Mad Men C to Z Transcript for S3E5: The Fog

Below, find the full, human-edited transcript for the Mad Men C to Z Season 3, Episode 5 podcast, The Fog.
You can listen to the podcast episode here.

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Mad Men C to Z Podcast Transcript for S3E5 The Fog
 
Jenna: Hi, I'm Jenna.
 
Steve: And I'm Steve. Welcome to All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou.
 
Jenna: There's so much to love about this amazing show, and we're happy to connect to fans like us, who discover new things with each re-watch.
 
Steve: Be advised, while we aren't gratuitous with spoilers, they can pop up as we discuss character arcs through the final season.
Let's get started with Mad Men C to Z.
 
Jenna: Welcome to season three, episode five, The Fog. This episode of Mad Men was written by Kater Gordon and directed by Phil Abraham.
 
An interesting thing about this episode is that every scene has some reference to time, whether it's the mention of summer, an afternoon, a watch, an hour, or time itself.
 
Don Draper often talks about moving forward, and most of his problems are about running from his past, so this time theme fits pretty well.
We don't get ticking clocks like in High Noon, but there is definitely tension and pressure under the surface everywhere in this episode.

 
Steve: The episode opens with Don and Betty in Sally's classroom talking to her teacher, Suzanne Farrell. Apparently, Sally has gotten into it with another student and is acting up.
 
Jenna: Sally's teacher says that she was asking all those questions about Medgar Evers, and Don is surprised to hear this.
He doesn't think of Sally as a person very often.
 
Medgar Evers, of course, was a civil rights activist in Jackson, Mississippi. He was murdered by a KKK member in front of his home in 1963.
 
Steve: As they talk, it becomes clear that there's other things going on in Sally's life.
She's taken Grandpa Gene's passing with difficulty, and the teacher wasn't even aware that Grandpa Gene had passed so recently. In her empathy for Sally, you know, she talks about just how much that can affect a young girl.
 
Jenna: When Betty mentions that her father passed away a week or two ago, Miss Farrell reacts by reaching toward Betty and covering her hand, and Betty pulls back from her a little bit.
 
And that's interesting, because in the very second episode of the whole series, Betty's hands were shaking as she tried to talk to Mona about her mother's passing. And Mona didn't engage in that conversation with Betty.
 
And here, Ms. Farrell is surprised that Sally didn't miss any school to attend the funeral, and Betty is saying they wouldn't put Sally through that.
So in the same way that Betty's world forced her to be quiet about what bothered her, Betty isn't checking in with Sally's feelings. And we know that's not Don's strength, either.
 
Steve: Yeah. And I think it also just - it's unfortunate that these parents don't think children need to be treated seriously, you know, when it comes to the death of a grandparent: suck it up and move along.
 
And you can see that neither Don nor Betty have put any effort into helping Sally deal with the grief that was so evident in the prior episode.
We can see that Miss Farrell is a little surprised that for something that has so profoundly affected Sally, the parents really have no thought about, well, hey, actually, maybe we should have done something here.
 
Jenna: Yes.
I mean, if Betty and Don want to shove things down so they can move forward, so be it, but they still need to pay attention to their kids.
 
Steve: Don is familiar with the pain, or at least the shock of losing a parent at a young age, yet he doesn't seem for a second to translate his experience as a child with how he might be a better parent here to help Sally in this circumstance.
 
Jenna: Yes. And as Betty excuses herself to use the restroom, Miss Farrell and Don have this brief moment where they talk about loss at a young age. So there's this thread of connection.
 
She tells him that Sally is grieving and needs more attention directly. Don doesn't agree or disagree with that, but Ms. Farrell seems to have his full attention.
 
Steve: Yeah, and I also got the vibe a little bit, too, that there's this sense of, well, who's Miss Farrell to have an opinion about my child? It's our child. We'll deal with her the way we wish.
And they're really missing an opportunity here where I think Miss Farrell has something useful to tell them.
 
 
Jenna: In the next scene, Lane is leading a meeting about wasteful expenses in the office.
He talks about tips, dinner expenses, pencils and paper.
 
Don walks into the meeting late, and Lane has this line where he goes,
better to have a bit of Don Draper than no Don Draper at all.
And then when Don hears the topic, he just walks back out of the meeting.
 
Steve: Yeah, it's. It's, you know, Lane as the efficiency expert, looking with a fine tooth comb at all the expenses. It's not even clear that he is questioning the legitimacy of Sal's expense report or making a point about, you know, wastefulness on the office supplies.
 
But the creative genius is above all of this minutiae. So maybe Lane is the bean counter and he needs to be all over the spending, but that doesn't catch Don Draper's attention, and, you know, he exits the meeting as quickly as he can.
 
Jenna: At the end of the scene, Lane says, it's been brought to my attention that a credenza has disappeared.
And it really emphasizes this thing: we know that Paul actually stole a typewriter, because it showed up in his apartment when he was having the party.
 
And so not just wasteable spending, but in fact, property from the office.
This whole party boy atmosphere in the advertising agencies,
it doesn't seem surprising, maybe, that furniture just goes missing. Even something as large as a credenza.
 
Steve: And it's a conversation, it's a meeting that wouldn't have taken place before the acquisition.
So I think it's another tell of the frictions and tension that's being created by the fact that Sterling Cooper now needs to answer to another owner.
 
Lane is their man in Amsterdam, holding them accountable and drawing attention to where money is leaking out the door.
 
 
Jenna: The next scene takes us to Pete and Paul.
Paul is talking about Karl Marx as a brilliant economist.
And Pete is just complaining still that Ken has the most successful accounts at Sterling Cooper, and he's been left with the dogs.
 
Steve: Yeah, and here amongst the dogs, we have the Admiral account. And as Pete rattles off, you know, where sales are actually going upwards, Paul observes that they're all great jazz cities.
 
And then eventually the two of them figure out what they're talking about is the African American demographic that appears to be fueling growth for Admiral. And you can see, as a white executive,
this is something that Pete has never contemplated before, that there might be different demographic groups a client could take advantage of.
So it feels like a moment of growth in terms of Pete's understanding of business.
 
And then going down that rabbit hole of, hey, maybe this is an angle by which we can pitch a suggestion to Admiral that'll be something that they haven't thought about.
 
Jenna: We also get a tidbit of gossip about how Lois caught her scarf in the copier when she was putting paper in the Xerox.
We knew Lois was an inept secretary for Don, and now we see she's a bit klutzy as well.
I feel like this detail is going to matter a lot pretty soon.
 
[Lauging]
 
Steve: It can be dangerous when things get caught in machinery.
 
We have a nice little cameo pop in here by Ken.
So Pete's been grousing about him getting the better accounts, and he comes in to show off his fancy new watch he got from Bird's Eye.
You can just feel the tension and jealousy here as Pete is back into his woe me mode, where, you know, he didn't get to watch from Admiral.
 
And love seeing Pete agitated, irritated, unhappy with all his envy and selfishness.
 
Jenna: Yes, it a hundred percent has the desired effect of keeping Pete looking very sullen.
 
 
Steve: The next scene is in Don's office, and Lane comes in to drop off the meeting minutes from the efficiency meeting that Don ducked out of.
 
They start getting into this conversation about spending,
and Don quickly terminates his side of the conversation and expresses the point that these conversations never go anywhere. And he never -he's never able to convince Lane with this, so he starts pouring him a drink.
 
Jenna: Yes, Don is cheeky as Lane comes in. He says the minutes of the meeting Lane is bringing him is wasting paper.
 
And Lane complains about the inefficiencies in creative. He says they waste paper because they use it to sop up spilled drinks right after their afternoon naps.
 
And yes, you can see Don's frustration and the beat he takes when he pours the drink.
And he makes an argument to Lane about where to get money from clients. And it's not useful to go after the pencils in the creative department, he says.
 
Also not to go after expense accounts.
Think of the men's morale, not just your own, he says.
I'm not sure Don ever thinks about the men's morale.
 
Steve: Yeah, it's an interesting contrast here. And in his commentary, Matt Weiner talks about how Don and Duck had a similar sort of creative / accounts friction between them, but there was this personal friction that compounded any sort of legitimate business questions.
 
In this case, we don't have a sense of any personal friction between Lane and Don.
It's Lane chasing the things that he's been told to chase and that he thinks are important as the finance guy.
And it's Don trying to sell him on that creative perspective of, you know, by having a healthy, happy, successful creative team, they'll pull in enough money to cover the minutia and the pencils and the missing credenzas.
 
And it's interesting here that Don's sales pitch moves from just a straight argument to trying to have a drink. And camaraderie between the two of them, where Don's trying to bring him over to the creative side of thinking about things.
 
Jenna: It's interesting that Duck is physically absent from the meeting with Don and Lane, and yet he's definitely on Don's mind as Don is having this conversation with Lane.
 
 
We cut to the next scene where Duck is calling Pete in his office. He pretends to be Uncle Herman. It turns out Pete actually has an Uncle Herman. Duck is now at Gray, the ad agency.
He wants to have a meeting. He promises he won't waste Pete's time.
 
Steve: Yeah. And we know from our history with Duck that he's always shooting angles and trying to find deals and things that he can do.
So as a viewer, I, to me, Duck has credibility.
 
It's interesting how cautious and hesitant Pete seems in talking with Duck. We know Pete has dissatisfactions of where he is and how things are going, yet he's not leaping into Duck's arms at this prospect.
 
In his commentary, Phil Abraham, the director, talks about how Duck is shot in this low chair with a high desk.
This helps accentuate this sort of discomfort of this conversation as we're sort of seeing it, how Pete looks talking on the phone and then Duck from his side.
 
And it is an interesting little visual that's a little more ridiculous once, you know, it's pointed out and you think about it.
 
Jenna: It does suggest that perhaps Duck is reaching for something bigger than maybe he's ready for. It's not the right fit.
 
I thought it was interesting, too, that Pete was so reluctant, because as unhappy as he seems, you would think he would jump at the chance to go someplace appreciated, because we know Duck did make him head of accounts, without the position being shared, before Duck was forced out.
 
Steve: Yeah. And Duck actually says that to him, you know, because Pete is so hesitant. Duck says, haven't I always been on your side?
Almost reminding Pete of this fact. And I think there's a lot of truth to that. You know, Duck put his arm around Pete quickly, and as we know from the relationship with Draper, that's been a much more tenuous relationship.
 
 
Jenna: In the next scene,
Suzanne Farrell, Sally's teacher, calls the Draper household. She's drinking wine, and she apologizes for their meeting.
 
Weiner says in his commentary that she's calling to flirt,
but it's got to be low probability that Don would answer the phone in this house.
And Betty is so pregnant, she can hardly sit down. So flirting with her husband now seems in extra bad taste.
Did it seem to you like she was really calling to flirt with Don?
 
Steve: Yeah, I think so. And I think, you know, Don is the victim here, because what. What is he supposed to do? He's helpless against her feminine wiles.
 
Jenna [Laughing]: What?
 
Steve: I mean, it's shot very flirty, right. Like, we can see the bra strap off her shoulder, and she - the way she tilts her head into against the wall . . . Now, obviously, Don can't see her on the other end of the phone, but, you know, the message is clear to us as the viewer.
 
And, yeah, I get the sense that she's a little buzzed. So here in 1963, what elementary school teacher is calling the father of one of her students, you know, with a bit of a buzz on?
So, message sent here.
 
Jenna: This call isn't anything like Bobbie Barrett. It seems like there's plenty of plausible deniability for both of them.
But then, as Betty tells Don it's time to go to the hospital and asks who was on the phone, Don says, no one.
 
I'd love to think he just doesn't want to bring it up to Betty, who said she wanted everything perfect for the baby.
And maybe he just doesn't want to think about Sally's school troubles,
but I think he has a more sinister reason for that quick lie.
 
Steve: Yeah, I mean, we. We know Don's history here,
and that's the most optimistic, favorable interpretation you could extend.
 
The truth is unlikely to lie at that extreme, and I totally agree with you on that. The fact that he doesn't come clean there suggests that he's at least hedging his bets on this front.
 
 
Jenna: Our next scene takes us to the hospital.
And this scene is such a transition from Betty's regular life into something remarkable.
 
Having a baby is obviously a standout event in a lifetime, emotionally and physically, of course.
But this depiction of Betty giving birth makes the process so clinical and ironically devoid of humanity, almost, even while she's bringing a human into the world.
 
Steve: Yeah. And Matt Weiner, in his commentary talks about this episode, one of the central focuses of it is this - what was it like to give birth at this time and in this place?
 
And I think this admission to the hospital kicks off how different it is now.
It does have an almost Alice in Wonderland feel to it. Betty's going down the rabbit hole now of this process, and the first step is to separate her from her husband and the father of her child.
And from there, we just feel like we're sliding down a chute, I think, into this crazy, foggy world.
 
Jenna: Yeah, that's a great way to put it. Betty gets separated from Don, basically, at the door.
The nurse says to him, your job's done.
And he offers a really encouraging, Hang in there, Bets.
And when she looks back at him down the hallway as she's wheeled away, he's already gone.
 
Steve: And what I like about this portrayal, too, of how things were in the past is it shocks us a little bit how everybody passively accepts things being this way.
 
And I think the natural instinct I have as a viewer to say, oh, no, I -
I'm not going to allow them to separate me, or, you know, I wouldn't tolerate this or whatever.
 
But the truth of the matter is we, we are all inundated with, with our culture and the norms of our time and place, and it really does create this sort of compliance and buy into something that in hindsight or with a little skepticism, you start to say, wait a minute, maybe that's not the way it should be.
 
So I love the way this is portrayed. And there's, there's a feeling of inevitability to this, of sort of you - you can't get off the conveyor belt.
 
Jenna: I remember being pregnant and hearing talk about choices around the birth experience like music or lighting, and I was really focused on how healthy the baby would be and how scary or painful the process might be.
 
Lighting and music can help soothe, but you can't escape those very big concerns.
And as I watch this episode, to your point, it seems like modern medical staff are trying to keep the humanity in the process, unlike what happens to Betty here.
 
Again, medical staff are not often depicted very kindly in Mad Men.
 
Steve: Well, and I think, too, we're talking about an American perspective. So both in the past 1963, and then as well, comparing and contrasting it to nowadays.
I have had friends who've been in various medical systems around the world, and they have stories that sound much more akin to the sort of 1963 approach to things where, you know, the experts are in charge, and you need to do as you're told.
 
So I do think there's, you know, a cultural specificity to this time and place and then what we're contrasting it to since our experiences here in the United States as well.
 
 
Jenna: So as Betty is going off to have a baby,
we actually follow Don into the waiting room and he meets Dennis Hobart, played by Matt Bushell, who you might recognize from the movie Leatherheads, the TV shows Look and 24, and he plays Bella's mom's new husband, Phil in Twilight.
 
Steve: The comments from Matthew Weiner and Phil Abraham talking about that there's a certain menace or tension he brings, and I sensed it and felt it.
 
And then as I was listening to their commentary, I certainly, you know, it really emphasized it for me that it's there. And I think that tension is really great casting in this particular role because Don doesn't know Dennis Hobart.
 
And in the commentary, I think Matthew Weinert mentions, oh, if it weren't for the bottle that he has, Don probably doesn't even engage with Dennis at all. But through the bottle now they're sharing some scotch and they're starting to have a conversation.
 
And Don isn't saying much. Again, he's the quiet one. And Dennis is venting his emotional concerns.
But I think as a viewer, we're listening to that, and we're thinking, you know, how many of these apply to Don? Or if they don't apply to Don, why not?
 
Jenna: I do want to mention, we also get a cameo appearance of Yeardley Smith as the nurse, who, of course, voices Lisa Simpson,
along with a string of other memorable appearances,
like Greg Kinnear's character's friend in As Good As It Gets,
or the checkout girl telling Phil the strip turned blue in City Slickers.
 
And a long, long time ago, when HBO ran the same 20 movies every month, you might have seen her in the Legend of Billie Jean with Helen Slater.
And as she comes in to deliver some news to Dennis Hobart,
you feel like he's a fairly typical new father to be, right. Restless, anxious. Except we find out he works as a prison guard.
 
And we get a couple of Don character points here:
You throw the ball around?
Not enough, Don answers.
Seven words that define his parenting journey.
And then to emphasize the point, while his wife is in labor, Don looks through a magazine and he rips a page out of it, apparently for the ad.
He's always working, even here.
 
Steve: Yeah. And I think, you know, Dennis being a prison guard,
we get a sense of that class difference between the two men, or at least the class difference between the two men at this point in time.
 
But we know that Dick Whitman doesn't come from Madison Avenue.
So for all their differences and I think coarseness that comes across in Dennis and the lack of polish and maybe even just sort of wearing his heart on his sleeve in a way that, you know, we've come to know Don Draper never does.
 
We know these men have a lot more in common than perhaps Dennis realizes.
As Dennis talks about the potential for a fresh start here with this child, with the woman he loves, I get a sense of discomfort from Don.
He can see the optimism and maybe the naivete of Dennis,
and he doesn't suffer from that.
 
This is his third child. And even if he starts to entertain the idea that it's a chance for a fresh start, I wonder if the cynical, worldly Don Draper would just tsk, tsk, and shake his head a little bit and say, come on, Don, we know that's not going to happen.
 
Jenna: Yes. I wonder if I'm the only one with a low enough bar for Don that I'm sort of impressed he's not with some other woman while Betty is having his baby.
 
There was a hint that maybe he was with someone else when Sally was about to be born. A few episodes back, they were talking about her birth story. And Betty says he'd been working late, and he didn't want to go out again. But he drove me to the hospital.
So, yeah.
It's sad to see him not excited and not invested, detached.
 
We've talked about how time figures prominently in this episode. We saw Ken's watch was from Bird's Eye. And here Don's watch stops.
And then we also get Dennis Hobart saying, oh, it was just a matter of time before Don asked him questions about working at the prison.
 
And there's a Mad Men fan theory that Dennis is just a figment of Don's imagination, that he's not really there. Does that seem likely to you?
 
Steve: I saw no reason to think he's not there.
So I took it at face value. And certainly the writer and director commentary didn't allude to any aspect like that.
 
Jenna: I'm not buying that theory, either. When Mad Men has a dream sequence or an alternate reality, they make it really clear, as we're about to see with Betty.
 
And I get the appeal of Betty having a full-color, attention-getting dream at the same time Don is having this subtle, shaded, imaginary encounter, both of them exploring truths they don't talk about with each other.
 
But I don't see enough evidence to think that Don's encounter is a mirage. He does talk to strangers more openly than he does to friends and family. So it fits that Dennis is a lot like Don's voice being reflected back to him.
 
Steve: Yeah, and I think there's enough differences and non Don Draperish aspects to Dennis’s perspective and what he's talking about, that to me, that further reinforces the idea that he's an actual person who's there.
 
Jenna: Dennis mentions the exhibition game that the Yankees played against the Sing Sing prisoners in 1929. This was a real thing. And Babe Ruth was part of that 29 team.
The prison established the team to boost morale and promote an honor system and discipline among the men who were incarcerated.
 
And Dennis mentions how every prisoner was once a baby with a mother and now they're in prison.
He says every one of them would blame their parents for where they are. And Don is defensive. He says that's a bullshit excuse, and we get a truth call out.
Dennis agrees, saying that's true, Don.
 
Do you think that Don is defensive about this idea because he himself had a hard upbringing and he avoided prison so everybody else should able to?
Or do you think he's defensive because he feels like he's not a great father and he worries that he would deserve some blame if his young children grew up to be foolish like Ho Ho, or critical of him like Gene was?
 
Steve: I'm going to go with C, all of the above.
I think Don takes a lot of pride in what he's managed to achieve, given his roots. I think that's an important defining characteristic for him in his own assessment of himself.
 
But I also think he's haunted about his failings as a spouse, as a father, as a partner, as a friend.
I think he grapples and wrestles with the source of those inadequacies and how much or how little he is a prisoner or hostage to his origins and his background.
 
And if he's been able to overcome those things to become this creative ad genius, why is he not able to be a better person, a better human being in some of his relationships or, you know, or why does he need feel the need to run rather than to address things head on?
 
Jenna: Across the hospital, we see the nurse injecting Betty. She says,
breathe and think about the beauty parlor.
 
Near the end of season two, when Betty and Don are separated, Helen Bishop tells Betty, the hardest part is realizing you're in charge.
 
But since Betty learned she was pregnant and decided to go back to Don, she's less in charge.
And everything about this hospital experience takes her power away, in addition to the ways that her life and society are confining.
She doesn't have her own doctor, they give her medicine, so she can't remember the birth, the medical staff isn't listening to her . . .
 
Steve: Yeah, I think in this scene, we realize just how alone Betty is for this. The medical staff are efficient and experienced, but there's no personal connection here. You're just a widget moving through the assembly line.
And this is before they start with the drugs.
 
Jenna: So in her dreamlike state, Betty is thin in a yellow and pink floral dress. She's smiling as she walks through her neighborhood with this heightened color intensity and this sort of fairytale, dreamy reverie music.
 
Betty has resisted evolving. Weiner would say she's childish.
She didn't choose to become like Helen Bishop, a single mother with a baby and two kids; she went back to Don and she stayed mostly the way she was.
 
And she fought hard to stay her daddy's little girl, even while she was pregnant with her third child.
And in her dream, when this caterpillar falls into her hand,
she closes her hand around it, as if she can hide from its inevitable transformation if she doesn't look at it.
 
And later she tells the nurse she can't push anymore,
and she answers, it's coming out one way or another.
Life is pulling her forward.
 
Steve: Yeah, and in this dream sequence, I'd say January Jones is probably as pretty as she gets in the series. She just looks gorgeous.
 
So I think that just further compounds this unreal feeling of the dream of this perfect neighborhood with the enhanced color. And it does feel like Betty is on that conveyor belt being dragged forward.
And what is her agency at this point?
 
Jenna: We've been hard on Don for not investing in his life outside of work, but we do need to acknowledge that Betty doesn't bring a lot of depth to their relationship.
 
She doesn't have a particular passion or a deep goal outside of looking pretty and keeping up with the Joneses. So when we see her in this dream, she's the star, as you know, in your dream you are.
 
But this idea of being pretty and keeping up with the neighbors, it's not interesting to Don, or probably to most Mad Men fans either.
And it makes sense that Don would be attracted to somebody cheery and uncomplicated when they met, especially with his upbringing.
 
And I'm not saying that infidelity is a plus, or that society and Don have encouraged Betty to explore any deeper options.
But it is disappointing to see Betty in her dream state and find no real empathy or goals or quests for goodness.
It's still about image, even at her deepest level.
 
Steve: Yeah, it does feel like a somewhat hollow, superficial dream state. And lonely as well, right.
 
 
Cutting back to the waiting room, we've got Don and Dennis working with a candy striper to get some cigarettes out of a vending machine.
They succeed and the candy striper leaves.
 
Dennis makes a comment about how old the candy striper might be, which feels really icky and inappropriate.
Don doesn't deign to dignify the comment with any sort of response.
 
Jenna: Dennis is lusting after the 16 year old candy striper one minute, and then almost crying about how he'll go on if anything happens to his wife the next.
 
Steve: It seems kind of an odd juxtaposition that Dennis morphs into expressing his fears about what if something were to happen to his wife.
We realize Dennis is really nervous and scared. And again, this is his first baby and his wife's first baby.
 
Jenna: Don is always uncomfortable with other people's emotions,
so here he steals Sal's line from the London Fog trip, saying,
our worst fears lie in anticipation.
At least Sal attributed the quote to Balzac.
 
And Dennis pushes back, are you sure about that?
And that's perfect for Don Draper, whose worst fears are all about the past.
And it's great that they took that quote from the London Fog episode to echo back here, in the episode titled The Fog.
Remember, Lane complained that London was never really foggy. It was actually coal dust.
So while Betty is in a fog of a dream that seems sweeter, like a fairy tale,
the reality is much grittier and more industrial.
 
Steve: Yeah. And as well, Betty's fog is man made. It's been induced by use of a drug. So it's not the circumstances of life or anything like that. You know, it's been engineered by these impersonal medical professionals.
 
You know, the Balzac quote to someone like Dennis, from someone like Don Draper slash Dick Whitman to me, highlights that class difference here.
And again, we know Don has come from one class up into another.
We know what Dennis's class is.
 
And unlike the more cerebral response it got in the London Fog board room, where we've got a bunch of, you know, educated professionals sort of, you know, nodding their heads about the profoundness of the quote, it almost seems to just glance off of Dennis a bit.
 
And like you pointed out his response, you know, are you sure of that? It feels like it doesn't soak into him intellectually, and he's back in the moment with realizing his fear and concerns about, you know, his wife giving birth to his first child.
 
Jenna: That's an interesting take. I thought it was more that Don was covering reality and Dennis was being real: Are you sure that our worst fears lie in anticipation?
Because sometimes really bad things happen, and it's not just that we're worried about them.
And Dennis certainly would know that to be true. And Don does too.
 
Steve: Yeah. And in Dennis's job, he lives on that razor's edge. Right. At any time, something can happen at that prison, and suddenly all bets are off and you're in a situation where things are spiraling out of control and there's lives at risk.
 
So, you know, that's definitely his professional world he's coming from,
you know, now facing a medical situation that for many women is probably as risky a proposition as they'll face in their life.
 
 
Jenna: That's a great segue into our next scene, where Betty is in the delivering room, yelling and swearing.
And she tells us another essential truth about Don here.
 
The nurse says he's in the waiting room, and Betty says he's never where you expect him to be here, where she doesn't have a filter, her beliefs about her husband come out.
Everywhere she looks is a woman he might have cheated with,
and she can never trust that he is where he says he is.
 
That versatility that Bert described when he said a man is whatever room he's in, it's not an asset to Don Draper's wife, who needs a lot more than what he offers her.
 
Steve: Yeah. And we see the medical professionals, you know, getting more drugs to shoot her up with. And in his commentary, Matt Weiner talks about that. With all these drugs, she's not going to remember this whole process.
This whole experience is going to end up being something that's lost to her.
 
So even though she's living through it in the moment and we as the viewer are there with her, Betty Draper is going to come out the other side of it with no recollection of any of this, which, again, is an odd thing to contemplate about something as significant in one's life as giving birth to their child.
 
Jenna: And this moment when Betty describes herself saying, I'm just a housewife. Why are you doing this to me?
What did you think about that line?
 
Steve: I was thinking it was just a feverish confusion of sort of, these people aren't there to help her or assist her in doing something. She's lost comprehension of why she's even there.
And it's almost like she's a prisoner or a hostage and they're torturing her. It's such an awful process for the woman.
 
Jenna: Yes, again, the loss of complete loss of agency. She has no power.
 
Steve: Yeah. And at least if you had your partner there, who's not drugged and has all their faculties, is not in pain, et cetera, you'd have someone to speak and vouch for you.
 
And just that absence, I think, is really emphasized here. Both we know the shortcomings of Don as a partner, but then further, just the whole establishment and the culture of how this is done at this time,
it really seems like a nightmare.
 
And I can't imagine anybody watching it, doesn't sort of watch it with modern eyes and just think, this is terrible. Like, why are we doing this to these women?
 
 
Jenna: Back in the waiting room, the nurse comes to find Dennis Hobart. Congratulations. It's a boy.
He can't see his wife yet, but he can go see his baby.
 
It can't be an accident that this man, Dennis Hobart, shares a name with Jim Hobart from McCann.
So Dennis Hobart works in a prison, and surely Don would view working at McCann as restrictive and prison-like, since a career there wouldn't involve an escape hatch.
 
So even though we see Betty with a complete loss of agency,
it is a reminder that Don feels like he's restricted in his own skin as well.
 
And the audience knows better when Dennis looks at Don and says, you're an honest guy. I'm an expert.
And every moment, of course, for Don, is about being dishonest.
 
Steve: Yeah, it really kind of undermines Dennis's judgment, you know, to hear him say that to Don Draper. Given what we know about Don,
we probably don't want to rely on Dennis for character assessments.
 
Jenna: And here Dennis goes on to proclaim a fresh start.
He says,
I'm going to be a better man.
Tell me you heard me.
 
And Don looks down when Dennis says this. There's this sadness that he isn't the man he might like to be who, quote, throws the ball around with his kids, but he doesn't have this commitment to renewal that Dennis has here.
 
This baby is not inspiring Don to show up and invest.
He's physically there at the hospital, but it's obvious he has to fake it. He's doing what people do, but he's not even pretending to himself that he'll be a better man.
 
Steve: I wonder if there's an important distinction here between that motive of a fresh start and doing better, being better. Just like New Year's resolutions start with the best of intentions, and then reality comes in, and, you know, you end up nearer or far further away from whatever your objective was, this idea that Don Draper never really makes that sort of resolution or commitment.
 
He is committed to moving forward and putting the past into the rearview mirror and escaping the clutches of whatever nasty thing in the past is threatening him in his future.
 
But it's not inspired on any sort of ethical or moral perspective of being better and doing better.
And I think this contrast is part of the reason he looks down and seems so ashamed in response to Dennis, you know, saying, tell me you heard me. Don says, I heard you.
 
And that's really the bare minimum he can say there. He can see the difference between him and someone as coarse as Dennis. Even someone that coarse is inspired in this moment to try and be a better husband, to be a good father to this new life they've brought into the world.
And to your point, it feels like Don doesn't share any of that inspiration.
 
 
Jenna: Back in the delivery room, Betty is in labor. She's tired. She says she can't push anymore. And the nurse is not sympathetic. Betty is just a body who needs to cooperate.
 
And we see Betty shift into another type of dream, walking barefoot in the hospital and shifting into a floral maternity dress into her kitchen.
 
She encounters her parents, and we know she's been missing both of them, but they don't embrace in the dream. They stay across the room from each other.
What do you take away from Betty's subconscious visit with her parents?
 
Steve: It's interesting how it's so filled with anxiety and there's no real resolution of any of it. You know, Medgar Evers is there and he's bleeding, and we know he's been horrifically murdered.
He doesn't say anything. He doesn't move or do anything. And Betty's mom, who's recently deceased, has got a bloody rag.
 
Even with her conversation with Gene, you know, at first, Gene seems to evade whether he even knows her. And then he turns around and smiles and sort of fesses up, Yeah, I am your father.
 
They're present in this confusion.
The anxiety remains.
I mean, the most comforting thing is Gene says that Betty will be okay.
But again, that feels like a very de minimis thing to say to your daughter in the midst of all her angst.
 
You know, Betty's mother criticizes her, tells her to keep her mouth shut. Betty's obviously had a lot from her mother.
It doesn't feel like there's anything constructive coming out of it for Betty, It's just manifesting where she's stuck emotionally in her - in her world.
 
Jenna: Yes. Her mother has the line, you see what happens to people who speak up. And it's horrific. As Medgar Evers sits there, not speaking. And this message: Sit still, look pretty, Betty.
 
And Gene's line is not that encouraging, especially in contrast to what Gene said to Sally. He went out of his way to tell her, you can really do something.
And to Betty in her dream, he says, you'll be fine. You're a house cat. You're very important, and you have little to do.
 
I do like Betty's line when she says,
I left my lunch pail on the bus, and I'm having a baby.
Because these pieces of your life that don't go together are so jumbled like that in dreams. So I thought it captured that aspect of that confusion and that blend really well.
 
Steve: Yeah. And the way it's shot with the reversed view of the kitchen, which both Matt Weiner and Phil Abraham point out in their commentary,
gives it that familiarity, but as well, that difference, which I think is just visually clever.
 
We're in this familiar space. But there's something different. There's something odd about it.
 
And then the way the whole dream sequence resolves where Betty basically wakes up and she's got the baby in her arms and Don is sitting there in the room.
The suddenness of it. And suddenly this, this weird fantasy Through the Looking Glass experience is over. And now we're back in the day to day.
 
Jenna: Her first words to Don are that he looks terrible.
And then that she should put her face on. It's image all the time.
And then she says about the baby, she's beautiful.
The ring on the string gender test in the office did predict a boy, even though Betty insisted the baby would be a girl throughout her pregnancy.
 
Nothing about this is the way she planned.
But she decides she will call the baby Gene.
She hasn't had any power through this whole experience,
so now she's claiming this.
 
Steve: And that really rubbed me the wrong way. And again, for a woman who's been so wronged by her partner,
we have sympathy for Betty. But to just name the child after your father who hates your husband and never ceased to bring up how much he hated your husband, without any sort of conversation with him,
that seemed like a pretty cringy moment to me.
 
Jenna: [Laughing] I mean, I guess the baby was conceived in Gene's house, but I think like Renesmee, we can all agree this is a bad idea.
 
Steve: The next scene takes us to Don's office.
We see the office is full of baby gifts, and no sooner does he get in the office than Roger checks in.
 
And Roger is on the clock, wanting Don to follow up on getting some creative work approved and moving forward.
It seems that everything has come to a screeching halt in Don's absence, which Don, I think, rightfully points out. You know, I was away for half a day.
 
It's clear that the day to day of the office continues and he needs to get moving and get things going forward again. Life goes on.
 
Jenna: Roger eating an ice cream sundae while criticizing Don for taking half a day off when his child is born - that tracks.
 
Steve: Yeah, and I think we've seen a bunch of those this season, right? Where you know, Don's like, I'll stack my absences up against yours. It is kind of funny, Roger throwing darts when we know just how irresponsible and unproductive he is.
 
 
Jenna: Our next scene takes us to a meeting where Peggy is sitting with Duck, drinking a Bloody Mary.
No one ever buys me lunch, she says.
And then Pete shows up.
 
Steve: It's pretty clear that both Peggy and Pete received the same approach from Duck. They both assumed they were having a one on one lunch, and they both seem a little horrified that the other is present, because now they both know they've been approached by Duck.
And that creates a risk here in terms of entertaining it.
 
Peggy's already seated at the table. And just like his reluctance on the telephone, Pete makes it very clear very quickly that if Duck wants to woo him, he's going to have to buy him his own lunch.
Pete's not going to take a seat and entertain this conversation with Duck. He's going to beat a hasty retreat here.
 
Jenna: Duck has this idea that Peggy and Pete plan to oust Freddy Rumsen together so they could get her promoted.
So he thinks he can trust them together.
And he trusted Pete to be his next head of account services before Duck left.
So it makes sense why Duck thinks that Pete might go with him.
 
He doesn't know, of course, that Pete actually went and told Don about Duck's impending promotion.
Duck has a pitch ready to appeal to each of them. He says to Pete,
I know you have ideas and you're a risk taker. Sterling Cooper is never going to reward that.
And you'd think it would be a big sell to Pete, but in the moment, he's not having it.
 
Steve: Yeah. It's also interesting that Duck seems to assume that Pete and Peggy are kindred spirits and somehow work together and collaborate, like the Freddy Rumsen thing,
when we know the reality is Pete has been dragged kicking and screaming on Peggy's ascension in the creative ranks.
 
So again, that's a complete misread by Duck. Which is interesting because in many ways, it feels to me like Duck has done a rather good job professionally here, yet he's got such a misread. What do you think that says about Duck's perceptive skills?
 
Jenna: Well, he also had a misread on American Airlines and Shel Keneally's position and connection.
So even though he seems to be great at putting some of the little pieces together and assembling his chess pieces, ultimately, so far they've come apart.
 
And Pete and Peggy, even though they weren't in the room when Duck threw his temper tantrum at Don, they would know the stories about this. So I think this reluctance makes sense.
 
I do want to point out this line where Pete says,
you'll have to buy me my own lunch.
You know, Pete is sharing the head of accounts job with Ken,
and now Duck is having him share his you're so great lunch with Peggy.
 
So I get why outwardly Pete seems so reluctant to leave Sterling Cooper or go with Duck. He's got good reasons.
But we also know that Pete is constantly measuring how other people are doing and looking for a better deal.
This meeting has to water the seeds of his discontent at least a little.
 
Steve: Pete feels his position is precarious, because it would be an easy fit to slide either of them into the top job and remove the other. You know, the other being Ken.
 
So this insecurity Pete has, I think is legitimate. If you look at the structure of Sterling Cooper and that rationalization of two account heads into one feels inevitable to me.
 
Jenna: Duck's pitch to Peggy is that she's talented with no ties to a mortgage or family.
She's got ideas, and this is her time.
Again, time in this episode is mentioned.
 
But it's not a very concrete description of how her position will be better at Gray than at Sterling Cooper from this pitch.
But like Pete, we know that she has some discontent at work, too.
 
Steve: Yeah, and I think, you know, in the commentary, Matt Weiner mentions that Duck's pitches here, rather than wooing them to leap into his arms over at Gray, has actually triggered both of their insecurities and inspired them both to take some action.
 
The difference in the actions they take, I think, says a lot about their characters and where they are in life.
Jenna: After lunch, Pete is in the elevator and strikes up a conversation with Hollis.
We've seen Don do this, too - he wants information he can use to promote himself.
 
And Pete was not amused by Roger's blackface performance at the garden party.
And he brings the sales strategy to the admiral people. So you might think, say what you will about Pete, at least he's not racist.
And then this scene happens.
 
Just like Don met with Rachel and asked her to represent all the Jewish people in America,
Pete wants Hollis to explain why he and his black friends would or wouldn't buy an Admiral.
 
Steve: Yeah, and I like this writing a lot because I think it's too simplistic to divide people into the racist and the non racist.
If you think of it more as a spectrum, and it's something that we share as a human trait, and it's just, where are you on the spectrum?
 
I like this portrayal of Pete's racism in that, like you say, suddenly Hollis is going to speak for all African Americans.
And then the fact that Hollis doesn't want to engage about this particular topic, Pete feels somehow entitled to keep prying and digging here in the hopes of getting something out of him about it.
 
I like that Hollis throws, you know, the answer like, you know, we've got bigger problems than our TVs at the present time.
And that's certainly a true statement.
 
But I think it's a rhetorical device that Hollis is using here to try and back Pete off in a way that's not disrespectful,
but it's also assertive and protective of Hollis's individuality and respect for who he is as a person.
 
And I think it's especially powerful when we realize just how oblivious so many whites have been to this race problem in the United States.
 
To me, it's just a masterfully written scene where I just really like the power dynamic here, which ostensibly is totally tilted in the favor of Pete.
But I think Hollis is the one who comes out on top,
at least to this point in the exchange. And Pete really doesn't have a good answer or response to it.
 
Jenna: It reminded me of the bachelor party, when Pete was selling too hard, he was too pushy, the girl was sitting on his lap. He ignores Hollis's signals that he's done talking, too.
 
And then finally, Hollis pushes back, who has been polite and short and evasive. But just like the girl is ready to leave, Pete is too much, right.
 
And in this almost exclusively white world of this show,
this is the smallest peek we get at this perspective.
Pete isn't curious, he just keeps trying to sell. Of course you care about your TV. It's part of the American dream.
 
And it is easy to see how the fog relates to Betty giving birth with Twilight sleep medicine.
But there's also this fog in that Hollis and Pete see each other every day.
And Pete knows nothing about Hollis's life. He doesn't reveal any knowledge or concern about Medgar Evers.
Pete is worried about his own status, not anybody else's well being.
 
Steve: Yeah, and I think we could apply the fog to white America at this time because we've seen repeatedly in the show and we know from, from the history that there are a whole bunch of whites at this time who are saying things like, well, why are they making trouble?
Why are they speaking up? Why is this suddenly a problem?
 
It isn't suddenly a problem. It is plagued a large group of people's lives for centuries.
And now it's bubbling up and starting to affect, you know, white society and become a topic in white politics, national politics.
 
And you've got a whole bunch of whites with a surprised look on their face of like, oh, I didn't know there was such an issue. And the final sort of icing on the cake for me in the scene that I love so much is when it becomes clear that Pete has this sort of childish optimism about the American dream and sort of everybody's gonna have a house and the rest of it, and we've got this group of people who are being systematically oppressed.
 
I love when Pete finally gets off the stereotypes and the US / Them conversation with Hollis, as part of his sort of instant research for advertising, and appeals to him on an individual level and says, you gotta like baseball.
 
Which I think exposes the rhetorical fib that Hollis did when he said, well, we got more important things to talk about than TV. Well, that would probably include baseball as well.
But now Pete's come at him from an individual, humanistic side.
 
And you can see by Hollis's sly smile that Pete's got him there and he's caught him out in the fib. And it's like, absolutely, he's watching baseball. And it just shows that life isn't just focusing on the important things.
 
And it's such a nice, warm, human moment to me,
where you can see a legitimate human connection there between individuals that's getting a bit away from the categories and labels and stereotypes, which is where it started with that power disparity, Pete interrogating Hollis.
 
Jenna: And it was such a thoughtful nod back to the tense conversation that Dennis was having with Don, and they also mentioned baseball.
And so as a unifier between men, it was an interesting device.
 
Steve: I like the idea that even as we are part of groups and part of larger movements and trends and politics that divide us,
there are so many individual human things that connect us and tie us together.
 
It's a much stronger scene than I think I gave it credit for until this rewatch. And I really like the way it came around at the end where it felt true to me, both in the bad aspects and the awkward aspects, and then also in that human connection that permeates it at the end.
 
And it's that complexity and ambivalence about topics like race relations that makes it both difficult to ever resolve,
but at the same time gives us hope and things can be better tomorrow than they were today.
 
 
Jenna: Next we get a quick scene at the hospital.
Sally and Bobby can't come into the hospital room to meet their little brother, so they have to wave at Betty with a baby from the window. So they're on the sidewalk, and Betty is looking pretty, and holding the baby and waving at them, and smiling.
 
Steve: I love this scene because in my own upbringing, I was three and a half when my younger sister was born. And I can remember being outside the hospital because I wasn't allowed in the hospital because, I don't know, three and a half year olds can't be in hospitals.
 
So having to wave from outside at my mother, who, as a little kid, you're sort of understanding you're going to have a baby sister, but,
yeah, you're still struggling to understand where your mom went.
 
 
Jenna: Later that night at the Draper household, you can see Don browning some hamburger with onions.
And Sally has awakened and she comes into the kitchen, and here Don is being nice and showing attention to Sally.
 
Her teacher pointed out she needed more attention and she's grieving, which Don probably had not even considered.
And he didn't go out of his way to make this interaction happen.
But when she shows up in the middle of the night, he listens to her tell him some egg facts and she feels important.
 
And you could see her having all kinds of scenes like this with Gene before. So we know she really needs this.
 
Steve: It gives me hope, seeing Don Draper with his daughter here. And we realize he can parent and he can be there for her.
At the same time as I feel a bit of dismay that it happens by chance,
he goes with it in the moment.
 
But why isn't he engineering these types of dynamics and interactions, you know, systematically, to be there for her?
How much better off I think his life would be, and how much better off her life would be.
 
There's such a nice intimacy to this scene with a father and a daughter.
And at the same time, we know Don's got these frustrations about Betty imposing Eugene as the name of the baby,
but he doesn't vent or focus at all on his own perspective here. He's responding to Sally's questions in an honest way.
We just don't get very many of these.
 
Jenna: I wondered if maybe he has a little guilt over Sally's bad behavior at school, or if maybe Don is trying to be a better man in this scene.
 
When she says, I thought the baby was gonna be a boy,
and he says he thought Sally would be a boy.
And then he looks at her and he says, not all surprises are bad. I love that line. It makes her smile.
 
When they're talking about Miss Farrell saying, everything's going to be fine. That's our truth call-out.
That's what Ms. Farrell said, Sally says,
Don says, then I guess it must be true.
 
I think affirming this teacher Sally clearly admires is helpful to Sally. But again, when we think about Don's motives, as much as we want to say, oh, he's doing it for a good reason,
there's always that other sense of, is it selfishness? Is there another reason lurking there why Don Draper is doing anything?
 
Steve: As a viewer, I'm looking at it more from Sally's eyes. She's so thirsty for this type of attention and some connection, some empathy. I think that's why Miss Farrell is such a appealing teacher for her,
because she is all about empathy. And that's the thing Sally doesn't seem to get a lot of.
 
 
Jenna: The next day, we see Don walking down the hall in the hospital with flowers, and he sees Dennis wheeling his wife the opposite direction.
They clearly see each other, but they don't talk.
 
There's a theory that Dennis and his wife maybe lost their baby because it's not in the scene,
or that theory that Dennis was just in Don's imagination, so now he's not talking.
 
But Weiner says Dennis is just embarrassed from being so open and emotional in front of Don, so he doesn't know what to say.
 
I always thought that Dennis didn't say anything to Don here because he's focused on being a better man, and that means being fully present with his wife and child.
And Don is outside of that.
 
 
Steve: You know, we have had occasions where we disagree with Matt Weiner, you know, disagree with the writer of the material, which to me always feels funny as someone commenting on it.
 
In this one, I'm going to go with what Matt Weiner says and say, as a blue collar guy who works in a prison where you've got to have that strong shell and mat mask up, it is embarrassing and a little humiliating that you let your guard down and got emotional and weepy and communicated about your fears and worries.
 
So it really rings true to me for Dennis's character that now, in the safe light of day, having come through the storm,
he doesn't want to revisit that moment of weakness and those cracks that appeared in his mask. So the mask is back in place and he's just a happy father of a newborn.
 
And I think Don would know this code as well from his upbringing. You know, whether it's a man code, or a man code that becomes stronger as you move down the socioeconomic scale.
 
 
Jenna: The next scene takes us to a meeting between Pete and the people from Admiral, and they're laughing about Burt Peterson leaving the building and talking about rumors.
So things seem to be friendly.
 
When Pete mentions his sales strategy, based on his data,
it turns out the Admiral people already knew about it [Laughing], but Pete arrived at it independently.
 
And it was purely financial. He expected them to see it that way, too.
They don't like it, and they won't be convinced.
 
Steve: I love the writing in this scene, because I think it exposes something that a lot of people try and avoid. And it's this argument that, oh, you know, if. If racism was economically disadvantageous,
that capitalism would push it away because money's all the same color and no one would forego profit in order to adhere to their bias or prejudice.
 
And I think there's plenty of evidence to show that that's not actually true.
And in this case, I love the fact that it's very clear the Admiral guys already know what Pete is talking about. It's not news to them in any form, and they've integrated that into their concerns and their bias.
 
And, you know, they even have a logic as to why they don't want to pander to the African American market.
So they got this whole rationalization of why they're not pursuing this path that Pete feels very clever and insightful for illuminating for them.
 
The second part I like about this scene is it always bothers me if you've got some account man at the advertising agency who could tell you some truth about your business that you don't really know.
 
And at his most brilliant, I can accept that maybe Don Draper sees something about society or trends in a way that can be illuminating to somebody about their product, and help them to figure out how to pitch it to the larger market.
 
To me, this feels like more a case of, if Pete were able to tell these guys anything about their customer base or where their sales are growing that they don't already know, well, then fire those executives because they're not doing their primary job.
 
Whereas this is just one client amongst many that Pete has. And I think it is an interesting insight that Pete arrived at, but I - it's actually a relief to me that these guys are professional enough and knowledgeable enough that they already know these facts.
 
Now, they're still hostage to their own bias and prejudice, but to me, that rings very true.
And. And we're hostage to this type of thinking. And. And it's much more widespread than this one example.
 
Jenna: Earlier, Paul was talking to Pete about Karl Marx and his brilliance in terms of economic theory.
 
And this is such a great example of how people pretend like money is the only motivator in business, but really, ego and racism and all kinds of other factors override financial considerations.
It's really unique writing, I think, for TV.
 
Steve: Even though it's telling us, I think, an unfortunate truth about the human condition and American society in particular in this case. And I know in my youth, you know, I sort of started with that classical liberal enlightenment starting point of sort of man is rational, and people will make rational decisions.
 
And as we've seen from a lot of behavioral psychology work that's been done over the last several decades,
people are highly irrational. And we can actually measure it in experiments now that will demonstrate how we will suboptimize or make wrong decisions or reach a logical conclusions.
 
And it's so fascinating because it almost feels like our lizard brain is making the decision.
And then there's this thin veneer of rationality on top to reassure ourselves that we are making an objective decision, when really we haven't. The bitter truth here of 1963 America, I think, tells us a lot about the human condition.
 
 
Jenna: Next we see Peggy coming to Don in his office trying to talk about something serious.
They're surrounded by baby gifts, and Peggy brings a gift of her own. She says, don't return it, I'm the youngest. I never had anything new.
Not realizing that Don is the oldest, and he probably didn't ever have anything new either.
 
She asks for a raise, professionally and respectfully.
And she makes good arguments, and Don dismisses her:
It's not a good time.
 
Steve: Yeah. And Don doesn't even really address any of her arguments. So there's nothing personal about his dismissal.
He's purely speaking from the penny pincher company perspective of now’s not a good time for Sterling Cooper.
 
It really feels like she's not been heard and she's been invalidated here by Don.
And given that he's the one person who shares a certain bond and connection, and they know certain truths about each other,
the fact that she's dismissed in this way by Don Draper,
I really feel the pain on Elisabeth Moss’s face in this scene.
 
Jenna: We know that he's coming from a lens of Lane going on about tips and expenses and pencils, and he's not going to bat for her on this because of this environment.
 
But we were just talking about how there are other things that override financial decisions. He could go to bat for her.
And he doesn't know that she's coming to it with a lens of, she just had a meeting with Duck telling her how valuable she is and how important she is, how maybe this is her time.
 
And as you say, they share this secret between them.
She reaches out and touches a pair of baby booties on one of the presents. And in this moment, even though they never talk about it, they're both thinking about how they know about Peggy's baby.
 
And he pours her a drink.
She says she wants what he has,
and she observes, you have everything and so much of it.
 
And in a truth call-out, he replies, I suppose that's true.
But he doesn't say having everything is not enough. That he can stack up a million baby gifts and promotions, and still feel like nothing.
 
So it's interesting that they know each other so well in so many ways,
and they're missing these critical components in this conversation.
 
Steve: She's there seeking something,
and she wants what he has.
And if he's not her natural ally in this, out of anybody,
having him close the door in her face and not even entertain it in the midst of this plenty that he enjoys and swims in . . .
It's so devastating because she's done everything she can.
 
And it's really heartbreaking to me when she says the line, I don't think I could have said it any clearer.
You know, we're filled with apprehension here of she's not going to take no for an answer here, and she's going to follow up in some way and take action,
even though the door has been shut in her face here by Don Draper.
 
Jenna: I like that line, too.
And it's preceded by Don saying what he always says when he wants to change the topic of conversation.
He looks at Betty all the time and says, what do you want me to say?
 
And here he throws that at Peggy.
But unlike Betty, who understands that's a dismissal and there's no more to be said,
Peggy looks at him and she says, I don't think I could have been any clearer.
And it's a loss, but I have respect for her.
 
Steve: Well, and Don Draper knows he's the one who's failed here. He tried to throw the ball in her yard,
and she batted it down back into his yard.
 
So, you know, what do you want me to say or what do you want me to do? I don't think I could have been any clearer.
She's left it with him. The ball's in his court, and he's the one refusing to play it again.
 
It's respectful, it's deferential,
but the substance is rock solid. Peggy is not given an inch here. She's not going to back down. And we know from the, you know, the prior two and a half seasons, this world that she's operating in, blazing this trail as the first female creative in Sterling Cooper, and here in this moment when she's asked for something and she's trying to push the next door open, it's bolted shut and Don isn't even willing to try and unlock it.
 
It feels like a very unresolved request at this point to me. You know what this is going to lead to, on her side.
Don's attempt to tell her what she wants to hear has failed completely.
Because what she wants is the substance.
And there's no little rhetorical trick that's going to mollify her.
 
Jenna: Yeah, being good with the words doesn't help him when he doesn't back it up.
 
 
So Peggy walks out of Don's office and Pete sees her. He accosts her. He demands information. He thinks she might be leaving the company after the meeting with Duck.
 
And Peggy doesn't give him any indication one way or another. She's upset that she doesn't get her raise,
but she doesn't expect any comfort or encouragement from Pete about this.
 
Instead, she even throws him a reassuring bone about his anxiety, saying, you have relationships with your clients, that's leverage.
But he just keeps pressuring, just as he did with Hollis, to get the information he wants.
 
Steve: In this moment, it's all about Pete all the time. And I love his little helpless whine to Peggy, you know: Your decisions affect me. If they think you're shopping around, they'll want you more.
But what about me?
 
You know, again, he's got the two headed monster with Ken over accounts. So it's all woe is me and insecurity about his position and what he can do.
Not a thought for one second about where Peggy is and what she might like or even what she merits and deserves.
 
Because again, he's not an ally and a believer in Peggy's creative genius, which I think almost everybody else has seen and started to acknowledge at this point. Pete's the last holdout.
 
So it is a perfect Pete scene of again, Peggy having to just sort of manage around Pete's selfishness and insecurities.
And again, she's been so professional and focused coming out of Don's office.
It just makes Pete look that much weaker and more childish.
 
Jenna: I think it's also true that this line about your decisions affect me is a callback to their baby, which he didn't know about until after she placed him for adoption.
 
So Peggy coming out of Don's office with all the baby gifts and the birth of his third child.
And then Pete thinking, well,
you've kept secrets from me before, this does affect me.
 
Which of course is a selfish take, but we know Peggy's lived through some fog, too.
 
 
Steve: From here, we go to Betty, who's filling in the birth certificate documentation,
and she's running with the name Eugene for the new baby.
 
Is there a worse name for this baby, from Don Draper's perspective?
 
Jenna: Betty got to choose one thing that day. Don is going to hate it. Do you think she does it just to irritate him?
 
Steve: No, I don't think so. I don't. I don't think she's that way. She's mourning and lamenting the loss of her father.
We know it's kind of an odd relationship with both her parents from what we've seen.
 
But it does seem a rather clueless choice to name a child something that, if you thought about it for one second, you just know your husband is going to hate.
 
Jenna: Yes, I agree. I think she's doing it because it's what people do,
but it is pretty insensitive.
 
So when we think about an episode of empathy or lack of empathy, Betty has not had a lot of empathy shown to her.
But here, it's not the right thing for Sally. It's not the right thing for Don. It's probably not the right thing for her. It’s an odd decision.
 
Steve: Yeah, it's terrible for Sally, too, isn't it? Which, you know, we're going to run into some frictions around this.
 
 
Jenna: In our next scene, Bert and Roger are mad at Pete for not handling the conversation with Admiral well, even though it was a financially sound recommendation.
Eventually, Lane cuts in, saying, are we done with the flogging?
 
And Roger eases up on Pete, saying, it's never as good as you think it's going to be.
 
Steve: Yeah, it's a fun little scene because obviously Bert and Roger are really irritated, and Roger's talking about him having to do some work now to undo the friction that Pete has brought up.
 
It feels implied by Lane that he sympathizes with Pete's pitch here and that it was a sound economic pitch to make to the client,
even though it went sideways.
 
And it feels to me like, I guess maybe I'm inferring a criticism of the mentality in the United States where Lane, as the outsider, can be the voice of reason and see the truth here, even as the Americans are wrapped up in their race conflicts and the tensions it's creating at Admiral from a business standpoint.
 
Jenna: I also think that Lane took something from his conversation with Don.
Don told him to go find money from clients with Burt Cooper and Harry Crane instead of going after creative's pencils.
 
And here Lane sees this opportunity, and he's pushing it with Bert and Roger to say, okay, it didn't work for Admiral, but maybe Pete's idea is something that we can use, and this can be a moneymaker for us.
 
It looks like Lane was listening and open in a way that maybe Duck wouldn't have been to Don's pitch.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think that very much could be the case. And we know we've got this diversity of clients, so for every Admiral, there probably is a client who, like you say, would potentially be open to this idea and saying, hey, there's a - there's market potential that we can tap into here.
 
I do like the presence of Lane in this scene as the outsider looking at it from a different perspective than the privileged white males that are Bert, Roger, and. And Pete is just a younger version of them.
 
But again, there's probably some of that generational friction, too, of what's the young generation doing stirring up all this racial animus and stirring up civil society. Well, you can imagine these older guys are viewing it as sort of, you know, what's all the fuss about?
 
And can't we just go back to the way it was? And we know with the benefit of hindsight, there is no going back. You know, this movement and this change in America is deep, profound, and there's no stopping it in 1963.
 
 
Jenna: Next, we see Betty and Don, the picture perfect family, as they arrive home in their Cadillac.
 
He's not interested in her, and she doesn't trust him, but they sure do look pretty.
They bring baby Gene into their house to meet the kids. The baby coos, and Betty smiles.
 
Steve: Yeah, it's picture perfect. Stereotypical, wall to wall, all smiles. Everything's good.
And we know this image, this veneer conceals all the angst and problems and issues.
Nothing has really changed.
Except we've introduced sleep deprivation to the equation.
 
 
Jenna: Yes, later that night, Betty wakes up to the baby crying, and she walks slowly down the hall toward the nursery.
And she takes a very long pause while the baby's crying before she opens the door to go in.
 
The reverie music starts up again.
But this is her real life, the fog of it.
In the commentary, Weiner says she's about to enter the rest of her life when she goes through that door.
And there's nothing special about it anymore.
 
I hate to think that raising your children is the end of all the special things in your life.
 
Steve: Yeah, I hear what you're saying, but I think we all know there are so many special aspects of raising your children.
I took this scene and this moment as being that pessimistic middle of the night. You're recovering from the birth, you need sleep,
your sleep is interrupted. It's at that lousy end of the spectrum from an experience standpoint,
but it's a reality that's part of the spectrum.
 
And in that moment, if you're low,
it can look pretty bleak,
even though we know there's so much magic along the spectrum. Up to the opposite extreme. Yeah, it's a pretty dark way to end the episode.
 
 
Jenna: I can't decide overall if this episode is a little self indulgent, spending so much time in the waiting room between Don and Dennis and all the details of the birth process,
or if it's doing something groundbreaking, because most television shows birth with some screams during pushes, followed by sweet smiles.
This is not that.
 
Steve: Yeah, I think I'm going to land more towards the latter than the former.
Just talking through the episode with you and going over it, it feels quite strong to me. I think there's some real meat on the bones of this one.
 
I think we both share that skepticism about dream sequences where we're messing with reality and things, but I feel this one strikes a nice balance.
We get enough of that to establish the fog and this surreal birth experience in 1963,
but it doesn't detract from the hard realities we have with our characters.
 
And I think these moments with people like Peggy, with Don, and then this experience Betty's gone through are important moments in these characters’ lives.
 
 
Jenna: We'd like to thank Matt B. From San Francisco for your kind feedback on our website. We really appreciate you for listening!
 
Next up will be season three, episode six, Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency.
It might be the most memorable episode in the entire Mad Men series,
so be sure to rewatch with us.
 
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.