Mad Men C to Z S2:E11 The Jet Set Transcript

Below, find a written transcript of our Season 2, Episode 11 Mad Men C to Z podcast for The Jet Set.
You can listen to the episode here.

See the full episode page, vote for your favorite lines, and comment on our Double Dip questions.

Introduction
 
Jenna: Hi, I'm Jenna.
 
Steve: And I'm Steve. Welcome to All Things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zou Bisou.
 
Jenna: We started this podcast to connect to fans like us, who pick up something new each time you watch the show. We break down each episode of Mad Men, from the pivotal moments to our favorite lines.
 
Steve: Be advised, our discussions may include spoilers, so we can talk about character arcs all the way through the final season. We won't be gratuitous with the spoilers, but they can pop up from time to time. Let's get started with Mad Men C to Z.
 
[00:38] Jenna: Welcome to season two, episode 11, The Jet Set.
This episode was written by Matthew Weiner and Robin Veith, directed by Phil Abraham.
 
I have to say this is a controversial episode. Many viewers cite it as their favorite, and just as many say they skip this one when they re-watch.
 
I'm not a fan of skipping episodes when I do re-watch because I always find something new in each Mad Men episode. I do find that there are some episodes I look forward to and others not so much.
How do you feel about this one?

Steve: I'm surprised to hear it's so disliked people are skipping it, so I wonder what it is they hate so much about it.
 
Jenna: I think we'll get into that a little bit more as we go through the episode. We can talk through that, but what was your overall take?
 
Steve: I liked the episode fine, so I'm certainly not going to be skipping it. I think what stands out to me is the last episode felt very domestic, small frame inside the family: Don suffering through the visit to the in-laws and the dynamics there between Betty and her father and, you know, his girlfriend.
 
This one seems to be very much like an adventure or escape taking us away to a new place with some new characters that we haven't seen before.
And it does feel like a bit of a tangent or a sidebar.
 
Jenna: Yes, I agree.
 
Will You Marry Me?

[02:00] So this episode opens with Jane and Roger in a hotel room together.
This is a new look for Jane. Not just because her hair is down, but her whole manner seems much softer with Roger than we've seen before.
 
And we get to see this artistic would-be intellectual side of her. It turns out that she writes poetry.
 
Steve: Yeah. And I think another thing that stands out in this scene is we wonder what's Roger's interest here? How deep or shallow? How real is it? Is it just a product of his growing older and having this midlife crisis?
 
You know, kind of, Jane is his Corvette that he's going to drive around in.
In this scene, I think we see that Roger's character genuinely loves Jane, and he ends up proposing to her.

Jenna: Yes. Roger is really letting himself believe in this relationship. He says, you're getting to me. He tells Jane he loves her, and age is an obvious barrier between them.
 
But it seems to me like they're both making excuses about it. She says their souls are the same age.

There's nothing about this that really seems particularly substantive. No real reason, besides his title and money, why she should prefer Roger to Ken, say,
or why, besides her youth and willingness to pretend, he should try this with her and not, say, Joan.
 
And when he proposes, he says he's not being impulsive because he's been thinking about this all the time. Yeah, Roger. A whole two minutes.
 
Steve: Maybe we should ask Mona if she thinks he's being impulsive.
 
Jenna: Yeah. I don't think anybody looks at this relationship and goes, finally! I'm so glad they got together, I mean, they were meant to be. It's more like, really, Roger? Jane is your plan?
 
Steve: Yeah. And having seen Jane's, I don't know what we want to call it - manipulative side - you don't see any evidence of that side here in this scene. But I do find, as a viewer, it nags at the back of my mind as to what's going on deeper down in Jane's head.
 
Jenna: Yes, absolutely. We know very little about Jane at this point, less than we know about Trudy or Kitty or Mona.
 
We know she knows how to play games and leverage hierarchy because of her play against Joan. And she also had those attempts to befriend Don.
So we just don't get a lot of character motivation or backstory.
 
It feels like she started as a gold digger and now maybe she's convincing herself she's in love. It's hard for me to read whether it's genuine or not.
 
Steve: And Matt Weiner says in his commentary, she's not a gold digger. So, you know, the writer is saying in this scene, there's no evidence of gold digging because she's not a gold digger. (Laughter)
 
We talked last episode about struggling sometimes with what the writer, the creator, is saying and having a divergent opinion from that.
 
Jenna: Yes. It's just too bad he didn't give us any more substance for her. Like we talked about how we wish we could go home with Carla and see what her story is.
 
We don't have any information about Jane, except how she relates to Joan and Roger and a little bit Ken and Don. We're just not given so much information to believe in her ability to love.
 
And also without a complete spoiler, I would just like to mention that when a future similar relationship comes together, it is also cemented in a hotel room.
A small but intentional similarity, I'm sure.
 
Tell Right Guard We Need More Research and Time and Lunch
 
[05:14] Steve: From this scene, we cut back to the office where we've got the gang talking about Right Guard. Ken, Harry, Sal, Peggy, and Smitty and Kurt are there as well. And they're doing a creative discussion about the campaign for Right Guard.
 
Jenna: Ken and Peggy are the only ones talking about work.
The rest of them seem to be trying to push Peggy to let them expense a lunch.

And in signs of the times, we do get a couple of hints about how Kinsey is in the South.
 
Harry Crane says, I don't know why people stir up trouble. It's bad for business. And I feel like this is a very concrete representation of Harry's philosophy going forward.

I think that ultimately he is the guy Bert Cooper can trust to be self interested at all times.
 
Harry is perfectly happy to stir up trouble if he's being treated unjustly, but if it's somebody else, they're just costing him money by disturbing his equilibrium.
 
Steve: And I think Harry's a proxy for many people in society at that time. These problems aren't affecting them personally that they can see. It's happening far away.

They're kind of selfish. They don't show much in the way of sympathy or empathy. And now that there's some disruption or it's causing them some unease, they have this selfish view that, oh, well, why would you stir up trouble?
 
And it's like, what if your fundamental rights were denied to you or you were abused by the system?
 
I think it's a great representation of an attitude that I think is still prevalent today. And just that question of, you know, who do you identify with? Whose struggles do you understand and look through their eyes and which ones maybe do you hold at arm's length?

Jenna: And if I'm critical of the writers for the last scene and the treatment of Jane, I have to give them props for their treatment of Ken in this scene because he doesn't have that many lines.
 
But you can see he is a professional go-getter. He's really talking about work.
None of the bosses are in this meeting, but he's still on deck for making sure that their campaign for Right Guard is going to work out. And Peggy, of course, we've known to be professional - sometimes she's the outlier in the meeting.
 
But I love that they give us that little hint of who Ken is, even when nobody's watching.

And as part of this whole conversation, Kurt says that he saw Bob Dylan at Carnegie Hall. And Peggy says she'd love to go sometime.

Kurt invites her to go with him, and she gives him plenty of excuses to back out. Like, she lives in Brooklyn and it's really far away, but he's really easygoing, and he insists that they'll go together.
 
Steve: Yeah, it's clear that Peggy's got some interest in Kurt.
She's pleased at the invitation, even though she's begging it off a little bit.
And I think she's clearly pleased that he persists to say, no, no, we're going to do this and make this happen.
 
There’s Not Going To Be Any Swimming

[07:50] Jenna: The next scene takes us to California. We see Don smoking by the pool, standing with his back to camera. He's in the hat.
 
The location is the Altadena Town and Country Club. The clubhouse here was destroyed by the wildfires in 2025, but has since reopened.
 
And when we look at Don, he looks really out of place in his suit, and he is just too gray for all the pops of color.
It turns out the airline lost Don's luggage, which is the absolute best way to start a trip.
 
Steve: The thing that stood out to me at the start of this scene is the music.
And David Carbonara has got Misirlou, the Dick Dale surf guitar song, going.
 
But it's played with sort of an Eastern sound to it, which actually fits well because of Dick Dale's of Lebanese ancestry, so it does have Middle Eastern origins.
 
And that's why it sort of has that sound, even in the sort of standard, you know, Dick Dale version that everybody's familiar with.
 
It works really well here as this exotic music about this exotic place poolside in California for these New Yorkers there in their dark suits.
 
Jenna: And then we get smarmy Pete walking up. He's so happy to be there. He's excited to go swimming. He's trying to convince Don to let them enjoy themselves just a little.
 
And Don will not relent. He says Pete's job is to use Roger's leads for business.
This is not a vacation. Let's remember that in just a minute.
 
(Laughter)
Steve: Yeah. Not only that, he threatens Pete, if you want a vacation, I can arrange for that. He can fire him. So, yeah, this is going to come back to haunt him.
 
Another thing that we quickly roll into here is Don looks over at the bar and he sees Betty. And I love the way they film this. They actually have January Jones in place. And then we see that's actually not her.
 
So they're tricking us, the viewer, just the way Don Draper's eyes are tricking him. And I love how they pull us into that illusion with that little fake out.
And it's really successful. And I think it gives us a feeling of the turmoil in Don's mind.
 
Jenna: Yes. Betty is on his mind, at least a little bit.
And there's a dreamlike slow motion where she walks toward him.

He thinks it's her with a bit of the same musical cue where she came down the stairs in the first episode of season two as she walks towards him on Valentine's Day.
 
So that's a really great callback to have this idea that here is Betty coming toward him. Is this really who Don is? Is this partnership the essence of his life?
 
And as the strange woman walks away, a new man comes up to Don, introducing himself as Viscount Monteforte, and says a young woman would like to meet him. As long as Don is not an actor or an astronaut.
 
And this whole encounter is pretty dreamlike. Rocci and Joy introduce themselves. They invite Don to have dinner with him. It's all got a quality of, is this really happening?
 
Steve: Yeah, it does feel very fantastic. A fantasy. And it's such a great setup for the episode, I think, because we are sort of going to go down the fantasy rabbit hole.
 
Jenna: Pete shows up. He's really happy to hurry in and be introduced. And we notice he drops the middle name. I'm Peter Dyckman Campbell in his introduction, but nobody seems interested in him at all.
 
I noticed that Don gets the introductions to Pete of each of the new people exactly right. Which is a really important skill for somebody like Don to have, because the idea is he can fit in anywhere.
 
And Don is very clearly struck by these strangers as they move away, very curious.
 
And all Pete can talk about is how he saw Tony Curtis in the men's room. This calls for “a thing like that.” That's the second one in the show so far.
 
Steve: Yeah. And I think the emphasis I get from that interaction is somehow these are kindred spirits that Viscount Willy and gang are able to identify.

Not just that Don is this superior physical specimen, but somehow they're able to sense that he's a stranger in a strange land in this particular place.

Whereas Pete's a businessman from New York, and they're not interested in an American businessman from New York. There's got to be that other element. So does Viscount Willy have some sort of Spidey sense to pick this up or does he start with just the physical presence of Jon Hamm?
 
And then once he gets in closer, starts to realize, oh, and there is some mystery to this individual. So he ticks that box and then proceeds. Either way, it's clear there's definite interest in Don and not just, you know, from Joy.
 
Pete is instantly forgettable.
 
Jenna: Yes, good point. Everybody understands Pete's story after just a couple of sentences, and there's no interest there.
 
Think Of All The Good Things In Life, Then Cut Them In Half
 
[12:33] Back at the office, Roger is talking with his lawyer. He wants a divorce.
The lawyer gently tries to dissuade him from marrying Jane. He says, well, you and Mona could work out one of those modern arrangements. But Roger insists that they have been miserable for years, and this is the life he was always meant to have.
 
And I felt a lot of pain for Mona when I heard him say this, but I also feel so much pity for him. This is the life he was meant for? Jane is young and pretty and a competent secretary, but you can see for miles that she is not Roger's dream come true. They don't even know each other.
 
And I feel like on the first watch, maybe I thought, well, the audience just doesn't know them together yet. Maybe there's more to them of substance.
 
But the lawyer is very hesitant. He says, Mona has the marriage license and she wants to hurt you.
 
Steve: Everybody else reads this correctly, right? Like Mona reads it correctly, the lawyer, I'm sure Don Draper reads it correctly. My sense is Roger is just being a pure escapist here, running away from age, running away from any aspect of his life that's not totally satisfactory.
 
I don't think anybody will be surprised if this doesn't end up being the perfect escape that Roger seems determined to pretend. He gets good advice.

I love the line, you know, women become extra irrational in these situations. You know, emphasis added to extra, I think, again, fits in with this. You know, who's being irrational in this scene?
There's no women in the scene, and it's not the lawyer, you know, so who are we left with? It's Roger.
 
In the end, Roger makes it very clear, regardless of what it costs him, pushes. Get as much as you can, push as hard as you can, and he wants to get the deal done.

So he's given the lawyer very clear marching orders. This is going to happen, and Roger's willing to pay the price.

In terms of marriage law, back at the time, it seems that it wasn't necessarily that Mona's entitled to certain alimony, but she has the power to say no to the divorce and thus bar Roger from remarrying. So that's her power and control here.
 
In return for agreeing to the divorce, then Roger's going to have to hand over the money. And from what we've seen of Mona, you know, climbing aboard Don there a couple episodes back, you really get the sense that she's a tiger who's going to take him for everything she can.
 
I don't know. As a viewer, I feel the same way. Like, yeah, she should. Like he's, he's being ridiculous. So if he's going to run off on his fantasy. Well, my fantasy is getting, you know, most of your assets.
 
Jenna: Yeah. You have to give Mona some respect here.
Of course she has her own connections. Of course she has a good lawyer. Mona is not going to sit back and defrost her fridge here.
 
I also have to say, I know that Roger is selfish. I know he's deluded. I know he's not always the nicest guy and he pretty much runs on charm.
 
But I will say it's a little bit touching that he has this capacity for being so romantic because Don doesn't give in to that very often. He just seems to go off on a whim.
But I feel like Roger, he really wants to fall in love. He wants to feel that again.
 
And I can go turn right back around and say, well, is it his fault he got bored or whatever? You know, I mean, he's pretty flighty and, and again, pretty selfish and not really investing in his relationships. We can see that with his daughter.
 
But I do have a little bit of sympathy for him because I understand this dream that he's trying to achieve here. I just can see for miles that it's not the way to go about it.
 
Steve: That's interesting to me because I fall the opposite way. I don't have much sympathy at all. Grow up. Face your life. Face your reality.
 
Meet your responsibilities to those you've shared your life with. On and on. This is the most childish, shallow fantasy and it's going to end badly.
 
Jenna: Well, and it's hard to feel sorry for Jane because she, again, we haven't seen so much to care about her for, but she's just a stand in. It could be any one of a million beautiful girls. And we've seen Roger over and over try to capture his youth.
So really, that's maybe the bigger search than falling in love.
 
Steve: Again, the power disparity, I think, is an important element in this equation. Absolutely.
 
Jenna: And interestingly, Duck is on his way in to meet with Roger about something else. And as the lawyer makes his way out, it's clear that Duck and the lawyer know each other.
 
And, of course, Duck has been through his own divorce, and he says he knows the best two guys in town. It's either him or Marvin Hughes, and that's who Mona has.
(Laughter)
 
Everyone Thinks You’re a Fine Fella

[17:19] So Duck is here to talk about a promotion to become a partner.
Roger says he hasn't delivered what he promised. He goes on to say that Bert Cooper hates everyone, and Bert's sister will follow him.
 
Don only has 12 and a half percent of the partnership, but he's not Duck's biggest fan. So Duck isn't realistic to seek a partnership. He should focus on getting more business.
 
And I wonder, do you think this is how Roger has really felt all along about Duck, or is he just trying to inspire Duck to drum up new business now that he's about to lose so much money in his divorce?
 
Steve: I don't think it's a pep talk for Duck. I think it is a cold, objective assessment of what Duck has brought to the agency in this past couple years, which is interesting when we were just talking about how illogical and lacking objectivity Roger was about his new relationship and his prior relationships that he was breaking in this case.
 
I think Duck has an impression of what he's contributed and is seeking what he wants. You know, Duck is ambitious, and I think Roger's pouring a lot of cold water on it.
 
I don't think Roger has anything personal against Duck. You know, he's collaborated with Duck on these various initiatives and things they've tried over the two years, but it's not gone the way they would all want it to go.

And, you know, as Roger says, go out there and make it rain, you know, so that the case is made for you, instead of you trying to pitch it here or collect allies on the board to make your partnership happen.
 
Jenna: Duck is professional in his response, but clearly he's disappointed, as might be expected.
 
Steve: Yeah, and again, you know, Duck, in his conflict with Don, again, I think we see the professionalism here, which I think counts for something, right? He says. Thanks for being so candid. I just think, again, it seems to me, in a world where people flake out and do other things, Duck seems focused on what's supposed to be done here and maybe hasn't had the best results.
 
 
Jenna: Back at the aerospace convention, Don and Pete are seated in a completely white room at a seminar about nuclear destruction.
 
If Don Draper using love to sell nylons is cheap and minimizing to humanity,
selling tech that destroys humanity as a smart investment certainly seems like a bridge too far to him.
He doesn't say anything, but you can definitely sense that it's having an effect.
 
And I wonder, do you think he's disgusted by this way of thinking, like making money off of bombs is beneath him?

Or do you think he's scared about what the human race is becoming? How do you think this is affecting him?
 
[19:50] Steve: My impression was it was just a human reaction to the sheer horror of people coldly calculating the mass destruction of society, you know, because that's what this is.
 
They're talking about MIRVs, which is the multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles, you know, so one missile can throw, say, 14 bombs onto Soviet cities and vice versa.
 
You know, it's total annihilation. And, and as they just coldly go through the scenarios and saying, well, even if they intercept some of them, you know, we can still obliterate, you know, nine of the 14 cities targeted. It's just so horrific and awful.
 
And I think for somebody who's not in that world, what they're contemplating here is, is monstrous. Yet you can tell for the scientists in the room or, you know, the executives, this is their bread and butter. This is what they talk about every day.
 
And they don't appear to think twice about the ethical implications of, of this.
And as an outsider, it's a punch in the face to think these are what these men are up to. It's terrifying.
 
Jenna: Along those lines, Pete, who once told the fertility specialist that sometimes he thinks about the bomb, he does not seem as affected by the meeting.
 
Afterward, he talks about how just one of these companies spends more on media than three Lucky Strikes, which is their biggest account.
So Pete doesn't seem to sit in that meeting and feel anything very deeply.
 
[21:12] Steve: Yeah, and I think that's an important break in the two characters. At this point in this episode, Pete is mission focused. He's on about the business here, about the possibilities, what this can mean to Sterling Cooper, to himself.
 
Which is interesting because back by the pool, you know, Don was like, I can give you a permanent vacation if that's what you're interested in. And now it's Don, who has encountered Viscount Willy and now is contemplating, you know, total annihilation of humanity on Earth.
 
And it seems that he is drifting further and further away from a business focus.
I wonder if, you know, he's. He's contemplated previously sort of, what is this all for? What is the purpose of it?
 
Well, when you're talking about total annihilation, I gotta figure that question pops up in his head and he is struggling a little bit with, yeah, what is the purpose of all this?
Because it can't be annihilation, surely.
 
 
Why Would You Deny Yourself Something You Want?

[22:05] Jenna: Pete steps away for a moment and Don looks over to see Joy coming toward him this time. Not Betty, but Joy, in slow motion.
 
She's leaving for Palm Springs and invites him along.
He says no, and she says, why would you deny yourself something you want?
 
So he gets into the convertible with her and when she asks, do you want to get your things? He says, no. His things didn't even arrive in California. He has no things. He's just himself.
 
Steve: Yeah, and I think, you know, we've talked about in the past how Don was trying to be good and be a better husband, and then, you know, inevitably, that's fallen apart.
 
He sat in this meeting and learned about how we can obliterate cities.
It seems clear that he's without direction at this point. There's a hollowness there for him.
 
Here's hedonism presenting itself. Would you like to escape? Would you like to join me on my little fantasy? And objectively, Joy's offering a pretty nice proposal.
 
So are we surprised Don Draper jumps in the car? A little bit, I guess, because he refuses her at first. But then when we see him get in the car, which is shot beautifully, he has nothing to claim or take from the hotel. He can just drive off to Palm Springs.
 
[23:18] Jenna: So let's talk briefly about the Norwegian story of Peer Gynt. It's a five-act play by Henrik Ibsen. And there's a musical suite by Edvard Grieg about an antihero who gets in trouble, embarrasses his mother, (maybe here stepmother), and wanders around doing whatever he wants.
 
He marries a beautiful woman - this is still Peer Gynt we're talking about here- and runs off to chase some other women.
 
And then he runs into a young woman in a green dress, which is also the color of Joy's dress, when she meets Don, and this woman turns out to be the daughter of the Mountain King.
 
It's no accident that here in Mad Men, Viscount Monteforte's name means strong mountain in Italian. It turns out the Mountain King is the head of a bunch of trolls.
 
And their philosophy is about being true to yourself and not thinking about the rest of the world.
 
So is this anti hero's destiny to push toward heroism or to go through life as a troll?
It's a story about what it means to be yourself, which of course has always been Don Draper's question. So it's a really fascinating parallel.
 
[24:20] Steve: That's just a nice lead into the next scene because where is Pete? He's by the pool, but he's working it. He's on the phone with potential clients, setting up meetings, I think leveraging something that appeals to him, which likely appeals to the rocket executives.
 
So again, this contrast between who's ended up flaking out and disappearing to the Mountain King's lair and who's here by the pool working the advertising business.
 
Jenna: Yes, Don, who was chastising Pete for not being focused on work, who just took Paul's spot on this trip, has just run off with a mountain king's daughter in a convertible to Palm Springs.
 
Steve: But to be fair, Paul and Joy wouldn't have got together, so he has that in his favor.
 
Jenna: To this point in the show, Don has gone to the movies and lied about it, gone off to spend the afternoon with a woman and lied about it, and gone to sleep on his couch and lied about it.
 
But this seems like a different level of unprofessionalism than we've seen before.
We know he won't sign a contract, and we can guess it's so he can just wander off one day if it suits him to do that.
 
And it isn't until now that we really see how close he might have been to wandering away during Sally's birthday party back in season one in Marriage of Figaro.
 
Because as we've said, it's hard to feel sympathy for Pete, but he doesn't leave a note at all. It's so irresponsible of him as a partner to just wander away. On the re-watch, you're just like, oh, yeah, of course - ‘cause that's what Don would do. But it is really mind-blowing that he would act this way.
 
Steve: So what you're saying is if Viscount Willy had come up while Don was watching the train during the birthday party, he might have said, hey, Don, come with us. We're going to Atlantic City. And off they go.
 
Jenna: No joke - it's not clear to me if it's really Viscount Willy or if it's the nuclear seminar, because maybe both of those things are required to make him make the shift.
 
[26:05] Steve: They resurrect the exotic version of Misirlou when they come into the house in Palm Springs. And Joy explains that, you know, this is a friend's house who are jet setting around to Sardinia.
 
So, you know, we're really seeing that this jet set crowd of these affluent people who just come and go and live the life of luxury. There's some new friends scattered around the pool. Greta, Carlos. Don, though, starts to look white as a sheet and sweating, and then collapses.
 
Jenna: A fun fact about this set: this house is in Chatsworth on a hill outside of LA, and the owner of it was a bank heiress who moved back east to New York and rented it to Frank Sinatra for about a decade. So it's a beautiful set.
 
As Don collapses from heat exhaustion, he wakes up inside this house with many faces standing over him and there's a stranger with a syringe.
 
Matt Weiner says this is meant to feel like a horror movie and it absolutely does. To me, it feels like they're about to peel their faces off and announce he's going to live the rest of his life in a jar or something. It's terrifying.
 
Steve: Yeah, it's a great scene. And Don waves off the self-described doctor. I suppose he does have a syringe and he was going to inject something. And it's clear Don just has heat exhaustion.
 
Jenna: Don is given some space to rest up. Joy asks if he's ever had Mexican food. He's going to like it.
 
Steve: Yeah, that's one of those little time capsule notes in the writing that I love. In our world, you know, where Mexican, or at least Tex Mex, you know, is, is so widely consumed now.
 
Jenna: When Don arrives at dinner, the others applaud and toast to him.
And the question is put to him, what's your story?
 
Ever enigmatic, he says, I don't know how to answer that.
He offers that he's from New York, but he doesn't talk about advertising, even though they found his business card when he passed out.
 
Joy invites him to try a pepper filled with cheese with some sauce.
It turns out that none of them have jobs, they just travel the world.
 
[28:03] Steve: Yeah, it's fascinating in this scene because in so many ways he seems to fit in so well. Right?
 
Maybe not professionally, because I love the line where they say we're all interested in professions, though no one here has one.
 
Which again is a reference to their affluence. This also gets us back to the faux pas of Don saying, well, I assume you're well off and it's sort of - well, you don't speak of that.

And everybody sort of lets that comment slide.
[After the fact note: Greta's tongue click is a pretty emphatic response, though.]
And to me that's an indication of Don - you don't quite fit in because you would say that none of them are ever going to express that.
 
They talk about how Willy in the past was an Olympic level fencer. Again, a sport of opportunity and indulgence, more so than something where there's, I don't know, a sport of desperation, like, say, boxing.
 
It's a very posh crowd enjoying life. It really feels like they've opened the welcome wagon to Don. You can be part of our group if you're interested.
 
Jenna: They play this game at the table, naming places that start with the last letter of the prior place.
 
Don holds his own at this game, which is apparently a real turn-on for Joy, who kisses him full on the mouth in front of everybody else at dinner.
 
And let's remember that Don is excruciatingly private. This is not ever something he would do.
And you're right, he does not exactly fit into this world. He almost fits in everywhere he goes, but never exactly.
 
Not with the suburban neighbors - which maybe is a good thing, because we've met the suburban neighbors - and not with the office guys, and not with Betty's family.
 
And here among the hedonists, they seem to like him well enough, but it has this quality of not being real, that life isn't a series of pretty houses and infinite sex.
 
And that reminds me a little bit of Vegas. And if Vegas is for you, more power to you. I mean, I love a Bellagio fountain and some jazz hands as much as the next person, but there's something so desperate about the city.
 
The lights trying to outshine all the smoke, and the showgirls with their feathers and their bright smiles having so much endless fun, you can forget that the casino isn't actually on your side.
 
And this is maybe a world that Don thinks he'd like to live in, but the reality is it's more hollow than he can take.
 
Steve: I think I was wondering if Don really fits in here, because in certain aspects, I think he really does.
 
Clearly, they like him. There's aspects of him. You know, he's beautiful, and if he's exotic or mysterious, they like that. That's appealing to them as well. They're not probing, and they're not focused on his past or his history.
 
But Don knows his history. And his history is certainly something wildly different than what any of these people have as a history.
 
And I wonder if for him, that's disqualifying at some core. So just as he feels he has to conceal that history in his other circles, professionally and personally, do you think in this circle, he has a similar sense of needing to keep it concealed? Like you can't say, oh, I grew up impoverished with an abusive birth father and an abusive stepmother.
 
That would be as shameful and gauche for these people as it would be, in Don's mind, unacceptable to his bride, to his coworkers, and the rest.

Jenna: That's an interesting question because I see this episode is about Don rejecting this for himself, that this isn't good enough for him.
 
I didn't look at it like maybe he rejects it because he doesn't feel like he's good enough for them and their lifestyle, or as if he doesn't deserve something this - quote - "good."
 
I feel like he's looking at it and he's seeing it for the emptiness it is. Unlike Roger, who is absolutely diving into the dream, even though it's also empty.
 
[31:40] Steve: Yeah, and I don't get the vibe that Don would reject it because he doesn't feel good enough. I don't get a sense of him feeling inferiority at all. But we've talked about how his philosophy of life moves forward, ever forward.
 
You don't go backwards. You don't stall. Is this a stall? It's a comfortable, lovely stall, but it's a stall. You're not moving forward if you're with these people. It's just another glass of wine and a different cheese stuffed pepper somewhere in the world in somebody's pool that you've borrowed.
 
And I'm wondering if maybe that's the reason a Don Draper wouldn't accept this. Everything he has, he's had to build up from nothing. To now pull the ejection handle and go into a holding pattern - even if he could stay in that holding pattern indefinitely, does that violate the move forward in life Don Draper philosophy?
 
Jenna: Yeah, good question.

After dinner, Joy leads Don to a bedroom, and takes off her dress. She says she's 21, and he says he's 36.
 
And I do feel like the age difference here is uncomfortable.
Joy is very willing, but she has no other needs or interests outside of Don. It's all a mirage.
 
Steve: Yeah, it's a very sexy scene as well, which I always appreciate how sexy they make some of their scenes because, you know, they're not using nudity or sort of R rated presentations on screen.
 
They're doing it all with the suggestion, the mystery of it all. And I think it just works really well and serves the viewer.
 
Jenna: See, I thought it was uncomfortable because she was so young compared to him. So it just felt. It felt kind of ick.
 
Steve: Yeah, okay. Yeah, I didn't have that vibe. They seemed like two beautiful people in each other's company, but again, in an almost dreamlike fantasy escape way. It didn't feel gritty or real or grounded at all.
 
8 O’Clock?

[33:34] Jenna: Back at Sterling Cooper, Joan is passing out donuts, thanks to one of Ken's new clients.
Kurt reminds Peggy of their date at 8 o'clock. And now Ken, Harry, Smitty, Sal, and Joan all know that they are going to see Bob Dylan together.
 
So Kurt tells them, I'm a homosexual. And Ken is so in denial of this fact. He says, I don't think that means what you think it means.
 
But Kurt insists, and Peggy confirms their date and Kurt leaves. But Sal is still standing there and he has to be a witness to Ken - Ken, who has artistic sensibilities and came to dinner at his house.
 
And now Ken is saying awful things and Harry says them too. But we kind of expect that from Harry.
 
It's Ken's comments that hurt Sal the most. And he says nothing.
Now here is confirmation of what he always worried about. This is what they really think. This is what they would say about him if they knew.
It's a really hard scene.
 
Steve: Yeah, it is, but it feels very real to me in terms of the attitudes, particularly how they would be expressed at that time.
 
And you see all of them, the fear, the loathing, the discomfort. The comedic line in this is when Ken says, oh, you know, I don't think that means what you think it does. And then Kurt says, I make love to a man, not a woman.
 
And it's such a great sort of blunt clarification to say, oh, no. Kurt knows exactly what it means and that's what he's saying.
 
And it's also such an interesting contrast that he's so comfortable with that reality, right? It's not a problem for him. I feel for Peggy in this scene because she's chosen the wrong man again.
 
Jenna: But in this scene, Peggy picks herself up and she says, oh, of course. See you at 8. Absolutely.
 
While Ken is looking in disgust and Sal is looking down away from anybody's eye contact.
And remember, Sal didn't show himself so well a couple episodes ago when Freddy was having a hard time. You know, he was happy to mock and make fun, but here you still really feel his pain.
 
Harry says, Kurt is a pervert. How about that?
And the other Kurt says, oh, do you think he's the first one you've ever met in advertising? It's so callous and so heartless, this whole conversation.
 
Steve: It's a tough conversation, but again, it, it's so real. And I think that's, that's why it's tough is you feel the - how genuine these reactions are. I mean, when Smitty says, oh, you know, there's - with Kurt liking men, there's more women for me. And alluding - flirting with Joan on that comment again, like, that's the kind of thing people did say. And yeah, yeah, it's a tough scene, but it feels very genuine to me and I appreciate that.
 
Jenna: So Ken's painful line here:
I knew queers existed. I just don't want to work with them.
I just don't want to work with them.
 
And here is Sal standing there in the room with this man - I don't know, did he crush on him, exactly?
Here's Peggy with what she thought with Kurt. But here's also Sal with what he thought with Ken, maybe. So there's a lot of work happening in this scene that's crushing blows in a very short space of time.
 
Steve: Yeah. And also, you know, Sal's not hearing anything he doesn't know exists. We've seen him struggle with his own sexuality and shame over it.
 
There is a sort of depressing inevitability of these attitudes. And Sal realizing, you know, he's right. He knows exactly the situation he's in and this need for discretion and it's a secret aspect of himself. So a tough spot to find yourself in in 1962.
 
Ne Touche Pas, Papa

[37:03] Jenna: The next morning in Palm Springs, Joy and Don are in bed together. And Joy's reading William Faulkner.
 
I really hate the writing for her. We learned that she took some college classes, but she says, sex is good. The book is just okay. And she goes on to say, I like sex. You do too, I can tell.
 
And this feels so empty to me. I get that she's a symbol of how this life doesn't really work, but she's still a human with real life experiences. And she just shows up to all these scenes as if her life only exists for Don in that moment. It's not great, Bob.
 
Steve: I hear you and I agree with that.
But I think this is just further emphasizing the hollowness of this entire world. Like, it's almost laughable. The book is just okay. It's Faulkner, the Sound and the Fury. Right? Like, which is very renowned American literature.
 
Willy comes in and we discover Willy is Joy's father. Again, this hedonistic, anything goes culture.
And Willy mentions again that Don is so beautiful. So it's not clear. Is Willy homosexual? Is he bisexual? Is he just openly remarking on Don is a good looking person?
 
It's this anything goes, dreamlike fantasy world. And this whole scene is just immersed in it.
 
Jenna: Yes. Joy's dad showing up in the bedroom and sitting on the bed with the two of them, talking about how beautiful Don is is certainly awkward, but this exchange feels more interesting than anything else that's been said that morning:
After he leaves, Don says, that's your father?
And Joy says, he doesn't want people to think he's old.
 
Which of course goes back to Roger marrying 20 year old Jane and chasing his youth, too.
But this, this is some depth. This, this is a crack in this system, right?
 
Because there are things that you can't run from, things you can't move away from, things you can't pretend.
 
And so they keep popping up. No matter how we want to have the veneer that's so pretty, there's no way to avoid it. Reality keeps creeping in.
 .
Steve: And I get the sense Don is indulging in this, but I don't get the feeling that he's made a decision or cast his lot yet. He's sampling the situation and he's pondering it. And I get the sense that no decision has been taken yet.
 
Jenna: We cut over to Pete at the hotel in California, setting up meetings and working. And he's doing his job, even though Don is M I A.
 
Steve: Yeah, that’s - Pete's not there for a vacation, unlike some. Right, Don?
 
Jenna: We forget because Pete grew up in New York, so he has to say I can't drive, and there doesn't seem to be a taxi that will take me to Pasadena.
 
So even though it's his lack of knowledge, he just turns it into a strength because he's the account man. So he's like, you know, hey, is there any way we can meet here by the pool? He's making it work.
 
I Didn’t Know It Was For Sale

Steve: The next scene cuts to Duck meeting with a couple British gentlemen in a restaurant.
It's Alec Martin and St. John Powell. Duck's trying to arrange a merger between this British advertising agency and Sterling Cooper.
 
Jenna: Duck says he'll sell Sterling Cooper to their British company.
He wants to be in charge of all the international business.
He says, creative reports to me or the whole thing falls apart.
 
And during the meeting, he avoids drinking and avoids drinking.
And the Brits keep pushing their drinks on him. They know him from before.
 
And finally, he drinks.
He takes a sip, he closes his eyes. He ultimately toasts to old friends.
Now the glass is back in his life.
 
[40:38] Steve: Yeah, it's beautifully acted, that scene, because it's the sip and then the savoring of this flavor. And now Duck's fallen off the wagon. And it's clear these two men know him from when he was in the UK.
It sounds like they're - seems like their expectation of Duck is this good time drinking and having fun at the meal person.
 
So they're actively encouraging him to partake in it with no sense of, like, he's dry.
He's been slapped down on his evaluation. He's not going to be made partner at Sterling Cooper.
 
He's here trying to arrange a dramatic move that would put him in a great position and give him the advancement he wants and the opportunity, and he reverts back to his old self. The old Duck is back.
 
You know, the game is on. And we know what the old Duck's drinking did to his family life anyway, and it got him fired from his job as well.
 
Jenna: And I think that Duck might not be the most sympathetic character among the cast, but I think when you really pay attention to his trajectory and the things that he's tried, I feel like Don gets the edge with Mohawk over American Airlines.
 
But as we talked about, Duck was trying to be professional. He tried to do the right thing. He's been sober for at least two years now because that's how long he's been with the company.
 
He says in his conversation with Roger, maybe he just feels like the alcohol is his secret weapon.
That's what makes him professionally successful. So he reaches for that again, and that is really tragic.
 
We had this sympathy for Freddy and his alcoholism, and I do feel like it's a little bit harder to find that sympathy for Duck. But I think part of it is because he holds it together for so long so well.
 
Again, the cracks are appearing, and he can't hold it together on his own, and he's addicted to that success. He's got a lot of Pete Campbell in him, but he's also got professionalism.
 
So now where does he go if he reaches for the drink? Does the professionalism go away? What is his future like once he reaches for this?
 
Steve: And just to focus on the professionalism, like this pitch of a merger with Putnam, Powell and Lowe, the UK firm. It is very sound. It appeals to both sides.
 
Duck emphasizes to Saint John that, look, you know, it's gonna cost you less than you think. There's an opportunity here.
 
You know, he says, Roger's wife won't leave him a pot to piss in in terms of the settlement, so Roger's going to be very thirsty for some financial pickup. It's a great play here.
 
[43:07] And Duck’s even dotted the I's and crossed the T's in terms of his future role, right? It makes him the president.
 
He gets creative reporting into him, which we know he's always wanted to have creative have to answer to him so he can control it. He doesn't want to have this two headed monster dynamic.
 
So it's a very interesting development that he's engineered here.
 
Jenna: Our next scene takes us to Peggy's apartment. Kurt shows up and she tries to be honest. She says if he'd rather go to the Bob Dylan concert with a man, she'll understand.
 
She did think this was a date. And she lets her guard down a little bit saying, why do I always pick the wrong boys?
 
And his reply is a little bit funny. He says, you are drinking sad. And she smiles. But this is a big reveal from Peggy. We see her choosing work over and over, but she's lonely. She does want to meet someone.
 
We might have guessed that, but we didn't know for sure before, or at least not since Pete.
 
Also, if Peggy were a superhero who had a tragic flaw, it would be her taste in men. She absolutely picks the wrong boys. (Laughter)
 
There's only one possible exception, but I think we still have debate material when we get there.
 
Steve: And it's interesting that she opens up to Kurt and I wonder if that's because, you know, he's foreign, he's young, and now you know he's gay. So she knows there's no romantic implications with him.
 
But I love what Kurt says, you know, she is old style, you know, and he says it in broken English and he touches her hair and he talks Peggy into letting him cut her hair.
 
Which again is interesting and seems like kind of a potentially bad choice by Peggy.
 
Jenna: Okay, it's a little cliche that her gay friend can fix her hair for her, but Peggy does finally lose this ponytail she's worn since we first met her.
 
I know it's just hair and it's not that important, but on that first watch when he hacks away with his scissors, I have so much anxiety over what she's going to look like in the office the next day.
 
You’re Beautiful and You Don’t Talk Too Much
[
45:03] Back in Palm Springs, Joy and Don are kissing in the pool while Willy and Rocci are kissing at the other end.
 
 
Joy says they're all headed to Nassau and he would like it. It's all one continuous party. He can travel along, eating and drinking and making merry. If he wants to, he can say yes, but is this who he is?
 
Joy has this line saying, my father likes having you around.
You're beautiful and you don't talk too much.
And I wonder, is that all that Don Draper is at his core?
 
I think we may have thought that that was Betty's goal at one point, but that's not enough for her anymore. So who is he going to be here?
 
Steve: Yeah. And being a kept man again, given Don Draper's background, what he's done and had to do and what he escaped from to now have become a kept man, indulged because he looks nice and keeps his mouth shut.
 
I have to feel this isn't appealing to anything he had in mind for how his life would be or doesn't fit tick the box of moving forward at all.
 
I love at the end of the scene when he looks at his glass and there's a crack in it. Is that crack a crack in this fantasy, this little dream world? It still works. You had your drink, it wasn't leaking.
 
But you see this fundamental flaw that is in this world, and do you want to partake in it?
 
Jenna: I also think it's important that a new friend shows up late at night. This is Christian. He's got sleepy kids. He's holding one. And the boy, Bernard, is about 8 or 9.
 
And the boy is staring into the pool at them. And I think Don feels seen,
and this might be a callback to his own childhood - maybe slight spoiler here - things that he's seen as a child that were more adult than he was ready to see.
 
Maybe through this boy, he can look at this hedonism through different eyes and realize it is just a trap. It's a different kind of emptiness and pretending to be okay or fulfilled or happy. The cracked glass really reinforces that.
 
Steve: Yeah, it's a plastic cage. And do you want to willingly enter the plastic cage?
 
It’s the Good Stuff. I Know.
 
Jenna: Back at the office, Joan delivers a case of Tanqueray to Duck, and he gives her a whole bottle as thanks for delivering it.
 
We can infer here the Brits like his proposal. And again, they're propping up his drinking somehow not keeping up with the fact that he had been sober for however long it had been at least two years.
And it's like Roger and Don saying Freddy crossed a line with his drinking. And then they take him out drinking.
 
Duck disintegrated in London, so the gossip says, and the reason was his drinking. And now the Brits send him a case of gin.
 
Steve: Yeah, they're killing him with kindness at this point. And we know the sauce is not Duck's friend. So it's again, this tragedy of alcoholism.
 
Jenna: In another Sterling Cooper office, several of the employees are watching the news from Oxford, Mississippi, where riots are breaking out in response to black voters voting.
 
Pete returns to New York bearing a gift of California oranges. He says he's glad to be home, but he can't say why exactly.
 
Steve: There's a few lines in this which are really fun. Pete notices there's something different about Peggy, and she says, it's my hair. He says, oh, yeah. And it's funny that he didn't notice that it was the hair, but he's pleased with himself that he noticed there was something different about her.
 
Jenna: She has to help him there.
 
Steve: Yeah. I also got a kick out of the line where Ken just throws out Kurt's a homo and nobody else reacts and it doesn't spark any conversation. He just throws that out there as sort of, you know, hey, here's what's happened while you were away.
 
Jenna: I think it's also important to note that Pete's business trip was very successful, so you might think he would like California more.
 
And I think this is meant to contrast with Don, that not everybody can walk away from their lives so easily. Pete is more at home in New York.
 
Steve: Yeah. And he doesn't really specify what it is that's off putting to him. He says it's different out there. And they say, well, what's different? And he says it's the people.
 
But he doesn't elaborate on what is different about it. You know, is he clinging to the familiar here? Whereas Don has gone full bore to try the hedonistic change.
 
It is an interesting contrast how it feels like they entered through opposite doors and then exited through different doors from the same place.
 
Let Them Open The Kimono

[49:13] Jenna: And here we see Duck eating Life Savers on his way in to talk to Bert and Roger, presumably to cover up his drinking.
 
He puts the deal on the table. Putnam, Powell and Lowe will buy Sterling Cooper. They could get a ton of money and maybe go public and they don't have to change their name.

Bert is impressed. This is the man he heard so much about.
He sees him now, now that he's drinking again.
 
Steve: Yeah. And I guess it comes back, you know, and Weiner mentions this in the commentary. Is Duck himself again, because he's on the sauce? Is Duck himself despite the sauce?
 
It's an interesting question, but it seems that Duck has read things correctly. There is serious interest coming from Bert and Roger here. This is an exciting opportunity. We know the Brits are interested, so it'll be interesting to see where this heads.
 
I’d Love to See You

[50:03] Jenna: Back in Palm Springs, we can hear kids splashing in the pool outside, while Don is in the house, reaching for a baby blue rotary phone.
 
He calls someone, we don't know who. He says, hello, it's Dick Whitman. I'd love to see you.
 
And he takes Joy's Faulkner book and writes an address on the last page of her book, the page with the ending. Thanks for that, Dick Whitman. (Laughter)
 
As the episode closes, we get this famous shot of the back of Don Draper seated, but it's the wrong arm extended over the back of the sofa.
Is he the opposite of himself here, or is this the real him?
 
Steve: A lot of viewers have written in to say you only hate Don Draper because he ripped the last page out of a paperback novel. Is there any truth to this accusation?
 
Jenna: It is a very egregious thing to do.
 
Steve: Yeah.
 
This is interesting, right? Because he has not introduced himself as Dick Whitman to anybody in this series to this point. So whoever this person is knows him still as Dick Whitman - we're all rewatchers, so I assume we all know where this is headed. But I just try and think back to seeing this for the first time and thinking, oh my goodness, we're going to meet someone new now.
 
[51:14] Jenna: Irving Berlin's What'll I Do? song plays as the scene closes.
Matt Weiner says that every version of this song makes him cry. The lyrics say, when I'm alone / with only dreams of you / that won't come true / what'll I do?
 
And at last, at the end, we see a man delivering Don's suitcase full of his belongings back to the house in Ossining. He's never opened it this trip and it doesn't look like he's going home anytime soon.
 
Steve: I think about Betty back at the house because we, other than the sort of fake out at the beginning of the episode, we haven't seen or heard from her.
And I don't get the sense that outside of that, Don has given much thought to his prior life. You know, the escape has been total for most of this episode.
 
Even if he's opting out of this world with Viscount Willy, wherever he's headed with this person who knows him from his former identity, he's not returning back to New York just yet.
 
He's still, still on this journey.
 
Jenna: Yes, important point. He could have called Betty from that baby blue rotary phone and he doesn't.
He could have called Pete also to just say, hey. 
(Laughter)
 
Steve: I've been on a lot of business trips and I've never had anybody flake out and disappear on the business trip. So for me personally, this flaking out like this, it's hard to get my head around it.
 
There's just every fiber of my being’s, like you can't. You. You have obligations.
 

[52:38] Jenna: So we opened talking about the controversy of this episode, and I will say it feels very sad and lonely to me. I'm not a fan of dream sequences to begin with, and it does have the feeling that the whole encounter with Joy and Willy could be a dream or something that Don is imagining.
 
It has a really unreliable narrator feel to it.
I don't look at it and feel a longing for the pretty house and the pool and the lives with no cares. I just feel like there are monsters lurking in corners and everyone has agreed to pretend that they aren't there.
 
I'm not sure why this California pretense seems so much sadder to me than all the regular pretense that we see in New York, but it does seem sadder somehow.
 
Steve: Yeah. To me it makes me think of the lyric from Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones. Childhood living is easy to do / the things you wanted, I bought them for you / and this feels to me like Don's childhood living.
 
Podcast Updates: Transcriptions
[53:30] Jenna: So a podcast program note here is that our podcast is 100% human in terms of our research, our notes, our opinions, and our voices. But different podcast platforms use AI to generate transcripts of our episodes.
 
For a word nerd, it is really frustrating that those transcriptions can't seem to consistently spell don as D O N or know that Bobbie Barrett is with an ie on the end.
 
It never gets Zou Bisou right. And it also sometimes takes the last thing one of us said and applies it to the first thing the other person said.
 
So we are slowly going through our episode transcriptions and doing some human editing to clean them up and putting those on our website, Mad Men C to Z,  as blog posts.
 
We're hopeful that's better for clarity and accessibility, and we're glad to get those correct spellings out there in the world.
 
Steve: Speak for yourself. I want to make it clear to our robot masters that that's not my opinion.
 
 
Jenna: For our shout out today, we're so grateful to share that we had a couple of really kind messages from Roberta Lipp. She and her sister had a blog about Mad Men while the show was airing called Basket of Kisses, and they had this amazing access to many of the writers in the cast of Mad Men during that time.
 
And later in 2020, Roberta and Dan Jasper, who also wrote for that blog, started a Mad Men rewatch podcast called They Coined It. If you like Mad Men podcasts, you're probably familiar with that one, so it was very kind of someone with that kind of following to take a minute to message us with our startup indie project we've got here.
 
We want to say for the record that we don't listen to any of the They Coined it episodes until after we've recorded our own, just so we can have a fresh take.
 
Sometimes we end up with similar insights, which is kind of disappointing when you think you have a really original view or a subtle catch and then they say the same thing.
 
Or sometimes they have a really great point or a different perspective, which is always interesting to us when we do listen afterward.
 
The point is, we're so appreciative of the kind feedback from all of our listeners, and the fact that you take time to listen and rewatch with us is truly touching, so thank you.
 
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.