Mad Men C to Z S4E4: The Rejected Rewatch Podcast Transcript

This is the full, human-edited transcript of the Mad Men C to Z rewatch podcast for Season 4, Episode 4: The Rejected.
You can listen to the full episode here, and visit our episode page with more details, and offer your insights on our Double Dip questions.

Mad Men C to Z The Rejected 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: Welcome to Mad Men C to Z Season 4, Episode 4, The Rejected. This episode was written by Keith Huff and Matthew Weiner, and directed by John Slattery. This is his directorial debut.
This episode takes place in late February of 1965.
 
Steve: The episode kicks off with Don and Roger working on a speakerphone with Lee Garner Jr. from Lucky Strike.

 
There's a lot of different things happening whilst they're supposed to be engaged in this conversation with Lee Garner, we have characters entering the scene and asking them questions unrelated to the phone call.
 
We have Don asking the secretary why his bottle of booze is empty and she has a rather snappy reply because he drank it all. And then we have Peggy and Faye coming in wanting to talk about a focus group on Ponds, and basically Don and Roger take turns ignoring Lee Garner to deal with whatever else is happening in the room.
 
Jenna: The call with Lee Garner Jr. centers around new regulations regarding cigarettes and advertising.
 
One of the first things new watchers of Mad Men comment on is how everybody is always smoking and drinking on the show,
and it's so omnipresent that I don't even notice it during rewatches anymore.
 
The characters smoked herbal cigarettes in Mad Men, which are made from marshmallow root and rose petals, and according to interviews - we'll link those in the show notes - although they were healthier than smoking nicotine, they weren't very pleasant.
And apparently the indoor set was full of fake smoke most of the time.
According to Jon Hamm, he smoked 75 herbal cigarettes in the pilot alone.
 
Steve: It's interesting, in the conversation, there's no thought about the fact of why are there restrictions on tobacco advertising or what harm may this product be causing the consumers of it.
 
It's all just about the nitty gritty of circumventing these restrictions and being able to hit their target audience with ads that aren't contravening the new restrictions.
There's no consideration of the ethics around this product, certainly not from Lee Garner, but not from the Roger and Don side of it either.
 
Jenna: During the call, Faye and Peggy come in about the strategy for Pond's Cold Cream.
Faye compliments Peggy's idea for her marketing strategy, and it feels like they have a really good working vibe together.
 
Steve: Peggy's mention of a ritual made me think of her popsicle ad.
In this case, it seems like Peggy's going back to that creative well,
it seems like Don is interested in that.
 
But what I like about Faye's character here is I think she wants a focus group to confirm this intuition that, okay, if it is a ritual, then let's run the focus group, and it'll reinforce that suspicion, and then they'll know they're on the right track in terms of a campaign for Ponds.
 
Jenna: Roger ducks out of the call to get with Lane and tell Pete they have a client conflict. Now that Ponds is on board, they're going to have to resign the Clearasil account, which, of course they got from Pete's father in law.
 
Pete puts up a fight, but Roger insists. He says, throw yourself on the grenade, and he reminds him he's a partner now.
 
I share Pete's frustration about this, just like I did with Don and Mohawk, and with Don and the Penn Station project. You put in the time and the effort and then out of the blue you're asked to call it all off.
 
Steve: I do to some extent, but at the same time, it's not that Pete really did anything to earn Clearasil, I guess, other than marrying Trudy.
 
She was the one who basically laid it out to her father like, hey, you need to give that account back to Pete because they're, you know, setting up their own firm.
 
I understand Pete's frustration here, but it comes with the territory and you've got to look after your bigger clients.
Which makes it all the more ironic that Roger's giving that pitch to Pete in the midst of a scene where both he and Don are basically tag teaming Lee Garner Jr, completely uninterested in whatever Lee's complaining about.
 
You know, it sounds like he's whining about the charges that he's seeing there. It's not very respectful and it doesn't appear very professional or focused for a firm which, as we found out in prior episodes, represents more than two thirds of their firm's business.
I mean, every - the sun rises and sets with Lucky Strike.
 
Jenna: And it's a problem that Lee is asking accounting questions, and starting to realize that Lucky Strike is funding most of their other work.
 
Roger and Don are still trying to get off the call with Lee, and finally they invent a fire they see by Radio City to be able to hang up.
 
Just as much as I felt Betty was trapped by Don in the first season with no way out from under his expectations, I feel that way for SCDP with Lucky Strike.
You know they can't keep going on the way they are,
but you can see why it feels impossible to do anything differently without destroying everything you've worked for here.
 
Steve: And I'd also say there's a strong element of danger because we know what a bully Lee Garner Jr. is.
So as Lee becomes cognizant of just how vital Lucky Strike is to everything, we as viewers know, Lee Garner won't hesitate for one second to throw his weight around, and squeeze, extract, and bully them for whatever it is he wants.
 
Lee Garner Jr. Isn't the kind of person you want to have that sort of power over you.
 
Jenna: As the call ends, Allison notices Don’s photo of him with Anna on his desk.
It's the only photo he's ever displayed there, and she takes a minute to ask, who is that?
 
Don describes Anna as a dear friend.
Allison recognizes that letter came from California, so it does feel like she's trying to piece his relationship status together a little bit.
 
 
Steve: The next scene cuts to Pete going into his office and irritated about the circumstances around Clearasil and Ponds.
Harry's in there sitting at Pete's desk eating a sandwich.
 
Before Pete can even launch into his own tirade or complaint about his circumstance,
Harry's talking at him about Ken Cosgrove and how things are going for Ken over at Geyer.
 
Jenna: It turns out Ken is getting married to a rich girl whose father is the CFO of Corning. Harry invites Pete to go to lunch with them, saying Ken always asks about him.
 
Even though Pete won, sort of, because he was chosen to go with SCDP and Ken wasn't, it feels like Pete is reluctant to go. He's just not good at being friends for the sake of friendship.
 
Steve: Yeah, Matthew Weiner in his commentary says, you know, we're seeing the old Pete in this scene, you know, full of bitterness and angst,
and it really does feel like that sort of throwback to what we've come to expect out of Pete.
 
Everything's a competition. Everything is how it serves himself.
So he can't have any joy or interest in anything that is not directly related to himself.
 
Jenna: We need to start tracking this, but Harry's references to LA style and LA people is going to, I think, be a continued element here. Harry makes a reference to Jean Seberg shirts. Even though he has a really small amount of screen time, he's going to drop names from LA all over the place.
 
Jean Seberg was known for French New Wave style, and she made films in France and Hollywood. She was also a target of slanderous FBI stories due to her support of the NAACP, Native American school groups, and the Black Panther Party.
 
Steve: We can see that Harry's a bit of a lech and he's enthralled with the west coast lifestyle. So here again, it's probably not something Pete is all that interested to hear about, because Pete's not partaking in that lifestyle.
 
Jenna: At the end of the scene, Pete bumps his head against the column in his office. I feel like maybe everybody has had a moment like that at work.
 
 
In the next scene, Peggy gets on the elevator and sees a woman with an envelope stamped Rejected, an obvious reference to the episode title.
This character is Joyce. She introduces herself as an assistant photo editor at Life magazine.
 
She's played by Zosia Mamet. You may recognize her from TV series like Girls, or The Flight Attendant, or the film The Kids Are All Right.
 
She's also David Mamet's daughter. He's written for lots of TV and movies, including The Untouchables, and About Last Night.
 
 
Steve: It seems that Joyce is flirting with Peggy in the elevator. Although all work, all business Peggy may not necessarily seem to notice it.
 
Jenna: I like this conversation, because Peggy seems like she's much more true to herself than when she was trying to fit in the way Joan expected her to, or how she was trying to be when she first met her roommate Karen.
It doesn't feel like she has to work so hard to get along with Joyce.
 
Steve: Joyce seems to be into her.
And I like also that there's this emphasis on the youth, right? It's, you know, two young people meeting in the elevator.
 
Because so often it seems to me that Peggy's youth is somehow suppressed or ignored in her interactions with the ad agency.
And it's outside the agency that it seems that she's perceived as what she actually is, which is a young woman in a time of big social change and a lot of sort of women's lib, and just opportunities for interactions that don't follow the old traditional pathways.
 
Jenna: Joyce is carrying a batch of nude photos which she shows to Peggy.
And Peggy says, oh, I admit I'd be shocked if she saw them published.
 
I think in this episode, Peggy and Pete are being set up to be contrasted with each other more and more with their diverging paths.
 
So it makes sense that Pete would be really awkward about lunch with an old colleague, while here, Peggy is meeting a new friend in the elevator who says, okay, Peggy, 37th floor?
So it looks like they're going to see each other again.
 
 
Steve: The next scene has Pete meeting with Trudy's dad to give him the bad news that they're going to need to drop the Clearasil accounts.
 
Tom is a notorious big mouth in the series,
and this comes to the fore pretty quickly in this conversation as he lets slip out of the bag that Trudy's pregnant,
and then immediately sees from the look on Pete's face that she hadn't informed Pete yet that she was pregnant.
 
Jenna: When they first meet, and Pete is preparing to talk to Tom about this difficult news, he's spouting all these platitudes and evading the point.
And we get that you can't really blame him for not wanting to tell Tom about this, but he has this facade. It's total confidence instead of vulnerability, like, you know, oh, this is really hard, and I'm sorry.
 
So it seems clear that in this relationship, Tom is always a client he's selling to, much more than a family member Pete trusts.
So when he reveals this personal, incredible thing,
and Pete is so genuine . . .
 
You're watching Pete take the news, not sure how he's going to feel about it, because we know he was always more reluctant than Trudy was to have a baby. And they also decided not to adopt.
 
So it felt like, oh, he's content to climb the corporate ladder,
but in this moment, he's smiling, he's happy, it seems like he's much more ready to embrace this path for himself now. It feels like an honest reaction.
 
He says very little. Maybe. Maybe that's a thing, you know? How do you know when Pete Campbell is lying? Because his mouth is moving.
 
But he - he does have the capacity to feel joy in a way we can't really ever see from Don.
And we rarely see it in Pete because he's so busy keeping score or putting other people down.
But it's here. It's here in this moment.
 
Steve: And I think it also reveals that earlier when Pete was saying, well, maybe we don't need to have a kid. Why should we?
 
The joy we see from his character in this moment suggests that all of that was just trying to protect himself from the pain and hurt and angst around not being able to have a child with Trudy.
 
Because now once that's happened, suddenly all the excuses and blocks and the rest are removed and we just see that emotional response. And as you mentioned, it is just pure joy and thrill at the prospect.
 
Which is interesting in contrast to all the things Pete has said about having children up until this point when he realizes he will be a parent.
 
Even the one child he has had previously had, you know, he was blocked out from that.
So there was no joy or involvement. It was something that happened without his knowledge. That he found out after the fact and was just left with the ashes in his mouth of what might have been.
 
Jenna: I never thought about Pete making up his discomfort about having a baby. I always accepted that as being real and maybe you're correct, but I'm not sure I buy that.
 
I think we've seen Pete be very selfish and very self centered and I feel like his joy at this is more he's a partner now, this is kind of the next thing that you do at this stage of life.
And he's letting himself be open to the reality now that it's happened.
 
But I do think there was some honesty in what he expressed to Trudy. You know, would it be so bad? Could we keep going on vacations and go out at night for dinner and not have the, the constraints that a baby brings?
So I think because he's so self absorbed, I think that was his reality and maybe now it's just that he's changed.
 
Steve: I do enjoy the comment by Tom to Pete at the start, when Pete's beating around the bush about the Clearasil account,
Tom says to him, you are some kind of high wasp, all right, referring to the obfuscation from Pete.
 
That's an interesting observation, because it shows us that Tom is well aware of Pete's status and breeding as a Dyckman Campbell.
It's a funny dynamic because typically the father in law would be sort of in a senior position.
 
But there's a bunch of sexist comments about additional money for a male child versus a female, and then of course Tom blurts out that Trudy's mother has had her uterus removed.
Again, probably not something he should share at the bar with his son in law.
 
Jenna: Tom orders champagne and insists that Pete can't tell Trudy that he found out the news.
Pete never does tell Tom about the Clearasil account. He just makes a comment that they they're putting new creative on it, and they kind of brush that aside.
 
 
Steve: It sets us up nicely for the next scene which is Pete arriving home at the apartment.
It's obvious that the cat isn't going to stay in the bag here.
And we're left wondering, you know, how's Pete going to react to Trudy, is he going to be angry because of how he found this news out,
or does the good news outweigh any frustration or irritation about how he was informed?
 
Quickly, that resolves, and we see that the good news is outweighing any frustration.
And we see the two of them enjoying each other and enjoying this good news together. It's completely eclipsed any other petty grievances or frustrations.
 
Jenna: I don't really like the misdirect when he comes home and he barks Trudy's name, and she comes out looking really guilty and teary.
 
But then when they come together,
Pete says, I don't care how I heard.
And he's so delighted. And he says, I want to pick you up and spin you around, but I don't want to damage anything in there.
I'm not sure that's how science works, Pete.
 
But what a lovely moment for Trudy, who has wanted to have a baby for so long. And she says, I'm so happy you're happy.
 
Steve: It does seem to be a moment of genuine partnership between the two of them, which we've seen on a number of topics.
 
And then later in this scene,
when Pete lets drop about the Clearasil account and the conflict, it's hilarious when Trudy says she can tell her father, because he feels so guilty about having spilled the beans.
And to quote her words here, she says he'll never even feel the knife go in.
 
Jenna: I like how Pete starts mansplaining to Trudy about the business issue, saying there's another product that's similar.
And Trudy goes, a conflict, Peter, I'm familiar with the term.
 
And he realizes that would have been the perfect moment to tell Tom about dropping Clearasil. But he says he was so bowled over. And I think we kind of like Pete for that.
 
I also want to point out that this is a bit of a call out to Peggy, too, in this scene, because Pete says, it feels much different than I expected about having this news.
 
Pete mostly only thinks about himself and his feelings,
so he's going to talk about that. Although Trudy is the one pregnant who went to the doctor with concerns, we're going to start with Pete.
 
And Trudy says, how would you know what this feels like?
Of course, that reminds the audience that this is not Pete's first baby.
 
 
Steve: The next scene is back at the office,
where we've got Allison joining the girls in the conference room.
It's the focus group for Ponds.
And prior to going into the focus group, we see Faye interacting a bit with Peggy and Don.
 
And we can see just how much thought and manipulation goes into this by Faye, so that as she presents to the focus group,
they've got the misspelling of her name, and this sort of sense of, oh, I've been overlooked. And, you know, now is the time for us overlooked people to share our opinions.
 
All of this is mission focused and designed to tee up people and get them to express their opinions.
So I think we get a real sense here of just how professional Faye is and how good she is at these focus groups and the psychology of selling, which is where she hangs her hat.
 
Jenna: Faye also hands Peggy her wedding ring to hold during the session, which, of course, is another example of her being manipulative, so that she can be more relatable to the single women in the focus group.
 
To back up a little bit before that scene, Joan and Caroline come to get Allison, who asks why Joan doesn't have to go in.
 
And Joan gets a little snippy with her saying, hey, Allison, you're getting paid for this.
And Caroline, Roger's secretary, adds, oh, they don't want us. We're old married women.
That's definitely not a box Joan wants to be dropped into.
 
I love this kind of moment on the show where people casually try to define you in ways you would never want to define yourself.
I hate it in real life, but it's kind of a relief to see it depicted here on screen.
 
Steve: Yeah. And we can see how this, the label, one person is completely comfortable with the label and self describing them, whereas we know the chafing or the friction it's generating and applying it to that other person who doesn't want to be seen that way.
 
Which, again, I love that writing because it does feel very true. Don't label me. Let me assign my own labels.
And then we commit the same sin ourselves in the other direction.
 
 
Jenna: There's a shot of Joan opening the curtains to the conference room.
The last time she did this was a performance for Roger,
and both Joan and Peggy were on the other side of the glass for Belle Jolie.
This time, Peggy's one of the higher ups doing the observation.
But Joan is just ejected from her office while this is happening.
 
And Freddy also makes a remark about not having an office, while both Don and Peggy do, of course.
 
And Peggy's office doesn't have a column in the middle of it like Pete's.
It's a really good reminder of how much things have changed for Peggy from the pilot.
 
Steve: As they look through the glass, we can see the focus group rolling out and Faye's working her magic, you know, sharing some what seemed like personal details about routine.
 
We can see the various secretaries starting to show share their points of view and their own personal experience.
 
Jenna: As they talk. Peggy takes Faye's ring and tries it on her ring finger and looks at it, and Don catches her.
 
It's a strong moment because the focus group is testing an idea that's not about getting married, and the person championing it is part of that demographic, and she's sitting there taking a moment to imagine herself being married.
But I don't see this as hypocritical. Both things are true.
 
Like she told Freddy, she does want to get married.
It's just not all she wants, and advertising seems to tell her that it should be.
 
Steve: I also like the fact that Don catches Peggy and Peggy's a little embarrassed to be caught. But I agree. It feels to me like Peggy's just test driving this potential future path for herself, which,
to your point, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, and it's probably a very common ambition of a lot of people.
But that's not how Peggy wants Don Draper to see her.
 
Jenna: It's also perfect that Freddy exemplifies the old fashionedness that Peggy accused him of having, saying,
can you imagine your financial future’s in the hands of a room full of 22 year old girls?
So both of them had a little bit right.
 
And as Peggy watches Faye work with the focus group, Peggy's unabashedly impressed and she says she's amazing.
I love that she sees and values the skill Faye shows here.
 
Notice that Don is skeptical of anything that threatens his ability to be in charge. But Peggy is very open to that talent and she's not afraid to say so.
 
Steve: I get the sense that as much as he's somewhat hostile to the idea that this focus group of young people can tell him anything about where they need to go with their campaign,
I think he can't help but recognize Faye knows her stuff.
 
I also like his chafing at Freddy's comment about, you know, their futures being in the hands of 22 year olds.
He can't resist saying back to Freddy, not mine,
as if somehow his future isn't at the whim of this new generation that's going to sweep through American consumerism.
 
Jenna: Megan gets actual lines for the first time in this scene, saying she's “of French extraction,” and describing her mother's skincare routine.
 
Clara, Pete's new secretary, is played by Alexandra Ella, and Dorothy or Dotty is played by Abby Miller. Not that dance one. Abby Miller may be recognizable from projects like The Sinner, Justified, and Home Before Dark.
 
And Dotty has this really interesting set of lines. She describes a time when she was putting on night cream and her boyfriend laughed at her. They broke up, she says, looking sad.
 
I don't know what he noticed, but it wasn't me I guess.
Which is the perfect encapsulation of Alison's complaint with Don.
He doesn't really see her.
 
So Allison speaks up. She says it's worse when they notice sometimes and she won't continue. She looks up at the window where Don is sitting behind the glass looking super uncomfortable.
 
He doesn't know her, so he doesn't trust she's not going to tell her whole story here, but he gets to hide, while they all watch Dotty confessing something really painful.
 
Steve: This focus group is going to get really sad.
 
 
Back in Pete's office we see Pete filling out a life insurance application.
So clearly this new dependent baby is on his mind. As Lane pops in and asks if he's updated Tom on the conflict with Clearasil,
Pete confesses that he hasn't.
 
And Lane emphasizes the point that Roger has already told Ponds that it has been attended to, so time is pressing, and this needs to be looked after.
 
Jenna: Pete had a good reason for not telling his father in law, and he shares it with Lane, whose immediate reaction is to say well now, that should take the sting out of all this.
And even though that line definitely has shades of St. John, to his credit, Lane does pause and self correct.
 
He says I apologize, it's the very best news that you're going to be a father. And he congratulates him.
 
And when I look at Lane and how he handles that and Peggy,
they're both very work focused and sometimes a bit socially inept.
And I wish they had some scenes together in this series, because that would be very interesting to see how they got along.
But we don't really get very much of them.
 
Steve: And at the risk of fanboying on the writing, I just love this writing here because it feels so real to me. People are wrapped up in their own concerns, their own world, and they don't much care about other people's affairs.
 
We see that honest reaction of not caring from Lane, which he then catches himself through, you know, manners and social expectations. He circles back to address it, but we know where where he sits emotionally on this.
 
He doesn't care that Pete's about to be a new father. He needs Clearasil notified that there's a conflict and they're out.
And that's where his head is at.
 
Jenna: Back at the focus group, Dotty is going through Kleenexes, remembering her ex boyfriend and how he did or didn't look at her.
 
Freddy, behind the glass, wonders, how the hell did this get so sad so fast? I think he might be eating a sandwich here.
 
All these real feelings are just for money with a side of entertainment. And we know that is true. It's advertising. But still, it's so hard to watch her pain.
And Freddy isn't touched by it. This is just a regular thing that happens every day.
 
Steve: It's almost like the emotion is seeping through the glass window into the darkened room. So inside the focus group, we've got people opening their hearts. You know, Faye has been successful in getting them to open up, and they're sharing these hard, emotional truths about their lives.
 
And inside the observer room, as you mentioned, Freddy eating a sandwich and not in anyway, seeing these as human beings sharing these painful secrets of their lives.
But we do see it seeping into Don Draper, because he knows he's part of this, at least in terms of what Allison's referring to, vaguely, that the rest won't realize it's about Draper.
 
But even as you mentioned, Peggy feels and notices it. And I'm not sure if it's how much of its concern, and how much of it is just a sense of responsibility, but clearly she's being emotionally affected by what she's hearing in this room.
 
Jenna: Dotty goes on to say, she and her boyfriend aren't married, so what am I?
And this comment makes Alison start crying.
Dotty goes on, I feel like it doesn't matter what I see. It matters what he sees.
Of course, we can certainly see how that applies to Allison and Don.
And then Dotty continues, I feel like I gave him everything and I got nothing.
And that makes Allison break, and she leaves the room.
 
And Freddy, ever sympathetic, goes, I could see she was gonna break.
 
Megan offers to go after Allison, but Faye doesn't want her to go.
So she says, oh, if she wanted to be around us, she would have stayed.
 
And Peggy, behind the glass, turns to Don and says, I feel kind of responsible. Do you mind? Meaning she's going to go talk to Allison.
 
So Peggy and Megan both have a sense of kindness or caring about this person who's expressing these emotions.
And Peggy thinks she's responsible, because this marketing strategy is her idea.
 
But Don knows he's “kind of” responsible for this, not Peggy.
He just sits there sitting next to Freddy, who goes, my strategy was right. They just want to get married.
And of course, the whole theme of this scene goes back to the title, The Rejected here.
 
Steve: And I would also call out Faye. In this moment, Faye's got a focus group to run, and the fact that it's gone off the rails for one individual who's weeping, and now a second individual who's not only weeping, but leaving the focus group - she doesn't want the whole thing to unravel.
 
So her professional requirements trump any personal concerns she might have about Allison's well being. So she's focused on keeping the group together and not letting Allison start the unravel of the entire thing.
 
Jenna: I agree with you. I think that's definitely the intent for her character.
But I do think in terms of realism for a focus group, they have six women, two of whom don't say anything.
Megan gives something that's not very personal.
Clara talks to Dotty and reassures her a little bit.
And Allison basically tries to avoid being there.
 
So in terms of getting really good data,
they have pretty much a data set from one person.
So I don't know that it's really very scientific.
 
Steve: Well, and I think it's pretty lousy for Don and Peggy, who wanted to, I think, nurture this idea of the ritual and that there's something more to this. And just again, Freddy flatly stating he was right, they just want to get married.
 
But I think just creative Peggy and creative Don would also be irritated by that reality, because they are trying to tap into people's yearnings in a new novel way that will take them to a different place.
 
I love the comedy in the midst of what is simultaneously, I think, some touching pain that's revealed by a couple minor characters.
 
 
Jenna: I really like the next scene when Peggy goes to find Allison and leads her into Don's office, asking if she's all right.
She reassures her, “People cry in focus groups all the time.
There's no reason to be embarrassed.”
And Peggy is very sympathetic.
 
Steve: Allison makes a point of saying, “He turns the charm one minute and then yanks it away.” It's clear to Peggy that she's talking about Don Draper here.
 
Jenna: Allison goes on telling Peggy,
“I realize you must have gone through everything I've gone through.”
 
And Peggy, who was completely caring and sympathetic, looks at this sobbing woman and is so irritated with her.
And she snaps, “Your problem is not my problem!”
 
It's so unkind. But it's also so Funny. Peggy has mentioned how other people in the office give Don credit for Peggy's work, and she doesn't have patience for people imagining she slept her way to the top.
 
And she also knows how Don is, so she's impatient with Allison for expecting anything else.
So she went in to comfort Allison, and she ends the scene saying, “Honestly, you should just get over it.”
 
This is so unfair of Peggy, who slept with Pete and kept hoping for something more and different from him through most of the first season.
 
Of course, she doesn't want to say that to Allison or relate to her in that way, but I do wish she had found more compassion in this scene. I mean, she's been there before.
And you could argue Pete is a lot less charming than Don.
 
Steve: I don't disagree, but again, it feels so real to me. It's her complete and total rejection of this role or history that Allison is assigning to her, which, in fact, Peggy's absolutely correct.
 
You know, she hasn't gone through this with Don Draper at least.
And it just seems so human that in that moment, her denial and rejection of Allison's assertion to her trumps any considerations about the emotional well being of Allison.
 
 
Jenna: Peggy returns to the group and Faye comes in, pleased with the focus group.
Megan stops by to ask, is she okay?
And Faye has already forgotten Allison, asking “who?”
 
They're all ready to talk about the results, but Joan wants her office back, so they head to the conference room instead.
It's a tiny thing, but this is Joan clawing back her space and her importance.
She makes a point to say, “Is it all right if we put this back the way it goes?”
 
Steve: And we can see Don Draper is feeling like crap at this point.
Freddy is contentedly munching on potato chips,
given that his old fashioned assumptions about women have been proven correct.
So it's just another day at work for Freddy Rumsen.
 
 
Jenna: The next scene cuts to Pete and Harry's lunch with Ken.
Harry drops a Yiddish term, which you'd think would be a New York influence, but I think it's supposed to reflect his time in Hollywood, because Pete doesn't get it.
 
When Ken and Pete are alone together, Ken confronts Pete about all the stuff Pete has been saying behind his back.
We get a truth call out because of course, Pete. Pete denies everything and says it's not true.
 
He tries to talk around it, but Ken is very direct. He names the offenses:
“You called me an all American idiot that fell into everything.”
That absolutely sounds like something Pete would say.
 
Steve: It really does.
 
Jenna: And Ken goes on to accuse him of saying, you told your wife I was driving the tractor when the accident happened.
And Pete's lame defense is, what I probably said was, you were involved. We all were.
 
Steve: I love that one though, because I could imagine he didn't say actually that Ken was driving it, but somehow in the telephone game it morphs into Ken was driving it. So that that's what Ken actually hears.
 
Jenna: Finally, Ken heard from Harry that Pete said Ken was marrying for money. And that one Pete defends clearly “I didn't say that. He did.”
 
Ken says, “Okay, but he's like that. And everybody knows that when he says it. But when you say it and gets back to my fiance, Trudy knows her, you know,” and Pete finally apologizes.
They seem to put it behind them and they talk a little bit about their work lives.
 
Steve: It's not the most convincing apology. You know, he says mea culpa. But it seems clear that that's sufficient for Ken here.
 
He just wants to hold Pete accountable for the nonsense that Pete's been spewing.
I wonder how much of this is due to the good state of mind Pete's in, you know, with going to be a father.
 
Maybe a more angst ridden and frustrated Pete would be a little more feisty when confronted by Ken at the lunch.
 
Jenna: And Mad Men won't let you fall in love with a character, because just when you respect Ken for confronting Pete and feeling like a little bit of a good guy, mostly because he isn't Pete, Ken drops the R word.
 
I believe he would use it at this time period, but it's so ugly, just like in the scene when Kurt was talking about being gay in the office.
 
Steve: I think again, this is one of the great things about the writing and writing for this period.
It's continually confronting us with the casual racism,
sexism, and inappropriate comments that are made. And I think the use of the R word hits exactly that way here in modern times.
 
And it was much more widely used going back 50, 60 years.
But it sure hurts the ears here today. And you're right, it causes an instant sort of shock of revulsion for me on the Ken character that, you know, that he's talking that way.
 
Jenna: Pete gets around to congratulating Ken on his engagement and Ken says it's all that really matters. Right?
And I think you believe him.
Whereas Pete takes his life with Trudy for granted.
That was always going to happen for him.
 
He would have someone in his corner who loves him no matter what,
so he can perseverate about slights in his career, and I get the feeling Ken is different.
 
He's been running around, but he's not going to be outside a secretary's door the night before his wedding.
It feels like he's really in this and he values what he has.
 
Pete, of the one upmanship society, reveals in the most Pete way he possibly can that he also has news. He says Trudy is “with child.”
 
Steve: Ken seems to have a positive response. He says, good for you.
 
I'm with you. It feels like genuine happiness and well wishes from Ken.
And as we've seen from the other characters and even earlier in this episode, not everyone defaults to those sort of well wishes first. It's gotta go through their personal filter. What does this mean for me?
 
Jenna: He does have a line where he says, just what the world needs, another Campbell.
Yes, we were all thinking the world needed more Pete in it.
 
Steve: There is a certain ambiguity to that, but again,
I'll give Ken the benefit of the doubt.
 
The one thing Ken says in this scene that seems a little unusual for his character, he always seems to look on the sunny side. Things seem to break his way. He has this positive attitude.
 
But when they're talking about their agencies, Ken let lets slide that he would prefer to be a slave to creative.
That's a surprisingly critical negative comment by Ken. So he really is opening the kimono here a little bit about his frustrations in his current firm.
 
And it's also clear that he knows what it means to be a slave to creative. And that's not a bed of roses either for an account man.
But in a world of two evils, clearly he sees the lesser evil as working for someone like a Don Draper.
 
Jenna: I think Ken also plants a seed in Pete when he has this conversation about his agency, and how the guy who pours the last drink gets the credit, because Ken talks about turning Mountain Dew into Pepsi, and how that will never happen and they always just end up with a bunch of little pieces.
You can see this story resonating with Pete, who has Clearasil, which of course is part of the larger Vicks empire.
 
Steve: Yeah, that's a great observation, because I do think it foreshadows where Mr. Campbell's going to end up in terms of this difficult conversation he needs to have with his father in law.
So that's a good catch.
 
 
Jenna: Back at SCDP, Don knocks on the door before going into his office, where he finds Allison seated with mussed hair and red eyes.
She gets up and closes the door so they can have a private conversation, and confronts him.
A lot of confrontations in this episode.
 
“I'm very embarrassed,” she says.
And he defaults to Peggy's assumption, saying, “Oh, people cry in focus groups all the time.”
“That's not what I'm embarrassed about,” she says. “This actually happened.”
 
And Don moves behind his desk when she says this, putting distance between them.
I wonder, what do you think she wants from Don when she says this?
 
Steve: I think she just wants acknowledgment and recognition that this reality exists. It's not in her mind, it's not her overreacting.
 
This notion of just carrying on as if it never happened, I think is at the root of her discomfort and unhappiness here.
She's just getting the brick wall from Don Draper.
 
And it's only in this moment, with him cornered in the office with the door closed, where she gets any sort of acknowledgment of her truths.
We can see Don really doesn't have much to say or offer here.
He's conceding the point, bowing his head. He's very much on the defensive in this moment.
 
Jenna: I agree. I think she just needs not to be an invisible individual with him.
 
Allison tells Don she's found another job in a magazine.
She'll be working for a woman, and she'd like a letter of recommendation.
 
She's been with this company since the beginning,
and this encounter with Don is so upsetting to her, she's changing things up completely.
 
We were listing all the people who were harmed by interacting with Don over time.
And although Allison does have some agency and responsibility for her decisions, of course, I think it is fair to add her name to the list of people he's wronged.
 
Steve: I think there's a certain irony, too, because in response to the request for a recommendation,
Don says, you know, of course, I'll gladly do that for you.
 
And then, I think, in his mind, helpfully suggests that she write up whatever it is she wants it to say, and then he'll just sign it.
So it almost seems like he thinks he's doing her one better in that she can have this tailored recommendation that'll serve her needs precisely.
 
But it's that impersonal aspect of it that sets Allison off emotionally.
And I think she interprets as, again, him denying what they had together and what their interactions have been in the past.
 
And she ends up throwing something, you know, that smashes the glass on the wall hanging behind Don,
which is a surprisingly violent scene for Mad Men.
 
Jenna: Yes. I don't blame Allison for throwing a paperweight in his general direction. Don knows he deserves it.
 
“I don't say this easily, but you are not a good person,” Allison tells him,
and Don knows he's not a good person, either.
 
I feel a little bit guilty because, like Peggy, I look at Don and I think, honestly, you should just get over it.
He's had a lot of trauma, but he's inflicted plenty, too.
I just want him to stand up and get to work and be a good guy.
It feels like Suzanne and Allison were very lazy mistakes, and he's not doing anything to get himself out of the sad cave he's been lurking in.
 
And I agree with you. Don probably does think he's being very generous by offering to say exactly what Allison wants in the reference letter.
But he's completely exacerbating the problem of how impersonally he's treated her in the worst possible way.
The least he can do is to take some time to write an honest recommendation letter for a good employee.
They both know she's been great.
 
Steve: I think for me, the frustration with Don Draper's character is intellectually, I feel he knows right from wrong and knows what he should be doing or should not be doing.
 
But somewhere in his decision calculus or lack of emotional maturity, he makes the wrong decision again and again or does the wrong thing.
And it's frustrating because we feel this guy is really smart and he can get his head around this, yet he's still a hostage to his history,
his limitations, his habits, whatever it is that's holding him back.
 
But we all have the feeling that the character has the potential to be so much more, as opposed perhaps to some other characters, where, do they really know what they're doing wrong, or do they really understand what they should be doing?
 
Don seems to have that in the most highly developed way.
And yet we're still left with all this bad behavior on his part.
 
Jenna: That's a really good point. I think that the fact that he does feel guilt is what saves him from being a completely unlikable character.
Because if he went about gleefully doing harm to so many people,
it would be much easier to write him off.
 
But because he does know better, and because some part of him does seem to want to do better, you care for him, you get frustrated with him frequently, but I think you do want more for him, and you can still root for him because of that.
 
Steve: And it feels like even in this scene, to some extent,
Don is not going to argue with Allison, and he's saying things to mollify and calm her down, but he's certainly not leaning forward to take responsibility and to own up for his mistake or to even directly apologize for it.
 
You know, he'd like to get off the hook here at some lesser display.
And ultimately, as Allison storms out of his office,
she's the one rejecting this weak response in the face of what needs to happen.
 
Jenna: We saw Don offer the same weak apology to Betty multiple times, so this is definitely a habit he's picked up, and it doesn't go very well with any of the people who he's tried to get to accept it.
 
I feel bad to see Allison leaving for lots of reasons, but I do know what's coming in this season, and it's really hard to imagine how Allison would be expected to handle Don's dates and future appointments with other women after this.
So maybe it's better she's leaving for all kinds of reasons for her character.
 
Steve: I love, too, how Don tries to turn on the professionalism. So as Joan asks, you know, what's going on?
He says, oh, I need a new secretary, and I'll need this mess cleaned up.
Joan has already intuited that there's something going on between the two of them, and asks if he would be open to Allison returning.
 
And Don's initial answer is, you know, yeah, if she is open to it.
And then I love the fact that Joan pierces that little fib from Don Draper and confirms, is that really true?
And of course, Don admits, no, he's not open to Allison returning.
Of course not.
 
Jenna: Joan knows better.
 
In one of the great sight gags and Mad Men, we can see Peggy peeking through the top window from her own office to find out what's going on with Don.
I hope she doesn't do that too often, because it might be a little bit scarring.
 
Steve: It really feels this season that they've found their place with putting in those comedic moments more frequently, you know, often from one scene to the next,
but still maintaining the drama and the seriousness of what's going on in the series. So it feels to me they've struck a nice balance.
 
 
Jenna: Across the office, Peggy's new friend Joyce stops by the lobby to invite Peggy to go to an event by a photographer friend of hers.
 
Megan's in the lobby reading a magazine and reception, and she says she used to bring a book, but they told her it didn't look right.
Megan is just supposed to be a pretty face in reception.
It's not supposed to be evident that she reads or thinks or anything.
 
And Megan accurately ascertains that Joyce is pretentious,
and that doesn't really bother Peggy. She just smiles and agrees.
 
Steve: It was interesting to me, Matt Weiner's comment about this where he said Joyce is written almost like a sexist man. So Joyce has hit on Peggy and found her interesting. Joyce is hitting on Megan, and finds her interesting, although the packaging is different than many of the men we see in this series.
 
Jenna: We also see Bert on a couch in the lobby reading the paper.
He doesn't have an office, but he's around.
That does not make sense to me. His name is on the door. That man would have an office.
 
Steve: It does seem really odd to see Bert eating an apple on the sofa while all this is going on. But you know, I guess it's a new firm, and they don't have space so it just underlines that they're on the razor's edge financially at this point.
 
 
Jenna: Pete goes home where Trudy and his in laws are getting ready for dinner.
Trudy sets it up so she can tell her father about the business, but Pete switches things up and says he'll take control here.
 
Steve: As a viewer, I'm thinking Pete wants to talk to Tom to give him the bad news about Clearasil. But that's not what Pete wants to tell him.
 
Pete tells him that he's finished with auditioning,
they've done well, and he wants a shot at the entire Vicks account.
This is quite a flip from kicking Clearasil off the island due to a conflict with Ponds. But we can see Pete has been thinking about the opportunity here, and now he's he's going hunting for bigger game, and he's got Tom right where he wants him in this particular circumstance.
 
Jenna: Just like Ken talking about Mountain Dew and Pepsi, Pete is saying he will not settle for the pieces of the company.
Tom doesn't fold immediately.
He says, oh, you've given me something to think about.
 
But as Pete makes him a drink, Tom calls him a son of a bitch.
Pete just shrugs.
Tom knows he's going to want to be part of this family, including the grandchild. And Trudy's going to make his life miserable if Pete doesn't get exactly what he wants.
 
Pete doesn't want a handout to owe Tom for a bigger apartment;
Tom was jumping to conclusions earlier.
Pete wants to be the one who brings in the business and gets the money and the credit.
 
Do you admire Pete for leveraging Tom like this? Or do you just look at him and think he's going to have a really miserable family life at all the holidays from here on out?
 
Steve: Admire's not the word. But I guess I can respect Pete professionally as an account man leveraging whatever he's got.
And I mean, Trudy is a fantastic weapon to use against Tom and getting the Vicks business.
 
And let's face it, Pete doesn't have this great warm relationship with Tom to start with. So they're polite, they know how to behave,
but they were never two buddies or friends. He's not like a son to Tom. This is about business.
 
And I think that cool shrug from Pete in response to being called a son of a bitch by Tom, you know, is just indicating from Pete's perspective, this is all business. And nothing's going to change in terms of the family relations.
 
And it's Tom who's got everything at stake here and Tom who needs to deliver to ensure the family situation stays where he wants it to be.
It's a brilliant play by Pete.
 
Jenna: Can we talk about how rude it was that Pete said,
“Every time you jump to conclusions, Tom, I respect you a little less.”
 
This is his father in law over at his house for dinner,
and that is how he amps himself up to make his pitch in his living room.
That's not okay.
 
Steve: It is a pretty biting comment, but we don't really see Tom react in response to it.
It feels like Pete's the one dealing the cards and he deals a harsh one there.
But Tom's too busy worried about what's the next card coming going to look like.
 
 
Jenna: It's late. It's at the office,
and Don has been hiding in his office waiting for everybody else to go home, before he emerges.
There's a custodian polishing the floors. It's otherwise dark and quiet.
Later in the series, Megan is going to make a comment about not running out and crying, referring to Allison. But Allison does not have a lock on embarrassing behavior.
 
Don made a mistake, and then he made the mistake worse,
and now he's slinking out of the office so he doesn't have to face anybody about it.
 
Steve: And it really is two sides of the same coin, isn't it? Because Allison flees the office in tears, and Don shuts his door,
hides in his office, gets drunk, and then leaves after hours.
 
Whether they're changing geographic location emotionally, it feels like it's the same exercise. They're withdrawing from whatever it is that's upsetting them and hiding away or exiting the situation in the minds of the characters at the time.
 
They would look down far more on what Allison did rather than sort of pierce through the substance of what Don's doing, which again, is very similar emotionally and psychologically.
He's not having to run away in tears in order to do it.
 
Jenna: I just hope Don remembered to bring his keys home tonight because there's not going to be anybody to help him out with that.
 
 
In the next scene, Peggy arrives in this warehouse space for Joyce's friends event.
 
It's crowded with people we don't see on the Madison Avenue set.
A guy walks by with a bear costume on his head.
And Joyce has this great line where she goes, Jesus, I thought I needed a lot of attention.
 
Steve: The entire party is such an interesting cutaway from the agency, which is dominated by these older people, prior generations,
to here. Now we're seeing the baby boomers in their youth, in their moment at their party, behaving the way they want to.
So it's such a striking contrast to the Madison Avenue world where we spend most of our time on the series.
 
Jenna: Joyce introduces Peggy to one of the models for the nude photographs she was carrying when she and Peggy met in the elevator. And Peggy's question to her, the model, is revealing.
She goes, what did your mother say?
 
As independent as Peggy is becoming, she can't lose that judgment completely.
The model admits her mother doesn't know about the pictures.
This model, Sharon, is played by Karimah Westbrook, and she's also been in Save the Last Dance and All American.
 
Steve: We do feel like Peggy's straddling two worlds here. You know, there's the ad agency world, and now she's trying to be a young woman. So when Peggy feels a need to demonstrate that she's hip, she's cool, you know, she smokes grass.
 
Similarly, when Joyce leans in to kiss her on the ear, Peggy sort of starts and seems surprised that it's clear Joyce has some sexual interest in her.
And she says to her, I have a boyfriend.
And it's funny because Joyce's response to that is, well, he doesn't own your vagina.
And I just love Peggy's response back to that, no, but he is renting it.
 
Jenna: And they laugh together.
And even when Joyce comes in and kisses her ear, and I don't think Peggy was expecting it, but she giggles.
And maybe that's just because they're smoking together, but I don't feel like that's alarming to her.
I don't feel like she's horrified, even if she wasn't expecting it.
 
I think it's really kind of nice to see a gay character on Mad Men who is out and happy.
I guess Kurt seemed to be, but we didn't get a lot of his story.
And we saw Carol and Sal were both in so much pain.
So it's a bit of a exhale to see Joyce here and have her be introducing Peggy to this whole other culture.
 
 
Steve: We cut back to Don Draper, and he's arrived home in his apartment.
It's completely dark in there.
He sits down at a typewriter with his hat and coat still on,
and he starts to type an apology letter to Allison.
 
As he types, he gets to the line, right now, my life is very -
and he pauses, pulls the paper out, and crumples it up and throws it away.
So we've got a sad, lonely Don Draper who can't even generate a proper apology letter to Allison.
 
Jenna: It's probably too late in terms of what she needs from him anyway.
 
But it is interesting that we're seeing it so much on his mind because he doesn't even take his hat off when he sits down to type this.
So he has some conviction.
He really wants to make it right and do something to make amends.
And he can't even get past the first line.
 
Steve: For a guy with so much glamour and so much professional success to this point in the series,
it really feels like Don Draper is picking up speed and decline of his personal life.
 
What's life for if you've got the money and the success and the recognition and the awards, to flop drunkenly on your sofa in a dark apartment at the end of the day?
 
Jenna: Back at the event, Peggy and Joyce are watching a film projected on the wall, and Peggy says,
this film is more interesting than I thought.
 
As they smoke together, Joyce introduces Peggy to Abe Drexler, as they're looking for the creative genius behind the evening.
This is the first appearance of Abe, who is played by Charlie Hoffheimer. He was also in Black Hawk Down, 24: Legacy, and the miniseries Lady in the Lake.
 
Steve: In his commentary, Matt Weiner says that Peggy's gone out to this party. It demonstrates that she's open, you know, she's not threatened or afraid of the experiences that she's bumping into at this party. It's part of this adventure of youth, and she's completely open to that experience.
 
Jenna: When Peggy is introduced as a copywriter,
Abe and Joyce ask, yeah, but what do you write?
Peggy loves her job. She doesn't have a side project writing novels like Ken.
These creative types would all have side projects intended to change the world.
 
Peggy's just trying to get Freddy to change his mind about cold cream strategy.
So when they introduce her to Davy Kellogg, and this guy reeks of artistic pretension.
Peggy goes, oh, we're looking for photographers.
He says, why would I ever do that?
So you can get paid to practice your art, she says.
 
And he finds art and advertising completely incompatible.
Don has had people push against him for being part of the corporate machine.
But I feel like this is new for Peggy, and I appreciate the show presenting this tension between real people who get immersed in their worlds and don't realize how many other people out there don't see things the same way they do.
 
Steve: Well, and just his comment, why would anyone do that after Warhol? As if somehow Andy Warhol is the final word and line drawn beneath both art and advertising, as opposed to a door or a portal to whatever the next evolution is going to be.
 
So I love the writing there of the pretentiousness, because it, again, it just feels so real and true to these people who think that they've been shown the way and now the road ends, and that's the root of their pretentiousness, and that's where it's all grounded.
 
But really that's a sign of they didn't really get it in the first place, if they think that's the end of the story.
 
Jenna: Police whistles sound, and Peggy gets pulled into a closet with Abe.
He tells her a story about being arrested while he was at a boycott.
It turns out his sister got him out, but it's sufficiently bad boy for Peggy to want to kiss him.
 
Steve: It's also interesting with the police raid, this sense of this youth culture is breaking free and doing their own thing. But simultaneously, the older generations, the establishment is trying to rein them in and control them, and especially through modern eyes you know, the party's not causing any harm.
 
It's in a building. Who cares that they're watching a film and smoking joints? But we can see the backlash here in February of 1965, the establishment is breaking down the door to break this up. To what end? It's hard to fathom with the benefit of hindsight, but we can see the establishment reacting, trying to tamp it down and control it.
 
Jenna: Joyce finds Abe and Peggy in the closet and says they're going to sneak out.
And Abe is asking, are they beating people?
And Joyce says they took the film.
So Abe wants to go chase down a possible story about this,
while Joyce and Peggy are going in the opposite direction.
 
They run past vegetable crates on the city street, young and giggling at their escape.
In the commentary, Mattwiner says, Peggy has had an adventure and she hasn't been able to run around being young like this.
 
Steve: It reminds me a bit of that scene from a couple seasons ago when the cops break up another party, and the hippies say to Don, you know, you can't go out there.
And Don makes the point of saying, you can't go out there.
And he steps out and walks right past the police with no problem.
 
In this case with Peggy, we see the contrast. She is escaping and fleeing the scene, probably not in the most peril, but there's still that excitement and adventure of she's, you know, gone off the map a little bit here compared to her day job life, to experience the thrill of youth.
 
 
Jenna: The next morning, we're introduced to Don's new secretary, Miss Blankenship. She puts coffee in a roll on his desk, but she's not exactly on top of things.
She might be one of the most beloved characters in Mad Men. Miss Blankenship is played by Randee Heller.
You may recognize her as Daniel's mom from the Karate Kid, or for appearances on a wide variety of TV shows going back to the 1970s, including Soap, Fame, and Modern Family.
 
Steve: I have to count this character as one of my favorites in Mad Men. She is just hilarious in such a great contrast and sort of thumb to the eye punishment to Don Draper.
You run one of your secretaries out of the office weeping,
well, Miss Blankenship is what comes in as your penance for your sins.
 
And it's just so perfect.
Roger sitting on the sofa watching all this.
It's just so perfect. And it couldn't happen to a more deserving executive than Don Draper.
 
Jenna: As Pete, Lane, Roger, and Don gather in the hall. Pete tells them he's signing Vicks Chemical. It bills around 6 million, and they love television, he says.
 
He adds he thought he'd kick Clearasil over to Geyer, because that's in conflict. And of course, that's where Ken works. So he's throwing another little tiny piece Ken's way.
 
Steve: In this scene, I think we can see Don is legitimately impressed that Pete has managed to pull Vicks into the boat here.
It's a great win for Pete Campbell, and you can tell he really enjoys the respect and appreciation of Lane, who's been on his back.
Don Draper and Roger, for that matter.
 
Jenna: In the creative lounge, Peggy is talking about her evening with Joey. She describes the photos as not porn per se, just nudes.
And this is not news to Joey. He had nude models in art school.
 
And then Peggy asks if he knows Malcolm X was shot last Sunday.
Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21. 1965, before giving a speech.
Joey did know that, but Peggy is dubious.
She says, “Well, did you know who he was?”
And Joey looks at her and says, “Do you ever read the stuff between the ads?”
Peggy's whole world just expanded in a single evening. She didn't know who Malcolm X was.
 
It's so hard to imagine that someone in the 1960s would be unaware of such a defining figure from that era.
But the same is true for people today, going about their own lives and concerns.
 
Steve: We benefit so much from hindsight telling us what was important and what was significant compared to all the noise, you know, we - the signal has been pulled out and separated for us.
It's such an irony. I just - one personal aside.
 
I remember back in the mid-90s being in a security studies program, and one of my classmates was studying an insurgent in the Middle East and said, you know, we're all going to know this guy's name at some point, and this is probably 1996, and the name was Osama bin Laden.
 
And I said, well, I've never heard of this person. Who is he? And he talked about who he was, and what he'd been up to and the rest.
And I had no idea that five years later it would be a name that everybody knows globally.
 
 
Jenna: Pete's secretary, Clara, comes by the creative lounge asking for contributions for a gift and signatures for a card congratulating Pete.
Trudy's pregnant? Peggy asks.
She doesn't sign the card.
 
Steve: Joey signs the card, but he doesn't contribute to the gift collection. So I thought that was kind of a funny touch.
 
Jenna: Well, he also adds, I can't believe that guy's married to her. I would get her so pregnant. Yes. Thanks, Joey. Quality content there.
 
Steve: Joey isn't shy on his opinion of things. You know, he dismissed Draper in a prior episode as pathetic.
So it's kind of refreshing the way he's spouting off with his opinions.
 
 
Jenna: So Peggy does the right thing here.
She goes right to Pete's office and offers him congratulations.
He's at work and she always talks about work, so he assumes it's about Vicks.
 
She clarifies, no congratulations about the baby.
I'm happy for you both, she tells him.
It's not that she wants to be with him, but this is this alternate path for her, a different life with Pete's baby.
And this idea doesn't go away.
 
Pete accepts her congratulations, and as she leaves, his posture on his couch is so awkward.
There's a baby out there somewhere. Another Campbell in the world, right?
And he also seems very happy with his current trajectory.
But this is a reminder of someone he isn't.
He isn't that baby's father, even though he's the father of that baby.
 
Steve: It is a nice reflection of Peggy to go and congratulate him.
And it's all the unspoken things between the two of them that really matter in that moment and in this scene.
 
And just the physical presentation of Pete there sitting on the sofa.
He looks very small and almost boylike.
It is an interesting emotional scene, and none of it is spoken between them.
 
 
Jenna: When Peggy returns to her own office, she slams her head against her desk for a minute, which, of course echoes Pete banging his head against the column in his office.
Adulting is hard.
 
Steve: From here, we cut to Don's office, where he's typing away as Faye Miller arrives and asks him, what does he want?
Miss Blankenship has told her that he needed to see her immediately,
which wasn't exactly what Don had asked of Miss Blankenship.
 
Jenna: My favorite part about this is that Ms. Blankenship says,
Dr. Miller is here to see you. It's a she!
Because Dr. Miller could not possibly be a woman for Miss Blankenship.
 
Steve: I guess I like Don's reaction to when Faye says, look, you know, that wasn't it. He's sort of like, you know, we're still working some things out, you know, on the communication front.
So it's going to be a work in progress.
 
Faye has brought the results of the Ponds focus group, and everything points to matrimony.
This is not what they went into the focus group expecting to find out.
We know Freddy Rumsen is happy, because it's reaffirmed his intuitions on what young women want, but it's a complete rejection of where Peggy was leaning.
 
Instead, Faye, very professionally lays out that there was no evidence of that whatsoever. The hypothesis was not confirmed. All they want is a husband.
 
Jenna: Don is disappointed by this. Hello, 1925, he says,
and he refuses to go that direction.
And in another truth call out, Faye says,
well, I can't change the truth.
 
How do you know that's the truth? Don asks her.
And I like his argument here. He says it's a new idea.
So how is a focus group going to accept it until they're shown what it could look like?
 
Of course, this scene is really about Don and how he's convinced he's right.
It's like he accused Betty of being so good and everybody else is so bad.
Don thinks he's right. And everybody else is so wrong.
He insists you can't tell how people are going to behave based on how they have behaved, when in fact, you can, frequently.
But he wants that not to be true.
 
Steve: It's an interesting rejection by Don of the results,
and it really flies in the face of Fay's research.
It feels very personal and looks personal as rejection of Fay in this moment.
 
But I think if I go back to Don's argument here, he could play this card with virtually anything that anyone asserts and just say, well, we don't know what the future looks like, therefore this change could be correct.
 
So rhetorically, it's powerful, and I think it carries the conversation in this moment, but it doesn't have a lot of depth or substance to it, I don't think, in rejecting what the focus group found out.
Jenna: It's very personal when Don says to Faye, you stick your finger in people's brains, and they start talking just to be heard, and it's nobody's business.
 
And of course, all of this is just him being mad about being outed for treating Allison badly.
Alison did not run around gossiping, and she didn't treat him unfairly.
Don is just ashamed. And Faye is taking the brunt of it.
 
And Faye stays professional.
Well, you're the client, she says, and she leaves.
And you can see Don is disappointed in himself. He knows better.
She came into work, but he wanted to fight.
 
Steve: And really, when she says, you're the client,
and Don snaps back with, that's right.
Don Draper knows that that wasn't any sort of win or a good moment for him.
He can chase her out of the office, but he hasn't won the argument.
 
 
Jenna: Peggy gets an invitation to lunch with Joyce and her friends,
and when they arrive in the SCDP lobby, they look like the Scooby Doo crew come to life with their hair and their colorful clothes.
Pete, in contrast, is standing with these all white corporate men on his way to lunch.
 
In the lobby, Pete and Peggy are separated by the glass doors of SCDP as Peggy waits for the elevator.
And they each belong to a group of people they've wanted to belong to.
And they exchange this glance.
 
It's not bitter, but it is this moment where they see the new reality for the other person.
How their trajectories are, what they want for themselves,
and how different they are.
It's a moment where they pause and think about what could have been,
but both of them are happy with where they are, I think.
 
Pete's got a corporate ascent with a baby on the way.
And Peggy's got a successful Manhattan career with a boyfriend and a group of interesting friends her own age.
Is there any part of you that wishes Pete and Peggy had worked out?
 
Steve: No, because I hate Pete Campbell, so I don't love them together.
But I agree their paths are diverging, and they both seem to be looking ahead to that new path.
But in this moment, in this instant as they look across the lobby,
their eyes meet each other's gaze again.
 
It's all nonverbal, but it does feel like this emotional connection remains of when their paths were the same in that instant, in that moment.
And now they will continue to diverge from this point forward and they both realize that they're moving in opposite directions.
 
Jenna: I am also a hard no on Peggy and Pete. I don't wish they worked out.
I also, though, understand how missing the baby is something that never really goes away,
and how you might take a moment to consider the life you turned away from, from what might have been, and that that might pop up moment to moment across your life.
 
Steve: If you talk to adoptees or people who have placed children for adoption, particularly the birth mothers,
it is very common for them to talk about pondering the what ifs of their life and their family and where they ended up or didn't end up. It does seem to be a very compelling question in people's lives, and I think Pete and Peggy share that.
 
They created a life and placed a baby for adoption,
and there will always be that what if around it for both of them.
 
 
Jenna: I love this next scene so much.
We open season four with an episode called Public Relations, and the public private theme plays out a lot this season.
 
Don comes home to his apartment, and in the hall an elderly man greets his wife returning from shopping.
Did you get pears? He asks repeatedly.
We'll discuss it inside, she finally answers.
 
Steve: Clearly not something to be discussed in the hallway in front of the neighbors.
 
Jenna: This older couple has a life and things they talk about behind closed doors, even if it's just the acquisition of fruit.
 
And Don isn't part of that. It's another exhibit of him being part of the rejected. Patty told him he wasn't part of the family with Anna in the last episode, and this illustration in his apartment building reminds him again.
 
What wouldn't he give to have somebody to talk about pears with?
 
Steve: We have Don Draper at a very lonely, lost place at this point in the series.
The season opened with him at such a high place, it's shocking how quickly he's fallen.
 
Jenna: This feels like another good episode of Mad Men. It's not a top 10 episode.
It does have an 8.2 rating on IMDb.
We're not getting overt flashbacks, but pieces are setting up to propel the season forward, I think, and it has a number of very powerful moments.
I love this show.
 
Steve: I agree. I think this is a great sleeper episode that nobody's going to put into their top episodes. But there's a lot of very interesting, good quality stuff happening in this episode, and looking back on it after the rewatch, I'm really feeling very fond of this particular episode.
 
And I think it's subtle in what it's doing in a lot of it, but it's also important to these individual characters and where they are in their lives.
 
 
Jenna: We'd like to give a listener shout out to Lou.
Thank you so much for your positive comment on our recent episode, and thank you to all our listeners, subscribers and followers for your support of our show.
 
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.