Mad Men C to Z S5E13 The Phantom Transcript
 
Jenna: Hi, I'm Jenna.
 
Steve: And I'm Steve. Welcome to All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou.
 
Jenna: There's so much to love about this amazing show, and we're happy to connect to fans like us, who discover new things with each rewatch.
 
Steve: Be advised, while we aren't gratuitous with spoilers, they can pop up as we discuss character arcs through the final season.
Let's get started with Mad Men, C to Z.
 
Jenna: This is the thirteenth and last episode of season five, The Phantom.
This episode was written by Jonathan Igla and Matthew Weiner, and directed by Matthew Weiner.
 
We open with Don suffering from a toothache.
And Megan's got a package in the mail that she hides from Don,
but not her mother, Marie, who's visiting for Easter.
 
Steve: And the way Megan hides the package immediately draws attention to - what could she be hiding from him.

Because to this point, it feels like Megan has been pretty forthright and open about things in the relationship.
 
Jenna: It turns out Megan isn't telling Don she paid for a screen test.
But when she opens the package with Marie, and they're suggesting she take acting classes, she knows it was a scam.
Nobody actually looked at her reel.
 
And this is the struggle her father talked about.
Megan is trying to earn success, but it's not fun going through that.
And I - Megan's mother doesn't seem averse to her acting, but she doesn't seem very invested in it either.
 
Steve: It's almost like Megan is existing in her silo, and Marie is not trying to intrude or support that silo.
 
Jenna: Even if we accept this line at the end that Marie meant to say,
oh, “They're taking advantage of people's hopes” instead of taking advantage of “hopeless people,”
and I'm not sure I believe that was an accident -
Marie isn't spending a lot of time encouraging Megan to be an actress.
And that seems to be a difference between Marie and Emile.
 
Steve: Well, and I think it's a major difference between Megan and Marie. As we'll see in this episode, Marie is nobody's fool.
And yet we've seen again and again occasions where Megan is really invested in supporting Don, and trying to be supportive of his life, and now demanding the same sort of support back from him.
 
 
Jenna: Next on the train, Howard reintroduces Pete to Beth.
And Pete's immediately pushy. He's asking, oh, where does the sister live? Where's Beth going?
And Beth leaves the car.
 
I don't - I don't blame her.
Can you think of two people from Mad Men less pleasant to sit with than Pete and Howard? Maybe Lee and Lou.
 
Steve: Well, and it's striking, the change in Pete's face in this scene, because he seems rather content. It's just another commute into the city.
And then as soon as he sees Beth, and then Beth exits, he is a picture of misery and, you know, selfish dissatisfaction, as he lets her scarf pass through his hand as she walks away.
 
Jenna: Yes. He's just clinging to any piece of her.
It reminded me when Don saw Suzanne dancing barefoot in the grass for the May Day celebration, and he reached his hand down to touch the grass as if it was some kind of connection in any real way.
 
I don't think Pete would know real love if it hit him in the pachanga, but he certainly seems to believe that Beth is the answer to his loneliness.
 
Steve: Yeah. And I think, non verbally, the petulance and selfishness and almost childish attitudes of Pete are really conveyed in this scene.
So it's rather brilliant in its modesty of, you know, not much happens.
It's a brief scene, but I think it really reinforces these things we know about Pete Campbell.
 
 
Jenna: The next scene is in the elevator with Joan and Harry.
She won't confirm the rumor to Harry that they're getting additional space on the next floor, and there's a truth call-out when he asks her about it.
 
We also get a reference to Lane when Joan says, we offered you more space, and Harry replies, “You didn't want his office either.”
Lane is all over this episode and nobody says his name.
 
Steve: I like the writing in this scene, because this is exactly how rumors or little tidbits of information leak out.
It's these chance little interactions where Harry can see Joan was headed to the 38th floor and is kind of trapped and clumsily says, oh, no, she just hit the wrong button.
And we know Harry's going to blab this to anybody who cares to listen and speculate with him about it.
 
 
The next scene shows Don, and as he exits the elevator, he sees someone going in.
And it turns out it's his half brother Adam, who we know is deceased.
Don has a troubled look on his face, but he seems to sort of shake off this vision.
 
Jenna: Again, this is such a clear example of how Lane isn't mentioned, but clearly Lane hanging himself as Adam did, that has to be prompting Don to revisit that trauma.
 
Steve: How much do you think Don blames himself for Lane hanging himself?
 
Jenna: I think it's definitely present. I think he wonders what his part in it is.
But I think we'll also get to that when we talk about the scenes with Joan and Don, and with Rebecca and Don too.
How are you feeling about Don's participation in this?
 
Steve: Personally, I don't blame him. I feel he was forced into a corner by Lane's actions. I think he was rather generous and gracious in allowing Lane to exit on his own terms and to resign rather than having him frog marched out of the building.
 
So I, I get that Don's conscience is bothering him and he's feeling, if not blame, then at least feeling regret or sadness about the outcome. But yeah, personally, I, I, I don't attach any blame to Don.
 
 
Jenna: Next, Ginsberg, Stan, and Ken are meeting with Topaz, and the client doesn't like the work.
There's this exchange between them where the client says, I hate the word “cheap.” And Ginsberg answers, “So do I. That's why I put the word ‘never’ in front of it!”
 
So already Ginsberg is doing the Don Draper push to tell the client he knows better.
 
Steve: The client specifically mentions that in the past they could get a girl's opinion. And that's a clear reference to Peggy, who we know has left the firm.
And the client also makes a racist comment about Dawn.
I think the series does a great job of insinuating racist comments that I think reflect the broader opinions that are so widely held,
but they do it in such a relatively subtle way.
 
It just becomes part of the day to day racism that people like Don are experiencing in the workforce. And it's a bit jarring to us, I think with modern ears, that people are expressing it.
But I think it's, it feels very true to the time based on what I know of it.
 
Jenna: I think it's not subtle, but it is casual. And I think that's what's jarring to me when I hear it.
 
Steve: We get the typical creative arrogance here of disagreeing with the client, and dismissing what the client wants and the client's views. And it almost seems like it's only when the client holds their ground that then creative will retreat.
Now the torch has been passed to Ginsberg and Stan,
which when you combine it with Ginsberg's just general difficulties in dealing with other people, it makes for some tense moments here with the client.
 
Jenna: I think the client is right about this.
He says we're supposed to be part of a fantasy, and I don't think cheap is part of that, and I agree with them.
 
At the end of the scene, Stan has a line where he says he's so bored of this dynamic.
So we know this has been a regular thing.
It's not just this particular meeting.
 
We can assume as Don used to have temper tantrums and they landed on Peggy. Now Ginsberg is carrying some of that, and potentially Stan as well.
And usually on rewatches, I think of this as a self-involved comment from Stan, like,
okay, this is dull, but it's his only scene in this episode, and if you read it like he's talking about Peggy,
the dynamic is more interesting with her in it, right?
So maybe it's a stretch, but I feel like that could be a seed, too.
 
Steve: I think it's also an interesting scene, because it emphasizes Don's changed role in the firm.
In the past, he was the spearhead of the creative pushback against difficult clients.
And now he's the one challenging creative to say, oh, you know, you call this success, you know, a client who walks out of the meeting unhappy?
 
He's reflecting a much more balanced view of an account perspective as well as creative. And he's really not involving himself in the creative argument.
He's just looking at the outcome with the client and saying this, this can't be success.
 
Jenna: There's also a quick exchange about copy testing, and how they should have done that already, and how they didn't get any research because they didn't need it before.
So all of this shows the hole Peggy left.
So we understand Peggy was creative and we know Ginsberg is creative,
but these are things she would have attended to.
So this space is not just her creative add, but her work ethic as well.
 
 
Steve: The next scene has Beth calling Pete.
Unlike previously when Pete was trying to get Beth to slip away and join him in a hotel room, now the shoe's on the other foot.
 
Beth tells Pete to come and meet her at the Hotel Pennsylvania at noon.
And here we get to see petulant little boy Pete pouting on the phone.
He's still sore over the last times when she stood him up and he wasn't able to engineer their little trysts.
Now he's playing hard to get with her a bit on the phone here.
 
Jenna: To make sure his secretary isn't listening to the call, Pete sends Clara to the lobby to get him a pack of fresh Life Savers, because I guess in the lobby they grow on trees.
 
Yes, Pete is really hostile to Beth, because he waited for her in a hotel room earlier. She never showed up.
And it isn't logical, but Don and Pete are both lonely and they push people away.
Pete just insists that people continually prove how much they love him through random tests that they have to pass, as if it's going to fill the gaping hole in the leaky bucket of his heart.
 
And Don has all this self-loathing.
So like Groucho, he doesn't trust anyone who would have him for a partner, and he starts finding reasons not to be with someone.
So finally Beth is calling and saying, hey, let's get together.
And Pete can't even let himself be happy about this thing that he's wanted.
 
Steve: And I think Beth knows the way to win this. She says that it might be their last chance to get together.
It feels like Pete's going to cave here. If it's going to be their last chance, well, Pete doesn't want to miss out on that.
 
 
Jenna: In the next scene, we get to see Peggy at her new job at CGC, and she's berating her underlings.
I wish she would manage her people better. I wish she wouldn't take this aspect from Don's example.
 
Steve: I like the fact that she fumbles it a little bit, because she has a lot to learn.
I think most people learn how to handle direct reports, you know, through practical experience.
And we know Peggy has difficulties, you know, keeping the human side, the emotional side, in with the professional side and her ambition and drive.
So I would expect her to have these sorts of challenges.
 
I also like that we see the struggle on her face in this scene of dealing with a different boss.
Ted is completely different to Don Draper, and is basically giving her all the autonomy and independence she could ever ask for.
She's in a position to do what she wants to do.
 
Jenna: When Ted brings in a new cigarette for women,
Peggy has all this creative freedom to name it, to come up with the concept.
And that's a very different world from having to carry a dog toy to Don and see if he will accept it or trash it.
 
Virginia Slim cigarettes were introduced by Philip Morris in 1968 and marketed to women with the tagline, “You've come a long way, baby.”
And Peggy certainly has.
 
In the partners’ meeting at SCDP, there's an empty chair where Lane used to sit.
And now all this money is coming in, in part because of his diligence.
Just a couple of months ago, they couldn't pay the Christmas bonuses, and that had such a profound impact on his personal finance.
 
Joan is clearly feeling Lane's absence a lot, but Bert seems to just be greedily embracing the money coming in here.
And I was pretty sure he would put two and two together about that forged check, but it never comes up with him again.
 
Steve: I think it just illustrates the tragedy and the irony around the circumstances. Lane's problem isn't wealth, it's liquidity. It's access to cash to pay these bills.
Here we are just one quarter later, and now the liquidity problem is solved.
 
So similar to Lane's defense of his actions to Don about just needing a short term loan to bridge through until the liquidity problem issues would be solved - we can see now if that if only Lane could have pushed through and managed another 90 days, give or take, all would have worked out well.
To me it just underlines the tragedy and shame of the circumstances that led to his demise.
 
Jenna: And Pete, in true tradition of not appreciating what he has,
walks out of the partners’ meeting.
But if he wasn't a partner, he would be so butt-hurt because he couldn't go to that meeting.
But we understand he's thinking about Beth and that's where he's heading.
 
 
Steve: As Pete arrives at the hotel room,
Beth greets him at the door and hugs him in the hallway, which isn't the sort of discretion and confidentiality that Pete wants her to to have with him, so he quickly gets her inside and gets the door shut.
 
Jenna: Beth confesses she's going to the hospital for electroshock treatment.
And Pete is horrified. He thinks it's for crazy people, and obviously he's not attracted to a crazy person. So there has to be some mistake.
She has to be wrong about this.
 
And remember how he shuddered when Freddy wet his pants? And it wasn't just disgust at the mess - Pete was uncomfortable by Freddy's inability to hold himself together, the weakness of it.
 
Steve: It's also interesting how Pete starts out feeling sorry for himself.
Beth says, oh, I knew you'd show. And Pete says it's because I'm pathetic.
 
And then Beth makes that confession about, you know, why she's in the city.
Pete's reaction is completely through this selfish lens of well, what does that mean for him?
And therefore he's not in love with a crazy person, so she can't be crazy. And he's just immediately gone from self pitying to judgmental.
And I think judgmental both in defense of himself and judgmental about Beth's condition and her circumstances.
 
Jenna: The book One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, set in a psychiatric hospital,
was published in 1962, and the Jack Nicholson film of the same name wasn't released until 1975.
But there would have been discomfort with the idea of this treatment even in 1967.
We'll link an article on our website, madmenctoz.com about this.
 
It explores the idea that season five deals with mental health pretty explicitly.
We see that in Lane’s suicide, Pete's depression, even though he doesn't name it as such, Betty's emotional connection to food instead of her family, Roger's LSD use, and Don's fever dream, and hallucination this episode, Beth, and so forth, there's a lot of it.
 
Steve: We also see Pete sort of flip flopping because he starts off saying, well, she's not crazy. But then when she talks about feeling this gray cloud, this depression that it lasts for months and potentially has suicidal thoughts,
he quickly flips and dismisses these feelings as being some sort of indication of being crazy.
 
Jenna: And I'm not entirely clear what Beth sees in Pete.
I feel like she could do better than the petulant guy on the train.
But I guess this is a chance to be reckless and impulsive and feel good for a minute.
 
Steve: When she leans in to kiss him, Pete's resistance is spent. This is what Pete came for. And all the games and all the denial and rationalizations are gone.
 
 
Jenna: At Don and Megan's apartment, Megan and her friend Emily are talking about auditions.
We find out that Julia, the friend Megan had the spat with at Thanksgiving, got cast in Dark Shadows, but she only worked three days before she was fired.
 
And I feel like that detail matters because it's not necessarily that Megan's bad that she isn't getting auditions. It's a really difficult industry. Everybody is struggling.
 
And I think that's what pushes Emily to ask Megan for the favor.
Did you - did you feel like this was a reasonable ask of Emily to Megan?
 
Steve: I think we can see the desperation of Emily and that's the origin of the ask.
She's desperate, but so is Megan.
And I think Megan's desperation leads her to barely contemplate the suitability of the request to Don, you know, this Butler shoe campaign that Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is is going to be shooting, and plants the seed in Megan's desperate mind.
 
It's funny to me how briefly, if at all, the question of suitability of the request is jettisoned and switches to the question how suitable is it for Megan to hit up Don.
 
Jenna: This friend Emily is played by Emily Baldoni.
And in an interesting twist on this scene where we're talking about asking husbands for work, she's married to Justin Baldoni, and she appeared in Five Feet Apart and It Ends With Us, both of which he directed.
She's appeared in other separate shows as well.
 
This little bit that slips out when the friend says, “Marie is so elegant and encouraging.”
And Megan answers, “I guess so.”
That tells us a lot about how - I mean, she doesn't want to trash her mom to her friend, but she's not saying, oh, yes, she's my biggest fan.
I can tell her anything, and she's got my back.
 
And there was this hint the last time we saw Marie that she was a little competitive with her daughter in terms of touching Don so often.
So I don't think Marie and Megan's relationship is Sally-Betty bad, or Pete-Dorothy bad, or Dick and Abigail bad, but it isn't solid either.
 
 
Steve: Back at the Hotel Pennsylvania, Pete and Beth are lounging in bed, and Beth states that she needs to get back. Pete doesn't want her to go.
 
And then he launches into talking about how Howard can't make her do this, as if he's trying to control Beth and forcing her to undergo this treatment.
But Beth makes it very clear that he isn't the one forcing her to do this.
This is her choice. It's of her own volition, and she's done it previously and knows how it works, knows how she feels afterwards,
and is making an informed choice here to go through with it.
 
Jenna: They're in such different places in this scene, because Pete imagines Beth is his cure for all the ways he's feeling blue,
very much like Don has seemed to think that about Megan this season.
 
And Pete says he is worried Beth will forget she loves him.
And her answer is, “We don't know each other.”
This is not love to her. It's a fun diversion.
 
Steve: And Beth makes another attempt here to explain her depression to him, and talks about this place, and that there's a door open, and that she wants to walk through, referencing suicide.
And Pete doesn't really consider it or try to understand it. He just dismisses it and says that that's for weak people, people who can't solve a problem.
 
But that's interesting coming from Pete Campbell, because what's his solution to - to his own depression?
Trying to trump up a relationship with a woman who hardly knows him, and pretend that somehow that's the magic cure for his life?
 
It feels like Pete's the dishonest one here, turning away from the reality of depression and dismissing Beth's struggle with it, and Beth's solution to it, or at least temporary solution to it.
 
Jenna: The first time they got together, Beth was saying all these very uncomfortable truths. They made Pete squirm, but you could see he was intrigued by it.
And here again, she's naming something he hasn't himself.
So Beth says, “We just happen to have the same problem.”
She's noticing Pete's depression, because she recognizes that he probably doesn't see that about himself, because he has this belief about it being weak somehow.
 
And his answer is, “We're sad because we're apart.”
Beth says, oh, then I was wrong, you know, we don't have the same problem.
So Pete is just pretending to himself that Beth is happiness.
But Beth isn't pretending that about Pete.
And I think that makes Pete want to cling to her more desperately, and that makes his depression that much greater.
 
Steve: Yeah, and the self delusion of Pete, because he's always displacing whatever his source of unease and depression is, and fixating on some quick, easy solution.
 
And again, it feels to me in this scene that we've got Beth being far more candid and honest about reality and the limitations of reality.
Beth knows that this isn't a permanent cure, but it's going to help her in the short run and give her a period of which that she won't, you know, feel the burden so heavily.
 
Jenna: There are so many people in the world struggling just to survive.
So sometimes it's hard to find sympathy for characters like Betty or Pete with all the things that they have, especially since Pete has so much relative wealth and agency.
 
But I recognize these characters and people I've known.
The restlessness to be something more, or the feeling of not being known or valued, this sense that they don't control very much about the world they inhabit, and their inability to articulate that to anybody who would understand . . . it's crushing.
Loneliness is crushing.
 
Joan was spot on when she said about that man with the woman at the bar,
The only sin that woman he's left at home is, the only sin she's committed is being familiar.
And Pete seems to feel that way about Trudy here.
Here with Beth, he has this sense that with someone new,
Pete can also become something new, even if he does know it's temporary.
 
Steve: But we can see this, this is really maybe the primary, the sole hope in Pete's life at the current time. And that's tragic.
 
 
Jenna: When Don gets home from work, Marie has made dinner, and Megan approaches him about the Butler shoe commercial.
What did you think of her request and his response?
 
Steve: I don't really have a big problem with the request.
She's still got to go in and audition.
The client is still going to have the ultimate decision there.
 
I can see Don's hesitation, because his creatives are going to recognize her, and then they're going to quickly leap to the connection that there's probably a reason she's getting an audition.
But again, he's the boss, so what can they really do other than, you know, give him a knowing look?
 
I think the thing that hits me emotionally in this scene is the emotional desperation of Megan. She's starting to realize just how difficult this dream of hers is, and she's desperate for any opportunity to do better.
And he's holding the keys to, to a door that he could help open.
 
Jenna: And I'm disappointed that she promised to help her friend, when I think by the end of that scene, she had no intention of really helping her friend.
So the, the friend got thrown by the wayside.
But mostly I'm frustrated - I feel like Don makes this request about him again.
 
So for him, it becomes about how she hates advertising, and wouldn't want to be part of a commercial because it's not artistic.
And it's like he does not understand that Megan is trying to be an actress.
And lots of people don't start with artistic films. They start with commercials, just like copywriters start with coupons.
 
And I felt Megan's honesty when she says,
do you know how hard it was for me to ask you?
And that vulnerability stands out.
I think she knows Don is right when he says,
“You don't want it this way.
You want to be somebody's discovery, not somebody's wife.”
 
I think when Megan left copywriting, part of it was because she wanted to make something for herself, not just to be in Don's shadow.
She's having a moment of weakness.
And maybe for Don, there's even a hint of artistic purity here.
 
When Don talked to Pete about Jaguar, he said, I don't want it like this, the backhanded deal. So maybe he is looking out for Megan's arc more than she thinks.
 
Steve: Yeah, I - I think Megan gets that need to, or has that need - she wants to do it on her own. But in her desperation and in this low moment now, she's compromising that.
 
I feel Don's almost doing the same thing in a reciprocal way.
I do think he gets this point about making it on your own.
And I don't think he's lying or trying to manipulate her by saying that.
 
But simultaneously, I think Don has taken her decision to leave the firm and leave advertising - he's taken it very personally.
As much as she's tried to protest and demonstrate that it's not about that, I don't think he's over that hurt.
And I think he's still grappling with that sense of rejection from her.
I feel very sympathetic to both characters in this instant.
 
Jenna: I agree.
When Megan goes into the bathroom and cries, I appreciate that the show honors this professional struggle, just as the men and Peggy and Joan have dealt with balancing their personal and professional boundaries, and what price they pay in one direction or another.
 
In a way, Megan asking Don for this is kind of like Don and Heineken to Betty.
She's using their life in her work.
And the difference is she's involving him, and Don has a choice and Betty didn't.
 
But it is a rough spot for him. If he says no,
he's a barrier to her happiness and her progress.
And if he says yes, it could be professionally problematic, it could be personally problematic if this leads to her success.
 
And all of this is alongside Peggy,
who left SCDP so she could be sure she was succeeding without Don,
in a contrast to Megan, who left to do her own thing, but now wants Don's assistance.
 
Steve: Well, and I respect Megan in this scene because when push comes to shove, she doesn't pull out all the stops, she stops herself.
She's made her argument, and she's going to leave it there.
 
And there's more that she could do to plead her case, but she doesn't go there.
And then when she goes in the bathroom,
she's covering up the fact that she's breaking down.
 
So, again, it's not a cry for attention or another way to manipulate him. She's trying to conceal how desperate she is and how low she is in this moment.
It makes me - makes me think well of her as a human being, because even in her low moment, she has limits.
She tries to maintain her dignity,
and she tries to keep her breakdown private in this difficult moment.
 
Jenna: And Don is correct, this wouldn't be Megan finding success on her own.
But maybe when everybody else is using connections,
she might as well.
 
And is it hypocritical of Don Draper to judge her for using somebody else's name to get ahead in life?
He would tell you he did it on his own.
But Peggy said, I had a lot of help. And Ted's answer was, everybody does.
 
Don thinks he's the master of his fate, but a lot of people paid unwilling prices to get him where he is.
So in the light of that, Megan's ask seems pretty small.
 
Steve: Well, and let's just be honest about the entertainment business.
You know, it is full of nepotism at all levels, all the time.
And this illusion that I'm an island or I, I - Don Draper earned this on the merits alone, and nobody ever helped me.
Like you pointed out, that that whole island is built on a foundation of a lie that wouldn't have been possible in any number of other circumstances.
 
 
Jenna: Next, Don answers the phone. It's been ringing all day.
And we discover Roger is behind the calls. So this time he pretends to be Emile.
And Marie speaks to him in French until Megan leaves the room.
Roger wants to see Marie again.
 
Steve: It's interesting, because we know how intimate Marie has been with him.
But in this scene, she's really setting him back to square zero, and making it clear to him he's going to have to work for it, that he can't assume anything.
 
We can tell that she very jealously guards her own autonomy and independence.
She's not afraid to tell others what she will tolerate or not tolerate.
 
And none of this is a turn off to Roger Sterling. In fact, he probably views it as part of the fun of the game he's all in.
 
 
Jenna: When Don heads into work the next day, he passes by Lane's old office and he again has a vision of seeing Adam at a typewriter.
And of course, Adam's not really there, but it's harder and harder to escape this.
 
And Joan is waiting in Don's office with a life insurance check from the company policy.
And both of them feel guilty about Lane without having to say his name.
Joan wonders aloud, why did he do it?
And only Don in the office knows Lane had financial pressures.
 
Bobbie Barrett once said “It has to come out somewhere.”
And Don hasn't talked to anybody about Lane, and we wouldn't expect him to.
 
But Don could talk to Joan. She would be discreet. She'd be a friend.
And even though it's too late for either of them to do anything to help Lane,
it has to come out somewhere.
He's not talking to Megan, he's not talking to Roger, so now he's hallucinating Adam.
 
Steve: It's interesting that Joan feels so much blame for Lane's fate and even goes as far as to say, well, maybe I should have given in and given him what he wanted.
 
Don reassures Joan that she's in no way responsible for what happened to him.
But I think it's kind of sweet that, that Joan is so emotionally touched by what happened to Lane and challenging herself, and rethinking over the past as to what, if any, responsibility she may have had.
You know, it speaks to her qualities as a person.
 
I think, as you mentioned, it's interesting that Don isn't going to share the truth of Lane's situation, so he preserves that secret.
But then, I think to mollify his own feelings of guilt, Don directs that they should get a check for $50,000, which was the additional capital Lane had to stump up as a partner and pay it back to Lane's wife.
 
Jenna: There's a truth call-out when Don tells Joan there's nothing she could have done, and she says that's not true.
So Joan is blaming herself for Lane's death, when Don knows there's a bigger picture.
 
So is it better for him to protect Lane's privacy in front of Joan, or to ease Joan's pain and let her know Lane had different reasons for wanting to end it all?
 
And I have to think, and I'm sorry to say it, but I think part of it is Don doesn't unburden Joan, because he doesn't want to confess his own guilt.
It's easier to talk about the money.
That's the action he can take, so that's all that's worth talking about.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think so. He certainly feels guilty.
 
 
Jenna: Back at the apartment, Megan's still in bed.
She tells Marie she doesn't feel well, that she's sad.
And Marie is not very sympathetic.
She lays a lot on Megan here.
She should suck up her unhappiness. She has a handsome husband who gives her everything she wants, even though Megan won't give him a family.
 
We know Marie's marriage to Emile has been disappointing to her.
So part of this, I think, comes from her seeing Megan get things she might have wanted and not appreciating them.
 
And in terms of a family, I don't think having a family made Don or Betty especially happy.
And they both come from pretty unhappy families,
even if, as Anna Karenina says, they were unhappy in their own ways.
So I think it's the right call for Megan to not want that,
even if, as it's revealed here, her mother expected a different choice.
 
Steve: Marie has chosen a life where she didn't really get what she wanted.
But now, you know, she lives the way she wants to live, within the parameters and limits of this life that's available and open to her, but it's certainly not her dream vision of how her life would have unfolded.
 
It feels to me almost like she's trying to squash Megan's dreams and steer Megan towards the same sorts of compromises.
You know, take what you can get, and then make the best of it,
in no way supporting this idea of chasing your dream and trying to be who you ultimately want to be, hitting her with that.
 
In this moment, when Megan is so low and really feeling the burden and challenge of pursuing that, it feels especially cruel or at best, highly insensitive.
 
Jenna: There's a nod to the episode title in this scene, of course, when Marie tells Megan, you are chasing a phantom,
but Don is the one chasing phantoms in the form of the Dick Whitman / Don Draper transformation, and Adam after Lane's death.
 
Megan is trying for a difficult career, and her mother is basically saying it won't happen.
This line when Marie says, “Not every little girl gets to do what they want.
The world could not support that many ballerinas,”
it's pretty tragic from Marie to Megan about acting,
and it's a very different message than Megan got from Emile.
 
But when you think about Freddy's nickname for Peggy,
and we just saw him in a recent episode calling her Ballerina.
Not every little girl gets to do what they want, but Peggy's a ballerina.
 
Steve: But Marie's lack of support here for Megan, to me is even more striking.
What are the costs or risks at stake of Megan pursuing this?
There's really nothing substantial. It's not that she's neglecting her children, she has none.
She doesn't need to earn in order to survive.
 
So the only thing that, I guess maybe it's with the benefit of hindsight, we could say is that her pursuing this career is causing some frictions in her marriage, and there's potentially a price to pay for that.
 
But I don't get the sense that that's what Marie is considering here. It feels to me like Marie's made a judgment that Megan is never going to be a successful actress.
So grow up, get over it and move on.
 
And it just feels to me like there's plenty of time for that realization to come to pass if that's where Megan ends up.
Ideally, her mother would be supportive of her in this moment of saying, hey, you know, you knew it would be hard, stick with it, rather than just crapping all over her dream.
 
 
Jenna: Don shows up at Rebecca Pryce's apartment with a fifty thousand dollar check. He's here to buy his way out of some of his guilt.
 
Steve: Rebecca is one tough customer in this scene.
She presents the photograph of the woman Lane had got from the wallet he found left in the taxi. And she asks who's in the picture.
And then she says, “Don't just think of the office, think of all the brothels you frequent.”
So she's really claws out.
 
Even for the amount of the check, she says, look, you know, it was much even more than $50,000 that belonged to him.
 
Jenna: What does she mean by, what other money did he put in? There was 50,000 for collateral. What else is there? I don't get that.
 
Steve: Well, he will have a share of the business as a partner, so his estate still owns that portion of the firm.
So there is another financial piece to resolve at some point, and that's tied to the valuation of the firm, which at any given moment fluctuates.
Things went well in Q1, so probably the value of that ownership share,
his estate holds has increased here over the course of Q1, 1967.
 
Jenna: When Rebecca says,
“You had no right to fill a man like that with ambition,”
I feel the tragedy of their marriage there.
The limits Rebecca places on Lane are so severe, it's like she can't even permit him to dream outside of her lines.
 
But we know Rebecca is devastated.
And here's Don. He's standing in for everything she hates about America, and she's in extra pain because there's this woman's photo in Lane's wallet,
and she will never know the truth about that,
and it will always make her feel sick.
 
So Don's here. She might as well blame him.
 
Steve: I think Rebecca epitomizes the prison of England for Lane.
I think Rebecca genuinely loves him, and we've seen her at various points, you know, prior to his death, you know, demonstrating her love and support for him.
 
But it's so fascinating how you can love and support someone and simultaneously imprison and smother them.
And I think that duality is very strong with Rebecca and Lane.
 
Jenna: And that certainly echoes back to Don's worries about how to handle Megan, to smother her or to support her.
You could argue it was Don's example that Lane followed after their night on the town together, and that Don's ability to do whatever he pleased never seemed to have bills coming due.
 
So maybe Lane felt the injustice of that, or that he should try to be more like Don Draper.
And Lane started drinking a lot more this season.
That's not unique among the Mad Men, but it's certainly a Don Draper habit.
That's not necessarily Don's fault, but it could be his influence.
 
And I wish Don had the capacity to be more of a true friend to anybody. He and Lane and Roger and Pete are all strikingly lonely.
And I'm sure Don wonders if he'd been paying more attention at work, if he could have stopped this somehow. A little more attention, a little more time.
 
Steve: Well, and I think Don does the right thing in the moment. He doesn't strike up an argument with Rebecca about, you know, how much personal responsibility does Lane have in, in all what, what occurred.
Because I would say that from my perspective, Lane needs to own his choices.
So, yeah, Don Draper influences him, yeah.
 
You know, the way he was raised, and what he's trying to get away from in the U.K.,
but ultimately, he has agency, and he has a lot more agency than a lot of other characters we see in a lot of other situations.
 
So, as much as I love Jared Harris's portrayal of Lane, and I really enjoyed the Lane character, I can't let him off the hook.
If I had to assign some level of culpability to Lane for his own situation,
I think I'm still going to arrive at something pretty high. You know, 75, 80% is on him.
 
Jenna: To be clear, I'm not suggesting I think Don should litigate Lane's culpability in front of Rebecca at this moment. I don't think that at all.
But I do think Rebecca's comments certainly make Don wear his own guilt and shame and what ifs, even if he pretends to the outside world he doesn't think that, because he's moving forward.
 
So what is his answer?
All season long, Roger has been personally funding things around the office,
and now Don has unilaterally decided the company will pay this.
And Rebecca refuses to let him think he's absolved himself with money.
 
Don paid off Midge twice when he said goodbye. He tried to pay Adam.
He tried to pay for Anna's treatment. And here again,
he's just a man in a room with a checkbook.
And that question comes up, is Don Draper making things better for anyone?
 
 
Steve: Speaking of people having a miserable day, Pete gets home to the suburbs,
and this just seems to make Pete even that much more miserable.
His mistress is going in for shock therapy.
He had to ride his long commute home on the train to come home to his loving wife, who's planning a fancy new pool for their suburban home, which Pete hates.
We can feel the walls of this prison closing in around Pete Campbell.
 
Jenna: It's interesting seeing Trudy so happy, following this predictable trajectory that made Betty so miserable.
And Joan thought she aspired to it, and then she changed her mind.
 
So it works out really well for Trudy, except Pete isn't on board with any of her plans,
and Trudy is not very open to a pause to find out what's wrong with Pete.
I think she's probably sick of this same argument about Manhattan versus the suburbs,
but I don't find her very sympathetic here, because she's ignoring Pete the same way she ignored him about getting their first apartment.
 
But people do get in patterns where the people they live with get the least of their good manners. Like Megan says later to her mother,
“Why are you so nice to strangers?”
And I feel that between Trudy and Pete here.
 
Steve: I think, too, Trudy feels like they've come to all these decisions mutually.
So for Pete to now be crying in his beard,
I think we see some impatience here on her part.
You know, he had the chance to speak up if he was against this,
and now for him to pretend that it was imposed upon him, that he's a hostage to it, and it was nothing that he ever wanted, I think that's a very generous interpretation in Pete Campbell's head.
 
I guess I'm sympathetic to Trudy's impatience with him in this moment, and I agree it's not the greatest look for her,
but she just spent the day at home with a young child,
And that's not exactly a picnic either.
 
 
Jenna: Marie meets up with Roger at the hotel, as requested.
There's a truth call-out when she accuses him of not being honest.
There was no dinner, no chaperone, and no conversation.
And he goes, “Stop being demure. You're already on the bed!”
And she laughs.
I know Marie is cheating on her husband, but I have a little less sympathy because we know he's cheating on her with his grad student.
 
And I like Marie with Roger.
She's got that same poise Mona has. She has Joan self assurance,
but she's also got a good sense of humor.
And she's closer to Roger's age than Jane.
It's a potential for a good match, but he still isn't quite there yet.
 
Steve: Well, and she set such great limits, too. Like she says straight up to him, I'm not there to be your mother or your nurse.
You know, Maria's a sexual creature, and this liaison is something that she's seeking with Roger. That's the limit that she's put around it.
He has to comply with that.
 
I love the fact that Roger's a good sport about it. He has no problems with her having such agency. And I agree with you 100%.
I think they're a great match for each other.
And there really seems to be the basis of a successful relationship here for the two of them.
 
Jenna: When we saw Roger with Joan in season one - and basically everybody else since, Roger always tries to talk about himself without caring where the other person is coming from.
It's always about Roger.
And he's charming and funny, so it helps.
 
But Joan never got to share her problems while he went on about his wife and daughter, and Marie saying,
“Please don't ask me for anything. Please don't ask me to take care of you - ”
It's not the same as Beth and Pete,
but Pete and Roger are both looking for someone who will be sexy, and babysit their loneliness so they don't have to carry it.
 
And Beth and Marie are available for the one but not the other.
 
Steve: Well, and I love the charm of Marie because after she - she lays out those limits, she says, is there anything else I can do?
And by the way, yeah, there is something else you can do, which is why she's here.
And Roger's perfectly happy for that something else.
 
So they just seem such a great match in terms of sense of humor and, and, and charm.
It does seem to be a, a match of equals.
 
 
Jenna: When Don gets home, Megan has been drinking all day.
His toothache makes him pull back from her kisses.
 
And it is so miserable to watch her saying, sex is the only thing I'm good for.
And this is what you want, isn't it? For me to be waiting for you?
And it's partially true. He does want that.
 
But also I think Don wants her to want to wait for him. He doesn't want to force that.
He wants to be enough for her, without her needing to be an artist or needing to have a career.
He doesn't want this miserable person.
 
So Don isn't saying, please don't ask me to take care of you,
but he's definitely not used to being on this side of that story.
 
Steve: I'm starting to think that drinking excessive quantities of alcohol doesn't really solve the root cause of the problems.
 
Yeah, I think Megan is at emotional rock bottom at this point, drinking alone and feeling sorry for herself.
She's just in a really terrible place. And I think Don handles this relatively well.
 
Similar to the non conversation with Rebecca, where he just has to take the punches and get out of there, I think he sees in this situation that what Megan really needs is a sleep.
 
But he can certainly see her misery. And hopefully he's thinking about that and what it's going to take to get her to a better place.
 
Jenna: There's a truth call-out in this scene when Megan says, you want me like this. And Don says that's not true.
And Megan says, I know, because the alternative is I'm terrible.
And her whole collapse here, her self doubt, it's really hard to watch.
 
This is a woman who whistled at Don to chop chop in the hallway to get to his surprise party she engineered at the last minute.
 
This is a woman who was watching Don Draper count his glasses of alcohol at the beginning of their relationship.
And all that confidence has dissolved.
 
Steve: As Don exits the room, he confronts Marie, and asks how she could have left Megan like this.
Marie's not taking any of that.
She clarifies that Don is her husband,
and therefore he's the one who's responsible for the condition of his wife.
 
But she does have some advice for him.
“Nurse her through this defeat, and you shall have the life you desire.”
We know where Marie stands vis a vis Megan's dreams.
 
And I think Marie is also shrewd enough to understand what Don wants.
What she's offering him, or suggesting to him in this moment is very much on point in terms of Don Draper's ideal, or at least what he thinks is his ideal.
 
Jenna: Marie is definitely appealing to Don Draper's self interest with this argument.
Maybe Marie should be a copywriter. She's selling a dream here.
 
 
Don finally visits a dentist, and he hallucinates Adam with the dental tools, saying,
“I'm gonna take it out, but it's not your tooth that's rotten.”
And this, of course, is Don's unspoken fear that he's broken, he's unlovable,
that everyone will leave him.
Betty, Anna, Peggy,
maybe Megan, and you might even argue - Don thinks when Megan quit SCDP that she started leaving him, but she doesn't think that.
 
Steve: Yeah, I agree. She doesn't think that at all. And I agree with the other side of it: Don Draper is definitely wrestling with that possibility.
 
 
Jenna: In the next scene, Pete goes to visit Beth in the hospital.
As Pete is talking to Beth, he works through some of his own issues.
He never names it as depression or loneliness,
but he's finally being honest about his feelings,
except pretending his feelings belong to a friend, I guess.
 
And it's like confession.
His life feels empty to him. And I think this condition is really intriguing to Matt Weiner because so many of his characters face this.
 
Pete has expressed some of this before to Peggy, a feeling that his wife doesn't know him.
But this is a step further.
This is not about it being Trudy's fault.
 
There's something about it being a wound in him.
And a picture perfect family doesn't cure it or hide it.
And it's very much like Don with Adam saying,
it's not the tooth that's rotten. It's me. I'm the problem.
 
And we were speaking of unhappy families. And Pete certainly came from his own unique brand of misery there. But the question is, what can he do about it? What is he willing to do about it?
 
Steve: And as he goes through it, it seems to me like he gets pretty close to at least defining the problem. You know, this life that he's been chasing, these things he thought he needed to be happy.
 
At least it gets him to the question of, okay, well, what will make you happy? What do you need? I don't get the sense he has an answer to that question,
but it feels like getting to the question is progress.
 
And it's a very sort of sad, lonely scene at the end where this latest fantasy of someone like Beth has been taken away from him.
This scene probably gets me as close as I get to feeling sympathy for Pete Campbell.
 
Jenna: Well, and it's acted to perfection. It's a really great performance.
I'm pretty sure Beth genuinely doesn't recognize Pete.
That's the way it's played in the scene, and it makes the most sense.
 
But you could look at it as if Beth is pretending not to know Pete so she has a clean slate with him.
Like Jane in the apartment, she doesn't need what Pete provided anymore, and it's all cleared out. I watched it with that lens and it was, it was a little bit intriguing.
 
Steve: I guess my lens kind of split the difference. I don't think she knows who he is,
but I think she knows there's some connection here that's greater than just, oh, a stranger came into the room.
 
Jenna: I think Mad Men as a series has some barriers to accessibility, because if your life already has plenty of challenges, it's a lot easier to watch something escapist . . .
the hero takes down 80 bad guys, or the shopping spree ends in a dream wedding.
 
This show brings you face to face with things like infidelity, self destruction,
failures, injustices.
And that can just be a lot to take,
especially if you're already struggling with a lot of things yourself.
 
And this scene might be the most honest Pete ever is with himself, and he's with a woman who doesn't know him or remember him, and he has no plan going forward.
It's not a light hearted journey. It's not an easy thing to experience.
 
And the pain of caring so much about Pete Campbell, this character who's so hard to like and just feeling for him, it's a really uncomfortable experience,
but it's so worth it.
 
Steve: Yeah, and just the lack of resolution. So he, he, he stops chasing diversions and fantasies and grapples with the real question, why am I unhappy? But there's no answer.
 
 
Jenna: So next we get a bit of a palate cleanser.
Don goes to the movies and runs into Peggy.
And that's a nice gift to the audience to get their band back together for the moment.
 
Don is a little petulant when he says,
“That's what happens when you help someone. They succeed and then they move on.”
And Peggy replies, “Don't you want them to?
And of course, Don is thinking about Peggy,
but also about helping Megan and her moving on.
 
And no, he absolutely does not want them to.
But he rallies in the moment and he tells Peggy he's proud of her.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think she kind of boxes them in a little bit rhetorically with that, because what, what answer can he say? He can't say no.
 
Similar to the psychology that if we do fake smiles, it actually improves our mood and helps us get into a better place, I think that almost verbally is what happens here. And as he says the right words, which he knows he needs to say, I think he starts to get into the spirit of it.
 
And he can see that Peggy is thriving and happy in her new place. He doesn't want to hold her back or drag her down.
I miss them when they're not in scenes together.
 
Jenna: And Peggy's excited that she gets to take her first plane ride ever to Virginia for work.
Remember a few seasons back when Duck talked to her about working with him?
She asked about going to Paris, and she hinted at it recently for the Chevalier Blanc campaign.
So here is a small step forward on that front for her.
 
Steve: And just a personal note. I was in a job where I traveled a lot, and I hadn't traveled a lot up until I got that job.
And I can remember feeling similar thrills of getting to go to such exotic places as Akron, Ohio, or Pensacola, Florida.
 
And in hindsight, it's funny to think, you know, the Best Western in one place is pretty much like the next.
And so I can really relate to this where, you know, you feel you've arrived, and you're starting to get some of the perks and benefits of your or success.
And those aren't going to be exactly what you imagined they would be when you, when you were longing for them.
 
 
Jenna: Our next scene brings one of Pete's most famous lines ever.
Howard wants to take advantage of his wife free week and go out with Pete, who loses all discretion and confesses he knows where Beth is.
 
Howard says something crude, and Pete attacks him, and he ends up getting punched and beaten for his trouble.
 
Steve: This is all self inflicted by Pete Campbell, so it's nice to see Pete's back on the commuter train feeling sorry for himself.
Howard realizes that it's Pete and Beth who have been together, and he loses the physical confrontation.
 
And then when the conductor tries to straighten him out, gets himself punched a second time by the conductor and kicked off the train.
 
Jenna: I love how Pete is able to generate so much indignation.
It's every bit as bad as the Republic of Dresses scene. These service people are beneath him. They exist to give him what he wants.
 
So we get this exchange between the train conductor and Pete:
“I am an officer of the New Haven line.”
And Pete goes, “Well, I'm the president of the Howdy Doody Circus army.”
And you'd think he would just be ashamed and sad,
but he finds the energy to pull rank until he gets himself thrown off the train.
And what kind of valor is there in this?
 
Steve: I also like the look on Pete's face after he gets punched by the conductor. And unlike the prior scene where again, I'm, I'm feeling for Pete, he made his bed, he can, he can lie in it.
 
 
Jenna: When Pete gets home, he blames his face on a car accident, and we find out the last time he got punched this season he did the same thing.
So Trudy thinks he's been in a lot of car accidents, and we know he's a bad driver, so I guess it tracks.
 
I hate that Trudy capitulates here.
She knows Pete will be cheating in this apartment.
She's giving up on her marriage a little bit, I think by enabling this apartment in the city.
But she knows he's unhappy, and she's busy with their daughter, and I guess she thinks this is the best thing she can do.
 
Steve: Or just to reword that, I think the least bad option open to her,
and I sympathize with Trudy and I agree, I think she's doing this with her eyes open. She knows what this means.
 
She doesn't want to do this,
but I think she tried the harder stand in the previous interaction between them, and she's realizing that that's no victory either, so she's picking her poison here.
 
Even miserable, grumpy Pete can't enjoy the victory in the moment.
All he can feel is a little guilt over what his conduct has led to.
And then now leveraging getting beat up on the train to finally get what he wants.
 
 
Jenna: In the next scene, with Marie's words about Megan, and Peggy's words about wanting to see people succeed in his head, Don watches Megan's screen test reel.
I don't think Megan has ever looked prettier than she is in this film.
 
But it's also a little bit sad because Megan is more than her looks.
She's more honest than most.
She tries to do her best, she's caring.
I mean, she betrayed her friend in this episode, but generally speaking.
 
And Don smiles when he sees Megan on screen.
He can find his love for her again in this uncomplicated, non speaking reel of her.
 
Steve: I do think she looks very beautiful in the screen test footage,
but I think the piece for me that really struck was the vulnerability.
And I think as we look at Don Draper's face, watching her,
we can see that he genuinely does love her.
 
And it's not that, I guess I thought he was doubting his feelings or losing them,
but I think it's important that we have this strong emphasis of just how strongly he feels for her, especially given we know where this story is headed.
 
 
Jenna: Next up, we get this iconic scene where the partners go upstairs to view their actual second floor, which was only fictional when they first started their company.
It's been a long while since Bert said, I will not participate in that charade of the second floor.
 
Now here we've got Joan spray painting a red X where the stairs are going to go.
And each of the partners takes a spot in front of a window with their backs to us.
They've come a long way. Five seasons.
 
Steve: Yeah. And it's probably the last moment where we really see the absence of Lane. He should be there, silhouetted against the cityscape out the window,
and instead he's not there.
 
Each one is there individually, separately,
so it is the group of them. But there doesn't feel like there's a lot of unity.
There's quite a space between each of them.
They're not looking or interacting with each other.
They're looking out onto the city. And I think that visually epitomizes where they're at at this stage.
 
Jenna: And at last we see Megan beaming in her costume for the Beauty and the Beast-inspired Butler shoe campaign.
Don is sweet and encouraging to her,
and Megan gets called up to work.
 
And as he walks away from the soundstage,
the James Bond theme, You Only Live Twice comes on.
And that feels like the end of their marriage.
 
He had Betty, he had Megan, and it's not over. But this feels like an end point right here, even before he gets to the bar.
 
Steve: Yeah. And as he walks away from the set, which is all well lit and full of activity, he's walking into darkness.
I get the sense that this is symbolizing him circling back to the Don Draper he was previously.
 
We've seen all these efforts at self improvement and change, and we've seen him encounter and experience things that we hoped would teach him lessons, and he wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
 
But with this theme song and him drinking at the bar,
it really does seem to tee up a return to the original Don Draper.
 
Jenna: And it's a nod back to the Beauty and the Beast campaign as well.
As Megan seems ethereal and happy and dark, Don goes and wrestles with his demons at the bar with a cigarette.
 
Steve: I love the flash to the various other characters here, you know, there's, there's no words.
But we see Pete with headphones on quietly listening to something.
We've got Roger doing an LSD trip while naked in the window of his apartment,
Peggy looking out her hotel window in Virginia and seeing two dogs fornicating.
So as she turns away, we can see she's still very happy that she's in a hotel room on a business trip to Virginia.
 
Jenna: Mad Men is never going to let you get your fairy tale. [Laughing]
 
Back at the bar, a woman approaches Don for a light.
Her friend was wondering, are you alone?
And as Don looks up at her, the screen cuts to black.
 
I know when Don proposed to his secretary it was ridiculous,
but like Alice from Heinz, I think we see Megan is good for Don, and you can't help wanting them to be good for each other.
This scene implies that this whole season, Don was chasing a phantom. It's a self he couldn't actually become.
 
Do you think he just gives up on Megan here and falls back to his old habits because he's jealous she's pulling away from him, and it's easier than getting hurt and feeling abandoned by her,
or do you think this relationship is just an act he can't keep up any longer?
 
Steve: I guess my first question is why does he go to that bar to have a drink alone.
And then even in response to the woman, we don't get to hear what he says.
So again we, I guess we can guess what he's going to say -
 
Jenna: It's a rewatch. We know what he's going to say.
 
Steve: Yeah, but, but I don't think in terms of the material that's in this particular scene, we have clarity.
 
Jenna: This is the moment. It's like the milkshake was the beginning of their go point. This is the end point. So. So what is it?
 
Steve: If he could come clean about his past, and if he could start a new relationship, a fresh relationship with a woman with no lies, and he's transparent,
he can become truly happy. And that doesn't happen with Megan.
 
So if everything you tried to make things better and be happier hasn't really succeeded,
I wonder if you just revert back to what you were before and default to that setting.
 
And it's, it's not with any illusion that that's going to be so much better or solve all your problems.
But is it maybe done out of the absence of any better idea of, of what to try next or, or what he could do differently?
He's, he's almost trapped and funneled back to his old self.
 
 
Jenna: That's a wrap on Mad Men Season 5.
We'll see you back for the start of Season 6 with The Doorway.
Megan and Don head to Hawaii, Roger gets sad news about a family member,
Peggy reworks a campaign after a comedian's bit becomes famous,
And yes, there's that violin-playing friend of Sally's who visits the Francis house, but we're going to make it a great season anyway. It'll be great.
 
Our listener shout out today goes to Maria R. and Audrey Rose.
Thank you for subscribing to our show on YouTube, and thank you to all our listeners who take time to share your positive comments about our show.
 
Thank you for your five-star ratings, thank you for following our show and an extra special thanks to those of you who are supporting the costs of our podcast through Buy Me a Coffee. We really appreciate your thoughtful generosity.
 
Steve: That's it for this episode of All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou. Visit our website, Mad Men C to Z dot com to vote for your favorite Sterling Lines, and to share your opinions on our Double Dip questions for each episode.
 
Jenna: You can find us on Instagram and YouTube at MadMenCtoZ. And please listen, like, and subscribe. That's what the podcast's for!
 
Steve: Thanks for listening, everybody.

Lesli Linka-Glatter directed six episodes of Mad Men, including:

5G (Adam)
The Benefactor (Peggy and Bobbie)
A Night to Remember (Betty's dinner party)
Love Among the Ruins (Gene moves in; Patio cola)

Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency (a real fan already knows)
The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (Honda)

and four episodes of Gilmore Girls, including the pilot episode.

Alexis Bledel plays Beth Dawes, Pete Campbell's adulterous love interest on Mad Men, as well as Rory Gilmore.
She and Vincent Kartheiser met on the Mad Men set and later married (but have since divorced).

Danny Strong played Jane Siegel's cousin Danny ("the cure for the common breakfast") on Mad Men, and Paris's boyfriend, Doyle McMaster, on Gilmore Girls.

Madchen Amick plays Andrea, the subject of Don's fever dream in Mystery Date in the fifth season of Mad Men, as well as Sherry Tinsdale, Christopher's girlfriend, on Gilmore Girls.

Abigail Spencer plays Suzanne Farrell in Mad Men,
and one of Logan's sister's mean bridesmaids (Megan) on Gilmore Girls S6E16: Bridesmaids Revisited.

Mary Kathleen Gordon plays a nurse in the hospital where Pete visits Beth Dawes, and an unnamed woman at the inn on Gilmore Girls in S2E7: Like Mother, Like Daughter.

John Aniston emcees the Clio awards in Mad Men, and he appears as Douglas Swope on Gilmore Girls on S3E9: A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving.

Jeanne Simpson, who is Betty's neighbor on Mad Men, also plays an unnamed customer on Gilmore Girls on S6E1: New and Improved Lorelai

Ray Wise, who plays Ed Baxter in Mad Men (Ken's father in law and the CEO of Dow Chemical) also plays Jack Smith, friend of Emily Gilmore in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.

Hayley McFarland plays Bonnie, who talks to Don backstage before the Rolling Stones arrive in Mad Men, as well as Marcia (who attends April's birthday party) on Gilmore Girls.

Patricia Bethune, who plays Sally's therapist Dr. Edna in Mad Men, also plays Terry in Gilmore Girls in S3E19: Keg! Max!

Audrey Wasilewski, who plays Peggy's sister Anita in Mad Men, plays Sandra in Gilmore Girls in S5E18: To Live and Let Diorama.

Nora Zehetner, plays Don's neighbor Phoebe in Mad Men, and an unnamed girl in Gilmore Girls in S1E6: Rory's Birthday Parties.

Jon Hamm, Don Draper in Mad Men, is also Peyton Sanders, a brief romantic interest for Lorelai Gilmore in S3E5: Eight O'Clock at the Oasis.

Update: it turns out there are even more that we missed!
Ron Brownstein plays Roger's psychiatrist in S6E1: The Doorway, and appears in Gilmore Girls.
Katie Walder is Pete & Trudy's neighbor in S6E3: Collaborators, and Paris's Yale roommate Janet in Gilmore Girls.
Oliver Muirhead is a Jaguar executive in S6E3: Collaborators (not the Herb guy) and in Gilmore Girls.
Lukas Behnken becomes Kate's date Leo in her night out with Joan in S6E4: To Have and To Hold, and he is also Todd in the Double Date episode of Gilmore Girls.
We'll add more as they pop up in our re-watch!

Toast your coffee cup - or old-fashioned - to the people who appeared in both shows. Maybe it's time for a re-watch!

See our Mad Men Episode pages for details

Mad Men C to Z S5E9 Dark Shadows Transcript 
 
Jenna: Hi, I'm Jenna.
Steve: And I'm Steve. Welcome to All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou.
 
Jenna: There's so much to love about this amazing show, and we're happy to connect to fans like us, who discover new things with each rewatch.
 
Steve: Be advised, while we aren't gratuitous with spoilers, they can pop up as we discuss character arcs through the final season.
Let's get started with Mad Men C to Z.
 
Jenna: This is Mad Men C to Z, Season 5, Episode 9, Dark Shadows. This episode was written by Erin Levy, and directed by Scott Hornbacher.
 
Steve: The episode kicks off with Betty in the kitchen preparing a very healthy breakfast.
 
Jenna: In the commentary, Matthew Weiner talks about their researchers checking Weight Watchers, and getting these details to be really accurate.
And I looked up some of the guidance from the 1966 cookbook, and portion control and eating a lot of fish each week, and eating either an orange or a grapefruit daily was part of it.
 
I normally love a montage about the underdog and the hard work that doesn't happen overnight. I mean, Rocky Balboa, right? But this is Betty Draper . . . Francis . . . Manfredjensen.  [Laughing]
I have some sympathy for her, but her struggle to lose weight just isn't a compelling storyline. And we see a lot of it in this episode.

 
Steve: Yeah, I can accept that. I mean, we're sort of checking in on her character,
and there doesn't seem to be a lot else going on with her character.
It's not one of the stronger storylines.
 
Jenna: So next we see Don, Roger, Bert, and Pete on the elevator, and Pete is excited about being featured in a New York Times article on hip agencies.
And this is the ambitious, credit-hungry Pete we're used to, not the sad and lonely guy who's been popping up a lot this season.
 
Steve: Pete makes a point of saying that they only want to talk to Pete, but none of the other guys seem to care.
 
 
Jenna: Much later, in the office, Don is going through the posters of their recent campaigns, and he's noticing how often Ginsberg's name is on there.
Joan offers some kind thoughts about all the great work, but none of it is Don's from the ground up anymore.
Bert accused Don of being on love leave, and now that Megan is out of the office,
I think Don expects things to be right where he left them.
 
And this is a huge privilege Don takes for granted over and over. When you're this beautiful and talented, surely everybody's just going to wait around for your attention, right?
And when you find the time, you'll just get back to those people and the work, and it'll be right there.
 
Steve: Having another strong creative in addition to Peggy and himself is great for the firm, and the firm is doing well, you know, we can see there's a lot of business across a diverse range of clients.
So this is a very personal perspective Don's taking, and he doesn't seem to give much thought or weight to the responsibilities he has as the manager over this department.
 
Jenna: I'm nodding at you. You can't see it. Sorry. Not helpful.
 
So next up, Bert visits Roger's office with a business opportunity.
And it's a great detail because they both heard Pete bragging on the elevator earlier. So they enjoy keeping him out of this for now.
 
And it's an even better detail that Bert doesn't know Roger and Jane are getting divorced. He thinks the fact that Jane is Jewish will help get the Manischewitz account.
Roger goes, Jane and I are getting divorced. And (Bert) looks at his watch and says, already? Bert was never a fan of their relationship.
 
Steve: Yeah. And similar to Don Draper coming back off of love leave, and seeing how things have moved in his absence, it seems that Bert is just gradually drifting away from the business more and more.
 
 
Jenna: Next we see Sally and Megan sitting on the floor of the apartment,
and they're staring at each other in an acting exercise to make yourself cry.
 
When I watch this scene, it makes me realize how rarely Sally's parents give her their full attention.
Megan is including Sally in what she's learning for her class in an age-appropriate way.
And Sally has been wanting to be included for such a long time. So it's nice to see somebody actually spending that time with Sally again.
 
Steve: And Sally's impressed by Megan's ability to portray an emotion. So when Megan turns on the sad face, Sally is in awe that she can just make that happen.
 
 
Jenna: Meanwhile, Don is heading to the office on a weekend, with no apparent pressing need to do it. But he kisses Megan and Sally on his way out. Everything seems loving,
but it feels like Don getting back to his old life.
 
He isn't sitting on the carpet with his family learning how to cry.
Maybe he should get in touch with his feelings a little bit more, actually. But he's heading to the office, and he doesn't have to.
 
Steve: In the office, it seems like Don is something less than productive. Smoking, gazing out the window, walking around in the semi-darkness.
 
As he goes to leave, he sees the light on in Peggy's office, so he goes in there to turn it out and notices the Sno Ball work on Michael's desk.
As he starts flipping through it and looking at Michael's various ideas, I think we can see the spark of creative reigniting in Don.
 
Jenna: Ginsberg's sketches draw him in so much that he turns the light back on and sits down to look through them.
And it seems like he's surprised that Ginsberg's work is so good, even though he's the creative director.
It feels like he should maybe be a little more familiar with Ginsberg's work and his process.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think it's just in alignment with his love leave, where he's been oblivious to so much, whether it's account management or the work of his own team, he's, he's been missing in action.
I think he can see the, the strength of, of what Ginsberg is working on.
 
 
Jenna: Next up we see Henry and Betty in traffic, and they're waiting to get the kids back from Don and Megan.
And you can see already in the car, Betty does not want to go up to get them,
but Henry's double parked and he's going to circle in traffic. So she has to.
 
And make a note of this coat she has on, because it's the same one we're going to see in a future episode where it rips. And I really appreciate that Janie Bryant has characters wear the same clothes the way that actual people do. So it's not that Betty has a coat for every different day. It's another detail that makes her authentic.
 
She checks herself in the mirror, and fixes her hair, and sucks in her stomach before she rings the doorbell. She is really nervous about it.
 
Steve: And the visit to the apartment is every bit as bad as she feared.
It's this sexy, chic Manhattan apartment with a great view.
 
When she's in the apartment, sort of looking around, she can't help but see through the bedroom window Don's replacement wife: a younger, thinner version of her getting dressed. So it's just ticking all the wrong boxes for Betty in terms of peeking in on her ex's life.
 
And we know Betty's got some regrets and scar tissue about the relationship with Don and none of this is helping any of that.
 
Jenna: January Jones has very few lines in the scene, but she does such a great job conveying her jealousy and her insecurity and frustration non-verbally.
 
In addition to just general jealousy about Megan and Don and this apartment, I suspect Betty would have loved to have lived in the city instead of the suburbs, because remember how excited she was about the idea of living in London and having a nanny when Don thought the Brits were going to move them there?
 
So to see Don living the complete opposite of their life together with somebody else,
that's rough for her. And then to see Megan changing and how skinny she is when Betty's trying to lose weight, this is, I think, another life, another opportunity that -
and seeing somebody else have it . . .
 
It's not the most attractive look that Betty is so spoiled, but she just really can't handle somebody else having something she wants, just like Pete.
 
Steve: Well, and even the farewell from the children to Megan, you know, is very warm. It's clear the children like her and have established a relationship.
So Betty's got nothing here to cling on. And it seems like she's losing on all fronts, and that's just piling up on her emotionally.
I wouldn't want to be in the car with Henry and her driving back after they picked up the kids.
 
Jenna: No. And you'd think if Betty sees Megan genuinely liking the kids,
that that would give Betty some relief that the kids are okay.
And instead she's jealous that it feels like Megan is doing everything better.
 
Betty's interactions with her kids are mostly scolding or performative attention.
So to see Megan having genuine affection for them, and kissing them goodbye and, you know, missing them . . . Granted, it is easier to watch kids for a weekend, like Megan does, than to care for them day in and day out like Betty does, sort of. [Laughing]
I guess she kind of cares for them.
But it's a shame that Betty isn't a better human here.
 
Steve: Well, and Betty measures everything by appearances.
So, you know, a bit of advice I've heard in my life was if you're going to be jealous of someone, you have to be jealous of everything.
And that's helpful because often what we're jealous of are certain aspects of a life,
and we don't give thought to all those other aspects that we're not jealous of, or even we're grateful that we're not subjected to, or don't have to make that kind of commitment.
And it helps create a bit of balance.
 
I think in this case, Betty is looking at all the hallmarks of a happy second marriage and a new life in the city, in the apartment with the kids.
It's all those surface things that she can sort of observe from this quick visit to the apartment with no thought about anything else, about how the relationship may or may not be all that and a bag of chips.
 
Jenna: And we should mention, in the DVD commentary, Matthew Weiner talks about how this episode is primarily about people having envy, and wishing you had what somebody else has, at the same time other people might be envying what you have, and just the inability to appreciate, basically. Which is funny, given that the episode is set at Thanksgiving.
 
Sally had asked for colored pencils, but she never got them, because Don never came home for dinner. He didn't pick up colored pencils on his way back. He didn't even see the kids to say goodbye because he's in his office and he's brainstorming ideas for Sno Ball.
We haven't seen Don doing this kind of brainstorming work on a product in a long time.
 
Steve: Yeah, Don seems rusty, but I think the point of the scene is just to show that creative process and that he's immersing himself in it, putting in the time. It's after hours that he's doing this.
This shows where his focus is now, and he's turning back towards the business, back toward his origins in creative.
 
Jenna: When I first heard them talking about Sno Ball as a product,
I was more familiar with the Hostess product, the cream-filled chocolate cake with the pink coconut exterior.
This Sno Ball is different. This was a real product from Pepsi, and it was like a slushie.
I know everybody was wondering that, [Laughing] but I did look that up because I was curious.
 
 
So next, Betty gets home after picking the kids up, and she runs straight to the fridge for a can of spray whipped cream.
She sprays a giant swirl directly into her mouth.
This is gonna be the cure, right, that solves all of her envy.
 
Steve: You know, a lot of us at some point or other try to eat our feelings or find,
you know, comfort in favorite foods. So even in this, she can't really succeed.
She does that, but then she realizes what she's done and goes over to the sink and spits out a bunch of it.
So even in terms of this escape, she's not fully committed to it. And I think it just signifies that she's caught between looking backwards at the life she had and that's gone, looking at the life she has, and then now this unhelpful and unconstructive measurement of it against the life that she thinks Don and Megan have.
 
Jenna: For me, this is probably the most interesting part of all the weight loss scenes in this episode.
I'm really proud of Betty that she overcomes this, because we could see how difficult and how envious and how much of a struggle that visit to the apartment was.
 
So the fact that she spits the whipped cream out into the sink, she stays with her weight loss plan, that feels like she's reaffirming her life and trying to make the best of it.
 
Steve: What's the point of sticking to the diet to be thin? And why do you want to be thin? Because that's the way you want to be, and it will make you happy, so you can stick to the diet and be unhappy?
It seems kind of circular and self-defeating to me, not to say go binge eat every time you're, you have an emotional shot.
 
But I don't feel like this is a success or an achievement for her. I think she's just stuck in this trap and, and she's not winning emotionally no matter what she does.
 
Jenna: No, that's a really good point, because the fact that she believes being thin is going to be the key to being happy is, has always been misguided.
That definitely can't lead her to any kind of fulfillment. So it, it is an empty pursuit for sure.
 
Steve: And even, you know, the stuff you can't change. So she can manage her weight with enough discipline and effort, but she's getting older, and that's something she can't fight.
And I think clearly when she was looking at Megan, she could see the age difference there and, and there's nothing she can do about that.
 
Jenna: Well, maybe we're being kind of hard on Betty for buying into societal expectations because this idea that younger is better is also a problem, right? Because if Betty had any substance to her, you know, she would have acquired some wisdom and some compassion and some generosity, and we don't see that in her at all.
 
And it's funny how in young, thin, mean Betty, we accept things from her, and we're saying like, oh, as an overweight older Betty, then her meanness is less acceptable.
I mean, isn't that an interesting perception?
 
Steve: That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying in Betty's head, not in society's. In Betty's head, younger is better.
So if Betty is going to buy into that, she's on the losing end of that equation, and there's nothing she can do about it.
I think Betty set herself up here for, in a, into a trap, into failing. I don't think she can win by the criteria she's laying out for herself.
 
 
Jenna: Next up, the creative team is meeting in the office the next day and Peggy shares an idea for Sno Ball. She pushes back a little bit on Don's critiques, and he moves on to Ginsberg, who has a snowball in the face idea.
It's a cop, a teacher with glasses, anyone kids hate, he says, and maybe a pig.
And everybody laughs.
 
And I thought that could be a reference to Animal Farm, where, of course, a pig named Napoleon manipulates the rules to drive out a pig named Snowball.
And of course, in this episode, we see Don abusing his power to shove Ginsberg aside. So that fits.
 
Steve: And when Don gives his idea about the devil, Peggy and Michael are kind of unenthusiastic about it. But Stan does this laugh, and it's not blatantly sycophantic . . .
 
I think Peggy and Michael are taking it from a pure creative opinion standpoint, in which case they're saying, hey, I don't think that's especially clever or funny. So I'm not going to chuckle.
From Don's perspective, I think he's thinking this is this great idea, and he's very eager to roll it out in front of them.
And just the reaction of sort of two of the three strongest creatives is so much more lukewarm.
 
Jenna: When Don starts sharing his idea for Sno Ball, you can tell how unusual it is, because the entire team's response is utter surprise that he's pitching anything.
So I think there are several beats of shock that Don has done work on this campaign before they even start to judge whether it's good or not.
 
And we get a truth call-out here because Don goes, there's a 90% chance that you are thinking of a snowball’s chance in hell when you hear the words Sno Ball.
And Peggy goes, that's true. And it's just like, I don't think Peggy thinks it is true.
I think this is like, we understand what we're supposed to say.
 
Ginsberg's reaction is the most interesting, because it's almost condescending.
He goes, wow, that's actually good.
And then he says what Peggy and Stan would never say. He says, it's impressive you could not write for so long and come back with that.
 
And Don, you know, I get the impression he's pleased, because he thinks his idea is well received.
But also, I think Don thinks Ginsberg is just a weirdo who says socially inappropriate things.
I don't think he registers how unusual it is for the team to see him working again, and that they are all thinking more like Ginsberg than they are thinking like him.
 
Steve: Now that Don wants to focus on being creative,
he wants to be part of this creative process and the sharing of ideas,
but he's the boss.
And although he might want to just have it beyond the merits of the creative ideas,
there's always going to be the recognition and awareness in that room that he is the boss.
 
This idea that he can return back to that where it's this meritocracy, this hierarchy is present.
In some ways, you can't go back.
 
 
Jenna: Next, we see Betty at a Weight Watchers meeting.
There's a lot of Weight Watchers philosophy in here. And in the DVD commentary, Weiner explains, it's very authentic to the period.
 
They did a lot of research, but I could do less with this.
We already knew Betty was having a hard time dealing with Don's new life.
We also saw her skip the whipped cream. I just don't think this scene gives us any new information.
 
Steve: I was thinking maybe it's a bit like when Roger's talking about his intuitions from his acid trip and Don says, you know, some people realize that without taking lsd.
Maybe some of the philosophies and things that are going on in these classes . . .
people have good and bad weeks. Yeah, they do.
 
Jenna: Well, and clearly Betty is supposed to be shown as learning this. But again, I just -
I don't want to argue with the writing, because it's an amazingly well-written show, and we love it.
But I'm disappointed for Betty's character. I just - she deserves a more interesting storyline than this.
 
Steve: Yeah. I think - are you saying this character is smarter than this, and more self aware than this? And it feels like she's been simplified and dumbed down a bit to serve the arc of the plot in this particular episode.
It's not serving the character in that bigger picture.
 
Jenna: Yes. And I don't need Betty to be a hero. It's okay if she is shallow and imperfect. She doesn't have to be a good human.
But there has to be something more interesting to say about her than how she looks.
So the show disappoints me.
 
Steve: Yeah, she's smarter than this, the character. They've built up a character that's deeper and more nuanced than this.
 
Even if they want to run with this, this weight thing, because I do think that is a common struggle that many of us have faced, add in the other piece as well, because this, this alone is not sufficient.
 
Jenna: I do want to mention the Weight Watchers leader is played by Kate McNeil, and she's been in a lot of projects, including Space Cowboys, and As the World Turns.
 
And she was also in the movie Glitter with Mariah Carey, which I am so proud to say we actually saw in the theater. [Laughing] So we are clearly connoisseurs of fine art.
 
 
Steve: The next scene has Megan helping out one of her friends who's auditioning for a part, and keeping with the themes here of jealousy, and also, I think this notion of you can't go back to what you may have been in the past, we see both of those frictions arise here as Megan kind of laughs and mocks the part.
 
The friend can't look at it that way. To the friend, this is their way of earning a living. They desperately need this role. The friend doesn't have the luxury of dismissing it.
 
And that brings up the larger point of Megan's privilege in that she's married to this wealthy executive. She lives in this beautiful apartment.
So, yeah, she wants to be an actress, and she's going to feel that pressure of being judged and the disappointment of not making roles. But that doesn't mean she doesn't get to eat dinner that night.
 
And clearly for Megan's friend, that she's facing an entirely different calculus. I think Megan is a little insensitive here.
 
Jenna: I think that's true. And Julia's point is true.
Megan doesn't have to wait tables to feed herself, unlike a lot of actors auditioning around town.
But I appreciate that Megan admits she can make fun of the soap opera, and she'd still do anything to get an audition for it. So her jealousy is honest.
It makes us like Megan a little bit more that she is that forthright.
 
Steve: Yeah, she seems like a real straight shooter. She owns up to it fairly readily.
 
Jenna: But Megan also isn't weak. So just like she gave Betty a biting comment about, well, I think you've seen most of it, when Betty was snooping around the apartment a little,
Megan gives another one here to Julia:
 
She says, what should I bring for Thanksgiving?
And Megan goes, something sweet.
Like, don't bring your tone back to Thanksgiving.
 
So it seems to me she's calling people out for wrong behavior instead of accepting it passively, and then she moves on.
And both of those things are unlike Betty, who silently seethes, right, and then resents people forever.
 
I wanted to mention I'd never heard of this soap opera before,
but Dark Shadows, this Mad Men episode title, was an actual supernatural soap opera in the late 60s.
It was created by Dan Curtis, who later directed a 1974 Dracula movie starring Jack Palance, as well as the TV miniseries The Winds of War.
So if you want to go on a supernatural soap opera binge, watching Dark Shadows is there for you.
 
 
Next. Roger calls Ginsberg into his office, and I really like this little joke when Roger says it will involve a client dinner. Ginsberg takes this Agatha Christie voice and he goes,
“And muuuur-der.”
And Roger is not amused.
But I was.
 
Steve: Roger wants Ginsberg, because Ginsberg's Jewish.
So he mentions how he's the right guy for the job. And he also doesn't want Ginsberg telling Don about this. And Michael's smart enough to clue in that if it's on the down low, then he's got an angle here to get some money, so he's able to squeeze 200 bucks out of Roger,
very reminiscent of earlier work that Peggy did on the sly for him.
 
Jenna: Roger has this awful line about how Manischewitz wants to sell the wine to normal people.
And then he goes, well, you know, people like me.
What exactly about Roger is normal?
 
And then Roger basically admits it's all about getting the best of Pete Campbell. Because he says, well, Michael, when a man hates another man very, very much,
sometimes he wants to know that something is his, even if in the end he has to give it up.
 
And he says the work is for Mr. Cooper. And we're supposed to believe Roger is so relaxed and enlightened now.
But I guess it's really hard to let go of hating Pete.
 
If we're keeping score, Roger ends up paying Ginsberg $200. Peggy got 400 for Mohawk, Harry got over $1,000 for switching offices, and Caroline got $50 for sitting closer to Roger's desk.
 
 
At the Francis household, Betty finds Henry up late cooking a steak because she's been making fish so often.
This scene is supposed to be nice. Betty and Henry are sitting down together.
He talks about his work. He mentions the 1972 presidential election.
And Betty tries to say something supportive.
 
So I feel like she is trying to reinvest in her life so Don can have his chic Manhattan apartment, and she has this giant castle and this political star husband.
And she's trying to see and appreciate what's in front of her.
She doesn't say anything witty or meaningful. And again, I wish there was more there for her.
 
Steve: And Betty's kind of flipping the Weight Watchers advice here. You know, good weeks and bad weeks, Henry's bet on the wrong horse, and Betty's very comforting and reassuring here. So I think she's a good partner from that perspective.
 
And then even Henry, he's trying to, you know, be gentle about the fact he's sick of eating fish as he cooks a snake - a steak in the middle of the night.
Often when we see Henry, he's doing a pretty good job of being a pretty good partner for Betty.
 
Jenna: Yes. I think in every scene you can see he really loves her and he cares about her.
 
Next up, Roger calls Jane and asks her to show up at a dinner for Manischewitz.
In exchange, she wants him to buy her a new apartment.
 
We get a truth call-out, and we learn that Roger's been telling Jane fictional things she said when they took lsd, like swearing to always be there for him.
 
And we can see some pain coming from Jane.
Even though she's definitely about keeping score and getting hers, she's not light and free. Now that they're separated, she makes a dig about taking Joan to dinner instead of her.
And we never knew what she knew about that for sure.
 
She talks about having painful memories in the apartment. So she wasn't entirely using Roger for his money and influence when she married him.
 
Steve: That makes her more sympathetic as a character for me.
One thing I like about Roger is he - Roger knows when he's been beat.
 
And here when Jane kind of digs in on wanting a fresh start and a new life, and in order to do that, she needs a new place to live, he concedes the point fairly quickly. And his quip is that it's the most expensive dinner in history.
This is not a hill to die on.
 
He's so wealthy that he actually can't afford to do something like this, which again, I think speaks to just how privileged they both are.
 
 
Jenna: In Pete's office, we see Beth come in wearing a fur coat with very little underneath.
And this fantasy is that she saw Pete in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, and she was so impressed, she rushed right over to him.
Like, Betty, I know Pete is unhappy, but I wish he were a better human.
 
Steve: I wish his fantasy had him cleaning and dressing some rabbits that he had just killed in a cabin. But I guess, you know, as second best fantasy he can be in his office. And it's the perfect fantasy for Pete, right?
 
 
Jenna: Next up, we see Betty with Sally. Betty is sticking to her diet. She affirmed Henry. And now while Sally is working on her family tree, Betty discovers a note on one of Bobby's papers.
 
And this note, which is on the back of a smiling whale being stabbed by multiple arrows -
and I'm not looking to body shame Betty by a comparison to a stabbed, smiling whale, but I do feel like she puts on a face in the face of her misery, so there is something there.
And this note she finds is just the last stab she can take.
 
Don left this sweet note for Megan, and Betty's response is the most vicious bite of celery in the history of vegetables.
And if she stopped there, good for you, Betty.
But she doesn't.
 
Steve: Yeah, and I don't know, trying to defend Betty here a bit. Don never wrote these little notes to her. That wasn't their relationship.
It really hurts her. Hurts her more than the chic apartment in the city. Hurts her more than the thinner, younger wife.
 
And we know that Betty has idealized Don's life post divorce as well. So even when he was deep in his alcoholism and very, very lonely, she couldn't perceive that she thought he was living the life he'd always sought.
 
So at this low point, she weaponizes Sally here by mentioning that the family tree doesn't include Anna Draper.
And of course, Sally knows nothing about Anna.
 
And all Betty has done is teed it up and says, well, you should ask Megan about Anna Draper. So she's undermined Don in the eyes of her daughter because there's this secret that he's never shared with her,
and she's pulling Megan into the middle of it, when it really has nothing to do with Megan.  
 
I wonder if Betty thinks Megan may not even know that Anna existed, so she's trying to get Don in trouble with Megan as well.
 
Jenna: I agree: Betty thinks Megan doesn't know about Anna, and this is her squashing this love note business and trying to throw a wrench in, the way that the discovery of Don's past was so awful for Betty.
 
We don't know when or how Don told Megan, but after his birthday party, she referred to him as Dick Whitman, so she has details Betty had to pry out of a drawer.
 
Betty just wants to inflict damage, and she doesn't care if Sally suffers because of it. And you can see how curious and worried Sally's reaction is. And Betty's just chewing on her celery.
 
Steve: And it's one thing for Betty to, you know, wage this kind of warfare against Megan and Don, but the collateral damage here is Sally.
To use your daughter in your attempt to get back at your ex - it's an awful look for Betty.
 
 
Jenna: Next up, Ken and Harry are looking at the creative work for Sno Ball with the team,
and there are two ideas.
They deliberately don't say which idea came from which person.
 
And it's notable, I think, that Peggy doesn't try to sway the team toward one or the other.
If Pete knew which one was Don's, I think he would always choose that one.
But he ends up pointing at Ginsberg's, and he says, this one's funnier.
 
So they end up deciding to lead with Ginsberg's and take both options to the client.
The team decides to lead with Ginsberg’s and take both options, and there's no debating that that was the team decision.
 
Steve: Okay, but it isn't a democracy.
So I get it: the team clearly expressed their preference, and the preference was for Ginsberg's. But as we've seen in many, many other decisions and circumstances,
they're not all equal.
 
Don Draper is in charge, and he represents creative. And I think ultimately he has the managerial decision.
Now, if he wanted to go a different way, should he put his foot down there and clearly communicate it to the team at that time and place?
Yeah, maybe that would prevent a misunderstanding or whatever.
 
But does Don have the right and the privilege of deciding whether to present both or neither or whatever? I think he does that. That is his authority to do so.
He's the boss.
 
Jenna: Sure, he's a partner, but he wants to pretend this is about creative, and it isn't.
 
Steve: Agreed. Agreed. But who constitutes the team? So we've had all this friction between accounts and creative, all along when we've been told all along by creative that, well, they don't know anything, they're just account people, blah, blah, when it comes to the meritocracy of creative.
 
If that's the illusion that's being presented here, then that's down to Stan, Peggy, Michael, and Don Draper.
And then again, it is not a democracy. It is a hierarchy. And at the top of that pyramid is Don Draper.
 
Jenna: I know this is to the side of where we are, but for the record,
even though everybody likes Ginsberg's idea in the room,
and we're supposed to understand that he's a brilliant creative,
I personally dislike slapstick comedy. I don't think this is a super genius campaign.
I just think throwing a Sno Ball at somebody in the face is about the most basic juvenile humor ever.
 
But they do talk about it being a big laugh for kids.
And so for this particular product,
I accept it's an idea they all reasonably think will sell well to the client.
 
If we are going to argue on creative merits and brilliance,
it seems like kind of a low entry point into sophisticated advertising campaigns.
 
Steve: Which is an ironic lead-in, because the part that I liked about it was at the end of the scene where Ginsberg is gloating about the fact that his idea has dominated, Ginsberg quotes Ozymandias.
What makes it funny is that Stan tells him to read the rest of it,
because, yeah, it's about these great works, but it also talks about how they end up resulting in nothing. And it all goes away and you're left with nothing.
 
I just think that's the perfect response to Michael because he is getting a little full of himself now that his ideas seem to be carrying the day.
 
Jenna: Yes, his line is, look on my works, ye mighty, and despair, in the opening of the poem. But the whole thing is about the decay of power and ego.
So I'm kind of surprised that Stan has read that poem, to be honest, but -
 
Steve: Yeah, I think that's a bit of a stretch. I'm not sure Stan would be familiar with it.
I had the good fortune of going to Luxor, so I've been to the Ramesseum, which is where this poem is based, because it's kind of an erected temple and you've got the statues with the heads fallen off and the rest.
And it was a personal thrill to be in that place that inspired this famous poem and see it for myself. So I've always treasured that visit to the Ramesseum.
 
 
Jenna: Back at Megan's apartment, Sally's reading a book, and she's being really snotty to Megan.
When Megan asks what's going on, Sally asks about Anna,
and she feels betrayed that Megan's keeping secrets from her.
 
And of course she does. Her parents have been very loose with the truth over the years,
and now here's another adult she trusted who wasn't honest with her.
 
Steve: Yeah, and you know, Sally's in those difficult years where she's both child and adult. She's trying to figure out who she is, and she's surrounded by these flawed people who don't have the best track record.
 
I think the tragedy of this scene for me is I think Megan has really been a friend to Sally, and done about as much as one can do as a stepparent to support her and be there for her and build that connection.
So to have that undermined and burned down by Betty's little game, it's so tragic, because Sally deserves better than this.
 
And Megan's hurt by it, but Megan's an adult and will get through this. On the other side,
I think the damage for Sally is more profound and more enduring.
 
Jenna: Megan handles Sally's meanness pretty well.
It's hard to be a step-parent and know when to offer advice and discipline, and when to step back and defer to the original parents.
 
And I also think the insult Sally delivers is really perfect for her age. If you have ever worked with middle school students, it is a joy to be let into all the energy and growth and potential.
And it also means being a casualty of people who are - who are sometimes at their emotional limit.
 
So personalizing the, “Are you going to make yourself cry?” insult - taking something Sally and Megan did together and making it into something contemptible - that's so spot-on for how somebody Sally's age would target Megan.
 
Steve: And I think your point about Megan handling this very well is even more apropos because this is probably the first really vicious argument that the two of them have had.
So Megan doesn't have a track record of dealing with the teen.
 
I think Megan acquits herself about as well as she could hope here. But you can see Sally has scored hits here, and that's Sally's intention. And just that glare from her – again,
I think the acting is really spot on in this scene.
 
Jenna: Next we see Betty back at the Weight Watchers meeting.
She's discouraged about not losing weight, and the advisor is saying we should fill ourselves with our children, our homes, our husbands, instead of food.
 
And you can see Betty knowing she's supposed to be grateful for all she has, and she's still miserable.
So, like Jane, I have some pity for her, but I'm tired of her misery, too.
 
Steve: Yeah. And I think this is her fatal flaw, isn't it? She just doesn't take the advice of society or the expectations and the norms and run them through her own personal filter and find her truth.
She chases what she's told to chase and she has issues and struggles to get there.
 
That's such a trap and she just can't get out of it. It's a plastic cage that she's allowed to be built around herself. There's a bit of vindictiveness, I think, as I see her struggle with it and think, you deserve this, because you haven't extended some of that grace and kindness to the people dear, who should be dearest in your life, like your own daughter.
 
 
Jenna: Obviously, Don is not happy when he finds out Betty told Sally about Anna, or that Megan said anything about Anna to Sally. We've seen him like this a lot in the second and third seasons, but Megan talks him down and Sally overhears.
 
Megan is 100% right. She says, if you call Betty, you're giving her the thrill of having poisoned us from 50 miles away.
And that's exactly what Betty wanted.
 
Betty keeps letting Don's actions seep in and poison her relationship. But Megan is helping Don keep a firewall around theirs.
 
Steve: And Megan was totally put on the spot, did the best she could, I think. Handled it about as well as anyone could hope, so this anger we're seeing of Don towards Megan in the moment is totally unwarranted.
 
It's a painful scene, and I think if Betty could have spectated it in some way, she would have been thrilled with the first part of it, and then probably doubly miserable by the back half of it - one of those rare Don Draper apologies.
 
Jenna: I actually wrote two exclamation points after the word “apology” in my notes for the scene, because it's so rare that Don does that sincerely.
 
Steve: And it feels like a sincere apology, too, right. Like he sees how he flew off and let his emotions run away. And an apology like that is worth so much more than just mouthing the words because you're supposed to.
I think he truly is apologetic.
 
Jenna: And it’s so believable Sally would listen to get more information,
real information.
And you know she isn't going to be happy that Megan told Don about it, because she wanted Megan to keep that a secret.
But you don't know yet exactly how she's taking in this information and what she thinks about it.
 
 
Steve: Yeah. And I kind of love that about the scene because again, Sally is both child and adult at the same time.
 
 
Jenna: At the office, Peggy is working late, and Ginsberg comes in, hoping to work on Manischewitz in secret, but totally spilling the details instantly to Peggy.
And Peggy is jealous that Roger went to Ginsberg instead of her.
Did you think that envy seemed justified on her part?
 
Steve: Given how hard she's had to work for what she has, his gloating and arrogance, I think, about his successes in such a short period of time probably rubs her the wrong way.
And then again, she's done such great work in the past, and especially for Roger.
 
The fact that he didn't come to her - and she doesn't know the Jewish angle here at all.
I don't think Roger gave it a second thought.
 
 
Jenna: The next morning, Don wakes to a phone call from Pete.
The New York Times article came out, and they were not included.
And we know this was part of Pete's fantasy about Beth.
 
And I think he hoped Don would share in his misery, but there's nothing Don can do about this. And he gets irritable, and he ends up hanging up again.
It's just not great mentoring to bark, “Don't throw your failures in my face.”
 
But it is another example of Pete looking to Don to be his friend, and he just refuses to be.
 
Steve: Well, and Pete is the guy who earlier, at the prospect of being in the article and being one of the hip firms, was so happy that they didn't even need to talk to Don Draper. They were going to interview him.
 
But when it goes bad and he's excluded, then suddenly it's like, well, let's commiserate together, Don, about, you know, not being in this article.
 
I like the fact he kind of shuts down Pete and hangs up on him, although you can see him pull out the article and start looking through it to see what is in it.
So his lack of interest perhaps is - isn't exactly what he's portrayed it, at least to Pete's face.
 
Jenna: There was a real article in the New York Times on November 20, 1966, about advertisers as philosophers. We'll link to it on our website for this episode page.
In the real article, the part that Pete says is “the kicker on page 170,” it's somebody saying “most of the ad business stinks.”
 
Next up, Don confronts Sally.
He isn't totally honest about Anna. Shocker.
But he does take responsibility for the misunderstanding, and he tells her an abbreviated version.
 
And when Sally connects Anna to the house in California, Don admits that's true.
Do you feel like Don would have been a better parent if he had told Sally more of the truth?
 
Steve: You know, Don leads off with telling her that she's a little girl.
Sally doesn't want to be a little girl.
And there's a lot of aspects of Sally that aren't really little girlish at this point.
And Don seems to be lagging and not really catching up to the realities of her ability to think and observe and understand things.
 
So by underestimating her, I think he diminishes the information he gives her and her ability to handle it.
And just like having told the truth to Megan previously inoculated Megan from this surprise of Anna Draper, yeah, you should tell the truth for ethical reasons and all the rest. But I think it serves a great practical purpose here with her daughter, especially in a circumstance where Betty seems to be trying to weaponize Sally against them.
 
The part that hurts me here is where Don reciprocates that weaponization when he says directly to Sally that her mother doesn't care about her, she just wants to hurt Megan and Don.
That may be true in this circumstance, but I wish he didn't say that to his daughter, because Betty is her mother, will always be her mother.
 
Jenna: For me, I don't know if it would make the most sense to tell Sally every single detail, but the timing matters.
Telling Sally sooner about him, that's important.
This is an important part of Don, and the story should come from him.
And he put that off so he could still be a hero to her.
 
We hit Betty for thinking only about her image.
But Don, whether he's - whether Don is pretending to be apathetic to Pete about bad news, or pretending to be perfect to his daughter and his wife, and whoever else he wants to impress, he's very much about image, too.
 
Steve: Yeah. And in her commentary, Erin Levy mentions that there's a shift in the way Sally talks to Don.
And I think this, in this particular scene, we really see that Don is trying to dumb this down and talk down to her as a child.
And I think Sally is the one who forces it up to say, no, no, I can understand this, and you're going to have to give me more substance here.
 
I love at the end of the scene when Don says, an adult would apologize to Megan.
And I think that's a great read on this.
And now he's set up one of the things that I think makes an adult, right, taking responsibility, taking ownership, and doing the right thing.
 
 
Jenna: Next, Peggy and Roger are in the elevator together, and Peggy makes her displeasure known. Why didn't Roger ask her to do the Manischewitz work instead of Ginsberg?
 
And when Roger says it's because Ginsberg is Jewish, that offends Peggy, because as a professional, she writes for all kinds of audiences and products. And she points out she did great work on Mohawk without being an airplane.
 
Then Roger says, were we married?
And then he laments not having an executive elevator. [Laughing]
 
Steve: I also like the generation split here again, right. Peggy's bought into this young generation with these aspirations for, you know, a color-blind society, and a society where antisemitism isn't, you know, as prevalent, et cetera, et cetera.
 
And Roger's much more sort of mission-focused. And if he's courting a Jewish client, he's going to roll out the Jewish cards and play as many as he can as a way of differentiating himself from other firms that perhaps can't.
It's a very sort of mercenary conversation, I think, from Roger's standpoint, but I don't think it is from Peggy's.
 
And when Roger wraps up with it's every man for himself, it's not the best example of executive leadership.
 
Jenna: It's interesting she feels so free to express her displeasure directly to him, because she doesn't report to him, and he is a full partner.
It does seem a little ballsy of Peggy to come at him this way.
 
Steve: Perhaps. But I think it's also indicative of the powerlessness of Roger Sterling.
Roger can't fire Peggy. If he tried it, he'd have to go through Don.
 
 
Jenna: On the way to the Sno Ball pitch, Don deliberately leaves Ginsberg's campaign in the cab. Talk about low moments. This is just embarrassing for him.
 
Steve: Yeah, I mean, this is the managerial decision that's taken here.
He can hide behind the fig leaf that, you know, he does tend to avoid coming in with two campaigns. But I think we've covered how much he's personally invested in his idea, carrying the day here and winning the business.
 
Jenna: If he changed his mind and only wanted to take one idea, and he wanted to take his idea, he could still have brought both campaigns into the room.
This ensures Ginsberg's idea will not be sold.
 
It's not best for business. There's no way you can claim that. This is clearly serving Don's ego.
 
 
Steve: Speaking of egos, back at the Francis residence,
Betty calls Sally into the kitchen to congratulate her on getting an A on her family tree.
And Sally knows exactly where Betty's coming from, knows exactly what Betty wants to hear.
And now it's Sally's turn to reciprocate the manipulation.
And she will not give Betty the satisfaction.
 
Jenna: I don't think anybody watching the first time would predict what Sally does here, but it is kind of the perfect response.
Sally lies to Betty. She says Megan told her the same information that they looked at pictures. They spoke fondly of her.
 
Betty keeps the mask on really well in front of Sally,
but she wanted to rip a hole in the space time continuum.
She didn't want to hear about a family picture session.
So when Sally leaves, she knocks something off the table and just stews. Alone.
 
And anger and bitterness are lonely. Right? They're terrible companions. And that's what Betty's left with.
 
Steve: Yeah. And I kind of like the frontier justice here. You know, these teens can be mean in both directions.
She knows darn well this is going to drive her mother crazy,
and she does it anyway.
Because I think Sally probably resents being manipulated and weaponized the other direction.
So now it's boomeranged back around on her,
and I don't have a lot of sympathy for her character in this lonely moment, as you point out.
 
 
Jenna: Next, Roger and Jane are at the dinner for Manischewitz.
Roger shares Ginsberg's campaign idea.
He compliments Jane, and then the younger son of the client shows up.
He says he'll split chateaubriand, which is a steak served for two,
and Jane is up for that.
And there's a really cutting line when Roger says, “I thought you liked the crab rangoon.” And Jane says, “I just had some.” [Laughing]
 
So Jane won't be lonely very long.
 
Steve: It's a great scene too, because we see Roger trying to get the Manischewitz patriarch on his side. Bringing Jane along has worked perfectly, but there's a price to pay for Roger here as well.
And I think he's got to feel a little jilted by the fact that there's this younger, more handsome man who's, who's got the eye of his wife.
So he's, he's going to get the business, it looks like, but he's paying a personal price for it.
 
 
Jenna: Back at the office, the creative team finds out they sold the Sno Ball pitch, the one with the devil.
Ginsberg is disappointed, and when he finds out they didn't even present it,
he's livid.
And Peggy, who I think would normally be bothered by the injustice,
seems a little bit satisfied to see Ginsberg unhappy, since he got Roger's secret account and she didn't.
 
Steve: Yeah, absolutely. I think Peggy shows a little schadenfreude. Ginsberg has been gloating, has been puffing himself up around there, so it makes sense to me that his fellow creatives are not exactly upset that he's, he's taken a little stumble here.
 
Jenna: In the cab on the way back from the dinner, Roger convinces Jane to show him her new apartment, and they end up having sex.
And I'm slightly surprised by this, because Roger was so happy to be free of her. But in an episode that's all about people being jealous, it makes sense that seeing the younger guy's interest in Jane makes him a little more interested in her again.
And she is gorgeous.
 
Steve: Yeah, she's so gorgeous in these scenes.
And then the following scene, the next morning, and she seems hesitant to get involved. And this interaction isn't purely physical or an escape. There is some sentiment here that is going to affect both of them.
 
Jenna: And if Jane didn't care about Roger at all, it would be so much easier. But she really did have feelings for him. So even though they both know better, but she slips.
This is something she's lost, and, you know, it feels like she can grab a piece of it one more time.
 
 
Steve: And speaking of conditional morality,
the next scene cuts to Pete on the train, chatting with Howard, and Howard's blabbing on about spending time with his girlfriend in the city, and being trapped with his family in the suburbs.
 
Pete can be so judgy, even as he gets so offended when others judge him. He's had an affair with this guy's wife, and now he's judging the fact that this guy doesn't respect his own wife.
And Howard makes a comment about, I guess the grass is always greener in response to Pete's response, a provocative remark that maybe he'll go to Howard's house and screw his wife. It's a perfect Pete moment.
 
Jenna: I feel like the fandom should throw a little more disgust Howard's way, when we're all hating on Greg and Lou, for what it's worth.
 
You can't miss Howard talking about being trapped with his family for Thanksgiving. And Pete is so disgusted on Beth's behalf. And Pete feels trapped by his family, too.
 
Steve: Maybe Howard should go to Trudy's place,
and then Pete will go and spend Thanksgiving. Maybe that's what it is.
We're advocating for wife swapping here.
I'm surprised that you are, but, you know, your point’s heard.
 
Jenna: That's another podcast.
 
Steve: I'll talk to you later, Gerald.
[Laughing]
 
Back at the firm, Ginsberg's in the elevator with Don Draper.
I love this scene because we know Michael is a loose cannon,
and now he's going to take a run at the king.
 
Jenna: It bothers me that the two most famous Don Draper memes are used so widely to express insults out of context.
And we talked about the first one in The Suitcase, when Don tells Peggy, That's what the money's for!” so it's easy to grab it and laugh, but really, she has a valid complaint against him.
 
And here with Ginsberg, Don is a liar and a cheat:
“I feel sorry for you.”
“I don't think about you at all.”
He does think about Ginsberg. He thinks about him so much, he'll spend an evening away from his family looking through his sketches.
He'll spend team meetings trying to make colleagues prefer his idea,
even if his idea is not the best one.
 
So we can say “I don't think about you at all” and laugh at what a great throwaway line it is.
And we don't want him to crumple, he's our lead and everything,
but the truth is that Ginsberg is right to pity him.
Ginsberg has a million ideas, and Don had to cheat to win this round.
 
Steve: What I'll say is, I think Don's comments are designed not to reveal anything to Ginsberg and not to show Ginsberg that he is scoring, he is landing punches here.
 
And to me it really parallels the earlier conversation where Sally does that with Betty and denies Betty the satisfaction of feeling like her little plan has worked.
 
Like you mentioned, Don's untruths and presentation are designed to show like water off a duck's back. And he doesn't think about Ginsberg and it's just Don running his creative department the way he wants to.
 
We know that's not true. It's only as Don walks down the hallway and we can see the fake face replaced by the less happy, less content face.
 
Jenna: It's ick on Don Draper's face. You can see it clearly as he walks away from Ginsberg.
He knows he did him dirty and and he's ashamed, and he should be.
 
 
In the next scene, Roger and Jane are having a morning after in her new apartment.
And once again he's cheerful and she's teary that this happened. What did you think about Jane's reaction here?
 
Steve: I'm of two minds on it, because I think there's this privileged, spoiled brat aspect of oh, I want to start a new life and having a new apartment to start my new life.
 
But I also have this emotional sympathy for her in that she's trying to separate from Roger and we know that she had real feelings for him, and she's hurting from this breakup.
I think there is a point to it that it serves to sully this possible new start and break with the past.
 
And I think as she confronts Roger with it,
his reaction, you know, he doesn't dismiss it and concedes that it really was an awful thing to do and he feels terrible about it.
 
Jenna: I was very surprised by Roger owning that or receiving that and acknowledging it from her. I didn't expect that from him.
 
Steve: He's so slippery and he's so quick witted that I think it would be very easy for him to deny it.
I think to own it in the moment and be honest and admit it.
I think this is Roger Sterling at his best, ironically, several hours after, perhaps he was something far less than his best.
 
Jenna: In an episode when Mona has that great line about I thought you left me because I got old, but it was because you did.
Roger's response to that is, well, I haven't had a coronary since.
 
So even though Mona dumped a really big truth on him, he quipped back. So to your point, the fact that he doesn't to Jane, it's a new look for him.
 
I might sound vaguely unhinged by this comparison, but I'm gonna make it anyway.
If you've ever gotten a brand new journal and you have the special markers and it's pristine and it's full of possibility,
and then maybe you write something stupid and you regret it,
or you think of a brilliant way to format your writing a couple weeks after you started, and you can change it going forward, but you're just going to know there's that part in there that's wrong - I relate to that.
 
I get Jane's need to start over and have a place Roger hasn't touched, so it just belongs to her and it's perfect and clean and at the same time he's paying for the apartment.
So it isn't a totally fresh start.
 
And it is hard to feel sorry for Jane.
She has a Manhattan apartment, and remember that time she told Joan she gets a nosebleed anywhere above 86th Street? I mean, I think we can assume she's going to get through this.
 
Steve: He'll just have to keep buying her apartments until she can get over it.
 
 
Jenna: Next we see Megan preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. It turns out Julia got the soap opera part, and you can see Megan is jealous about it.
And when Don starts to open the sliding glass door, Megan says, there's a smog emergency with toxic air.
I don't want that in here, she says.
 
So just like she doesn't want any of Betty's poison,
she doesn't want any of the work toxicity.
They're going to shut out what they can to hang on to their happiness together.
 
 
Steve: And then we cut to the final scene of the episode, where we've got Henry carving the perfect turkey, and we have Bobby and Sally talking about what they're grateful for. And Betty says that she's grateful that she has everything she wants.
 
It's a painful moment, and knowing just how fortunate Betty is in her life and how much there is to be thankful for, this focus on what it's lacking just emphasizes the theme of the episode where this jealousy is so radioactive, and infects not just those who feel the jealousy,
but also those who are then subjected to it when we behave badly.
 
Jenna: I'm so embarrassed for Betty. I actually think about this comment every Thanksgiving.
I think it's supposed to be her recommitting to her life and her happiness, and she just can't let go of comparing herself to say, I'm thankful that I have everything I want, and that no one has anything better.
It feels like something Regina George would put on a T shirt, not something you say in front of your children at Thanksgiving.
 
Steve: Well, and it's just, I think back to her, her fatal flaw here, right, is she's not looking in herself and defining for her what it is she wants.
She's someone I think has the potential to be very happy, but she's not going to let herself.
 
 
Jenna: The closing song, Sweepin’ the Clouds Away is from 1930.
The lyrics talk about not feeling down and being a determined optimist.
 
We saw so much envy in this episode from almost every character and it's not a charming look on anybody, but we can see how hard it is to turn around sometimes.
 
 
Our listener shout out today goes to Jeff from Melbourne, Australia.
Thank you so much for your positive feedback through our website. We really appreciate your comments.

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Steve: That's it for this episode of All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou. Visit our website, Mad Men C to Z dot com, to vote for your favorite Sterling Lines, and to share your opinions on our Double Dip questions for each episode.
 
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Steve: Thanks for listening, everybody.

Mad Men C to Z S5 E8 Lady Lazarus Transcript
 
Jenna: Hi, I'm Jenna.
 
Steve: And I'm Steve. Welcome to All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou.
 
Jenna: There's so much to love about this amazing show, and we're happy to connect to fans like us who discover new things with each re-watch.
 
Steve: Be advised, while we aren't gratuitous with spoilers, they can pop up as we discuss character arcs through the final season.
Let's get started with Mad Men, C to Z.
 
Jenna: This is Mad Men C to Z, Season 5, Episode 8: Lady Lazarus.
This episode was written by Matthew Weiner and directed by Phil Abraham.
Lady Lazarus, of course, is the title of a Sylvia Plath poem about a woman who wants to live and die on her own terms.
And like the biblical story of Lazarus coming back from the dead, in this episode we see Megan starting over.
 
The episode opens, though, with Pete on the train with his buddy Howard, the insurance salesman, and Pete lets Howard make him an insurance pitch.

 
Steve: They know each other from the commute, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of real friendship here between them. You know, they're sort of commuting pals who sit near each other and maybe have a little small talk on the train.
 
Jenna: Yes, I appreciate that, too, because these people really figure in our lives, right? They're people we come in contact with on a regular basis, but they're not people we would choose, necessarily.
 
Steve: And Howard is sharing with Pete some pretty intimate details of his wife. Like, Howard makes no bones about admitting that he has a new mistress in the city.
He's got her an apartment, he looks after his wife here in the burbs, and then he spends plenty of time away in the city living the life. And he doesn't seem to have any shame about this life.
 
Jenna: No, he's so gleefully rude about his infidelity. I was really - even in this era, I was surprised.
This attitude Howard is showing here gives Pete permission not to feel guilty about Beth later, even though we haven't met her yet.
 
Pete asks, well, what does your wife think about having an apartment in the city?
And Howard says, she's happy I provide for her. And we're going to learn soon that nothing about Beth is happy. So, yeah, we don't love Howard.
 
Steve: Pete gives him permission to make his pitch. But we also see that Pete is a little uninformed. He thinks the company life insurance policy covers him, which is not what it's for.
Company life insurance policies on executives or partners at a company are meant to indemnify the company from damages suffered if they were to lose this individual, this executive.
 
So Howard knows that that's his angle then,
to go at Pete to say you actually don't have life insurance and your family actually isn't going to be looked after in the event of something happening to you.
 
Jenna: Yes. And we get close to a truth call-out as Howard is speculating about Pete's policy.
And Pete says, I don't think you're right about that.
But then he also, Pete brags here about how his policy covers suicide after two years.
Kind of a weird flex.
 
But I think this is important - this is an important detail and foreshadowing. And we've seen these references to suicide throughout the season. So here's another one, and it just keeps coming up. And of course, with this episode title being Lady Lazarus and Sylvia Plath, the poet, dying by suicide, there's just a lot here, even in the very first scene, about that.
 
Steve: Also, we should point out Pete doesn't seem to be especially approving of Howard's life. You know, he asks if he's worried he'll be caught near the end of the scene, and the look on Pete's face is pretty sour and disapproving.
 
 
Jenna: In the next scene, we see Megan taking a mysterious phone call that she obviously wants to keep secret from Don.
I don't think I ever believe this could be an affair, but we also don't ever really get to see Megan's life outside of Don or Peggy and work. You know, we don't follow her for a day, so we're not sure what she does in her free time outside of her marriage to Don and her workday.
So it's hard to make a guess about what this could be.
 
Steve: Yeah. I think the makers of the series, though, are very clearly trying to insinuate that Megan is having some sort of illicit affair. Like, that's where the mind jumps on the first watch.
 
Jenna: Is that what you thought, though? Did you believe that of her?
 
Steve: In the absence of anything else? Yeah, I think I jumped there.
 
Jenna: Okay. I mean, it is kind of a traditional expectation.
 
Steve: So it's just playing the odds because you're right - it could be a million things.
 
Jenna: So as Megan goes to make her secret phone call through the glass, we can see Ginsberg making a presentation to the Chevalier Blanc clients.
 
The ad idea is a play on the 1964 Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night, and that is a movie about a fictional day and the life story of the Beatles. So they're attracting a lot of fame and fans, and the tagline for the commercial is: Chevalier Blanc - more trouble than it's worth.
 
And Ginsberg compares the end of the spot to the end of The Birds, Hitchcock's 1963 horror film.
So, like, the horde of girls are just that threatening.
 
Steve: It's clear here that the clients want to tap into this hip new culture, so they're really focused on, you know, what kind of music would it be? It needs to bring chaos and fun, and that adolescent joy, all these things that they associate with the Beatles.
 
After the clients leave, we can see how detached Don is from that.
He's very much of a prior generation, and although he's cognizant that there is this youth culture going on, I think it's obvious Don perceives himself as outside of it, and he's really not up to speed. He's looking to Stan and Michael to be the lead on the music, since they're young and presumably hip.
 
Jenna: Except he doesn't trust them to choose the music, because he decides he's going to just tell the team he'll ask Megan what song and what band, and he says, she'll know.
 
And nobody on the team appreciates that all that much. But what a shift that Don puts trust in Megan like that, because he's leaning on her professional and her creative knowledge.
 
Ever since Heinz, he saw Megan differently.
So she wasn't just his second chance to save himself and pretend his way into a happy life - now Megan is actually useful at the firm, and I think that surprised him to discover that about her.
 
Steve: In his commentary, Matthew Weiner talks about how advertising is on a bit of a treadmill. It's always struggling to keep up with what's hip and cool.
However, once advertising gets what's hip and cool in its clutches,
that's probably the death knell for whatever was hip and cool and something new is now coming in to replace it that hasn't been embraced by the mainstream and commercialized to that extent.
 
Jenna: I also wanted to make a brief point going back to this line . . . the client says, all we want is the chaos and fun, that adolescent joy.
And you talked about Don not feeling that or being separate from it.
But Roger and Pete also have been lamenting what they've lost as time passes,
even though all of them have a lot to appreciate. So I just thought it was such a funny line.
 
And also, I mean, I think Roger should put chaos and joy on a T shirt and maybe, maybe adolescent joy should go on his business cards because it's kind of his mantra now.
 
Steve: It's a rough time to be getting older in this period of the mid to late 60s, because that break with the past is just so profound. It reminds me of that Rolling Stones lyric from Mother's Little Helper:
What a drag it is getting old.
Or even The Who’s My Generation: Hope I die before I get old.
 
Pete, Roger, and Don are all facing that dynamic. And the irony is, recently we've seen Roger,
since his acid trip, basically do much better with it because he seems to have let go a lot of his lamenting and looking backwards and really seems to be starting to live in the moment and embrace the present in a much more positive way.
 
Jenna: And that's a great segue into the next scene,
because I feel like this scene between Roger and Pete almost seems like a throwaway bit, but it does two really important things.
 
First, we've seen Roger begrudge Pete for edging him out of the business.
And here in the scene, as you say, after his LSD trip and splitting up with Jane,
it feels like Roger is genuinely more accepting of the fact that Pete's star is on the rise and his is fading.
 
And Pete, of course, is suspicious of Roger being so easygoing and generous to him. So I love when Roger offers him skis from a client and Pete goes, do they explode or something?
 
Steve: Yeah, I think Vincent Kartheiser does a great job of showing exactly that hesitation and suspicion of sort of, what is Roger up to? What's the catch here?
And as he realizes there really is no catch then he lightens up and his mood brightens.
Pete's arriving, I think, and we can see how happy that makes him, at least professionally.
 
Jenna: He is arriving, but in this scene, I don't see him made happy by it.
He's awkwardly hauling the skis out, which is great because Roger goes, I got to see that.
 
But the skis aren't making him happy. And the client asking for him and Roger knowing about it doesn't make him happy. None of this is enough.
 
And that's striking because you're right. In the past,
Pete is very happy to be the favorite and to be the most successful in the room,
but that's the important business here.
 
If you look at his face, he isn't smarmy and showing off in front of Roger.
It's not the dream he wanted.
 
Steve: Yeah, it seems to be almost this careful what you wish for - you might get it.
And now he's finally getting to hold it in his hands.
And, yeah, you're right there - it doesn't seem to be everything he imagined it would be.
The next question is, okay, then, what is it you're seeking? And I'm not sure he knows the answer to that.
 
 
Jenna: In our next scene, Megan and Don have a quick conversation. He's leaving for a client dinner, and she says she's staying at work.
And Don asks her, when did music become so important?
Everybody's looking for that one song. I don't know what's out there.
And Don seems a lot less cool than he has been to ask this. I mean, no judgment. I certainly feel out of touch now.
 
It might be a giveaway about Don growing up poor. But my grandmother lived through the Depression and World War II, and she talked about going to dances and big band music, and there's so much 50s rock and roll. So I understand Dick Whitman wouldn't have listened to music as a child where he grew up, but surely he'd find his way to it before now, especially in New York.
 
So this seems really out of touch for him, especially as an artistic person, to not have a connection to music or understand its importance.
 
Steve: I think it's hard for us in modern times to just grasp how much more limited your access was to music back in the day.
A lot of music was very limited to sort of this top 10 of, you know, these are the 10 popular songs across the country. They're constantly changing.
 
Even the idea of, you know, concept albums. And we'll see later in this episode when Revolver comes into to play . . . if you contrast it to today, where, you know, everybody's got earbuds and they're listening to what they want to listen to – they have infinite selection - it's hard to grasp just how much more restrained music was, even though it's causing these massive scenes, you know, like the popularity of Elvis, or when the Beatles came and did their concerts or on the Ed Sullivan show, it's really breaking into a newness and a dominance.
You know, the notion that Mick Jagger would still be dancing around in his 80s was ridiculous.
 
Jenna: It's interesting, too, that Megan is so much more comfortable with the ambiguity about music, because she says, it's always changing. No one can keep up.
 
And she's young and Don isn't.
Also, this really is helping us see Megan has capacity for change in a way that's starting to narrow for Don, and that's important in this episode.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think the writing is really trying to emphasize that age gap between the two of them. It's not just the age. It is the profound difference in the generations.
 
Jenna: So Don has taken off for his client dinner. Peggy's working in the creative lounge, and she sees Megan come out in a new dress. It's different from what she wore to work.
And I actually love this moment here because it tells an important story.
 
Peggy loves staying late and getting her work exactly right.
So Megan is checking in about some this project,
and she says, they're exactly the way you dictated them to me.
 
And Peggy isn't blaming Megan. She's just enjoying the problem of improving the work.
If Megan sat down and wanted to brainstorm how to take the work from a 7.5 to a 7.9, Peggy would love that conversation with her.
But Megan did the work. The 7.5 is good enough, and she's not going to lose sleep over it.
 
And I love that Peggy giggles at herself about it. She knows she's in her head.
She's not looking at Megan like she's a slacker because she's ready to leave. She knows she's a little intense about it, and she laughs.
 
And she also leans into her intensity about work. And I think that's a really kind thing to Megan, and a really self aware thing for Peggy and also a very confident thing to say, this is important to me. I'm staying late, I'm going to get it just right and have that satisfaction.
And we've talked about the cost for Peggy of being that way.
 
Steve: She's the earlier version of Don Draper. That's exactly what Don Draper would do, except it's okay if he comes home late or doesn't go out to the burbs because he can go to his mistress in the city.
But, you know, back when Don was focused on the work, he's the kind of guy who would like, you say, try and take it from a 7.5 to a 7.9 by working late.
And that's where Peggy is now. So it's interesting to see this parallel. You know, she really is his protege in so many ways.
 
 
Jenna: Later that night, we see Pete getting off the train and he heads to his car with his skis awkwardly again. And here he meets Howard's wife.
Beth Dawes is played by Alexis Bledel, who was Rory Gilmore on the Gilmore Girls,
and she later married Vincent Kartheiser, who plays Pete Campbell, and they met on the Mad Men set.
You may also recognize Alexis Bledel from The Handmaid's Tale, where she starred with Elizabeth Moss, actually. She also had performances in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and in Sin City.
 
Pete doesn't really want to have anything to do with Beth at first.
He knows Howard's secret. It becomes immediately clear that she not only knows, but she knows Pete knows.
And almost everything Beth says is sad and unusually honest.
 
Steve: He's a Dyckman Campbell, so he's doing all the right small talk and ensuring he doesn't reveal any of Howard's confidences.
But through all of that, Beth is speaking her truth.
We can see this makes Pete uncomfortable. He'd be much more comfortable if she just stuck to the social graces. And she just doesn't have any of that gloss on her.
 
Jenna: No. And there's nothing romantic or insidious on Pete's side. As he's driving her home,
she talks about homeless people becoming invisible.
And she says, “I never heard your name, yet you know where he is, and I don't” about her husband.
 
And she tells Pete he's an awful driver. And I would think all of these things, or any one of these things individually would make Pete really detached from her.
 
But I think Pete is so lonely and sad himself that even though this isn't proper conversation, I feel like it's a relief to him to find somebody else who's struggling and lost.
In spite of himself. he seems a little bit intrigued.
 
Steve: Well, and the irony is even greater, because if Howard really was working late or entertaining clients or something, you know, that would be sad that Pete knows that that's what he's doing and Beth doesn't.
In this conversation, she's sharing what verges on intimate details of the pain or dysfunction in her relationship with Howard.
 
Jenna: Yes. And the tragedy of her marriage is actually in this conversation when she says,
we got an apartment in the city, and then she kind of laughs under the word “we” because it's not for her.
And she knows exactly what he's using it for. It's really sad.
 
And the fact that she's saying this to Pete is really awkward because they just met.
But at the same time, he does know, and she knows he knows this. This is weird bro code, but it's so bad that she might as well just talk about it, because the truth of it is so painful.
 
Anyway, what does it matter if Pete knows how terrible it is, because she's in a really bad place. We're going to find out more about that, but the misery starts right here.
 
Steve: Well, and this is such a recurring theme of Mad Men, right? It's this putting on airs, these masks that people wear because they understand that's the societal expectation or that's what people do, when the messy reality behind the mask is so different.
 
I don't think Beth has any illusions about the status of her marriage and what Howard's up to.
And I also don't get the sense that she's saying any of this to manipulate him or she has any designs.
 
 
Jenna: Back at the office, where Peggy's still working late,
Don's gotten home from his client dinner and he calls the office to find out where Megan is.
 
So now Peggy knows Megan lied to her because she isn't with Don.
And I love Peggy's stream of consciousness about where Megan could be until she realizes mid sentence it's not her job to solve this problem.
 
And I love that when Peggy asks, isn't she with you? Don goes, “Yes, we're playing a hilarious joke on you.” It's so perfectly impatient.
And it's much more interesting than no other shows would just write “no.”
 
Even here in this tiny little moment about the discovery of this lie, which is very important,
we get character definition.
 
Steve: And I think as Peggy clues into the fact that something's going on,
she simultaneously gets a flash of the danger warning. You do not gonna get in between your direct report, Megan and your boss, Don, and whatever's going on in their relationship.
 
 
Jenna: So Pete pulls up to Beth and Howard's house, and as Beth gets out of the car,
she says, “I don't think he'd care if I was alive or dead.”
And we talked about references to suicide this season.
Pete follows Beth here. He's concerned about how she's speaking.
 
And I really, I don't think he has anything illicit in mind when he follows her inside the house.
And when she kisses him, he stops her and he says,
“You just want to get back at him.”
So that's admitting Howard has been cheating,
but he's also, I think, genuinely concerned for her.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think he is too. When do you think Beth decides that she's going to throw herself at him?
 
Jenna: I think the fact that he follows her in the house and expresses any kind of care,
which makes her really lonely and tragic, because that level of attention is enough to feel like maybe this is something that will ease her pain.
 
But I don't get the sense that it happens in the car.
So I think it's just a spur of the moment decision. He happens to be in the house, he happens to be available to her, and maybe for a little bit, she can feel better.
 
Steve: Yeah, that's my vibe too. I don't think she had designs on him at all. I think it is just a physical diversion in the moment.
 
Jenna: The next scene is such a favorite, and it's really short, and I don't know that we have to have it, but I'm so glad it stayed in.
Peggy's still at the office. The phone rings again.
She knows it's Don calling, but she doesn't know where Megan is. She doesn't want to be in the middle of that.
 
So she picks up the phone. And when Don says hello, Peggy screams, “Pizza house!”
She screams it into the phone, and she hangs up.
And then she looks at the phone like, “I carried a watermelon?” because what was this plan?
Show me the person who hasn't made a stupid choice in an uncomfortable situation. I mean, that person is much cooler than I am. I love Peggy for this.
 
Steve: Yeah, she bungles the phone call, but she gets it right when it rings again afterwards,
you don't pick up the phone because nothing good is going to come out of that call. Stay out of it, Peggy.
 
Jenna: And she knows he's going to keep calling,
so she takes a drink, she turns out the light, and she goes home so she doesn't have to listen to the phone ring. She doesn't have to have this intrude on her any more than it has.
She's trying to keep that professional separation.
 
Steve: Back at Beth and Howard's house, Pete looks like he's in seventh heaven.
It's quite a difference when we see Beth.
She's not in the same place as Pete. And to me, it suggests that this was a fundamentally different encounter for each of them.
 
Jenna: I agree.
When Pete and Beth are lying on the floor, he looks happy and comfortable for the first time this entire episode.
And Beth's words are revealing she's not well.
She says men pay attention to how she looks, but they don't listen.
 
And she talks about the pictures of the Earth from space.
She says, “It didn't bother you to see the Earth tiny and unprotected and surrounded by darkness?”
And this absolutely reveals how vulnerable she sees the planet and her life.
And Pete is all bliss here. He's ready to take compliments about his eyes, and she's ready to kick him out.
 
Steve: And she really initiates and drives that sort of, it's over, you know. Get dressed. Time for you to go. I'm not looking for anything more than this. This was just a little escape.
 
And I think Pete's hopes are much higher, that this is the beginning of something bigger, something that makes him feel good about himself.
And that's clearly not on her agenda at all.
 
Jenna: It's kind of a weird encounter, because I don't quite believe Pete would have fallen for her this strongly already.
And I'm also surprised that she uses him in this way and she's so cavalier about it and is done with him.
 
Steve: Well, and I think Pete probably interpreted her need as a sign of her own vulnerability.
But the irony is, after the act, he's the one who seems vulnerable.
You know, that's an interesting flip, I think, from what at least Pete was expecting this to be about.
 
And then when he's in the car outside, you know, fixes his hair, then we see the first sort of glimmer that he's now thinking about the implications of what he just did and feeling some guilt.
 
Jenna: He looks sick when he catches himself in the mirror. This is a different kind of betrayal than when they took the Jaguar client out for a good time.
He really feels something here with Beth.
Already going home to Trudy after this, he knows how bad this is.
 
Steve: Back at the Draper residence, Megan finally gets in.
Megan says that she just went out for a drink with friends.
Don seems to accept it with no problems. He's not suspicious.
You don't get the vibe that he has any concerns or skepticism about Megan's explanation.
 
Jenna: And it's important that all is well with Don now.
Megan's here. She is the thing he needs.
And that's a new thing for him, at least for this long in a relationship. He's been the one coming home late with a lie for so long.
 
Steve: Yeah, you'd think if anybody was going to be a little jumpy about that or paranoid, wouldn't it be Don Draper just knowing his own history?
 
Jenna: Or maybe it makes sense, because you know how sometimes smart people think they're the only smart people in the room?
Maybe Don is so deceptive, he thinks he's the only liar in the room who can get away with things. And he doesn't suspect other people, especially people he loves, of being able to trick him.
 
Steve: Yeah, and that might make sense, because if I think back to, you know, when Bobbie really upset him, when she said they were the same, how angry he was at that and how much it upset him so that that would fit for Don Draper.
 
Jenna: The next morning, Don and Megan and Peggy are all on the same elevator going into work. As they go into their offices, Peggy and Megan stop by the ladies room, where they can talk in private.
 
And there's some noise in the fandom about Peggy being mean to Megan in this scene.
But I don't read it that way at all. She's impatient, but she's honest.
 
And Megan here is guilty and apologetic. She reveals she was on a callback for an audition.
Peggy doesn't take that seriously at all. She cannot imagine a better career than this.
I mean, she's lucky because she loves her work, and she knows Megan is good at it, so she assumes Megan has that same mindset about it.
 
And you could read it as self-centered of Peggy to assume everyone wants to be a copywriter the way she does. But she's also being kind in the way she knows how.
She tells Megan she shouldn't give up.
And she wouldn't say that if she didn't believe Megan had talent.
 
And let's remember it's a pain for Peggy to have Megan on the team in the first place.
Don regularly takes Megan away early. Peggy is down a person on her team every time that happens. And she has to tread more carefully because Megan reports to her. But she's Don's wife, so Peggy can't offend Megan. It's just, it would be a lot easier if Megan left.
But Peggy encourages her to stay, because Peggy loves it and assumes that means Megan does too.
 
Steve: If I'm Megan, I'm noting this conversation because it's really a dry run of talking to Don Draper.
But the difference in this conversation is they're not in a romantic relationship.
So it's purely professional.
And I think, like you mentioned, Peggy's trying to be reasonable both as a boss and as someone who's very committed to her creative profession.
 
And then also see the individual that is Megan and to try and wrap her head around the fact that, hey, maybe it's not everybody's dream.
And we can see how sort of tense the conversation is, because like you mentioned, Peggy does start off, you know, kind of digging her teeth into Megan a bit here about, you know,
people would kill for this job, what are you doing? What do you mean you don't want to do it?
 
And then we can see Peggy get her head around it during the course of the conversation to say, well, you know, if that's not the way you're, you're cut out, okay, then, you know, maybe you are right to do it.
 
Jenna: And I think for me with the series, I'm used to being on the side of Peggy and Don's mentality about their work.
But when Megan starts talking about how there's no way out of this,
she talks about, I just was going to destroy the things that Stan said to the printer. And then she says, I realized they won't fire me.
 
This really irritates Peggy. It's like Peggy's moment with Allison when she accuses her of sleeping with Don and connecting in that way, and Peggy's like, ugh, no, girl. This is not it.
 
But we see for the first time, we're able to shift over into how much Megan really doesn't like this, how trapped she feels.
 
It's another really great scene where we sympathize with two people on opposing sides of an issue in Mad Men, and I love that it gives it to us.
 
Megan married this man. She's been Mary Poppins and Mary Sunshine, and acting out a part in her life. And now she has to reveal she's more than the sexy secretary who makes Don's life easier, that she has actual life needs, and those conflict with Don's wishes.
 
And I know there's some chatter in the fandom about people who think Megan is spoiled and she ought to be more grateful, but she's asserting her right to have her own life. I mean, she tried to be happy in this role. She did.
 
So it's inconvenient for other people. But can we begrudge her for changing her mind here? Do you think she's being spoiled?
 
Steve: Well, she's living a lie. She's living a lie, and it makes her miserable.
And I agree. I think that's a really important point. Your last one.
I think she gives it an honest try and even gets to taste some success.
 
The fact that Megan is so miserable about this, despite the fact that there's really nothing about it, that's awful, other than this is not how she wants to spend her time.
This is not her dream.
It makes me sympathetic to her. I don't perceive her as spoiled. I perceive her as someone who has alternatives.
Hey, if you're in that position and fortunate enough to have that opportunity, go for it.
 
 
Jenna: Next up, there's a meeting about Cool Whip, and Don and Megan do this adorable husband wife exchange about its benefits, and she invites him over and over, “Just taste it.”
 
I don't want to read too much into that, but Megan is acting out a part with Don about a product that's a fake version of whipped cream, which is pretty great attention to detail in terms of what's pretend and what's real.
 
Steve: Yeah. And I wonder how much of it is almost an allegory potentially for their relationship.
How much is acting, how much is not actually being true to what you really feel or think or need.
 
The treat for me in this scene is Elisabeth Moss as Peggy sitting there irritated because she knows the truth about Megan, even as Megan's killing it in this little reenactment of a potential commercial.
 
And kind of the way she's sitting closed with her arms folded across her chest and the rest,
and there's no dialogue for her, it's just she's pulling you in with the quality of her physical acting.
 
Jenna: And Don picks up on Peggy's failure to be impressed by the bit. He asks her, don't you like it?
So her creative opinion still matters to him.
 
And her answer shows she's still annoyed with Megan's dishonesty because she doesn't see the cute pitch, she sees the fake act.
And you can see her just clicking through her mind about every interaction she's had with Megan, and how Megan's been acting this whole time. And that, I think, really gets to her.
So she just says, oh, no, I do. I'm just absorbing it. It's like, ooh.
 
Steve: And then throw in the peril that Peggy knows this vitally important thing that Don is completely oblivious about, and she doesn't want any of it to come back on her when Don eventually learns of this.
 
 
Jenna: Next, in the office, Pete calls Beth from the pay phone.
And Pete is determined to see Beth again, but she shuts him down.
 
And she has this throwaway line about how I'd see your wife at the market if I ever went again. It emphasizes her loneliness and her depression.
So Beth doesn't go places that often, she doesn't have a lot in her life,
and Pete knows exactly how tiresome Howard is,
but he's pushing too hard.
 
I'm not sure what he's hoping to get out of this relationship because, like Suzanne, for Don,
it seems like a really dangerous choice for Pete.
 
Steve: Yeah, it doesn't seem like very mature decision making on Pete's part.
And visually, the scene really presents us with - we can see him holding Howard's card, you know, which he used to call Beth, and then his hand holding the phone up - you can see Pete's wedding ring.
So it's very clear that he has obligations, and this represents an emotional betrayal.
 
And like you mentioned, Beth shuts it down. She is not interested in it. She says, you know, just enjoy the good memory. Don't call me again.
And as we know from Pete, he's not very good at taking no for an answer sometimes.
 
Jenna: They also have this gag with Harry where he says, just a minute to who he's with, and he comes over and it's like, Harry, what do you want?
Nothing. You came over to me. You opened the door! [Laughing]
It's like, why did they have that? But again, it's totally real because these awkward moments between people happen all the time.
 
So it's Pete being really worried somebody's going to discover his secret, so he's trying to be on guard about that.
Rich Sommer doesn't really get a lot of material this season, but he makes so much of these little moments he has, and I like that he gets a little bit of comedic time. He does a great job.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think he's really perfect. And it's just a wonderful little gem parked in the middle of this scene.
 
 
Jenna: We've had an earlier scene where Don's wife wears no makeup and wakes him up in the middle of the night to tell him truths he doesn't want to hear.
In A Night to Remember, Betty confronts Don about cheating and whether he loves her.
 
And here, Megan, makeup free, wakes Don up in the middle of the night to talk to him about acting.
And this is a lot bigger rejection than Megan not sharing Don's affinity for orange sherbet.
 
I mean, if she had cheated on him and had a fling with some guy, it probably would hurt him less than her saying she doesn't want to do this job.
Advertising is a core part of Don's identity, just like Peggy. So Megan saying she doesn't want to do it feels a lot more personal.
 
Steve: We crap on Don Draper all the time, but in this moment with her,
despite whatever's going through his head, because I agree with what you just said,
I think he acquits himself very well here.
 
He doesn't say anything cruel. He doesn't try and shut her down.
He makes a few sort of weak, soft suggestions and then realizes she's bound and determined on this course.
 
By the end of the conversation, Megan's feeling great.
She's spilled this great secret to her husband. He's taken it about as well as she could hope he would take it.
And he's reassured her that he supports her, and loves her, and wants her to pursue her dreams and it's not a big deal. Now, how much of that is truth and how much of that is a lie from his perspective? And I don't think he's emotionally worked through this revelation at the end of the conversation,
but in terms of being a good, supportive partner in the moment,
I give Don Draper four stars on this one.
 
Jenna: I do feel like he takes this news a lot better than we expect him to.
I mean, he is as supportive as you could really hope he would be, I think.
He says, I don't want to keep you from your dream.
That's pretty generous, considering he didn't even know she felt this way 15 minutes ago.
And you would hope it would be your partner's response.
But we've seen Don be a lot more selfish with Faye and Betty and others.
 
It does take him a little bit of time to get there, because in some ways, Don understands Megan really well because he knows what it is to want a job.
Like when he tricked Roger into hiring him, or when he decided to start a new agency, and he had all that drive and fire about it.
But he's so into advertising, his brain can't even compute that Megan wouldn't want to choose it.
 
And he takes several rounds before he really hears what she's saying. You know, he says, you'll like it when you see your work on a billboard.
And, oh, it's been awkward with the other people. You could work at a different firm.
But when she says,
I don't want to do it, Don,
he says, “You don't want to do it?”
And it's just like, Peggy: “You want to quit?” Like, they don't get it.
 
Steve: But I think a key point here is,
yeah, Don Draper loves advertising, but he loves her being with him in this advertising.
 
So it's the love he has for her and their relationship and to merge that in with his professional life, that's really a best case, ideal scenario for him.
 
Jenna: In addition to feeling rejected for the passion and the work that Don thought they shared, Don knows having Megan at work every day keeps him on his best behavior, and believing his happy life is possible.
And if she's not there, it's going to be easier for him to fall into his old habits, and he doubts himself. And I think that's written on his face for sure.
 
Steve: Yeah, I, I, I think so, too. Her presence in the office solves a lot of potential problems. And if she's not in that office or she's off auditioning, I agree with you. The risk level just went through the roof for Mr. Don Draper.
 
Jenna: And I think it takes some courage for Megan to have this conversation with Don.
Betty could barely admit to Don she wanted to see a psychiatrist or that she wanted to keep modeling.
And here is Megan fighting to be able to pursue a dream of her own outside of Don.
 
And remember, she did say on the balcony in California about her friend, she said, I don't even want to be an actress.
And she told Don she dabbled in acting and painting, but she also expressed interest in copywriting.
 
So do you think she only ever said that to Don as an excuse to have sex with him in the first place, or do you think she just thought it seemed interesting and then discovered it wasn't?
 
Steve: I don't think it's the former.
I just don't get the sense that she was that calculating.
I think there is a natural dynamic where you admire your boss, you want to please them,
maybe you lean into saying things that elicit a positive response, and one thing leads to another.
We all have that element of the pleaser in us.
 
And the fact that she doesn't want that success and is willing to walk away from it,
I think that says a lot about her motivations and just how much her dream of acting is central to who she is and who she wants to be,
 
every bit as much as how surprising this is to Don, because especially I think, coming from his background and having to fight so hard to get where he is,
the idea of walking away from this sort of success and this perfect arrangement, at least from his perspective.
Yeah, he just can't get his head around it yet.
 
Jenna: I agree. I don't see Megan as a calculating gold digger who was just trying to get out of Don what she could. I don't think she was trying to fake Peggy and Don out.
I think she was trying to please people by acting until she got to the point where she couldn't fake it anymore.
 
 
Steve: The next day, as Don and Megan walk in the office, we can see how nervous Megan is.
Don's being very supportive, very positive.
But we can see, as soon as they part company, Don's entire demeanor changes.
Now we see the real Don Draper, who's bracing himself for a tough day.
 
Jenna: I was surprised by how teary Megan is as she's walking in to say goodbye on her last day,
and she feels guilty about claiming what she wants. She doesn't want to let people down.
I think this is still common, especially for women in a lot of situations.
 
And I find it so depressing that Megan is so upset all day instead of excited about her possibilities. And you, Steve, have this saying that I really agree with about endings, about how all you can see is what you're losing, and you don't yet know all the good things that are going to be part of your next new thing.
 
And Megan is probably worried about whether she can be successful as an actress, and whether this is a foolish mistake.
And I think that's a very real thing that we don't often see in television.
 
Steve: Where does Don Draper go to after they part?
He's quickly in Joan's office, and he tells Joan that Megan's quitting, asking Joan, you know, how do we handle this? An announcement, a party?
And Joan being Joan, she quickly seizes control and says she'll look after it.
 
Jenna: Yeah, there's a fair bit of trust on Don's part with Joan to know how to navigate this and for him to ask her for help.
And Joan is very calm and with whatever he's going to tell her. But don't you think - I mean,
she's either expecting that Megan is pregnant or they're getting divorced, right?  Like, those are the two things that she expects, I think.
 
Steve: Yeah, I absolutely think Joan has made some assumption that's not correct in this case.
He's not happy. He's not in a good place about this. It's - he's gritting his teeth, because it needs to be done and to move through.
 
So she would further interpret that as confirmation of, you know, one of the possible classic scenarios for why Megan's leaving the firm.
 
Jenna: So Peggy goes into her office, where Megan is sitting behind Peggy's desk.
And again, Megan doesn't have her own desk. She's either typing in Don's office or she's sitting at Peggy's desk. So she's never really had a place here, exactly, as a copywriter.
 
So Megan is feeling all the feelings, and she's trying to announce she won't be working here anymore. And it's hard to talk about.
And Peggy has to bark at Ginsberg and Stan to even get them to listen.
 
Steve: Well, and then we get a great comedy moment here. And he's just got so many great scenes, and he delivers them so well.
Ginsberg says, you know, did he fire you? That son of a bitch!
 
And it's so perfect, because he's all ready to be righteously indignant, you know, about Don's mistreatment of Megan when it turns out, okay, that's not the case at all.
 
And then we've got Stan. He goes, are you kidding me? You know, there's no respect. He's not reading the fact that Megan is very emotionally upset in this moment.
I guess we can see why Peggy's the one who's in charge of them, not the other way around.
 
Jenna: Well, Stan laughs at Megan when she says she wants to act.
Peggy reprimands him, but she says - Megan says - no, I'd better get used to it.
So the idea that instead of something to be admired, he’s scoffing at her for it.
 
And Ginsberg has all these weirdly specific questions about whether Megan will get costumes that include shoes. It’s great.
 
In spite of Stan and Ginsberg not knowing how to handle their lives,
Peggy is a good friend and boss to Megan here.
She looks her in the eye and she says, are you sure about this?
And it's a real choice she's offering her.
 
It's a pause so Megan can say, you know, like, you can change your mind, and you can stay, and I will support you.
And again, it is a lot easier for Peggy if Megan goes.
But Peggy is clarifying, you know, is this really what you want?
 
And then Peggy respects it.
She tells the guys, it takes a lot of guts to leave.
Ginsberg has a funny bit about Megan owing him $15 for lunch. What's he gonna do, ask Don for it?
And this is so real because, you know, Megan wasn't trying to take advantage of Ginsberg, but $15 to her is not the same thing it is to him.
 
Steve: Well, and then Stan pops the bubble of self importance about advertising, and what they're even doing here, you know, to say, oh, it's not a choice between living the dream and advertising and this pipe dream of going off to acting.
And I think in many ways that's a slap at Peggy because Peggy is a true believer. She's all in on the creative advertising challenge. And here is Stan just sort of ripping the rug out from underneath it and saying, you know, let's not kid ourselves here. You know, we're talking about baked beans.
 
And, and I think that that's hilarious because again, I get the sense that Stan is a little oblivious to just how much that comment is going to grade on Peggy's nerves.
 
Jenna: I don't think so, because I think this thing we saw Stan saying in faraway places - he says he realized he could never draw as well as a photograph, (and he was on a date with somebody).
But, like, he was thinking about his work and his art.
 
And Peggy and Don very much see advertising as art, while other people disagree.
And so Stan is questioning that thing, like he is interested in the art of it, not just the commercial aspect.
So clearly, when Heinz Baked Beans is telling you what to do, it feels a lot less artistic, right?
 
So maybe there is some of that where he's questioning that about himself. But I don't feel like he's specifically targeting Peggy. I think he's wrestling with that same conflict that Don and Peggy carry about pleasing the clients commercially and being true to a really great idea.
 
Steve: Yeah, I'm not saying he's targeting Peggy deliberately. He's targeting her inadvertently because he's just undermining what she's doing.
And I'm saying he's oblivious to that.
So he's really just thinking out loud, saying, oh, you know, let's not puff ourselves up here.
We make ads for baked beans.
But as you point out, for Don and Peggy, it's much deeper than that.
 
Jenna: Maybe it is just pure cynicism on his part, but I'm looking for the seeds of what comes later. And I feel like this is him being able to see this struggle between the art and the commercialism and how Stan, in fact, is more like Don and Peggy than we might imagine.
Just because he sees Peggy and gets her and understands what she's trying to do.
 
And he's calling bullshit on it, but he also wants it to be true that it's art, I think.  
He has sympathy for it instead of just shooting it down. So it - again, he doesn't have very many lines, and we don't get to have that conversation.
But it's interesting that this guy who was so obnoxious and terrible has just like Harry, you know, with the cave painting conversation - it's like there's more to you there, and you see things.
 
And all Ginsberg wants is $15.
 
Steve: In this moment, that's all I can go on. And in this moment, to me, he is undercutting and gutting what they're doing.
That. Don't think it matters. Don't think it's that significant. Don't think it's art. It's selling beans.
 
Jenna: I don't know that you're wrong.
I just think the fact that he says that makes him more interesting than just a guy who makes stupid jokes in the break room.
 
And the fact that he can look at Megan and recognize that as a valid choice,
but also continue to show up for work every day and believe in coming up with a great idea . . .
I think holding that tension of those two different things in Stan, that's interesting and that's –
 
Steve: Well, and also, Stan can't get there by himself. He needs a little coaching, both in this scene and more broadly. But, yeah, I accept the point that there's more to Stan than just being unaware of Megan's emotional state, dismissing being an actress and then suddenly waking up and saying, oh gosh, you know, what are we actually up to here?
 
 
Jenna: Next we get a scene between Harry and Pete, and it feels a little more like old times when they would chat honestly about office issues and gossip.
 
So Harry's talking about Megan leaving, and he's glad because he'll be more comfortable after his faux pas about Zou Bisou Bisou.
And Pete's mind is on something else. He's bitter and resentful about Beth rejecting him.
And when Pete is venting, Harry's first guess is that Trudy's pregnant again.
 
And when Pete asks, have you seen the pictures of Earth from space? Do they make you feel small and insignificant? Harry goes, no. Jennifer does that.
Nice, Harry.
 
Steve: I also like - you can see the relief on Harry's face when it's clear we're not talking about Jennifer, we're not talking about Trudy, and we're not talking about Megan here.
 
So he realizes Pete has brought him into something with which he's unfamiliar and, and that just removes all stakes for Harry. And you can just see the relief on his face to see whatever he says next isn't going to get him into direct trouble.
 
Jenna: Just a minute about these photos - I assumed this was going to be the famous blue marble full Earth photo, but that wasn't until 1972.
 
And there was another Earthrise photo taken in 1968. But the 1966 pictures they're talking about are the first photos of Earth taken from lunar orbit. We'll link them in on our website for this episode.
 
Pete goes on to talk about how unfair it is that women say one thing to lead you on.
And one of the most petulant things, and this is saying something because it's Pete.
The line is, “Why did they get to decide what's going to happen?”
 
And this frustration and closed-mindedness given that he stared openly at Peggy and criticized her outfit in the pilot, and later insisted nothing happened between them. And he told her she had an active imagination when she talked to him about being unprofessional.
 
I mean, Peggy and the au pair did not decide how that happened.
Trudy didn't decide to be cheated on.
She didn't want to be pushed into meeting up with her ex to get Pete's story published.
 
Pete is such a small man and he's such a power crazy penguin. And for him to complain, why do they get to decide, oh, so sad for you, Pete. Sorry.
 
Steve: Well, I think we’ve got to explain the power crazy penguin reference.
In the Lego game for Batman, there are little scenarios and one of them was called Power Crazy Penguin.
And our son used to love playing that. And he would just keep repeating the scenario and he would always be talking about Power Crazy Penguin.
So that's become our shorthand for people who want all the power and really don't care about the implications for anyone else.
 
Jenna: I feel like if you're not using Power Crazy Penguin in day-to-day speech, you're missing out. This should just be a thing you add to your vocabulary.
 
Steve: It is a treasured one and I'm never going to stop using it.
 
The thing for me on Pete is he just feels so sorry for himself and it's like he's such a whiny baby.
It's definitely one of the main things I just hate about this character.
It's nice to get back to the Pete Campbell that I just hate and despise.
 
 
Jenna: So this next scene, Don saying goodbye to Megan as she goes to her lunch in the elevator,
it's pretty short. You could miss the significance, because there's no dialogue after Don says goodbye to Megan.
 
And you could imagine it's just one of those random encounters in life that make Mad Men more realistic.
But the symbolism of the sense of falling . . . so as Don sees down into the elevator shaft,
you know, in the introduction sequence, a man is falling outside the buildings, and here Don is looking into this interior elevator shaft.
 
He can see down into the hole, the pit, the emptiness on the inside.
It's a trap, right?
And it's a rewatch. So I'm not worried about other characters accidentally falling through.
But I did see LA Law once upon a time, and I have some scars about that possibility.
 
Steve: If this happened in modern times, I think he'd be dead. He'd be looking at his smartphone and wouldn't realize he was falling for the first six or seven floors.
 
Jenna: And it's at the exact moment Megan has decided to leave this office for good.
And now, instead of putting all his hopes for happiness and redemption into Megan,
Don's going to have to do what Faye told him at the end of last season. He's stuck trying to be a person like the rest of us.
 
Steve: And when you're stuck trying to be a person, what better way to start than go back to your office, pour yourself a drink.
 
 
Jenna: So Ken brings in a Beatles-esque song from the client for the Chevalier Blanc commercial.
This is a Wedgewoods cover of the song September in the Rain. Dinah Washington covered it in 1961.
And we'll link to that version on our website episode page.
It was originally written in 1937 for a movie called Melody for Two.
 
Please watch Ken's slightly awkward dancing to this music. He's going along and getting along.
Ginsberg, though, is not a fan.
 
Steve: He has such a great line when he asks them to turn it off because it's stabbing him in his fucking heart.
 
Jenna: Yeah. For those keeping score, this would be the third F bomb in the series. The first one coming from Pete in the pilot directed to Don,
and the second one from Roger to Pete about losing North American aviation.
 
I guess it tracks that somebody like Ginsberg, who sees horror in Cinderella, he's gonna find a happy, soothing tune pretty distasteful.
 
Steve: Well, I think it's highlighting the generational gap again.
The olds can't really tell the difference between some half baked cover impersonation of a Beatles sound, whereas the young generation, which is, you know, wed to the music and gets the music,
sees this for what it is. It's a counterfeit, it's a fake.
 
And we're not even talking about an original composition by the Beatles here. It's a cover of a cover, and it just makes it that much more awful. The second derivative of mediocrity.
 
And I love that Ginsberg represents that with his comment, because like you say, we've got the account man, Ken. He doesn't care what sort of crap he's shoveling as long as it gets the account across the finish line and they're making money off it.
 
Old Don Draper can't tell the difference either. He just wants something that makes the client happy and solves the creative challenge in front of them.
 
Ginsberg here is representing that integrity to the music itself and that this, this has nothing to do with that music, that this is a commercial prostitution of it.
 
Jenna: Ken delicately mentions to Don, the clients are expecting Don and Megan to do their just taste it bit.
And now that Megan's gone, Don says Peggy can fill in. It feels reasonable for them to ask Megan to come back and do this, but Don is trying to do right by Megan.
He's trying to let her go and not tie her to any of this work.
 
Steve: Does Don really appreciate how well Megan did it?
And does some part of him really think, oh, yeah, like she's interchangeable here, Like Peggy can pull it off. Maybe not exactly as good, but close in the neighborhood, you know, let's see how that works out.
 
Jenna: Oh, that's interesting. Kind of like Duck thought that all creatives were interchangeable.
You could just exchange them. Anybody can write copy.
That's funny. Like Don thinks anybody can act.
 
 
So next Pete sees Howard on the train.
I'm not sure what the conversational protocol is the first time you see a guy when you just had sex with his wife in their living room.
I'm pretty sure you don't invite yourself over for dinner.
 
Steve: That's not going to stop Pete Campbell.
 
 
Jenna: Back at the office, we get Joan and Peggy having a quick conversation about Megan leaving and they have different takes on it. Did you agree with one of their perspectives more than the other?
 
Steve: I think Peggy sees the human being and has more information and is much closer to the truth here.
Joan, like we talked about earlier, is just relying on appearances and stereotypes.
 
And I love the picture that Joan paints here, you know, of a failing actress with a rich husband, boo hoo. Again, Joan has her model of the world and how these things work.
And Megan is a two dimensional player within that world.
 
Jenna: Yes, I thought Joan was really reverting to some Gail Holloway thinking here when she said second wives have a playbook and she expected Megan to fail.
 
And to her credit, Peggy defends Megan and she says she thinks she's just the kind of person who's good at everything.
And I wonder if part of this is Peggy making the Annie mistake again, thinking that beautiful women have it all, or if she's just honestly appreciative of Megan and believes in her, or some combination.
 
Steve: Maybe it's a case where they both have a certain piece of truth, but they've also got it a little wrong simultaneously. You know, this is Mad Men. We're not going to let one person be right and one person be wrong.
 
Jenna: And I have to say, I think Megan would make this acting decision even if she weren't wealthy because of her marriage to Don.
I think it's a real choice, and she genuinely believes that she wants this. I mean, I don't think Megan is just running away or seeking attention.
 
So Pete shows up to Beth and Howard's for dinner, and when Howard's out of the room, he invites Beth to meet him at the Hotel Pennsylvania.
 
Steve: Not just that, he sneaks a kiss and not with Beth's consent.
And she wants no part of this. She doesn't want him in her house, she doesn't want him stealing a kiss, and she certainly doesn't want to meet him at a hotel.
 
Jenna: So it turns out Pete's going to have to sit through Howard's insurance presentation. But you know, Pete's been through a lot of client dinners. So when he realizes Beth hasn't told on him,
he's willing to put up with a pitch for a chance to see her again.
 
And I find this a little hard to believe. Again, they don't really know each other.
She's not very encouraging.
But we see Pete emulating Don a lot this season. And just like Megan is a lifeline for Don,
it seems like Pete is building Beth into a lifeline.
That he needs somebody who will say uncomfortable truths, to feel real again.
 
And his whole world is people saying predictable things to try to elbow each other to get advantages.
And here's somebody else who feels empty, and that means he's not alone.
And plus, she's gorgeous, so that doesn't hurt.
 
Steve: I love Vincent Kartheiser's acting in this scene. As Beth asks Howard to,
you know, step out with him so she can tell him something. Pete assumes that this is bad news that she's going to confess. And just his unease and nervousness and attempt to basically run out of the house without his jacket before Howard emerges and catches him, it's so great. It's all just physical acting and he really sells Weasel Pete to me in that scene and his nervousness that he's about to get into another fistfight.
 
 
Jenna: Don goes home to Megan, who's cooking barefoot in the kitchen, and she sets expectations. She says she'll probably be crying a lot from rejection.
She doesn't expect acting to be easy, but she's really embracing what her father talked about. She wants the struggle. She wants her own achievements, not something that was handed to her.
We'll hold on to that for the future, but still.
 
And for all the spaghetti haters, let's note, Megan is cooking beef bourguignon in this scene.
 
Steve: And we’ve been very critical of Don for over four and a half seasons.
He's a good partner here. When she says that she loves him and he's everything she hoped he would be, he's going along. He's doing what he's supposed to do as a supportive husband.
 
Jenna: And he's wearing a giant fake smile.
It's just like Betty's smile when he gave her the watch.
He's not comfortable with this. It's not what he wants.
And now he has to try to make the best of it.
 
And it is kind of interesting to see it flip so much because he's very much wearing what Betty had to carry, for the first couple seasons, anyway.
And Megan gets it. She tries to express her appreciation to Don. She sees him being supportive.
She loves it.
But this to him is really scary.
He doesn't have a template for how to make this work, but he does, I think, honestly love Megan, and he does really want her to be happy.
 
Steve: I like that connection. Because if we say that the flaw at the heart of Don and Betty's marriage was the fact that Don was doing what he wanted with little thought or attention to what she wanted, and she wouldn't express that and wasn't presenting a genuine version of herself.
 
It really feels like we've got almost a flip where now we've got Megan pursuing what she wants honestly and openly, and it's Don Draper who's the one who's not being genuine at this moment.
 
And there's good reasons for him not to be.
But as we've seen, there are real perils, especially if this circumstance endures. And, you know, we've seen how corrosive and toxic it can become.
 
So I think we are on thin ice here, you know, especially if this continues.
 
Jenna: In the next scene, they're going to do the Cool Whip presentation without Megan.
 
The Cool Whip manager is played by Dennis Haskins, who has an incredibly long resume, including shows I had forgotten existed, like Simon and Simon, and The Dukes of Hazard. But he's probably best known for playing the principal, Mr. Belding, on Saved by the Bell.
 
I like this scene a lot, even though it's hard to watch Peggy messing it up.
And I don't think she's getting the line wrong on purpose. I think she puts in the work and she prepares, and they didn't have time to do that for this presentation.
 
And even good people mess up. It happens, right? So nine times out of ten, Peggy would have done this right, but she messed it up today.
So she says, “just try it” over and over instead of “just taste it.” And there's no sweet charm or chemistry between them.
It just doesn't work.
 
Steve: I love this scene because I love watching Elisabeth Moss play Peggy,
who's doing a bad job at this commercial, which we've seen previously run to perfection by Megan and Don.
And now it's completely terrible.
 
And we know what a great actress Elisabeth Moss is.
So seeing her having to be terrible, because we know Peggy wouldn't be great at this,
even with the prep, it's not going to have that warmth, that charisma, that appeal that someone like Megan can bring to it.
It's so perfectly bad, the way she does the scene.
 
Jenna: How weird is it to shout out Elisabeth Moss for being a bad actor? That's a first.
 
Steve: She's great at portraying a bad actor. She's great at portraying a good actor.
She's just a good actor.
 
Jenna: And then Peggy and Don have this argument that has been coming on since Don made Megan a copywriter. You know, Don needs to have this argument, too, because he doesn't have anywhere else to put his frustration.
 
So they're both trying to explain why Megan quit, and they're both wrong.
Megan doesn't think advertising is stupid, as Peggy says.
And while Megan did once complain about the people being cynical and petty - that's just Don's reason - I think that was more of a complaint about Don disguised as a general complaint.
 
Megan is leaving because she doesn't want to settle. She wants an extraordinary life.
And for her, that isn't copywriting, and that is just an offensive position on some level to both Don and Peggy.
 
Steve: I think they're both venting here. They've both had to be on their best behavior and say the right things to Megan when presented with this decision she took.
But they weren't able to vent their own emotions and frustrations about it.
 
They're both unhappy with Megan's decision on some level,
shooting that out onto the other one, accusing each other basically of contributing to it.
They don't really control what Megan wants, and as much as they know they have to accept it,
she's going to do what she wants to do, and they're the ones left picking up the pieces.
 
And I love this fight, and I love, at the end of it, when Peggy's really standing up for herself here. And many times we've seen her yield or bow her head in the face of her boss when she says, “You know what? You're not even mad at me, so shut up!”
Because we've never seen her talk to Don, at least in a professional setting, with this level of candor and emotion. And it's such a great moment.
 
Jenna: She is the only person he would receive that from. And she's right.
 
I also want to go back to the argument where Don blames Peggy for being threatened by Megan.
And that's untrue, and it's unfair, and he knows it.
 
Peggy did, as she says, train Megan and support her, in spite of the difficulty Don created for both Peggy and Megan in their creative department.
And so when Peggy gets to that truth, “You're not mad at me,” there's nothing Don can say to that, because even naming his feeling as anger is not a place he's gotten to yet.
 
Steve: Yeah. And we know Don has a gift with the words. So if he had a retort,
we would hear it. And he does not. He basically looks down at the counter of the test kitchen.
 
 
Jenna: Next we see Pete waiting in the hotel room and Beth never shows up. He's got champagne chilling beside him, but he throws a glass at the wall and leaves.
And I guess he thought he was being romantic, but it always seemed like a long shot that she would show.
 
Steve: Given her reaction to him, I would be shocked if she showed up. So the fact that he's being such a whiny little baby makes me think he's not clearly assessing the probabilities here.
 
 
Jenna: And back at the office, Roger and Don have a pretty honest conversation. And we finally get to hear Don's perspective that we didn't hear when he talked to Megan, or Peggy for that matter.
 
And he and Roger both see choosing their professions as a little bit self-indulgent, even though both of them are pretty self-indulgent, generally speaking.
 
We find out Megan isn't interested in having a baby.
And Don says about Megan, why shouldn't she do what she wants? I don't want her to end up like Betty or her mother.
And I love that he's actually thinking about Megan.
 
Steve: Well, we also see the divide between Roger and Don here.
Don comes from a hardscrabble background and it's something of a miracle that he's gotten to where he is given his background.
Roger is born into this world.
Is it what he really wanted to do? It doesn't matter. He's looked after, he's cared for. He's got all this wealth and luxury and privilege and he's always had it.
 
Don has had to fight and scrap to climb up to the same place.
Don is a product of desperation and requirement,
whereas Roger is a product of privilege and good fortune.
 
And we can see that neither man nor can really get their head around someone choosing to go with their heart like Megan does where she's not desperate, but she's following her dream.
She might succeed, she might fail,
but she's that committed to it and she's going to go go for that.
 
That's not the experience of Roger or Don here. And I just love the contrast between the two of them.
 
Jenna: And it's an interesting modern American mantra, too, you know, follow your heart, do what you love.
There are a lot of people for whom reality is in the way of that, for sure.
And there are a lot of people for whom their fears are in the way of that, for sure.
 
So it is an interesting generational divide to see Megan being a person who starts out and says, okay, I am going to struggle. I am going to go find that thing that lights me up inside, versus earning a living or doing what my family expects of me.
 
Steve: Yeah. And these older generations that whose futures and choices were massively impacted by things like the Great Depression and then a world war,
we can again see that generational disconnect between them, and this new generation, which has enjoyed an affluence and privilege that was denied to them – collectively, because we know Roger certainly wasn't denied anything.
So it's a friction point because it's just a different world in this new generation insisting on pursuing its dreams.
 
The other thing I'd say too is I agree with you. You know, it's a cultural trope in the United States about follow your dreams and the rest. But if I were to think about all the people I know and how happy or unhappy they are with their profession or their life overall,
I think for me, in my experience, it's a relatively small percentage of people who are in their dream job, who love what they do or whose lives have ended up ideal and somewhat close to the ideal.
It seems like for all the aspiration of getting to that place, it's devilishly difficult to accomplish it.
 
Jenna: Going back to this line, Don says when he is trying to think, you know, why shouldn't she do what she wants? I don't want her to be like Betty or her mother.
This line was huge to me, because Don acted like Betty rejected him once she discovered his poor past and pretended he hadn't ignored her or belittled her, right?
It was Betty's inability to appreciate him as being from a poor background that really caused the breakup of their marriage.
 
But here he sees Betty's bitterness looking back, and maybe he's not taking responsibility for it,
but this is huge growth for him to try to give Megan some space finally and listen to her needs,
which he hasn't done while Megan has been a copywriter.
 
And he did that for Betty sometimes. And then generally his needs became the overriding factor.
So for Don, this is a huge sacrifice to support Megan, and he's not being a whiny baby about it to her face, which he also did to Betty.
I'm really impressed by his growth in this scene, or at least his intentions.
 
We can't not mention Roger's line here, too, when he goes,
Jane wanted to have a baby, but I thought, why do that to someone? [Laughing]
 
Steve: It feels like this conversation, too, is a less emotional conversation. The other half of the maybe two conversations, the one with Megan where he's being a good partner and saying all the right things despite not necessarily feeling those.
Then mutual venting with Peggy. And then here is almost the denouement with Roger where the emotions are drained out of it.
 
Roger's not defending or attacking,
and Don can just sort of ponder.
But we've seen how much work it's been for him throughout the episode to get to a place now where he's, I think, not just intellectually embracing the reality, but emotionally making his peace with it.
 
 
Jenna: So Don goes home, as per Roger's advice, and sees Megan before she leaves for her acting class.
She's bought him a Beatles album in response to their talk earlier,
so she's still supporting him and being thoughtful.
 
And Don takes a drink as he watches Megan leave. And we get a montage as Don drops the record needle on the Revolver album.
 
The closing song is Tomorrow Never Knows from this Beatles Revolver album. And the lyrics say,
“it is not dying, it is not dying.”
And “listen to the color of your dreams.”
And the song ends repeating “of the beginning, of the beginning.”
 
So these lyrics relate back to the episode title with the biblical story of Lazarus being resurrected to a new life, which Megan is experiencing.
And they also could read as the suicide references we keep getting this season,
along with, of course, the psychedelic sound representing the changing times to a man who's resisting changes.
 
Steve: And a man who’s of the earlier generation. If we think about the Beatles albums, the first,
say five, are very easily accessible bubblegum pop. I mean, it's masterful, but it's not threatening in any way, and it's not challenging things. It's just sort of the pinnacle of pop music at the time.
 
After Help in 65, the Beatles come out with Rubber Soul.
And now they're really starting to stretch their legs as songwriters and starting to add complexity and sophistication that isn't all that evident in the earlier albums. And then Revolver is just a further step in that direction.
 
The fact that it sounds so alien and strange, I think the episode does a good job of putting us in Don Draper's head to hear it and to not like it, and to not understand it and to just think, you know, what is this noise? What is this sound?
 
He doesn't say anything, but as he pulls the needle off the record and pours himself a drink, we see the hallmark of Don Draper's descent back into drinking as a means of escaping the newness of this new generation and their music,
which is taking a surprising turn that is difficult for the older generation to keep up with.
 
Jenna: The symbolism of this change, where Revolver is a bridge point from the happier Beatlemania pop stuff to more experimental, more provocative stuff,
and this moment in Mad Men, when Megan makes this career decision,
everything shifts for Don Draper.
 
And we've had kind of an upbeat time with Don's comeback and the shiny, happy new marriage.
And the rest of the journey is going to go someplace interesting, but it's darker.
It's probably more honest, but there's some darkness.
 
And the fact that Don turns off the song Tomorrow Never Knows, like he can prevent change from coming if he just quiets it for a moment.
 
Steve: And the other thing I'd say, too, is that's maybe a difficult song for him to access in the moment, but if he stuck with the album, there's a lot more accessible songs and brilliant songs.
 
I mean, just looking through the playlist for Revolver, it's. It's shocking to me to have that many great songs on a single album, especially after an album as great as Rubber Soul and especially knowing what's to come after this, like Sgt. Peppers, the White Album, etc. If he could stay the course, he might find that he could get his head around some of this music and this new generation.
 
But the fact that he bails on it, I think, is another signpost about his mentality and the problems it's going to create for him in this changing world.
 
Jenna: And remember when Don was so happy with Megan on the way back from California that he was whistling the Beatles’ I Want to Hold Your Hand?
 
And now with this Beatles song, even though Megan gave him the album,
Megan is pulling away from Don. She's restarting a life path that's going to travel in a different direction than the one he's traveling.
 
So it's kind of an interesting bookend, too. This happy “we're together and what could possibly go wrong?” And then here we've got this strange, unpredictable, uncomfortable song starting whatever their next chapter will be.
 
Steve: And he's like somebody who you give him a spoonful of a food to try, and he barely tastes it. You know, he's not going to engage in it. He's not going to make that effort and try and bridge across.
 
Jenna: And the album is an invitation from her to come with her, to be open to these new things. It isn't that she's running away from him without him.
 
Steve: I find Revolver jaw dropping even now, decades later. It. So I struggle as a viewer to view anybody who the character just doesn't like that or doesn't get it. Cause I'm staggered by it.
It is genius. Pure genius.
 
Jenna: And we should mention these other scenes in this montage with the music.
We see Peggy working late.
Stan passes a joint to her as they're working. That's her happy place.
 
We see Howard and Pete saying goodbye in the parking lot.
And Beth is in the car.
They barely make eye contact, but Pete looks so sad and so longingly at Beth.
And what did you think about this with the heart and the steam?
 
Steve: I don't know what to make of that, because it seems to fly in the face of all the efforts to say it was a one and done. Savor the memory. No, I don't want you at my house.
No, I don't want to meet you at a hotel.
No, don't steal a kiss from me.
 
Oh, but hey, I'm going to draw now. If Pete was whining about that, I think I'd have a little sympathy and say, you're right, Pete, that's a mixed signal.
 
Jenna: I see that for sure. I'm not sure what to make of that, because it seemed to me that it was very clearly a no. And then with the heart, it seemed to be saying something else.
But I think Beth is so depressed and so lost.
I don't feel like she's deliberately messing with Pete, even though that's the - that's the effect.
 
Steve: Agreed. Agreed. Yeah, she. She's a victim of her own unhappiness and depression.
 
 
Jenna: And finally, we also get to see Megan with closed eyes. She's all in black. She's lying on her back in acting class. And this is her starting over.
 
Steve: As we cut to credits, Don Draper is drinking alone. He's turned off the record and he goes into his lonely bedroom.
 
Jenna: Our listener shout out today goes to Paul M.
Thank you so much for your very kind feedback on YouTube. We're so happy you're listening and we hope you keep enjoying the show!
 
And thank you to all our listeners who are offering us such kind feedback, and follows and shares, and 5 star reviews. We really appreciate the support.
 
Steve: That's it for this episode of All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou. Visit our website, Mad Men C to Z dot com to vote for your favorite Sterling Lines, and to share your opinions on our Double Dip questions for each episode.
 
Jenna: You can find us on Instagram and YouTube @MadMenCtoZ, and please listen, like and subscribe. That's what the podcast's for!
 
Steve: Thanks for listening, everybody.

Mad Men C to Z S5E7 At the Codfish Ball Transcript
 
Jenna: Hi, I'm Jenna.
Steve: And I'm Steve. Welcome to All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou.
Jenna: There's so much to love about this amazing show, and we're happy to connect to fans like us, who discover new things with each re-watch.
Steve: Be advised, while we aren't gratuitous with spoilers, they can pop up as we discuss character arcs through the final season.
Let's get started with Mad Men C to Z.
 
Jenna: This is season five, episode seven At the Codfish Ball.
 
This episode was written by Jonathan Igla, who has written 30 episodes of Mad Men, and he's also a producer of Bridgerton.
The episode was directed by Michael Uppendahl, who directed 11 episodes of Mad Men, and he has also directed six episodes of Fargo, nine episodes of American Horror Story, and episodes of The Walking Dead, Glee, and Weeds.
 
I'm a huge fan of this particular episode, although when I start breaking it down, there's a lot of sadness and darkness, so I'm not sure why I enjoy this one so much.
 
Steve: For me, I get a lot of pleasure out of the introduction of Emile and Marie as the parents of Megan and their interplay with each other, and then also their interactions with their daughter and Don.
 
Jenna: This episode begins and ends with Sally talking to Glen on the phone. Glen asked Sally about the Spoonful album, if she's listened to it yet.
This would have been Daydream, which came out in March of 1966.
 
Steve: While Sally is on the phone with Glen, Pauline trips over the phone cord and hurts herself. Sally has to take kind of an adult role here, nursing Pauline.
 
Jenna: You have to be a certain age to remember this, but phones used to have wires, and sometimes they were wall mounted in very public family areas so you had no privacy for your conversation. Everybody knew your business, they knew who called and how long you talked, and they could also hear your entire end of the conversation.

  . . . continued
 
I don't really miss that, but this is why Sally would drag her phone into a private room and the cord would be dangling across the hallway in the first place, because if you had a very long extension cord for your phone, then you could have a little bit of privacy.
 
Steve: She tells Bobby to go get some water. She comforts Pauline, then she ends up calling for help. And we'll find out later that all the adults are quite impressed that Sally was able to handle this little domestic emergency.
 
Jenna: And we also see that Sally and Glen have kept up their connection, because Sally knows Glen broke up with his girlfriend, and Glen knows Sally hates having Pauline stay with them, so clearly, these phone calls are a regular thing.
 
 
Next up, we get to meet Megan's parents, Marie and Emile Calvet.
Marie is played by Julia Ormond, and you should just know her because she's fabulous.
But you may have seen her in the Audrey Hepburn role in Sabrina with Harrison Ford, the 1995 version. She was also in First Knight with Richard Gere, Legends of the Fall and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with Brad Pitt, and she has a lot of other recent work as well.
 
If we could wish upon a star for Mad Men scenes, I think I would love one between Marie Calvet and Mona Sterling, because I kind of feel like they would be friends who go out for pastel cocktails and they'd laugh at Roger. But we don't actually get that in this series. But, you know, I’d love it.
 
And then Emile, Megan's father, is played by Ronald Guttman, who is originally from Brussels.
He's been in a ton of things, too: All My Children, 27 dresses, And the Band Played On, and a bunch of other projects. But to me, he will always be the shifty engineer from The Hunt for Red October.
 
This couple together, to me, is so outstanding. They bring in all their baggage, literally, into the room. And there's so much background in the writing, even though it's revealed in these very short lines.
So you get a whole sense of their relationship in a very short scene.
 
Steve: And it does seem they have their scar tissue and baggage with them. So they're immediately jousting with each other verbally, in French, which Don, of course, can't understand.
But they're not making much effort to conceal it or put on a happy face for their relationship, for the benefit of Don.
 
The other thing we note here is we know that Megan has married a man who's older than her. From the looks of it, Marie is somewhat younger than Emile, so there seems to be a parallel there between each woman's choice of partner.
 
Jenna: You might not immediately say Megan married her father if you watch Don and Emile talk, but she definitely knows what it is to keep a difficult man happy. And they do have their similarities:
They're both cheating.
They're both observant.
They're both devoted to their work.
They're suspicious of others.
There are just a lot of things that Emile and Don are alike.
 
And there's this standout line when Don mentions Emile's book, and Emile says, “My daughter pretends to find interesting what I find interesting because she loves me.”
And that pretty much unwraps the end of this episode, because we suspect that's true about Megan and Don as well.
 
Steve: I guess the key difference here is Emile is very clearly an intellectual with the stereotypical insecurities of an intellectual, whereas I don't think we would describe Don Draper as that.
 
Jenna: Yes. And that's another great line in this scene. So Emile remarks about how the apartment is so decadent.
And I find it interesting - we're surrounded by so many people who want more in this show.
And then when characters point out the excess, they seem odd or eccentric.
 
And Marie's great line in response is, “Emile is confused. His eyes and his politics are having a fight.”
And I love that, because humans are so contradictory.
 
So in this show, we see so many people who are loudly proclaiming belief in one thing, and then they do the opposite.
But I also, I feel like the show is taking jabs at the idea that attachment to things could be excessive or misguided.
Because we saw that, remember, with Roy, Midge's boyfriend, or when Stephanie was talking about, you know, "so stop buying things."
And later, when a certain character's child is in a commune peeling potatoes, right?
 
There's a certain derision for that stance of not being attached to things.
And I think it's fair and good for writing to point out the foibles and inconsistencies when people are spouting their ideologies.
 
But I think it's just really funny that a show known for its prestige is really determined to mock pretentious people.
It sort of goes out of its way to do that.
 
Steve: Almost like, you know, when we jump in at the start of the seasons, and they don't really give us a recap of the prior season and let us get situated before they launch into the next season.
They just throw you in the middle of it and expect you to tread water and start swimming along with the season.
I feel like this scene accomplishes that with these two new characters instantly at the start of a single episode. And it's really enjoyable.
 
Jenna: The last noteworthy line in this scene is that Don bought a particular cognac for Marie and Emile says,
“She has convinced you she is particular. I am the proof she is not.”
 
And that line was so sad to me. He's cutting her down for her pretension, but hitting himself for being disappointing.
And it's really super awkward for Don, who's just - it feels like he's trying to make this work with the in-laws.
 
Steve: Yeah. And it's kind of delicious because we know Don Draper likes to resort to, this is what people do, or this is what they're supposed to do. And Emile and Marie just don't leave any room for that.
 
He's trying to behave the way you're supposed to when you meet the in-laws and keep them happy. And they're supposed to be polite and put on a happy face and act like they have a happy marriage, and they have no time for that.
 
 
Jenna: Speaking of couples we also love to see on screen together,
we get Roger and Mona having a drink, now that Jane's out of the picture.
It's a shockingly honest conversation between them.
 
And it's notable that Mona says about Jane,
“I always thought she'd leave you.”
And didn't we think that too? I mean, didn't we expect pretentious, out-for-herself at all costs Jane to eventually dump Roger?
 
Steve: Oh, absolutely.
And it just feels like a very deep conversation while simultaneously being just this casual catch up between the two of them. And I guess what makes it deep is there's so much that's gone on before with them. They know each other so well.
 
And here Mona is encountering Roger in this moment where I think some of his pretensions are stripped away. And in many ways post-acid trip, he's more honest and forthcoming about sort of where he is in life.
 
And I think this surprises Mona, because I would guess she would have anticipated him trying to prop up and defend his prior choices and be a little defensive.
 
He didn't marry Jane because she had gotten old, you know, which is her fear. It was because he had.
So now she's put it back onto Roger and, and having him own this thing that probably she's been wrestling with herself.
So again, I just really appreciate how much is packed into this brief scene.
 
Jenna: I feel almost sure that Mona's line here in this scene had to have been saved for some juicy moment in advance. Like I'm sure somebody thought of that great line and then they constructed the scene around it because it's fantastic and true.
 
And I think Mona has a gravitas with this understanding that Betty could not say to Don about Megan. I don't think Betty would ever get there.
And Mona is smart enough to have this realization and just move on with her life.
 
And I don't think Betty ever completely understands why Don cheated or why he picked Megan.
And I don't think he knows, either. I think he just took action and he's trying to make it work.
 
And it's lovely from Mona, because she was so hurt when Roger left, and now we get to see her thriving without him, and free of most of her resentment, it seems.
 
Steve: I also like the agency of Mona. When Roger talks about one of his insecurities, which is he didn't earn what he has, that it came through the advantages he started with in life.
 
And Mona throws that right back. She's got no time for that. And she says she's not gonna feel guilty about what she has, and she doesn't care if Roger didn't earn it.
 
Even as we see post-acid-trip Roger thinking deeply about it, and what's brought him to this place in his life and maybe what he has and what he's earned, and what's the difference between the two.
 
 
Jenna: Back at Don and Megan's house, since Grandma Pauline was injured, now Sally and Bobby show up to meet Emile and Marie.
And this moment where Don prompts Sally to tell his in-laws about Pauline's accident - I have had this moment with my father, where he was prompting me to tell a specific story, and it felt so forced and scripted to show off to the relatives and it's ugh - I feel for Sally here.
 
So she's supposed to show off about how she handled Pauline responsibly.
So she says what's expected, but she outright lies.
She said Pauline tripped over one of Gene's toys and Pauline tripped over the phone cord,
the phone cord Sally was using when Sally didn't answer her about going to dinner.
 
So it might not be a big deal in the scheme of things in this story, but it felt sad to see Sally taking after her parents and the lying department just so readily.
 
Steve: Everybody dutifully praises Sally's good handling of the emergency.
And then again we see an example of how Marie is not constrained by norms and expectations, you know, she excuses herself, basically goes to bed, falling asleep with a lit cigarette.
 
We've seen so little of Marie, but it just seems like she's completely unconstrained. She's going to do what she wants to do. She's already an interesting character despite the paucity of exposure to her and her world.
 
Jenna: Also at the dinner when Sally and Bobby are coming in,
Bobby points out they're having fish for dinner, and Sally doesn't like it. Make a note of that for later.
 
Megan made spaghetti for her instead. Marie remembers that used to be Megan's favorite, too.
If you Google Megan Draper and spaghetti, you can find multiple videos featuring all the times Megan makes or talks about making spaghetti.
 
And it does come up a fair amount in the series, but I would like to point out she also makes coq au vin pretty regularly, so she's not a one trick pony, you spaghetti haters.
 
Steve: Here's another example of how Megan is being a good stand in mother. You know, she's making special food for the children so they're not stuck eating the yucky adult food.
And to me, it just shows her thoughtfulness and consideration of the needs of the kids.
 
Jenna: There's also this tiny moment when Bobby asks Emile about giving shots, because he knows that Emile is a doctor.
And Emile seems impressed in spite of himself when Don explains the origin of the doctor title from the Middle Ages. So that's not the type of Dr. Emile is, right, who gives shots.
 
And I think there's a snobbishness here that I feel from the writing about intellectuals who think they're the only people who know things.
And I like this tiny moment where Emile is noticing Don, you know, this self-made man, and being impressed that he knows this, this bit of information to pass on to his kid.
 
Steve: Well, and I think it's a very complimentary explanation that Don gives to Bobby, which I think appeals to Emile's fragile ego, which we've already seen evidence of.
 
Jenna: And we talked about Megan's mother going to bed, and Megan goes to check up on her.
And we know Don has issues with drinking.
And here's Megan caring for someone who's had too much to drink in her mother.
 
She's chosen Don with his restless work energy like her father, and maybe some alcoholic demons like her mother.
She believes she can save him and take care of him.
And you kind of get her whole story right here.
 
 
Steve: The next scene cuts to after hours where Stan, Michael, Peggy, and her boyfriend, Abe are having a late dinner. And if Abe wants to spend any time with Peggy, he's going to have to show up at the office and dine with her there.
 
Jenna: Okay, I don't want to be Michael Ginsberg, but I sort of admire his habit of asking questions as specifically as he does, because he's asking Peggy about Heinz, so clearly he's moving over to that account.
And he goes, “So is he a down-to-earth, steel town, German-Polish, drinks beer from a can kind of a guy?” which is amazing. It's an amazing question.
 
And her answer, he's boring, he has a daughter, is not even that important. But I love that piece of writing there.
 
It's also interesting seeing Abe witnessing Peggy with her team, and it feels like a little bit of jealousy, because she's so comfortable with all the teasing and the arguing.
 
And she's relaxed and at home here with the amount of time that Peggy spends with these people, I think he's wondering, do they actually know her better?
 
Steve: Yeah, and I think Abe probably also harbors some of those same insecurities and fears maybe that someone like Emile possesses.
You know, Peggy's in the business world. These people are direct reports to her. So it's a sign of Peggy's status and success in the business world.
It's her team and she's one of the boys getting along with them.
 
And I just wonder for Abe who's, you know, I think prides himself on the counterculture side of things and I think he's got to see her success and it's going to make him a little uncomfortable.
Here's Peggy, part of the machine and succeeding in the machine.
 
Jenna: I'm not trying to throw any shade at Charlie Hofheimer,
but after Abe leaves, Stan tells Peggy “He's too good looking for you.”
And my reaction is Abe is too good looking for her? Really?
It really takes me out of the scene. I, I have a problem with that line.
 
And I know it's supposed to be about Stan and Peggy being honest and comfortable, because her work family is her family. So they tell each other things that they wouldn't say in front of other people.
But I don't see it that way.
 
Steve: I don't see him as telling that to her as a friend. I see that as him measuring himself against Abe because he has aspirations for Peggy. He's trying to undermine that relationship somehow.
 
And I think he picks a hilariously bad way to do it because really it's a put down of Peggy, rather than a put down of Abe as being unsuitable for her.
To me it just shows how ham-handed Stan can be. But, but I perceived it as a, a male sort of competitive comment as being the origins or the motivation for it.
And that is with the benefit of 2020 hindsight as this is a re-watch.
 
Jenna: I was going to say, I feel like we should put a spoiler tag on that discussion.
I will say what's coming much later - it really came out of the blue to me, my first watch and then ever after, I watched very carefully for things to see.
Okay, was it actually coming? Was there a Stan and Peggy comfort level with each other along the way?
 
I still don't see this necessarily as Stan thinking he has a chance with Peggy, so making this comment to make her question her relationship with Abe.
I feel like it's their comfort together and he's narrating and just feeling free to judge her, because they're so comfortable with each other, and spend all this time together, and he always is throwing out comments about, you know, that move in the pitch was suicidal but brave.
 
And, you know, you're so competitive, you race people to the bathroom and he's just always making those types of comments.
But I feel like it's more how much they know each other than it's romantic. But, but it is interesting to watch for that as we go. And I'm so sorry if you're a first time watcher because that's a pretty big spoiler.
 
Steve: No, no apologies from me. This is a re-watch so we don't lean into the spoilers, but we can't avoid them 100% either, so . . .
 
Jenna: And I think in this episode, particularly, the contrast between Stan and Abe really does matter because when we're looking at what are Peggy's expectations, and what are her imaginings for herself and her future, versus who is she and what will truly make her happy, I think that's -
they both represent those extremes pretty well.
 
 
In bed that night, Don and Megan are talking. And again, I feel like there's some honesty that's only shared in really intimate spaces between them.
 
She reveals her father won't spend any cash during sightseeing.
And she lobbies to get a babysitter now that the kids are here, so her parents can still see Don receive his award as they planned.
 
And then Don reveals a little discomfort. He says nothing's going to make Megan's father like him.
So I appreciate that they are being truthful with each other. And this is a hard thing, you know, Megan - she doesn't have to, but she's revealing something uncomfortable about her father, you know, that he's too proud to ask for cash to buy himself a pretzel.
 
And Don is revealing some insecurity about trying to please her father and feeling unable to do it. So I just think, even though it seems like those are negative things they're talking about, it's very positive that they're sharing them together.
 
Steve: Well, and we also learn more about Marie, because Megan calls out that her mother is competitive and touches Don six times in a single hour.
 
Jenna: She’s French! Yeah, that’s not what that is. [Laughing]
 
Steve: And again, I think it's very illuminating for who Marie is. And we know that the age difference between Marie and Don is diminished, because Don is significantly older than Megan.
Maybe some of it is just to irritate Emile, who's sitting there watching this occur.
 

Jenna: The next morning, when Megan goes into Don's office, he's reading a French dictionary on the couch, which I think is really cute.
And Megan wants to share her idea for a new Heinz pitch. It's based on serving spaghetti through the generations.
 
And Don is so thrilled with Megan here.
It's the first time he has ever viewed her as an actual copywriter.
 
A few episodes ago, we talked about not seeing independence in Megan in the season leading up to this.
And you blamed yourself as a viewer for not looking to her to have that agency.
And I said I'd been watching for it, and I didn't see it until Faye was out of the picture.
 
But I think your point is really important here in the context of Don's gaze.
Don hasn't been looking to see any special talent or originality in Megan.
And then he finally opens himself up to the possibility here.
 
But it's like, who have you been with this whole time, right?
This beautiful person who makes your life easy, but you haven't really seen her or known her, so he hasn't really looked at her as a whole person.
And then he sees this and he's so thrilled. It's like bonus material.
 
Steve: Yeah. And as a viewer, I'm watching it at first wondering, is Don just humoring her and being kind? And it quickly becomes evident that, no, that's not the case, that he believes the idea has actual merit. And he calls in Stan and Michael, and this immediately flips the whole Heinz pitch.
 
And as we hear from the chatter between Stan and Michael, they also concur that there's real substance to this. So it is very much a coming out party for Megan as a legitimate creative person.
 
And we can see, I think, the genuine thrill and happiness it gives Don Draper, that his pretty wife, who he was, I think, humoring with the position, is actually demonstrating that she's got some chops and could actually merit the position.
 
Jenna: But I also found this piece interesting:
When Peggy went to Don about having problems with Joey,
Don told her, you don't want me in the middle of this.
And he was right about it for the benefit of her independence and her career.
 
And here Megan admits she doesn't want Don to say that it was his idea to the team,
that really she wants Don to give her credit for it,
but it seems like he's showing off about Megan that her great idea is another reason he was smart to marry her, as opposed to setting her up for success with the team.
 
Because we see in a scene later, Ginsberg and Stan are irritated because they have to change the pitch again. They're okay with it being a better idea, but instead of letting Megan talk to the team about it, Don just says, we're running with a better idea, change it.
And that doesn't really do anything for Megan professionally. It's not a great way for the boss to handle it.
 
I do appreciate they make a point to show Peggy supporting Megan.
So when she asks if her idea was any good, and they're like, yeah.
And she says, “Good for her.”
And it would be easy for Peggy to be bitter over Heinz and, and also over Megan's relationship with Don, but they don't do that same old tired women-hating-women plot. And I'm glad.
 
Steve: I think it's another tip of the hat to the professionalism of Peggy, because like you say, there are emotional and personal reasons why maybe she would feel competitive, especially with regard to the Heinz account.
And Peggy pushes all that aside in order to be professional. And I think it's not just for show.
She is inside her own head, really consciously leaning into the idea that Megan is part of her team, and the team needs to succeed.
 
 
Jenna: After Abe reaches out to Peggy, saying it's important, he wants to see her, they make a date. And this rattles Peggy a little bit. So she goes to talk to Joan about it.
 
And this is another really interesting women-supporting-women thing, but it's not the happy female bonding scene that we love between Peggy and Joan, because they come at it so differently.
 
Peggy assumes that Abe wants to talk about something bad.
And in the last episode when Peggy and Abe were fighting, he accused her of always wanting to push the button on the whole thing.
And there was also that other time when she said, said, oh, I knew something bad would happen.
Like she has doubts that she has cosmic permission to have a personal relationship and professional success, right? She's always worried she's going to lose whatever makes her happy.
 
Steve: I love Joan's take-down of men and their habits. So she makes it clear to Peggy, like, men don't take the time to end things. They just ignore you until you insist on a declaration of hate.

So from Joan's logic, if he wants to get together with her and there's something he wants to say to her that's important, it's almost inevitably going to be a positive thing.
 
And it's funny how this flips Peggy's perspective on the whole thing. And then she starts - goes from sort of worst case scenario planning to the opposite, thinking, well, how, how good or how big could this important thing to say end up being?
And we can see Peggy's imagination running away with her a bit.
 
Jenna: Well, Joan plants that, right? Peggy had not considered it might be a proposal. Joan specifically predicts that. And even then, Peggy says, well, that's you, right?
It's not going to be a proposal for me. For you, Joan, it would be.
 
But it's interesting that Peggy is so excited by this possibility,
But I don't know that I'm excited for her in this moment, the first time through. I think Abe is a good person to expand Peggy's worldview, but I don't know that he's her person.
 
So when you first see this and you think, okay, Abe's going to propose, are you really excited that Peggy is going to get married? Or are you like, no, Peggy, no?
Or what do you, what did you think?
 
Steve: No, I'm, I'm the same way.
They seem to get along well together, but the relationship feels fairly immature to me at this point.
I don't know, maybe I'm just too old and closed-minded, but I don't support anybody running off and getting married.
 
Jenna: And then Joan suggests that Peggy goes shopping for something to wear to this dinner.
And we know Peggy has a whole bunch of practical business things in her closet, but not a lot of soft, romantic accepting-proposals outfits.
So that's exactly what Joan would tell her.
 
 
Steve: Back in Don's office, Roger wants to talk about the American Cancer Society dinner that's coming up, where Don is getting his big award, and Roger's eyeing that as a major opportunity for them to solicit new clients.
Don is sort of putting the cooler on that and suggesting that he shouldn't go overboard.
 
And then the conversation shifts to talking about the in-laws being in town.
And I love Don's description of Emile as a leftist sleeping with his daughter, almost a Communist. And then he lets Roger know that Emile hates him.
 
Jenna: Yes, we get a truth call-out in this scene, and Don describes Megan's father being a Communist, or a Socialist, or a Maoist, or something that makes him hate me and what I do.
 
And that's such a lie. Because if Megan's father hates Don, it's for not making his daughter happy enough. It's not for being in advertising.
 
I thought this scene was a little bit similar to the one with Peggy and Joan, where Joan is suggesting a positive outcome is coming, and Peggy is doubtful.
 
And here Roger's optimistic about all the business they're going to get at this dinner.
And Don has trouble believing things will be okay after the letter he wrote against smoking and tobacco.
 
Steve: I love when Roger observes that often people are looking at you, but they're not really thinking about you.
And he seems to think this is some sort of profound realization that perhaps is attributable to his awakening under LSD.
And Don just shuts it down and says, a lot of people have realized that without taking LSD [Laughing].
 
 
Jenna: In the next scene, Peggy shows up for her dinner with Abe at Minetta Tavern.
This is a real restaurant that opened in 1937. Its About page says that the place was frequented by writers like Eugene O’Neill, Ernest Hemingway, Dylan Thomas, and,  “various poets and pugilists.”
So it's a place known for writers and fighters. And I can't decide if that is perfect for Peggy, or maybe a bad omen.
 
Peggy walks in and she's wearing this pink dress with a bow. And she looks pretty, but it's such a costume to me.
I mean, this - she's trying on this other life. This is what she thinks girls wear to receive proposals, instead of finding a way to look like herself, only dressed up.
 
And I think it's brilliant costuming by Janie Bryant, because she's trying hard.
But Abe is not the right fit.
So this doesn't look like a dress, like, this is Peggy's best look ever.
She doesn't look like herself.
 
Steve: Well, and I think the whole scene is a little surreal in the sense that we know Peggy is spun up thinking she's about to receive a proposal for marriage.
And we can see Abe is nervous. And this is obviously a fancier place than they would normally go to.
And he's got something important to ask her.
 
So when he springs the question and it ends up being simply, you know, do you want to live together?
Peggy's response is very much as if she'd gotten the proposal she expected to receive.
She seems happy, excited. She says yes.
 
It just feels a little disconnected to me because I'm thinking, Peggy, did you hear what Abe said? Like, he's not offering marriage. He just wants to live together.
And it's only at the very end of the scene when we sort of see that,
I don't know, intellectual version of Peggy who's sorted through the reality of what he suggested.
And we see the mask slip a little bit.
 
I guess the lack of emotional thrill for Peggy at this prospect. You know, not that she's upset,
but it was not what she was expecting.
 
Jenna: I think, at first when he says I think we should move in together.
She thinks there's more coming, because she's very passive.
And she says, “How would we ever do that?”
So I think she still thinks the question is coming, that he's going to ask her to marry him.
And he doesn't ever say anything more about that.
 
And Elisabeth Moss is such a gifted actress, because you can see her genuine thrill at receiving a proposal. And then when it becomes clear that's not what this is, she keeps her smile on. And it isn't just a smile for Abe, it's a smile for herself.
 
We have mentioned a lot of different lies in this episode.
And Peggy here has this moment where she decides to lie to herself, that this is an outcome she's happy about.
And when he asks, do you still want to eat? And Peggy answers, “I do.”
This is a disappointment dressed up in a smile.
 
She wants it to be a beautiful moment together. She wants it to be a good outcome.
And I think - I don't know, maybe she knows marriage isn't right for them at this point anyway, but I also think she wants to star in a fairy tale in the abstract.
So I feel her disappointment. And then at the end, her face - it's a sadness, even though she's trying to convince herself it isn't.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think you put it the right way. It's a lie to herself. It's a spin,
a positive spin she's putting in her own head to try and make this a happier moment.
I agree with you - Elisabeth Moss is outstanding in this scene. And that disappointed look at the very end of it really says it all.
 
 
Jenna: Next we see Ken and Cynthia, Don and Megan, and Raymond and Alice from Heinz having dinner together.
And something's off. Heinz has been in New York a little bit earlier than Ken knew about.
They mentioned seeing the new Edward Albee play. Of course, that's the author of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
And this play would have been A Delicate Balance. And that's a play that tackles pain points in families and friendships. So, again, always a fitting choice for the pop culture reference.
 
Steve: During the dinner, Megan goes to the bathroom with Raymond's wife, Alice, and Alice leaks that Heinz has already decided to leave the firm, and is taking their business elsewhere.
 
Jenna: She doesn't say it explicitly, but Megan's smart enough to read exactly what this is.
 
Steve: Once she gets back to the table, and they now know they're dead on arrival, Megan tees up the pitch. A new pitch for the new idea that they haven't had a chance to present to Heinz.
 
Jenna: Yes. I think it's notable that Megan pushes Don to share the idea. She doesn't share it herself.
And I do think there's some sexism with Raymond not receiving Peggy's pitches previously.
So this is really smart, because hearing it from Don is really what Raymond wants. He wants it to be Don's idea. He doesn't want it to be from Don Draper's wife.
 
When Raymond suggests they use the same mother and child actors for each scene, Megan also pretends like she hadn't already suggested that to Don. Like, oh, Raymond, what a great idea, we hadn't thought about that, playing him so perfectly.
 
And Don didn't want to keep fighting for this account. Later he says, I was just going to yell at his stupid face or something.
And Raymond takes a beat and makes them wait for his approval.
 
And then Don does the thing Peggy tried to do for her idea. She tried to explain how special and creative it was. And Don says, you know - Ken is like, oh, we were dancing around some other things.
And Don says, no. This is a once in a lifetime idea.
And he just leaves that there.
 
And everybody is hanging on to see what's going to happen. And even Raymond's wife is like, oh, come on, Raymond. It's great. It's everything -
And he's like, shh, you know.
And then when Raymond finally does accept the campaign, you can see Don is so impressed by Megan, just absolutely thrilled.
 
And we've seen Betty perform at these things really well for him.
We've never seen him look at Betty that way.
 
Steve: It's just a complete win for Megan in this moment. And we can see later Don's complete enthusiasm for her.
 
 
 
Jenna: In the office the next morning, Peggy's getting coffee, and Joan comes in.
And Peggy is determinedly cheerful when she says, oh, it was better than a proposal. We're moving in together.
 
And I feel like Joan is really generous with her approval for Peggy here.
She's not elated for her, but she says the polite thing.
And I feel like Joan's fairy tale burned up so thoroughly that maybe she's just taking a new look at Peggy and thinking, you know, maybe she's onto something here. Maybe this is the right thing for you, Peggy.
Even though we know season one Joan would have been scandalized.
 
And honestly, I'm kind of feeling like moving in together could be the best outcome for Peggy, anyway.
We've seen all of these marriages eroding, and Abe and Peggy don't seem quite perfect together. I don't know if anybody really ships them.
 
So it would be pretty shocking to live together at that time period, but we've seen Peggy being very modern, so it's not out of character for her.
And I kind of think she assumes that eventually they might get married, right? I have the sense that's her thought.
 
Steve: Well, and I would assume that most people looking to move in together would be with an eye to the future, that the relationship would continue.
 
And I agree with you. I think Joan is very kind here.
I wonder if Joan senses any guilt about sort of pumping Peggy's expectations up in the earlier meeting.
And then I love at the end part where she sort of relates it to her own situation, saying that, you know, a piece of paper may not mean all that much.
And she alludes to her own situation where, you know, Greg's piece of paper from the army is more important to him than his piece of paper, his marriage certificate with her, which I think really shows Joan's pain and hurt from her own situation and perhaps reflects Joan reassessing, just the way you stated to say maybe we need to deviate from some of the norms, because they aren't really serving us particularly well.
 
Jenna: And you can see with this statement that Peggy is disappointed and trying to convince herself it's what she wants.
When Joan says I think it's very romantic, and Peggy says, “It is, isn't it? We don't need a piece of paper.”
 
Here is Peggy trying to tell herself this thing. She tells herself that she wants this traditional down-on-one-knee, sweep-her-off-her-feet proposal, and at the same time she wants somebody who's going to be really patient with her working 15 hour days.
She wants both of those things.
 
Steve: It's just difficult to square them. You know, Peggy's at a time and place when there were far few fewer women trying to pull off both. So in many ways she's a trailblazer at this point.
She probably doesn't have any other role models to follow.
 
So it's just hard I think from the modern perspective to try and put ourselves in the head of someone like that where, where you can't turn to all these examples of people maybe, you know, or lives that are playing out that way.
 
 
Jenna: So Peggy goes from her supportive conversation with Joan and tries to offer that same support to Megan as she congratulates her about the Heinz pitch.
And I feel like Peggy's warmth to Megan feels absolutely sincere too.
She's not bitter, she's not begrudging, but she is detecting that Megan isn't as thrilled about this as Peggy would be.
 
And when Peggy says this is as good as this job gets,
it seems like that is a big red flag for Megan, who is not fulfilled with this, even though she was excited to come up with the idea and she and Don were both really happy that they sold it.
 
But this is the thing I love about the show.
You don't see this complexity most of the time.
There are people who are really good at things they don't love doing,
and they have to make career choices that, you know, might not be fulfilling or might not pay well,
and it's just not as simple as getting hired and going to work.
I love this tension and this complexity.
 
Steve: I also, at this point,
don't know enough about Megan's motivations to really know why it is this isn't floating her boat, because I don't know what that other thing is yet that she aspires to. Why is this a miss?
 
Jenna: I love this parallel between Peggy trying to convince herself she's happy about moving in with Abe, juxtaposed with Megan trying to convince others she's happy about selling her Heinz idea.
Because neither of these lies Peggy and Megan are telling themselves are malicious.
 
But we do these things, right? Humans try to convince ourselves we are something or we aren't something, and we think we should have the right answers, but we don't know always know when or how to initiate change.
It can be difficult when you're at a crossroads to know exactly,
you know, be yourself. Well, who is that? Who am I going to be?
And you see both Peggy and Megan with valid options.
They've got reasonable doubts as well.
 
 
Steve: The next scene takes us to the Draper residence the following day.
As Don gets up, he spots Bobby messing with a fountain pen on the white carpet. Ink is everywhere, while Emile obliviously sits there, letting him.
Throughout the scene, Emile and Marie have friction. They're taking little shots at each other and there's a real tension as they feud.
 
Megan reassures Don that this is par for the course with them and in no way will pose a threat to his award ceremony that evening.
 
Jenna: I love when Megan has to explain to Don that her father should be crying about his book to his wife, not his grad student.
“Oh, yeah, right,” Don says.
 
The other notable thing about this scene is that Megan, Sally, and Marie have just gotten home from shopping, and Sally asks permission to go to the dinner to see her father get his award.
Again, we see all these hints that Sally is growing up.
She's becoming one of the adults now, or trying to.
 
Steve: I love the style of the shots that Emile and Marie are taking at each other.
As the viewer, I'm trying to keep up with what they're alluding to.
Whereas we can tell the characters know the baggage and the scar tissue they're referring to.
And it just makes it feel that much more real.
 
That there's a brutality and a meanness to it, a pettiness,
but there's also a real emotional struggle that's present there and really tightly written.
 
Jenna: “I think every daughter should see her father as a success.” Yeah.
 
 
Next we get Abe and Peggy at her apartment, hosting Peggy's mother Katherine for dinner.
It's very domestic looking, but also false. I mean, we never see Peggy entertaining. She's not Trudy, she's not Betty.
 
She's hanging out with scraps of paper and books all over the place. She doesn't make hams in her spare time, but. But here she is. She's got on the apron.
 
I think Peggy partly expects her announcement to her mother to go well because it went well with Joan.
If Joan can approve, then maybe Katherine can, too. And Peggy can fully pretend she's happy with Abe and the state of their relationship.
 
But Joan has had a major life shift, and she might have shared Katherine's viewpoint in season one, but she's not the same now.
So you can see Katherine expects news of Peggy and Abe's engagement in this scene, but that's not what's coming.
 
Steve: Whatever hopes Peggy had, if it's to the extent what you just stated, then I think she's being quite naive given what we've already seen from Peggy's mother, how traditional she is.
 
She is not going to look at anything with an open mind, perceive it from the objective standard of what's best for her daughter.
And of course, this goes completely off the rails. So initially her mom is very polite and clearly not approving, but not being rude and not crossing any lines.
 
And then as Peggy perceives that and then pushes the issue and forces the question, then her mother turns on the flamethrower.
 
Jenna: Her tone might be polite and civil, but she's taking her cake back. [Laughing]
So I think there's no misreading her response as politeness at any stage. Although it gets a lot worse.
 
As always with Katherine, though, even though she's awful,
you can see the love she has for Peggy.
She says, you're selling yourself short, and she means, you deserve better. And for her that means a real marriage.
And it comes out raw and hateful.
 
But I think Katherine really does want Peggy to be happy, and she always has.
And when she says, you know, this boy will marry somebody else when he's ready,
this is stabbing at every bit of Peggy's self doubt.
When she just tears up and says, do you want me to be alone?
I mean, this is Peggy revealing she is settling.
 
She does think this is the best it can get for her.
And like Megan, she's trying to convince herself it's enough.
 
Steve: Well, and her mother does offer the helpful advice that if she's lonely, she can get a cat.
 
Jenna: And another and another, then you're done.
 
Steve: And this is the first incidence of the cat lady.
 
Jenna: I wonder too about Katherine and her loneliness and her life, and how she is prescribing these same traditional things to her own daughter.
And she would do anything for her daughter. As long as her daughter stays in line, right?
And she won't.
 
But I don't ever look at Katherine and say, oh, you're so happy. It worked out so well for you.
So it's interesting how determinedly she clings to her traditions.
It's clear Peggy wants a very full life.
 
Do you feel like Abe is offering that to her even without marriage? Do you think that Peggy is just a little bit too traditional, and that if she were more open to the possibilities with Abe, that maybe she could let herself be free, but she's still actually trapped kind of the way that Katherine is?
 
Steve: Trying not to look at it through my eyes, but I try and put myself in Peggy's head. I mean, she invokes her father and her mother fights her on that point and makes it clear that in her view,
in her mother's view, that her father would agree with the mother and be very much against this.
 
I don't know. I feel like we haven't seen enough of this relationship with Abe to know sort of how strong it is or how deep, you know, it's gone about as well as any relationship Peggy's had to this point.
 
It just feels like Peggy is kind of caught between different worlds, caught between conflicting views on her own side, her sense of modernity.
I don't know that there is a right answer for her here.
 
 
Jenna: Next, Roger comes over to Don's place and meets Marie and Emile Calvet. And there are already sparks flying as Marie ties Roger's bow tie for him.
 
Sally makes her entrance in a silver dress with her go-go boots.
And Emile has this line.
“Don, there is nothing you can do. One day your little girl will spread her legs and fly away.”
“Wings, Daddy,” Megan corrects.
 
And that's Emile's problem with Don. His little girl has left him and admires a new man. Emile isn't the only hero for her anymore.
There's a truth call-out as Marie agrees that inevitably this will happen, that your daughter will leave you.
 
Steve: And if there was any chance of Sally making it to the dinner with her make-up and go-go boots, it went out the window with Emile's misspeaking there about the spreading of wings and other appendages.
 
Jenna: I might be reading too much into this, but I thought it was interesting that Sally, representing the next generation in the Heinz pitch, has this silver dress on and kind of a futuristic thing, like, we're passing things on to the next generation.
 
And there are some things that we hope, you know, when we look at the relationship between Marie and Emile, and we hope not for Don and Megan, it's not just spaghetti that generations pass down, right?
 
Like, we hope that some of that dysfunction won't also be passed down to the future generation.
 
Steve: Well, and I wonder for a notorious philanderer like Don Draper, who is known in the greater New York City area for his sexual prowess and his number of partners,
a guy who's blown up his marriage with his trophy wife, I just have to think it's even harder for a Don Draper to look at his little girl as she starts to enter into womanhood.
It's got to make him consider his own experience with relationships and contemplate where his daughter's going to land.
 
 
Jenna: So Sally arrives at the dinner, and she's surprised the ballroom has no staircase.
 
There's a 1936 movie starring Shirley Temple called Captain January,
and there is a song and dance number in it called At the Codfish Ball. I'll link a video to that on our website for this episode.
The movie plot is not very connective to this Mad Men episode, but in the dance number, this young girl, Shirley Temple's character, is surrounded by adult men, including a dance partner.
 
And nothing untoward happens in the movie, but we can draw a direct comparison between Sally and Shirley, who are each surrounded by adults and performing in that world.
So Roger says Sally will be his date, and she can put the business cards he collects in her purse.
 
And honestly, he's so charming, you can't blame Sally for grinning, even when he's talking about napalm.
 
Steve: He is totally charming. And as you mentioned in the prior scene, there's instant sparks between him and Marie. And we can see Marie watching him closely as he humors Sally and just treats her as a little princess.
So we are really seeing Roger Sterling at his best here at the dinner. And Marie has definitely taken notice.
 
Jenna: This scene between Emile and Pete might be Pete's most admirable scene in the whole series. It's amazing.
Emile asks what Pete does, and the exchange between them is so perfect. I think this is actually one of my favorite things about this entire episode and why I look forward to it.
 
Well, what do you do?
You're a scholar and an intellectual, right?
From what I hear, you're a trailblazer.
I bet the world would be better off if they knew the kind of work you're doing.
That, Emile, is what I do every day.
 
Steve: And it's so perfect, because I think Emile brings a sort of intellectual arrogance, right? The author and professor talking to this account man at an ad firm from Madison Avenue, you know, that's the conceit Emile is starting this conversation with.
It's so hilarious how Pete is able to take advantage of Emile's insecurities and ego.
 
And the account man demonstrates that in spades, so that all he can do is laugh because he realizes Pete has completely caught him out and demonstrated exactly what Pete does, despite Emile's, you know, assumed superior intellect.
 
Jenna: I love that Emile laughs at himself. It's fantastic. He's been caught. He owns it. He doesn't apologize for it. And I think it makes us like him a lot more than if he were just affronted and sniffed or something.
I mean, he can't help it. And I think it's wonderful and it's honest.
Maybe Megan is a little more like her father than at first would appear.
 
Steve: We can also see that Marie is really excited by Roger's drive for success and this positive energy that he's bringing. As you know, he's working this room and sees this as a real opportunity for him to find a purpose at the front.
 
There's a real irony because we know what a whiny little low energy baby Roger has been. Marie is really seeing Roger Sterling at his best, and very much attracted to him.
But this is again, a sort of post acid trip revelation compared to where he was not too long ago.
I don't think Marie would have been so impressed with that earlier, feeling sorry for himself Roger Sterling.
 
Jenna: No. I think, though, at this particular moment in time, they're speaking each other's language really well.
Marie says, “It was my spirit when I was young to try everything, to get a taste and never be sorry for making mistakes."
And that? That is Roger's lust language right there. She's saying all the right things.
 
Steve: With a French accent, a very sexy French accent.
 
 
Jenna: So as the dinner is served, it's fish.
And we know from earlier Sally doesn't like fish,
Especially - it's plated with the head and the eyes and everything on it, so it's not great.
 
And Sally is there in the costume of an adult, so she tries the fish.
She doesn't spit it out, but it's not for her.
She went to a ball in the ballroom and there was no staircase. So, you know, it's starting to diminish from what her expectations were going to be.
 
Steve: Even if the dining options aren't to her preference, it feels like she's enjoying this exposure to the world of adults. What could possibly go wrong?
 
 
Jenna: Later at the dinner, as Don gets the award,
Roger orders Sally a Shirley Temple. And that's a nice nod to the episode title.
And Don offers to give the award to Sally.
 
And Emile and Marie are watching as Don is a good parent here.
He says Sally makes him happy. Not the award, that she's beautiful, and someday she can wear makeup, but not yet.
And it's such a good example of Don being attuned to her. He's setting appropriate limits. He's expressing approval of who she is.
 
And you can see Emile and Marie are approving of his parenting. And the best part is, Don isn't doing it to get their approval. He's just really being a good parent.
And that's lovely because we've missed that from him a lot through the series.
 
Steve: I'll also say that I think Marie's attraction to Roger is genuine.
She's probably not above doing things just to spite Emile,
but I don't get the vibe that any of this is a performance for his benefit or for his punishment.
 
Jenna: I'm sorry, but John Slattery in a ballroom is the man you want to meet in a ballroom.
He's so funny and he's so charming, and we know he's irresponsible and childish and everything, but yes, at his best, he is definitely the guy you want to spend time with.
 
 
Steve: Later in the dinner, Megan and Emile find themselves alone at the table. And Megan looks a little down, and Emile asks her about it. Is she serving her passion?
 
Megan seems to want to dodge the substance of this inquiry from Emile, but this is her father, and he knows her well.
You know, you haven't worked for this.
You've had this wealth served up to you and it's not good for your soul.
 
Jenna: This is another father attuned to his daughter.
He notices she looks sad.
"You have big beans success." And she says, "Don't make fun, Papa."
 
And the whole scene is written so well. It's very much like Peggy's scene with her mother.
Emile is calling Megan out on the truth about who she is and what she really wants, just like Katherine did with Peggy, except it's kinder.
 
So Emile and Katherine are carrying baggage and expectations for their children.
And it might be different from what Megan and Peggy actually dream about,
but neither parent lets them hide or pretend they're happy with something less. And that is love, even though it's difficult.
 
And Emile says, "Don't let your love for this man stop you from doing what you want to do."
And that is true about Megan. That's what's happening.
 
Steve: And I think Emile to some extent is speaking from experience.
I get the sense that he's pursued his passion and even at a low point in it where, you know, his book has been rejected and he still had the opportunity to pursue his passions.
And I don't think Emile would trade that for anything.
 
And I think that gives him a credibility for Megan in this moment where maybe the allure of success and what that can bring here could distract you from the fact that this isn't your passion.
 
And I think that's why it rocks her so profoundly, because he's not trying to drag her down for the sake of it or to join him in misery. He really is thinking about her best interests here.
 
Jenna: And I think even though we saw her face when she was talking to Peggy,
I think if Emile doesn't have this conversation with her at this dinner,
the future decision doesn't happen. This is a deciding moment for Megan, I think.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think he's pulled into the light something that's been gnawing at her subconscious and done it out of his love and commitment to her and her long term happiness.
And I agree with you. I think this is a real turning point for her.
She needs to make a decision because if she continues on this road, then she will have given up whatever it is that is her dream.
 
 
Jenna: On her way back from the ladies' room, Sally opens some double doors and finds Marie and Roger together.
Boy, children are discovering some ugly truths in this episode here.
Sally gets a whole look at charming Roger and elegant Marie being very different from who they seem to be to her.
 
And for something so shocking, Sally has nobody to talk about this with, like, there's - what is she going to do with this information?
She wanted so much to be grown up, and it turns out it's yucky fish dinner and infidelity.
It’s not nearly as much fun as she imagined.
 
I think also when we see how angry Roger's daughter is,
I'm not saying she has seen this exact situation, but over and over she's been with charming Roger, and inevitably been disappointed by him.
 
So I feel like this one evening clarifies Margaret's perspective a little bit, because certainly we can imagine she had all these opportunities to look up to her father and see him as a hero and then have him, in one way or another, disappoint her, shock her, let her down.
 
Steve: It's a rough scene from Sally's viewpoint, and the show succeeds in shocking us with these scenes and leveraging our own minds to achieve the shock that it doesn't actually explicitly show on the screen.
So maybe it's not something that Sally realizes consciously, but the truth of the matter is, for all the perks and great things of adulthood, there, there are costs and prices to pay.
 
 
Jenna: Meanwhile, Cynthia's father is telling Don nobody trusts him enough to work with him after the letter, which was basically the same thing Don said to Roger earlier.
But like Peggy and Joan, Don worked himself into the expectation that something good was coming,
enough so that now he's disappointed when it doesn't.
 
Steve: It also seems to parallel almost this welcome to the adult world. You can write a letter and bite the hand that fed you for so long, but there's a consequence and a price to be paid.

And this is the price. You're a loose cannon. Nobody's going to trust you.
Nobody can take that risk. Nobody can go to bat for you.
 
 
Jenna: Back at the table, Emile, Marie, Megan, Don, and Sally are all sitting dejected at the end of the night. Everybody has secrets and disappointments.
Roger doesn't come back to the table, but I kind of wish he would, because he seems to be having a really great evening.
 
Steve: If he was sitting at the table, I imagine he'd have a really big grin on his face, so it would be somewhat out of place with the other attendees. So I'm glad that he was probably at the bar getting another drink.
 
 
Jenna: This episode started with Sally and Glen on the phone, and it ends that way, too.
“People think you're my girlfriend,” Glen says, because Sally calls him (on the phone regularly).
I'm not, she says, and that line is mostly for us, to clarify that they both understand that's their relationship.
I'm so glad she's not his girlfriend.
 
How's the city? Glen asks.
“Dirty,” Sally answers.
I don't love that as a closing line when the writing in this episode, I feel has been so good and so efficient and clarifying.
It seems too much like a punchline to me to end this way.
 
But I do think it's necessary. I do think we need to understand Sally has been profoundly changed.  And she's having to process this by herself.
 
And so instead of having this magical grown-up evening where she gets to feel like she's not a little kid anymore, and people are taking her seriously, you know, there are all these layers that are peeling back that are - I don't mean that to be a euphemism [Laughing] - but she's having to look at things that she wasn't really ready for.
I do think the episode has to end with Sally. It's her episode, it really is, in a lot of ways.
 
Steve: I like the line and I think it really sums it up. It's a dirty business. It's a dirty world. She's gotten an exposure to it this evening and really everybody has across the episode.
 
So Peggy with what she thought would be a proposal for marriage. It's something lesser.
Don with hoping that his letter could maybe be a stepping stone to something bigger or good. And clearly it isn't.
Yeah, I like it. I think it really fits things and sums it up well in a way that Glen has no idea.
 
 
Jenna: Today, our listener shout out goes to DJG.
Thank you so much for supporting us through Buy Me a Coffee, which in our case is Buy Me a Chip & Dip.

To make this podcast, we pay a service to distribute the podcast, and we pay for our online editing software and our website. So those donations help cover the cost of producing the show. And we're just really grateful for your support, and for the support of other people who are supporting us that way.
And if anybody would like to help, you can find the donation button on the homepage of our website, which is Mad Men C to Z dot com.
 
Steve: That's it for this episode of All things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou. Visit our website, Mad Men C to Z to vote for your favorite Sterling Lines, and to share your opinions on our Double Dip questions for each episode.
 
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And please listen, like and subscribe. That's what the podcast's for!
 
Steve: Thanks for listening, everybody.

Mad Men C to Z S5E6 Far Away Places Podcast Transcript
Jenna: Hi, I'm Jenna.
Steve: And I'm Steve. Welcome to All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou.
 
Jenna: There's so much to love about this amazing show, and we're happy to connect to fans like us, who discover new things with each re-watch.
 
Steve: Be advised, while we aren't gratuitous with spoilers, they can pop up as we discuss character arcs through the final season.
Let's get started with Mad Men, C to Z.
 
Jenna: This is Mad Men Season 5, Episode 6 Far Away Places. The episode was written by Semi Chellas and Matthew Weiner, and directed by Scott Hornbacher.
 
This episode follows three separate stories during the same time period; it's a Thursday in September.
It feels a little bit like the episode Seven Twenty Three that had the ending of three storylines, and it catches us up to how they got there.
In that case, it was Betty and Henry,
Peggy and Duck, and Don's robbing hitchhikers.
 
Here we get one connective point in all three stories, where Don asks Megan to leave with him, and then we get to see Peggy's story, Roger and Jane, and then Don and Megan's trip.
 
The title of this episode, Far Away Places, seems like a goal for each of the characters, because they all want to get someplace, but they can't quite escape themselves.
For Peggy, it's becoming Don,
for Jane, it's an LSD trip with Roger,
and for Don it's trying to recapture what he and Megan had on their trip to California.

Steve: The episode starts with Peggy getting ready for work. Abe's displaying his frustration that Peggy seems to prioritize her job and work over paying attention to him.
 
Jenna: Each of the three storylines features an argument between couples, and this one between Peggy and Abe opens with a truth call-out.
Abe complains Peggy's too focused on work.

He says there are always special circumstances, and she says that's not true,
but this is the same fight she had with her sister.
 
Peggy is always too busy for her personal and family life,
even though she does want that, too.
Abe's timing isn't great, and I have to say I'm generally a Peggy apologist, but I sympathize with Abe's central problem here.
Peggy's main relationship is with work, not him.
Did you feel like you had a strong alignment with Peggy or Abe in this conflict?
 
Steve: I don't feel like I align with either, but I just accept that this is the circumstance of this relationship.
As you said, Peggy prioritizes the job,
and I think she does have strong feelings for Abe and she genuinely likes him,
but she's always putting the job first.
And if you're Abe in this situation, it makes sense to me that you're feeling like you're always playing second fiddle.
 
Jenna: There are callbacks to the pilot in each of the three main storylines, and in Peggy's, it's being anxious about the Heinz client presentation here.
 
In this first scene in the pilot, we saw Don worried about not having anything to say to Lucky Strike, and he was obsessing to Midge about it in the morning,
just the way Peggy does to Abe.
 
Steve: And I think with Don not focusing so much on the job,
some of that burden and responsibility on the creative side is falling on Peggy.
 
So for someone who's already very focused on their work,
I think she's being thrust forward and having more responsibility put upon her,
which is probably something else that Abe's picking up on.
 
Jenna: I have a couple of tidbits from this scene.
Abe mentions a 1965 Cornell Wilde movie called The Naked Prey, in which a white man is given a chance to run for his life while being hunted in Africa.
 
It might be a reach, but I think maybe this movie is symbolic of Don and Megan's fight later when he's chasing her around the apartment.
And the movie Peggy ends up seeing later that day is Born Free,
in which a female lion is raised in captivity as a pet.
And that seems to be applying more and more to Megan, too.
 
The other piece I wanted to touch on was this episode drawing a really strong comparison between Peggy and Don, starting with this candy -
Don once told Bobby it tastes like violets.
He was saying his father liked it, and that it came in a purple and silver wrapper.
 
And it's such a great detail to have it come back here that Don would have given that to Peggy.
And now for her, it's good luck.
 
 
Steve: The next scene shifts to the office as Peggy arrives, and catches Michael in the midst of a personal phone call.
Peggy, having just fought with her partner, tries to commiserate with Michael.
He kind of shoots down her attempt, especially pointing out that the difference between the two conversations is that hers was private.
 
Jenna: And there's a weird off-kilter feeling as all of the creatives arrive that morning into the office with their own immediate experiences.
They don't have a very cohesive team vibe.
 
Peggy, Ginsberg, Stan, and Megan all have had some private experience that they connect to their work life, so they do have that in common.
 
But Stan makes a comment about his art.
His story is kind of funny. I sort of wanted to hear more about that.
But Megan talks about casting in this group of people she just saw.
Michael wants work privacy, presumably from his father, and, of course, Peggy's fight.
And they all care about work, but they're not synchronized as a team here.
 
Steve: And when Don and Megan show up and saying she can do the presentation and he won't be there for it, which, again, I think shows us Don checking out and Peggy, shouldering the burden.
 
And then we also see how Megan is not really the same as the other creatives because of her connection to Don.
We can clearly see that she just is never allowed to forget that she is Don's wife, and thus has a special status compared to the rest of them, like Stan, Michael, and Peggy.
 
Jenna: I think we like Megan more because you can see her guilt about leaving the team, and you can see Peggy doesn't like Don leaving her alone, and taking her team member.
But Peggy doesn't have the option to speak up and change it.
And it doesn't really feel like Megan has a lot of voice in it, either.
 
I thought it was interesting when Stan said something really encouraging to Peggy: “That's a vote of confidence,” when Don was leaving Peggy to do it.
So that was quite a turnaround for him from where he started with her.
 
There are two times in this episode when a character says something about Peggy that could also apply to Megan, and this is the first one,
because Ginsberg says “That's a disaster,” as Don and Megan are leaving.
 
It's supposed to apply to Don being out and leaving Peggy to deal with the presentation on her own.
But it also kind of does apply to Don basically kidnapping Megan, and their whole relationship. So it works on two levels.
 
Steve: And we know Stan isn't privy to the reasons why Don is always absenting himself. So I think this is a charitable read, both complimenting Peggy, but also I think Don has more important things to do, or is prioritizing the business in other ways, when we as viewers know that's just not the case.
His. His mind is elsewhere.
 
 
Jenna: Next up is Peggy's Heinz presentation.
I know it's meant to be a good presentation, but I can't help giggling when she says “It's the beans that brought them together on that cool night.”
Is it the beans? But okay, she does a good job.
 
But Raymond is not having it.
Connie wanted the moon.
Raymond wants college students.
This is a second elaborate pitch he's rejecting.
 
Steve: And Peggy goes full Don Draper in response. So just as we've previously seen Don Draper get quite hostile and in the face of clients, who,
in Don's opinion, weren't smart enough or visionary enough to see the brilliance of the ad campaign,
now Peggy is the one who's really at the end of her patience with the client who can't appreciate the creative genius that's on offer here.
 
We see Ken working the account side of it, trying to cool the temperature,
but the mask is really off of Peggy at this point.
 
Jenna: I get the sense that Raymond values Don Draper - he said, you know, does Don approve of this? or something - and I feel like Raymond isn't having this speech from Peggy,but I feel like he might take it from Don.
 
Steve: I get that vibe as well here.
It makes sense, because I think Raymond is portrayed as being of the older generation, and probably embracing the sexism of the older generation to a greater extent.
 
I mean, he directly compares Peggy to his own daughter. I doubt that he would do the same with Don Draper. Comparing him to, say, a son.
 
Again, I think we can see the frustration of Peggy, both from a pure creative standpoint with the client who's frustrating her, and then as well,
being a woman blazing a trail here on the creative side and then having to deal with that additional sexism from the client.
 
Jenna: We heard about Ken and Peggy's pact and how Ken is spending his evenings writing. So I thought it was kind of him to support Peggy in that meeting and then offering to take Raymond to a dinner and a show, because that is a completely donated writing evening just to appease Heinz.
 
We can see that Ken does take his job seriously, the way Roger was lecturing him about last time.
And on top of it, I think we also see that he does value his relationship with Peggy and wants her to succeed.
 
Steve: And I think we can see from Stan's comment that he views Peggy's move as, you know, potentially suicidal.
Peggy's crossed a line here with the client, and even in the eyes of her fellow creatives in the room.
 
Jenna: The meeting ends.
Peggy's irritated, but she's not giving up.
She's already looking for sketches of talking beans, which, again, I kind of want a little bit more of that.
 
But then Pete comes in and says she's off the business.
And we hit Peggy for not being kind during the radio spot with Annie.
But Pete doesn't exactly break this news gently.
 
Still, Peggy's been in this business for a while. She's been working on this a long time. She's disappointed it didn't go well, but she's not broken.
 
Steve: I think it's appropriate that Pete doesn't break it gently.
She's crossed a line, and behaved inappropriately with the client.
 
Maybe Don Draper is a prima donna known up and down Madison Avenue and can get away with it. But even when he was doing it, I can see the account people trying to rein him in and calm him down.
 
So for Peggy to go off the rails in this way, I guess I can really empathize with Pete's frustration here that their second best creative has now alienated a client to the extent that the client doesn't want to deal with her anymore.
 
Jenna: So it's a rough day for Peggy, and she goes into Don's office to pour a drink, and she downs it.
We don't see Don drink at all in this episode, But Peggy has Don's routine down completely.
She's drinking out of his stash, and then she heads to the movies, just like her mentor.
 
Steve: Peggy absents herself from the office, running into Bert on her way out.
And Bert has nothing to say when she says she's headed to the movies.
And she makes a friend in the theater.
 
Jenna: They smoke some weed. She gives him a hand job. You know, it's just a regular movie outing, I guess.
This is so Don Draper of her.
 
Steve: At least she wasn't talking in the theater.
 
Jenna: She doesn't have what she wants at home or at work.
So she goes out and she finds this. It's a little proof to herself that she has some kind of control.
And it's obvious it doesn't mean anything personal to her, but obviously it's disregarding Abe.
And it feels like a very lonely thing to do.
Kind of like Betty eating her feelings.
 
Steve: Well, and I think potentially a little reckless, right?
You could get in trouble for public indecency.
It's very Don Draper-like, I think, if we draw that parallel to the reckless behavior.
 
 
Jenna: There are a lot of scenes with mirrors and reflections in this episode. We cut to a scene of Peggy in a bathroom washing her hands.
We often see Don catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror when he's ashamed or disappointed in himself.
He can't quite run away from who he is and what he's done.
So I feel like this mirror scene in the bathroom is just following up with that Don behavior.
 
 
Steve: And as she goes into the office, she bumps into Michael and his father.
And we can see Michael's discomfort and shyness about his father interacting with his supervisor.
And, of course, Michael's father is eager to engage with Peggy.
 
Jenna: Yes. I wasn't sure if Ginsberg is afraid his father will embarrass him, or if he's craving independence from a father who's too much into his business,
but Ginsberg's father is obviously very proud of him, and wants to be included in his life.
 
And Peggy has that same issue with her mother. So she seems amused by this, like she's not alone in this.
But Ginsberg is not wanting to open up and connect with her and commiserate with her about it.
 
 
Steve: And Peggy goes back to Don's office, and lies down on his sofa, and then falls asleep, waking up later when it's dark. And Dawn comes in to give her a call from Don Draper.
 
Jenna: Yes, this shot is really remarkable for a couple reasons.
 
All three of our main stories this episode have an overhead shot.
Peggy is lying down on Don's couch in the scene.
 
And it's also a callback to the pilot here. As day transitions tonight, Peggy met Don,
waking him up on his couch as his secretary.
And now Dawn, Don's latest secretary, is waking Peggy up.
 
And as she takes the call from Don,
she's honest about the presentation. She takes responsibility for it.
Don doesn't listen or care about work, which for most of the series, is really unusual for him.
 
Steve: Yes, he's got something going on.
He's asking if anyone has called her, and it's not at all clear what the deal is, but Don Draper is upset and distracted.
 
 
Jenna: Later that night, Peggy and Ginsberg are in the office typing.
Everything about this scene shifts my worldview and reminds me, you just don't know what people are going through.
 
So we know Don Draper had a difficult upbringing, and in his way, Pete did, too.
But here's Michael Ginsberg revealing he was born in a concentration camp,
and surviving that reality is just - I mean, it's hard to fathom.
 
And we know Don can't escape his past, and it informs his present.
But he's not the only one with hardships, and sometimes he acts like he's the only one with any tragedy.
And that's especially ironic when he creates tragedies for other people.
 
Steve: Ginsberg is such a funny duck, the way he relays several points, that he's actually from Mars, they're not here as part of a scheme to take over. They're just displaced.
 
We find out he was born in a concentration camp,
that his birth mother is no longer alive, adopted out of a Swedish orphanage.
It's hard to filter out the hyperbole from the truths, but it's clear that Michael is somebody who has a lot of angst in his life, and has probably had it his entire life.
 
In this small little scene with little bit of dialogue, we can really see someone who's struggling to find his place in the world.
And even Peggy's question, she asks if there are others like him.
And Ginsberg's answer is, so sad and lonely, he says he doesn't know. He hasn't been able to find any.
Which just, I think, emphasizes this perception of his loneliness.
And in his comments about his father, who I've just assumed is his birth father,
this conversation raises questions.
 
Is he really his birth father, or was he his adopted father out of the orphanage, or is there some other relation here?
It's not clear. And it's so striking in contrast to the scenes we've seen with the father figure, because clearly this father cares deeply for Michael, is proud of him, and loves him.
And yet we see Michael very much alone here on an island in this moment. I think it kind of catches Peggy off guard a bit just how much he reveals about his inner angst.
 
Jenna: The Martian story to avoid the reality, is so sad.
And Ginsberg reveals it in a reflection in the window.
So he's two people at the same time, like Don,
this little adopted boy, and the Martian he became to protect himself.
 
So if you were just looking at Ginsberg and thinking, okay, this is another wacky creative guy in the office, it just blew up a whole other dimension of him.
 
Steve: Well, and as well, I think we know Don Draper is a fabrication, a persona that Dick Whitman has had success with over a much longer period of time.
 
So I think we're catching the Michael Ginsberg character in the very beginnings of creating this professional identity, where he's involved as a creative in an ad agency.
 
These origins and uncertainty in his life is much closer and more central to his perception of himself,
perhaps in a way that with Don Draper, we know he's got angst and struggles and fights with his identity and his history,
but he's also got a nice layer of something else to insulate and shelter him at times from going back in time to that past.
 
With Ginsberg, it feels much more raw and immediate to me.
 
Jenna: Yes. And I think the show continues to remind us that it's very difficult to hold two different identities. We've seen that with Lane trying on different personalities,
and we see it with Peggy a lot, too.
 
So it's Don Draper who's able to exist with that duality,
even though we see that it isn't exactly a healthy mindset that he's carrying around, but it is a unique ability to be able to live in that space.
 
As Peggy goes home and calls Abe. She doesn't even have her coat off yet.
And this is a moment where I think -
you know, she's been Don Draper all day.
But here she reaches out to somebody, she needs somebody,
and she invites him over.
She wants to be with him.
And when she says, I always need you,
do you think she really feels that way, or is this just a thing in the moment?
 
Steve: I guess my take was that she was very moved by the pain and struggle that is Michael Ginsberg. I got the sense that she was seeking shelter and consolation in this relationship and somebody who's quite devoted to her.
 
I mean, Abe's complaint at the beginning of the episode is that, you know, she's not focused enough on the relationship, and he wants more of her attention and time.
So I felt it was a move for comfort on Peggy's part.
 
And the other thing, I think just to point out here, much about the Holocaust is very much back in history now.
There are a few survivors, and those survivors are extremely old at this point.
It's quite distant and much more historic going into the show at the time.
 
This is set where you've got survivors of working age trying to get on with their life.
These people whose entire world was destroyed, and they were displaced and millions were murdered.
It's hard to fathom people coping and dealing with that on top of just the normal day to day. But there were a lot of people in that circumstance.
 
And just the idea that Ginsberg, even - even if he can't directly remember it because he was too young, his life, circumstance, and his origins are all wrapped up in this monstrous crime.
 
I can see how for someone like Peggy to have it humanized and personalized would put her in a pensive, thoughtful mode, to maybe embrace and be grateful for what she has and her struggles.
Because as great as they are, and we've talked a lot about them in comparison to survivors of the Holocaust,
you start to realize how fortunate Peggy Olson really is.
 
 
 
Jenna: For the next third of the episode, we get Roger's story. And the pacing on this show is so good that I haven't really noticed how rare it is to just follow one character without flipping between different people, until we let go of Peggy and focus on Roger.
 
He goes to Don. He says he wants a guys trip to Plattsburgh for Howard Johnson's, but Don wants to go with Megan instead.
And Roger has this funny but very oddly specific wingman request.
He says,
“Alone, I'm an escapee from an expensive mental institution, but with you, we're a couple of rich, handsome perverts.”
Who could say no to that?
 
Steve: Don Draper has never really been about that, right. Like in all the opportunities, that's just not his bag, and hasn't been, even though it's readily available to him at the moment he wishes to indulge.
 
So I guess more pathetic Roger,
Roger, you just married this young wife and left your family behind, it wasn't that long ago.
And now you're just seeking another escape from your day to day life and an escape that harkens back to a youth that's now gone for you.
It's not an auspicious beginning to Roger's story in this episode.
 
Jenna: And we'll find out that he's explicitly seeking to avoid spending the evening with Jane and her snooty friends, as he calls them.
He mentions that he says “Frank Lloyd Rice, because they hate it.”
And I would hate that too.
Call things by their correct names, I mean, please.
 
Frank Lloyd Wright was an architect whose most notable works included Falling Water in Pennsylvania and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, which opened in 1959.
His trademark was building design that reflected natural elements.
 
Steve: I just got a sense that it was him messing with Jane's friends and their perception of him and playing the bumpkin in the ignoramus.
Even though we know darn well that Roger Sterling doesn't suffer for a lack of intelligence.
 
Jenna: That's the first time I would ever picture Roger feeling like the odd man out in terms of prestige. So that was sort of a funny take.
 
When we get to that scene, you can understand why he is that way and why he pokes them.
And in the commentary Matthew Weiner mentions, this is biographical from himself, that his wife is an architect, and apparently this was something he enjoyed doing to her friends.
 
Steve: And we know Roger, you know, just like Pete Campbell was raised posh. I don't know, maybe a Dick Whitman could make the mistake or be uninformed.
 
 
Jenna: Next we see Roger and Jane in the elevator going out for the evening.
And this costuming and hair for Jane is absolutely as memorable as Betty's in Italy. It's amazing.
Roger is happy to compliment Jane's looks, but not to actually have to listen to her.
 
So she's planning an evening of taking LSD together.
He hasn't paid any attention to anything.
 
Steve: And I think we see the tragedy of their relationship here, right. You know, this is obviously important to her and he doesn't give it the time of day.
 
Once, say, the physical attraction goes,
you know, where is this relationship?
And it just seems profoundly broken because she's miserable and not feeling seen and given due attention.
And we can see that he's not happy in her company and would rather be in Plattsburgh, New York, of all places, at the Howard Johnson’s, you know, cavorting with Don Draper.
 
Jenna: So I have a mental image of the 60s and 70s with this LSD as something like a rave with kaleidoscope colors, and maybe black light or something that hippies did.
But at this time period, there was also a wealthy socialite group who embraced it.
So that's what we're getting to see here with this hosting couple.
 
They're played by actor Tony Pasqualini and Bess Armstrong, who is Jane's therapist.
I'm of an age when I remember HBO playing a particular set of movies over and over.
So there wasThe Legend of Billie Jean, Better Off Dead, and Heathers.
And if you ever saw Jaws 3D, you can picture Bess Armstrong's character talking about Shelby Overman and saying, “the mother is inside the park.”
So I was amused about that crossover.
She was also in My So-Called Life, Bosch, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
 
Steve: It's interesting that even though Roger isn't engaged and leaning into trying to give Jane what she wants, he's not against trying LSD. He's rather open to it.
 
And I guess this is another trait of Roger Sterling. He's not stuffy, he's not close minded. He's willing to try things and have adventure and have fun.
 
So I guess at least Jane is getting her way.
Even though Roger's motivation for it probably isn't, it isn't coming from the place where she would be pleased.
 
Jenna: There's a lot of talk about the truth in this scene. Jane claims that the truth is good because it's always real,
even though she and Roger seem to have avoided truth for most of their relationship.
 
And Jane's therapist has this line that she sees patients who spend years searching for the truth and then they go and make the same mistake,
which of course applies to Roger and Don.
 
And I hope it isn't the point of the show to say you can never recover from the mistakes you make, and that knowing what's true won't save you from yourself, because that would be really depressing.
 
Steve: I don't think that is. But I think one point the show is making on this is that truth won't necessarily save you. That truth is not sufficient to save you.
 
So maybe it's the foundation of understanding and making a better choice going forward or a different choice.
But it's not sufficient.
 
Roger, in his quieter moments, I think he has few illusions about who and what he is. And I think we see in his comments about when he's depressed or down a bit, you know, his critiques of himself are pretty on point.
 
I get the same sense for a Don Draper and even Betty Draper, for that matter.
I think they know who they are and their inability to make a different choice despite having that truth is part of the tragedy of their characters.
 
Whereas maybe in fiction, where we're more commonly seen characters who, once they have the truth, then that's the key to unlock the different choice or the change, and they cease being an addict, or become loyal to their partner, or whatever it is.
 
Mad Men doesn't give us that nice little escape. It traps us in that gritty reality of just because you know what's going on doesn't mean you're going to be able to stop it, change it, or better it.
 
Jenna: Yeah, still pretty dark.
 
I think I'd add that it's not just that knowing the truth won't necessarily save you,
it's also that deception brings misery to those around you.
And we definitely see that with Roger and with Don.
 
I also, I think overall, the main message is Don Draper is a cautionary tale, right.
The trappings of success or fooling yourself are never going to bring you happiness.
But it's funny how this scene where, I mean, there's the mirage of Don, it doesn't even have Don, but it brings all those things to the forefront.
 
It makes me a little bit sad as they move into the living room and they're getting ready to try the LSD and the other couple is so into each other, and there's this moment where Jane pulls Roger's arm around her,
copying them to feel or pretend like he loves her and that he wants to be there.
And that made me feel really sad, even though Jane isn't very likable.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think Jane's intention is this is a trip they take together towards truth.
And I think the tragedy is for Roger, it's, well, I'm stuck here. I might as well take an adventure with some LSD.
And it's not a joint trip from his perspective. It's a solo trip,
like you say.
That just puts them at odds in this scene and I think stands in for the way they're disconnected and at odds in their marriage.
 
Jenna: So what did you think about this whole LSD sequence? Because I know there are those in the fandom who really love it, and I thought it was visually interesting.
And the effects were kind of interesting,
but I'm sort of impatient with the characters for not understanding themselves already.
Like if you need Don Draper to show up in your trip and tell you to go to your wife, I mean, you have bigger problems, right?
 
Steve: Yeah. And I guess what struck me about the scene is I think they play it rather subtly. You know, they don't really go with the full psychedelic freakout.
 
And the one that jumps to mind is from the 21 Jump Street film.
When they start to trip, I think it's on mushrooms, and they're talking to Rob Riggle and these eyebrows start crawling around his face and all the rest of it, and it's really, really hilarious.
 
But in this one, it's much more subtle. The noise as Roger removes the cap to the bottle of booze and the accordion extension and then contraction of the cigarette when he lights it . . .
My impression of it was it's undermining this idea that somehow the LSD is going to bring you to truth, that there is no magic pill that will bring it to you.
 
So, yeah, you're going to have an unusual trip, and you're going to have some weird moments, like where Roger's watching himself and Jane dance.
But I don't see any great source of truth or font of knowledge that's being driven by this chemical.
 
I think all that's really happening is they're left with the truth they both already know.
And it's maybe putting them into a spot where they're willing to air it,
because as you just said a few minutes ago,
they're not doing that at present.
 
They're kind of avoiding each other and dodging that truth because it's uncomfortable and it's going to mean some serious consequences for their relationship.
So then now, I guess I've seen the LSD as just an excuse to broach a subject that they, they could have, they could have addressed being stone cold sober.
 
Jenna: I thought these details and symbols were so thoughtful and well chosen, because Roger, the navy guy, opens a bottle of Russian vodka and he hears a Russian chorus singing the Song of the Volga Boatman popping out.
 
And the cigarette, the accordion.
I mean, I have to think that's a reference to Joan.
 
So you're bringing yourself to this experience as much as you might be taking LSD to get away from yourself,
this idea that these things that you carry with you are part of who you are.
 
There's also this magazine ad. It features actor Ted Knight. He was in Caddyshack, and he played Ted Baxter on the Mary Tyler Moore Show.
This is another reference to truth and reflections, because Roger looks in the mirror and he sees the black and gray hair on two halves of his head.
So, like Ginsberg and Don, he's two people at once.
 
He's the young, successful man he wants to project,
and he's the aging, irresponsible man he's becoming, or become, or always was, maybe.
 
Steve: And we know Roger has got one foot stuck in the past.
I don't feel like the drug has revealed anything he doesn't already know or that Jane doesn't already know.
 
Jenna: And for this segment, we get another reference to the pilot episode of Mad Men, when Don tells Roger in the mirror, everything's okay.
You are okay.
And, of course, that was the pitch he came up with for Lucky Strike.
 
 
Back at their home, Roger and Jane are in a bathtub, and Roger hallucinates the 1919 World Series game between the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds,
which several Sox players agree to lose in exchange for a payout.
 
Eliot Asinof's 1963 book, Eight Men Out, tells this story, and there's a 1988 film about it starring John Cusack, Christopher Lloyd, and Charlie Sheen.
I can't see it, Jane says about the game.
And she's disappointed, even while he's so delighted and manic with this delusion. And they just don't fit together.
 
 
So the next scene brings us their overhead shot, lying on their backs,
and Roger here says, I can see you, but he's not looking at her.
So he tells her, “You're beautiful.”
That's all you ever say, she says.
 
Steve: And we know Roger's dissatisfaction with the relationship.
But I think here Jane confesses her own dissatisfaction, you know, she admits to thinking about having an affair, and she also accuses Roger of not falling in love with her and that, in fact, he doesn't even like her.
 
Jenna: We don't get to see Jane on her own, so we don't know if it's only Roger's neglect that makes her unhappy.
I think, like Joan, she wanted a certain kind of man, and she was pretty and determined enough to get him.
But it didn't work out.
 
And in Joan's case, I feel like she's not looking for a different man. She's looking to herself and being more authentic.
 
And in Jane's case, we don't know her well enough, so I'm not sure what lessons she's drawing from being with Roger.
It seems a little more like she thinks she chose the wrong guy than that her method doesn't really optimize happiness.
 
And this exchange between them is so sad. She says, I knew we were going somewhere, and I didn't want it to be here.
But it's already been over for a while in all but name, they've already been here.
“You don't like me.”
“I did,” he says.
 
Did he ever? Did he ever even know her? I don't think she knew him either.
The whole thing was such a mess. It would have been a miracle if it had led to happiness for either one of them.
 
Steve: Yeah, agreed. And I think everybody called that at the time they started, you know, in the office and the sort of, I guess, best case neutrality, you know, more likely mostly negativity from everyone else, you know, sort of led by Don Draper, thinking back to Roger and what he knew about Jane.
 
He was in love with the idea of her, and what she represented for him.
Having attained that it's no longer good enough, and the fantasy is over, and he's basically left where he was with someone that wasn't a particularly good match.
 
I liked that there's not any hostility here between the two of them. It's resignation, sadness, regret, and it's quite dignified and quite touching, I think, because we can see two people sharing that truth between them that I guess they've been avoiding.
 
 
Jenna: The next morning, Roger is more connected to Jane than he's been in a long time.
He's got a plan for their separation. He's glad they're being kind with each other, but she doesn't remember.
Jane is super gorgeous in this scene, too.
 
And there's another truth call-out when Roger says,
“We were able to be there together in the truth, like you wanted.”
 
And he's thrilled and she's miserable.
Mad Men doesn't let us have this happy ending to their ending, because Roger was saying, you know, I'm so glad there isn't going to be screaming and lawyers.
But then Jane is upset, and we know there will be screaming and there will be lawyers.
There's not an easy exit, even if both of them want this.
 
Steve: And I think if we think what's next? Or question what's next for each of them,
neither of them really has an answer.
 
So Roger, having gone down this path, I guess I would think he wouldn't want to go down it again, because it's likely to fail in the same way.
 
And I interpret Jane's reluctance to face the truth and move on as being just simply. She doesn't know where her future lies, and then, you know, she has to start everything all over again.
 
But it's clear to me that she doesn't have a plan B lined up at this point. And I think she's looking backwards, trying to cling to something.
 
 
Jenna: Now we come to Don and Megan's story for the third part of the episode, and their trip to Howard Johnson's.
Don is trying to recapture their California vacation with this trip.
He says, “Remember California? Two hotel rooms.”
 
And he's really into her and excited to be with Megan,
which is sweet, except he completely ignores her professional life by ripping her away from the presentation.
 
And I think Megan is a lot more likable because she isn't like Jane, who just unabashedly reached for her husband privilege in the office.
Megan does seem to want to pay her dues and be supportive in the meeting,
even if it's just a low level contribution, right?
Even if she's just going to go into the meeting and sit there.
 
Steve: In this scene, if we compare it to the earlier one with Peggy and Abe, it's almost like Megan is the Peggy. She's got responsibilities, she's focused on her job. She doesn't want to abandon her teammates.
 
Don is the Abe saying, hey, you know, I want to spend time and have all the focus be on you and me and our relationship.
 
I think the corrosive part here is how oblivious Don is to Megan's preference.
So in the Peggy and Abe scene, it's friction. There's an argument between the two of them because of this different perception and them speaking and addressing it directly.
 
Here there's no argument because Don can't see or hear any objections from Megan and he's trying to sweep her away.
And we can tell she's clearly not happy with that. It's not that she's unhappy to go off with him, but if she has any illusions about being a legitimate creative and building a career, this is all undermining that.
 
Jenna: That's a good point. I hadn't made that comparison, but that makes sense to me.
On the drive, Don continues to override Megan in her feelings.
He took her out of the presentation at the last minute.
And then she mentions, oh, we're going to be close to my parents.
And he just ignores that suggestion. He says, oh, they're going to come visit soon anyway, so like, no, we're not going to make an extra stop to go do that.
 
And I feel like Megan is trying to get along. She smiles and she says, okay,
but it's exhausting to try to voice your needs and not be heard.
 
So for Don I think this is him being the hero by showing Megan a good time, and he has no clue that she's building frustration here.
 
 
Steve: As they arrive at the Howard Johnson’s, they're greeted by Dale Vanderwart, the manager, who's going to show them around.
 
Jenna: And you can see Megan putting her professional face on. She's trying really hard to make the best of it.
So he says, do you like clams? And she says, I like everything.
So here she is. She's reset, she's ready to be positive.
 
And the set design of this Howard Johnson's is really great.
Megan's coral outfit pops against the teal booth,
and it's also a bit reminiscent of Don and Megan and the kids when they were in California and the milkshake spill happened.
 
Don seems really giddy and happy. He's brought her something from the gift shop,
and he cannot wait for her to try orange sherbet, even if Megan prefers pie.
 
Steve: And again, he's not going to listen to her when when she wants pie. He's going to force this issue.
And of course, it goes poorly.
She tries it, shakes her head and says that it's not for her.
 
Jenna: I've been Don and Megan before in this argument, in terms of having expectations about what something will be like, and the other person isn't into it the same way.
 
I believe Megan doesn't like orange sherbet, but honestly, at this point,
if she had just said she didn't like it, to stake her claim in the ground and say,
I want to order dessert, because she's just had enough of him controlling her, I think that would be completely reasonable. She's right to be over it.
 
Steve: Don's lack of attention and hearing her comes home to roost here because he's irritated by her reaction.
And then she has this facetious moment where she fakes enjoying it and starts shoveling it into her mouth, which just further irritates and enrages Don.
 
And we can see, I think he's honestly puzzled as to why is she irritated and frustrated and why is she behaving this way. I think it really comes out of left field for him when she starts to explain her frustrations.
 
Jenna: Yes, to Don, this is out of the blue because she's being bratty about some ice cream, but for her, she's been caged and she wants out.
 
This is an explosion waiting to happen because Megan has made the best of most of his issues. She goes along to get along, and Don pointed that out to Roger that morning when he goes, “Megan gets along with everybody.”
 
But he's so micromanaging about her life, and she has no separation.
She goes to work and he's there, in charge, and she goes home and he's there.
She has nothing of her own.
And I think if he stepped back for a second,
he would see it, but he doesn't.
 
Steve: And of course, as the argument escalates, Don brings up her mother and Megan calling her and talking to her in French. And I think the insinuation there is that she's complaining about him.
So this is a gripe that Don is been harboring. And now it's being aired,
and Megan decides to fire back at him.
 
Jenna: It's not cool that Megan weaponizes what she knows about Don's family with her comment about calling his mother.
But I also think she's poking him with a chopstick and he whacks back with a sledgehammer when he leaves her there.
She doesn't have a cell phone. She doesn't have luggage.
I don't know how much money she has on her.
 
But Abe accused Peggy of always wanting to press the button on the whole thing.
That's what Don does when he walks away from Megan.
To me, it's a huge escalation and break in trust.
So he wants her to depend solely on him,
and then he abandons her in Plattsburgh. I mean, this would be a hard thing to forgive, and you'd never forget it.
 
Steve: Well, and I think Megan wants to continue the argument here, the fight. So I don't think she realizes how deeply she cuts him with, you know, the comment about, you know, why doesn't he call his mother?
 
And then as he's going to leave, she's telling him, you know, hey, don't walk away from me. I'm not going to get in the car with you, you know, so you can control now that we're leaving.
But Don seems set on that course of action.
It's a pretty serious fight in this moment.
 
I think as soon as he's pulled away,
probably Megan is regretting that it's got so heated.
And he can't go very far down the road before he realizes that this has gotten way too heated and he can't leave her abandoned there.
 
Jenna: Well, they don't show us exactly how much time it's been since Don drove away.
But by the time he heads back, there are new vehicles in the parking lot. So he didn't just drive away in a huff and go around the block and come back.
The total drive is about five hours long. It's still daylight.
So he does make it.
 
But if I were her at that point, I would not be regretting that it got so heated.
You can see she's sorry right after the comment comes out of her mouth about his mother.
But it's also really strange, because Don is hurt about his childhood and about not being loved and those things.
But his response then is to abandon her, which is what his hurt is about, I think.
 
And I think she made a mistake. But if we're throwing blame, I mean, I just like we. This is on him.
This is all, to me, on him.
 
Steve: Well, and as well, it kind of puts her into a tough situation. He's left her there at the Howard Johnson's.
Is she going to sit there and wait and be, you know, a slave to again to his control and he'll come back when he - if he chooses to come back, and she'll dutifully wait.
Or is she going to take a more independent path and in a world where he's driven away, she's now going to make her own way and not wait around for him to come to his senses? And, you know, obviously from watching the episode, we know she ends up in the latter decision.
 
Jenna: I want to back up just a little bit because I want to talk about the waitress in the Howard Johnson’s, played by Lisa K. Wyatt.
And you might recognize her as Kevin's girlfriend on The Office. And she's been in a bunch of other shows, including Uncorked, Donnie Darko, and she is a jail guard in Legally Blonde.
 
There's another bit in this fight that happens before the dessert when Don starts working and Megan calls him out and says, you know, it's okay for you to want to work, but not for me.
 
And she has this line that she's just throwing away. She says it's not a destination, it's on the way to someplace. And there's a truth call-out because he agrees, “that's true.”
And to me, that line really highlights the disagreement Megan has with Don.
 
For Don being happily married to her, that is the destination. It's the Disneyland fantasy place he's trying to live in.
But Megan is taking this journey with him, and she doesn't want to be static perfection in a bubble for his amusement. Shocker. They're on the way to someplace, and how they get there matters in terms of where they're going.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think that's a good point.
And I think that's at the heart of their different perceptions of this relationship and this growing problem that I think we're starting to see open up between the two of them.
 
Don is at destination. Would like just to keep it this way.
Megan is independent. She has aspirations,
dreams, and to be fulfilled, she needs to be able to pursue those things.
 
And I just don't get the sense that Don perceives them.
And even if he did perceive them,
he doesn't seem to be making room for them within the relationship.
 
Jenna: Yeah, that's a great way to put that.
It seems really illogical to me for Don to wait around so long at the Howard Johnson's and assume Megan is going to go back there to find him.
I wouldn't.
If he left me, I wouldn't. I wouldn't go back.
 
But he doesn't really seem to think about what she needs or how she feels.
So he's just stuck there in the place he hoped was going to be this happy getaway for them.
But it doesn't seem to make the most sense that he stays there as opposed to trying to find her.
 
Steve: I don't think he really has an alternative because what's his alternative? She probably won't come back. So I'll just go back to the city. She can make her own way.
If she were to come back and he had truly gone back to the city,
then really he's - he's back to the worst case scenario of I left you in Plattsburgh and went home without you.
So he can't risk doing that.
 
So I think in many ways, his little temper tantrum drive away has boxed him in now and forced him to now wait and be stuck at the Howard Johnson's with,
yeah, he's got every means of leaving, but he can't,
on the off chance, however low the probability that she circles back there.
 
And like you said,
it doesn't make sense that she would circle back there, but he simply cannot risk that scenario.
So it's ironic that he's the one who ends up getting stuck in upstate New York,
even though, as Megan will later reveal to us, she has a very long bus ride back to the city.
And then even just getting a cab from the bus station to their apartment is a hassle in the wee hours of the morning.
 
Jenna: So later we see Don calling Peggy to see if Megan went to the office or called there again. That's what he would do.
And then he calls Megan's mother.
 
And earlier they mentioned they were about an hour and a half from where her parents live. So at least that seems like a more reasonable guess about where Megan might have gone.
And there's a very gorgeous shot of Don at night. He's smoking outside in front of the bright orange roof.
And it's really beautiful, even though it's sad.
 
Steve: And we can start to see, as he's on the phone with Megan's mother,
who hasn't heard from Megan, of course, he's starting to worry.
 
He's starting to spin more problematic scenarios than just, oh, Megan is upset and is making her own way.
Now he realizes the implications of what he did, the potential risks, and he's starting to spin through these worst case scenarios in, in his mind about who she may have gone off with or what she may have encountered, et cetera.
 
And it really seems like a form of poetic justice that now he is the one worrying and fretting and contemplating the loss of this person that means so much to him,
in contrast to when he walked out in a huff and basically didn't give any attention to,
you know, what are you doing to her by leaving her here as you drive away in the car because you happen to hold the car keys.
 
Jenna: And that moment where he picks up her sunglasses in the parking lot and he has that panic starting to creep across his face . . .
 
Steve: And any parent knows this feeling of when they start to get worried about where a kid is.
And, you know, I think many couples have had moments of worry and concern when somebody hasn't shown up or they are unable to be located, you know, particularly in the days before cell phones where, you know, you hit Find My and you can see exactly where the person is.
 
 
Jenna: So Don drives home and he has a flashback of driving home from the Disneyland vacation with Megan and the kids.
If you look in the backseat, it's the wrong Bobby, because the flashback was filmed in season four and season five gives us a different actor.
 
But Don's remembering this perfect time in their relationship when he was whistling a Beatles tune because he couldn't keep his happiness inside.
And now he's in the same car alone.
And I feel good for him that he cares and that he's upset, because it seems like a huge improvement from his I don't feel a thing mindset.
 
But it does also feel desperate, because Don has transferred all his dependency from work and drinking to Megan.
Megan will make him happy, so that's all he needs.
 
Steve: And again, the irony is in a world where he's transferred all that focus and attention to her, he still storms out on her at the Howard Johnsons in a fit of anger and leaves her there alone.
 
So it really is a moment of failure. And I think Don Draper realizes that he's really screwed up in this moment.
And if he could do it again,
as he's driving home alone and worried about where Megan's got to,
I think he knows now he wouldn't do that again. He can't do that.
 
 
Jenna: So Don arrives back at the apartment, and he finds the chain on the door, and he's so relieved.
So he yells to Megan, and she won't open it.
He kicks in the door, and he says, I said I was sorry.
He did not say he was sorry. He never once said he was sorry. This is a problem.
 
We talked about Mystery Date having a horror theme, and the idea of the real horror being you or the monster you live with for Joan and Greg.
And when Don is chasing Megan around the apartment and grabbing for her, she's legitimately afraid of him.
 
And I don't think we watch and think he's going to physically harm her, because that's not what he's been about.
But it's not a loving reunion. This is him recapturing her and seizing control of her, and that is scary.
 
Steve: The physicality of the chase, and also I think the physicality of him kicking open the door is what starts this focus on physicality.
I think this notion that you can physically capture her. Yeah, perhaps you can,
but it's not getting you what you want. It's not what she wants.
And it's an illusion of control and a reestablishment of control.
 
And I think as soon as, you know, they sort of fall to the floor together.
And I think he's starting to realize in that moment that this doesn't solve it. You know, the fact that he can physically grab her, that you've still got to resolve what happened in this fight and what it was about.
 
And Megan's weeping as she falls to the floor is so touching and painful to see.
And you can see that Don Draper is at a loss for how to repair this or how to heal this.
So, you know, for all his might,
it's useless in resolving how he's hurt his partner.
 
Jenna: This is the third overhead shot with characters lying on their backs in this episode.
And just like the orange sherbet wasn't the milkshake moment here,
this carpet moment isn't the physical reconciliation we saw after Zou Bisou in the past, either.
And Megan asks Don the same question Betty once asked him.
She says, “How could you do this to me? I would never do that to you.”
 
And Don's answer is so lame.
He says,
“It was a fight, it's over.”
This was not a normal fight. It is not what people do. And it's not over.
He just thinks he's a –
 
Steve: But he also. He also says, I don't know.
So I think he does confess lack of an answer and tries to then move off it to like, as you pointed out, it was a fight, it's over. Trying to shut it down.
But he does start with the honesty of he doesn't know how he could do this to her.
 
Jenna: I don't think - I don't know that this is honesty. I think it's evasion.
And I think he's not trying to get to a real place to resolve it.
He just wants it to be ended.
He wants to try to get back to what, a milkshake moment?
And he isn't there. And he messed it up. And he doesn't say he's sorry. I mean, it's just -
He doesn't realize how much worse he's making it, when he doesn't own up his own contribution to the problem.
 
Megan stands up and straightens herself,
and Don is on his knees. He's hugging her. His eyes are closed.
His face is near her belly.
It's definitely giving mother abandonment issues.
 
But how monstrous is it for him to play the victim here? He abandoned her.
It wasn't that she left him at Howard Johnson's.
I mean, he makes up some story in his head about how, I thought I lost you,
and his reality is the one that matters.
 
Steve: I guess it shows his devotion to her and how strong he feels about her.
But I think you make a good point.
He's not really addressing the root cause of the conflict here at all.
 
He's basically saying, well, I. I had a scare.
And it's like, yeah, you did have a scare.
Like it was completely caused by your own behavior.
And none of that is resolved in this moment.
 
In some ways, it seems like Megan isn't even going to hang around to see if it's resolved. She mentions as she gets up that she needs to get to work.
She lingers with him as he hugs her from his knees.
But as you point out, the roots of this fight and the origins of his conduct are not examined.
 
Jenna: I think she is flattered to see how much he needs her, and I think she's genuinely concerned for him here.
But without an apology or a real conversation or promise to do better,
no matter how bright and shiny they walk into the office later,
it doesn't seem like they're closer.
It seems like this is unresolved, and they pushed it to the back of the closet.
 
Steve: Yeah, and I think that's reflected in her comment, you know, “Every time we fight, it just diminishes us a little bit.”
I think that really hits at that exact point. You know, there's no fixing it, mending it.
It's now a fact, a truth. It's part of the history of this relationship.
 
 
Jenna: So as Don comes into his office,
he ends up heading to the conference room to meet with Bert Cooper, who left some comments on sketches.
And Bert says,
“You have a little girl running everything.”
And this is the second line that most certainly describes Peggy, but it's also interesting if we ascribe that to Megan,
“you have a little girl running everything.”
 
Because in his head, it's only Megan he's attending to right now.
 
Steve: Yeah. There's a duality, I think, to the comment that creative workload's been put on Peggy's shoulders,
and in his own personal life,
it's his wife that is the focus of his attentions.
 
Jenna: And what did you think about this - Bert Cooper calling Don Draper to task here?
 
Steve: I love it, and I think it's completely warranted and appropriate.
And I've said it before, to me, Bert is the voice of reason,
and he is dead right in his assessment here.
 
Don doesn't really have a rebuttal,
so when he responds, it's none of your business,
Bert's also correct to say that it is his business.
And then he just leaves, because there is no argument. There's no debate. Bert's called it.
 
 
Jenna: So this ending with the glass conference room walls, and Don's sitting alone in that conference room, and through the glass, he sees Peggy walking one direction by herself.
 
And then Stan Ginsberg and Megan go the opposite direction.
So to be in Don Draper's shoes is to be alone.
It's a beautiful, beautiful shot.
 
Then Roger pops his head in to announce, “It's going to be a beautiful day.”
And he's so completely happy to be free of Jane, in spite of his constant insistence about how happy he was with her.
 
And it feels unusually optimistic that Roger is so ready to start over, and not a little more reflective about another expensive divorce, or what he gave up for his relationship with Jane and what he got out of it in the end.
But he's just kind of leaning into happiness here.
 
Steve: He seems very childlike.
He's got the financial means, so an expensive divorce with Jane, you know, he has a ton of money now. He'll have a half ton of money.
It's not a problem financially.
 
So really the only shackles and burden on Roger Sterling was this unhappy relationship that he's now free of.
So yeah, he's just feeling liberated,
excited at the potential of where the future may take him.
 
Although we know the root cause of his problems, you know, none of that has changed. And you know, is he really going to find a better solution, or just continue to wallow in his depression and focused on getting older?
 
Jenna: Do you have any overall thoughts about this episode, about the construction of the three different stories, or anything else?
 
Steve: I enjoyed this episode, and I like the format where we stick with a story in three sequential segments rather than jumping around. So to me, it's a nice change of pace because I also, I like jumping around in the other episodes too.
I have no issue with that.
 
It's good to shake it up here. What are we - halfway through the fifth season and we've had the horror episode, we've had this format,
so I appreciate the efforts to spice things up and try and keep it fresh.
 
 
Jenna: Our episode coming up is a super memorable one. That one is At the Codfish Ball, so we're looking forward to talking about that one.
 
Our listener shout out today goes to William D.
Thank you for listening and commenting on our YouTube channel.
 
We are so thankful to all our listeners who take time to leave five star ratings and positive reviews and comments for our podcast. Thank you so much.
 
Steve: That's it for this episode of All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou. Visit our website, Mad Men C to Z .com to vote for your favorite Sterling Lines and to share your opinions on our Double Dip questions for each episode.
 
Jenna: You can find us on Instagram and YouTube at Mad Men C to Z,  and please listen, like, and subscribe. That's what the podcast's for!
 
Steve: Thanks for listening, everybody.

Mad Men C to Z S5E5 Signal 30 Transcript
 
Jenna: Hi, I'm Jenna.
 
Steve: And I'm Steve. Welcome to All Things Mad Men, from Chip & Dip to Zou Bisou.
 
Jenna: There's so much to love about this amazing show, and we're happy to connect to fans like us, who discover new things with each rewatch.
 
Steve: Be advised, while we aren't gratuitous with spoilers, they can pop up as we discuss character arcs through the final season.
Let's get started with Mad Men C to Z.
 
Jenna: This is season 5, episode 5, Signal 30.
This episode was written by Frank Pierson and Matthew Weiner.
 
Frank Pierson wrote a number of notable films, including Cool Hand Luke, Dog Day Afternoon, and Presumed Innocent, and he co-wrote and directed A Star Is Born, the movie with Barbra Streisand.
 
This is also the third episode of Mad Men directed by John Slattery.
 
I've been a bit critical of the last two episodes overall, but I appreciate this one a lot. I think it's a great example of theming across an episode that works in service of the characters.

In the DVD commentary, Matthew Weiner says this episode is about friendship, and that surprised me at first because most attempted friendships in this episode don't really work.
I see it more about people longing to be something they're not.
 
If you amend it to say this episode is about people seeking friendship, I think that works better, and it really seems to shine a spotlight on loneliness and in spite of the tragedy.
I really like this episode a lot. How about you?
 
Steve: I think it's a good episode, and when I think about it in the context of friendships, I think a lot of that is also wrapped up within identities. You know, the identity of you as a professional, and then how that blurs into personal friendships.
And as you pointed out, you know, there's a lot of loneliness in this episode. I think there's also a lot of examples where there are expectations of what they thought the friendship represented, whether it was professional or personal or some combination of the two.
 
Jenna: This episode takes its name from a 1959 driver's education movie called Signal 30,
and it includes footage of real accident scenes, including deceased victims.
The second movie is called Mechanized Death, and there's a third one called Wheels of Tragedy.
 
Steve: I was fortunate, or unfortunate enough to see these films when I was in middle school,
and they are quite shocking even then. When I was in middle school they were fairly old,
but it's the actual footage from state patrols of highway accidents, and one of these sort of scare you straight intentions, I think, on the part of the paramechanics teacher.
 
And then when Pete chuckles in the scene, he's not being scared straight. He's just a guy who needs to learn how to drive. You know, his cynicism there in that moment, chuckling at something which is objectively pretty horrific.
 
Jenna: I also thought that was interesting. And there's kind of a sight gag because it opens in this driver's ed class and maybe you think it's going to be Sally in the driver's ed class.
And then as the camera pans past these young people, we see Pete.
 
But his response in the opening is so fascinating, because it opens with him laughing at this horror because it's so gruesome, and then it closes with him tearing up at his own tragedy.
So the bookends of this episode are very poetic.
 
 
During the Driver's Ed class, Pete's watching this young girl and it's creepy.
The actress playing Jenny is Amanda Bauer. You might recognize her from The Happys, Common Room, and Forev.
 
The transitions in this episode are so thoughtful, and for me, they go right up to the edge of being too noticeable, but they don't distract. For me, they work really well.
 
So here we have Pete eyeing the girl in Driver's Ed and he's watching her flip flop, tapping against her foot to the exact same rhythm of the dripping sink as we switch into the next scene.
 
 
Steve: And that faucet almost seems to be like a water torture on Pete's brain. We can see that he's got this malaise to him. He's ogling this young woman, and we see him at home next to his wife.
What does his life come down to? Listening to the faucet drip.
 
Jenna: Trudy is snuggled close to him and he asks her, does it go like that all day? And she answers, I suppose, but I don't hear it.
 
So it seems like Pete is getting something very ominous from this dripping, like his life is passing by and it's not working for him, whereas Trudy isn't bothered because she is fulfilled with his life.
 
I think this dripping sound, and it's combined with Roger's reference to Edgar Allan Poe later,
it seems like a nod to the Telltale Heart.
Of course, that's about a man who murders an old man because his eye offends him.
The murderer narrator is trying to convince the reader of his sanity, until the imagined sound of the man's heartbeat becomes too much to bear.
 
So a lot of that fits for Pete. He doesn't want his failings to be seen.
His frustrations are building.
And later he's going to attack an older man.
 
Steve: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Pete didn't attack anyone. He responded to a challenge.
 
Jenna: He tries to take agency about the sink. He goes under the sink and he stops the dripping sound.
He gets a faint smile, like he has some kind of control.
And it felt sad to me that this was such a win for him.
It was like, come on, Pete, dream bigger.
 
 
Steve: We move to the Pryces. Rebecca is eager to go and watch the World Cup Final, which took place on July 30, 1966, with England playing West Germany.
And Lane is not yet ready to go to the game, and isn't showing a lot of enthusiasm to attend it.
 
Jenna: I love this about Mad Men, because most shows don't give you this real life about how people act before they go somewhere and put on their public faces.
 
And we see Lane and Rebecca are still having this same core argument where she is in America but clinging to England.
She wants to meet with English friends, and Lane is resisting this.
He doesn't want much to do with English friends, or football, or any of the things he left behind, especially his father.
 
Steve: And I think this is the fundamental difference between the two of them.
Rebecca, to use Lane's words, wants to bring England over in pieces and cling to what she had.
And Lane is the reciprocal of this. He's really embracing his new American life, where soccer isn't something that really registers with anyone.
 
Jenna: I don't know how they reconcile the fact that they want such different things, but I want to point out that it feels like a very similar conflict to Pete and Trudy, because he really wants to be in New York City and she's very content in the suburbs.
So we see a lot of parallels between Pete and Lane this episode, and that's just one of them.
 
Steve: You spoke of the excellent cuts in this episode, and I think this next cut is perfect because we can see Lane and Rebecca jousting about the need to go there,
celebrating England's goals or victory with all the English fans who are at the pub.
 
Jenna: This might be the best transition in the episode from calm Lane placating Rebecca and promising to try to be pleasant, to him screaming his head off with his fellow Brits as England wins the World cup for the first time ever
 
Steve: And they're singing God Save the Queen, and celebrating the victory.
Lane may prefer his new life in America, but he has deep roots back in England,
and they're not something he can just shed or ignore, especially after a few pints.
 
 
Jenna: As Lane and Rebecca meet up with some friends, we see a new character, Edwin Baker.
He's played by David Hunt.
This actor has been married to Patricia Heaton of Everybody loves Raymond since 1990.
His acting projects include 24, Amazing Grace, and an episode of Homeland.
 
This is a place where it feels like Lane is looking for friendship. He's having fun.
The guy from Jaguar approaches him about working with his firm,
and like Peggy, it feels like Lane wants to try this personality on. I'm the guy who has British friends. It's my unique value proposition to the firm.
 
But there are cues already that it's not working. Because as much as Rebecca wants English friends, this English woman, the wife, reveals she wants to raise hogs. And there's nothing about that that's relatable to Rebecca or Lane.
And I think if it was an American woman saying that, Rebecca might scoff openly at it, but she's trying so hard to make this work.
 
 
Steve: Our next scene has Peggy eating alone at a diner when who should walk in but Ken Cosgrove.
 
Jenna: Ken avoids introducing them and doesn't invite Peggy to sit with them.
And you can see Peggy is curious about this meeting, because it isn't an upscale place, so Ken can't be meeting for a regular client lunch.
It's a short scene, but it sets up something that pays off really nicely later in the episode.
 
 
Steve: Another quick cut, and we're looking at Don Draper's sketchpad in a partners’ meeting where he's drawing a hangman's noose.
It's another meeting where Don is bored out of his tree. There doesn't appear to be any new business until Lane springs that Edwin Baker is interested in bringing Jaguar over to the firm.
 
Jenna: And as we're tracking Lane and Pete feeling slighted or ignored,
it's good to point out that Joan goes to every single partner except for Lane and asks about new business, and there isn't any.
So Lane seems especially pleased to be able to bring this business up.
 
And everybody else seems pleased, except Pete is mean about it, and he mocks Lane about his reticence to hire more people to serve as accounts. He takes this Southern accent and says, my lordy new business! We won't have any of that here.
 
Steve: I don't take it as mean, though, because I think it's a triumph for Lane that he's bringing new business in the door. And we know Pete is as hungry as anybody for the new business.
So it's the kind of joshing say that golfers would make at somebody who's hit a beautiful shot.
 
Jenna: Oh, really? I have a really different take on that.
I see Don correcting Pete and saying, it's a car and you know it.
And I think this is the beginning of what happens later when they have this conflict between them.
 
You know, Pete, who is so on guard against being emasculated or devalued,
is always ready to do that to somebody else.
 
Steve: We see Roger trying to glom onto the opportunity, and he offers to ride shotgun with Lane, since Lane is not an experienced account man. But Lane insists that it's his account, and he wants to take it.
 
Jenna: It's interesting how Lane wants to run this meeting and keep this connection to himself.
He's not an account guy,
so it feels like he's wanting to flex a little power and fix some things,
you know, like Pete trying to fix the sink.
But unfortunately, they don't have expertise in those areas, so it doesn't bode well.
 
 
Steve: After the meeting breaks up, Pete helpfully gives Don directions to their house in the burbs.
Don is feeling like he hasn't committed to going out to some party at Pete's house.
 
But Pete reassures him that when Trudy lets him know he needs to give directions to the place, that she's usually worked out all the details in these circumstances.
 
Jenna: Pete promises there will be no cards, no charades. And you can see he's trying to set up an evening that Don can tolerate so there won't be any dancing the Charleston, or Zou Bisou at this gathering.
 
When Don can't put Pete off about it, he tries to get Megan to call it off, and Megan won't.
And this is another reminder of how Megan is different from Betty.
Megan doesn't necessarily follow Don's commands, and Betty usually did. We saw Don always trying to get out of social things before.
 
Steve: Not only that, she refuses to do it and tells him he can call her himself if he wants to get out of it, which we'll see later, Don proceeds to do.
 
Jenna: There was a fan theory about suicide when this season was airing, because we saw a lot of violent references.
So at the beginning, Don is sketching the noose in the meeting.
And here Don says, Saturday night in the suburbs, that's when you really want to blow your brains out.
 
But I thought Don has had a lot of pretty lonely nights in Greenwich, so he doesn't really need to throw any shade at the suburbs.
 
Steve: It is kind of interesting because I think just Don in general doesn't tend to be the happiest guy much of the time. And I don't think it's really tied to the suburbs or his marriage or his relationships.
 
I agree with you. It's funny that he's so dismissive of life in the burbs when so recently it was very central to his very existence.
 
 
Jenna: Next up is a scene between Ken and Peggy, where Ken reveals he's still writing stories and he has a potential publishing deal.
 
When I first saw this scene and Ken and Peggy referred to the pact they have,
I thought I missed something in a prior episode. But this is the first mention.
So they agree if one of them goes someplace to a different business, the other one will go, too.
And this does finally feel like a genuine friendship, unlike some of the other attempts at friendship we've seen in this episode.
 
Although their relationship did start with Ken being pervy in the elevator. And there was that time they had the group lunch and he grabbed her and said something about zoo animals.
I'm glad they moved past that.
 
Steve: Well, and also, I think it's important to keep those in mind.
But as well, when Peggy started to show her creative chops,
Ken was very forthcoming with compliments and acknowledgement of her contribution and place.
Pete Campbell was quite the opposite and unwilling to acknowledge it.
 
Matthew Weiner, in his commentary for the episode, talks about Ken being a writer and that at some level there is a sense of Peggy seeing a threat potentially from Ken in that they're both writers.
I didn't get a vibe of a threat,
but it did seem to be another, deeper connection between the two of them that maybe goes above and beyond the traditional creative account relationship that we would typically see in the office.
 
Jenna: I agree. I don't get anything like that at all. And I think, in fact, it strengthens their friendship because Peggy, to me, does not seem threatened by Ken's writing. She seems impressed and she seems curious, and he trusts her to keep it a secret because she is his real friend.
 
And I thought this was a great detail when Ken says, I started turning most of my dinners into drinks, and if I only have one, I'm in pretty good shape when I get home.
So that's when he has time to do this.
So here is a guy who has a separate, full life away from work.
And that's so different from the other main characters.
Ken has his work life, his personal life and a creative life.
 
So his secret life, unlike Don's, is healthy and productive. He really doesn't need to get all his satisfaction from this job.
I think part of Peggy's curiosity is maybe about that part too, because she's so invested in her work,
but it's hard for her to imagine having a hobby like that.
But at this point, I really, really wish Lane would go find one. Like right now.
Go, go start gardening or something, Lane, it would be great for you.
 
Steve: I would also assume that this pact between Peggy and Ken arose after Ken joined the new firm. Because remember, he's left out when Lane fires the principals and they start the new company.
It's really straddling the fence between the professional and the personal here.
 
 
Jenna: Next, Roger goes to Lane to give him advice about his meeting with Jaguar.
Here we see Roger really does know how to do his job. He does have an art to his work.
Remember when Peggy said to Freddy, I can't believe that's his job?
Because Roger once told Don he could never get used to the fact that most of the time it looks like you're not doing anything.
But this scene shows us how Roger's work looks easy. It looks like he just goes out for drinks and dinner all the time.
 
But there's a craft to it, and Lane is trying to absorb the lesson. But Lane does not have the charm Roger has.
I mean, charm doesn't mean a lot when, like Mona, you've been married to him for a decade or you're his daughter and you want his attention.
But Roger really does have this gift and Lane doesn't seem to have it.
 
Steve: And it's interesting too, because Roger's approaching the advice from the standpoint of you're trying to create a professional relationship between yourself and the client and turn it into something more than a professional relationship by personalizing it.
And he talks specifically about sharing a conspiracy as the basis for this intimacy, and closer friendship that's going to be useful to you in retaining the client.
 
The irony is that Lane points out that he really does like Edwin and knows him personally. So he's almost starting at it from the opposite direction, where there is a personal relationship which he's now trying to extend into the professional space.
 
It's easier and it fits into Roger's model of how you build this thing. But we can just tell Lane is going to be clunky and not have an easy time of this.
Roger Sterling could take it in either direction and it's natural to him. It's easy.
 
Jenna: Roger drops a really funny line about how he once went on a five minute tear about “how my mother loved my father more than me. I assure you, that's impossible.”
 
So Roger didn't just inherit his father's company.
He was also his mother's favorite.
This spoiled guy never had to work or try any way the way Dick Whitman did,
and he has that in common with Pete and Betty.
 
But all three of them share that sense of emptiness with what they have. And that's so interesting. And that's a huge contrast with Joan and Peggy, too.
 
 
Steve: This next scene is one of my favorites. In the episode where Don Draper has taken it upon himself to call Trudy and get out of having to attend Pete's party.
I think the error that Don Draper makes here is it isn't Pete's party, it's Trudy's party.
 
And she is not going to take no for an answer. And she rather expertly deflects any attempt by Don Draper to remove himself from it.
 
Jenna: A lot of people defeat Don Draper in this show, but Trudy does it so smoothly.
This man who's good with the words, he has nothing left to say in the face of her insistence.
 
And even when he takes a shot at Pete and he goes, it's too bad your husband can't close a deal like this, Trudy corrects him and she goes, we both know he's doing just fine. 7:30.
 
That's it.
There's nothing more to say.
 
Steve: She basically hangs up on him, but in a perfectly polite way, shutting down the conversation. It is over. It is done.
And I love that after moment when the call has ended and Don Draper has a bit of a smirk on his face because he knows he's just been schooled on how to close a deal.
So it's a great scene and I think really shows the power of Trudy.
 
 
Jenna: So Pete is back at his driver's ed class and he's trying to chat with Jenny, who, let's point out, is a minor and over a decade younger than he is.
 
Steve: Pete's hitting on her.
It's completely inappropriate, both from a personal standpoint of, you know, we know Pete is married and has a young child,
and he can turn on his charms and he can leverage his Dyckman Campbell origins and talk about the Botanical gardens,
but it all just seems a little desperate and a little sad that this is who Pete is seeking to wow.
 
Simultaneously, we really understand that Pete is a true New Yorker. He never learned to drive. Now he lives in the burbs and is effectively stranded unless you know how to drive.
So he's trying to catch that up.
 
All in the midst of what we perceive, I think, as his dissatisfaction with his current life, despite all the outward signs of success. I mean, it really harkens back, I think, to the picture perfect life of Don Draper and his family when this series started.
And then we get to know how dissatisfied and empty Don's life is. It really feels to me like Pete is treading similar ground here.
 
Jenna: I see that, too. So, of course, this is lust and not friendship.
 
We're looking at the parallels between Lane and Pete in this episode. And Lane, I think, really is seeking friendship along with business and Edwin from Jaguar.
But as much as Pete is creepy, it's so lonely too,
because we've seen characters on Mad Men reach out to different people to try to affirm or understand themselves.
And that can be awkward or tragic or life changing,
but it is what people do. They try to connect and they kind of try to keep it hidden because you're not sure how it's going to go.
 
We see Don try to connect often for an ad campaign or to, you know, meet a woman.
And Pete usually does it to make himself feel powerful. And that is what is happening here.
And Jenny doesn't see Pete as anything more than a hallway conversation.
 
So the difference in their perception is so vast,
not just with their age difference, but just with how they're coming to this interaction.
So it's just like Dolores from Lane's found wallet.
And to these men, they're just these lifelines of possibility. And it's so lonely and so sad.
 
Steve: I will call out Vincent Kartheiser's acting in this scene where we just see all the different shades as he tries to turn on the charm and appear confident.
But there's also this undertone of self pity.
 
Steve: He tries to look magnanimous and generous.
We can also detect this lust he has for this young woman.
It's just masterful acting because he's conveying all this within the context of, I think, this rather modest scene during a break at the driver's ed class.
 
Jenna: They do make a reference to the sniper at UT Austin on August 1, 1966,
Charles Whitman killed his wife and mother before climbing to the tower observation deck and shooting at people.
He killed 15 and injured 31 others at the time. It was the worst mass shooting by a lone gunman in the United States.
If only that had been the last one.
 
Steve: It's really notable, I think, as the first mass shooting that got a lot of national attention. And when Whitman was up in the tower before he was eventually killed by a police officer,
there was footage of him continuing to shoot at targets around the tower.
 
And there were both civilians and police returning fire while he was there.
So I think, again, as we get into the television age and it really comes of age, you know, over the course of Mad Men in terms of society.
And this is setting the society and the culture onto a track of awareness of copycats.
And then, of course, many more shootings in the future of the United States.
 
 
Jenna: Next, we get a quick scene between Megan and Don as they're getting ready to go to Pete and Trudy's house.
And this feels like an echo of Rebecca convincing Lane to go out with friends, because Megan's doing the same thing for Don here. He's still trying to get out of it.
He says he's just going to drink as much as possible until he gets there.
 
And I just wonder, why is Don trying to avoid social gatherings in general? I get why he might want to avoid Pete specifically, but does he just think he's better than other people and he wants to avoid stupid conversations?
Or does he dislike having to be on good behavior or not being in control, as he generally could be if he was on a date?
 
Steve: That's an interesting question, because I don't think of Don Draper as antisocial,
but in many ways it almost seems like maybe his ability to interact with others,
maybe that is concealing a fundamental antisocial mentality that he has. He seems to enjoy his one on one with his various romantic interests,
and he seems to have a very nice rapport with his children,
you know, when he's interacting with them.
 
But he certainly doesn't seem to seek out social opportunities at all.
He doesn't seem to be one to build networks when he interacts with people like Conrad Hilton.
It's very mission focused and it's a means to an end, rather than him enjoying and luxuriating in the opportunity to talk to a big mover and shaker
 
 
Jenna: Over at Pete and Trudy's house, everything in the party dialogue from here on out is fair game for Ken for the closing story narration.
It starts with this comment Pete makes about his stereo.
He says,”We keep expecting to open the doors and see a tiny orchestra in there.”
And Ken says, “That would be amazing.”
And his imagination is already at work.
And Pete is not being poetic, he's just bragging.
 
So I love when Ken sees the fantasy possibilities of a tiny orchestra. And then when Pete goes, “It's seven feet long. Wilt Chamberlain could lie down in there.”
And Ken goes, “Why would he want to do that?”
Because tiny orchestra equals plausible. [Laughing]
But there's no character motivation for Wilt Chamberlain to lie down in the stereo. That's amazing.
 
 
Steve: When Don and Megan arrive, we can see how thrilled Pete is.
And I think If Pete ever has any hopes of building a professional and personal connection with Don Draper, this is the means by which he hopes to make that happen.
 
And it fits with his upbringing, where these sorts of social gatherings were very central to the social life of Pete, you know, the upper class to which we know Pete is very accustomed.
 
Jenna: Yes, Pete definitely feels like he's at work here,
and Don is in costume. They're doing the what people do thing as they greet each other. And there's this running gag about how Megan and Don forgot Ken's wife's name,
so Don greets her, Hello, you.
And I mean, it works.
 
This might seem like a tiny detail, but if this episode is about the emasculation of Pete Campbell,
this detail makes it so complete, because he accepts the William Greenberg brownies from Megan,
and he says, could we put them in the icebox? Could everyone try it my way?
 
I mean, I personally don't know why you would want to refrigerate a perfectly delicious pastry, but I think the idea that he wants to show off his thoughts and have everyone value them,
even the way they eat dessert, is so telling. It's perfect.
 
Steve: And it also shows what a perfect gift it is, because we know that Don Draper had no part in it. So that was Megan, who probably talked to Trudy and found out a treat from the city that Pete would really value in his new life in suburbia, and maybe something that he doesn't get to have as much as he used to.
 
Jenna: I also really like that Ken and Pete are open about the extensive planning that went into this evening just for Don.
They say there's no work talk, no baby talk, and Don gets the big steak.
 
And it's funny to me that they reveal this to him. And it's so real, because I feel like we often pretend it's very natural to just show up and socialize.
And in fact, there's a lot orchestrated behind the scenes, including reminders to avoid certain topics around particular people.
And yet we pretend like everything is so effortless.
 
 
Next, Lane is on his Saturday night meeting with Edwin Baker from Jaguar.
Lane thinks he's pulling strings, as Roger advised him to. And Lane also thinks they're becoming friends.
But this man wants to talk about the tomatoes and gardening,
and they had very different experiences in the war,
and they really just don't have much in common outside the fact that they're both in New York after having lived in England.
 
Steve: And when Lane tries to get him to confide in something, some source of discomfort or unhappiness in his life. Edwin has a comedic moment when he just expresses that his life is grand and everything's going great.
 
So Lane can't leverage that angle and, you know, is left going with plan B as Roger laid it out, which is where Lane needs to express some weakness or foible so that the conspiracy can be planted and grow between the two of them.
 
Jenna: Yes, Lane really wanted to be the hero and bring in this account on his own, and it's turning out to be a little more difficult than he expected.
 
 
Back at Pete and Trudy's, they're discussing how their suburb Cos Cob got its name. And all of this shows up later in Ken's story.
An English family named Coe came to settle the area. Coe shows up as the main character in the story, and Pete makes a joke about Cos Cob sounding like the Algonquin word for briefcase.
And Algonquin is the new pen name Ken will choose.
 
The conversation turns to where everybody else lives, and there's this level of honesty in everybody, including Don, that is surprising.
Cynthia admits that help from her parents comes with strings, unlike Trudy's, she says.
and I love that detail because it feels very true that it would in a lot of families.
 
And Ken talks about growing up in Vermont,
and Don talks about going to an outhouse in winter,
and that is a shockingly personal thing for him to reveal, I think, especially if we look back at episode two, he had dinner with Roger and Mona, and he avoided sharing any background details about himself. He said, think of me as Moses in a basket.
 
Steve: I got the sense of it was almost like a sequence of one upmanship,
you know, the talk of parks and greenery there in the suburbs versus the city,
which then Ken one ups with, I grew up in Vermont, and that's the real country.
 
And then Don Draper seems to one up Ken with not just the beauty of rural America,
but, you know, the misery or suffering and poverty of rural America.
And it's all done in good spirits and with smiles on their faces.
But it does feel like there's a bit of a joust going on here, as well as to know who's the most country.
 
Jenna: They go on to discuss the sniper shootings. And there's that moment where Cynthia says Charles Whitmore, and Don corrects her, Whitman.
And Megan shoots him a look.
My first time through, I missed that. I was just thinking it was Don being prickly, like Connie might say. And, of course, Whitman is Don's birth name.
 
Steve: Cynthia brings up Ken's writing. Even though Ken tries to change the subject, the conversation turns to it.
And Cynthia's obviously very proud to brag about her husband's writing. And I think we can see some genuine respect around the table for the fact that Ken has this other profession that's taking place in parallel to his work with the firm and in advertising.
 
Jenna: Yes. When Cynthia tells the story, she summarizes it,
that a robot pulls a bolt out of a bridge, and all the humans who commute on it between the planets die.
And it's really upsetting, much like the shooting that they were discussing before.
 
And in spite of that, Don can't help himself from being curious. And he asks, why does he do it?
And I wonder, do you think Ken's story is fundamentally about his own feelings of feeling like everybody's telling us what to do?
 
Or is this observation about Pete and Lane, or just sort of a general sense that everybody has somebody telling them what to do, and all you can decide is whether to fix the bolt or remove it?
 
Steve: I guess from my perspective,
I think Don Draper has had to face the question, why? Why do this? Or why not do this?
So I think that's just where his interest lies at this point,
the why behind why people do things, where they come from.
And in this case, it's not the most satisfying answer, you know, from Ken about the robot.
And it really doesn't feel like it is an answer, you know, there almost is no why for the robot doing it.
 
Jenna: Well, my question is,
is Ken observing this about himself as he writes the story, or about Don, or about Pete or Lane or somebody, or it - does he believe this is a general condition?
 
Because I was trying to figure out this idea of feeling helpless, of course, and feeling like the only choice you have is to do something really destructive, because everything else you do is already prescribed, and how depressing that is, and how we've seen so many of our characters feel that way at different points.
It's an interesting thing for Ken, because generally we see him being so optimistic. So for him to make this very dark observation, I wondered where that was coming from.
 
We get a quick truth call-out in this conversation as Trudy asks me about acting and copywriting.
I kind of got the sense that Megan might be more open or detailed on this subject if Don weren't there.
 
Steve: It does seem like Megan's a little uncomfortable with that conversation, in a similar way to Ken.
 
 
Jenna: Suddenly there's water spraying all over the kitchen,
and the men rush in. Pete fumbles with his toolbox, but Don takes off his sport coat, goes under the sink, and takes care of it.
 
Steve: And we've seen this before in situations, you know, where there's stress or people struggle to know what to do.
And Don Draper knows exactly what to do here. And I imagine this probably goes back to his Dick Whitman days.
 
He covers up the leak with a pot.
He turns off the water so there's no longer a leak. He quickly diagnoses the water valve was turned on too much to create excessive pressure.
All of which is knowledge and competence that Pete Campbell lacks in his suburban home.
 
And we can see, you know, when he takes off his dress shirt, you know, it's handsome Don Draper. And all the ladies notice. So you've got this handsome man competently dealing with a household issue. And clearly, they're very much impressed by Don Draper.
 
We know that Pete, in his insecurity and jealousy, has got to be measuring himself against Don in this moment, and he can't be happy about it.
 
Jenna: Pete can't even decide which tool to grab.
 
Yeah, I felt like it was a little excessive how Don was treated so much like Superman for this, but I accept that if Jon Hamm is in your kitchen and he takes his sport coat off, that you know, that's going to attract some attention.
 
 
There's a moment when Trudy comes in with a baby,
and everybody in the room smiles and seems to have a minute of very genuine sweetness about it.
But I wasn't totally sure what Pete means with his line here.
He says, I take no credit for her at all.
 
So I don't know if he's just trying to attribute credit to Trudy,
because everybody else in the room, even Don, who's not terribly sentimental,
they all seem really taken with the sweetness of this little person.
 
Steve: I just thought it was in response to how physically cute the baby is. So giving credit to the mother, you know, it would be untoward for a Dyckman Campbell to try and shine any light on his half of the DNA.
 
 
Jenna: Next, Megan is driving back to the city, and Don tells her to pull over so they can make a baby.
Megan deflects, and she doubts he means it, but she does think Don looked hot fixing the sink, so . . .
 
Steve: Well, they end up pulling over, right? So I don't think they even get home. It's funny how she calls out Don Draper and says, you know, this domestic situation is what gets you going?
 
Because Don, of course, had to be dragged kicking and screaming out to the suburbs for this little get together.
But I think, again, it's another indication of just how into Megan Don is, and just the idea that he is even contemplating having some more children.
It's interesting because I never got the sense that he had a lot of enthusiasm for his three prior children.
 
Jenna: I agree. And I thought it was interesting to finally really get Megan's take.
I don't think she's averse necessarily, but it's also not something that she's rushing right out to do.
 
 
Later, Roger and Pete stop by Lane's office to ask how his meeting with Jaguar went.
And Lane has to confess the plan didn't work. But he has another dinner scheduled.
And Pete bulldozes over this completely. He says, Roger, Pete, and Don will take it from here.
Roger's a little more gentle. He says, we need you to stay a pure friend.
 
Steve: It's clear when they step outside the office who's in charge,
as Pete makes it very clear that the inclusion of Roger is inviting him to the dinner, not the wedding night.
Again, we just see this emasculation of Roger, and his lack of a real role or power in the firm.
It's Pete's show. It's Pete's call.
Pete will be as kind or rude to Lane as he chooses to be.
And Roger gets the same rough treatment. And Pete leaves no room for doubt about it.
 
Jenna: And Pete shows so much contempt for Lane afterward when he says he couldn't close a car door.
That also might be a little bit of foreshadowing the season.
 
And Pete's right about how to proceed with Jaguar. So why do we hate him so much for it? I mean,
he's right. Lane shouldn't be left to do that by himself.
 
Steve: It's also interesting because we know Pete is the well raised, well mannered WASP here. He's acting with no grace, very little in the way of manners. I think it's just unlikable Pete being unlikable Pete here.
He emphasizes his power and control when it doesn't need to be emphasized.
He runs over people who don't need to be run over if he thinks this is what's going to make him feel better about himself and his life. I think we know as viewers he's, he's mistaken.
 
 
Jenna: So Pete is back in driver's ed and he's trying to flirt with Jenny.
He ignores all sense. And he tells her she promised to go to the botanical gardens with him, which she didn't.
And before Jenny has to reject Pete outright, in walks Mr. Handsome.
 
He's taller than Pete, more confident.
He has to watch Jenny and see what she's really like when she's interested in a guy, because she has never been like this with Pete.
 
Steve: He's in a complete other league from Pete.
And the other quality you didn't mention is he's a heck of a lot younger than Pete and she has eyes only for Hansen. Pete is left gnawing on his own jealousy and insecurity.
 
Jenna: Yes, Lane and Pete have very similar discontent, even though they have unlikely parallels. And this is certainly one of them.
Jim Hansen is played by Parker Young. He's been in Imposters, Arrow, and Suburgatory.
Again, if Pete getting friend-zoned counts as this episode being about friendship,
this is another case of somebody attempting a relationship that did not work out as they hoped.
 
Steve: Well, and let's also point out Pete isn't offering true friendship. You know, he's a user and he's trying to get what he wants with no thought of what the other person wants.
 
And that certainly isn't fitting my definition of friendship. Although I'm sure if confronted, Pete would hide behind the notion of, oh, I was just trying to be friendly and kind and whatever.
And it's like that had nothing to do with it, Pete.
 
Jenna: That's a fair point. It's very much the way Don seeks escape or sought escape in the first seasons of the show. It wasn't really about concern for the other person.
It was just his own interest.
 
 
Steve: And speaking of popping the bubble of apparent friendship,
the next scene takes us to the dinner with Edwin, Don, Roger and Pete.
And Edwin makes it perfectly clear up front.
They don't need to wine and dine him. They're going to get his business.
What he's actually looking for is a little bit of fun in New York City.
 
So he doesn't want to go to a hotel bar. He wants to go somewhere more discreet so he can have his fun.
And of course, these experienced account men understand immediately what Edwin's talking about.
This isn't about friendship.
This is about Edwin leveraging the account to get something that he wants. And that seems to be a little escape from his marriage for the evening.
 
Jenna: Of course, Roger knows a place.
 
If you look very closely in the next scene, you can see Edwin pairing off with a gum chewing girl before they disappear. Put a pin in that.
 
Roger goes off, then Pete, and Don gives Pete a judgy look and Pete registers that.
But Don just stays at the bar.
 
Steve: Edwin looks tickled pink and is thrilled to be here. This is his idea.
And Roger seems to be doing what Roger does.
So he seems perfectly content to go off with his woman.
 
And Pete almost seems a little passive. So the woman who goes off with Pete, she creates the excuse that they have to go back to her room to find the rum.
And Pete is willing to be led there by her,
but it feels like she's driving the car here with a client who's not entirely enthusiastic.
 
Of those gentlemen, the one who doesn't go off with anyone is our super stud of the series, Don Draper.
And I think this is an indication of Don Draper trying to be good here. He's married. He wants to be loyal to Megan.
 
This isn't the kind of behavior that would be tolerated, and it's exactly the kind of behavior that ended up helping to blow up his marriage with Betty.
So, of all people, Don Draper is the one who stays at the bar drinking.
 
Jenna: Daphne, who goes off with Pete, is played by Cherilyn Wilson.
She's been in Greetings From Home, Love Vampires, and True Blood.
 
If you had to pick one scene to define Pete Campbell, this might be it.
He has the world at his fingertips. He has so much. He has so many options.
And here he is paying somebody to love him for a few minutes.
 
And his fantasy is not about affection, because remember when Roger wanted to take the call girl to dinner and have some conversation?
Pete's fantasy is all about power.
 
Steve: Well, and he also seems to be a little pouty and mopey once they get into the room.
When he starts to get too physical with her too quickly,
she pushes him off a bit and says, look, you know, we're not doing this by the minute, so we don't need to rush this.
 
He almost seems whiny in terms of, well, do you even know what you're doing, you know, or how good are you at your job?
Which seems an odd mentality to bring into the room. And obviously, she's a professional, so she starts to go through her menu of offerings.
 
He shakes his head and refuses them. But even when they get to the one that he's going to go with,
you're my king, I don't get the sense of a lot of energy or enthusiasm here.
 
It's almost in some ways, like, well,
in my mopey emotional state here, this is the least problematic, so let's go with that.
But it's kind of an interesting state of mind that Pete's in. I don't get the sense he's having a great time here.
 
Jenna: I think this scene is so perfectly Pete. He can have whatever it is he wants, and he's still determined to be unhappy with it.
 
Steve: Pete wants what he doesn't have.
So I think your point is well taken.
He has so much again, he's ticking all the boxes in a very similar way to Don Draper.
 
Most people looking at him in his life would say, wow, you've got everything, Pete. What are you lacking?
That's his focus. The glass is only 9/10 full for Pete Campbell,
and he needs the other 10th, and he's always going to need it.
 
And then we've got Don Draper, I guess, is the other end of the spectrum, who is not engaging in this, even though he's with company, all of which is doing it so there would be no judgment or, you know, isolation of him for making that choice.
No one else is going to know, but Don's choosing to be good tonight.
 
 
Jenna: Back in the common room, a madam approaches Don.
Her name is Giselle. She's played by Eve Gordon.
She's had a long career going back to the Cosby Show and the World According to Garp,
as well as the Powers that Be, and Felicity. She's also another Masters of Sex and Mad Men crossover actor.
 
So first she establishes that Don isn't a cop.
And again, Don, of course, is more open with a stranger than with a colleague or a friend.
And he reveals,
I grew up in a place like this,
and we know he grew up on a farm. So at this point in the series,
it feels like that could be a lie.
But later we'll learn that's true.
 
Steve: And again, he's so good with the words. So when she shoots back in response, you know, not as nice as - not as fancy as this, he quickly concedes the point.
 
It was a whorehouse and not as upscale as this particular one, which seems to be the right answer. And I think as a madame who would be very good at reading people,
I think she can see the truth in what Don's saying. You know, Dick Whitman must have grown up in a whorehouse.
 
 
Jenna: In the cab on the way home, Pete really pokes at Don about the hypocrisy of his judgment.
And Don doesn't say anything. He's trying not to engage on the subject.
And when Pete says, you, you of all people,
and Don says, you're right, and he looks away and he's trying to say goodnight.
 
So I feel like Don has the judgment, and I feel like Pete is right,
that it's hypocritical.
But Don isn't trying to say anything here. He doesn't want to have a showdown.
He's not trying to lecture Pete. But Pete really draws it out of him.
 
Steve: Yeah, and I like that about the writing here, because I think that's the key. Pete has correctly detected a judgment here, a negative judgment from Don Draper. And we know that Pete Campbell is attuned to that.
He wants to impress Don.
He wants to be friends with Don. He wants him to have a good relationship.
 
And now he feels negatively judged for something which, irony of ironies, Pete Campbell knows Don Draper has engaged in to the nth degree.
I can sympathize with Pete's frustration here of you of all people. Boy, this is rich.
And Pete tries to hide behind, he was just doing his job.
And then he has to take a shot at Don. And he says, “to a man who just pulled his pants up on the world.”
 
Jenna: it's shocking how much Don's disapproval bothers Pete.
And he just keeps going until Don finally says,
“You don't get another chance at what you have.”
And that's important for the end of the episode. So hold on to that thought.
 
Steve: Pete really has to squeeze it out of Don because at multiple points, he's trying to smooth it over and just change the subject and let things blow over.
But it's Pete who's sunk his teeth into this.
And basically he wants to hear what is your judgment? And, you know, and Pete is anticipating what it is, but he wants Don Draper to say it.
 
Jenna: I was surprised at Don's view of Megan when he says, if I had met her first, I would have known not to throw it away.
Really?
Betty was just so unhappy and miserable, and it was her fault the marriage didn't work?
I mean, what? We saw Betty in the first season doing everything she thought Don wanted.
 
People love who they love. And maybe the depth of Don's feelings for Megan is just a lot deeper than it ever was for Betty. So maybe she was just a stand in for what he thought he was supposed to want.
 
But even here, I have trouble believing Megan is the love of his life. It feels like Don is convincing himself that now he's going to be that happy in love person.
And I think Pete cheating on Trudy reminds Don how easy it is to go down that path.
So even though Don likes Trudy, I think it's more about his fear than his judgment of Pete.
 
Steve: I agree with you. Don Draper is lying to himself,
and it's manifested in this lie to Pete.
 
But I think if you look at what's the alternative for Don Draper,
if I had met Megan first, I would have blown up that relationship just like I did with Betty.
What a horrible thing to conclude and to believe about yourself.
 
So I think he's almost forced, from a survival perspective to latch onto the alternative and to personalize it, to say, oh, if I had met her first, I would have known not to throw it away.
Yeah, I'll take those odds all day, Don Draper, and I think I'll win that wager. But I get why he has to go there.
 
And it's also interesting, his assessment of Roger as well, because when Pete is asking him, you know,
no stern looks for Roger,
and Don seems to have put Roger into the prior Don Draper box of, Roger is miserable.
I didn't think you were.
 
And at this point, when he says that, that's when Don turns to look at Pete directly.
And Pete's response is interesting.
He's kind of defensive, and he says, I have it all.
Wait until your honeymoon is over.
And those seem to contradict each other.
 
I have it all.
Oh, but I'm unhappy. So wait until your honeymoon is over, and you'll see how you can be unhappy with having it all.
It's a perfect oxymoron.
And I think Don Draper knows all too well what Pete Campbell is expressing there, that feeling. And I think that's part of what grates on Don Draper. He knows that he has walked in Pete Campbell's shoes, and his judgment of Pete is really a judgment of himself.
 
 
Jenna: Next, we see Roger calling Ken in to let him know he needs to stop writing in the evenings.
Do you think it's Roger's jealousy about Ken's writing that makes him tell Ken to stop? Or is this legitimate professional concern about his account man?
 
Steve: that's an interesting question. In his commentary, Matthew Weiner says that he thinks it's probably Pete who rats out Ken to Roger.
 
And we know Roger's in a world where he doesn't really have a job or any responsibilities.
So I suspect that's what triggers Roger to want to have this conversation with Ken.
Roger wants to enforce the old values and be that representative of that standard and expectation in the midst of a world where everything else that Roger thought was a standard and an expectation is being swept away and the rug's being pulled out from under his feet continuously.
 
It's ironic that Roger says when the job is good, it satisfies your every need, because we know just how much this job isn't satisfying Roger's every need.
And yet here he is trying to box in Ken on something that would be very similar. You know, I would argue Ken would say the job doesn't fulfill his every need, and that's why he needs a creative outlet separate from it.
 
Jenna: I agree. I found that line really sad, especially because he follows it with, “Believe me, I remember.”
So there was a time when he felt like the job filled every need.
 
But right now, Roger is right back to pacing and he's on empty. There's no emotional fulfillment there.
 
And all of our big six characters wrestle with how large the job looms in their lives.
We see that with Don and Peggy, Pete, Joan, Roger, also Lane, and Betty doesn't have a professional option outside the home, and she's miserable and seeking some other thing. So we really see this conflict.
 
And here's Ken.
This is the perfect example of somebody having something you don't.
Ken is a successful writer. He didn't have to self publish a memoir the way Roger did. Roger's trying to pretend like being an account man is the height of excitement and success.
And he's not fooling himself on this point,
in spite of how spoiled he is.
 
Just like with Pete being spoiled and selfish,
it's a little bit tragic that he's gotten to this place and what does he have to show for it?
 
Steve: Well, and also this pettiness of squishing Ken's dream,
because objectively,
if Ken isn't ratted out by his wife at the meeting,
none of them would know. So what is this claimed harm or distraction or diversion?
If there's no tangible impact,
there's nothing they can point at.
 
So now Roger is just stepping on him for the sake of stepping on him. And like you point out, I think it's really a product of his own unhappiness.
 
Jenna: There's an interesting meta fan theory about the whole show being Ken Cosgrove's epic novel, and I don't think that holds up to a lot of scrutiny, but it's a little bit delightful to imagine.
 
 
Steve: We have a quick scene after this where Lane is rushing to the partners’ meeting and a call comes in from his wife, Rebecca.
She's upset. It seems urgent.
So even though he's going to be late for the partners meeting, Lane has to take this call from his wife at the partners’ meeting.
 
When Lane comes in and he's clearly upset,
Edwin has cancelled the arrangement to move his account to the firm.
And it seems that this has stemmed from an incident that his wife has become aware of the prior evening.
 
Jenna: “Why would he say anything?”
 
Steve: I love Jared Harris's delivery of the line,
“Edwin had chewing gum on his pubis!”
It's so perfect the way he delivers it.
 
And then we see Roger, Pete,
and Don break out loud laughing. And only Bert sits there, looking serious because he realizes this account has just been lost.
 
Lane is beside himself, accuses them of corrupting his friend.
And I think this is what gets Pete back up here. When we see the naivety of Lane talking about his pure friend who was corrupted.
And now Pete is going to rather brutally educate Lane about what went on.
 
Jenna: Pete's terrible.
And I think he's enjoying laughing with Roger and Don and feeling like one of the boys here.
And he's pushing Lane, like, oh, you're on the outside. You don't get it.
 
So he offers, Edwin didn't ask you to go out because he thought you were a homo.
And everybody in the room, there's a look.
Everybody is like, too far, too far.
 
And that is a blow to Lane.
But a few beats later, when Pete says,
“Our need for you disappeared the minute after you fired us.”
To not be needed by the people you work most closely with,
and to hear that in front of the other partners, just a dagger to the heart.
 
I get why that breaks Lane. He's just like, he's not having any more of it. Pete went too far. And every indication was that he would continue to keep saying it.
He has no shame. He has no regret. He has no - it doesn't just come out of his mouth and then he's instantly sorry.
It's just him spewing.
 
Steve: Yeah. He shows so much contempt to Lane here,
which also flies in the face of their own relationship,
where it seemed that there were many occasions where Lane was advocating and respectful of Pete's place and the need for Pete in the firm.
And now we have Pete just cutting all those lines.
 
There's no need to be so brutally rude and crushing to Lane in this moment.
It's interesting because we've watched Lane get knocked to the ground by his father and not offer up any resistance.
But in this moment,
Lane's honor has finally been affronted to the point where he starts to prepare for fisticuffs with Pete.
 
 
Jenna: There is a lot to love about this fight scene between Lane and Pete,
but my favorite line, it's probably top five across the series.
All right, I think I have said that about at least eight lines so far, so clearly I'm really terrible at counting. But it's not my fault because there's so many great lines!
 
I absolutely love it when Roger goes,
“I know cooler head should prevail, but am I the only one who wants to see this?”
 
Steve: And I like how Don helpfully starts closing the curtain on the conference room so nobody else will see these two grown men starting to have a fist fight.
 
Jenna: I'm pretty sure Roger is not the only person who wants to see this fight either. I think Joan’s right later. Everybody wants to see Pete take a hit.
 
Steve: Pete is incredulous at this challenge as well, and I think we can see him sort of questioning, is this real? Like, do you really mean this? Or, you know, is it just it's a figurative statement you've made.
 
And as Lane prepares for the fight and starts rolling up his shirt sleeves,
it's pretty clear, no, he wants to physically engage with Pete. And of course, Pete has to respond. You know, it's a matter of honor at this point.
So it's happening.
 
Jenna: So as a human, I hate this fight for them. I feel like it's tragic for both Lane and Pete. It's terrible HR practice, but as part of the show, I mean, yes, please bring this.
 
And I like that Pete and Lane aren't the strongest guys in the room to begin with,
and they both have these obsequious tendencies.
I remember, you know, Lane saying, yes, sir to St. John over and over.
So we don't view them as these super aggressive, prone to fighting types.
 
And they both look a little bit unsure about how to proceed, but, like, they're in it now and they can't stop. So now we're going to have a show.
 
Steve: And you really wonder what's going to happen here. You know, Lane is probably close to 20 years older than Pete, but Lane is full of fire. He's been insulted, and he's going to seek redress.
There's not a lot to the fight. We see a few punches back and forth.
 
I will note that Pete punches first and initiates the actual fisticuffs, and then from there, they go back and forth.
Joan is eavesdropping and hearing the fight.
And the line I love from that is Pete saying to Lane, “You want some more, Mr. Toad?”
Which is just a great insult, especially because as we cut back to the fight,
we see a nice combo from Lane that puts Pete down and ends the fight.
 
Jenna: This scene also reminds me of the fight in the Suitcase between Duck and Don.
There's no hero in either fight, and the instigator loses in both fights.
Neither fight ends in a glorious victory. They're disheveled and bruised,
and nobody looks at it and admires what they stand for.
 
Steve: I like Lane's line to Pete as he's laying on the ground, not rising, and he says, consider that my last piece of advice.
And he departs while Roger and Don come over to get Pete back on his feet.
 
And I think Pete looks a little lost at that point. And I think he realizes at least Lane could argue he was fighting for his honor.
What was Pete fighting for?
The right to abuse and belittle Lane?
 
And it seems fitting that he lost the fight.
And I like that little lie from Don Draper. You'll be fine.
 
Jenna: Yeah. Pete won't take Don's hand to help him up because he's mad Roger and especially Don didn't take his side.
So they're not friends.
 
And I think when he was laughing with them, he felt like he was part of the in group, and it showed that, in fact, they were not.
 
But it's hard to be on Pete's side when he's like that. I think we're remiss - we need to talk about the fact that Lane called Pete a grimy little pimp. We need to make note of that.
 
And there was also the line Lane has. He says, I can't believe the hours I have put into becoming the monster you've become.
And it's just - we questioned whether this relationship between Lane and Pete was authentic.
And the idea. We heard that from Bert about Don earlier,
too. Just this idea that you grew this thing and allowed it to fester, and instead of something productive, it's something hateful and dark.
 
Steve: Well, and I think it fits in with the friendship theme of the episode,
because these words are truly hurtful. To who? To your friends.
Because you're now saying the meanest, cruelest things you can say to someone.
 
And it's probably some element of hyperbole at this point when people are so upset and emotions are so high, but it's burning down. Whatever illusion of friendship remained in that moment of intensity and cruelty,
and it's just so tragic and ironic that it's only with friends you could do that. Your enemies know you already feel that way, so it doesn't need to be said.
 
And it's not a shock to hear it when it's between people where there were assumptions or at least relying upon assumptions,
they're really burning the bridges down, and it gives it an element of tragedy and pain. I think that,
ironically, can only come when it's friends doing it to each other.
 
Jenna: And Roger has a really great line at the end where he goes, “I don't know about you, two, but I had Lane.
 
But that does remind me of something you said offline about how if Pete had won and Lane had lost,
how extra sad that would have been.
 
Steve: Yeah, I would - it would have been horrific, wouldn't it? You've been verbally abused and belittled and then the bully, the verbal bully now puts the boots to you physically.
It would have been such an awful outcome.
 
Given our apathy towards Pete Campbell at the best of times,
there's a certain vindication here with Lane's physical victory over Pete.
 
 
Jenna: We try so hard not to talk about the episodes between our rewatch and the recording, but this episode was so good that we kind of couldn't help a little bit of discussion offline.
 
Steve: It's on my other podcast.
 
Jenna: Oh, you're hateful.
 
I also did just want to point out this great non verbal moment. Elisabeth Moss does this so well.
She walks in like, hey, what happened to this room?
 
And then her whole face is like, you know, maybe I need to come in. And then it's very clear like, nope, nope.
And she just turns and leaves. It's really perfect.
 
Steve: It is so perfect and delicious. Every time I rewatch that scene, I stick around for that moment.
 
 
Jenna: In the next scene, Joan has the chance to reciprocate the kind thing Lane did for her recently when she was worried she was being replaced at the office.
She goes into Lane's office, brings a bucket of ice for his hand.
She tells him he's essential and she's a real friend to him,
and he misreads it.
 
Steve: I love the acting after or during Lane's uninvited kiss of her,
and then afterwards as she stands and opens the door and sort of straightens herself, but returns to his side to continue to be a friend and to support him in this hard moment.
It's just so perfectly done.
 
And we just feel so bad in that moment for Lane, because we know he's going to feel bad and humiliated for having misread her attentions.
 
But at the same time, I think we have sympathy for Joan, that, you know, she shouldn't be subjected to that. And that's completely inappropriate on Lane's part. Although I feel as a viewer, I can cut Lane some slack because I know just how low he is.
And probably now coming down off the adrenaline of pummeling Pete Campbell's face.
 
Jenna: And remember,
Joan just kicked Greg out of her life.
She's a single mom. She's living with her baby and her mother,
and none of that shows at work.
 
So she still extends this kindness to Lane. She brushes past the awkwardness of the kiss,
and she makes him smile when she goes,
“Everybody in this office has wanted to punch Pete Campbell,” which, true.
 
And Lane really needs Joan in this moment. And she sees the ugly bits and she's still there for him. And I really admire her for that, because she hasn't always been that kind of a friend to Peggy.
But she's here for Lane.
 
Steve: And I think back to the friendship theme.
This is true friendship. Even when the friend crosses a line,
Joan knows that Lane needs some support now. And she's not going to personalize this and turn it into something about her.
 
She's going to stand in there for Lane. And I think it speaks very well to Joan's qualities as a human being.
Jared Harris's portrayal of Lane's awkwardness and humiliation is so perfect and on point. And we can just feel the ick in this moment for Lane.
He just wants to shrink down to micro size and crawl under the carpet if he could.
 
 
Jenna: Next, we get a really quick scene between Ken and Peggy.
Ken knows Pete told Roger about his writing.
There's another fantastic line and line delivery here when Peggy goes,
you know, I don't blame Cynthia for being proud of your writing. She goes,
“I read the one in Galaxy about the girl who lays eggs. Wow.”
That's so great.
And I'm like, I kind of want to read that story, too, Ken.
 
Steve: It's a sad scene for Ken Cosgrove, though, because at least publicly.
And I get a sense this isn't just for show because, you know, he has a friendship with Peggy.
He's telling her that he has to give up his dream of writing because he just can't afford to be outed again.
 
And knowing how important the creative side is,
it hurts because it wasn't causing any problems. And we know the pettiness of Roger in trying to enforce it.
And it just seems like an awful consequence for Ken.
 
Jenna: I agree. I found it really sad. I don't want Roger to kill off this thing that is so fulfilling to him,
and it feels unnecessarily cruel.
 
 
Next we see Pete. He's scarred and limping out of the office with his briefcase.
And he sees Don in the elevator, probably the last person he wants to run into,
except maybe Lane.
 
And it's a weirdly Michael Scott assumption when Pete says, why are we fighting at work anyway? We're supposed to be friends.
 
Hey, Pete!
Friends don't tell each other they're unnecessary at the partners’ meeting!
Pete playing the victim is –
 
Steve: Yeah. In front of all the other partners.
 
Jenna: Pete is just so unlikable playing the victim here.
 
Steve: And we can see Pete is feeling really bad and feeling sorry for himself.
And he says, I have nothing, Don.
 
And that is such a striking contrast to just a few scenes earlier when he declares in the taxicab, I have it all.
And now he's admitting the truth, at least in this moment of his emotional duress. I have nothing.
And he's basically weeping.
And there's nothing Don Draper can even offer or say in response to it.
 
Jenna: This is a man who can't be happy unless he has everything he wants.
And I think, as with Betty, it can be hard to understand his unhappiness. But if you don't have love at your center, I think you doubt everything else.
 
Why do you think Pete is so unhappy?
Is it just pure selfishness and greed?
 
Steve: I think so.
I get the sense he's always measuring himself against everyone else,
and his definition of happiness is scoring higher or doing better than everyone else by every one of these measures, which I think just sets himself up for failure.
 
Because no matter how good it's going, no matter how wonderful his wife is or his baby daughter or his job or whatever it is,
you're always going to run into the Hansons of the driver's ed class or whatever, and it's like he's younger and better looking than you,
and you're just eclipsed.
 
So now you have a source of unhappiness that really, you should never have set yourself up for that evaluation and scorecard in the first place.
And you're just doomed to failure.
It's just this narcissistic treadmill that he can't get off of.
And I think it brings out the worst in his own behavior.
 
His triumphs are petty and unseemly,
and then his failures are depressing,
pathetic, and extremely sad.
 
So I do feel a little sorry for him in the elevator here at the end of this episode.
Although another side of me thinks about what he said in the meeting and thinks, you got what you deserved. And I'm thrilled that Lane is the one who put him down.
 
 
Jenna: At the end of the episode, we get this fantastic voiceover narration of Ken.
He's claiming a new pen name, writing a story called The Man With a Miniature Orchestra.
And even though Ken is angry at Pete for outing him as a writer to Roger,
he can still find pity for Pete and see his loneliness as he tells the story.
 
Steve: He's writing. So maybe he's going to just keep it from Cynthia in the future as well so that she can't spill the beans.
 
Jenna: She works at the publishing house courting him, so I'm pretty sure she's going to know.
[Laughter]
Kind of like I know about your other podcast.
 
 
As Pete sits in Driver's Ed and watches Hansen and Jenny together,
the slow faucet drip sound returns, and the closing song becomes Beethoven's Ode to Joy.
Amazing irony.
 
It's so dark and so sad. And I love that Mad Men can make me hate Pete so much. I hate that he cheats on Trudy and that he tries to date Jenny in this episode.
I hate how he treats Lane and how he tells on Ken. I'm still not over how he treated Peggy or the nanny or that thing with Trudy about publishing his story.
That was terrible.
 
And I still feel sad for him and his emptiness.
And I love that Mad Men can make me feel that way.
 
Steve: And now it's more of an action series, so I wonder who's going to have a fist fight in the next episode.
 
 
Jenna: Our listener shout-out today goes to Babe Louis. Thank you so much for your very kind comment about our show on YouTube.
We really appreciate you taking the time to leave such nice feedback, and and we're grateful to all our listeners who reach out through our website who follow us on social media and leave positive ratings and reviews of our show.
Thank you very much.
 
 
Steve: That's it for this episode of All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou. Visit our website, Mad Men C to Z dot com to vote for your favorite Sterling Lines, and to share your opinions on our Double Dip questions for each episode.
 
Jenna: You can find us on Instagram and YouTube at Mad Men C to Z, and please listen, like, and subscribe. That's what the podcast's for!
 
Steve: Thanks for listening, everybody.

Mad Men C to Z S5E4 Mystery Date Podcast Transcript
 
Jenna: Hi, I'm Jenna.
 
Steve: And I'm Steve. Welcome to All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou.
 
Jenna: There's so much to love about this amazing show and we're happy to connect to fans like us who discover new things with each rewatch.
 
Steve: Be advised, while we aren't gratuitous with spoilers, they can pop up as we discuss character arcs through the final season.
Let's get started with Mad Men, C to Z.
 
Jenna: Hey, everybody. This is Mad Men Season 5, Episode 4, Mystery Date.
This episode was written by Victor Levin and Matthew Weiner and directed by Matt Shakman.
There's a lot in this episode that has a horror movie quality to it. You can find it in almost every scene, but there is also a lot about bargaining and negotiation. We see that with Sally and Pauline, Ginsberg, Joan and Greg, and most delightfully, with Peggy and Roger.
 
Steve: Do you think the horror elements integrate seamlessly into this episode of Mad Men, or do you think it's a bit of a distraction or diversion?

 
Jenna: Well, I'm biased because I'm not a fan of horror myself,
so I find this episode uncomfortable, and I don't really look forward to it on the rewatch.
 
But I get what they're trying to do with it and I think there are things about it that works. I like this episode better than the previous one overall, but I think some of it is a little self indulgent.
But again, you know, an okay episode of Mad Men is still a pretty good episode of TV.
 
Steve: If it makes you uneasy, I'm wondering if that's not a sign of the success of the horror elements, because isn't that what the horror is supposed to elicit from the viewer?
 
Jenna: How do you find it?
 
Steve: I like it all right. And I think it works. And I like horror as much as the next person.
And even though there is a bit of a fake out in this episode, in the moment, as the viewer, it works for me.
 
Jenna: Yes, I'm looking forward to getting into this, because I think there are places where it serves the story better than others. So as we talk about those scenes, we'll break that down.
 
Steve: The episode kicks off with Don and Megan in the elevator heading up to the office.
Don's coughing and clearly feeling under the weather.
 
When Andrea enters the elevator and immediately recognizes Don and starts to flirt with them. We have this awkward moment as Don introduces his wife.
 
Jenna: Andrea is played by Madchen Amick, and you might recognize her from Twin Peaks, Riverdale, or as Carter's social worker love interest on E.R.  (also, see our blog post about Gilmore Girls and Mad Men character crossovers)
 
It makes sense to me that the show gives us this conflict, because Megan has to feel this tension between the fact that she has this good looking guy who married her, and the fact that this good looking guy has slept with everybody already, basically.
 
And I think the way Megan confronts Don here is more interesting than how Betty turned a blind eye, because Megan brings up her feelings and she doesn't let Don brush her aside.
 
And I think it's a tricky line to walk for her character because she could seem overly needy,
but instead I think she comes across as having a valid frustration and she seems stronger because she's honest about how it makes her feel vulnerable, and she's demanding more from him in this moment.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think Megan acquits herself well because she doesn't let Don shift it to her or somehow she's overly sensitive, but she keeps the onus and responsibility where it actually resides, which is Don Draper.
And we know from when Bobbie Barrett said that, we know that he's very uncomfortable with this reputation being broadcast in the creative lounge.
 
 
Jenna: Stan has pantyhose on his head, which is the kind of goofy thing you'd expect,
but it's also a nod to the horror motif in this episode. It's a masked figure or a distorted face, even in the daylight.
 
And that feeling escalates when Joyce comes in with photos from Chicago.
Richard Speck held nine nursing students hostage that summer and killed eight women.
We'll link an article about that on our website, Mad Men C to Z
 
Steve: One thing I love about Mad Men is the humor. And I know it's not a comedy, but I think Stan with the pantyhose over his head, it's just so absurd and bizarre looking.
 
And then we realize as the scene develops and Joyce comes in with the photos that there's a dark tragedy that that's occurred simultaneous to this and unrelated to the pantyhose account that they're working on.
 
And as they get into the details of that, we see the different reaction of the various characters to the opportunity to look at these grisly crime scene photos.
 
Jenna: Stan is almost gleeful recounting what happened. And Peggy and Megan and Joyce all seem overly curious.
And I feel like this fascination with the grotesque is an interesting audience mirror.
It reminds me of the first season of The Boys, where there's all this graphic violence and injustice with the guise of heroism.
And you come to see how the audience is complicit in the problem with their celebrity worship.
 
And here we have this terrible reality, and so many of them are intrigued and want to be in on the awful secret of it.
 
Steve: You know, true crime has been extremely popular and continues to be very popular with the public, I think for some of the very reasons that these characters are showing this interest in the grisly reality of this awful crime.
 
It's not a great look for the characters, because there's been this awful carnage and these innocent victims. And yet what is the focus of these people? With the opportunity to see the photos, it seems like there's almost an element of stimulation and thrill and excitement.
There's this morbid curiosity.
All of these sentiments seem to be dominating for most of the characters.
Except for Michael Ginsberg.
 
Jenna: Yes. Ginsberg wants no part of this. He's not with the crowd, and he calls them out for being excited by it. They all have secrets, and we've yet to learn Ginsberg's.
But since we're re-watching, and we know something about his past,
it makes sense that he would be averse to this particular horror show.
 
And back to your point about true crime being so popular.
I'm not a horror fan or true crime follower. I just - I don't want to put that into my brain. It just sticks around and it bothers me.
But I think I'm in the minority on that, because those genres are so popular with so many people.
 
And in the commentary, Matt Weiner seems to suggest that this is a very human condition to be curious about the dark and the morbid.
 
Steve: One of the things I like about it is Mad Men goes there. It's willing to look at the warts and foibles and less appealing aspects of humans decades later.
 
This crime is so terrible and horrific, we can look up any number of awful photographs and images at any time with the aid of the Internet.
Going back to this time, it's a very unique  - and I hesitate to use this word, but opportunity - the characters are presented with that they jump on.
 
It's uncomfortable. But I think simultaneously we can also feel that the tug of that curiosity, even if it's maybe a corner of ourselves that we're not particularly eager to acknowledge.
 
Jenna: I think that piece is really important. And that's where I like the horror aspect of this episode.
There are other places where I don't like it as much, where it's too overt.
 
But that suggestion, because we're going to see that come up again later in the episode where it's the darkness within ourselves and it's not just the darkness within. Don Draper.
And I find that part very interesting. And I agree - I appreciate that Mad Men takes it there and makes us confront that.
 
Steve: And just a shout-out to Peggy as well, because in response to Michael Ginsberg denouncing it and exiting, Peggy does seem to feel that shame. It is untoward and it is unsightly, this interest. And she says aloud that Michael's correct.
 
 
Jenna: At Joan's apartment, we see Joan preparing for Greg to come home.
Her mother, Gail, seems to be determined to say all the wrong things.
And I love when Joan's response is, “Stop talking about men in general.”
That's kind of great.
 
I don't feel like Gail is trying to irritate Joan, even though she is doing it masterfully.
I feel like she's trying to prep Joan for all possible realities, so that she will be calm and perfectly unruffled when she sees Greg.
I feel like we all have that friend or relative who's like, hey, have a great trip. Hope you avoid hurricane season.
Thank you for that. [Laughing]
 
I think Joan surely has enough to worry about in her own head without Gail adding to the list.
 
Steve: I love the writing here. Gail is honestly trying to be helpful to Joan here, but it always comes at a price.
Gail really is trying to leverage her experience and knowledge to help Joan.
We know how capable Joan is and how thoughtful Joan is,
so we can also see her chafing at this idea that somehow she needs someone to counsel or advise her.
 
Jenna: Given the turn this episode takes,
it's interesting that there don't seem to be any seeds of that in this first scene.
We know it's Roger's biological child, but if Joan is nervous about that specifically, I don't see that at all.
 
Overall, she really looks like a woman who genuinely loves her husband, and she looks forward to seeing him. It doesn't seem like there's any hesitation about her feelings in this relationship.
 
Steve: And we've commented about this desire of Joan to subscribe to this fantasy or vision of what she wants out of this marriage and this relationship and for her life.
And it feels to me like Joan is really leaning into that and trying to make it true.
 
Which is interesting because, like you point out, we know there are a number of cracks,
all of which is conspiring against this relationship being the image or the ideal that Joan seems to be trying to present right now.
 
 
Jenna: In the next scene, Sally calls Don at his office. We find out Betty and Henry are away, and Sally hates being home with Henry's mother, Pauline.
 
Steve: I love the way they write Sally's dialogue.
Her complaints are exactly the sort of childlike complaints we might expect from a stricter grandma who thinks the kid needs more discipline and a more traditional upbringing.
I also like Don's responses on his side where he can't take Sally's side 100%. But he's trying to be empathetic, but also coach her to avoid blowing this up or making it any worse.
 
Jenna: Don throws a couple of darts at Henry on this call with Sally, which isn't his classiest move. He refers to their house as a haunted mansion and how Henry should be able to get a flight instead of having somebody drive them.
But he does support the general expectation that Sally cooperate with Pauline.
 
And when Sally asks him to come and get her, Don refuses.
And we know he's sick and he has an important meeting today,
but I also think this reflects a time period where kids had to suck it up if they were bored or or unhappy with their circumstances.
Nobody thought it was a bad thing if kids weren't being enriched for a five hour stretch.
 
I know Don can be self-involved, so his unwillingness to get Sally could look like a lazy, uninvolved parent by today's standards, but I think this is more about the era.
 
And later, when we see Pauline, she doesn't seem like a good fit babysitter for anybody. So I also don't really blame Sally.
 
Steve: Don knows darn well he can't have Sally live with him, so what would be the point of rescuing her? You're just exacerbating a situation that ultimately Sally needs to cope with and deal with.
 
Even if it wasn't the tough love old mentality. I think Don is practical and realistic enough to know that there is no white knight saving Sally without completely gumming up his own life, and he's not willing to do that.
 
Jenna: I might be overthinking this part, but Sally's line about Bobby wetting his pants at camp, it's delivered with the perfect disdain of a slightly older sister,
and maybe it's just a normal kid thing,
but it also might suggest Bobby's got some issues with his difficult mom, and his mostly absent dad and moving houses.
 
We get so little about his character, so we don't really know much about how he copes with being part of his family,
but it makes sense that there might be a few things that are a little bit off for him.
 
Steve: And growing up is just difficult, right? So I think that's a childhood challenge, and struggle that many have had and it's just a human moment and we can see the lack of empathy that Sally has for it.
 
 
Jenna: In the next scene. Michael Ginsberg walks Don through the beginning of his presentation and he has this plot planned joke.
And when he delivers it, he sounds like an actor, like it's somebody else talking.
And then when Don coughs and Ginsberg offers, “You could have TB,” [Laughing]
and there's him being himself again, like a light switch.
 
And I feel like he and Gail would get along really well and really enjoy all their catastrophizing.
 
Steve: We know Don’s sick, so we've got an excuse for him to perhaps not be paying as close attention.
But we know Don has been relatively unengaged with the business,
so everything seems to be fitting that pattern now.
 
Throw in his illness, and as long as there's nothing that's too far outside the lines, he's ready to just nod consent and get them out of his office as soon as possible.
 
 
Jenna: And now Greg arrives at Joan's apartment in uniform.
He takes the baby, and they have this picture-perfect moment,
this really brief snapshot of what Joan hoped her life could be.
 
They mention his flight and the airline workers strike that lasted 43 days.
The top workers were making $3.52 an hour,
and by some estimates, during the strike, 60% of United States flights were affected.
 
Steve: It's a picture-perfect reunion. Gail takes the hint to go run an errand so Greg and Joan can be alone together.
Greg looks great in his uniform, and is obviously thrilled to see Joan and then have some alone time with her.
And Joan seems genuinely happy with his arrival. So everything is textbook at this point.
What could possibly go wrong?
 
Jenna: I'm probably reading too much into this scene as well, but I noticed Joan is wearing her hair down. We've seen it up for most of the series, and her dress doesn't seem quite right. And I think that's intentional.
The print seems a little too large. It feels like the dress is wearing her.
She's trying hard to make this life with Greg fit.
 
And we remember he brought her roses the night he raped her at the office.
So in spite of things looking like they should be, it gives this tension of something being off.
And maybe it's even a nod to Beauty and the Beast. And that would fit with the footwear presentation talk about Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty earlier.
 
Steve: Yeah, I honestly, I didn't pick up on anything being off in this scene, so maybe I'm unobservant. Everything seems to be going peachy, as far as I can tell.
 
Jenna: No, I don't think between them, anything was wrong. I feel like it's the foreshadowing, it's the horror looming, right, that they're showing us through costuming that as much as everything seems okay in the daytime, there's really this dark element between them.
 
Steve: Yeah. Or like you point out, maybe it's a nod to just that classic horror trope where we are going from what seems to be perfect and everything is normal, and we know things are going to come undone, and it's just a matter of time. So this interlude is really just a setup for things going off the rails.
 
 
Jenna: At the office, Megan finds Don hunting for aspirin, and she says, I'm sending you home.
She looks really pretty in this sleeveless plum outfit she has on.
And Megan is showing care to Don, and he apologizes about this morning.
 
He's always oblique with his apologies,
but it feels like a very sincere step for Don. He's addressing the conflict.
He's not brushing it aside. He brings it up to make sure he says something to her.
I appreciate that in him.
 
Steve: It's interesting, too, that Megan doesn't just passively accept this.
She holds his feet to the fire.
When Don offers some lame excuses that, oh, it was a long time ago and I was unhappy,
Megan's response is, “careless appetite can't be blamed on Betty.”
 
This is a very strong scene for her where, again, she's somewhat unpredictable,
but she's advocating for her side and not letting him just escape, addressing that piece of it.
 
I don't get the sense that Don resents or chafes against being held to account.
I get the sense here that Don Draper sees Megan's point and continues to try to reassure her that he's married now, he wants to be with her, he has made a change.
He will continue to make this change going forward, compared to his prior self.
 
Jenna: Don absolutely has used sex as an escape.
And I'm not qualified to diagnose it as a sex addiction,
but it's like his sickness and his other sickness are showing in the scene.
 
And even though the conflict is uncomfortable, it seems like a very healthy thing for Don and Megan to have this conversation and get it out in the open.
You're sick, you need to go home,
and you've slept with a very large number of people while you were committed to someone else, and that is not what people do, you know, as they often say on Mad Men.
 
So Megan is pointing both of the things that these things out,
showing care, and she's in it with him.
 
Steve: She's in it with him, and she's also wary of the risk here. And I think by shining a light on it and being forceful about this risk, it's another indicator of just what a good partner Megan is, and her own commitment to this relationship, because she's watching out for the risks and threats to it and willing to speak up and fight for it.
 
Jenna: And I know better. I know better.
But this show is making me hope against all odds, that Don Draper can be healthy and make this work with Megan and find happiness.
 
And we talked a lot about Faye being better for Don because she held him accountable.
And here is Megan doing that.
I feel like it's maybe a slight writing critique, because we didn't get any inkling until Zou Bisou Bisou that Megan was very strong or independent.
Or maybe the moment she whistled at him in the hallway before the party,
maybe that was it.
 
And now it feels like she's more like we saw Faye being. She's loving and she's supportive,
but she also demands his honesty and his time.
 
Steve: Maybe that's our oversight as viewers making any assumptions about Megan's personality or character in the absence of any data, right, because the character is introduced and suddenly they're getting married.
 
And we've seen very little other than she's good babysitting the children,
and she's, you know, very attractive, and knows what she wants in terms of getting with Don Draper.
Now that we're learning more about her as a person, we're seeing that strength. And I feel a bit ashamed as a viewer to assume that someone like her wouldn't necessarily be expected to be a strong advocate for herself or that assertive.
 
Jenna: You're not wrong that that's a possibility . . . with any other show.
But as a multiple re-watcher, I'm watching this show and I'm watching her carefully to see where are the signs of this person coming, and we don't get any of it.
 
And for a show that so thoughtfully plants details about all of the characters and their arcs,
I just feel like they didn't give us a strong, independent Megan. There is nothing there to see that gives us that person she's becoming now.
 
And I think they needed to contrast her with Faye, so they didn't give us this independence at that point.
 
Steve: I do share that thought of I'm rooting for Don Draper to get himself sorted out and to not make the same mistakes of the past,
make an improvement of himself and commit going forward with Megan. In hindsight, it feels a little naive or hopeful, but I can't help it. That's the way I view the character.
 
And I am rooting for him.
Learn from your mistakes, Don Draper. Don't go down the same path.
 
 
Jenna: At Betty and Henry's house, Pauline is forcing Sally to eat her sandwich. And this feels like a very period thing to do.
I think it's Sally growing up and expressing preferences and trying to demand space in her home to live the way she wants to.
It's not just a childish, picky eater thing.
 
And Pauline is saying, you are a child, not an individual.
And I will tell you what you will or won't do, because I have all the power as an adult.
And it's a very different mindset from a lot of people today.
 
Steve: Yeah, that's what comes across to me is it's a power struggle. All the power is with the adults, and the children are seen but not heard. And it feels to me like Sally reflects that more modern approach.
 
This clash seems to almost parallel the culture clash and the generational clashes. But as well we know it's just this timeless story of the young bumping into the more traditional of the older generation.
 
We do get another peek here that as Pauline is reading the newspaper and reading about the murders in Chicago,
Pauline's trying to keep it from Sally, but at the same time not doing a very good job.
We can see Sally starting to sniff around it too. What is this story that seems to be so compelling to all the adults?
 
 
Jenna: Back at Joan and Greg's, Greg is making his own sandwich.
And I like this detail when he says, I had steak in Vietnam. I did not have bologna.
And it's so true. When you're away from home, you miss these things that were once part of your routine.
 
Steve: I love that detail as well, because I feel that these guilty pleasures, because the things that I'm missing aren't necessarily the best of the best or world class.
They're just what I'm used to. They're comforts.
Sometimes they're guilty pleasures that I'm almost embarrassed about.
And you do crave those.
 
And when you do get back home,
these are often the things that you seek out. Things seem to be going great here.
It looks like the reunion is proceeding well, until Greg springs on Joan that he has to go back for another year to Vietnam.
 
Jenna: Obviously, Joan is not really thrilled with this news.
And we get a truth call-out because Greg says, I know you're hearing a lot of horrible things.
It couldn't be further from the truth.
 
And Joan blames the military for breaking their agreement. And she says, oh, they're a bunch of liars.
And of course we're going to learn a bit later,
Greg isn't telling the whole truth here.
 
Steve: Yeah. And he tries to move the conversation and says, look, let's not waste our time together this way, being upset and angry.
And we can see Joan is in a much worse place and legitimately upset at this prospect of Greg going away again.
 
Jenna: I'm not old enough to remember the Vietnam War period,
but I am old enough to remember it being a very painful thing in the American identity, and how hard it was for soldiers, even if they did make it back.
 
I had a friend whose father fought in Vietnam, and he wouldn't put any trees in their yard because the anxiety of enemies hiding behind the trees was too much.
So my memory is about how bad Vietnam was, and how many lives were lost and the lies that came out about it.
 
And to see Greg so positive about his experience there seems jarring to me,
but it's also believable.
He feels valued in the army, so this is a thing he's dedicated himself to.
 
Steve: Well, and as well, I think, you know, in popular culture, we generalize about an experience, but the truth is there are thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of individual experiences which are somewhere on that spectrum from great to terrible and everything in between.
 
In this particular case, where Greg is a surgeon, he works behind the lines. He's not out doing patrols in the jungle and getting ambushed by the enemy.
 
It makes perfect sense to me that his Vietnam War is a lot more comfortable and interesting than perhaps, you know, the version that is most commonly spoken about in popular culture.
 
We know that for Greg, he's got these issues about his masculinity and about his sense of purpose and achievement in the world,
and it seems that the army is ticking all the boxes for him.
 
Jenna: A little before this scene, Greg and Gail were talking about the riots, and Greg says he fights with African Americans in Saigon, and they're, quote, plenty brave.
 
And I think it would be easy if the writers added blatant racism to Greg, because he's probably one of the least likable characters on the show.
And maybe blatant racist would have been his story as a New York surgeon,
but his identity as an army doctor aligns him more with his fellow soldiers.
And I thought that was an interesting detail.
 
Steve: Yeah, I like it because to me, it shows the complexity of people.
And maybe now is as good a time as any to just talk a little bit about the riots that Gail is probably referring to.
The Hough Riots took place in Cleveland from July 18th to 24th of 1966.
It was sparked by racial tension. In a black neighborhood, a white bar owner had refused water to a black customer, and it ended up with a five day uprising which had four deaths, 50 injuries, over a million in property damage.
It involved the calling out of almost 2,000 National Guardsmen to restore order in Cleveland.
 
Similarly, in 1966, mid July, there were riots in Chicago on the west side when the police turned off a fire hydrant on a hot day.
And those riots required 1500 National Guardsmen to be deployed to restore order.
So we've got this bubbling cauldron.
 
And although the civil rights movement is often associated with the US south,
civil rights and race relations were a major issue in large American cities as well, such as Cleveland and Chicago. These were powder kegs waiting to be set off by incidents.
 
And then you have the cycle of violence from rioters committing violent acts, and then the authorities committing violent acts against the demonstrators and rioters,
and just the difficulty of discerning between the two groups.
 
As much as we're in this comfortable white professional environment on Mad Men,
we can see this unease and these issues in the news and media that they're reading,
and we can tell that this is very much part of the society they live in and they're trying to make sense of it.
 
And bubbling behind all of this is the gradual escalation of the Vietnam War, which just keeps ramping up throughout this period, from ostensibly military advisors who occasionally get involved in combat, to now 1966, where the US is starting to ramp up the deployment of combat troops, and starting to engage in major combat operations against the Viet Cong.
 
 
Jenna: At the presentation, we cut right to Ginsberg's practice joke he told Don earlier.
The clients love the pitch. It's sold, and everything's good as they're ready to leave.
And then Ginsberg starts talking to himself.
 
I don't know what it says about me that I relate to Ginsberg so much,
but when the client says, “You really know women,”
he feels compelled to answer honestly and explain himself.
 
And that leads to another idea he's been thinking about, and he shares it. And you get the sense here, now he's talking to himself. He has certainly forgotten he's in a room with a client, and he's there to do a job.
 
He's lost in the idea. And Ginsberg is a fantastic storyteller, even without any practice.
So off the top of his head, he paints a really dark picture.
 
Steve: It's the cliched story of Cinderella, which earlier, when Stan and Ginsberg were presenting that to Don, there was broad agreement and consensus that they weren't going to pitch to the cliche.
 
And now here is Michael going back down that path. And of course, the client loves it.
And we can just feel the tension in Don and Stan as Michael's gone off the reservation and now hooked the client on another idea, after they already had a yes on the prior one.
Obviously, there's going to be some sort of comeback on Michael for this faux pas.
 
Jenna: Well, there's also such a direct link between the horror genre and fairy tales.
And we know fairy tales were stories for children to caution them against danger,
and to teach them how to act.
 
And you could argue Mad Men is the ultimate fairy tale. You know, don't be like that guy. Ginsberg's line here at the end of his story:
“We know in the end she wants to be caught.”
That makes me think a lot, because at first I have a hard disagree on that.
It's not her wish to be captured.
 
But then I think about Cinderella and how this tale that's meant to teach young women to be sweet and kind no matter how hard life is, it's so destructive, because it seems like the ultimate prize is finding a prince to marry. And that's Joan's belief.
 
And it's a problematic tale for a lot of reasons, because Cinderella might want to step out from under the wicked stepmother, but she doesn't know the prince at all, and he doesn't know her, so it can't be real love.
So if she wants to be caught to escape one danger,
she might end up in another, different danger.
 
So the ultimate fairy tale is actually a horror story about dependence.
And I think the writers are trying to tie Ginsberg's story to the Chicago murders, but the idea that darkness is lurking in the promise of a dream come true,
that's very scary. And it's Joan's actual story.
 
Steve: Joan caught her prince,
but careful what you wish for, because with the warts and the rest of it, it may not end up being the happy ending that you envisioned,
even though from the surface, from 20,000ft away,
it looks like exactly the ideal, the fairy tale ending that you sought.
And appearances deceive.
 
 
Jenna: Immediately after this pitch, Don berates Ginsberg.
We know he's sick. We know he's been a little less involved since he married Megan.
So Don doesn't fire him, but we know he was ready to fire Pete for a similar offense. So it's kind of a skin of his teeth escape.
 
Steve: I think in a case where the client, let's say, was unhappy with the first idea and then unhappy with the second idea, I think he does get fired.
 
I suspect that what saves Ginsberg in this situation is the first idea was a winner,
the second idea is a winner, so you've got a happy client, which is such a ruling factor.
 
I love when Ken says to him, you know, you just about got fired right now.
And Ginsberg says back, I don't think so.
And Ken, the lack of any sort of doubt, he goes, I'm positive.
 
Michael being in his own funny world and somehow managing to miss this warning shot that went right by the bridge of his ship.
 
Jenna: I also think this scene completely captures the essence of Don and Ginsberg,
in spite of the famous meme people like to attribute mostly to both of them.
I love this bit. Ginsberg says,
in your heart, you know it was good.
 
And Don has a really funny line about, in my heart, I'm thinking about throwing you in front of a cab.
But Ginsberg is about the truth of the work,
and Don says,
think of those ideas in front of me.
 
And as a boss, Don is not wrong about insisting on a process.
But for a guy who stands up as the creative example,
he sure is a lot about making sure he gets credit for the good stuff.
In his heart, he does know Ginsberg's idea was good and interesting.
And unlike Peggy, we can already see that's threatening to him.
 
Steve: I think I don't get a sense that Don feels any sort of threat.
My perception here is Don is representing the agency and in many ways is now compromised from the pure creative genius who would kick clients out of the office and fight with the account men, to now Don as a responsible executive.
 
And when he gets a yes from the client and knows that they can now start making the donuts and earning some money,
wants to get on with that, it feels to me like now the new Don or the new uncontrollable creative who's losing sight of the actual purpose here in his devotion to the creative mission is Michael Ginsberg.
 
And I wonder if that doesn't give Don a little bit of sympathy or empathy for where Ginsberg's coming from being pure creative.
But simultaneously, Don is not going to brook any dissent, and Ginsberg needs to stay in line.
 
Jenna: I think it's a plausible position for Don.
And because he's so - because Ginsberg is so invested in the creative part,
I want Don to have more connection with him as a character.
 
And maybe this is just me with hindsight watching back and knowing where they're going,
but I feel like instead of applauding the genius of him,
he's on guard because Don Draper, he's the only genius allowed. Any geniuses in his stable are a result of his mentorship and training, right?
 
And here is Ginsberg. He's just out of the bottle, like you can't contain him.
That is a threat for somebody who's used to being the most interesting man in the room.
 
Steve: In this case, my perception is there's no creative jealousy or concern here.
It's the notion of messing with something that isn't broken. The client has already said yes. They need to now start making hay.
And Ginsberg threatens to muck that up by throwing an additional idea out.
In any event, I love the Ginsberg character, and the scenes with him are never dull.
 
Jenna: After the meeting, Don goes home and lies down. There's a quick scene between Pete and Roger where Pete checks in about Mohawk and the campaign.
 
Roger has one client, and he didn't do his job.
What the hell, Roger?! [Laughing]
He was so offended when Pete said he would run the show and check up on Roger.
And then it turns out Pete needed to check up on Roger.
 
I mean, this sets up one of my favorite scenes in the entire show, but I don't find it at all believable that Roger would blow this off.
 
Steve: And what's going through Roger's head, because what else is in there, right?
Like, his marriage with Jane is not going well. He has nothing else to do at work.
So I just - I struggle to even guess what is distracting Roger from looking after his one client, his one account.
And even when Pete comes into the office, the lights are turned off.
Roger's lounging in the chair. It's a terrible look for Roger.
 
 
Jenna: So Pete leaves the office, and Roger tiptoes over to find Ginsberg, and he finds Peggy instead.
This is one of my top five favorite scenes in the show of all time.
 
Roger needs Peggy to do an emergency campaign over the weekend by herself for Mohawk.
And remember all those people who put together that campaign for American Airlines? This is a big, big ask.
There's no background information.
 
And Roger insisted she hire Ginsberg because Mohawk wanted a man for their work.
And now she has to do it anyway. I mean, already, it's ridiculous.
 
Steve: And Roger's so demanding here, in a position where he really isn't in a position to be demanding. And Peggy pierces right through to that.
So as she's sticking it to him, it's such a delicious scene, because Peggy knows she holds all the cards.
 
And for all his bluff and bravado, she just keeps deflating him at each point.
Roger is going to have to accept whatever Peggy demands in the moment.
 
Jenna: There was a scene in an earlier season where Roger asks, Don, what are you doing tonight? And Peggy answers, thinking he was talking to her, and he doesn't even know her name.
 
And here Peggy's in her own office with her feet up, and she's drinking, and Roger says,
what are you doing tonight?
And Peggy's a little flirty, and she goes, I don't know. What did you have in mind?
It's so lovely.
 
And normally I feel like Roger would be up for something, but he's professionally desperate right now.
He threatens to fire her, and Peggy's totally unruffled.
And Peggy saying,
“Dazzle me” is priceless, completely amazing.
 
And she gets $400 out of Roger, which would be around $4,000 today.
Harry got paid a lot more for doing a lot less work.
 
Steve: And it is an interesting insight into the different worlds they live in, where Roger's walking around with that kind of money in his pocket, because we know through the sale of the firm, he's got millions of dollars.
 
So money is the one thing Roger Sterling has, even if he lacks an attention span, and focus and professionalism and commitment to the job.
 
Peggy tells him to give her all of it,
then threatens to take his watch when he balks at that.
She used to have to do this kind of work as just part of her salary,
and now she's managed to negotiate a great little bonus for herself to do the work.
 
Jenna: “There's some portfolios in Joan's office. Maybe you can find somebody tonight.” Love, love this scene.
 
Steve: I like how Roger whines, too, when he goes, why are you doing this to me?
 
Jenna: “You're being very demanding for somebody who has no other options.” [Laughing]
 
Next, Don, lying down, hears the doorbell, and it's Andrea from the elevator that morning.
He's angry, and he's frightened to see her. And we know he's feeling sick, but we rarely see him so out of control and desperate like this.
 
And I think on first watch, this might seem real and not like it's part of a dream or a hallucination.
It feels like his subconscious is fighting this battle, that he's got this dark pattern inside, and he wants to overcome it and be faithful to Megan.
 
Steve: Yeah, as a viewer, this looks real to me. And I think we see Don Draper trying to be the good guy here.
He wants her out of there.
There is an element of he doesn't want Megan to come home and find her there, so I guess we could argue, perhaps it's not the strongest ethical stance, just a practical reality.
 
But he does usher her out the back door. Andrea doesn't seem to want to take no for an answer, but Don knows he's got to get her out of there and she leaves.
 
 
Jenna: And this transitions us to Sally and Pauline, which with a commercial for a board game called Mystery Date.
I'll link the full commercial on the episode page of our website, Mad Men C to Z.
I had never heard of this game, but apparently you open a plastic door, and there's a card with a picture of a guy on it and he's dressed for swimming or prom or something.
 
It kind of feels like a precursor to the Bachelor, but it was marketed for girls ages 6 to 14.
Again, this seems very Cinderella ish for women to play a game fantasizing about the perfect guy coming to their door, juxtaposed with the horror of the Speck murders and Andrea showing up at Don's house.
 
Steve: Pauline is on the phone talking about the murders with a friend,
and then she notices that Sally is listening in.
So Sally's curiosity about this is getting the best of her.
And then when Pauline asks Sally to take out the trash,
Sally tries to negotiate that if she does that, Pauline will tell her about the murders.
 
Jenna: Sally has an interesting line when she says,
“I know you don't think so, but I'm a good person.”
And I don't know if Sally's necessarily a good person in this episode.
She wants to lie around and watch TV and get her way,
but Pauline isn't treating her well.
And it comes out that Pauline's father was strict and abusive,
and Pauline sees that as a net positive.
 
And it's a little weird, because earlier she said to Henry, those children are afraid of Betty.
And here it seems like Pauline believes some fear is beneficial.
 
Steve: And the story is so horrific: her father kicking her for no reason at all and telling her to look out, you know, I don't know. It reminds me of the military: expect the unexpected.
Yeah, okay, great. Let me work on that.
 
Jenna: And there's also some judgment of Betty not raising Sally correctly.
So no matter how good Sally might be, it seems like Pauline is happy to discover flaws that prove Betty's doing parenting wrong.
 
Steve: Even when those flaws are spun into virtues when Pauline reminisces about her father.
 
 
Jenna: At dinner with Joan, Gail, and Greg's parents, Greg is very happy to be together, but his mother can't keep quiet.
It turns out Greg volunteered to go back to Vietnam for a year.
He wasn't forced to go back as he implied to Joan.
 
At first, Joan stands up for Greg being brave about going back.
But it's the lie that gets her, not the extra time apart.
They need me, Greg says.
So his priority is clearly not their family.
 
Steve: And as well, he's told the truth to his parents, but not told the truth to his spouse.
So I think there's an additional hurt here, too.
 
Jenna: It's perfect that the accordion player in the restaurant comes over right as Joan learns something disappointing about Greg.
 
It's just like at their dinner party, when Greg insisted she played the accordion after she found out the disappointing news he wasn't a good surgeon.
And it's so awkward and painful.
 
I hope nobody has ever had to endure a dinner as terrible as that one, because I feel pain just watching.
 
Steve: It really is terrible and if you planned it, you couldn't have made it turn out worse than it has turned out.
 
 
Jenna: At the office, Peggy is working late on Mohawk, and she hears a noise.
It's dark except for her desk lamp, and there's a close up of her opening the door handle to Don's office, like a horror movie.
That to me seems pretty self indulgent, but it's okay. I will allow it.
 
Peggy finds Dawn, Don's secretary, and she's planning to spend the night on the couch.
She makes reference to some riots in Bedford Stuyvesant, meaning she can't get home safely.
A cab won't take her all the way, and her brother says he doesn't want her to take the subway alone.
 
Peggy mentions her boyfriend is in Chicago writing about the riots, and she invites Dawn to stay at her place for the night.
Did you feel like she was being too pushy here with Dawn, or do you think she was just being kind?
 
Steve: I think she's being kind, but what's interesting here is I feel like Dawn is opening a window into another reality, another existence that Peggy just doesn't really think about.
 
This idea that if Dawn doesn't leave the office before 7pm she basically can't get home.
And that these riots, which Peggy is reading about in the newspaper in places like Chicago or the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland.
For Dawn, there's civil unrest where she lives.
 
(It’s) the two solitudes here, where Peggy is somewhat oblivious and wrapped up in her own life, and just by a little bit of interaction here with Dawn is getting a peek at an entirely different reality.
 
I think it's a nice gesture for Peggy to offer Dawn to stay at her place, and I think we can see Dawn's discomfort with the suggestion. But Peggy won't take no for an answer.
So Dawn is going to spend the evening at Peggy's place.
 
Jenna: I see a mix. I think Peggy is trying to reach out and get to know Dawn and do a nice thing.
But she also seems a little like she's performing for herself.
Like, I can take care of this person, without really paying attention to whether Dawn wants her care.
 
 
In the next scene, Don is having a fever dream when Andrea shows up again.
She kisses him.
We see him resist, but then he gives in.
Megan was right about that appetite.
 
Steve: Yeah. And I think we see Don fighting with himself to resist.
In the end, he doesn't resist and he initiates. And I think that puts the onus of responsibility back on him.
So he's really failing to live up to the commitment he's made to Megan at this moment.
 
We also see him doing this in his bed at his apartment and have no idea where Megan is and when she may come back.
So it seems like a really high-risk move in addition to being reckless and disrespectful of his marriage.
 
 
Jenna: I really appreciate Elisabeth Moss in the scene at her apartment with Dawn, because I think her drunk performance is very natural. It has silly moments and it has quieter moments. It's not over the top.
 
And you can see Peggy wants to rescue Dawn.
Like, if she wants to be a copywriter, Peggy would like to be the person in that role who lifts somebody else up.
 
But Dawn, being an individual human and frankly, not knowing Peggy well enough to trust her, she either isn't interested, or she keeps the pretense of liking her own job.
I mean, she's polite, but her guard is always up. And I think we can understand that.
 
Steve: Yeah, and I think we notice that Peggy is quite buzzed at this point from the drinks they've had. So Peggy is opening up, and confessing some things and getting quite personal.
So there is an interesting dynamic here as Peggy's trying to reassure Don that, you know, she can trust her, and that everything said here will be in confidence.
And we can see Don's caution.
And she doesn't want to cross Peggy, because she knows Peggy was promoted into a copywriter job. But she makes clear that she's not interested in that for herself.
 
Jenna: This scene reminds me a lot of the one when Bobbie Barrett spent the night at Peggy's place.
There, Bobbie was trying to offer advice, and Peggy has her guard up, and she doesn't reveal very much.
And here Peggy thinks she has a lot of advice to dispense, while Dawn is keeping her guard up with Peggy.
 
And when I look at pain points in this series,
every character has mistakes and flaws, and I think that's what makes the show great.
Some are a lot worse than others.
And this scene is one for Peggy.
 
And it's so painful because if we're in a horror movie,
what's worse than realizing you are the monster, that you're the scary thing?
 
Peggy has this moment where she looks at her purse, and she thinks about moving it away from Dawn.
And Dawn sees that moment, and it's ugly and it's there in the room with them.
And I hate when Peggy does this,
but I love that the show gives us this moment, because it's this ugly truth reflected in somebody you can otherwise root for.
 
She's not Harry or Lee Garner Jr. but she pauses to think about whether Dawn is going to take her money, before she realizes she's giving into these racist stereotypes.
 
And we don't know much about Dawn at this point, but we can imagine this moment reinforces the guard she keeps up. It's necessary.
It reminds me of how Peggy had to nod and smile when men were saying lecherous things and touching her without permission.
She had to act as if it didn't harm her to be treated that way.
 
Steve: Yeah, I agree it's so painful, but it simultaneously feels so real and true to the complexities of our human reality.
So even as liberal Peggy, who's trying to be progressive and open minded and earn Dawn's trust, simultaneous to that, Peggy is a product of her society, and the prejudices with which she was brought up.
 
And they rear their ugly head in this moment, this instant. And it's very subtle.
So there's plausible deniability on both sides. But it's very clear from the scene that they both realize what's occurred.
I guess it's another thing I love about this series, because it doesn't let us escape from from these painful truths about our complexity as humans.
 
And we don't always take the high road or we aren't always the best angels of our nature.
And that's true for all characters. So we don't just have simple villains who we can hate on and virtuous heroes who are pure as driven snow.
 
This is probably one of the most subtly wrenching moments of the series in my opinion, because it doesn't pack the gut punch of some of the other moments, but in its own way this is a profound critique of our society.
 
 
Jenna: I think Betty was eating Bugles on the sofa when Pauline came over to tell Betty to take diet pills.
And here Pauline is eating Bugles, reading a book.
Sally scared herself reading the newspaper about the murders.
So now she's come to sit with Pauline, who is the opposite of comforting.
 
She ends up walking Sally through every lurid detail of the crime.
In a way, the way that Pauline focuses on the scary story, and not comforting Sally,
it's similar to what Gail does to Joan.
She's implying all the scary things that can possibly go wrong.
 
Steve: And I think Pauline kind of loses herself in the telling of the story.
So we know that Pauline is obsessed with it.
She's been talking about it with her friends, and I think she just loses sight of the fact she's talking to a young girl now, and she just starts to run with the story.
 
And we can tell how stimulating and exciting and scary it is to Pauline.
And I think all of those sentiments are just multiplied for Sally, who can't even put it into the context of several additional decades of life experience.
If Sally couldn't sleep after reading the newspaper article,
this is definitely not going to help matters.
 
Jenna: In the commentary, Matthew Weiner talks about Pauline being turned on by the violence.
I don't get that from this exactly.
I think people sometimes revel in bad news about things happening to other people.
Maybe it's relief that in spite of all the hard things, at least they're not dealing with that particular thing.
 
But Pauline is certainly fascinated by the story.
For somebody who thought boundaries for Sally were so important,
she definitely forgets about them.
 
I mean, remember, we thought Grandpa Gene's read-aloud choice was too mature.
So this news story Pauline shares is definitely a lot more detailed than Sally needs to hear.
So when Sally says, I'll never get to sleep now, Pauline gives Sally half of a Seconal pill to help her sleep, which is a highly addictive pill, and it resulted in a number of fatal overdoses and it's not available anymore.
I mean, Sally really cannot catch a break when it comes to trusting a guardian.
 
Steve: I'm just happy that the pharmaceutical industry has a solution for this problem.
 
Jenna: Back at Joan and Greg's apartment, they're yelling at each other.
He wants her to cheer for him and support him for going back.
And Joan's argument is, you can't make a decision like that without me.
 
And Greg has the right to want to do the career of his dreams,
but I don't get any sense he has empathy for Joan's feelings,
even though his career affects her.
 
As soon as she's not supportive, he gets hurt and angry.
He just needs to feel like he's in charge and he doesn't.
 
Steve: I think there's also an interesting element here where Joan's mom is trying to advocate for Greg's decision in the relationship, and get Joan to accept it and talks about, oh, you know, you can go through another year and you can manage, I'll help.
 
I think Gail has the best of intentions here, but I think it shows the real difference between Gail and Joan.
Joan is of this new generation.
Joan, as much as she's tried to make this marriage and relationship work,
is at a breaking point in a way that Gail would not permit herself to get to it.
 
So I think we can see Gail's puzzlement and frustration with the fact that she just can't reach Joan at this point.
And it becomes clear Joan has made a very serious decision despite the efforts of Greg and Gail to talk her out of it.
 
Jenna: Joan isn't perfect.
She cheated on Greg.
But Greg's not Prince Charming, and Joan isn't an innocent, gentle Cinderella.
 
This is the monster they don't talk about. This is the horror show between them.
It's in the house, it's all around them.
And Gail wants Joan to push it back into the shadows.
And we can see Joan is ready to drag it into the light and do battle with it.
 
Steve: And I think as well, in Joan's fantasy of what the marriage and a relationship would represent,
we can see that Greg took this decision in complete isolation of that relationship, and in fact doesn't even honestly tell her about his decision that he took in isolation until it's brought up at the dinner with the mother.
 
So that seems to be the sticking point here for Joan, because she can wallpaper over so many other aspects of this relationship and their failings and avoid looking at them.
But at its core, this lack of real partnership and collaboration,
that's a big gulf and difficult to bridge.
 
 
Jenna: Back at Don's apartment, Andrea is leaving and Don feels guilty. She says, you are sick.
And this is Don's horror story, that he's broken and unfixable and unlovable.
 
Steve: And she seems to taunt him with these aspects of his personality, which makes sense in hindsight when we realize what this sequence represents.
But you know, “it's a mistake you love making” and “you love it because you're sick.”
So we've got that self-loathing wrapped up in this and she's confronting him with that side of himself.
 
And I think his response, his violence and his anger is getting back to the fact that this does touch a truth in terms of his own self perception of what he's like.
And the scene goes completely off the rails in terms of this horror theme where a naked Don chokes Andrea in rage and then kicks her under the bed.
It's really shocking and horrific, especially in a series which has so little violence or this type of action sequence.
 
Jenna: And just like Cinderella, she only has one shoe on sticking out from under the bed.
 
Steve: Don Draper doesn't do a very good job of hiding the body in this case.
 
Jenna: If this had been real and not a dream, this plot would have taken a really ridiculous turn. I dislike the darkness in this episode and particularly in the scene, but I get what they're trying to do with it.
 
Marrying Megan didn't magically cure Don of his self-doubt or loneliness or whatever else drives him to abandon people who trust him.
And if he symbolically vanquishes that monster, maybe he can actually move forward.
 
Steve: I think the problem here though is he has indulged, and now he's making the evidence of his indulgence go away, at at least for the context of the dream.
As imperfect as the hiding of the body,
he can't undo the indulgence which has taken place as far as the dream is concerned.
And it was consensual at that point. He's the one who initiates the sexual interaction.
 
 
Jenna: The next morning, Betty and Henry come home to find Pauline asleep on the couch and Sally's asleep underneath it.
It's daylight. Sally's safe. Maybe she will be a survivor. We hope that for her.
 
Steve: I like when he finds the giant kitchen knife too, and sort of puzzles at why they have a kitchen knife with them as they're sound asleep in the living room.
 
Jenna: Don wakes up and realizes it was all a dream. He takes Megan's hand, and he tells her, “you don't have to worry about me.”
And she knows he means infidelity.
I mean, I feel like maybe you do though, Megan.
But he's trying here.
 
Steve: We understand why Don Draper would say that to her. But again, he has failed.
In the dream, he was unfaithful.
Okay, he murdered the person he was unfaithful with -
I'm not sure that's what being faithful means, that you eliminate anyone you commit adultery with.
 
So I'm with you on that. If I'm a betting man, I'm going to look at past performance as indicative of future results here.
 
Jenna: Just for the record, if I discover infidelity, I am not mollified by the idea that you then killed the woman. That doesn't make it better.
 
Steve: Even if the body is properly disposed of?
 
Jenna: Partially disposed of. Still in the room, still under the bed.
 
Steve: I guess it's okay for the first couple days.
 
 
Jenna: In the light of day, Joan wakes up and comes into the dining room.
She tells Greg she wants him to go and never come back.
Am I the only one who hears Gollum and Smeagol in that line?
I feel like that's a little extra monster nod.
 
Joan has some pretty cold lines for Greg, and he deserves all of them.
She says she's sick of trying to make him feel like a man,
and this is at the heart of his issue.
He wants to be in control of the relationship and he's not.
 
And she finally calls him out for not being a good man,
and you know what I'm talking about.
And he doesn't say anything to that.
 
Steve: We can see that side of him manifesting in this scene as well as he gets really enraged at this, and he almost seems unbelieving that she could be reaching this conclusion.
And he physically grabs her.
 
Joan is completely cool and collected the whole time, and I think that gives her a power and a majesty in this scene that I think spooks Greg in a way.
If she acted scared or started to flinch, I think he would feel that, you know, his physical imposition was working.
The fact that she reacts so coolly and calmly to it,
I think robs it of any sort of power or impression that he's hoping to make here.
 
Jenna: So it's over. He walks out the door.
 
I have a lot of respect for Joan resetting her life, because we know she was raised with a particular dream, and she carried that dream to her early 30s.
And there was no reason she shouldn't have ended up with everything she wanted.
But it didn't work out that way.
 
So instead of pretending it into existence like she tried to do at the beginning of this episode and before that, she's going to depend on herself.
She's going to have a baby, and she's going to have a job she loves.
 
It's a weird societal expectation that Joan can be married to somebody terrible, and he can leave her with a new baby, and that's okay.
But Peggy can't be an unmarried mother.
 
Steve: Well, and it feels to me, too, that Joan is not just kicking Greg out the door, she's kicking that whole societal expectation out the door. She's not adhering to it.
She won't adhere to it again.
That fantasy is dead in her.
 
Another brilliant aspect of this scene is just the look on Gail's face at the end of It.
Because we can see that this fantasy still exists in Gail. She's been trained to this.
This is the way things work.
She can't fathom that her daughter would make this sort of decision and then forcefully impose it upon her spouse, as Joan has just done to Greg.
 
And that juxtaposition between the two of them and their life perspective and choices,
to me, it's just brilliant at showing that divide between the two of them.
And as reassured and confident and determined as Joan seems in this scene,
Gail, by contrast, is bewildered.
Where does this leave her daughter and her grandbaby?
 
Jenna: That's a great point.
Joan sitting there calmly drinking her coffee, knowing she's got what it takes to take care of herself.
And Gail sitting there, not even arguing the point, looking shaken.
 
Steve: And we know Gail loves Joan, and is an advocate for Joan, and wants the best for Joan.
And yet Joan has just burned down the very world that Gail thought and built and would provide for her daughter.
It's a really powerful scene. And amidst the dream sequence and some of the other diversions, I think here this is a major turn in Joan's life now as a character on the show.
 
 
Jenna: In the last scene, we get Gail on the bed asleep with Kevin between Gail and Joan, he's wrapped in a little blanket.
And Joan's awake, thinking.
 
For an episode set up like a horror movie, with secrets and monsters lurking under the bed or characters hiding under beds,
I like this deliberate choice that they're all on the bed together.
They're on top of the covers, they're in the light.
 
So it won't be easy ahead, but Joan is done pretending and hiding how Greg looked right, but wasn't right for her.
 
Steve: You know, Joan's lying there with her eyes open.
She is not oblivious to the uncertainty that lurks for her in the future. You know, she really doesn't have now a clear plan or vision of what the future looks like.
She just knows what she's cleared out from the past.
And that feels honest to me as well.
 
It's one thing to draw a line and cut off the past.
That doesn't clarify the future necessarily.
And there's a lot of unanswered questions as we go forward.
And I really feel those questions hovering above Joan as she lays there with two people who love her the most in her world at this point, you know, her mother and her baby.
 
 
Jenna: And in nominations for emotionally damaging song lyrics that compromise our relief for Joan's new start,
we get “He hit me and it felt like a kiss.”
 
It's performed by the Crystals.
Apparently it was written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King after they found out their babysitter was being abused by her boyfriend, and they were trying to understand why she stayed with him, and that was a line she said.
 
King later said she regretted having anything to do with the song.
Interestingly though, when you Google that song title, the first result is the National Domestic Violence Hotline. So I feel like the world isn't all bad.
 
Steve: I enjoyed the horror elements of this episode and I did enjoy the little diversion of Don Draper's dream nightmare, because as a viewer I'm falling for it, and thinking this show has just gone completely off the rails, at least the first time through.
 
I like seeing that battle within his own mind, because I think sometimes that's a piece we lack in Mad Men is that internal struggle of Don Draper of what he's thinking and doing, at least now that he's quit journaling.
 
I also like Peggy confronting her own assumptions and stereotypes and prejudices in the context of Dawn's world.
And then I just think it's a really strong ending with Joan terminating the relationship with Greg.
I'm excited for the character now that she's free and clear of what I think was a misguided fantasy, in my opinion, about what she needed to be, and where she needed to get to in life.
And I'm curious about where she heads next.
 
Jenna: Next week we'll be talking about Signal 30, which is a really interesting, distinctive episode.
I feel like that episode takes a thematic risk and gets it right, whereas these last two have been maybe a little less effective from my point of view.
 
Our listener shout-out today goes to Carla in Michigan.
Thank you for listening and commenting, and we hope you're still able to find us on Podcast Addict, as well as other platforms.
 
If you like our show and you haven't left us a five star review or a positive rating yet, we'd love the support.
 
Steve: That's it for this episode of All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou.
Visit our website, Mad Men C to Z dot com to vote for your favorite Sterling Lines and to share your opinions on our Double Dip questions for each episode.
 
Jenna: You can find us on Instagram and YouTube at Mad Men C to Z, and please listen, like, and subscribe. That's what the podcast's for!
 
Steve: Thanks for listening, everybody.

Mad Men C to Z S5E3 Tea Leaves Podcast Transcript
 
Jenna:  Hi, I'm Jenna.
 
Steve: And I'm Steve. Welcome to All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou.
 
Jenna: There's so much to love about this amazing show, and we're happy to connect to fans like us, who discover new things with each re-watch.
 
Steve: Be advised, while we aren't gratuitous with spoilers, they can pop up as we discuss character arcs through the final season.
Let's get started with Mad Men C to Z.
 
Jenna: This episode is Season five, Episode three, Tea Leaves.
It was written by Erin Levy and Matthew Weiner, and directed by Jon Hamm.
 
This episode is not a favorite for me, but the early episodes in each season of Mad Men tend to be setting up the complexities that make the later episodes so rich and compelling.
 
The parts in this episode I like best are Henry being such a nice guy, and Peggy being the hiring committee for Michael Ginsberg. How do you feel about this episode overall?
 
Steve: I think I'm pretty close to where you are. I really like the Michael Ginsberg character, so I'm happy to see him show up here.
 
 
Jenna: Mad Men is almost always dealing with issues surrounding perception and image and the discrepancy between what is real and what is performed,
but I feel like this particular episode is dealing with that very explicitly: how things look, as opposed to what is authentic.

 
For example, we see Roger being a lot more interested in looking like a successful account man than actually being one.
And there are lots of other examples as we go through the episode.
 
The first scene opens with Betty dressing for an evening out with Henry.
Her dress won't zip up, and we can see she's gained weight, so she begs off and sends Henry off to the event with his mother instead.
 
Steve: Betty's put on a lot of weight, and we know that the actress January Jones is pregnant at the time, actually, but within the context of the show, I think the point here is that Betty is eating her sorrow, eating her unhappiness.
 
And I guess my question to you is why is Betty so unhappy?
Isn't Henry an upgrade from Don, or at least the aspects of Don which were making Betty so unhappy previously?
 
And yet she's only been with Henry for a brief period of time here, and already it seems that she's back to being a bit of a gloomy Gus.
 
Jenna: I don't really love this storyline for Betty.
They talked about options being making her pregnant again, or trying to hide the pregnancy with countertops and things. They did add a lot of prosthetics for filming.
 
And I know they had a backstory for Betty about her mother caring about her weight, and how she lost weight in her tween years, so I can see how the writers thought this was very consistent.
 
I feel like Betty is so image-conscious that I just don't feel like it's a valid plot line for her.
I wish it were more thoughtful and intentional. And I feel like Betty deserves a more interesting story.
 
And to your question, I guess I just think her old discontent at being a married mother is creeping in again, even though her new husband is a lot more supportive and attentive than Don was.
 
And I wish there were something more satisfying, because we're just looking at this person being unhappy.
I do - I do know people who are that way. Or you look at them and go, wow, they seem really unhappy, even though by outward appearances it seems like they should be more fulfilled.
 
Steve: It feels a little unsatisfactory to me as well. This notion that Betty is just made to be unhappy perhaps needs to have some sort of career or opportunity outside the home,
but to just dismiss her as an unhappy character doomed to remain unhappy,
yeah, it's not a great feeling.
 
Jenna: The contrast between Betty's struggle to zip her dress is shown in the next scene as Don zips Megan's dress as they get ready to go out together.
 
Megan is on the phone with her mother and she passes the phone to Don, insisting he say hello.
So Megan is building Don into her family life as a normal thing, even though we see him resisting just the way he resisted being part of Betty's family too.
 
Steve: Well, at least he has a decent excuse here. He doesn't speak French.
 
Jenna: In the next scene, Megan and Don are having dinner with Raymond from Heinz and his wife, played by Robin Pearson Rose.
You may have seen her in What Women Want, Grey's Anatomy, or 1978's An Enemy of the People, with Steve McQueen.
 
What did you think about this dinner in terms of Megan being Betty's replacement at the client dinner?
 
Steve: It seems to me that Megan is doing a fairly decent job here. I mean, she's new to this sort of hobnobbing and we've got the generational gap, but it does seem like she's present, she's intelligent, she's making conversation.
 
So despite a bit of awkwardness, it seems to me she's doing a decent job in representing, well, here as the spouse of Mr. Don Draper.
Don and the Heinz couple are quite detached from the new reality of the new generation, as represented by Megan.
 
Jenna: Of course, Betty was always very good at the client dinner part of the relationship.
Here Don is wanting to parade Megan in front of people on his timeline for his purposes, but he doesn't want to have to talk to her mother on the phone, right?
 
So she needs to be there for his ask, but for her ask, you know, he's busy and stuff. [Laughing]
 
But Betty understood this was part of her job to support him in this way.
And Megan does a good job. She's just not quite as natural.
Because when Mrs. Geiger says, oh, this work talk is boring, isn't it, Megan?
 
And there's a pause when Megan realizes she's supposed to agree instead of participating in the work conversation. Don seems to expect her to show up and look pretty and just say mild, forgettable things.
 
Steve: That's pretty par for the course for Don Draper, I think, as well, right?
Like he's wrapped up in his own business thoughts. It's up to Megan to read the room and figure out how to respond.
 
I did get a kick out of the idea of the Rolling Stones as this fresh and threatening upcoming band that young kids are listening to, rather than the household word it is decades later.
 
Jenna: Yes, the key point of this scene is that Raymond's daughter loves the Rolling Stones,
so he thinks maybe Don can get them to saying, Heinz is on my side.
 
And we talked last time about how Don wasn't his usual self with clients,
and I felt like Don was very soft in his response to this, because I would have expected it to be a hard no right from the beginning.
 
Steve: Well, we know that Don has been preaching the client is always right, Don knows this is a ridiculous idea and has low probability of working.
 
But if that's the direction that Heinz wants to go, then Don is going to humor the client and give it his best try before he comes back to them with the bad news.
 
Jenna: I know they're setting this relationship up for a payoff later this season,
but this writing doesn't seem as fresh or interesting, and the scene felt like it kind of dragged to me.
 
 
Steve: The next scene is back in Pete's office, where he and Lane are awaiting Roger's arrival.
It's a little bit of a power play by Roger Sterling.
 
The good news for the firm is that Mohawk is back,
and Pete even suggests that Roger handle this account, which will actually give Roger something to do.
 
Jenna: And Roger immediately intuits that Mohawk asked for him to be their account guy, even though Pete is pretending to be giving it to him.
 
Mohawk is a fairly big client, and they're going to need a copywriter besides Peggy.
Lane, of course, isn't happy about this, because it's another cost for the firm.
But Roger seems really chipper. I think he's really happy to be back in the game again.
 
Steve: It does seem like a win, win, win for everybody here, as much as Lane's grousing about having to hire someone.
 
Jenna: Roger also has to be feeling pretty good because he has his own secretary all to himself again.
 
We get to meet Don's new secretary, who is also named Dawn, but spelled differently, of course.
Dawn Chambers is played by Teyonah Parris, and she was Coco in Dear White People, a vastly different role from Dawn, as well as in Candyman, WandaVision, Empire, No Good Deed, and Survivor's Remorse.
 
Steve: Now we've got an African American admin assistant working in the firm, and she is the first and only one we've seen to this point.
 
And from what we can see of Dawn in this scene, she appears to be perfectly competent and able to do the job.
So the reason that she and other African Americans were being excluded from this work starts to ring hollow. She's perfectly capable of performing it.
 
Jenna: I think there's a lot of feeling in the fandom that Dawn - Dawn D A W N is Don's best secretary ever.
 
Yeah, it's nice to see her come on board. And this gag did go right for Sterling Cooper because she's a great hire.
 
 
Next up, Harry greets Don with plans to meet the Rolling Stones backstage at Forest Hills Stadium, where they really played on July 2, 1966. They're going to pitch a commercial idea for Heinz.
 
They have this short exchange where Harry wants to have dinner first and Don just rejects him without an excuse, very much the way Jane rejected Ken once upon a time.
 
 
Steve: We also saw that when Megan was leaving Don's office, she has a very cool salutation to Harry.
We know Harry is continuing to be nervous about having embarrassed himself in front of Megan and what may or may not have gotten back to Don Draper.
 
Jenna: That's a good point. We never actually find out for sure if Megan told Don. I guess I always assumed she didn't tell him, because I feel like Don would have a total temper tantrum at Harry about it and Megan would want to avoid that scene.
 
But I know that Don dislikes Harry so much already that maybe he just chalked it up to that's how Harry is. I don't know. That's an interesting question.
 
Steve: Well, and just knowing how hyperactive Harry's mind is, leaving him with this lack of clarity might be more devious and problematic for Harry than if there was an actual communication and then a clarification from Don.
You know, Harry's left in this gray space. His mind is just going to gnaw away at itself.
 
 
Jenna: We get so many pop culture references in this episode,
including the next scene with Betty on the sofa. She's watching the Andy Griffith show and eating Bugles chips in her robe.
One suspects Pete would not approve.
 
Steve: There's a knock at the door, and Pauline, Henry's mother, arrives.
Pauline brings up the subject of Betty's weight.
 
Jenna: Henry, I don't think understands why Betty is making the excuses, but Pauline reads right through.
It was because her dress couldn't zip up, and she couldn't fit into it that she begged off. It wasn't that she didn't want to go.
 
Pauline's advice is, hey, you know, there are pills you can take.
Betty is insulted, but she doesn't put up much of a fight about what Pauline is saying.
I think she does want to go out with Henry and feel pretty and admired,
and she doesn't feel like she can do that right now.
 
Steve: I do feel for Betty in this scene, because we know that Henry's mother is quite overbearing.
Most of us would think she should butt out of Henry and Betty's relationship.
And it does feel like Betty is almost conceding the points and more sad than resistant or rebellious against them.
 
Jenna: Let's also point out Pauline is pushing Betty to try diet pills in the same year the Rolling Stones released the song about Mother's Little Helper.
So that's an interesting connection.
 
I feel like this whole plot line could have been a good opportunity for Betty to do some soul-searching about what matters to her instead of her looks, because she's really only cared about that most of the time.
 
She could realize she loves Henry and she feels safe in her relationship.
She could go find a meaningful hobby, or develop a talent or, you know, maybe listen to her kids once in a while.
 
But all she gets to care about are her looks and her status. And I wish more for her.
Again, and it comes back around with Pauline's line here where she says, honestly, at my age, I don't have to please men anymore because it's a job.
And these women understand it's a job they have to do.
 
And Pauline feels free of that job because of her age.
And people like Peggy are trying to be free from doing just that, only that.
 
And I feel like Megan, in marrying the older Don, is just starting her struggle of wanting to please him full time, but also realizing she has other ambitions.
 
So this conflict in 1966, where we feel like a lot of change has happened,
this is still existing, and it's still a lot of pressure.
 
And my problem with Betty is that I understand her feeling like she's trapped,
but I don't ever get the sense of what she would like to seek out instead.
So I feel a little frustrated with her.
 
Steve: I think, for me, it's disheartening that not only is Betty feeling this pressure to please, but Pauline seems to be on the side of the men in this case and advocating for that, as if this is appropriate and something that Betty needs to focus on.
 
So if it's not tough enough to have to worry about pleasing your husband,
to have other women like his busybody mother poking around and bringing this up explicitly directly to her, it's a rough spot.
 
And I think if we wonder why Betty is so unhappy and so much of her sense of accomplishment and her place in the world has hinged upon her good looks, getting overweight is really problematic because that's taking away the very heart of what she feels makes her special or notable or gets her the kind of attention she wants to get in society.
 
Jenna: And it's such a pervasive mentality Pauline has, because we know Joan's mother was saying something similar to her after she had her baby, too.
 
So I understand why Betty doesn't feel like she can turn around and say, you know what? Have a Bugle. It's all good here.
 
But again, I see Betty's shallowness, and I wish she would take this opportunity to reach for some more depth.
And instead, it feels like she just goes right back to the place where she was unhappy before.
 
 
Steve: Back in the office, Beggy joins Roger and Don's office, and they talk about the return of Mohawk and the need to hire a copywriter.
Don says that Peggy's plate is full, so she'll need to hire someone.
 
Roger helpfully adds that it needs to be a brilliant award winner who looks better than Don.
 
Jenna: I love when Peggy goes, oh, that'll be easy, and she walks out.
It's such a great exchange.
 
Anytime you put Peggy and Roger and they have dialogue in a room together, I'm here for it. He's like, “I don't just want some hack. He should be brilliant.”
 
Steve: And how unhelpful is this from Roger? Again, like, he's not adding any value or saying anything. Nobody goes to hire someone who's mediocre. So it's just, I think, further underlines the lack of utility that Roger has in the office.
 
There are certain things he can do or has done, but much of the time he's really not adding any value.
 
Jenna: Well, and they insist that the copywriter be a man. That Mohawk's going to want a man.
 
But I thought it would have been so interesting if Megan had gotten her own account as a copywriter,
especially Roger's account, that that would have offered some really interesting plots. But that's not how it went.
 
Steve: And I think Megan's probably too green at this point. Megan's experience consists of seducing Don Draper at this point.
 
Jenna: Well, she's written some coupons, okay? I'm sure she's good.
 
 
Next, Betty visits the doctor and she asks about taking diet pills.
But instead, the doctor notices something on her thyroid.
 
As is typical in this show, the doctor is insensitive,
so he touches her neck and he goes, oh, I don't like that. And she says, what? And he shushes- [Laughing] - he shushes her without answering.
 
So this is kind of emblematic of Betty's whole life, right? Sit still, look pretty. There's something really wrong with you, but I'm not going to tell you what right now.
 
Steve: Mad Men is pretty rough on the doctors.
With someone like Betty, we know he's going to be setting Betty off and just letting her imagination run wild, which is exactly what happens.
Betty is in a full-on panic by the time she gets home and attempts to call Henry.
 
Jenna: I think Betty is understandably worried about this news or potential news.
And when she gets home, she calls out for Henry three times.
But when she picks up the phone, she doesn't call Henry. She calls Don.
 
She tells him about her health scare.
And again, it's such a terrible look, Betty. I mean, it isn't until Don says, do you want me to take the kids?
That's the first time Betty actually thinks about her kids.
 
I feel like that's always the first thing you think about, especially when your kids are little, right? Like, if something happens to me, what does that mean for my kids?
 
But Betty has only thought about herself until Don mentions them.
 
Steve: Yeah, it's very striking, especially when you have such young kids where you know, they're so reliant upon you.
So the notion that Betty didn't even think of her three children until this moment,
it's a bad look for Betty Draper in terms of her mom of the year candidacy.
 
Jenna: And when you start to think about this, because Sally is getting older and more independent, but I think you could argue it's a time in your life when you do need a really supportive mother . . . figure at least.
But Betty hasn't been a supportive mother figure, so there's also that truth.
 
Steve: And she certainly can't go to Henry's mother as a surrogate for her own either, right? So, yeah, Betty is really high and dry here. And maybe that helps to explain why she so quickly turns to Mr.
Don Draper.
 
Jenna: And Don is worried enough to call her his pet name. He calls her Birdie. And she calms herself down by saying, “Say what you always say.”
 
And Don knows the line.
“Everything's gonna be okay,” he says. And he doesn't know at all if that's true.
 
And it is so weird to me how his lie steadies her. It - she finds it comforting.
But I think maybe when you get life-changing information,
there is comfort in going back to what you know and doing what you have done in the time before your world shifted.
 
So even if that thing is named Don Draper and he's notoriously unreliable,
going back to that for a second when everything felt sort of okay, I guess maybe that is comforting.
 
Steve: I can accept that for Betty Draper, Betty Francis as a character.
For me personally, it's quite the opposite. I think the last thing I'd ever want to hear, having gone through a failed marriage with Don Draper, was him giving the line, everything's going to be okay, when we know that he's talking through his hat and has no idea.
 
Okay, Betty, if that's what you want to hear. In this moment, it feels hollow to me.
Really, I'm just left saying, okay, we need the results of these diagnostic tests to know if we really have a problem here.
 
Jenna: And it's sad, too.
I mean, I don't think Don wishes her ill or anything,
but it's too bad that Betty didn't call Henry when Henry is so in her corner.
So it feels a bit like a betrayal of the support and trust he gives her.
 
Steve: I do feel that Don Draper behaves appropriately in this scene. Like we don't get any sense of he's taking an opportunity to stick it to her or to be cruel or to deny her something she wants.
 
He seems very supportive and eager to try and help her through this moment emotionally. And I think it. It gives a hint of maybe that tinge of regret that the marriage failed, in that at his best, in his good moments, he's a pretty good partner.
 
Unfortunately, there are other moments where he's not at his best.
 
 
Jenna: Next, we see Peggy looking through the portfolios for copywriters.
While Stan is working at his desk, she finds a portfolio that says,
“Judge not, lest ye be judged” on the cover. And it has a bunch of intriguing ads inside.
 
Steve: I have to laugh at Stan in this scene because like some other characters,
he seems to assume that Peggy's worried about hiring someone who would be too good and would potentially threaten her position in the hierarchy.
 
Which completely misreads Peggy Olson, who's completely focused on the mission at hand, which is to get the best possible copywriter in here to look after this account in the best possible way.
 
Which I guess speaks well to Peggy's professionalism,
but I think simultaneously also speaks to perhaps how green and naive she is,
because most people, after they've got a bit of experience and seen how things work, are at least going to give some thought to who is it I'm bringing in the door behind me.
 
Jenna: I really appreciate this exchange with Stan in this scene.
And I think it's a strong differentiator between Peggy and Don.
 
And it's going to matter a lot going forward, because when Stan advises Peggy not to hire the best person, he says, stick to mediocre. You'll sleep better.
 
And I understand that mentality, right? I think Pete and Don would hire the fourth best portfolio, too.
But Peggy says she likes –
 
Steve: Really? Really. I'm a little surprised to hear you say that.
 
Jenna: Oh, I think Pete absolutely would pay attention to his status.
And I think we know with the benefit of having watched the show before,
I think we can see how threatened Don is when he's not the most creative guy in the room.
 
You don't get better working with Paul Kinsey.
And I think this is really to Peggy's credit because she says she likes working with talented people. It inspires her.
 
So she's going to go with the best one. And Stan calls her out for being competitive, which she absolutely is. We know he's right.
 
But she understands that you get better when you're around people who lift you up.
And Paul Kinsey isn't that.
And how long did Don keep that guy around? And what did he offer, exactly?
 
I love that when Peggy is given some decision making power, she wants the most creative Creative.
 
Steve: Well, and the portfolio that's caught her eye is a Mr. Michael Ginsberg. It seems to have a bit of an edge to it. And I think Peggy correctly reads that this sort of portfolio is something that's going to interest Don Draper as well.
 
 
Jenna: Next, Betty's in the bath, and Henry comes in to say he's made some calls to get her to see a specialist, and she's afraid. So she tries to put it off, but Henry's really good here.
He truly loves and supports Betty and he says, look, you know, we don't want to wait.
 
Steve: And I think he's trying to be a calming presence and reassure her that, you know, they really don't know anything yet.
But I think Henry's a great partner saying, look, you know, we'll face this together, and I'm all in in it with you.
 
Jenna: I don't love this too tall, too-wide body double they use as Betty is shown getting out of the tub. It's really distracting, and the person doesn't move anything like the way Betty does.
So that takes you out of it a little bit, too.
 
 
Steve: The next day at the medical facility, Betty bumps into her old friend Joyce.
 
Jenna: Joyce Starling is played by Adria Tennor, and we've seen her at Sally's birthday party in The Marriage of Figaro. She was part of the couple Don caught kissing and in love with his movie camera.
And she also showed up at Betty's fundraiser in Wee Small Hours in season three.
 
Steve: Betty does not know yet that she even has cancer.
But we can see Joyce here standing as the worst case scenario for Betty's mind. And Betty's mind is already racing.
 
Jenna: And I feel like the writers are playing with us a lot here, because Betty looked at Helen Bishop's life as a cautionary tale a lot in the first season.
 
And now for her to have another friend from the past having this outcome that she never thought would be possible for her, this makes it seem more real, like this could really happen as well.
 
 
Steve: Back in the office, we see Peggy interviewing her candidate, Michael Ginsberg.
 
Jenna: This is probably my favorite scene in this entire episode.
 
Michael Ginsberg is played by Ben Feldman and he's done a ton of work, including Superstore, Silicon Valley, Ghosts, and Drop Dead Diva.
I feel like Ben Feldman and Elisabeth Moss have really great chemistry. It's not romantic, but it's very authentic.
 
And I also love another character getting really quick, snappy lines in addition to just Roger.
Ginsberg brings out the irritation in Peggy pretty early.
He's only six lines in before she's explaining, “I'm the person you need to impress right now.”
 
Steve: I really love Ben Feldman's work here. To me, he's just perfectly cast for this role and makes Michael Ginsberg a far more interesting character than he has any right to be.
 
I also agree with you. I think this is probably my favorite scene in the episode.
Just the way he gets on Peggy's nerves.
It's a great scene where I think Elisabeth Moss is perfect opposite Ben Feldman.
There's just such a manic, neurotic energy to him.
It's just perfect. I love this character.
 
Jenna: And I don't want to drop major spoilers, but for those of us who know where this character is headed, when you rewatch this and catch these details, there are so many in here that hint to where we're going.
 
Steve: You know, this person who's got talent and perhaps ego,
but lacks the social skill side of things.
And in many ways this is a more extreme version of Peggy. Right? She's got talent.
Ego doesn't seem to be a problem for her,
but she does suffer a bit with the social skills side of it and how to behave.
So it's funny to see her bumping into a more extreme version of some of her traits.
 
Jenna: We see Ginsberg is not like anybody else in the office,
but I think Peggy has been uniquely prepared for him.
She's friends with Joyce and she's dating Abe. And she has more of an openness to idiosyncrasies than I think Don or Pete would.
 
For example, she knows Don will hate him for riffing around topics and for being unwilling to suck up where sucking up is clearly required.
But Peggy, I think, is maybe willing to overlook that.
 
Steve: Well, and I think she's also cognizant that, yeah, don't hate that aspect of him.
But Don is going to like somebody who zigs when others zags, who sees things in a different, unique way.
And that's exactly the kind of creative magic that Don Draper loves the most.
So, yeah, Michael Ginsberg really is this double edged sword.
 
Jenna: It goes by so fast, you can miss it, but I think it matters when Ginsberg says,
I didn't pick this profession, it picked me.
Turns out it's the only thing I can do.
 
But he's obviously smart and observant. So with evidence here, I don't believe him in this. I just think he's very passionate about it, like Peggy.
 
Knowing what we know later about his character, and that he's been through a lot of firms already,
I think maybe he has tried or wanted to do other things.
But it makes sense that somebody who's pretty anti conformist would lean away from advertising.
 
He does pretend for a second to be related to Allen Ginsberg. That's a poet and activist who was part of the Beat generation, who was notably opposed to capitalism and conformity.
 
Steve: I love when Peggy tells him that he can't act this way with Don.
And you can see she's got this burden of responsibility that if he goes in front of Don, and he's the candidate that Peggy's presenting, now her reputation is starting to get wrapped up with his behavior.
 
With the challenge of hiring comes additional risks. And I love the way Elizabeth Moss plays the scene.
 
Jenna: I like when Ginsberg promises he has no hobbies, no friends, no girlfriend, he works all the time. And Peggy goes, then you're like everybody else.
And he goes, I've never been accused of that.
 
 
 
Steve: In the next scene, we have Joyce and Betty having their lunch.
We find out that Joyce hasn't even told her children yet that she has cancer and is undergoing serious treatment for it.
 
We also find out that Joyce wasn't even informed of her own condition until her third appointment.
So this, of course, alluding back to the fact that the doctors are talking past the patient to their spouse, typically, and not even showing the respect and attention to the person who's actually got the condition.
 
Joyce makes it clear that she's also hiding from saying goodbye to those around her.
 
Jenna: I think this conversation between Betty and Joyce is really memorable because what Joyce is saying is so powerful and painful.
If you've lost somebody and watched them preparing to go, you can relate to what she says about feeling like she's on an island,
waving to other people, and feeling apart from them at the same time.
 
It seems like just kind of a clunky construction to have her show up here.
We know this speech is for Betty's benefit.
It suffers from a lack of authenticity for me between the characters,
even though I think it's a true reflection of what real people experience.
 
Steve: That's an interesting observation, and I can agree with that.
It's interesting to me that Betty seems to identify with Joyce's reality.
But we know that Betty is not yet on that island and in that condition necessarily,
she's yet to find out.
 
So Betty is making a big leap here and assuming that this is going to be her condition.
So she's really feeling and commiserating with Joyce's comments.
But I think she's jumped the gun.
 
Jenna: Of course, this scene also gives the episode its title, Tea Leaves.
So the fortune teller comes by, and she says Betty is a great soul who means so much to the people around her.
And it makes Betty cry because she's thinking it might all be ending.
 
But it makes me want to cry because she's not a great soul. And her treatment of people around her is so superficial. Even her kids, who really need her, and Henry, who really loves her.
 
And here she is with her friend who has a terminal cancer diagnosis, and that friend is comforting her here about being replaced by Megan, even though she is for sure facing something serious and Betty doesn't have all the information yet.
 
Steve: So are you calling into question the accuracy and precision of tea leaf readings?
The irony in this situation is Joyce ends up comforting Betty.
Shouldn't Betty be consoling Joyce rather than the other way around? At least at this point.
 
Jenna: We see some of that same fear about being replaced that Betty has about being replaced with Megan - we see that in Roger with Pete,
and it was raised with Peggy about Michael Ginsberg. Harry and Pete are perpetually worried that somebody else will get more toys.
 
It's a real phenomenon, but I think it's so unlikable where this is what Betty's worried about with Megan.
She says “they'll never hear a nice word about me again.”
 
And I really feel like her worry for her kids should be something else.
I mean, I just, I want my fiction to be more noble than real life, I guess.
 
Steve: I hear you, but it really does seem on brand for Betty to behave this way. Again, it's this worry about how she'll be perceived by others, rather than getting to what ideally we would say is, you know, the, the substantive heart of things that that really should matter.
 
Jenna: We critique Don for keeping barriers up that keep him alone, but Betty's self centered nature is doing that to her.
 
And I think she becomes a caricature, because there's nothing about her to admire.
You can pity her circumstances, but she's so unlikable at this point. It's just that's not realistic for any human.
 
Even Harry gets sympathetic moments, even if they're very brief.
So I just don't think this writing does her character justice.
 
 
Steve: A drunk Roger Sterling comes into Peggy's office to talk about the new hire.
He urges Peggy to hire the candidate she's got because he's already told Mohawk that they have a hire.
And he's also told them that the new hire is Jewish.
 
Roger, making a similar mistake to Stan, reassures Peggy that the new hire won't replace her, so she shouldn't have any hesitation about hiring someone who's too good.
 
But again, he's misreading Peggy.
Peggy makes it clear she's more worried that Don Draper is going to hate Michael Ginsberg.
 
Jenna: Yes, I like that Peggy reiterates she's not threatened by Ginsberg's talent, because that is the lens Roger tries to assign to her.
But she says rightly, I think Don will hate him, because Peggy understands the brief, and Roger doesn't care.
 
Steve: And Roger's gone off and shot off his mouth again, right? Saying that they've hired somebody and that they're Jewish.
 
So he's setting Peggy up to more of a trap here in that,
you know what, if this falls through or whatever, she's going to have to go out and find another candidate who's Jewish in order to make Roger Sterling not look like a liar with the client.
 
And there was no reason for Roger to start making these commitments or statements to the client.
 
Jenna: We get a truth call-out about that, too. He says, to tell you the truth, clients think hiring a Jewish person makes the agency more modern.
 
My favorite part in this exchange is when Peggy says Ginsberg is crazy,
so let's put a pin in that assessment.
 
And when Roger says, what's crazy for a copywriter? Sleeps all day, disrespects authority, smells like pee.
And the only thing Peggy takes issue with is, “Who smells like pee?” [Laughing]
Which is fantastic.
 
Steve: Again, this scene just seems to illustrate to me how Roger isn't a very serious person when it comes to the job.
 
And for somebody who's been lamenting his lack of a role and lack of responsibility here at what should be you and your most focused place, we don't really get anything that's all that effective.
 
 
Jenna: Back at Megan and Don's apartment, Megan's reading magazines while Don gets ready to go to the Rolling Stones concert.
 
He comes out and she has this line, my God, you're so square, you've got corners.
And he says, I have to be sure I look like the man.
 
Which is kind of funny because every time he gets dressed, it's a bit of a costume anyway.
 
Steve: And it's another point just emphasizing how Don is not of the youth generation. He's not all that old, right? He's just turned 40, but 40 might as well be 70, because this youth-oriented culture, and the largest demographic generation in US History, the baby boomers, is just coming into adulthood.
 
So the gap between the prior generation, like a Don Draper who served in Korea and this new generation is so huge.
 
And it makes it all the more amusing that this Madison Avenue executive in his suit is going to try and get in to see the Rolling Stones in 1966.
 
 
Jenna: And the next scene takes us backstage at the Rolling Stones concert,
which was actually filmed this scene at the Mad Men sets parking garage.
 
I don't love this stuff with this young girl that Don meets up with and talks to.
I think like Lane and the photo in the wallet last episode, it takes too long,
and it's uncomfortable, because I think Don's history makes you worried there's going to be something romantic here and it gives me the ick.
 
And I feel like I'm kind of tired of having them bring in random characters who get a lot of time and then they aren't really that critical.
 
Weiner says in the commentary that this girl makes Don aware of Sally growing up too fast. But I would have much rather have had a scene between the two of them than this one.
 
Steve: Wow, you're pretty tough on the writing team this episode.
I share your sense of concern of is Don Draper going to hit on this young girl, just given Don Draper's proclivities.
So I am relieved that he doesn't.
 
And it really turns into more of him representing his generation, questioning the young generation.
And that's part of this disconnect between the two of them. The old generation thinking that they need to have the answers or these are the questions they need to have responses to, whereas the young generation is living its life and exploring things and pursuing what it wants to pursue.
 
It doesn't have any necessarily have any long term vision of where things are going to end up. It's youth enjoying youth, and that's just the way it is.
 
I agree with you at the prospect of having a similar conversation, except between Sally and Don directly. That does sound very appealing.
 
But again, I am amused to see Harry and Don outside the dressing room with all the groupies and hangers on, hoping to get in to see the Rolling Stones.
 
And I also like the reference to Allen Klein, who actually was the Rolling Stones manager and several years later the Rolling Stones will realize has been ripping them off and lead them to make a huge break.
 
Allen Klein, by the way, also ripped off the Beatles, and had been referred to them by the Beatles before the Beatles realized that Klein was doing the same thing to them.
 
Jenna: Bonnie, who plays the young girl in this scene, is played by Hayley McFarland, and you may recognize her from Pushing Daisies or Sons of Anarchy.
The girls reference a TV show called Bewitched, which ran from 1964 to 1972, of course also in reruns.
 
And this was a show in which the main character's husband works in advertising on Madison Avenue. So that's kind of a fun call-out.
 
 
Next we get a quick scene with Henry and Betty in bed and she leans over to kiss him. He's there for it. And we learn it's been a while since they've been together.
 
I feel like this is Betty leaning into her life and the good things about it.
And I also noticed she leaves the light on. Remember before she insisted Don turn the light out?
 
Steve: We can see that Henry is truly in love with Betty.
He's a good husband. He's supportive. He's respectful of her.
 
So we know that Betty's got this underlying dissatisfaction or unhappiness in her life.
But unlike before, when I think we could attribute a lot of that to Don Draper as the root cause, I'm left looking at the character in this circumstance, thinking, I don't think it has to do with outside forces. I think this is within Betty Draper herself.
 
 
Jenna: Backstage for the Rolling Stones, there's a lot of waiting and anxiety about who might be let in to meet the band.
And the girl, like us, is really skeptical Don can convince the Rolling Stones to be part of anything as uncool as a beans ad.
 
I'll link an article on our episode webpage on Mad Men, C to Z, to The Who Sellout album of 1967, which featured a song called Heinz Baked Beans, since this whole storyline has to be a nod to that.
 
Steve: Don seems to shift into father mode.
In this particular scene, the girl's putting on a bit of bravado and perhaps acting a little older and more knowing than she really is, particularly when she takes Don's tie and wraps it around herself.
 
But I get the sense here that Don's interest, again, it's not sexual. He's back on the clock and trying to understand this new generation and using her as a bit of a portal to try and figure out what it wants and where it's going.
 
And he can see the passion she has about this particular band.
But as he probes further to ask, well, you know, what do you want to do? Or how do you want to interact with them, and all the rest of it,
it doesn't appear that her interests are anything more than almost sort of a schoolgirl fantasy about getting to be with, say, Brian Jones.
And that's not really telling Don Draper anything that he can use in his ad campaigns.
 
Jenna: And I think she's equally frustrated by his questions, because to her they seem irrelevant.
So we see Don working, as we saw him in the pilot, interviewing anybody he meets to try to enhance his work.
 
But she's almost the embodiment of what Smitty was describing with that Port Huron statement earlier, when he said,
“We don't want to think, we just want to feel,”
which doesn't make any sense to Don, really.
 
But she doesn't want to analyze her feelings for the Rolling Stones. She's young.
She's pretending to be older than she is, that she has everything figured out.
 
So, of course, this is another character grappling with a gap between what is and what isn’t, and how she wants to be perceived or who she wants to become.
I don't think Don knows what to do with that.
 
Steve: I think Don Draper should go back and think about his own impulsive, unthinking actions, like proposing to Megan.
 
And then that would be a direct parallel here and say, let's analyze that a bit, Don Draper, and figure out where that came from and where that's headed.
It's almost like the old generation has forgotten what youth is all about.
 
Or maybe never had this experience, because we know Don had a hardscrabble existence and has had to fight and struggle for everything he has.
So maybe in his youth he never had this carefree moment where everything is in plentiful supply and you can go out and just pursue your impulses and fantasies without a thought or consideration to the day that comes tomorrow.
And maybe Dick Whitman didn't have that opportunity.
 
Jenna: Well, don't you feel like that's unique to this particular cultural time as well? That there's more affluence and more lengthening of childhood, so that people have the opportunity to be playful, instead of getting right to work so that you could afford to feed yourself and that kind of thing?
 
Steve: Oh, absolutely. I think it's a defining trait of the baby boomers and subsequent generations that, and I do agree, I think it's a major break with prior generations which were forced to make much more practical considerations much earlier.
 
 
Jenna: The next scene is Betty having a dream.
Her family is around the dinner table in black, Pauline is serving breakfast, and nobody can hear her or see her.
 
This dream feels a lot more stiff and awkward than the one in The Fog, which had a much more believable dream quality to me.
But the point is, Betty sees this and decides she wants to participate. She wants to sit down and be with her family and not be out of the picture.
 
This is a spoiler - caution ahead at this point.
They had negotiated for three final seasons of Mad Men, so the writers very likely knew where Betty's story would go.
 
I just don't know that this foreshadowing gets us any place super useful, because maybe Betty has a wake up call for a minute or two, but it doesn't spark any big changes by having us go through this.
 
So it reveals her fear of being cast aside and being on the outside instead of being the star, but we already knew that about her. So I guess it's just us having a look at what their lives would be like without Betty.
 
Steve: I kind of like it as a dream scene because it's brief.
And then I would also say in his commentary, Matthew Weiner mentions that, you know, they're not trying to be cliched.
These are really just recent events or items from her life that are jumping into the dream here, and she's imagining a life where she's not present.
 
Yeah, I don't think it's the most essential scene in the world, but it's brief enough I can handle it, and it doesn't feel especially indulgent to me.
 
 
Jenna: Back to the backstage area, the young girl tells Don to stop looking at his watch. The Rolling Stones are going to come when they come.
And she means it as a criticism that Don isn't living in the moment.
 
But I thought it was kind of sweet that it looked like to me he'd rather be home with Megan and not part of this fan crowd here.
 
Then Harry rushes out of a room. He's very excited. He signed the Rolling Stones.
And then a screaming crowd rushes in the opposite direction. Harry signed a different band for Heinz.
 
Steve: Of course, Harry would not even know who the Rolling Stones are. It is amusing to imagine a time when nobody can name a member of the Rolling Stones.
 
In his interaction with the groupie, again, we get this sense of Don trying to represent this parental concern about the young generation and where they're headed.
 
I'm wondering if that concern is really masquerading something else, which is a worry about obsolescence and aging and declining relevance for Don and his generation.
 
Jenna: I don't want to take too much of a detour,
but let's talk a little bit about this Rolling Stones concert, and how amazing it would have been to see at this time period.
 
We'll link to a Bowery Boys article about this on our episode page for Tea Leaves on madmenctoz.com at this time, the Rolling Stones were promoting their Aftermath album, and the set list included Paint It Black, Get Off of My Cloud, and Satisfaction.
 
Musically, this is an incredibly significant time period, too, because we have Simon and Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence, released a few months before this.
The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds came out a month earlier.
 
We've got the Monkees, Cream, the Doors, and Jimi Hendrix starting to gain notice.
 
But other top hits that year included things like the Ballad of the Green Berets,
these Boots Are Made For Walkin’, and Strangers in the Night by Frank Sinatra,
along with things like California Dreamin and You Can't Hurry Love.
 
So the Stones are a great choice to feature in this time period,
but what a treasure trove of options.
 
Steve: And, well, let's not forget, I think ‘66  - isn't that Revolver and Rubber Soul are both ‘66 from the Beatles, either of which, for any other band, would be the pinnacle of their artistic achievement. And yet the Beatles are just churning them out year after year.
 
Yeah, it's an incredible moment in terms of pop culture and pop music and this simultaneous achievement of much more traditional acts like sort of like a Pat Boone type, whilst you've also got, you know, rebels and dangerous bands like the Rolling Stones was marketed at the time, appealing to the youth and scaring the bejeezus out of the old folks.
 
It is a magical moment and I'm with you. I wish I could time travel back to Forest Hills and catch that concert in 1966. It would have been phenomenal.
 
Jenna: The Trade Winds that Harry met with in this episode instead of the Rolling Stones really did open for them at this concert.
Its members wrote and produced music for several famous performers before and after their own recording career, and their pieces included New York Is a Lonely Town and Mind Excursion.
 
Steve: We've got Harry eating White Castle sliders, Don asking him to get out of the car so Don can go home.
 
It's interesting to me then when Don states that, you know, he's not sure the Rolling Stones are good for anybody's daughter.
And again, I think that's this huge disconnect between the generations, where the old generation is worried about what's good or bad or where it leads to.
 
The very premise is so alien to a member of that young generation who just hears this music that's really exciting and compelling to them.
 
Jenna: We also have to talk about how Harry is so unapologetically selfish about not taking any food home to his family, and then lying to Jennifer because he says, oh, I can't take it home. She has me on a diet. She doesn't want me to eat this.
And he sat there and he ate 20 White Castle sliders.
 
Steve: Yeah. Jennifer's going to wonder if he's some sort of scientific miracle.
He fails to lose weight.
 
 
Jenna: The next morning, Megan wakes Don and tries to get him moving. And Don tells her about Betty. Megan is concerned and it's genuine.
 
But Don offends her by trying to make his worry about Betty something separate,
something Megan can't understand, and she powers right through that.
 
I think we admire her for how she does that, too. It's an important distinction between Megan and Betty because Megan isn't going to let Don sulk at home.
She demands that he participates in her life.
 
And I respect her a lot for saying that. She says, well, you went to the concert last night, but now when it's my friends, this news about Betty is too overwhelming,
and that's so fair.
 
There's a little bit of optimism here that Megan might be what Don needs after all, to pull him out of these sulky habits he has.
 
Steve: Pull him out of these sulky habits, and also blow away some of these lame excuses he has to justify his behavior. Because I agree with you 100%, she catches him with that statement.
 
And again, I wonder if there's part of Don's excuse for trying to beg off. Here comes back to this sense of age and generation gap where he realizes he probably doesn't actually belong on Fire Island with Megan and her friends.
 
And this is problematic. That's not going to be enjoyable for him. He's not going to relate to these people.
Then this is exactly how she wants to spend her day. To me, it's a bit of foreshadowing, I guess, of this gap between the two of them and how difficult it is to overcome this as they go forward in their lives.
 
Jenna: There's also an interesting connection here because as Megan talks about taking Don to a day with her friends on Fire Island, later that month,
Frank O’Hara, who wrote Meditations in an Emergency, which was featured earlier in the series, he would be killed when he was hit by a dune buggy there.
 
So maybe it's a little bit of a reach, but it feels like it could be symbolism to say Megan is helping Don to put away some of that loneliness and isolation he was immersed in before.
He doesn't have to be lost in his New York meditations and loneliness.
 
Steve: And I think it also speaks to, you know, this theme we've been saying that Megan is trying to have a real relationship and really partner with him.
 
And I think in a more modern way than perhaps the traditional arrangement that Betty and Don fell into in their marriage.
And I think this poses challenges for Don.
 
 
Jenna: I do love this next shot of Betty sitting on a chair next to Henry in front of their gorgeous castle house.
Bobby and Sally are running around with sparklers for the Fourth of July,
and Betty leans in and smells Gene's hair as he sits on her lap.
It's such a sweet thing you do with your babies when you appreciate their very being.
And I love seeing Betty take in the moment.
 
Steve: And it feels so rare for Betty to appreciate and live in the moment. Right? She's always fretting and worried about something.
 
If I could go back in time and hold my toddler on my lap,
I would totally inhale the smell of their hair, sweet baby smell.
 
Hopefully Betty Draper's realizing just how much she has and that she's got this loving husband, she's got these beautiful children,
and they've got this affluence and security which allows them to live any way they want. She does have so much to lose in terms of waiting for the results of the diagnostics.
 
But regardless of what that outcome is, the need to appreciate and enjoy what you've got remains right, whether we've got 50 years left or we've got 50 days left.
 
 
Jenna: Next, we see Peggy in with Michael Ginsberg meeting Don.
Roger was supposed to help with this interview, but of course he didn't show because why would he?
 
So Peggy tries to answer questions for Ginsberg, so he won't say anything wrong in front of Don.
 
Steve: Ginsberg is the loose cannon that Peggy's trying to make sure doesn't blast into her face or Don's.
And it looks like Don is not too off put by him. And he's maybe not so attuned to the weirdness.
As you pointed out, Roger's M.I.A. He's so unreliable. It's just hilarious as the meeting wraps and they go out, and then Roger and Michael are both staring out the window.
 
Jenna: And when Ginsberg does talk in the meeting with Don,
he sells hard and he sucks up exactly right.
 
He mentions the letter, but he says it was the funniest thing he ever read, which is not how Don intended it. But Michael means that as a compliment.
 
And he says he wants to be part of this place, and he thinks Don is very interesting.
And that hits exactly the right beats.
And Don is impressed. He compliments Peggy.
 
But then when Peggy goes out, she's so irritated, because Ginsberg controlled his erratic behavior around Don.
So she goes, I thought you were crazy, and you confirmed it by not acting the way you acted with me.
And he goes, you told me not to act that way!
 
Steve: Yeah, I love that line where she says the fact that you can control the crazy is what scares her the most.
 
Jenna: He's very happy he got the job. And he tells Peggy, come on, be proud of me. I need it.
No one in the world cares I got the job but you.
 
And that makes us feel his loneliness,
which we'll see In a second is off because he does have somebody in his life.
 
But I also feel worried about how everything is through his lens and he wants her to act accordingly.
So on first watch, I just think, oh, is this another guy who's going to try to run over her with his opinions?
 
Steve: Well, it does seem like that is a perennial challenge for Peggy in a managerial role here at the firm. So that expectation is well founded. You know, we've seen it to this point,
although Peggy's got a pretty good track record of dealing with the idiots, so I like her odds here.
 
 
Jenna: Next, Betty and Henry are at home waiting for news from the doctor.
Henry takes a work call on his other phone. He makes a reference to George Romney, who was talked about as a presidential nominee for the 1968 election.
And his son, of course, Mitt Romney, did run for president in 2012,
which was around the time this episode aired.
 
Steve: The lab finally calls and Betty takes the call. We can tell from her reaction that the results are good, that the tumor was benign.
 
Henry is relieved and immediately happy. But Betty seems more surprised than stunned. It seemed to me that she had built up the worst case scenario and locked in on it so much that now that it isn't the worst case scenario, and in fact it's the best case scenario, she's having trouble switching out of that lane and getting back into the reality.
 
She does have a funny line when she says that she doesn't have cancer, she's just fat.
 
Jenna: Well, she thought her illness made her gain weight, and now she knows that's not it.
So instead of a sense of a wake up call about what's really important,
Betty goes almost immediately back to resentment.
 
But Henry is such a champion. He says, I feel like I've been given a gift,
like Scrooge seeing his tombstone. But this isn't gonna be.
 
I mean, he has been a rock for her. He was really worried and he didn't let his fears show so it wouldn't bother her.
And now he's truly relieved and thrilled to share his life with her.
And I wish Betty could find a way to feel that joy, too.
 
And I don't think she's especially dissatisfied with Henry. I think she's just an unhappy person.
That's hard to watch.
 
But we know these people, right? Like, they might smile and laugh, but nothing is good enough.
And Trudy excuses that in Pete, who's very much that way as ambition.
 
I think for a long time we could blame Betty's bitterness on Don,
but she has a great partner in Henry, and she just can't seem to find a way to happiness or purpose.
 
Steve: Yeah, there's definitely this duality in that Betty Draper is relieved but at the same time, disappointed. And if I think about, well, how can you be disappointed you don't have a terminal cancer diagnosis?
 
I think it gets back to this martyr fantasy she has of, you know, this romantic ideal that, you know, her life is ending, and now it's having to come back to the reality.
 
And like you pointed out,
I don't think she's especially happy with her reality.
And then that leads to this resentment and frustration.
 
It is the tragedy of our lives, I think, that we've got people who should be happier based on objective circumstances, and they find ways not to be.
And then we also see the reciprocal of that, where we've got people who we feel should be much less happy, and yet they are.
 
 
Jenna: Back at the office, Pete makes an announcement to the employees at SCDP that he has signed Mohawk Airlines.
And he also says, I've hired a new copywriter, which was work that Peggy did. I don't think Pete even knows who it is.
 
And then he throws Roger under the bus in his announcement before he opens champagne.
 
Steve: I kind of like that Pete Campbell, who I love to hate, is basically shoving people under the bus right and left. You know, he's seizing the authority and responsibility for the hire of the copywriter,
and then, as well, doing the same thing to Roger.
 
Jenna: Roger's really bitter here. He's standing next to Peggy, and he tells her, that's the last guy I hired.
And we can see it's a Frankenstein's monster situation to him.
 
We've seen Pete be that irritated with Roger before,
but this is a new level of frustration for Roger about Pete.
 
As Roger and Don go in to talk privately - and I missed this between them – it’s been a while. I guess you can always bond over irritation about Pete.
 
But when Roger says, I used to hold that kid's hand on the swing set about Pete, of course he means he provided Pete support when he was new, and now Pete is acting ungrateful.
 
And Don, of course, acknowledges that Pete was awful.
But did Roger provide Pete support ever? I'm trying to think of an example when Roger actively supported him. I don't know that he did.
 
Steve: Yeah, I can't think of an occasion. And as we see just how feckless Roger is around the office, this does seem to be a rewriting of history by Roger Sterling as part of his pity party so he can feel sorry about himself.
 
Jenna: Well, I think Don has his own self absorption because he confesses to Roger, Betty has cancer.
 
And that shows us how much Don has been thinking about this and he is at least thinking about the kids. He goes, Megan will try, but how does that end up?
And I feel like that's really selling Megan short here.
 
But it is a truth, a harsh truth. But Betty being gone would be a giant hole for the kids, no matter how awful she is or how supportive Megan might be.
And then Don adds, I imagine them growing up without a mother.
I never had one.
 
And I'm so relieved that Don has some thought for those kids’ experience.
But he's not invested in a plan about what he could do for them.
So he's just like, well, Megan will try.
 
Maybe a mother isn't replaceable, but maybe a father being more invested would also be a good step.
So he has basically already written Betty off and he is in that place of like, okay, what happens now?
 
And it's like, well, Megan's gonna step up, but you, Don, what are you going to do?
 
Steve: And it does seem to be a rather self centered focus on, oh, the children won't have a mother, so Megan will have to fit in there.
 
So here again, I think we've got a case where Don Draper's imagination is running away with him a little bit.
 
Roger's comment back that Betty's a fighter, it's just so comedic because we know that Betty is the opposite of a fighter.
 
 
Jenna: So Roger leaves and Don calls the house to find out the news about Betty, and Henry answers.
Henry didn't know Betty told Don about this.
He shares the news that Betty is okay.
 
Betty never thought to call Don to give him an update. She just called him when she was scared and then like, okay, well, I guess I'll let him just worry about this.
She didn't think about him again.
 
Steve: I kind of like the scenes between Don and Henry.
Even when both men, I think are trying to do the right thing, there's an inherent tension in the scene and this interaction between them is so terse.
 
Basically, Henry says the bare minimum to satisfy Don's curiosity and end the call.
And Don accepts that that's the dynamic and that he will get the bare minimum.
 
Jenna: But Henry does the right thing and he is honest about the news and he doesn't withhold it.
So he's not spiteful, which I think we can admire in him.
 
And then when Betty calls from the other room and she says, who was it? And Henry says, nobody.
Who is Don Draper?
Nobody.
 
Except this is Henry pretending Don is removed from their lives.
And he isn't entirely. He's still a ghost. Even in the new house in the new city. He's still echoing around in there.
 
Steve: Well, particularly in Betty's mind, right? Because we know Henry was a little surprised and perhaps off put by the fact that Betty reached out to Don.
 
I just wanted to jump back briefly to Roger's comment at the end of the scene with Roger and Don in the office where Roger asks when everything is going to get back to normal.
 
And it's just such a great comment because we can see how Roger is looking back to a prior period and lamenting how much things have changed and wanting to get back to that place.
And we know things are never going to go back to that place.
 
Jenna: When Megan comes in, Don tells her Betty is fine. And she says she's glad to hear it.
And she adds, Betty just needs to have something to call you about.
Did you think that was catty of Megan to say?
 
Steve: I think a little bit. And I think there's some legitimacy in Megan's comment because Betty is remarried, so she has her current husband.
So why is she reaching out to Don in her moment of emotional need?
 
But all that said,
I think Megan behaves properly here and says the right things in this moment.
 
Jenna: I agree. I think she's correct. I think Betty does want to keep a connection with Don and she is being a drama queen.
And maybe Megan calling that out in a single line is useful framing for Don.
 
 
And then we see Michael Ginsberg go home to an apartment with his father.
His father talks about Pete Fox dying. Pete Fox played for the Detroit Tigers before he was a right fielder for the Boston Red Sox from 1941 to 1945,
which, of course, was America's involvement in World War II.
 
Spoiler . . .
This seems relevant for what we find out later about Ginsberg's family.
What did you think of this relationship?
 
Steve: I was wondering what, if any, of this is autobiographical for Matthew Weiner,
his son is entering into a world that his father doesn't know and hasn't been in.
 
And his father is proud and happy that his son has gone there. But simultaneously, I think his son realizes that his father can't help him navigate this place and this journey.
And he's taking a step into a new world.
 
And it just, to me, again, emphasizes this generation gap between them.
And I love the sweetness of the father being so thrilled and laying his hands on Michael. It calls out that fib that Michael had in the office with Peggy, where he said, oh, nobody cares about me.
 
And it's clear that Michael is probably his father's world.
So that understatement by Michael to outsiders. The lies, the truth that lies at home. And this is a very modest home, I think in the commentary Matthew Weiner mentions. It's probably a Lower East Side apartment.
You can see the bathtub in the kitchen with a board on top of it to serve as a table.
 
You know, Michael is embarking on a level of success and potential that his father could never imagine.
 
Jenna: This reminds me of Peggy's relationship with her mother.
We've got a parent who's very proud, but too stifling.
We've got a parent who embraces a religion the child isn't especially interested in and talks about things and people the child isn't tied to.
 
Both Peggy and Michael seem to feel their parents don't really understand their work or their ideas.
But they also show care to their parents.
At the same time, they feel determined to get away from them or to become different from them.
 
 
The last scene shows Betty and Sally eating ice cream sundaes together.
Betty's being really pleasant with Sally,
but I guess maybe it's supposed to show her health scare hasn't changed her habits.
 
I mean, I feel like if you get good news after a doctor scare, an ice cream sundae and a half does not seem like an unrealistic celebration to me.
 
Steve: I was gonna say one ice cream sundae is plenty. You don't need to have the half. So when she starts having the leftover sundae that Sally didn't eat,
I'm thinking, okay, this is getting back to your own bad choices here, Betty. You don't need those calories.
 
Jenna: But isn't it judgy of the writers to decide that for her? I don't know. I didn't love it. I, like, that's her whole story is she's this unhappy housewife and she eats too much?
 
And aren't we judgy of her for it? Like, how many of us have that problem? And isn't the worst sin Betty commits that she's unkind to her kids and unresponsive to her kind husband than the fact that she's eating too much?
Like, if we're going to focus on her sins, this seems like the wrong one.
 
Steve: Well, I didn't feel like this was about that as any especially important sin.
To me, it was just emphasizing the point that the roots of her unhappiness are not going to be solved by eating what's left of Sally's sundae.
 
So I think we have Betty here falling back into this behavior that is not given her happiness, won't give her happiness.
 
You're not in a good place and it doesn't seem like you are willing to take advantage. It may be in response to a benign tumor she has the opposite of I'm going to make some changes and embark on a better life here and take advantage of this gift of time that, you know, I've been granted.
And I guess I feel disappointed in the character.
 
 
Jenna: The closing song is I am Sixteen Going on Seventeen, which of course is Liesl's song from The Sound of Music.
 
Apparently from the commentary, it's supposed to reference Betty's childishness that she's not growing up or facing things.
 
But I think it's better suited to the whole culture changing,
this time capsule where characters are seeking out familiar old things at the same time they're reaching for new things; the idea that you can embrace Frank Sinatra and the Rolling Stones in the same year.
 
Steve: Maybe it's about Roger Sterling, because he doesn't seem to be embracing change or doing anything different. He's just looking backwards in the rearview mirror and longing for the way things used to be.
 
Jenna: So an okay episode of Mad Men is still really good TV,
but I'm a lot more excited to see the episodes coming later in the season than to rewatch this one, I think. How about you?
 
Steve: I'm not down on this one, but I don't think it's one of my favorite episodes either.
So again, I love the payoff from all the themes and plots that are set up in the early parts of the season.
So I feel like I've got patience to say, okay, go ahead and tee everything up and then we'll start to have the big payoff episodes on the back nine.
 
Jenna: Agree.
 
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Steve: That's it for this episode of All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou. Visit our website, MadMenCtoZ.com to vote for your favorite Sterling Lines and to share your opinions on our Double Dip questions for each episode.
 
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Steve: Thanks for listening, everybody.