Mad Men C to Z Podcast Transcript for S3E10: The Color Blue

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Mad Men C to Z S3E10 The Color Blue 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 Season 3, Episode 10, The Color Blue.
This episode was written by Kater Gordon and Matthew Weiner, and directed by Michael Uppendahl.
 
In this episode, Don and Suzanne have a conversation about whether the color blue that one person sees is the same color another person sees.
And the whole episode and show really deals with how different people perceive the same situation or event.
So we're going to see that in a lot of scenes coming up.

 
The episode opens in the Draper house as Carla's working in the kitchen and Betty's making a grocery list.
She wants apples from Rodney Farms, and Carla offers to pick them up since it's right near church. Carla goes to church every week, but it seems the Drapers go on Christmas and Easter.
 
Sally asks why don't we go to church every Sunday?
And Betty shuts that question down, saying we don't need to go every week.
This, to me, is another example of Betty prioritizing image over having a real conversation with her daughter. I think it's true for a lot of people of the time period to brush uncomfortable child questions away and teach kids not to ask about that topic.
 
And we know that Betty's really unlikely to follow up on this conversation.
It's also a great contrast with Suzanne, as we'll see later, who is delighted by interesting questions from kids even if she doesn't know the answers.
 
Steve: Don gets home early, and Betty pours him a drink and asks him where he's going to be sleeping this evening.
Don says he's got a meeting with Connie, he won't be sleeping at home, and Betty seems genuinely concerned and says he's working too hard.
 
Jenna: We also hear Betty talking about how nice it would be to have Thanksgiving at her dad's house one last time before they sell it.
Family seems like a Color Blue topic for Betty and Don: he avoids it as much as possible and he suffers it when he has to, while she seems to lean into traditional expectations as much as possible without really enjoying family time either. It's just something you do for her.
 
Steve: It almost feels like a flashback to how this whole series kicked off, where we had what appeared to be the idyllic family life, and then we realize Don is with Midge.
Matt Weiner mentions in his commentary that Don is basically back where he started in episode one of season one, except instead of Midge, he's now with Suzanne.
 
Jenna: Speaking of Suzanne, Don knocks on her door, and she is just beaming when she sees him there.
 
She won't kiss him at the door. She insists he come inside first. And yet he's at her place so often now that the phone service calls there to leave messages for him, so they're not being super discreet.
 
Steve: And I guess we see the lie of Don to Betty earlier when he said he was going to be meeting with Connie Hilton. He's not, very much like he was doing with Midge back at the kickoff of the entire series.
 
Jenna: Suzanne asks if Don's hungry. She made date nut bread for a school bake sale.
Fun fact: the Easy Bake Oven made by Kenner, and later Hasbro, first came out in 1963. I bet she didn't bake it in that.
 
Back when Peggy and Don disagreed about Ann Margret in the Bye Bye Birdie scene, she said shrill, and he said, it's pure, it makes your heart hurt.
He met Suzanne in that same episode, and he saw her dancing with the children around the Maypole.
In a recent episode, he asked Suzanne, who are you, dumb, or pure?
 
So I think that the writers intend her to be a free spirit, a nurturing soul who's so positive and in love with life that Don is drawn to her.
 
And I think some Mad Men fans dislike her for being Sally's teacher and a homewrecker, and that entering into that relationship seems worse than for Rachel or for Midge or Bobbie to do it.
 
But what's interesting is that no woman is a free spirit who's always positive. No matter what Ann Margret promises in her film performances,
Suzanne is a real human with flaws and dreams and struggles,
even if Don doesn't see her or want to see her that way.
 
Steve: In his commentary, Matt Weiner says that Don and Suzanne are still in that fantasy stage of their romance.
I suspect the fact that we see that so obviously this season is another source of ire towards Suzanne, because we can see how, for the most part, the marriage, you know, after 10 years and three children is certainly not in that fantasy stage, by any measure.
The contrast between the two is pretty stark.
 
This actual episode, I think, starts to pull back the curtain a little bit and give us some insights into some of the struggles she faces in her own life.
 
Jenna: The scene cuts to Betty alone at home in the bath.
She's reading a book called The Group by Mary McCarthy.
Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City was intended to be a modern day version of The Group.
 
This book was on the bestseller list for two years and it's about eight female friends. It was a bit shocking at the time because it addressed sexual relationships so directly.
 
In season one, remember, we saw Joan and some of the other women of Sterling Cooper passing around Lady Chatterley's Lover. And that was also taboo.
And reading this seems like another signal that Betty is ready to take her sexuality and her life into her own hands, instead of waiting around for Don.
 
Steve: Yeah, and I think the emphasis of this very brief scene is that absence of Don. So they're not together in the evening. She's making do, you know, in her own life.
And she's alone, whereas we know he's off cheating with Suzanne.
 
 
Jenna: That scene cuts back to Don and Suzanne in bed. And it's always so jarring when it's cut from Betty alone to Don with some other woman.
And yet we see that cut a lot, actually.
 
They have this conversation about how a student asked her how she knows if what I see is blue is the same as it is to you.
We get a truth call out when Don asks, what'd you say?
 
And she answers, “The truth. I don't know, I never have.
But I love that he made me think about it again.”
 
Steve: We also get Don's view of the world here, in contrast, I think, to Suzanne's. And to characterize it, it seems to me like Suzanne is full of curiosity and wonder at the world, and doesn't have to have an answer or fill every blank.
 
Don, on the other hand, comes across as much more worldly and cynical. He reiterates that he believes people don't want to think for themselves, that they don't want to be left alone.
 
It seems to be a similar vibe, I think, to those conversations back when Don was talking about true love with Rachel and he gave sort of the ad man answer to the idea of true love being a creation of these mad men and just Rachel's horror and calling him on that.
 
Suzanne doesn't exactly call him out in the same way Rachel does, but she does question and challenge his view and the opinion he expresses.
 
Jenna: When I saw the scene, I noticed that I thought it was smart of Suzanne to build intimacy with Don by asking him, what would you have said to the student?
It's not threatening, it's not about his past or his family.
 
But can we agree Don's answer is a really terrible miss for the intended audience of an eight year old child? His answer is like he's talking to a boardroom.
 
He says something about 45% of the population sees blue as the same color.
But the interesting part to me was what comes after, as he's drifting off to sleep. And here’s another truth call out:
He says, the truth is maybe people see things differently, but they don't really want to.
 
And that line, did you see that as optimistic, like how people want to find common ground and be connected to each other,
or did you see that as entirely cynical?
 
Like people know they should view a situation based on their own interests and sometimes they deceive themselves, because they want to believe something different?
Or maybe as you were suggesting earlier,
because somebody else has told them what to believe?
 
Steve: Based on his comment about people don't want to think for themselves and don't want to be left alone,
I interpreted it in the cynical way of they're seeing things differently,
but they don't want to be.
 
They're just not equipped in order to see things in the shared, connected way that they really would prefer.
And they need someone to lead them there or someone to influence them. And I think that's where this Madison Avenue attitude comes back in. So my take is dark, I guess.
 
Jenna: I tried to find a study confirming what Don says, about 45% of the population viewing blue the same way. And I went down a rabbit hole about color vision research.
So just for fun, I'll put the link in the show notes about that dress that broke the Internet in 2015 about whether it was white and gold or black and blue.
 
Steve: I found it interesting when Suzanne sort of challenges Don's view and asks him, does he feel bad about what he does?
And that's a very profound question. And I think it's a very good question for Don Draper.
 
To me, this just offers further substance to this idea that Suzanne is much more than a pretty face or a fantastical escape from his life. I think he finds her life perspective interesting and unique.
 
Jenna: But look how he evades that question too. I interpret her asking, do you feel bad about what you do to mean the cheating, not advertising.
 
And he flips it, saying, nobody feels as good about what they do as you do, meaning her work.
That's an evasion of that question. And he's been asked that before.
 
Rachel asked him that, he and Midge danced around that topic.
He's not letting himself get personal, even while he's getting these glimpses into who she is and learning more about her.
 
Steve: Yeah, I agree with that.
And I think, you know, in his commentary, Matt Weiner says, Don gets much more out of this affair than just the sex.
 
In my mind, it was raising that question of what is Don Draper seeking out of his many affairs.
From his choices, we can see it's never just about the sex. There's always these other aspects that are drawing him in. And I think we can even see that from the way the affairs end.
 
It's interesting that he has to seek affairs to find these qualities when I guess we could argue he had the option of finding that in a marriage.
Or there just seems to be all this untapped potential in his marriage if he was willing to invest the time and effort.
 
Jenna: At Sterling Cooper the next day, there's a short scene of the office guys talking about the upcoming 40th anniversary party.
And Harry asks Ken, why didn't you take her, referring to Allison.
 
Remember that Allison was the secretary Ken chased around the office in the gross game of trying to check the color of her underwear. In a tie back to this episode, it was blue.
 
And even though we know Hildy and Harry slept together at the Nixon Kennedy party, we can infer that Allison and Ken did, too, because we saw Allison creeping out of an office the next morning after an evening hanging out with Ken.
 
But here she says no, not because of the underwear harassment, although that would be enough for a lot of people,
but because she's Don's secretary, and she knows Don wouldn't like it if she went as Ken's date.
 
This is a semi spoiler for a future season, but I think it's really important to notice this fact.
Alison gets some hate from fans later as being overly naive,
but she's had an office fling with Ken. She handled it in the day to day afterward with no issues, even though the office guys know about it.
 
She's professional enough to realize that Don freaked out when Jane got with Roger and wanted her off his desk.
So she's not going down that road with Ken here. And there are no hard feelings. Allison is totally managing her business.
So when that comes up later, just remember that point there.
 
Steve: The following scene is Paul's presentation on Aqua Net.
We don't have Sal, because he was terminated.
So here's Paul giving the creative presentation, and he's got several office mates, including Peggy, sitting in the pretend passenger seat of the car.
 
He goes through his concept, which is this narrative about the wind blowing a scarf off and thanks to Aqua Net, Peggy's hair looks good.
Don isn't digging it and shoots it down, saying there's too much story.
 
Jenna: And with that feedback, Peggy is quick to adapt the idea. She makes it simpler and shinier. She suggests a scarf wrapping around the can, and the wind blowing it away to reveal Aqua Net.
 
Don likes it, and the meeting was really productive. They have a direction, but we can see Paul is really disgruntled about this.
 
Steve: I think we see two men under pressure in this scene. We have Paul feeling the creative pressure from Peggy,
but as Don inquires about the Western Union account and then talks about how the Hilton account takes precedence for everything,
we can see that even the great Don Draper is feeling under pressure from Connie Hilton, you know, to have a good, impressive campaign.
 
So he's really trying to keep all the plates spinning here.
 
Jenna: We also see Don eating date nut bread - in a blue napkin.
This is unusual, because he doesn't keep souvenirs or many personal things. The whole Draper house is decorated the way Betty wants, and Don's office is generic. It could belong to any Dick or Don.
 
It's a little unusual. It's a little less compartmentalized.
Maybe he does think he's in love with her to bring a little piece with him to work.
Or maybe date nut bread is just date nut bread.
 
Steve: I was gonna say maybe he's just hungry.
 
Near the end of the scene, as they're talking about Western Union, Ken Cosgrove observes that he likes to receive but never sends telegrams. And I love the look of Don representing, I think, this accounts versus creative schism.
 
He has a sour look on his face, and he looks over at Ken and sort of says, how is that supposed to help?
Clearly, in his mind, you know, at least on this occasion, accounts has nothing to add of any use.
 
Jenna: Honestly, you know, Ken is a writer. Ken is creative.
So I feel like if they were at a different point in the creative process,
that comment would start some kind of brainstorming in a different setting. It's just not at the end of the meeting, maybe.
 
Steve: I think that is exactly the point. Had Peggy expressed that or Paul, it could have led to a continuance of the conversation. Because. Because it comes from accounts, it's not invented here,
and we're not going to give it the time of day.
 
Your point's well taken. Ken is bringing some ideas there, maybe in a similar way to we've seen in the past, that Pete can bring something as well.
 
Jenna: Later, Lane comes into Don's office to deliver his signing bonus in the amount of $5,000, which would be about $50,000 today.
 
Lane has a line saying, you see, I don't just fire people.
So that's another Color Blue moment, that Lane could be perceived as the guy who won't buy extra paperclips. But he's also part of the team who gave Don a large signing bonus with his contract.
 
Steve: Lane is trying to make sure everything's in order for the 40th anniversary of Sterling Cooper. So he emphasizes to Don that he will be speaking last, that he needs to be prepared.
 
He checks to see if Conrad Hilton will attend, and yes, he will.
And then at the end of the scene, Lane is called away by Allison. His wife is there.
 
Jenna: Don is curious and asks Allison what's going on, and she whispers, I'll find out. Which is an interesting nod to her competence that she can look after things discreetly for him.
 
So nobody's Joan, but she's got skills, and she's been on his desk for a while, and she's certainly an upgrade from Lois.
 
 
Steve: The next scene is in Peggy's office, where Paul has come to confront Peggy about her stealing his credit and jumping in.
 
It's clear he doesn't really have a true professional gripe here because it was brainstorming, and just the evolution of the idea after his presentation on Aqua Net.
 
But it's pretty clear from Paul's words that what he really doesn't like is the fact that Peggy is spontaneous, can think on her feet,
and shines in that atmosphere, whereas that's not his gig.
 
If and when things get to that point, he realizes he's playing with half a deck and won't be able to keep up with Peggy's excellence.
 
Jenna: Yes, his line is, I don't need you to put your little swirl on top of my idea.
In the DVD commentary, Matt Weiner says, somebody once said that to him in his real life, so he used it here.
 
And what a shift in their relationship from the second episode in the series, when Paul is giving Peggy a tour of the office and he says,
there are women copywriters, you know.
 
And here Peggy is reassuring Paul about what happened in the meeting. She tells him, no one's keeping score.
I am, he says, and it's filled with so much greed and resentment.
 
And as you say, he goes on to accuse Peggy of being spontaneous and a girl and Don's favorite.
And Peggy asks, are you nuts? He hates me.
This whole conversation is the color blue.
 
Peggy isn't competing with Paul. She's making a good ad for Aqua Net. And Peggy doesn't think she's Don's favorite. He's said awful, cruel things to her, especially this season.
 
And all Paul can see is that Peggy's female, so she automatically shouldn't be as qualified as he is.
 
Steve: I think, too, you know, we've seen enough of Paul to know that he does suffer from insecurities. He's a little neurotic.
And this jealousy for the excellence that Peggy's shown just really seems to be on brand for him.
 
So I guess, knowing Paul the way we know him, I'd be more surprised if he wasn't worried, jealous and chafing at Peggy's presence.
 
Jenna: And his parting shot to her is so funny. He issues her a challenge about the upcoming Western Union assignment. He says, you do your work and I'll do mine.
 
And then he adds, let the chips fall where they may.
So even his exit line is a cliche.
 
And Peggy is confused by his take. And she's totally calm with him and confident about her work.
That's one good thing about Pete Campbell barging in and infecting you with his anxiety - you become immune to carrying Paul Kinsey's anxiety.
 
Steve: Well, isn't it really our critique of Peggy? She doesn't read people. She doesn't put herself in their shoes or look through their eyes.
 
So she is perfectly professional, both in the working session on Aqua Net and as well, responding to Paul's concerns, I mean, she says all the right things from a pure professional standpoint,
but I don't get the sense that she's wrapping her head around his insecurity and thinking about what she could do to allay his fears and concerns.
 
You know, she's sort of sticking to the facts and the evidence and.
And nothing of what she says is factually inaccurate.
But I don't get the sense that Paul leaves the conversation feeling heard or feeling that she's going to watch out, that she doesn't stomp on his toes.
 
Jenna: That's so funny, because it never occurred to me to think about Peggy's behavioral failings in this scene because Paul's were so egregious.
 
Steve: Yeah, but I'm not. I'm not calling it a failing on her part.
 
Jenna: No, I understand. It is her –
 
Steve: It's a fork in the roadshow that she could have taken.
And I would say, you know, after a long career in corporate life, personally, you often have these choices as to how you want to handle a conflict or friction. And which road do you want to go?
 
You know, will you hold your ground, do you want to compromise, do you want to surrender to the other side, et cetera.
If you at least can see the options in front of you, you can make an informed choice about what you choose or don't choose to do in a given circumstance.
 
I think the problem with Peggy is she's - her blinders are such that I don't think she even sees all the possible doors she could go through here. She thinks by sticking to the facts and, you know, doing her best professionally is really the only door, the only option.
 
There are multiple ways that she could pursue that.
And I just don't get the sense that, that she perceives it or gives it as much thought as maybe another character does, that that's a little more calculating or a little more dialed into the emotional side of, of relationships.
 
 
Jenna: Across the office, we know that Rebecca Pryce stopped in to see Lane.
She's upset because her cabbie took the long way to run up her fare and now she's out of money.
And more than that, she's upset because she misses London.
 
When she arrives, Lane has this memorable line.
Am I to entertain your ballad of dissatisfaction or has something actually happened? Because I am at work, dear.
 
And it is not the most generous thing to say to someone you love who shows up crying, speaking of not having the best people skills.
 
And at the same time, we know Rebecca from the dinner with Don and Betty, and all she had to talk about was how much she dislikes New York. And almost a year later, she has the same problem.
 
Steve: I have to admit, one of my guilty pleasures is I love Rebecca's put downs of New York and America.
So in this scene she says, you know, you like it here. The smells, the noise, the criminals.
And it's just such a delicious line and so funny.
 
Lane doesn't respond, but we as viewers know it's all true.
All the aspects that she finds so tedious and annoying are just part of the magic sauce that appeals to Lane about New York City and being over here in the United States.
 
So it's not that either of them are - is incorrect in their perceptions necessarily, but I like it through that lens of each individual, of what they want in life and what they don't want or what they miss from another place.
There really doesn't seem to be any reconciliation between the two.
 
Jenna: It's definitely another color blue scene. And I love these actors together and all the beats they take, Lane encouraging her to keep trying to make the best of it, that these things take time.
 
And she's very cold back.
She says, if a superior demands that you be happy, you say, yes, sir, right away, sir.
 
And he doesn't argue. He invites her to vent.
And as you say, she accuses him of liking it here.
And that accusation - they moved. And for him it's been an improvement. And for her it's a downgrade.
And we get this truth call out when she says, it's not England.
And he answers, that's true.
I've been here 10 months and no one has ever asked me where I went to school.
 
I know that he's talking about posh British universities, but shout-out to all the St. Louisans who recognize that high school question.
It's a shorthand to identify your class and your upbringing, your traditions and connections.
 
Lane isn't shedding his old self like Don,
but to some extent, he is happy to leave part of that behind.
Maybe away from England, he is less of a yes, sir kind of a person.
 
Steve: Yeah. Matt Weiner mentions that in the DVD commentary that Lane is not a happy member of his British generation,
that he's more of a Don type.
 
And I think that's the appeal, ultimately, of this gig with Sterling Cooper in New York City.
He can redefine himself and write a new chapter in his life and leave behind all the things he doesn't like about where he's from and put it behind.
 
And in an environment where I think we harp on this, you know, episode after episode, you know, everyone is so darn selfish. They're not even especially interested in where Lane came from, or his history necessarily.
 
So it aids and abets him in recreating himself in this place. So it all lines up really nicely, I think, as to why Lane likes it here.
 
 
Jenna: In the next scene, Suzanne and Don are in bed together again,
and there's a knock on her door.
She calls out to say she'll be there in a minute.
And Don, always ready to hide the truth,
getting his pants on, mutters, why did you answer?
It turns out it's her brother.
 
Don says he'll sneak out. Just because her brother knows that there's a man doesn't mean anyone has to know it's Don.
Being known is always a problem for Don.
 
But Suzanne wants to introduce her boyfriend to her family here.
Don doesn't want to deal with her family. He only wants the fantasy version of her, constantly available,
no other needs or issues when he's around.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think that's a key element and part of the appeal of these affairs for Don Draper, going back to my earlier question,
it is the escape, the escape from all the humdrum of his daily life.
 
Suzanne's brother is exactly that humdrum. And maybe it's new, he hasn't met him before. But whatever his problems and needs are,
it's intruding into this fantasy, and it's not part of the program that he ideally would have.
 
So it is an interesting divergence between the two of them here.
He has no appetite for this.
And as you mentioned, she very much wants Don to meet her brother. Her brother's part of her life now. Don is part of her life.
 
And I think that divergence in what they're getting out of this affair is an important distinction between the two of them.
 
Jenna: Suzanne's brother Danny is played by Marshall Allman, who was also in Prison Break, Humans and True Blood.
 
Suzanne's first words to Danny on the show are, Danny, be polite.
Nothing he says is polite in any of his scenes.
 
I mean, we can infer that he's being honest and he just doesn't care what Suzanne or Don here, because she'll love him no matter what, and Don's opinion doesn't matter.
 
And when you put somebody like Danny, who's direct, with Don,
who's always obfuscating, there's so much tension. Jimmy Barrett had this quality with Don, too.
 
Steve: Yeah. And I think so much of the time we're in this, if not high society, then at least, you know, upper middle class plus society and in the corporate environment.
So Danny is kind of like a splash of cold water into the face of everything because Suzanne is his sister and he's not worried about impressing her.
 
His sister's boyfriend is nothing to him and he has no designs on anything, so he just does away with all the niceties and cuts straight to the point of whatever he's feeling or wants to say.
 
And it is just such a stark contrast, because I get the same impression that Don is on his best behavior, trying not to say anything inflammatory or rude back, yet Danny's just throwing bombs right and left.
 
Jenna: Danny's character is a problem for me because I dislike his impoliteness so much.
Don says, I wish you the best. And he goes, you don't even know me. It's not that hard to smile and say thank you in the moment, but he just doesn't bother.
 
And I realize we'll see he's got bigger problems than manners.
You know, we learn that later.
So there are reasons why he gets right to the point, as he sees it, anyway.
 
More critically, though, I know I should be looking at Don and Roger, who have these very smooth surfaces, and judge them for their failings.
I mean, they cause a lot of harm to various people.
 
But I have this knee jerk response to this guy, because he shows no appreciation to his sister and he won't say please.
It's so uncomfortable to be reminded the ad man facades are fooling me.
 
There's no reason for me to look at this character and find him so wanting to when he's standing next to Don Draper and all of that guy's failings.
 
Steve: Well, and I haven't even brought up Pete Campbell yet, who also has proper manners but does some pretty heinous things.
 
Jenna: He's in his own category.
 
After Don leaves, Suzanne and Danny talk. She has a mothering, nurturing quality to her relationship with her brother, feeling responsible about finding him another job.
Danny has a comment that Don reminds him of their mother. So we don't know the whole story, but I feel like it's implied that it's not a kind comparison.
 
And Danny also calls Don out for being arrogant, and Suzanne defends him as being very private.
He's both.
It's the color blue.
 
Steve: One touch I liked in this scene was Don is a little disheveled. We're so used to seeing Don Draper all put together.
 
And it's a small touch, but I think it puts a nice visual to Don's irritation that his fantasy, his escape, has had reality intrude upon it and potentially intrude upon it in a way which could be ongoing, right?
Is he just passing through? Is he going to be sticking around?
So I get a nice vibe of irritation and frustration from Jon Hamm's performance in this scene.
 
 
Jenna: The next scene gives us Bert and Roger looking at a picture of the people of sterling Cooper in 1923, when it was founded 40 years ago.
Bert and Roger remember these people, and it was before the crash of ‘29, and in a terrifying comparison to people for whom 1986 doesn't seem that long ago, that's how Bert and Roger see this photo from 1923, which seems impossibly long ago.
 
Steve: I think, too, we get some insights here into the perspective of Bert and Roger. Bert is looking back on his life in business,
taking stock.
I think we see his regret at having sold Sterling Cooper, right. Like he's put all this time and effort into it. Sure, they got paid. But now, as he mentioned in a prior episode, you have to do what they tell you.
 
Roger doesn't seem to have that same nostalgia in the way he's looking back. It feels almost like some of his gripes, you know - he's complaining about the guy who made him eat a roll of laxatives - and then when Don's name is mentioned, Roger talks about where they found him, that, you know, he's going to night school and working at a fur company.
 
Roger deserves credit, or Roger is the reason why this creative genius is at the firm. It almost feels like they're talking past each other in a certain way.
 
Jenna: Yes, And Bert compares the upcoming party to a funeral, and he decides he doesn't want to go after all.
As you say, Roger is much more irritated about having to watch Don Draper get an award at this party.
 
There's definitely that class feeling of resentment against Don for going to night school and working in a fur company.
But he also says Mona said that he and Betty looked like the couple on top of our wedding cake. So that's almost that same kind of grousing resentment that Paul had about Peggy.
Okay, you're so great, but you don't deserve this.
It's not a great look on Roger.
 
Steve: You know, Roger's a good looking man,
but he's older than Don Draper, so Don is a younger, improved version physically. So it's just one more thing for Roger to be jealous about.
 
 
Jenna: In the next scene, all the Drapers are actually home in the evening when the phone rings.
Sally answers, and she can hear someone there, but nobody says anything.
Did you have a theory about who called?
 
Steve: I think my default assumption is it's Suzanne.
I have to sort of take another beat to think, well, who else could it be? Well, it could be Henry.
 
After that, is it just kids maybe doing a crank call or something?
What was the name of the little boy Sally kissed? Maybe he's calling here.
Yeah, I just defaulted to Suzanne.
 
Jenna: I don't actually think it was Suzanne or Henry.
I think it's a great Mad Men esque thing to build tension and expectation in both Betty and Don.
So it's what's in their heads that matters.
 
Even if it was a legitimate wrong number, which I think it was, it's a perfect color blue moment because they both view it as something different, and they both think the other doesn't know what the truth is.
 
I mean, if I had to pick between Suzanne and Henry, I think Suzanne is more likely to call, although Henry did show up unannounced once.
 
And also, Suzanne was expecting Don to call, and he hasn't.
 
Steve: Yeah, I like the comedic element of they both sort of have a look on their face of worry. Something's going on with this phone call.
 
So I think that's fun as a viewer, because we know they've both got things on the move, you know, outside of their marriage.
 
Jenna: It's really quite fun to contemplate who else might want to call the Drapers and complain for various things and then change their mind.
 
I mean, it could be Roger.
It could be Sal thinking he might try to get his job back and change his mind.
But my favorite theory is that Carla is frustrated with Betty and knows about Henry and just calls the house in the evening to mess with them.
 
 
Steve: The next scene is in the evening back at the Sterling Cooper offices, and Paul is working away on the Western Union account.
 
He's got the alcohol going as well, and he's looking at his prior triumph of the unused Jacqueline Kennedy, you know, two types of woman ad.
 
Peggy's also in the office, working the process,
trying to come up with the way to get to an idea here.
They're both working after hours. They're both working away independently.
 
Paul puts on some jazz music, undoes his pants.
 
Jenna: It's no accident that Kinsey's ad is another color blue moment. This two sides to the same woman was that tagline for the Jackie -Marilyn ad campaign that he thought of.
 
If you blink, you might miss him doing the unbuckling his pants thing. And I wondered if being Paul, it isn't so much the Marilyn - Jackie model,
but the moment that everybody liked his idea that gets him going here.
 
Steve: In his commentary, Matt Weiner points out that Peggy is very much like Don in this scene. She's working through it.
She's got mediocre ideas, but you just keep pushing away on them,
trying to find something that's going to work or click.
It feels like Paul is a little less focused on the mission at hand.
 
Jenna: And notably, Peggy stays late to work on this assignment.
She goes home and she's wearing blue.
 
That night, Don is home wearing a blue robe. He's in his office.
He unlocks the top right drawer and he puts his signing bonus money in it. It's like the 5G he gave Adam coming back again.
 
And when he locks the drawer, he slips the key in the robe pocket.
 
Steve: Just then, Baby Gene wails and probably distracts Don from wherever he permanently keeps the keys to the office drawer.
 
Jenna: Back at the office, Paul is still working late and comes out of his office with a drink, yelling for Peggy. She's gone.
 
But a custodian answers. He's replacing a light in the office kitchen.
Achilles, the janitor, is played by Hal Landon Jr., who might be recognizable as Captain Logan from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure or 1977's Eraserhead.
 
Steve: We know Paul is pretentious.
And as he interacts with Achilles, eating somebody else's food out of the fridge in the course of the conversation, suddenly he hushes Achilles,
and it's clear he's gotten some answer.
 
He drops any pretense of any interest in what Achilles was talking about and removes himself back to his office.
 
He sits down on his sofa, and again, he's looking very satisfied.
We don't know what the idea is. He's forgotten to bring a glass over to the sofa, so he starts drinking out of the bottle directly.
 
Jenna: They don't tell us what Paul's great idea is, and he doesn't write it down, but he's so gleeful about it, and you can tell he thinks it's good.
 
I get that this is supposed to be about the creative process, and we're supposed to believe that he got a jolt of great inspiration and see what that looks like.
 
But part of me is watching Paul Kinsey and the amount he's had to drink, and I wonder if really this is just a mediocre idea that he thinks is brilliant in this moment.
 
Steve: Yeah. And the fact that we don't ever get to hear the idea,
I think reinforces the possibility.
Like. Exactly, kind of like the mystery phone call to the house.
It could be nothing to do with anything, and this idea could be total trash.
but drunk Paul Kinsey thinks it's a great idea.
 
Jenna: I want to go back to this conversation with Achilles.
You know, Paul is doing that thing that Don does, just less gracefully. He's grilling the person in front of him and not caring what they're saying,
except for how it's useful to him in that moment.
 
But it's even worse on Paul. Paul who lives in New Jersey, right, because that's “where the real people live.”
 
Except when you see him so selfish and using people who are directly in front of him, yeah. He's not really walking his talk.
 
Steve: And it fits with the selfish theme that we hit a lot, right.
Paul is in his world struggling with his problems, and Achilles is no more than a prop to Paul.
 
 
Jenna: When we get to the next morning, Mad Men is often showing us small moments that seem insignificant.
 
So when we see Betty doing laundry,
we might think this is more evidence of her humdrum life at home alone.
 
But she's got Don's blue robe as she's sorting things through where he left the key to his office desk drawer.
It's a short scene, and a different show would skip it,
but in Mad Men, we're going to follow the journey of that key bit by bit.
 
Steve: The next scene has Don on the commuter train going into work in the morning, and Suzanne suddenly boards and sits down beside him. Don is clearly uncomfortable to see her here on the train.
 
Jenna: It feels a lot like when Henry showed up to see Betty.
It's unwelcome and it's perceived as dangerous.
 
This is certainly a careless decision, because all these people from the neighborhood commuting into New York, this is definitely not safe behavior from people who are engaged in an affair.
 
He passes her a piece of his newspaper to pretend to read, and he doesn't look at her.
And the first thing he says is,
did you call my house last night?
No, I didn't, she says, and she gets up to leave.
 
Steve: Yeah, Don is super uncomfortable and he can't hide it.
She had hoped to speak with him and enjoy his company,
and she realizes it's a mistake and goes to leave, but Don stops her.
 
Jenna: Yeah, she's on the train because he said he'd call and he didn't.
Don's explanation is that's because her brother is there.
 
I see a lot of talk in the Mad Men fandom about Suzanne being a stalker for following him on the train to work,
or again, that she was the one who called his house and how fanatical she is for that.
 
And I - she's definitely careless and the affair is selfish.
I don't think it's a healthy relationship.
She probably doesn't have realistic expectations, but I don't see her as a stalker here.
 
Remember, Midge called Don's office in season one and he lectured her about not doing that. So we know Don doesn't like her following him or calling when it's not on his terms.
 
But remember in the pilot when married Don told Midge “we should get married,” and Midge knew that her role was to say no to that.
 
And, you know, we can debate whether Midge would be interested in that or not, and we don't know what promises he's whispering in Suzanne's ear.
 
And he was the married guy driving around in the early morning trying to find her out running. That seems pretty stalkerish to me.
So for her to get all of the heat here seems a little extreme.
 
Steve: Again, Don does throw her a bone in the scene, because when he sees that she's irritated, he apologizes, and they end up holding hands discreetly underneath the newspaper.
 
Suzanne's comment to him where she says, I just need to know that you're with me is an interesting one because back when they were flirting earlier, prior to the relationship,
I got the sense that they both knew very well where something like this would likely end up and had no illusions about it.
 
Now they're in that utopic fantasy state of the relationship.
I wonder if that pragmatism has faded a bit in, at least in Suzanne's mind, and she's starting to think about the possibilities here, and losing touch with that, you know, gritty realism that it seemed like she had at the start before anything happened.
 
Jenna: Yes, that line really stuck with me too.
She says, I don't care about your marriage or your work, as long as I know you're with me.
 
And that felt like a terrible thing because she knows that he has three kids, and presumably she does care about Sally and her well being, which would include her family.
 
I think Suzanne isn't explicitly talking about the future,
but I do think she has really let herself fall in love with him, and that that's the pure thing that Don sees.
That the fact that she can let herself love him is maybe what makes him love her.
 
Like, maybe he can be that guy, that good guy, the way she sees him,
even if we know he can't, because he's married, and flawed and, you know, he doesn't really want to hang out with her brother or be her family or be anybody's family, really.
It's not a good setup.
 
And yet I do think they think they're in love with each other at this point.
 
Steve: Yeah, that's an interesting point. I. I see a lot more evidence of that from her side.
I wonder if Don is just in love with the affair.
 
And I think he's always calculating and thinking ahead in a way that I wonder if Suzanne isn't so calculating. And that's what's the difference is here between them.
 
Jenna: I guess it always comes back to, is it possible for Don to love anybody, even himself.
 
Steve: We get a brief update on Danny. Suzanne's found him a job at a VA hospital. So he's going to be leaving tonight, she tells Don, so he should plan on coming by.
 
Jenna: Yeah, this is a thing. Suzanne has to get rid of her brother before Don will see her again.
 
This is practical, but also asking her to give up what she wants for him.
So he's got these exact conditions for how he'll see her or not.
 
So I guess Don Draper can have things how he wants them,
but he's so careless about her needs and Betty's and Peggy's.
I'm just not sure how we have the energy to criticize Suzanne for being a stalker here.
 
She loves him and she wants to be with him,
even though, you know, affair.
 
But she's not calling Betty. Remember in the Sopranos, Annabella Sciora's character did that with Carmela?
She's not calling over and over, if she ever even called in the first place.
 
I think she did let herself fall in love and she has unrealistic expectations.
But I don't think she falls into a mentally unstable place or anything, as I've seen her described. I just think she's making poor decisions.
 
Steve: Yeah, I'm with you. I think dogpiling on Suzanne as some sort of stalker is just woman blaming, which I think happens a lot.
Also, to your earlier point about Don's commitment or feelings towards her - the way he looks at her sort of longingly as she gets back off the train, I think supports that.
 
And that's sort of how this scene wraps up.
The fact that he bothers to turn and look after her suggests, you know, those feelings are strong in him, because up until that point, he's been the one, you know, with the newspaper and not looking at her while they talked, et cetera.
 
And that seems to get chucked out the window. And he takes the opportunity to gaze at her as she's looking to step off the train.
 
 
Jenna: Back at the Drapers, we have another short scene with Betty again putting the blue robe with the key into the washer.
 
At the office, Lois wakes Paul Kinsey, who's drooling on his couch at 9:00am and totally disheveled.
So we see Lois kept her job, even after the riding lawnmower fiasco. And now she's Paul's secretary.
 
Steve: And Paul is a complete mess. So he's obviously fallen asleep drunk. He's been there all night.
He wants to tell Lois his killer idea, and then suddenly realizes he hasn't written it down.
 
Jenna: He asks if Lois moved anything.
And we know Lois is not the most competent person.
 
So for all we know, Paul did write it down when the camera cut away from him, and Lois tossed his idea in the garbage.
That's very Lois esque, I think.
 
Instead, she offers the really helpful advice to retrace his steps to find what he's looking for.
I know I wrote it down, he's muttering. He just can't find it.
 
Steve: We really see the contempt Paul has for Lois in this scene. So she's trying to support her manager. And she's willing to help him look if there's a place that would make sense to look.
 
He just wants her to be quiet. And he's got this deadline to present his idea to Don later that same morning.
 
Jenna: Again, Lois is a person who has less power relative to Paul Kinsey. And how does he treat her?
Just like how he treated Achilles.
So Joan was right. He is a phony.
 
Steve: Yeah, and I think we talked about it back when Joan was sort of disemboweling him, and it felt a little cruel on Joan's part.
Starting to think he got his just desserts from Joan.
 
 
Jenna: Across the office, Lane is practicing his speech for the anniversary party with Mr. Hooker.
It's not that great, but of course, John tells him: Very rousing, Sir.
 
Steve: I love Lane's response. Hitler rousing or Churchill rousing? It's so funny.
 
Jenna: And then the Brits call to check on the party status,
and when Lane tells him that Bert won't be there, they insist he comes.
They want all the flowers in the vase, they say.
 
It turns out Sterling Cooper is for sale and they want buyers, so they need the party to be a success.
 
  Lane protests that he reduced staffing and raised revenue by 22%. So the Brits should be happy with Sterling Cooper, but instead they see it as a good opportunity to sell.
 
And you do wonder why they bothered to buy them. They said they wanted a New York advertising presence, and it's been less than a year.
Maybe the Brits need cash.
 
Steve: Private equity has been a more recent rise in significance in the economy.
But if you look at that model in modern times, it's very much about you buy things, you turn them around, you hack the costs, jack up the margins, and then you flip them.
 
So you're in, you're out. The timeframes can vary.
So given the success they've had with the turnaround of Sterling Cooper, perhaps it's just a great time to liquidate this investment and use the funds for some other adventure they've got planned.
 
I think the key point here is that guys like Mr. Ford and St. John, they're looking at a vast empire, and Sterling Cooper is just one little piece of it and can be bought or sold on a whim.
 
What I love about Jared Harris's performance in this scene is we can really see his entire world starting to crumble at this revelation, because Lane is a product of that organization.
 
So in the event of a sale, Lane is sticking with the seller, and would be out of his position in New York City and then potentially right back to the horror he had at the thought of having to work in Mumbai.
 
Jenna: Yes. But Lane doesn't say anything when he hangs up, and he doesn't tell anybody in the office about this.
 
As you say, the Brits were ready to send Lane to India, so he has got to be really uneasy about what's next for him with the sale of Sterling Cooper.
 
And of course, we as viewers have some anxiety about that as well.
Or, spoiler, we would have anxiety, except I think we're kind of looking forward to a particular episode.
 
But on first watch, definitely,
you know how much upheaval the initial sale to the Brits has caused.
So now you're thinking, oh, oh, it's going to get a lot worse and we're going to break the band up.
 
 
Steve: From here, we go to a scene where Betty is calling Henry's office. He's obviously pleased to hear from her. He clears everyone out of his office, and as soon as she has him on the phone,
she immediately asks him if he called her at home the prior evening.
 
Jenna: Henry shuts that down pretty quickly.
He is glad to hear from her, but he says, I'm not playing a game here.
If you're going to call me, call me, but don't make excuses.
 
It's very direct. And weirdly, I feel like it has to be reassuring to Betty in terms of her relationship with Henry.
It's there if she wants it, but all she says is goodbye.
 
Steve: Yeah. And in the DVD commentary,
Matt Weiner and Mike Uppendahl kind of hit this point that Betty is being juvenile here, and, you know, that she's acting like a teenager, and that mature Henry shuts her down.
 
I think that's a pretty harsh verdict on Betty, because she has reasons to think it could have been Henry who called.
It's not crazy inappropriate the way she calls Henry's office and investigates further.
 
I do see that Henry is a little frustrated because I think his view of this relationship or what's happening is different than Betty's.
But I just can't come out all critical that, oh, Betty's acting like a child any more than any number of other characters in this particular episode.
 
Jenna: That's always been my take about Betty, and I feel like the writers are unfair to her in their commentary, and I feel like the public is often, too.
 
It's gonna get harder to like Betty, I think, as time goes on.
But is this particular phone call. I mean, we didn't talk about how childish Paul was, but I think Paul's behavior was much more childish than Betty's in this episode, just for one example.
 
Steve: Yeah, totally agree. And again, I feel uncomfortable disagreeing with, you know, the writer and the creator of the show because, you know, who am I? I'm just some viewer, but I can't beat on Betty for this.
 
It's a world full of people who make suboptimal choices, or maybe do things that, on second thought, they might not handle the same way. I don't think this is such an egregious sin on her part.
 
And I like your point about, given that she deals with Don, who's never where he's supposed to be or where you think he is,
he's, again, quite a contrast because he's basically laying it all on the table here and saying, you know, if you want to talk, I'm ready to talk to you anytime, but I'm not playing any games.
 
You know, all my cards are on the table, and they're face up from Betty's world. That's not her way of playing the game. As much as she may be critical of Don Draper, it's not her way of playing the game either.
 
So I think Henry is a bit of an odd duck, you know, at least from her prior life experience to this point.
 
 
Jenna: Back at the office, Lane goes in to visit Bert's office about attending the 40th anniversary party.
He tries empathy.
The passage of time is painful, he says, and then he tries optimism.
Look to the future. Enjoy the fruit of your longevity.
 
Bert looks at him and he says,
you really pour the honey on, and then you lick it off.
I think that line gets more attention,
but I like what follows.
 
Lane manipulates him by saying,
you know, your absence will make everyone think you are ill.
And Bert doesn't deny that. The truth makes him laugh, and he says, who told you I was vain?
And Lane knows he's got him now, and he smiles.
Please, it's obvious, he says, and they chuckle together.
 
And Lane is not an account man, but he handles this for the Brits, and he stays loyal to them. He doesn't tell Bert about the impending sale.
 
Steve: Yeah, not only does he get Bert to attend an event that he wasn't planning to attend,
he has not raised any suspicion in Bert's mind.
 
And had he handled this more crudely, you know, someone like Bert is very sharp, he would have had his ears attuned and picked up on the idea of, why is it so essential that I attend?
It's a job well done by Lane Pryce.
 
 
Jenna: Back in Ossining, Betty is at home wearing heels, reading her book on the couch.
She's wearing plaid pants in brown and black with a gray shirt. No blue here.
 
She hears a clanking noise and goes to the dryer, where she gets keys out, small keys, like ones that would fit in a desk drawer.
 
She takes it to the office, and it turns in the lock, and she smiles in this moment of triumph.
She has been rattling this desk drawer for years now.
 
Steve: Yeah. And it's a treasure trove in that drawer, as we know.
So we have the Dick Whitman box of photos, and she looks through those and can see the labels and see that her Don Draper is in those pictures.
 
And these pictures are going back to the 1930s.
We also see the deed to the house in Long Beach, as well as the divorce of Don and Anna Draper.
 
Jenna: Yes. She ignores the cash sitting in the drawer and focuses completely on the box.
And these photos of Don are labeled Dick and Adam on the back. And you can see her with the two sets of dog tags with different names on them. She's confused.
 
She would have questions. And she still, of course, knows there's been infidelity.
But what undoes her, I think she sees this title to the house, followed by that divorce decree between Don and Anna Draper.
 
The camera doesn't show us the date,
but it would have been right before they got married, because, remember, Don visited Anna to ask her for the divorce after he got engaged to Betty.
 
 And January Jones is doing all this work without any dialogue.
Her face and her body language as she drops into the chair - it's really powerful. And I think she's underrated as a performer.
 
Steve: Yeah. Similar to Lane's world being rocked that Sterling Cooper was being sold, I feel like we have a parallel scene here where suddenly Betty Draper's perception of the man she's married to - the bottom's just fallen out of it.
 
Jenna: Viewers may disagree, but I think in Breaking Bad, despite the introduction of some interesting new characters in later seasons,
that show is less compelling once Skyler knows the truth about Walter White.
The tension in her not knowing is so powerful that once she's part of it, the whole essence of the story changes, and I think it's harder to keep it centered.
 
But here, once Betty knows about Don's truth,
the show is going to have to pivot, almost certainly, right.
Sorry. Spoilers.
 
And fortunately, I think Mad Men does this pretty well in terms of keeping up with Don's journey, although we could argue that Betty's storylines are less authentic or integral later on.
 
Steve: Yeah, there’s a ton of tension created in this instant.
 
And speaking of parallels,
back when Pete, you know, reads the Dick Whitman box and then we wonder how he's going to leverage that.
And it creates all that tension leading up to the meeting with Bert.
 
I feel I'm in a similar place here, you know, now it's obviously something she's going to have to take action based upon what she's seen. And the question is just when and how is she going to action.
 
 
Jenna: When Carla comes home with the kids, Betty sends them to the park and the library until dinner time so she can pull herself together again.
 
For somebody who's supposedly a child - she's not the most loving mother. It's not like, oh, I'm so happy to see you. You know, it's like, get out of here.
However, pulling herself together while she's facing this complete shake up of the world as she knows it, we can understand that for Betty.
 
Don isn't going home for dinner. He goes to Suzanne's, and it turns out Danny is still there.
Suzanne is going to drive him to Bedford in Massachusetts to his new job, which is a three hour drive one way.
Don offers to take him.
 
It feels like he's being a really good boyfriend to Suzanne here, but I think it feels to me like it's more about atoning for Adam than it is about being kind to Suzanne.
 
It's funny because at first Don couldn't even be bothered to say hello to this guy and now he's going to drive him to Massachusetts.
But it feels authentic though, because humans make contradictory decisions all the time.
I can believe that he is really feeling the Adam atonement sort of phase right now.
 
Steve: You know, I, I think it fits with his code of being a gentleman and doing that lift so that Suzanne doesn't have to.
 
Jenna: And Suzanne is teary, saying goodbye to Danny. She gives him $375.
He has a small suitcase. It's hard to imagine fitting everything you need for a whole new life in that one small suitcase.
 
Steve: Well, and even financially, you know, Suzanne doesn't make any money as a primary school teacher. So $375 is a large sum of money in 1963.
 
But we can see her love and commitment to her brother, that she's found him a job, giving him this money, doing everything in her power to try and set him up for success.
 
Which again, I think is quite a contrast to, as we know, Dick Whitman's behavior when his half brother Adam showed up.
 
 
Jenna: Back with Betty, she's got the box on the dining room table, and she's waiting on the couch with a glass of wine, trying to watch TV.
 
She is ready to have this confrontation with Don about his life in that box.
 
Steve: I love this scene too,
because I guess I really relate to that dynamic where you feel like you're ready to have a confrontation.
 
You've got all your facts ready to go, you've got your arguments marshaled, and now you're just waiting for the other party.
And for whatever reason, when that doesn't happen,
I don't know, I just. I feel like a loaded gun, right? The hammer's back, the round's in the chamber.
 
Suddenly it's like, you know, stand down, like they're not around.
You can't have this conversation yet.
So I feel the tension of the scene,
but I also feel the frustration of Betty that she's braced herself for this conversation and now it's delayed.
 
 
Jenna: So Don and Danny are on the road,
and eventually Danny reveals he isn't going to the new job.
 
He's defensive. He says Julius Caesar had epilepsy and he ran Rome.
And of course, Don just returned from there.
Don says things didn't turn out so well for Caesar.
And we're thinking, wait till you get home, Don.
I don't think things are going to turn out very well for you.
 
And Danny says he's 25 years old and he doesn't want to clean toilets for the rest of his life.
And Don pushes back and he says, you can still change things.
Don did. So that's true from his perspective. That's his color blue.
 
But Danny can't solve this by becoming somebody new and moving forward.
Not everything is fixed by that.
And then he explains what it's like for him with epilepsy.
 
Steve: Yeah, it's pretty brutal honesty, I think, from Danny.
It kind of puts a diamond bullet in the middle of Don Draper's self made man mentality, or view of sort of all it takes is, you know, the dedication and the effort and the hard work and you too, can get there.
 
I think Danny dismantles that pretty readily with just this gritty reality of, you know. And he says it in such a rude, direct way as, well, you know, that when I come to with piss in my pants, they look at me like I'm from another planet.
 
And I think you can almost see Don Draper . . . he hadn't really thought through how limiting something like this medical condition could be and how much of an obstacle it is for Danny.
 
So I love the brutality of this scene and the raw honesty of it,
that's what leads Don to give him some additional money and then also give him his card and say, hey, you know, if you need him, give him a call. That he could help him, both as a service to Suzanne, who loves her brother and wants him to succeed.
 
But I think it's also almost a concession by Don Draper that Danny's absolutely right in what he's saying.
 
Jenna: We don't see a lot of people with disabilities on this show. We saw the boy at Sally's birthday party who was using crutches after polio.
 
But this glimpse matters, especially if we start idealizing the past as a simpler, better time for Don Draper.
 
He can start over and get awards for his New York ad firm.
But Danny's choices, and Betty's and Carla's and Joan's, those are much more limited than they would be 40 years later.
 
And I agree with you.
It's significant not just that Don gives Danny cash.
He clearly sees Adam in this young man. He also gives him his card,
and he didn't do that for Adam.
He gave him money and then shut him out of his life.
 
And, you know, he tried not to even meet this guy at all. But now he opens the door for future contact,
and he says this line, I want you to remember, if something happens to you, your sister will never forgive herself.
 
And that's true.
But of course, he's talking about himself and Adam here.
 
Steve: I also like the end of the scene where Danny gets out of the car and departs without any expression of gratitude or thanks to Don.
And Don calls to him, you know, take care.
 
Which almost rings almost as hollow as the prior interaction between them where Danny called him on, you know, you don't even know me.
The honesty and lack of airs around Danny to the point of rudeness. He's so direct.
But I think it's interesting to see Don Draper in a circumstance where all those niceties have been removed.
 
Jenna: Okay. But I had to wonder, could Don not have dropped him at a motel or a train station or something?
He doesn't want anything to happen to him.
That he drops him off on the side of the road in the dark – that seemed . . .
 
Steve: Yeah, I'm gonna guess that's a production decision. Right. It's just easier.
Whereas to say, let's we gotta find a 1963 gas station or bus station or whatever, et cetera.
 
But, yeah, don't. Don't drop me in the forest. Don, please, can we. Can we get to the nearest town?
 
Jenna: But I thought this was so important for Don as well. It feels like it's about Danny and Suzanne.
But we never get a scene where Don processes all of what happened with Adam because it's a secret and he hasn't told anybody.
 
And diary scenes and voiceovers are so cliche, so of course Mad Men wouldn't do that.
So it comes out here.
What happened with Adam continues to affect Don and his choices, and we do need to see that revealing itself in some way, that he is carrying this, even though he doesn't ever speak about it.
 
 
Steve: We cut back to a quick scene of Betty smoking in the dark, sitting there with the box.
She's miserable. She's not looking forward to this conversation.
 
And it turns out her husband's not even coming home tonight, so the conversation's probably not even going to happen.
 
Jenna: And I agree with you about the way people set things up to be so dramatic.
Like, he's going to walk in now.
She's not on the couch now, she's actually at the dinner table.
And she's got an eye line to the door.
 
So she can picture he's going to walk in the door,
he's going to see her, and maybe he'll start to kiss her on the cheek and then he'll see the box and he'll stop.
 
And she's just imagining it going down in this really particular way.
And, yeah, he's not there.
Instead of going home to Betty, Don goes back to Suzanne’s.
 
Steve: And when he gets to Suzanne's, she's been drinking.
She's clearly worried and upset about her brother.
 
And as Don tries to get a bit romantic and physical,
she backs him off and says that she doesn't want that this evening.
And we can see that he doesn't try and twist her arm or force her into anything. He seems to respect that and holds her lovingly and seems to really get that she's in a tough place at the moment and that he needs to support her and give her space.
 
Which I think goes back to our earlier discussion about, you know, what is he getting out of this affair and what is the nature of the affair?
 
I mean, they are in the peak sort of fantasy, physical stage of it,
but he's putting her welfare first here. And I think being a good philanderer, or whatever we want to call him, a good adulterer.
 
Jenna: And he doesn't seem resentful about it.
He doesn't seem like she owes him something else, because he's made this concession to her, which I think is also Important because he is a bit of a user.
 
Steve: Yeah. There's nothing mercenary about his interaction with her in this scene. And it just comes across as very loving, Almost as if she was his wife.
 
 
Jenna: His actual wife is now in a white robe. The wine in her glass is gone. It's 2am and she puts the box back in the office desk door and locks it.
And she hangs up Don's blue robe back in his closet.
 
And now we're left to wonder, is she going to confront him about this at all? And it's all because his infidelity didn't bring him home last night.
 
Steve: Yeah, I don't think I wonder if she will ever confront him about this. I just think the plan that was laid out for the confrontation had to be suspended.
 
I guess I would be very surprised if she doesn't turn around and confront him with this. I think it's just too much, too explosive. It can't stay bottled up.
 
She's been drinking wine. And I love the end of this scene when she gets into bed and, you know, as she kicks her legs under the blanket, dumps the laundry basket off the bed.
So we can see she's in a pretty dark place at this point.
 
 
Jenna: The next morning at the office, Don is pulling a new shirt out of his super shirt drawer after a night at Suzanne's, just like we saw him do in season one after a night at Midge’s.
 
And this drawer is neat. It's full of clean white shirts for his pretty Don Draper persona, unlike that untidy locked drawer full of a messy past and getaway money.
 
And he gets on the phone and he calls Betty and he asks if she picked up his tux.
Of course she did. She manages all of that for him while he's out driving people to Framingham in the middle of the night.
And she tells him she's not sure she wants to go to the party.
 
Steve: He's completely oblivious here.
He's really on top of the world, right? He's getting this recognition.
His mistress's brother is now out of the picture.
Things are going great for him. He's back in his groove.
 
And he just seems completely oblivious to any concerns about Betty. So she doesn't feel well. He's not worried about that.
 
He's worried about can she get enough rest in the next seven hours so that she'll be ready to show off at the awards thing that evening.
And she just kind of passively goes along with it, thinking of that box that is a thousand miles away from his mind.
 
Jenna: When Don tells her all the clients and partners “are expecting me to show up with a glamorous, elegant Betty Draper, I want to show you off,”
if he were loving and attentive to her,
I think she would be so pleased to hear him say this, that he wants to show her off.
 
Remember in season two, she was crying on the way home about,
“This is what I meant when I said I wanted us to be a team.
I'm so happy.”
Even though she wasn't?
 
Because he's so absent emotionally, if not physically,
but as it is,
especially because now she knows he was married to somebody else and didn't tell her,
it is hard to imagine anything that Don could say that would please her right now, even with his impressive skills.
 
Steve: And we've got that recent situation in Rome when Conrad Hilton was obviously so impressed by her, and how much she was glowing at that recognition and how much she loves this.
 
So I think it really speaks to her emotional state here that this whole prospect holds no appeal to her, because it's built on a swamp and it's all sinking down into the mud, and there's just no saving it.
 
 
Jenna: Back at the office, Peggy stops by Paul's on her way to the Western Union meeting.
He says he's got nothing. And she says, oh, that's a relief. My idea is garbage, too.
I had something, he says. I lost it. I didn't write it down.
 
Steve: I love the nod here in the writing to just this reality for creatives. And you can tell they're all winking at each other about this because everyone has suffered this fate.
 
Peggy's first response is just, oh, yeah, I hate it when that happens,
you know?
Now they're both thinking about - the problem here is they don't really have anything good. They got a little chewed up last time by Don Draper, and they're going into the dragon's den here.
 
Jenna: Yes. Peggy has immediate empathy for Paul when he confesses this to her. She knows what it feels like to lose your good idea.
 
But I think for Peggy, it's less tragic. She's confident that she's got a well of great ideas popping up on a regular basis, and you just kind of have to feed the process and let it do its thing.
 
We haven't really seen that be true for Paul.
He hasn't brought that much to the creative table.
We can assume probably that he does occasionally, since they've kept him through a lot of staff cuts.
 
I was thinking maybe, though, because Don likes to be the genius,
if Paul were better, he might be an uncomfortable threat to Don.
And we know that it's all Don's credit when his team gives him ideas.
But would he hire somebody really good to make the work better?
 
We know from the future that Peggy would,
but probably Don wouldn't. So maybe Paul's mediocrity actually serves Don.
 
Steve: I was thinking of flip the positions of the two, and I think Paul would be triumphant and happy that the great Peggy Olsen didn't have an idea and was going in naked.
 
So the fact that she is empathetic and commiserates with him, and he is just all about himself and feeling sorry for himself, I think that's a real contrast between the two of them.
 
Jenna: I agree.
And Paul is berating himself.
He says, the Chinese say the faintest ink is better than the best memory.
And her line is great. She says,
come on, we've failed before.
 
And I think this is the perfect representation of the creative process, because you have to be willing to risk failure during the idea generation stage. It's just part of how it works.
 
Steve: Yeah. And what was Don Draper's line from the prior episode when he said, I need more ideas to reject?
 
So the idea that it is this meat grinder and you're just throwing things into it for them to be, you know, ground up really is a fundamental truth of it.
 
And again, I think just highlights the contrast between the two of them. Peggy is the professional. She's following the process.
I think Paul would be quite content to sit in that office and wallow as long as they would let him.
 
Jenna: Instead, they make their way to Don's office for this meeting.
And Peggy shares her idea, and it's not great.
 
Steve: Don then jumps on Paul for not having a good idea ready to go,
and Peggy actually defends him.
And this seems to catch Don off guard.
 
Paul then fesses up that he had a great idea but lost it.
And I think this is the wrong thing to say at this moment.
And this is just going to unleash Don Draper.
And I think that's Paul's expectation about what's going to happen next.
Don instantly recognizes that quandary and says he hates it when that happens.
 
Jenna: Yes, Don, who can be so cruel, he gets it for this right here. There's no color blue between them. They all see this the same way. They all know the pain of this condition of losing your idea.
 
But then the scene takes a turn.
Peggy remembers what Paul said a bit earlier, and turns it into a campaign on the spot.
Remember what you said about the faintest ink?
It's different if you send a telegram. It's permanent.
 
And Don looks at Peggy and smiles. And they have this on point shorthand. Now he looks at her and he says, you can't frame a phone call.
 
Kinsey looks at Peggy and he goes, my God.
He's envious. And he's horrified.
I don't know for sure. Is this the actual moment when he finally realizes that she's good at this?
 
It's not that Don treats her better because she's a woman,
or maybe because Paul Kinsey - he thinks she somehow planned this, and is pleased to have manipulated him into being the favorite because he assumes she's scorekeeping the way that he would.
 
Steve: I think it's a c, all of the above in that he's still jealous and insecure, but he also sees her brilliance and the ability of her to spontaneously come up with something.
 
Because that's when Draper piles on what Peggy said.
That's just that spontaneity and taking it up to the next stage or evolution of the idea.
 
And I just love the look on Paul's face in this scene because it is a combination. It's almost like the Grinch looking down at the Whos in Who-ville. It's just this swirl of emotions there.
 
And I think he does see both the substance of Peggy, and he's also got his lament about his own shortcomings and inability to deliver the same way.
 
 
Jenna: As they're walking out, Don says to Paul, see, it all works out.  Paul does not see it that way at all.
 
Steve: It's a great episode for Paul Kinsey.
 
 
Jenna: In the next scene, Betty is in the bathroom dressed for the party. She's gathering herself.
There's blue tile behind her, and her dress is blue with a white floral print.
 
She can hear Don calling to ask if she's ready. So she comes out and he says, “Look how pretty Mommy is.”
She gives him this fake smile.
 
This whole evening they're about to have - their whole life - it's fake. And now she knows it, even though she doesn't know everything.
 
Steve: And we've talked so much about Betty tried to satisfy herself with appearances.
And I think we really see the evolution of her where she's now, without a doubt, realized that appearances aren't enough.
She's got to have some substance there.
 
I love the formal gloves she's wearing.
Every bit as beautiful as she did in Rome, you know, so she's got the appearance, and everyone's going to see it and be in awe of her,
and it's completely hollow for her.
 
And it's a heartbreaking scene because, again, I think we can see Don's eagerness that this is going to be a night to celebrate. He's on top of the world.
Any portions of his world that concern Betty Draper are being washed into the sea.
 
Jenna: Yeah, when you were talking, I just thought how those long gloves are a bit like armor she's putting on for her evening.
 
 
This next sequence of scenes with couples in cabs on their way to this Sterling Cooper 40th anniversary party could only be improved if we also got to see Pete and Trudy, but we don't.
 
Peyton List as Jane only has three words in the whole episode,
but they're pretty great ones in the cab.
 
Steve: Yeah. It's a really fun scene as Roger's mother confuses Jane with Margaret.
And then when Roger corrects her, asks if Mona knows that Roger has married Jane.
And then we get to Jane's three words. Yes, she knows.
 
Jenna: And we can see that Roger's mother is confused about a couple of things. She talks about how they passed the street where the Waldorf Astoria is.
Roger reminds her it moved. The Waldorf Astoria in New York was built on Fifth Avenue in 1893, and it moved to Park Avenue in 1931, so it had been moved for a long time.
 
In the next cab, Embeth Davitz and Jared Harris, they are so great together.
He's obviously worried about his future, and losing what he's been building in New York, while she is thrilled about returning to London.
 
And they want opposite things,
but they don't say that. She tries to pretend that he would rather be in London, too.
She says, “Take comfort in the fact that we'll return to England.”
 
And there's no comfort in that for him.
Being away from Ford and St. John is much more empowering and professionally fulfilling to Lane.
 
Steve: Yeah. And it's all the subtle little acting touches here where,
you know, Lane's wife is trying to suppress her glee at this news that there's a high likelihood of going back to England, and Lane's whole world has been destroyed.
 
And really, his parallel is probably Betty Draper at this point.
Right.
He does not want to go back to that society and world that he loathes,
and he doesn't have a better alternative.
So he. He's completely blue.
 
And she, on the other hand, is. Is Just been handed a giant gift.
Even when she's grousing in the cab about there's always traffic here.
It's just another perfectly accurate take on New York City traffic and just another reason for her to hate it.
 
Jenna: To her credit, she does ask, what will happen to the Americans? And Lane says they'll go to the highest bidder.
 
Steve: Our third couple is Don and Betty. In the car, Betty looks miserable, and Don is oblivious and going over his speech cards.
 
Jenna: They look the part. She's got a fur around her shoulders, and he's very handsome, but they're not even looking at each other.
 
Steve: Yeah, it's really two solitudes in the back of that car.
 
 
Jenna: At the awards, we see Roger, and he is great at this introduction of Don. He's a charmer.
 
He knows just how to make this look and sound good, yet natural.
Lane doesn't do that. We saw that when he was doing his speech. But we can see Roger doing this. This is his gift. He makes it look very easy,
even though we know he's resentful of Don.
 
Steve: And the speech is witty, but it's also got substance and talks about his awards, his personal qualities.
 
The part for me that was interesting is when he rattles off the various identities of Don, and he says, you know, war hero, creative director,
father, friend, partner, husband.
 
And as viewers, we know the backstory on all of these things,
and you start to think, gosh, how many of them are even true?
 
And I would say, you know, creative director, I think we can tip the hat there to Don Draper,
but as we dig into some of the other ones, does he really have any friends, and is he very good as a husband?
 
And it really gets with this recurring Mad Men theme about appearances and then reality diverging.
And as much as, you know, I enjoy Roger's speech,
I'm just thinking, man, there are a lot of question marks and asterisks next to all these things he's saying about Don Draper.
 
Jenna: And as the man of the hour stands up,
he leans over and kisses Betty's cheek. And Betty is clapping along with the others.
 
But unlike at the Veterans Day gathering at the club, she's not beaming with pride at him.
She's doing the obligatory applause.
 
Don strikes me as being really fake. As he quiets the crowd, he says, you know, please, please, I'm very honored.
 
Don Draper does not like to draw attention to himself.
Here, he's so pleased and trying to act modest. So it seems like maybe a moment that's not quite true to his character.
 
But I think it's very usefully portrayed here because we're seeing him through Betty's eyes instead of an adoring audience. He's a huckster, a fraud, and he's smiling as others applaud him.
And she's in on the truth.
So it doesn't cut to black on Don's award. It cuts to black on Betty's face.
 
Steve: And I'll also say, you know, in some of the other occasions where Don Draper is having praise heaped upon him and he almost seems uncomfortable with it, you know, like being the war veteran and the rest, and his daughter looking at him.
 
And this is one where I do get this sense there is a little bit of discomfort and modesty from Don Draper,
but I feel like he's buying into this celebration of himself as much as he ever does.
 
Not to say he's 100% buying into it, but it just feels like a much greater percentage, perhaps, than a lot of these other situations, which is obviously ironic because we know just how problematic the foundations are of what he's built up and his identity.
 
Yet here he seems to be at this professional high point where the entire world is toasting him.
 
Jenna: It is so notable because we've never seen him enjoying adulation from a crowd before. He doesn't - he typically avoids that.
 
But I think because we're seeing Betty watching him accept this, and it's her perspective.
Here's this fraud enjoying accolades from people, when she really knows the truth.
 
It's such genius writing, because when I see it, I think, oh, this is an inconsistency in the writing that he's performing it this way.
And yet from Betty's point of view,
she sees him as, of course, he's scooping up all of this praise because he's just this fakey fakerson guy.
 
Whereas if it were - if the camera were telling us more from Don Draper's story, I think we would probably see more of that discomfort and more of that inner dis - ease with the truth of himself.
 
So with this episode, overall, it's not a standout the way that Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency or The Wheel or something,
but it certainly seems like a critical episode.
 
Did you feel like it was a standout to you, or did you feel like it kind of blends in, or what was your take?
 
Steve: I think it's a really critical episode from a plot perspective because we've got the sale of Sterling Cooper.
We've got the discovery of the Dick Whitman box. So to me,
I really feel, if you think of the plot, there's now a big fork coming, and we're gonna start moving down that path.
 
And it's a very crucial episode.
I find myself really enjoying it from the perspective of not worrying about the destination, but just paying attention to the route that we're taking to get there.
 
I will also say it's only in discussing it today that I'm really appreciating how much I enjoyed Paul's arc through this particular episode.
 
Jenna: I'm so grateful for the Paul and Peggy storyline because there would be no comic relief. There's so much tension.
 
And the pacing and the structure of this episode is somewhat unique for Mad Men, too, because most of the scenes aren't very long. We get a lot of cuts from one place to the other.
 
And it's not quite the ticking clocks in High Noon, for example, but it is building this tension from Betty at home to Don at Suzanne's, back to Betty at home and the laundry back to Don with Suzanne,
 
and the tension with Lane and the company being sold, and Bert's reflection back, and Roger's resentment, and then how they cover it up.
 
There's a lot happening, but it's also in very, very short pieces,
and it just sort of the pendulum swings back and forth between these different perspectives.
You can kind of feel yourself holding your breath with tension,
so it's doing its work really well.
 
 
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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, 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.