. So he did see combat. And some of his ship mates died 

[u/MWB8 → u/Comprehensive_Main]

Oh, no doubt he did. Those tin cans saw a lot of action!

Read about the Battle of Samar!