Mad Men C to Z S5E13 The Phantom Transcript

This is the full, human-edited transcript for our podcast discussion about Mad Men's Season 5, Episode 13: The Phantom.
You can listen to the discussion here, and visit our episode page for more details and resources.

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

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