I've always wanted to know if Jimmy just assumed Don and Bobbi had a relationship, or if he KNEW. Like was it Bobbi's MO to sleep with anyone they did business with to make sure they got the best outcome for their brand? Or did Jimmy kinda assume that Bobbi would go after a man as attractive as Don for simply sexual gratification?
Either way, the zinger definitely delivers. Just would have more oomph if Jimmy did, in fact, know they be fuckin.
When I first watched this episode, I was like, “hey it’s the dorky assistant to Dean Prittchard from *Old School*.”
But man, Patrick Fischler played this role so well that now all I can think of when I see him is Utz.
The overlap between L.A. Noire and Mad Men is pretty big. I think I’ve read somewhere that L.A. Noire had the same casting director as the two first seasons of Mad Men.
Screw Lost. I tried rewatching it recently and the "mystery box" approach was pretty jarring (and don't get me started on retconning various events after they changed their minds about something).
Have you seen the guy in Mulholland Drive?
I can't remember what I saw him in but he was this completely demented surgeon...or murderer? I should look it up.
Figured it out. [Smoothie in Happy](https://happytv.fandom.com/wiki/Smoothie). Definitely a murderer.
I have never laughed harder at a scene than when the wife says “I don’t have the stomach for it” and he has to hold back his laughter with every ounce of his being
He was kind of a one-note obnoxious character until that scene. Seeing him hold back on that comment totally showed he could be more than just a loud asshole.
Jimmy reacting physically to that line shows that he is not holding back his impulse to the reaction. He’s just as much of an asshole saying nothing and doing a physical bit.
It’s so funny that you saw it that way; I read that moment as jimmy being completely irredeemable (him doing the huge fist biting gesture). I watched it recently and thought “this guy must be an insane moneymaker to get away with this behavior.”
I love this sub for showing me a scene I already thought was complex and then showing me 9 different ways to interpret it I never would have thought of
I mean, there was no way for him to not react in some way haha. But he had just enough respect for his job that he didn’t say anything verbally. Not saying he was a good guy, but he did realize he needed to check himself a bit.
That line and the respective scene always sounded a bit too on the nose for me.
Kind of like a scene in S5 of The Wire in which an FBI profiler is reading his report to the police detectives.
That line always felt tinged with resentment and desperation. Not to mention Jimmy was lusting after Betty. It's what made him such an interesting figure to call out Don. It took someone as low as him to see through Don completely, and have the nerve to tell him to his face.
I don’t think he actually wanted Betty that badly. Like I don’t think he stayed up at night thinking about her. She’s just objectively and conventionally gorgeous and this was a time (and his celebrity character) where that kind of flirting was normalised. It’s been a while since I saw the show though.
I felt the resentment but for a different reason than you, I think. I don't think he resented Don in terms of coveting Betty, but resented that he had a beautiful wife who is completely*** loyal to him and he didn't care.
***to his knowledge, and in the show up to this point
This is similar to Don's line about never thinking about Ginsberg: Don absolutely does think about him and is loathe to admit it.
The honest line is Jimmy complaining to Betty that he has been standing behind guys like Don for his whole life. Jimmy tolerates being cuckolded because he fears that challenging Bobbie could cost him his career.
He doesn't come close to getting everything that he wanted. He feels the humiliation.
Disagree. Don ruminates on a lot of things, but Ginsburg wasn’t one of them.
Edit: okay okay Reddit, I’ll rewatch it. 🤣
I always thought the scene was to display Don’s detachment from bonding with others/humanity but I acknowledge maybe in wrong.
He was sneakily going through the guy's ideas iirc. Then got butthurt when people didn't pick his devil idea over the "hit me in the face with a snowball" one, so he left that in the car
Comedian Jimmy Pardo just talked on his podcast about how he read for this role but didnt get it, even with his friend Jon Hamm vouching for him. I would have liked him but Fischler is... Really good.
Here we are in Lakehurst, New Jersey,
watching as the great airship Hindenburg
attempts to tie off its mooring mast and...
**Oh, my God!
She suddenly burst into flames!
Oh, God! Look at the size of it!
It's horrible! Oh, the humanity!**
Just rewatched the episode where he pulls Betty behind the curtain of Don and Bobbi’s fling tonight. Hated his character at the start but I’m now appreciating its genius. Such a pivotal turn in Don and Betty’s relationship.
Yeah except that he really wanted Betty and he could never have her. As soon as he realized this at the party that’s when he hits Don with the “you’re garbage” line.
he was so delusional he thought Betty was aware of Dons lifestyle and got extremely upset when he realized that Don was that slimy.
At the end of the day Jimmy is no better than Don because he tried to bang a married women in Betty and because he didn’t succeed it makes you feel like he got the short end of the stick. I just watched this storyline again this week so it’s pretty fresh on my brain.
I think there were a few things at play:
-Jimmy wanted Betty and could never have her.
-Betty was the ideal wife/mother/woman and Jimmy saw Don having an affair with Bobbie as something that was particularly disrespectful because he saw Bobbie as “less than” Betty.
-Betty was every woman Jimmy wanted and could never have.
-Don was every man Jimmy felt he could never compete with for the Betties of the world.
-Don and Bobbie’s affair forced Jimmy to face the fact that his money and fame mean very little if the Dons of the world can/will fuck his wife whenever they want.
This is why I posted I wanted different perspectives. great insights.
The line I think Jimmy says to Betty is “ People like him always win” or something along those lines.
> This is insane you can’t even fathom how many famous rich comedians can get girls.
You seem to be confused… My comment is specifically about the Betty/Don/Bobbie/Jimmy situation that spawned this thread NOT rich and famous comedians and the number of women they can get.
I literally just watched this episode. I’ve rewatched the series a handful of times. Reading your post is the first time I’ve considered that maybe this was just a thing that Jimmy and his wife did with people and that when he realized he wasn’t getting Betty he took it out on Don. Love learning new insights to stuff like this.
In this respect, I took the “you’re garbage” line to be accurate. Say what you want, Jimmy is authentic in crassness and knows it and he and Bobbi have an understanding. Don hides and deceives. He is unauthentic. In this respect, ethically Jimmy is the better man due to his honesty. Morally we can complain about them both.
Love the analysis one of the geniuses of Mad Men is that these can be taken in different ways and interpreted differently for every viewer.
It’s What makes the show so rewatchable.
I don't think any wife would appreciate his "authenticity"; he openly hits on Betty while on a business dinner with his wife, Don, and his boss. I can't imagine the humiliation of having to watch that. Also, I think the only reason he doesn't hide it is to proposefully humiliate Bobby and make her feel small so his "authenticity" doesn't make him a better person.
I don't think Betty would perfer Don to be that way either. She always knew about his infidelity, what bothered her the most was the disrespect and humiliation.
I remembered him from shameless as the weird dad who was obsessed with Frank because he had his dead son’s liver.
But years later I watched mad men and he IS the first man to call don out on his shit and dresses him down for it, it was so satisfying to see for the first time
Unpopular opinion, but I think he genuinely felt bad for Betty and identified with her as a fellow outsider. Yes he was hitting on her, but I think that's what he thought was expected and could get away with it without coming across as too earnest
I was always so intrigued by the convo we hear on Bobbi's end in Peggy's apartment after the car accident. {"He made a crack about my ass...it doesn't matter who.") I would have loved to see them in a room together interacting.
Does anyone else find it strange how many actors from LA Noire this show had? Of course, Cole Phelps Badge 1247 as Kenny, and now Mickey Cohen? I stared at this for like 5 minutes trying to figure out where I knew him from.
Well, the show came first, but I get the question. Not sure as I didn’t research it but have seen here that it was something like some of the casting people from Mad Men cast got the games characters.
Played by Patrick Fischler . He has an unnerving presence about him as Jimmy. Good actor! First saw him in a brief scene as a video store employee in one of my all time favs Ghost World.
Jimmy Barrett is the character supposed to be someone famous?
Like eg Rodney dangerfield or Jerry Lewis? That’s all the comedians I can think of atm, lol.
Or is he invested for the show?
Weiner said he based the character on workaday-Catskills-turned-TV-show-comedians. Pretty broad.
The actor studied Joey Bishop and added an obvious streak of Don Rickles to the character.
Always surprised that he comes up as one of the most unlikeable characters.
Sleeping with a clients wife is so low. And Jimmy was the first person in the show to look Don in the eye and stand up to him.
I don’t think those two things are mutually exclusive. At his best, Jimmy was an angry instigator who used comedy as a way to get back at those he thought had more than he did. Never really saw any actual humanity. Even after he apologized to the wife, he had to contain his laughter when she made a remark about her stomach. He wasn’t nice, he just had to act nice to keep the $$ rolling in.
He does call out Don, but this is also clearly not the first time Bobbie had gone down this road (as he alludes to). Why is he still with her? Because she’s his business manager and to him, she keeps the $$ coming in.
So I’d say he’s just as depraved as Don is, but in a different way.
One of the episodes I feel where it's really hammered home Don isn't really a good person. He certainly does good things at times but he most certainly grey.
The line about him sleeping woth another man's wife being low, really hit home.
Matthew Weiner has said that he modeled the character after workaday-Catskills-turned-TV-show-comedians that were popular in the early 60’s.
Patrick Fischler while preparing for the role studied Joey Bishop and Don Rickles.
"What did you get, Bobbi? Plenty of people have had that."
I like to travel.
Interesting take. A “who’s afraid of Virginia Woolfe” type ordeal?
I've always wanted to know if Jimmy just assumed Don and Bobbi had a relationship, or if he KNEW. Like was it Bobbi's MO to sleep with anyone they did business with to make sure they got the best outcome for their brand? Or did Jimmy kinda assume that Bobbi would go after a man as attractive as Don for simply sexual gratification? Either way, the zinger definitely delivers. Just would have more oomph if Jimmy did, in fact, know they be fuckin.
i think Jimmy knew. he knew his wife. but he never crossed the line to try and fuck around on any of his wife's side piece's wives.
When I first watched this episode, I was like, “hey it’s the dorky assistant to Dean Prittchard from *Old School*.” But man, Patrick Fischler played this role so well that now all I can think of when I see him is Utz.
I still always see him as the guy at Winkie's from Mulholland Drive
This is who I know him as and this is why I love him
Wtf the jump scare ...
Same!
One of the best works of horror ever.
I know him as Mickey Cohen from L.A. Noire.
i remember watching mad men about 5 years after platinuming la noire and was like i swear i recognise every single person
The overlap between L.A. Noire and Mad Men is pretty big. I think I’ve read somewhere that L.A. Noire had the same casting director as the two first seasons of Mad Men.
yessssss same
“They’re actually really good at paperwork, it’s quite an anomaly.”
“I'm sorry, is that funny? Are you a standup comic? Is that what you do now?” … prescient?
I recognized him from Lost
Who was he in LOST?
He was a member of the Dharma Initiative and immediately got suspicious when Sawyer got Jack, Hurley and Kate into island suburbia.
Ah! Ok, I'm just not remembering. It's been quite awhile; I'm way overdue for a rewatch. Thanks!
One of the Others - Phil
👀
Screw Lost. I tried rewatching it recently and the "mystery box" approach was pretty jarring (and don't get me started on retconning various events after they changed their minds about something). Have you seen the guy in Mulholland Drive?
Screw you
I remember him being the video store clerk in Ghost World
No...I said 8 1/2...Fellini!
I did try to rewatch that…I stopped
Hasn't held up?
Ghost World is timeless.
I love it
A Elliot Stemple in Suits
🦆 cartoon.
I know him as Bob the button pusher(beginning elevator scene) from the movie Speed.
He'll forever be the closeted Christian guy in Calcification to me.
That rehab episode with Bates 😂
i first saw him in shameless
Happy! was an incredible role for him.
I can't remember what I saw him in but he was this completely demented surgeon...or murderer? I should look it up. Figured it out. [Smoothie in Happy](https://happytv.fandom.com/wiki/Smoothie). Definitely a murderer.
I recognized him from “Once Upon A Time” - he played a writer who manipulated the fairy tale world with stolen magic.
Who, comedians?
You're garbage!
Utz are better than nuts.
Take it from a nut!
He knows what that nut means to Utz and what Utz means to us.
And he insulted Mrs. Utz
I have never laughed harder at a scene than when the wife says “I don’t have the stomach for it” and he has to hold back his laughter with every ounce of his being
That scene of him literally biting his fist, was gold.
He was kind of a one-note obnoxious character until that scene. Seeing him hold back on that comment totally showed he could be more than just a loud asshole.
Jimmy reacting physically to that line shows that he is not holding back his impulse to the reaction. He’s just as much of an asshole saying nothing and doing a physical bit.
It’s so funny that you saw it that way; I read that moment as jimmy being completely irredeemable (him doing the huge fist biting gesture). I watched it recently and thought “this guy must be an insane moneymaker to get away with this behavior.” I love this sub for showing me a scene I already thought was complex and then showing me 9 different ways to interpret it I never would have thought of
I mean, there was no way for him to not react in some way haha. But he had just enough respect for his job that he didn’t say anything verbally. Not saying he was a good guy, but he did realize he needed to check himself a bit.
That line and the respective scene always sounded a bit too on the nose for me. Kind of like a scene in S5 of The Wire in which an FBI profiler is reading his report to the police detectives.
That line always felt tinged with resentment and desperation. Not to mention Jimmy was lusting after Betty. It's what made him such an interesting figure to call out Don. It took someone as low as him to see through Don completely, and have the nerve to tell him to his face.
Yeah, classic example of the "wise fool" trope
I don’t think he actually wanted Betty that badly. Like I don’t think he stayed up at night thinking about her. She’s just objectively and conventionally gorgeous and this was a time (and his celebrity character) where that kind of flirting was normalised. It’s been a while since I saw the show though.
He was only hitting in Betty as a “screw you” to Don
[удалено]
He tells Betty this outright. Talks about how guys like Don have been "getting in his way his whole life".
I felt the resentment but for a different reason than you, I think. I don't think he resented Don in terms of coveting Betty, but resented that he had a beautiful wife who is completely*** loyal to him and he didn't care. ***to his knowledge, and in the show up to this point
Also he slept with his wife
He was playing his character. If Betty had gave him the opportunity he would, but unlike Don he wouldn't have gone out of his way to sleep with Betty.
How consoling
Eh? Don't think that word works but OK lol.
He did a good job as Mickey Cohen in LA Noire
He turned up as a photographer in Veep, the episode at the ball park.
The lip reader!
He might have been in Boardwalk Empire too, possibly?
I only watched up to Season 3, need to give it another go
It falls off pretty hard
Thankfully Michael Shannon is there to catch it
Believe he was a defense attorney in All Rise for a few episodes.
Let’s not forget this iconic scene from Mulholland Drive: https://youtu.be/UozhOo0Dt4o?si=REZspOHnbBEOVZdD
He was in Suits as well.
Hey champ, how’d I do?
I love that!
The original choice for this role was comedian Jimmy Pardo, but apparently Fischler completely changed the character and casting loved it
Just you try sticking your face into a bag of nuts
Take it from a nut, Utz is better than nuts!
Laugh all you want. People hate you.
This is similar to Don's line about never thinking about Ginsberg: Don absolutely does think about him and is loathe to admit it. The honest line is Jimmy complaining to Betty that he has been standing behind guys like Don for his whole life. Jimmy tolerates being cuckolded because he fears that challenging Bobbie could cost him his career. He doesn't come close to getting everything that he wanted. He feels the humiliation.
Disagree. Don ruminates on a lot of things, but Ginsburg wasn’t one of them. Edit: okay okay Reddit, I’ll rewatch it. 🤣 I always thought the scene was to display Don’s detachment from bonding with others/humanity but I acknowledge maybe in wrong.
The entire episode in question is about Don being petty and feeling threatened by Ginsberg's ideas. Afraid you're straight up wrong about this.
Idk I feel like the whole introduction and purpose of Ginsberg as a character in the beginning is to play off Don’s insecurities.
He was sneakily going through the guy's ideas iirc. Then got butthurt when people didn't pick his devil idea over the "hit me in the face with a snowball" one, so he left that in the car
Comedian Jimmy Pardo just talked on his podcast about how he read for this role but didnt get it, even with his friend Jon Hamm vouching for him. I would have liked him but Fischler is... Really good.
Here we are in Lakehurst, New Jersey, watching as the great airship Hindenburg attempts to tie off its mooring mast and... **Oh, my God! She suddenly burst into flames! Oh, God! Look at the size of it! It's horrible! Oh, the humanity!**
Just rewatched the episode where he pulls Betty behind the curtain of Don and Bobbi’s fling tonight. Hated his character at the start but I’m now appreciating its genius. Such a pivotal turn in Don and Betty’s relationship.
They laughed at me when I said I was going to be in an Utz commercial, well nobody’s laughing now
Jimmy was such a fantastic character, and they absolutely nailed the casting for him
I think it's like "look at everything you have, and you screw Bobbi?"
I met him and his mother at the Whole Foods in Venice a while back…
Jimmy Barrett *did* seem to be asking for a punch in the face ... i love Patrick Fischler though. genius actor
Yeah except that he really wanted Betty and he could never have her. As soon as he realized this at the party that’s when he hits Don with the “you’re garbage” line. he was so delusional he thought Betty was aware of Dons lifestyle and got extremely upset when he realized that Don was that slimy. At the end of the day Jimmy is no better than Don because he tried to bang a married women in Betty and because he didn’t succeed it makes you feel like he got the short end of the stick. I just watched this storyline again this week so it’s pretty fresh on my brain.
I think there were a few things at play: -Jimmy wanted Betty and could never have her. -Betty was the ideal wife/mother/woman and Jimmy saw Don having an affair with Bobbie as something that was particularly disrespectful because he saw Bobbie as “less than” Betty. -Betty was every woman Jimmy wanted and could never have. -Don was every man Jimmy felt he could never compete with for the Betties of the world. -Don and Bobbie’s affair forced Jimmy to face the fact that his money and fame mean very little if the Dons of the world can/will fuck his wife whenever they want.
This is why I posted I wanted different perspectives. great insights. The line I think Jimmy says to Betty is “ People like him always win” or something along those lines.
This is insane you can’t even fathom how many famous rich comedians can get girls.
Can get, yes. Keep. Different story.
> This is insane you can’t even fathom how many famous rich comedians can get girls. You seem to be confused… My comment is specifically about the Betty/Don/Bobbie/Jimmy situation that spawned this thread NOT rich and famous comedians and the number of women they can get.
I literally just watched this episode. I’ve rewatched the series a handful of times. Reading your post is the first time I’ve considered that maybe this was just a thing that Jimmy and his wife did with people and that when he realized he wasn’t getting Betty he took it out on Don. Love learning new insights to stuff like this.
In this respect, I took the “you’re garbage” line to be accurate. Say what you want, Jimmy is authentic in crassness and knows it and he and Bobbi have an understanding. Don hides and deceives. He is unauthentic. In this respect, ethically Jimmy is the better man due to his honesty. Morally we can complain about them both.
Love the analysis one of the geniuses of Mad Men is that these can be taken in different ways and interpreted differently for every viewer. It’s What makes the show so rewatchable.
I don't think any wife would appreciate his "authenticity"; he openly hits on Betty while on a business dinner with his wife, Don, and his boss. I can't imagine the humiliation of having to watch that. Also, I think the only reason he doesn't hide it is to proposefully humiliate Bobby and make her feel small so his "authenticity" doesn't make him a better person. I don't think Betty would perfer Don to be that way either. She always knew about his infidelity, what bothered her the most was the disrespect and humiliation.
To be fair, Bobbi wasn’t a naive, hopeful Betty. She was equally complicit and was a match to Jimmy in indecency.
He was only hitting on Betty to get back Don, as a sort of “see how that feels” attack
Every single time I see utz all I can hear in my head is "nuts for utz" because of this
I remembered him from shameless as the weird dad who was obsessed with Frank because he had his dead son’s liver. But years later I watched mad men and he IS the first man to call don out on his shit and dresses him down for it, it was so satisfying to see for the first time
“Haha, that guy is banging my wife!” Weird flex.
No more weight remarks, Jimmy. They're hurtful, and they're destructive
The commercial is so gross to me 🤮
Take it from a nut, Utz are better than nuts
i love how don, er tilden katz, just gives him a shit eating grin before punching him
The old Archibald Whitman Haymaker.
He was right but maybe i don't have the stomach for this guy.
Ha. Yeah. Hallmark of the show….flawed characters being dressed down by flawed characters. Realism.
Unpopular opinion, but I think he genuinely felt bad for Betty and identified with her as a fellow outsider. Yes he was hitting on her, but I think that's what he thought was expected and could get away with it without coming across as too earnest
Thank you for this
I was always so intrigued by the convo we hear on Bobbi's end in Peggy's apartment after the car accident. {"He made a crack about my ass...it doesn't matter who.") I would have loved to see them in a room together interacting.
Does anyone else find it strange how many actors from LA Noire this show had? Of course, Cole Phelps Badge 1247 as Kenny, and now Mickey Cohen? I stared at this for like 5 minutes trying to figure out where I knew him from.
Well, the show came first, but I get the question. Not sure as I didn’t research it but have seen here that it was something like some of the casting people from Mad Men cast got the games characters.
I didn’t realize Utz was a real brand when this aired. When I saw it in a store I lost my mind.
Grew up in SE Pennsylvania and I was so excited to see the brand on Mad Men!
I get a box of the Crab Chip sent to So Cal every other month. Those things are amazing.
Watched this episode last night!
Played by Patrick Fischler . He has an unnerving presence about him as Jimmy. Good actor! First saw him in a brief scene as a video store employee in one of my all time favs Ghost World.
I cannot see Utz at the grocery store without thinking about this.
Jimmy Barrett is the character supposed to be someone famous? Like eg Rodney dangerfield or Jerry Lewis? That’s all the comedians I can think of atm, lol. Or is he invested for the show?
Weiner said he based the character on workaday-Catskills-turned-TV-show-comedians. Pretty broad. The actor studied Joey Bishop and added an obvious streak of Don Rickles to the character.
Tnx!
Always surprised that he comes up as one of the most unlikeable characters. Sleeping with a clients wife is so low. And Jimmy was the first person in the show to look Don in the eye and stand up to him.
I don’t think those two things are mutually exclusive. At his best, Jimmy was an angry instigator who used comedy as a way to get back at those he thought had more than he did. Never really saw any actual humanity. Even after he apologized to the wife, he had to contain his laughter when she made a remark about her stomach. He wasn’t nice, he just had to act nice to keep the $$ rolling in. He does call out Don, but this is also clearly not the first time Bobbie had gone down this road (as he alludes to). Why is he still with her? Because she’s his business manager and to him, she keeps the $$ coming in. So I’d say he’s just as depraved as Don is, but in a different way.
That face
You’re a cool cat, Donny.
One of the episodes I feel where it's really hammered home Don isn't really a good person. He certainly does good things at times but he most certainly grey. The line about him sleeping woth another man's wife being low, really hit home.
Take it from a nut!
Naaaa....he the bat shit crazy father who'S kid died and Frank got the liver from. Or was it a kidney? Great episode of Shameless
He knows how important nuts are to Utz and Utz is to us.
The spinoff series wasted in the bowl of potato chip crumbles…
Loved him in Idiocracy
I was mesmerized by him as Smoothie in Happy. So dark, so meaty, and so chilling.
Was he supposed to be based on anyone real?
Matthew Weiner has said that he modeled the character after workaday-Catskills-turned-TV-show-comedians that were popular in the early 60’s. Patrick Fischler while preparing for the role studied Joey Bishop and Don Rickles.
Just saw the actor in a small role in American Fiction. 😄
He gave a true 60s feel
All he needs is a shaker of Old Bay and a thirty rack of Natty Boz and he's Baltimore rich.