Mad Men: A Day's Work
April 20, 2014 8:05 PM - Season 7, Episode 2 - Subscribe

It's Valentines Day at Sterling Cooper and Partners, but there's not a lot of love to go around.

More LA/NYC friction, Don is still in work limbo, Sally makes a visit, and Valentines Day puts everyone on edge.
posted by mathowie (302 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
That last scene just filled me with hope and happiness in a season where (so far) things are not going great for Don or Peggy. Sally Draper 4-eva!!
posted by leesh at 8:06 PM on April 20, 2014 [11 favorites]


I also cheered about Dawn's promotion. Things are looking up!
posted by leesh at 8:07 PM on April 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


PEGGY NO!
posted by Sys Rq at 8:08 PM on April 20, 2014 [23 favorites]


Ugh, I know, I can't handle Peggy being such a mess when Don is also such a mess.
posted by leesh at 8:10 PM on April 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


By which I mean, her professional life seems pretty creatively stifled, and obviously her personal life isn't bringing her any great joy either.
posted by leesh at 8:11 PM on April 20, 2014


I wanted to see more Bert, and I saw a befuddled racist. I wanted to see more Sally, and I saw a sad kid. Be careful what you wish for.
posted by box at 8:14 PM on April 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


Props to Dawn, though. New Joan? That's a good look.
posted by box at 8:14 PM on April 20, 2014


The toxic work environment and the complicated daddy/daughter thing hit a little too close to home tonight. But I'm happy for Dawn and especially happy that she has a friend at work. And did we know Bert was that racist?
posted by Sweetie Darling at 8:15 PM on April 20, 2014


When Sally said she didn't want to see "HER" in the elevator, was she talking about Megan? I don't recall Sally hating Megan that much.
posted by mathowie at 8:17 PM on April 20, 2014


Aw, we could've guessed, I suppose. I want Bert to be a visionary, because he likes art and stuff, but that might be me being overly optimistic.
posted by box at 8:18 PM on April 20, 2014


Also, if Don gets fired/cut out of the business, does his non-compete still keep him from working in the industry? If so, that's a really bad ending for him.
posted by mathowie at 8:18 PM on April 20, 2014


She's talking about Sylvia
posted by sweetkid at 8:18 PM on April 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


Nah, that's Linda Cardellini.
posted by box at 8:18 PM on April 20, 2014


How long would a non-compete be valid for? Like a year?
posted by leesh at 8:19 PM on April 20, 2014


When Sally said she didn't want to see "HER" in the elevator, was she talking about Megan? I don't recall Sally hating Megan that much.

No, the other woman. Brush up on your Previously Ons!
posted by Sys Rq at 8:19 PM on April 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh right, the woman she caught her dad with. I forgot that from the "Previously On..." montage.
posted by mathowie at 8:20 PM on April 20, 2014


Lou is one of the most dislikable characters I've seen on TV in some time.
posted by sallybrown at 8:21 PM on April 20, 2014 [10 favorites]


Bert's NAACP comment just seemed more same old same old to me with Weiner making shitty jokes at the expense of black characters and then being like "oh but that's to show how white people were awful back then"
posted by sweetkid at 8:21 PM on April 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


Bert is a total Orientalist, which I suppose we can use to infer other forms of racism.
posted by leesh at 8:21 PM on April 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


Lou really is THE WORST. Even if he wasn't rude/unhelpful to Sally and Peggy, he also seems really terrible at his job!
posted by leesh at 8:23 PM on April 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


I bet Lou hates spunk.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:23 PM on April 20, 2014 [9 favorites]


I don't dislike Lou. I think in part he's just a real outsider who doesn't care about the little unspoken rules of the office ("Peggy is plucky and charming!" "Joan is not to be messed with!" "Don can't handle his family!") and just wants to get the job done and go home. He's like Stanley from The Office.
posted by sweetkid at 8:24 PM on April 20, 2014


just wants to get the job done and go home

I totally agree with you here, but this is a terrible attitude in a creative job, isn't it?
posted by leesh at 8:25 PM on April 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


So in the great secretarial shuffle of '69, Joan moves up to Accounts, Dawn moves into Joan's office, Shirley moves up to Lou's desk(?), and Meredith ends up back at reception? Hopefully?
posted by donajo at 8:27 PM on April 20, 2014


Aw, we could've guessed, I suppose. I want Bert to be a visionary, because he likes art and stuff, but that might be me being overly optimistic.

He's a racist objectivist with a taste for the "orient". He is a visionary, he's just a visionary for Reagan's America.
posted by codacorolla at 8:27 PM on April 20, 2014 [6 favorites]


When Roger and Don went to California last season, remember Cutler suggested to Ted that they get rid of everyone from SCDP? His machinations tonight seem like the next evolution of that plan (which may include freezing out Ted). He's pretty ruthless but seems to understand what the agency needs to do to be successful, at least from the non-creative perspective.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 8:27 PM on April 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


That was ...pretty overt/heavy handed for the show? Like the flowers moving around like it's a comic short story. I sometimes like Mad Men best when it has these enclosed, cameo-like episodes, so you can admire each facet in relation to every other.

Huh.

Like I don;t know how to feel about this episode and that interests me.
posted by The Whelk at 8:27 PM on April 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


just wants to get the job done and go home

I totally agree with you here, but this is a terrible attitude in a creative job, isn't it?
posted by leesh at 11:25 PM on April 20 [+] [!]


Yes, but there are definitely people in creative roles who do exactly that.
posted by sweetkid at 8:28 PM on April 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


It's interesting how much the power dynamic has shifted in the office. That veiled threat Jim made to Roger in the elevator was the perfect topper. The honeymoon is clearly over and our SCDP folks have been assimilated by LETTERS.
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:29 PM on April 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


He's like Stanley from The Office.

Stanley would side-eye you so hard for that. Something about Lou's blandness just magnifies how terrible he is. He's that boss who you can't really complain about because he doesn't actually do anything terrible...but he just still is infuriating.
posted by sallybrown at 8:29 PM on April 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


I feel like we haven't gotten an episode with such light-hearted touches in ages. It was refreshing! Also, aw, Sally is Don's valentine!
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:30 PM on April 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


Lou feels like someone who has never had to really work at anything and just wants everything to run smoothly so he's not bothered, just put in C+ ork til it's over and people stop asking you to do things.
posted by The Whelk at 8:30 PM on April 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


So what do we think Cutler's plans for Joan are? Is he being supportive or secretly nefarious?
posted by leesh at 8:30 PM on April 20, 2014


Bring on the Harry Crane already. I enjoy his ridiculousness.

(Yay Sally and Don reconnecting and Dawn's smile before answering her phone in her new office.)
posted by rewil at 8:31 PM on April 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


ALSO SALLY IS LIKE ONE HUNDRED PERCENT PREP SCHOOL I KNOW THOSE TEENAGERS I HAVE TALKED TO THEM THEY SOUND LIKE SALLY AAAAAH
posted by The Whelk at 8:31 PM on April 20, 2014



It's interesting how much the power dynamic has shifted in the office. That veiled threat Jim made to Roger in the elevator was the perfect topper. The honeymoon is clearly over and our SCDP folks have been assimilated by LETTERS.



Yes but that just means it's time for an wayward lawnmower to appear.
posted by sweetkid at 8:31 PM on April 20, 2014 [7 favorites]


I mean she's also like deeply unhappy and doesn't know why but she's a Draper that's to be expected.

WOW PETE REALLY DOESN'T WANT TO TALK TO BOB
posted by The Whelk at 8:32 PM on April 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


So what do we think Cutler's plans for Joan are? Is he being supportive or secretly nefarious?

If he's plotting a takeover, then he's just bought Joan's loyalty for the price of an office.
posted by donajo at 8:32 PM on April 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


Also, we have seen Don eat more in two episodes than all of the previous six seasons combined.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 8:32 PM on April 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


Sally is Don's valentine!

Yea that scene really hit me.
posted by sweetkid at 8:33 PM on April 20, 2014


If he's plotting a takeover, then he's just bought Joan's loyalty for the price of an office.

And by being/acting respectful of the work she does!
posted by leesh at 8:33 PM on April 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


I agree I think Jim's planning on leveraging Joan to squash Roger and Pete and Bert.
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:33 PM on April 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


Roger seems pretty checked out at this point, anyway. All that recreational 60s stuff must wear him out.
posted by leesh at 8:34 PM on April 20, 2014


I totally agree with you here, but this is a terrible attitude in a creative job, isn't it?

I get the feeling that Ted was the yin to his particular yang. Ted connected most strongly with Don, which lead to the merger in the first place, and Don is the creative force personified.
posted by codacorolla at 8:34 PM on April 20, 2014


Those brown waved glasses in the diner sent me for a nostalgia loop. There are still so many places in Connecticut and NJ that look like that.
posted by The Whelk at 8:34 PM on April 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


I could see Joan appreciating the recognition, but I think she's cool-headed enough to evaluate any move Cutler made on its own merits.
posted by rewil at 8:35 PM on April 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


I don't really see Cutler trying to take over SC&LETTERS when his foremost ally, Ted, is in (figurative) Siberia.
posted by donajo at 8:35 PM on April 20, 2014


So what do we think Cutler's plans for Joan are?

There was kind of a twin/doppelganger/Janus thing running through the episode tonight (Shirley/Dawn, Shirley/Peggy, Don/Sally, Roger/Cutler, etc), which suggested to me that Cutler's plans for Joan might be similar to what Roger's once were...

Ginsburg's crack about masturbation to Peggy in the elevator seemed shocking for 1969. (I cackled at Stan's questioning whether her cat could afford flowers though. Poor Peggs.)
posted by sallybrown at 8:36 PM on April 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


I really wish Joan and Peggy could stage a takeover.
posted by leesh at 8:36 PM on April 20, 2014


Peggy's so off her game without a mentor, though. She's not ready to be Don, or even Ted.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 8:37 PM on April 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


How much loyalty does Joan really have left at this point, though? Roger has always used her for emotional fulfillment, and every other man in the office (absent Don) has treated her as a body which is used to please and serve. I also think that for all of the political maneuvering Cutler is doing he really does see Joan as a capable accounts person. He's a pragmatist and a capitalist. He isn't caught up in the culture like everyone else is, and probably has a lot less of the misogyny that goes along with it so long as it makes him money.
posted by codacorolla at 8:38 PM on April 20, 2014 [7 favorites]


I think Cutler, for all his Anton-Levay-meets-Andy-Warhol vibe, is pretty interested in keeping the house running smoothly, moving Joan up helps everyone.
posted by The Whelk at 8:38 PM on April 20, 2014 [6 favorites]


This episode definitely felt a bit anvilicious tonight, between the "we're not in control of our fates" speech, to Bert's racism, to the parallels between Lou and Peggy being so awful to their secretaries.

However, I loved the conversation between Dawn and Shirley, and Dawn's moment of victory at the end.

I also love what's happening with Don and Sally's relationship now that he's started being honest with her.
posted by lunasol at 8:38 PM on April 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


Yea don't think Cutler is making any sexual moves toward Joan or intending to.
posted by sweetkid at 8:39 PM on April 20, 2014


"Lying in wait just like your mother"

Don don't be that blunt about your Issues With Women with your daughter she's got strange enough ideas about men as it is.
posted by The Whelk at 8:40 PM on April 20, 2014 [5 favorites]


If you want to know what my average day is like imagine the first five minutes of this episode but with an iPad and 40s pastiche decor.
posted by The Whelk at 8:41 PM on April 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


He shouldn't have said it but Sally was saying straight up things Betty would have said, including "more embarrassing to talk to you about lying than just let you lie" and "THAT WOMAN"
posted by sweetkid at 8:42 PM on April 20, 2014 [5 favorites]


Meanwhile, Bonnie (is that the real estate agent's name?) kind of reminded me of Alison, giving Pete some much-needed advice to curb some of his petulance. If only he'll listen this time.
posted by rewil at 8:44 PM on April 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


I thought her name was Fake Betty.
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:50 PM on April 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


She's wa-a-a-ay more aggressive than Betty, Pete needs someone he can scheme with, it's the only thing he respects.

Also she's MAL-LI-BU BET-TY.
posted by The Whelk at 9:41 PM on April 20, 2014 [14 favorites]


That look Don gives Sally as she is walking back to campus, where without a world of dialogue he is able to convey so much love, longing, sadness and affection, just hit me right in the heart. I generally hate cutesy Internetisms, but I can now at least understand the mindset behind "So much feels".
posted by The Gooch at 9:41 PM on April 20, 2014 [4 favorites]


The way Sally shuts down whatsherface at school going on about whatever it was she was saying on the phone makes me think that Sally isn't destined to go to Woodstock or participate at all in what is generally thought of as "The Sixties."
posted by ob1quixote at 10:21 PM on April 20, 2014


Sally is going into Politics.

I feel like we have always called this.
posted by The Whelk at 10:23 PM on April 20, 2014


All this talk of Bob Benson.

Stop being a Bob tease, Weiner!
posted by crossoverman at 10:35 PM on April 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


PETER REALLY DOESN'T WANT TO TALK TO BOB IT'S LIKE IT.S A THING
posted by The Whelk at 10:39 PM on April 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


I'm thinking about Bert's racism and the fact that Dawn is now head if personnel. And I don't think he'll really mind that she's in that position, just that she won't be at reception. I mean, I know that is awful, but I can imagine he'll be fine with Dawn in her new job - as long as she's not the face of SC&P.
posted by crossoverman at 10:39 PM on April 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


Is it a running in-joke between Dawn and Shirley to call each other the wrong name?

/new watcher
posted by maggieb at 11:04 PM on April 20, 2014 [2 favorites]


I'm not even sure there's been a scene between them before.
posted by crossoverman at 11:21 PM on April 20, 2014 [1 favorite]


Yeah, that's a new thing. Shirley's new.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:53 PM on April 20, 2014


Damn, I thought Shirley was Phyllis - Peggy's secretary from last season. I forgot Phyllis' name.
posted by crossoverman at 12:22 AM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


AV Club

Tom & Lorenzo
posted by crossoverman at 12:38 AM on April 21, 2014 [3 favorites]


Last week ended with Don sitting exposed in the freezing cold; this week he's sheltered from the rain. It's like a metaphorical thawing that happens when he's honest with himself and his loved ones.

So many loops closed in a single episode: Don's "I'm just looking for love" at the restaurant and Sally saying she loves him. There was another that I've already forgotten.

And poor Pete. Is he genuinely happy in CA and this is the thing that's brought him low, or was last week just bravado for Don's sake?

Loved the secretarial shuffle! Hooray for the machinations that take Dawn from reception to head of personnel. But sad how little control the women in those roles have.
posted by tracicle at 3:35 AM on April 21, 2014 [12 favorites]


sweetkid, my husband and I were talking about how unlikeable the writers are making Lou, and I said there'll probably be a lawnmower episode coming soon.
posted by tracicle at 3:51 AM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


That was a really exhausting episode, with everyone having their worst. day. at. work. evar.

The best bit was the two-shot of Roger and Jim in the elevator. Jim says to Roger "I don't want to be your enemy" and then we immediately cut to an identically-spaced two-shot of Sally and Don in the car. That little bit of editing spoke volumes.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:41 AM on April 21, 2014 [5 favorites]


Is it a running in-joke between Dawn and Shirley to call each other the wrong name?

I figured it was an in-joke between the two of them about how other people in the agency get them confused because they're the two black women.
posted by lunasol at 5:05 AM on April 21, 2014 [17 favorites]


Mad Men writer's guide, page 1: Pete is not allowed to be happy for any two episodes in a row
posted by mikepop at 5:50 AM on April 21, 2014 [7 favorites]


This episode definitely felt a bit anvilicious tonight, between the "we're not in control of our fates" speech, to Bert's racism, to the parallels between Lou and Peggy being so awful to their secretaries.

On the one hand, I felt like Peggy's snippiness about Shirley was way out of character and that Lou & Bert's various shittinesses were a little too on-the-nose; on the other, it was all a perfect set up to the very GIF-able moment when Joan wheels around and snaps at Jim for just walking into her office.
posted by psoas at 6:04 AM on April 21, 2014


Nobody is allowed to be happy for two episodes in a row.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 6:05 AM on April 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


The red was strong with this episode. Would've like to have seen some creative though…been too long since a pitch or concept.
posted by iamkimiam at 6:20 AM on April 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


Also as someone living on the East Coast and in a long-distance relationship with someone in California, listening to Don & Sally's conversation about his situation with Megan was like a mallet to the heart. Thanks, Mad Men!
posted by psoas at 6:25 AM on April 21, 2014


Cutler is out to make money. He recognizes Joan's intelligence and the fact that women are moving up and it's good sense to have women on accounts. Kinda "womany" accounts (shoes and makeup) but it's a start. And he's got her on his side for whatever shenanigans he's got in mind.

I think Lou is terrible on purpose and chosen by Cutler for that purpose; a place holder until Ted comes back. I don't think he wants Don back. As it is he's not terrible terrible, he gets it done and has enough of a track record to be in there. Past his prime, perhaps but not sure where he came from in the ad game.
posted by tilde at 6:52 AM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Would've like to have seen some creative though…been too long since a pitch or concept.

That's because the firm is no longer creative-driven. It's numbers/marketing-driven. It's become top-heavy with executives and account people. Don, for all his many, many faults, believed in the power of the creative idea. With him gone, there really is no one carrying the flag for creative. Peggy should be, but she's become minimized and shut-down.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:56 AM on April 21, 2014 [4 favorites]


Oh LA Pete Campbell...we hardly knew ye.
posted by dry white toast at 7:27 AM on April 21, 2014


PEGGY NO!

I ACTUALLY YELLED THIS AT THE TV

NO JOKE
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:31 AM on April 21, 2014 [8 favorites]


I almost died of empathetic awkwardness.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:35 AM on April 21, 2014 [3 favorites]


Thought you guys might like this.

Ugh, I know, I can't handle Peggy being such a mess when Don is also such a mess.

Been thinking about this comment since last night. I don't think Don is a mess at all. Last season ended on a note of redemption via honesty with his children, too. He's in a good place. He has a Valentine. Not that this is necessarily a great thing for Sally, psychologically. Being the only port in a storm for your father isn't really all that healthy.

I think Peggy's behavior was totally in character. We've seen her be a shit to employees before.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:35 AM on April 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


The fundamental question of any tv show is: What do we want, as the audience, more than anything from this show? And then the writers delay giving it to us, or parcel out in measures, or give to us in a Phyrrhic victory way, all to communicate something about the world (& so we keep watching).

I'd posit that for Mad Men it is to watch Peggy and Don (and probably Roger and Joan) working together and being friends and winning. So to what end do they kept delaying and putting this achievement off (they already gave us the "we founded our own office with just the cool kids" season so they probably won't do it again)? What finale are they moving toward? They're already achieved success and happiness seems impossible.

The answer lies in Sally. Some people think she's going to be a politician. But she hates lies way too much for that. Sally is the stand in for the creative artist who tells the truth rather than spins webs of gorgeous lies. This is how you make a poet (or a show runner). But maybe Don and Peggy can work together again on something approaching poetry. I don't know whether that's really in the cards, but if they do come together again and achieve greatness that would be the most satisfying damn ending as a fan that I could possibly imagine.

So, obviously, a hopeful episode for me despite everyone's slightly cheesy flailing, meaning that next week will probably be more doom and gloom.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:45 AM on April 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


Don was literally on the edge in the first episode of this season tho Phoebe. I think whether he moves forward somehow or just falls off (credits style) is the central arc of this season and the whole show in general.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:46 AM on April 21, 2014


Linda Holmes | Shirley, This Is The Dawn[ing of the Age of Aquarius]
posted by maggieb at 7:53 AM on April 21, 2014 [3 favorites]


Having been Drapered myself last fall, I've had a lot of time to read interviews with Matt Weiner (my version of Little Rascals & Ritz crackers) and he's made it clear that anyone who is expecting this show to wrap up in a bow is going to be very disappointed. He feels strongly that life doesn't wrap up neatly, so why should the show? We may get a few little nuggets of happiness (I for one will continue to pull for Steggy) but I am steeling myself for hopeful ambiguity at best. I think Weiner is almost defiant in his refusal to give the audience what we want at this point.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 7:57 AM on April 21, 2014 [6 favorites]


I'd posit that for Mad Men it is to watch Peggy and Don (and probably Roger and Joan) working together and being friends and winning.

No, Pete is still a thing.
posted by sweetkid at 7:57 AM on April 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


Don was literally on the edge in the first episode of this season tho Phoebe. I think whether he moves forward somehow or just falls off (credits style) is the central arc of this season and the whole show in general.

Literally on the edge, maybe, but that doesn't mean he is, as a person, broken. I still think that the shattering of the Don Draper ethos (which includes the swank apartment--now broken--and the career--now broken) is a positive for Don, as I did last season. Maybe it wouldn't be for most people--maybe for most people, last season would have ended with a suicide, when Don had nothing left. But Don still has Dick, still has his children, his creative abilities (as we saw in Freddy's pitch), his honesty. I really think we'll be seeing Don move nto a more honest life now.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:01 AM on April 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


Did anyone here get the feeling that Bonnie might be a mole for a rival agency? I just can't imagine anyone being that into Pete.
posted by mochapickle at 8:06 AM on April 21, 2014 [4 favorites]


I couldn't tell from the shots of the apartment interior - (small phone screen half an eye and ear during a vendor advertorial-webinar) - did he get the slider door fixed?

I wonder what this will do for Dawn's assistance to Don. Will she be more reluctant or less to help out Don more than she has? At least she can close the door and get things done.
posted by tilde at 8:07 AM on April 21, 2014


Since we're posting links to recaps (yay), did everyone see Starlee Kine's last week? (Maybe I even found it via last week's thread?) It's more of a meditation than a recap, but I enjoyed it and am looking forward to this week's.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 8:07 AM on April 21, 2014


I really think we'll be seeing Don move nto a more honest life now.

I think you might have something there, but on the other hand (or maybe on the same hand?), he explains the mess he's in by saying, "I told the truth about myself."
posted by Sys Rq at 8:12 AM on April 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


The TLO recap actually had one salient point (I wasn't sure if Joan's office/Dawns office still could eavesdrop on the conference room - I thought that was a while while back):
we kind of wonder if Joan didn’t hand Dawn the means to eavesdrop on any conversation happening in the conference room because she figured out the extent to which Dawn is still Don’s girl and doing his bidding in the office.
posted by tilde at 8:13 AM on April 21, 2014 [6 favorites]


I wonder what this will do for Dawn's assistance to Don.

It will probably allow her to report to him more of the palace intrigue brewing.
Don's still a partner, right? I'd like to think this will pay-off big for him down the road...Like being the deciding vote in a major dispute.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:15 AM on April 21, 2014


I'd like to think Don is moving in a good direction, optimistic at the end of the episode, but most of the past two eps have shown him in a pretty down place--the balcony scene at the end of the first ep, as has been mentioned, and then the beginning of this ep--struggling to get out of bed, using the tv for company, marking his bottle as he drinks, sitting around in pajamas, etc. He can barely pull himself together to put on a good face for Dawn. He's kind of in a holding pattern and not handling it well, though I hope/imagine that will change soon.
posted by leesh at 8:20 AM on April 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


Now Don has another person in his life who gave him what Anna Draper gave him. Sally knows the worst about him and loves him anyway.
posted by orange swan at 8:25 AM on April 21, 2014 [15 favorites]


This whole episode was a PEGGY NO for her.
posted by sweetkid at 8:28 AM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


The Atlantic: Is [Sally] the Woman That Can Save Don Draper?
posted by box at 8:44 AM on April 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


For all of Peggy's brattiness, it DID lead to my second favorite line where Ted mutters, 'They never told us which Peggy's account we lost,' after the dropped conference call.
posted by Tevin at 8:45 AM on April 21, 2014 [9 favorites]


OK, so: Dawn is now doing Personnel. Shirley is supporting Lou. Meredith is presumably back at the reception desk. Does this mean that Peggy just snitted herself out of a secretary?
posted by psoas at 8:48 AM on April 21, 2014


Peggy will be getting a new secretary. It'll be interesting to see who she gets. I thought she'd get Dawn and was glad Dawn got the better job she deserved.
posted by orange swan at 8:51 AM on April 21, 2014


I love that Meredith has stuck around so long despite being a complete nitwit.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:53 AM on April 21, 2014 [8 favorites]


With Lawnmower Lois gone, we needed someone to fill the role of "hapless secretary".
posted by orange swan at 8:54 AM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Sally isn't any port in a storm. She's Don's entire foundation. And he is hers. When their connection (such as it was) broke last season, both of them started floundering. As they re-connected in this episode, things started coming into focus again for both of them.
posted by dry white toast at 9:00 AM on April 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


I'm still waiting for the reveal that Meredith is a deep cover KGB agent or something,
posted by The Whelk at 9:01 AM on April 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


Sally isn't any port in a storm. She's Don's entire foundation. And he is hers.

I could easily be projecting because of parentification in my own family but being dad's foundation is sooo dicey psychologically. Don still seems to be attempting to keep up appropriate boundaries (interesting, that he wanted to protect her from the funeral--but nice that he intuited that she really was sad about the death), which is good, but the fact that the show wants to slot her into a role equivalent to Anna's is problematic, in some ways.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:04 AM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Two things on Bert's racism:

1) The charitable way to read his reaction is that he doesn't think other people can handle a black face being the first thing they see in the office. Probably too charitable.

2) How old do we think Bert is? In his 70s? That means he was born in the 1890s. And where is he from?

So racism and equality (or equal opportunity) have very particular meanings for people of his generation. Truman integrated the armed forces, and would have pushed integration on a more national scale but for pushback from southern Democrats. African-Americans that could vote were huge Truman supporters and he gave a speech to the NAACP during his 1948 campaign. But he also used the N-word constantly and his mother was a dyed-in-the-wool Confederate (as were most of the people in the town where he grew up).

My point is that it's completely possible for someone of Bert's generation to support equality and Civil Rights and still say things that would make people of our generation's jaws drop. If he's from anywhere south of Pennsylvania, he was surrounded by a very...particular culture that saw a lot of things change over the preceding decades.

And beyond just The South, the whole world changed A LOT during Bert's lifetime. Moreso than probably for any generation in American history. I don't think it's plausible or fair to just slap a RACIST label on him.
posted by dry white toast at 9:15 AM on April 21, 2014 [5 favorites]


I love that Meredith has stuck around so long despite being a complete nitwit.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi 23 minutes ago [1 favorite +]


I'd watch a whole episode of Meredith bungling things at reception. That actress is great.
posted by sweetkid at 9:19 AM on April 21, 2014 [7 favorites]


2) How old do we think Bert is? In his 70s? That means he was born in the 1890s. And where is he from?

Robert Morse is 83, and given that Cooper has been toddering around barefoot with no real role in the company for nine years now, I'd guess the character is closer to 80 than 70.
posted by donajo at 9:21 AM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


I've somehow decided Bert was from one of those big strange rich Carolina families.
posted by The Whelk at 9:26 AM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


His name is Cooper. He seems straight from the Mayflower by way of Washington Square. They still had those back then.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:27 AM on April 21, 2014 [3 favorites]


Pete is not now nor has he ever been a thing.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:28 AM on April 21, 2014


He's genteel and upper crust but without too much of a drawl, which makes me think Connecticut. Or Maryland?
posted by dry white toast at 9:29 AM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


I mean I guess I'm aware of the show wanting him to be a thing but I think we can, as a proletariat, as a zeitgeist, agree that he is a nonthing, thus rendering him thingless.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:30 AM on April 21, 2014


I have a really fucked up story about that cochroach that I'll share when I get home from Babies R Us. Seriously fucked me up.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:31 AM on April 21, 2014


So, we're probably getting Bob Benson next week, right?
posted by codacorolla at 9:46 AM on April 21, 2014


Theory: Bob Benson is a Tyler Durden. The question is, is he Pete's alter ego or Cutler's?
posted by dry white toast at 9:50 AM on April 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


Sally's I love you choked me up. Very real and touching, the way she just blurted it out in a rush and then ran off.

But WOW, did that episode need some lightening up!

Peggy, Peggy, Peggy. How humiliating! I'm surprised they all assumed the roses were for her in the first place, though (the cat line was priceless). Surely secretaries have received flowers of their own before?! Women getting flowers at the office has been a thing since forever. Joan probably had a whole forest of flowers obscuring her from view back in her secretarial days. I bet you practically had to machete your way through.

I know it will get me pelted with leftover dead roses, but I haven't liked Peggy for a long time now. I find it so hard to relate to her; I feel like her passion for her work drives her but she doesn't seem to have any of that going these days (no wonder, as she is constantly being shut down). So we are left with, sorry, but it feels true: Angry Betty.

She's become this bitter, wronged woman lashing out at everyone. And you can't get away with that unless you are so brilliant no one can get by without you (what sustained Don for so long), or uncommonly gorgeous (a la Betty). Plus, with Peggy, her people skills are absolutely atrocious, and that's a not insignificant failing. In 'the boss', it is deadly.

You know who Peggy needs to smoothe over all the feathers she's ruffled and get back in the catbird seat?

BOB.

I really, really miss Bob.
posted by misha at 10:05 AM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Weird thought, but does anyone else think Cutler might be gay?
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:20 AM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


That's a possibility, I suppose. It would fit with his line about being immune to Peggy's charms.

However, my read of the situation is that he's just a boring family man who's interested in making money and not leading a playboy lifestyle, ala` Roger and the rest of accounts. That might be why he's so grouchy at SCDP, who are fucking barbarians compared to the other firm, and Peggy in particular, who he might see as having lead Ted away from the straight and (profitable) narrow.
posted by codacorolla at 10:25 AM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Weird thought, but does anyone else think Cutler might be gay? That's a possibility, I suppose. It would fit with his line about being immune to Peggy's charms.

No, that was Lou who is immune.
posted by tilde at 10:29 AM on April 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


Weird thought, but does anyone else think Cutler might be gay?

That, or he's one of those guys who are utterly, completely devoted to being a business executive. In a way, he seems to be a version of Roger minus the devotion to hedonism.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:30 AM on April 21, 2014


Weird thought, but does anyone else think Cutler might be gay?

I totally thought that. I also thought that his line and measured look at Roger re: not wanting to be enemies was really more about their regular weekend orgies than about work.

So between the Bonnie mole theory, the Cutler/Sterling orgy theory, and the theory that Don and Sally will run off to Montana and raise horses (because where else could they go that's farther away than LA and NYC both geographically and spiritually?), this is shaping up to be a heck of a season in my alternate universe.

About Peggy being so cranky: I suspect Weiner is letting her fall and flail around a bit so she can get a redemption in the second half of the season. Not everyone's going to get a happy ending, but it makes sense for Peggy to have one.
posted by mochapickle at 10:33 AM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'm re-watching now (thank you Easter Monday in Canada). Two things grabbed me so far:

1) The early scene with Pete and Bonnie in his office is the flip side of the later scene. He needs to do something work-related and she's trying to distract him with sex (and is at least partially successful). The later scene is Pete trying to do the same thing and Bonnie standing firm. Her line about taking control of our fortunes in that scene makes me think she thinks she can control Pete. Interesting parallel/contrast with her and Trudy.

2) I think Stan is stoned in the elevator. He's barely present, then finally speaks up to crack that off-colour joke about Peggy.
posted by dry white toast at 10:37 AM on April 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


The misbegotten roses plotline was kind of weird: On one hand, it was a good way to illustrate Peggy's current emotional state and unresolved feelings about the whole Ted affair, as well as showing how marginalized someone like Shirley would feel at this place and time in this type of office environment.

On the other hand, for a show that regularly receives reverent praise for its intelligent, complex drama, this was the most Three's Company-esque plotline I can recall in the series, in that the whole plot hinged upon a series of wacky misunderstandings that could have been resolved in about two seconds without the artificial TV barrier of nobody saying the one thing that would have cleared up the whole situation so that the confusion could last the whole episode.
posted by The Gooch at 10:41 AM on April 21, 2014 [5 favorites]


He's barely present, then finally speaks up to crack that off-colour joke about Peggy.

It's funny you bring-up that joke. My wife uttered a shocked "Oh, Jeez" when Stan cracks the "morosely masturbate" joke. I had to explain to her that that sort of deep-cutting humor is pretty part-and-parcel in creative teams. You're expected to be able to dish it out like that.

Now, he may well have been stoned, but, based on my years of working in creative teams, I took it as simply the sort of cutting humor creatives who work so closely together use. You really are working very intimately with each other and it's next to impossible to hide your personal life from the team.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:43 AM on April 21, 2014


Also, I'm having to fast forward through the Peggy storyline. Too much awkward!
posted by dry white toast at 10:46 AM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Grantland (and Power Rankings)
posted by psoas at 10:46 AM on April 21, 2014 [2 favorites]


It was Ginsburg who made that joke, btw. Stan comments that Peggy inadvertently revealed she had no plans for Valentine's Day, and then Ginsburg makes the zinger about the entry in Peggy's calendar.
posted by mochapickle at 10:48 AM on April 21, 2014


True, the rose thing was silly, but it points out (as do those terrible sitcoms) that so much of the real problems between people are caused by just Not Saying, whether because of the pressure of pretending to be someone you're not--a secretary, a success--or of lying to yourself about who really loves you. Don and Sally face a similar comedy of errors, but (mostly because of Dawn's loyalty and kindness towards Don) they manage to break the silence with truth.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:50 AM on April 21, 2014 [3 favorites]


I think what justified the sitcom silliness was that Peggy continued to be awful after the confusion was resolved. That was a very uncomedic turn.

Part of what makes me wonder about Cutler's sexuality is his championing of people like Bob and Joan, who due to their sexuality and gender are problems for other staff members at SC&P. That and the fact that we know about Gleason and Chaough's family lives, but not his.

Lou seemed awful from that Gladys Knight joke on. He's a real slimebucket. The reason Dawn and Don got along so well was that Don treated her with the same respect he'd give to any of his secretaries. Well, except for the schtupping.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:54 AM on April 21, 2014 [5 favorites]


Sorry, I meant Ginsberg looked stoned.
posted by dry white toast at 11:03 AM on April 21, 2014


I thought Ginsberg didn't smoke cause it made him paranoid? Am I totally misremembering things? he seems more mopey and resigned, the whole creative team is in a funk, manic wierdo I'm From Mars Micheal seems gone gone gone
posted by The Whelk at 11:05 AM on April 21, 2014 [3 favorites]


The thing about Culter is that he seems to be a Type, less common now but pops up in period fiction. The oddly blank businessman full of icy, arch remove, like he's play-acting at fading into the background, right down to his face-obscuring chunky glasses. I keep bringing up Andy Warhol but I also get a Burroughs vibe, the "bankers drag" and needle drugs...WASPy affect and attitude as protective cover. He could be anything, really, every explanation is believable: he's a devoted businessman, he's a Machiavellian schemer, he's a Satanist, he's a heroin addict, he's gay, he's a robot, he's a CIA spook, everything and anything would make sense cause all we really see is someone trying pretty hard to not be noticed and not look like he's trying at all.
posted by The Whelk at 11:10 AM on April 21, 2014 [9 favorites]


Here's an interview about the ep (and other things) with the actress who plays Dawn!
posted by leesh at 11:25 AM on April 21, 2014 [4 favorites]


Peggy will be getting a new secretary. It'll be interesting to see who she gets.

Candice Bergen?
posted by mikepop at 11:28 AM on April 21, 2014 [13 favorites]


Didnt they invent Jewish women in the 70s? Maybe one of them?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:01 PM on April 21, 2014


Grantland (and Power Rankings)

I love Molly Lambert's meditations on the show - she makes me stop and think every week. On Joan:
"Unlike Peggy, Joan plasters over her hatred of the workplace with smiles. This always worked out great for Joan’s male superiors, who remained ignorant of their awfulness, and not so great for Joan, who suffered in silence. The dudes in charge prefer Joan’s maternal approach because they don’t see how much emotional labor it actually requires. They think it comes naturally somehow."
posted by sallybrown at 12:26 PM on April 21, 2014 [8 favorites]


I think you might have something there, but on the other hand (or maybe on the same hand?), he explains the mess he's in by saying, "I told the truth about myself."

But he follows up saying the timing and the audience were all wrong, so I don't think his takeaway is to return to dishonesty but rather be more judicious about sharing.

Of course it seems he's still being hugely dishonest if he really hasn't told Megan about his forced leave of absence. Baby steps, I guess.

I loved Pete's rant about there only being two offices and Ted's is just barely bigger and what is there to work for then? And Ted offers him his office which just outrages Pete more.
posted by JenMarie at 12:48 PM on April 21, 2014 [7 favorites]


But Jim seems to really get Joan. He says something like, "where will we find someone who doesn't care about being disliked?" so it made me laugh in a confused kind of way when Dawn was the one in Joan's office, because she's tough and speaks her mind, but she doesn't have the genteel armour that Joan does.

I had half-hoped Roger had convinced Jim to promote Joan, but the way he reacted pretty much put paid to that. I hope his downer comes from a more general ennui than the thought of Joan being in a second-floor office. Because he's obviously tired, and living way beyond someone who's had two(?) heart attacks. Every season I worry about his health, because no one else will.

It really is amazing how Dawn is the centre of almost everything that happens in this episode, barring the LA/NY stuff. I can't think of an episode that compares, with one character having such a massive impact directly or indirectly on the story.

So should we assume they've used up all their Bobbys and now they're just going to refer to him offstage (or not at all)?
posted by tracicle at 1:13 PM on April 21, 2014


What's the deal with marking the liquor bottle? Is this something alcoholics due to help reduce the amount they drink per day?
posted by Thoughtcrime at 1:26 PM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


tracicle, the Bobby from last season has his names in the opening credits for S7, for better or worse.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 1:28 PM on April 21, 2014


So should we assume they've used up all their Bobbys

There's only been four; we were promised seven.

That's a joke, obviously, but I kind of hope the prophesy comes true. Seems like a long shot this late in the game, but then again, maybe we'll flash forward or something and need Bobby (age 18) and Bobby (age 30) or whatever. Or maybe we just need to obsessively scour Don's and Betty's homes for briefly visible photographs of two to three Drapers posing with an otherwise unseen brown-haired boy.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:30 PM on April 21, 2014


tracicle, the Bobby from last season has his names in the opening credits for S7, for better or worse.

Yes, I noticed this and was a bit surprised that that actor would be considered part of the Main Cast to get a credit every episode, even when he doesn't appear.
posted by crossoverman at 2:08 PM on April 21, 2014


...was a bit surprised that that actor would be considered part of the Main Cast to get a credit every episode, even when he doesn't appear.

Like January Jones?
Credits are as much a part of the contract negotiation as money. Seriously. Whose name goes above, whose name goes below, are they on the first, second, third screen, is all hammered-out by managers and producers. Who gets listed with the main cast, who gets a "with" or a "featuring". It's all sweated over.

I noticed that Kiernan Shipka gets billing over Jessica Paré.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:51 PM on April 21, 2014 [3 favorites]


Ha. I just realized that the client that Ted thought Peggy lost was the Purloined Roses.
posted by donajo at 3:49 PM on April 21, 2014 [6 favorites]


Credits are as much a part of the contract negotiation as money. Seriously. Whose name goes above, whose name goes below, are they on the first, second, third screen, is all hammered-out by managers and producers. Who gets listed with the main cast, who gets a "with" or a "featuring". It's all sweated over.

It doesn't surprise me that January Jones would get that deal - because they need her around for however many episodes they need her for. Whereas Mason Vale Cotton appears in a couple of eps a year - and I would have thought it was enough he was a Guest Star. Unless Cotton has some other gig they were frightened his time was going to be swallowed up by.
posted by crossoverman at 4:45 PM on April 21, 2014


I actually felt bad for Lou when Sally came into his office. Of course, he immediately torpedoed that by being a flaming asshole to Dawn and Joan.

Basically, I want next week to involve Lou getting hit by a bus.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:15 PM on April 21, 2014 [5 favorites]


I don't know why Lou had to be such an asshole about a situation that granted was awkward (and I was so relieved when he was reasonably tactful with Sally) but took at most a few minutes of his time. He seems like one of those people who are just so outraged at the slightest inconvenience that it's as though they expect everyone to serve their convenience above all else.
posted by orange swan at 7:28 PM on April 21, 2014 [5 favorites]


Lou was embarrassed and annoyed at the interaction with Sally and took it out on Dawn. i think the whole OFF MY DESK stuff with both Lou and Peggy were overreactions that seemed to be there only to let the black characters have some stereotypical indignation and then eventually for the shuffle that led to Dawn getting a promotion.
posted by sweetkid at 7:48 PM on April 21, 2014


Don told the truth, but more importantly, he told it at the right time. A glimmer of hope for him, then.

And it's very weird to rewatch a Veronica Mars ep (from only 10 years ago!) and contrast Harry Hamlin as Aaron Echolls vs. Jim Cutler.
posted by gaspode at 8:18 PM on April 21, 2014 [3 favorites]


And it's very weird to rewatch a Veronica Mars ep (from only 10 years ago!) and contrast Harry Hamlin as Aaron Echolls vs. Jim Cutler.

Yes! I just finished re-watching Veronica Mars and the difference between Hamlin's two characters gives me whiplash. Hamlin looks positively diminutive in that suit and those glasses.

There's a weird circle thing happening when you think about Hamlin's role on LA law.
posted by dry white toast at 8:54 PM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Somebody needs to take a screenshot of the 1960 Sterling Cooper elevator and contrast it next to the 1969 SCD&LETTERS elevator.

Can we all agree that Lou is the new Joffrey?
posted by Sara C. at 10:52 PM on April 21, 2014 [3 favorites]


Re credits and contracts, yeah, my guess is January Jones had front of episode main cast credits in her contract, and she's still running on that contract.

Also I love that Malibu Betty actually likes her job. She's going to be a terrifying Reagan Republican in a decade, but still, you go girl!
posted by Sara C. at 10:55 PM on April 21, 2014 [3 favorites]


She's going to be a terrifying Reagan Republican in a decade, but still, you go girl!

In a decade? Guess who her governor is right now.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:30 PM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Was Bonnie even old enough to vote when Reagan was elected governor of CA?
posted by Sara C. at 11:34 PM on April 21, 2014


How old is she? Reagan was elected governor in 1966; the voting age was 21.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:39 PM on April 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


She can't be older than 24-25.
posted by Sara C. at 11:42 PM on April 21, 2014


Well, in any case, he'll be campaigning again in '70.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:44 PM on April 21, 2014


In general I'm fascinated with the amount of research and perfect on-point-ness the show's California moments are achieving. Bonnie is the second character we've met in California scenes who is a creepy Aryan conservative in "laid back" clothing. (The Sunkist exec being the first.) It's a phenomenon I've only really become aware of in the last few years and not really the majority view of the 60's -- especially the West Coast 60s -- which makes it a really interesting tack for them to take.

Also people in California always seem too white to even exist, to me. In real life and also with Bonnie Whiteside, which, seriously, a real estate agent named Whiteside? It's almost Dickensian.
posted by Sara C. at 11:55 PM on April 21, 2014 [5 favorites]


Don's lunch with the other ad exec was a strong note of optimism in this episode. It was the first hint that perhaps his sins in the Hershey meeting weren't all that bad, in retrospect. The other adman isn't even clear on the details. Sure, Don's being gossiped about, but he's also being aggressively courted by top firms.

Disgrace doesn't seem to last long in the Mad Men universe. Ken Cosgrove ran over a dude's foot with a lawnmower, and he still has a job. Freddy Rumson pissed himself in a client meeting and he still gets work. Hell, even Duck Phillips seems to be doing some kind of corporate recruiting thing.

"Somewhere in the industry, this has happened before."
posted by evil otto at 12:25 AM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


I've been turning over in my mind whether that scene was implying straightforwardly that Don is in demand (though of course he won't go to any of those other agencies), or whether it was all sort of an act. Like Don really was disgraced and everyone is humoring him on these lunches that'll never lead anywhere.
posted by Sara C. at 12:30 AM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


It wasn't Ken who ran over the foot. I forget which but it was one of the secretaries.
posted by vbfg at 2:31 AM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


I want to say Hildy? But TLo say Lois, whom I don't remember.
posted by psoas at 3:52 AM on April 22, 2014


I have no idea what that black bug crawling around his apartment was, but it wasn't a roach. And if the cleaning lady is coming once a week or once a month (Dawn's comment about her coming tomorrow), it couldn't get that bad, right? Or just more symbolism? When he was in his crappy little apartment where he had his little smoking kills epiphany after Betty kicked him out, there were no roaches, right?

Tried to be on the lookout for the door off it's track (one of last week's symbols) but since Dawn didn't remark on it and neither did Sally, I'm assuming it's fixed (was folding laundry).

Rewatching the sixth season (so much folding) and there's a lot in there I don't know if he's reaching back to. At least it seemed that way last night. By the crack of dawn I can't find it. But we did have Joan and Peggy showing off the eavesdropper option in Joan's (now Dawn's) office. That's some darn groovy sound proofing considering the thin walls of the rest of the cubiform walls there.

While Lou is unpleasant and my first reaction was "what a jerk" I think he's not really that unusual. We're just not used to that kind of boss. But going back over the guys in the generations ahead of me, I know quite a few Lous. Just compared to the nuanced assholes some of the rest of these folks are he seems nearly a caricature.

Going back over the seasons, though; I'm not 100% sure why Ginzo is so bittery bitchy towards Peggy, but he has been falling apart with the voices in his head stuff and his issues with the war and the draft. Between MLK and the impending death of Bobby Kennedy .... I don't know how long his tenuous grasp on reality will last.

And yeah, Meredith is just a continual flubsy comedic device. I've worked with plenty of those, too. She's almost too perfect. Forget Malibu Betty as a spy, it's Meredith!
posted by tilde at 4:50 AM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


It was definitely Lois, who I mostly remember - apart from the lawnmower incident - as the secretary who had the crush on Sal in the first season, after overhearing him talk Italian to his mother.
posted by crossoverman at 4:56 AM on April 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


the impending death of Bobby Kennedy

RFK has already been assassinated in the Mad Men timeline.
posted by orange swan at 5:01 AM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Sara C.: "I've been turning over in my mind whether that scene was implying straightforwardly that Don is in demand (though of course he won't go to any of those other agencies), or whether it was all sort of an act. Like Don really was disgraced and everyone is humoring him on these lunches that'll never lead anywhere."

I think it was legit. Don wasn't really friends with these guys, they're not going to waste a lunch with him unless they thought there was some advantage in doing so. He's still regarded as talented.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:34 AM on April 22, 2014


Crap I've got my years mixed up. I *thought* so but for some reason my brain was telling me it's Spring 1968, even after all the chatter of walking on the moon this summer. So maybe the moon walk pushes him out of sync even more than he is. I think that he's sullen and going to very blue talk has really got him telegraphing down a serious psychotic break.
posted by tilde at 5:45 AM on April 22, 2014


I have no idea what that black bug crawling around his apartment was, but it wasn't a roach.

It was a roach, but the wrong kind of roach for NYC. In New York, you get those little roaches. That was a big ol' "palmetto bug."
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:08 AM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


PhoBWanKenobi: “That was a big ol' "palmetto bug."”
God help me, I said to myself, "Palmetto bugs are brown. That sucker was black." So I found a Cockroach Identification Guide which calls the big black ones "Oriental Cockroaches."
posted by ob1quixote at 7:35 AM on April 22, 2014


The oriental cockroach can be found in high moisture areas such as sewers and damp basements. They are usually located below ground level indoors. You probably won't find them on walls or high in cupboards or on the upper floors of buildings.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:37 AM on April 22, 2014


Bug picture links!! Reminded me of a critter known as a "water bug" which was probably more correctly a beetle from my youth but a little too long. Looking at it again (blech) on my phone this morning it reminded me of more of a beetle because there were no elongated antennae. Palmetto bugs around here in Florida are large long brown things and now I'm going to stop describing them because I'd like to eat lunch again sometime today and yes I know it's my own fault for starting it.

Also forgot to post that the daytime TV he's watching, Little Rascals! I did a couple of double takes on Darla; she looked a lot like a young dark haired Sally Draper.fsefewre
posted by tilde at 7:38 AM on April 22, 2014


Yes, of course that was a roach on the carpet of the apartment. How is this even a question.

The weird thing is that it was an "outside" roach, not the kind of roach that implies an infestation. But I'll cut the prop master some slack. The typical little NYC brown roach wouldn't show up well on camera.

I thought the idea of the roach is that he's living this do-nothing lifestyle, and he looks over and realizes that all this shit -- the lies, the binges, the sleeping till noon, the broken balcony door -- is really settling in for real now. It's not just a thing you're doing for a couple days, if you have roaches now.

It doesn't really jibe with the cleaning lady, comment, though, I agree. Did Dawn mean she was calling to schedule a cleaning lady, maybe?
posted by Sara C. at 7:56 AM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


The other thing Don had on TV was That Girl, I believe.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:05 AM on April 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


Whoops, I didn't intend to posit that it wasn't supposed to be a roach, just that it didn't look like one (not that I spend a lot of time on them). And yeah, little German ones are fast skitterers and that .... critter photographed well. For every one you see .... as the saying goes.

I got the impression, though, Sara C., that she was simply reminding him that the cleaning lady would be coming through tomorrow, Friday, Valentine's day.
posted by tilde at 8:06 AM on April 22, 2014


While Lou is unpleasant and my first reaction was "what a jerk" I think he's not really that unusual. We're just not used to that kind of boss. But going back over the guys in the generations ahead of me, I know quite a few Lous. Just compared to the nuanced assholes some of the rest of these folks are he seems nearly a caricature.

To me, it's not the outdated stuff that makes Lou so awful, but rather his timeless "I'm aggressively mediocre" attitude. He commands respect and gets what he wants because of his title alone, rather than his talent, and doesn't seem to give a shit about the quality of the work he or anyone else does. Working under someone who's all form and no substance like Lou is soul-killing, because he just doesn't care and your lack of title/authority enables him to dismiss you completely. It's like playing tennis with a less-skilled player--it brings down your game.
posted by sallybrown at 8:29 AM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Between MLK and the impending death of Bobby Kennedy .... I don't know how long his tenuous grasp on reality will last.

We're in February 1969. Bobby Kennedy died in June 1968.


And it definitely was That Girl on the TV. My early childhood indoctrination of "Free to Be You and Me" means I recognize Marlo Thomas in a heartbeat.
posted by ambrosia at 8:34 AM on April 22, 2014


Has Teddy just checked out? We've seen Don do more work this season than him. I like that Don put a suit on for Dawn's visit.
posted by drezdn at 8:43 AM on April 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


I think Tend realized he made the correct, ethical, adult choice and he's miserable about it.

I truly hope he tries to go after Peggy again, and she shuts him down. Hard.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:51 AM on April 22, 2014


Talk of Ted reminds me: why is it that SCDPLETTERS needs such a senior accounts man in California, if he's generally just going to be servicing accounts and ferrying new business back East? I know why Pete went out there (to escape Trudy), but I don't know why the firm would send him out there if they intended to handle most of the higher level business at the home office.

Or is it just a Chevy issue, where it truly doesn't make sense to base their dealership business at one office and their corporate level business at another? If Pete brought in Capitol Records, would that stay with him?
posted by Sara C. at 9:59 AM on April 22, 2014


Don/Sally car ride: The Turtles - Elenore
End credits: The Zombies - This Will Be Our Year
posted by Sys Rq at 10:07 AM on April 22, 2014 [3 favorites]


Talk of Ted reminds me: why is it that SCDPLETTERS needs such a senior accounts man in California, if he's generally just going to be servicing accounts and ferrying new business back East? I know why Pete went out there (to escape Trudy), but I don't know why the firm would send him out there if they intended to handle most of the higher level business at the home office.

Pete was getting edged out of servicing major accounts after the SC4DP merger happened, and he fucked up at Chevy. Pete has no commitments in NY, whereas Ken has a family in NY (and a tie to the Dow Chemical account), so who else would they send?
posted by donajo at 10:22 AM on April 22, 2014


No, that's why I stressed the difference between why Pete went to LA vs. why he was sent there by the agency. I know why Pete would want to go, but I don't know why SCDPLETTERS would want to have such a high powered accounts man out there if they didn't intend the LA office to handle new accounts.

Per the events of this episode, they don't really need a Pete in LA. They need maybe a Bob? Someone who isn't going to fuck up, but is more about servicing pre-existing accounts than bringing in new business.
posted by Sara C. at 10:27 AM on April 22, 2014


Pete needs to be getting accounts in LA that stay in LA in order for that office to be viable. I don't feel like the idea behind "Ted and Pete go to LA" has been fleshed out from a work perspective as much as a personal one - separating Ted from Peggy, Pete getting a fresh start, etc.

Also where has Harry been? Did he go to Pune with Paul Kinsey?
posted by sweetkid at 10:29 AM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Hahahahahaha for a second I was trying to make Pune an ad agency. Like, what is that short for? Is that a combination of dudes' initials?

Right. Osho.

I'm really surprised we've had all this LA and no Harry Crane. Am I forgetting something about the way last season ended?
posted by Sara C. at 10:31 AM on April 22, 2014



Hahahahahaha for a second I was trying to make Pune an ad agency. Like, what is that short for? Is that a combination of dudes' initials?


That was like a next-level inside joke just for you. But yeah i think we're getting Harry next week. It's weird that we didn't see him in the first episode, since we all know He Goes To LA To Do Important Work.
posted by sweetkid at 10:33 AM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'm interested in the line Pete threw out about starting a new LA partnership with Ted. We know Pete's not going back to New York, but that seems to leave him open to all kinds of change.
posted by readery at 10:36 AM on April 22, 2014


We know Pete's not going back to New York

Do we know that? I'm not so sure.
posted by sweetkid at 10:38 AM on April 22, 2014


I'm pretty sure the new agency remark was either idle talk or something that will percolate very slowly, possibly being more of a series-ending thing. I don't think that scene was meant to show that Pete is now in the act of starting a new agency.
posted by Sara C. at 10:40 AM on April 22, 2014


I didn't read the discussion amongst the partners being that the work that Pete had landed with the SoCal Chevy Dealers wouldn't stay with him. They were only saying that they should get the thumbs up from Chevy in Detroit, and that there is a protocol for doing that. I felt like Pete seriously overreacted (as Pete does) because of the prospect of having to deal with Bob.

I enjoy the way the show is emphasizing that running a bi-coastal operation is not nearly as smooth as it is today. The repeated trouble with the phone connection, and Roger's crack about the length of the call eating into their margin because long distance calling was really that expensive. For dramatic purposes, it helps that it emphasizes Pete's feeling of being invisible.
posted by dry white toast at 11:21 AM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Roger's crack about the length of the call eating into their margin because long distance calling was really that expensive.

It's a long distance call which is expensive, but also all those people are technically billing against the retainer/contract for that meeting (taking time away from their work on other ciients).

That joke ran really true to me working in an agency - we often make jokes after pointless meetings like, "So that meeting cost $1K, awesome."
posted by sweetkid at 11:24 AM on April 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


No, that's why I stressed the difference between why Pete went to LA vs. why he was sent there by the agency. I know why Pete would want to go, but I don't know why SCDPLETTERS would want to have such a high powered accounts man out there if they didn't intend the LA office to handle new accounts.

Who else is there, though? They need someone on Chevy and someone to send to LA, and Ken and Pete can't/don't want to touch Chevy. So they send Bob to Detroit and Pete to LA.
posted by donajo at 12:05 PM on April 22, 2014


My point is that if they didn't intend the LA office to court new business, they'd have sent another underling like Bob.

Though I think dry white toast has it: Pete is just catastrophizing because he somehow thought he could handle the Chevy dealership business without ever talking to Bob. The home office has no problem with Pete bringing in and handling new business otherwise.
posted by Sara C. at 12:07 PM on April 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


Pete could really use some CBT.
posted by sweetkid at 12:12 PM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Bob can't come in! The temptation would be to great! Pete's horrible little heart can't take the stress!


(shut up I need this.)
posted by The Whelk at 12:12 PM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Controlling Boners Therapy.
posted by The Whelk at 12:13 PM on April 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


For all we wonder about Jim Cutler's scheming, it's hard to argue with the points he was making: If they want the goldmine of GM, they have to stay on corporate's good side in Detroit. Pete's approach might have helped him, but would hurt SCDPBLARGH in the long run.

My bet would be that Pete is going to make a really big misstep in the next few episodes in the process of looking out for his own interests; the kind he used to blow up at Don for.
posted by dry white toast at 12:22 PM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Here's my story about that roach in Don's apartment. 2 am on Sunday I turned on Madmen with my newborn daughter sleeping in front of me in her swing thingy. Just as the credits end, a giant fucking black THING flops across the room past the bay and against the wall. I leap up and grab a book ("The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" obviously) winging at the dark shape, that I am 50% sure is a bat. Direct hit but it scuttles behind the tv. I mute the TV, turn on the lights and move the entertainment center. It scurries out in a fat way and I slam the book down hard BOOM and then press it against the carpet squishing it in as hard as I can. When I lift the book there is nothing there. Gone. Slipped into madness.

I try to go back to the couch thinking I'm going through DTs or something but then realize it could have somehow darted through the tiny crack under the closet door. So I move everything out, tennis rackets, wardrobe boxes, picnic baskets. In the corner under the abandoned exercise equipment I spot it. I grab a 10 lb weight and BAM BAM BAM. ITS STILL FUCKING ALIVE. BAM BAM BAM BAM my wife wakes up and sprints into the living room thinking I'm fighting off a burglar and the baby starts crying. But I did it. The beast lies slain. Took a pic and googled it, it's an American Cochroach. Mostly an outside bug and intensely unkillable. The next day I start the show again and there it is. The late night visitor, slothful but resilient. A sign of decay, and strength.

You can't really hate an American Cochroach.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:24 PM on April 22, 2014 [3 favorites]


But you should kill it upon sight. It tracks poison everywhere.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:34 PM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


You can't really hate an American Cochroach.

What no

You MUST hate an American Cockroach. You can't merely kill it, you have to hate it. It's like emotional elbow grease, without which the roach won't stay dead.

Also flush it down the toilet after.
posted by Sara C. at 12:44 PM on April 22, 2014 [3 favorites]


You can't really hate an American Cockroach.

Talk about your heavy handed Nixon metaphors.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:51 PM on April 22, 2014 [9 favorites]


My bet would be that Pete is going to make a really big misstep

I dunno, why? I kind of can't predict where they're going with Pete, but it's also hard to have fun speculating about him when there are so many people who just don't like the character so want bad things to happen to him or think he doesn't count as a main character.

That's a general comment, not pointed at dry white toast at all.
posted by sweetkid at 12:59 PM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Potomac, the way you trailed off mid-word there I was concerned that the mysterious beast had attacked you unawares. Don't do that!
posted by dry white toast at 12:59 PM on April 22, 2014


GUYS GUYS Ann Helen Petersen had a great observation in her Dear Television column about how Don isn't acting like an unemployed lump, he's acting like a teenage boy -> up at noon, TV, shoving Rtiz in his mouth, marking the bottles of whiskey so he doesn't drink too much (the subtle difference between the kids who would mark the bottles and the kids who would dilute it with water) and while Sally is acting preternaturally grown up and jaded.
posted by The Whelk at 1:22 PM on April 22, 2014 [3 favorites]


that being said regulating his daytime booze intake and sleeping in most days is probobly the healthiest habit he's picked up
posted by The Whelk at 1:30 PM on April 22, 2014 [3 favorites]


Not that it amounts to anything, but I really took notice of Pete's one line to Ted in the California office that instantly took me back to the fun "Pete Campbell will die" conspiracy theory of Season 5:
Sometimes I think maybe I died, and I'm in some kind of--I don’t know if it's heaven or hell or limbo, but I don't seem to exist. No one feels my existence.

Followed by Ted's response:
Just cash the checks; you're gonna die one day.
posted by ChrisTN at 2:10 PM on April 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


Here be the monster.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:45 PM on April 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


Sometimes I think maybe I died, and I'm in some kind of--I don’t know if it's heaven or hell or limbo, but I don't seem to exist. No one feels my existence.


I swear Pete has some quote similar to that before - not about dying but something with the construction of "Sometimes I think maybe I" but I can't seem to find it.

I did spend a few minutes going through Pete quotes though and man are there some treasures over the years.
posted by sweetkid at 2:49 PM on April 22, 2014


I'm sticking with my Bob Benson Is Tyler Durden theory.
posted by dry white toast at 2:54 PM on April 22, 2014


I lost count of the slammed office doors in this episode. I always look to see if the sets wobble when that happens -- it looks like a properly constructed office but they're certainly moveable flats and false fronts so they can get cameras, lights and crew positioned, and yeah, when Lou slams the door there's a bit too much movement for a fully anchored and braced interior wall.
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:10 PM on April 22, 2014 [3 favorites]


I figured that the onscreen shaking of the walls was on purpose. Keep in mind that the walls of an office like that are flimsy enough themselves; that's basically all aluminum and wood veneer with some glass. In fact, I'm pretty sure that for the SCDPLETTERS hallway/bullpen sets, they would not be built substantially differently from the real thing since those offices were designed to be modular anyway.

The real tell is when a solidly built home interior set shakes when the door slams.
posted by Sara C. at 4:58 PM on April 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


cracks the "morosely masturbate" joke.

I remember it as "masturbate gloomily" but I haven't gone back and checked. But part of what I like about that line, and about Ginsberg, is how much it is both a nasty shot to take at your boss but also basically an indictment of Ginsberg's own self-indentifying loserdom and loneliness. Coming from someone else it might have seemed meaner, somehow, like an attempt to cut Peggy down by embarrassing her with a sexual verbal attack; from Michael it feels more like there's that implied "...just like me" there. He's a self-aware mope, he knows she knows he's a mope.

Did anyone here get the feeling that Bonnie might be a mole for a rival agency? I just can't imagine anyone being that into Pete.

I like the possibility, but my gut is that it's just that Bonnie is only as into Pete as she feels like being, and in all probability is into Pete and into people-who-aren't-Pete, whether Pete recognizes it or not. She's better at steering the conversation than he is, she's supremely confident, she's willing to kick him out of her "office" to get work done and I think she'd as likely kick him out of town for the weekend to make room for another guy if that's what she wanted.

Pete's line to Don about her turning on the charm for everyone may have been Pete saying more than he really knew. And she and Don may well have been having a like-knows-like moment there, whether or not either expected to make a move; they both knew they could and maybe had a sense of what they'd be getting into if they did.

I'm sticking with my Bob Benson Is Tyler Durden theory.

It's tempting but there's not enough misdirection to even start to cover for it. A Durden has to be a well-knit solitary delusion; for Bob to be a Durden he'd have to not be there for almost everybody. No joy; lots of people know he exists, affirmatively. It's not one guy saying "I'll take care of it" and then imagining up Bob as the guy he assigns the task.

I think Bob's just the new, the spoiler, the raw ambition and piles of charm on top of a serious-minded, smart-scared chassis of a scrapper. He's a new model of Don, fifteen years later and with a different crate of secrets. Him not existing would actually be a disappointment now that he's more than just the grinning kid with the two coffees.
posted by cortex at 5:07 PM on April 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


It's "masturbate gloomily", and I'm having it put on my tombstone.
posted by Sara C. at 5:09 PM on April 22, 2014 [5 favorites]


And she and Don may well have been having a like-knows-like moment there

Bingo.
posted by Sara C. at 5:11 PM on April 22, 2014


Bob Benson reads exactly like a Tom Ripley to me, well, hopefully without the murder bug.
posted by maggieb at 5:28 PM on April 22, 2014


Keep in mind that the walls of an office like that are flimsy enough themselves; that's basically all aluminum and wood veneer with some glass.

Nah, I've spent my career in offices like those; and in less premium buildings than the Time-Life. They look light but they're solid as hell, anchored into the concrete and put together by skilled laborers who do nothing else and do it really well. I've watched them work during a remodel; that stuff ain't moving nohow.

By contrast, set flats have to be moved constantly between shots and time is money. I once walked around working sets at Paramount... even the "permanent" sets for ongoing shows are much lighter than they look and come apart in minutes because time is money and typically the wall behind the camera is not actually there; a crew holding lights and mic booms and stuff are standing where you think the wall is.
posted by George_Spiggott at 5:51 PM on April 22, 2014


Yeah, I've actually worked in TV art departments.

Swing sets (the sets that are built just for one episode) are often flimsy and built with flats that can be moved easily. Because they will be moved, tomorrow, when the episode wraps. But standing sets, while you can move the walls around, it doesn't happen often and the sets are actually pretty solid.

And, yeah, the wall behind camera absolutely is there unless there's a specific reason for it to be removed. (And if that's the case, it'll usually be done in advance of the shoot, over the course of a day or so, not in minutes.)

I'm still entirely positive that the amount of shaking that happened with all those door slams was planned and not a side effect of shoddily constructed sets.
posted by Sara C. at 5:58 PM on April 22, 2014 [3 favorites]


On reflection I think you're probably right about the shaking of the set being deliberately allowed for effect: HD crews and directors have learned not to let any cheapness show and it'd be well below the standards of this show in particular to let something as noticeable as that just slip by.

And 3-cam shows like sitcoms, yeah, the sets might as well be carved out of rock. Single camera like Mad Men I have a different impression of, though I've never been on set during a shoot.
posted by George_Spiggott at 6:21 PM on April 22, 2014


Let's merge both arguments! It's intentionally shaky walls, but also not intended to represent poor construction of SC&P's office. Carom a shot off a passing Durden but it's actually just a bank toward something in the same general territory: Synechdoche, New York.

The office is a set. The offices are a series of sets. Don's string of wives and lovers are both Don figuratively casting about for purchase and Don literally casting. Don's work as a salesman and an ad man isn't a metaphor for his struggle with the concept of identity, it is an actual literal extension of his quest for identity. Bob Benson is his understudy; Pete wanted the part but couldn't get it; Ken Cosgrove writes fanfic about the show itself on his time off.

Don's been in Hollywood the whole time. "Going to California" is the desperate reach of some sane remainder of a shattered mind for the freedom from this terrible, all-consuming conceit; it doesn't mean flying to the other side of the country, it just means striking the sets, firing the crew, and walking off the production lot once and for all.
posted by cortex at 6:44 PM on April 22, 2014 [17 favorites]


that's deep man.
posted by sweetkid at 7:04 PM on April 22, 2014


Don's string of wives and lovers are both Don figuratively casting about for purchase and Don literally casting. Don's work as a salesman and an ad man isn't a metaphor for his struggle with the concept of identity, it is an actual literal extension of his quest for identity. Bob Benson is his understudy; Pete wanted the part but couldn't get it; Ken Cosgrove writes fanfic about the show itself on his time off.

I feel like this is much more right than wrong.
posted by crossoverman at 7:42 PM on April 22, 2014 [4 favorites]


They may be office sized but those are cubicles.

I didn't go through seasons five and six to asses it fully but that has always been my impression. but I'm Rewatching the first episode of seven. You can hear Ken hollering through the cube/ofc walls & bed through the space of dropped celing.

The conference room is solid & mostly soundproofed (more so on Joan/Dawns wall).

It's the modern modular office. The pillar in That One cube that Pete spectacularly slammed into is lovely, almost an architectural Merideth.

Also, new theory. Ginsbergs psychotic break convinces himself he is an alien. From Vega (the Chevy XP!). Also the Star System of Interest in several science fiction novels.

I wonder how the April meteor shower fits into the storyline (if at all). Another Vega link but I'm just following a strange mental path ....
posted by tilde at 7:43 PM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


They may be office sized but those are cubicles.

What? No they're not.
posted by sweetkid at 7:46 PM on April 22, 2014


They may be office sized but those are cubicles.

What? No they're not.


Yeah, I agree, they're not. Cubicle is the wrong word I think because cube walls usually don't go to the ceiling. Those SCP offices and conference rooms were modular. It was relatively easy (for specially trained workers) to move those walls and doors around in order to reconfigure the floorplan. I watched many a management and staff reorganization result in having to modify the size and placement of those modular offices.
posted by fuse theorem at 9:00 PM on April 22, 2014 [3 favorites]


They're floor to ceiling, so not technically cubicles, but they're those flimsy modular walls that might as well be made of bristol board.

FWIW, the Herman Miller Action Office II -- cubicles -- was introduced in 1967. If SCDPLOLWTFBBQ moves again, we might see the new technology! Or maybe they'll cubiclate the secretaries.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:02 PM on April 22, 2014 [4 favorites]


4/4(The Rejected) Allison just threw something heavy at Don & Everyone Heard it. The Peggy gophered up to peep at Don .... They're shaped offices but they're the progression into cubes.

& maybe I've worked in some snazzy places. Maybe not everyone had floor to ceiling cubes but most folks did. Now we are in six foot cubes but had walls that went all the way up for a while. Hr & managers have/had doors if not Sheetrock offices.

Last note on old episodes 4/2 Bert is calling civil rights a slippery slope (the guy he is with is talking with him about socialism) & in 4/5 Roger says "This Selma thing isn't going away. You still think they don't need a civil rights law?" To which Bert responds "They got what they wanted. Why aren't they happy?"

Okay, timeline of reality I guess they are zebras not horses. I mean modular offices not cubes. At least it lets them shoot in more light and less space than the original Sterling Cooper offices.
posted by tilde at 11:12 PM on April 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Pete: "Sometimes I think maybe I died, and I'm in some kind of--"

Everyone in my house: "HELL DIMENSION?!"

Pete: "--I don’t know if it's heaven or hell or limbo, but I don't seem to exist. No one feels my existence."

Everyone in my house: *dies*
posted by rhiannonstone at 11:34 PM on April 22, 2014 [5 favorites]


The office is a set. The offices are a series of sets. Don's string of wives and lovers are both Don figuratively casting about for purchase and Don literally casting.

You saw that The Truman Show is in development, right?
posted by mwhybark at 12:13 AM on April 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Ha!
posted by cortex at 6:54 AM on April 23, 2014


Out of all the mid-90s films to turn into TV shows, The Truman Show seems like it could be a winner.
posted by codacorolla at 7:04 AM on April 23, 2014


Weird thought, but does anyone else think Cutler might be gay?

I speculated about this early in the merger based on a hallway scene with Bob, but nothing has really come out of it so far (that I've seen).
posted by mikepop at 7:09 AM on April 23, 2014


Hmmm, I just don't see how the Truman Show could be an ongoing thing.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:30 AM on April 23, 2014


I mean, probably sometimes the costume designer just says something like, "Let's put Cutler in a black suit this week."
posted by Chrysostom at 9:15 AM on April 23, 2014 [3 favorites]


Hmmm, I just don't see how the Truman Show could be an ongoing thing.

It does seem like a tricky problem. The film was all about escalation, structurally; set up the premise and the status quo in the first act, then spend the rest of the film irreparably dismantling this grand structure so that by the end of the film its irredeemable, unfixable. Great for a one-shot story, not so workable for a television serial.

So: change the tone, retract the escalation, make it less the story of how The Truman Show fell apart and more a procedural drama about how it barely holds together? Parallel ongoing storylines of: Truman's day-to-day life; the mechanics of the show crew maintaining that fiction; and the off-set lives of the crew and showrunner and audience. Less a story of Truman's steady dawning realization that something is wrong, more a story of his simmering paranoia and attempts to cope with a fear of delusion under the pressure of some really expert gaslighting. A season could go by with him slowly noticing a few too many cracks in the facade, not enough for a sailboat-into-the-wall-of-the-sky meltdown but enough to create at least a subtle mutual antagonism with the fabric of reality.

I'm unconvinced, but I'd enjoy being surprised.
posted by cortex at 9:22 AM on April 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


TLO/MStyle didn't even get into the code of flowers. Yellow roses are friendship; also a generally popular color then, so a great way to tie the clothes and the flowers. That's about all I remember but there were lots of things going on (and no way was that one dozen roses for Shirley, was much much more).

Watching Malibu Betty, though, and old episodes to look at the not-cubicles had me thinking about the old Peggy and Pete dynamic. Maybe they will end up together after all and at their next agency - Olsen Campbell. Drifted off to the one where Trudy's newly pregnant last night

Was watching Ms Blankenship die ("she was an astronaut") over lunch - reminds me of all the Meredith we've been seeing lately.
posted by tilde at 9:33 AM on April 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


You have at least three seasons guaranteed.

Season 1: The first act is Truman living his life with some sort of minor conflict that's been engineered by the show runners, act 2 is that minor conflict escalating to Truman beginning to realize he's in a constructed universe, and act 3 is Truman formulating escape plans. You split action between Truman's POV and the showrunner's POV, maybe have a side plot of an obsessed fan trying to get into the production (them meeting could be the finale of act 3, and season 1).

Season 2: Do a chronological split between Truman having escaped and the process of his escape (hope your audience doesn't have repressed memories from LOST). The past-tense is Truman's POV, orchestrating his escape with the obsessed fan. The present-tense is the increasingly conflicted showrunner and father figure hunting down Truman. The finale is the two of them meeting.

Season 3: Skip forward in time with Truman having reached an agreement with the show-runners. They allow him to exist in the real world in exchange for being a color commentator for the dozen other constructed universes which exist all over the world. Truman had negotiated the deal that the "main characters" would all get release schedules, but he begins to realize that this is a lie. Truman becomes more and more disenchanted with the world he's escaped to, which is near the tail end of a resource crisis, and sinking into despair. Use this to show flashbacks to Truman's idealized small town life on the show, indicating that reality isn't what he'd hoped. Near the end of the season introduce a resistance movement that is trying to free the other main characters, along with larger utopic political ambitions and have them begin to woo Truman to their side.
posted by codacorolla at 9:41 AM on April 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


I like that season plan, codacorolla, although I'm concerned the S2 may lose focus. However, one other Lost-style possibility based on your S1 and S2 chronology is that in S3, we discover that Truman's escape was in fact planned as part of an even wider story - i.e. that his constructed universe was contained inside another constructed universe. Not wonderfully believable, I'll grant you, but it could work in a suitably SF milieu.
posted by adrianhon at 9:55 AM on April 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


I was thinking that season 4 would be Truman successfully orchestrating the release of a main character he's fallen in love with as a color commentator, but the main reveal is that the resistance movement and escape plan were just an avante garde story arch orchestrated by the head bureaucrat in charge of the constructed realities. I think anything along those lines would probably start seriously pissing off your audience though... I mean, when they're rooting for your main character and you pull the rug out like that, then what motivation do they have to ever follow the story again? At a certain point things have to be "real".
posted by codacorolla at 9:59 AM on April 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Ooo that pendant her Dad (okay Allison) got her. Still has it. Good catch.


(yeah we still kind of have flower codes, not as complex as the Victroians but red = romance, yellow = friendship is pretty well known. Also I've noticed that people increasingly associate day lilies with hospitals.)
posted by The Whelk at 10:05 AM on April 23, 2014


also I desperately want to know what pin was on Ginz's cap in the elevator scene.
posted by The Whelk at 10:07 AM on April 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


In a way I'm sorry that we didn't and probably won't see Bert Cooper's reaction to find Dawn now occupying the position he went to to complain about her being on the front desk. But maybe it's more fun to just imagine it.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:24 AM on April 23, 2014


He may be perfectly happy with it, as long as she's out of sight of the public eye. Joan was always hiding in back before she gained some upward momentum.
posted by tracicle at 10:37 AM on April 23, 2014


The Truman Show should just be a regular reality show where the audience has no idea if the main character knows that the show is fake and the other characters are acting. Like it's just as scripted and fake as Real Housewives or whatever and the character is in on it but we don't know to what extent. And all the people in it should be non-actors who may or may not be playing themselves, except Kanye who is definitely playing himself. I've been having strange dreams.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:05 PM on April 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


Well, they already made Joe Schmoe (and several less successful sequel seasons). I have to admit that despite how cruel it was, it was entertaining TV.
posted by codacorolla at 12:16 PM on April 23, 2014


there's a thread on the Blue about the upcoming Truman Show. Maybe the discussion about that should go there.
posted by sweetkid at 12:26 PM on April 23, 2014 [8 favorites]


also I desperately want to know what pin was on Ginz's cap in the elevator scene.

Someone in the Tom & Lorenzo comments said it was "Nixon is Rosemary's Baby" (LOL, and there's the Manson moment of the week).

Another good takeaway from the comments there: Ted and Peggy were dressed very similarly (same colors on top and bottom, plus both had same-color stripey ties/bows). I think they're still in that sad obsession phase where you sit around wondering if the other person is thinking of you and moping just as hard.
posted by sallybrown at 4:13 PM on April 23, 2014 [3 favorites]


I just got a chance to see this episode last night. We binged watched over the winter -- tho' I had seen it before, I finally got my husband into it, so, yay!

After reading this thread, my mind is blown that Jim Cutler is Harry Hamlin.

Also, I was so relieved to see Sally and Don making up and connecting. Sally has that sort of politeness that Betty has (maybe drummed into her), but she's more honest. In the way that only teenagers can be.

And a big Hurrah! at Dawn getting into the personnel manager position, and Joan giving Roger the stinkeye after he put her down for getting her own office and she just sasheyed away from him and into her own space. One of my managers told me to move into a cube once, away from the secretary's desk (with the counter, where anyone could come up and interrupt you all day long -- and they did), and the big whig said, "what's she doing in there?" And my manager had to come and tell me that I had to move back to the secretary's desk, even tho' they had already hired a temp to work there. So very true to life, secretaries are not people, just bodies. This same mgr stood at my desk once, talking with another manager, and the word "peon" was bandied about, as if I were invisible. So I really dug this bit about Dawn.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 4:15 PM on April 23, 2014


I was also struck by the theme of embarrassment, which was huge back then. Lou got embarrassed by Sally showing up and it flustered him, Peggy got embarrassed by the flower thing. Don is so embarrassed about his situation that he lies about it Megan and his kids. Public embarrassment was a Big Deal to most people.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 4:29 PM on April 23, 2014


probably sometimes the costume designer just says something like, "Let's put Cutler in a black suit this week."

I thought that about all the stuff with Don's bathrobe. That's... the bathrobe that Don has. What else were they going to put him in? It's not really worth writing a thesis over.

(Though I did like the fact that Sally is also in a plaid robe and thought it was a nice touch that they pointed it out.)
posted by Sara C. at 5:28 PM on April 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


no way was that one dozen roses for Shirley, was much much more

To me it looked like a dozen roses with some red carnations to make the arrangement look more substantial. Also lots of greenery, which was a much more popular look in flower arrangements then than it is now. And large roses, not the smaller ones that are ubiquitous now.
posted by Sara C. at 5:33 PM on April 23, 2014


I thought it was two dozen roses. And then how Peggy said it smelled like a funeral parlor in her office. The death of a relationship.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 5:35 PM on April 23, 2014


There's been a lot of talk about how much Sally has come to resemble Betty. Revisiting the scenes between her and her school friends, though, I think there's one huge difference. Betty always reveled in being one of a group of women, whereas Sally seems like she has very little patience for her peers. I guess you could say it's the Don side of her, but I wonder if people aren't making too much of her being a "non-hippy", conservative minded, future Republican, etc. Not to say that she is going to Woodstock (that seems much more up her friends' alley, and again, it's worth mentioning that Woodstock was not really about "hippies" per se; it was just a rock concert), but she's definitely not a dyed in the wool preppy, either.

Watching Sally in this week's episode, I'm wondering if maybe she is going to "drop out". Probably not, like, drop out of high school and run away to the Haight or anything (and at this point it's too late for that), but no, she's not happy in this ritzy WASP milieu.

I could definitely see her at CalTech just in time for the birth of the tech boom, in the Peace Corps (and then later working for the Carter campaign?), or something a little out of left field compared to the stuffy prep school she begged to go to a year ago.
posted by Sara C. at 5:51 PM on April 23, 2014


(Just counted Shirley's roses, by the way -- I got to 14 without even trying to factor in whether there'd have been some facing the other way and not visible in the picture. So, yes, two dozen is a little more likely.)
posted by Sara C. at 5:55 PM on April 23, 2014


I don't know, it's hard to tell with Sally. Has she really shown an interest in anything besides classic little girl things (horses, ballet) and hating her parents?

I don't think the comments that she had the upbringing that makes a senator means she's going to BE a senator, just that kids of alcoholics tend to do that overserious hyper responsible thing as their rebellion.

That said, I could see her working in a non Carter campaign (great communication skills) and agree she'll be a Reagan Republican for sure.
posted by sweetkid at 5:57 PM on April 23, 2014


Re: plaids. If you look at this site, and scroll down to the bottom, you can see how big (and ugly) the plaids got by the end of the decade. I had to wear that stuff, and the grannie square vests that my grandmother sent me, and later on, lime green culottes (gag). And into the early 1970's, the plaids softened out somewhat, and it was muted plaids with complementary colors.

Also noted that Shirley was wearing a cool hot pant outfit. That was pretty neat for the time, I think, in an office ??
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 5:57 PM on April 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


I don't know, she's just so deeply uncomfortable with the trappings of WASP culture and her preppy peers that I'm starting to think all the "Sally Draper: Baby Conservative" stuff was a bit premature.

I think that, like the vast majority of upper middle class people from the Northeast over the last 40-50 years, she will grow up to be a moderate Democrat and have a set of life experiences that have nothing to do with rich cloistered high-WASP culture. I think the Miss Porter's thing was a total red herring. She's a complete fish out of water there.
posted by Sara C. at 6:04 PM on April 23, 2014


But she was so Betty and clipped tone on the phone to her friend. That whole Betty polite and clipped way of talking is surreal. The breakthrough when she and Don go at each other in the car, and then make up finally in the restaurant. Breaks through the polite Betty veneer that she was raised with, and Don breaks through his veneer of "I am Don Draper." Sally shows emotion, whereas Betty was constrained by her upbringing and Don by what he thought should be his upbringing.

Such a contrast to Peggy's outburst and all the others, Pete, etc.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 6:11 PM on April 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


I'm not saying she's utterly unlike Betty. She is a lot like Betty. I just think we were all wrong to see Miss Porter's as some kind of iconic expression of Sally's true nature.
posted by Sara C. at 6:15 PM on April 23, 2014


I agree, I think Sally's going to be a feminist. She's too smart and savvy to buy into that Miss Porter's stuff.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 6:17 PM on April 23, 2014


Pete: "Sometimes I think maybe I died, and I'm in some kind of--"

Everyone in my house: "HELL DIMENSION?!"


You know, after 6-and-a-bit seasons of Mad Men, I entirely forgot that he played Connor on ANGEL.

I remember when the show first started and I thought, "So it's got Connor from Angel, Saffron from Firefly and Zoey from The West Wing." Boy, how times change.
posted by crossoverman at 6:19 PM on April 23, 2014 [7 favorites]


like the vast majority of upper middle class people from the Northeast over the last 40-50 years, she will grow up to be a moderate Democrat and have a set of life experiences that have nothing to do with rich cloistered high-WASP culture.

I agree with this. I just don't see any indication she's going to be a trailblazer of any kind. She's a smart thoughtful girl but not like, Sally Ride or something. She reminds me of Angela Chase in that way - they nail the teenage angst with her, but everything beyond that is sort of unclear.
posted by sweetkid at 6:20 PM on April 23, 2014


Sally shows emotion, whereas Betty was constrained by her upbringing and Don by what he thought should be his upbringing.


Betty shows emotion, she just mostly shows it through anger because she doesn't have skills really to express her emotions. So every emotion is expressed as anger (I just answered an AskMe with a very similar response, this is a topic I know too much about I guess).

But the wave of empathy that came over Sally's face in the diner was really startling and impressive. When Don dropped his mask and basically admitted to fucking up, she completely softened.

Actually as I'm typing this I'm reminded of Season 1 where Betty was angry at Don for not spanking the children, and he snapped at her that he'd been beaten at home and didn't want to pay that forward. "I didn't know," she said softly.

Both women just only ever wanted the truth out of him.
posted by sweetkid at 6:27 PM on April 23, 2014 [4 favorites]


I remember when the show first started and I thought, "So it's got Connor from Angel, Saffron from Firefly and Zoey from The West Wing." Boy, how times change.

Also the politician who peed on Carrie in Sex and the City (Slattery).
posted by sweetkid at 6:28 PM on April 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


And "Third Midwestern Girl From Left" from Love Actually.
posted by Sara C. at 6:33 PM on April 23, 2014 [3 favorites]




And "Third Midwestern Girl From Left" from Love Actually.


She does that same thing where she closes her eyes for a beat in that movie. You can see it when she says "English girls" in that clip. If you're obsessed with January Jones' microexpressions. Which I am.
posted by sweetkid at 6:40 PM on April 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


I was watching "The Paradise" last night, and the point where the shop girl accuses Denise of being in love with Moray, and she says, "I'm not in love with him, I want to be him," comes to mind. Perhaps Sally will be a career woman, and break away from the role that her mother has portrayed.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 6:44 PM on April 23, 2014


Just reviewed 5/1 .... Roger ( of the s1 or S2? blackface act ) mentions that firing Merideth & replacing her with one of the Negro candidates is not a good idea at all. 5/2 cracks about modernizing & hiring a Jew because everyone's got one now & hiring him on purpose ... How soon I'd forgotten all that ....

Sally seems to me to just want to get the hell out of her life with her mother -- & father -- I seem to recall collecting boarding school pamphlets at her age too.
posted by tilde at 7:48 PM on April 23, 2014


Are we talking about how Roger walks in and says, "Some woman just called me a kyke!" and he goes on to explain it. I was like "OMFG" they just said that on TV. It almost reminded me of an Archie Bunker moment. I couldn't believe he said that.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 8:06 PM on April 23, 2014


Finally got a chance to watch it. It's shocking to me how dependent Don is on all of the women in his life. It's so sad to see him flounder while Peggy flounders. I just want them to have lunch or something. Sob.
posted by mynameisluka at 9:45 PM on April 23, 2014


Sally has no idea what she "wants to be" or who she is really. Seeing Don with Sylvia was the End Of Her Childhood (remember she was dressed like a little girl). Since then she's just been in a directionless funk, smoking and cutting class because why the hell not. She wants something to be passionate about but passion requires letting yourself feel something.
posted by dry white toast at 5:53 AM on April 24, 2014


Sally is Matt Weiner I thought we settled this.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:49 AM on April 24, 2014 [5 favorites]


smoking and cutting class because why the hell not.

I figured she smokes because everyone smokes. Teenagers smoking just wasn't the transgression it is nowadays. As late as the 80s, the boarding school I attended had an officially sanctioned Smoking Club.

Re cutting class, I don't think there's any evidence that this is going on. The girls are given permission to go to a funeral, which they actually go to, and while the other girls are seeing it as a chance to get out of class, Sally says a few things during the episode that imply that she legitimately wanted to go to the funeral. She also didn't seem terribly enthusiastic about the shopping trip angle. It's not clear whether that even counts as "cutting class", since seriously no teenager in their right mind is going to rush directly back to school on the off chance that they could get back in time for a class they were given permission to miss.

I was a goody-goody straight A overachieving high school student, and yet I was totally happy to get out of class when the situation merited it. I don't think you have to be a burnout to miss school for one day to go to a funeral.

Later in the episode when Don asks Sally how her studies are going, she says they're going well. Obviously she could be lying, but presumably the parents get copies of students' grades or are otherwise informed of how they're doing academically. It's also thematically sort of weird for her to be lying to him about grades when the whole point of their story arc here is honesty.
posted by Sara C. at 9:13 AM on April 24, 2014


If the whole theme of how Sally and Don influence each other continues as an arc this season, I'll be interested to watch it develop.
posted by transient at 5:19 PM on April 24, 2014


S5 - the Megan & Don stuff is painful. Pete knocked Lane into the shared wall between the conference room & Joans office & it moved. But yeah, modular office. I'm just a young punk who grew up with cubicles. :P

Dang I miss Lane & love watching Roger thump Pete. Emphasizes more how old Roger is this season.
posted by tilde at 7:46 PM on April 24, 2014


In my mind Sally actually wanting to go to the funeral and not just shopping made me think she also doesn't really want to "get Betty in the ground."
posted by sweetkid at 7:53 PM on April 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


I noticed a lot of death talk and imagery in this episode. Sally went to a funeral, Peggy complained her office smelled like a funeral parlor, Pete feels like he's dead and in limbo, and Ted tells him he'll die someday. That can't be coincidence.
Plus after Peggy embarrassed herself with Shirley she went in her office and stood with her back against the same door where Lane hung himself.

I can't help but think they're telegraphing another character's demise.
posted by rocket88 at 10:57 AM on April 25, 2014 [4 favorites]


Or just mirroring the eschatological zeitgeist, which is obsessed with the escalating violence of urban life and the dark side of freedom.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:15 PM on April 25, 2014 [6 favorites]


The whole thing's about death (among other things).

So Don: In Season Five, he tells Megan, "I married you. And I'm going to be with you until I die." It feels like a clear echo to Lane joking, in his office, "I'll be here for the rest of my life!"

So yeah, I think Don's a goner. I really want him to move to, like, Montana. And raise horses. And be as far from NY and LA as you can go without leaving the country.
posted by mochapickle at 1:03 PM on April 25, 2014 [2 favorites]


Dick Whitman already died and became Don Draper. I wouldn't be surprised if they kill off Don only to follow up with a glimpse of Jon Hamm in his next incarnation.
posted by rocket88 at 1:17 PM on April 25, 2014 [3 favorites]


A man named David Barrett Cooper, of course.
posted by Sara C. at 1:28 PM on April 25, 2014 [3 favorites]


I want Dick to end up sitting on Anna Draper's porch*, drinking an ice tea and fixing old cars with that guy down the street. But I will not get what I want because Matt Weiner is a big meanie.

(*He still owns the house AFAWK)
posted by Sweetie Darling at 1:37 PM on April 25, 2014 [4 favorites]


A man named David Barrett Cooper, of course.

I know this has been a running joke for a while, but it would completely ruin the entire show for me if any of the characters turned out to be someone notable in real life or even their Mad Men Universe equivalents. That includes the Megan/Sharon Tate theories.

Real life people and events should be part of the mise en scene and nothing more.
posted by rocket88 at 1:45 PM on April 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


The only "historical person" I think would be permissible would be DB Cooper, because he's not a real person. DB Cooper, in the popular consciousness, is almost as fictional as Don Draper is. I don't think Matt Weiner is going to do this, but I really want him to, think it would be AMAZING and not cheesy at all (let alone "ruining" the show), and think this sort of thing is nothing like the Megan/Sharon Tate stuff.

Megan Calvet cannot possibly be Sharon Tate, no matter how many historical liberties one takes. But Don Draper not only could be DB Cooper, everything we know about Don Draper says that he ought to be. It's fine if he ultimately isn't, but it's certainly not a stupid thing to speculate about. And it would be just fucking outrageously brilliant for a TV show to spend years -- starting from a completely different premise -- and then it turns out to have been a biopic of a character from modern mythology. You couldn't pitch something as great as that if you had "Make a TV show about DB Cooper" as your starting point.
posted by Sara C. at 4:05 PM on April 25, 2014 [6 favorites]


Yeah, it's nothing like Megan/Sharon Tate. Megan/Sharon Tate is a theme, more of a darkness lurking vibe - there's no way Megan is going to be married to Roman Polanski and blonde and pregnant and named Sharon Tate, but the little we know about DB Cooper matches up with Don exactly.

I don't think it's stupid to speculate about but I would prefer it didn't happen - because why I'm not exactly sure. Part of me would like it because it would be so against what people seem to want - for Don to change in meaningful ways and become a person we've had glimpses of but isn't.

But then again I hadn't even heard of DB Cooper until this conspiracy happened. It's not something people talk about these days outside this particular Mad Men ending theory/internet meme thing (right)?

I have a lot more thoughts about Mad Men and air travel, especially since going to the Udvair Air and Space museum in Virginia earlier this week which has many satisfactory midcentury things, but I will write about them later because I have got to get out of this office what am I even still doing here.
posted by sweetkid at 4:15 PM on April 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


Well, there's occasionally a little dribble of news related to it, but no, people don't talk that much about D.B. Cooper these days. But that's probably because the hijacking happened in 1971.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:28 PM on April 25, 2014


I know, but that's what I mean. I don't think it would have significance for people watching the show in 2015 to learn that he's really DB Cooper. We'd have to have like five screens of text narrative explaining it or something.
posted by sweetkid at 5:27 PM on April 25, 2014


That's part of what I think would be so great about it. You could make the reveal relatively cryptic, and casual fans who aren't really into the history of the time period would be "oh he changed his identity again, weird", and people who actually give a shit would be floored by the awesome.
posted by Sara C. at 5:29 PM on April 25, 2014


But DB Cooper didn't even have an identity. He didn't even make up the name DB Cooper himself.
posted by sweetkid at 5:33 PM on April 25, 2014


Slightly o/t, but Sarah Bunting of Previously TV (who was previously a founder of TWOP) weighs in on D.B. Cooper.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 5:55 PM on April 25, 2014


slightly o/t to your o/t link, Sweetie Darling, I realized yesterday while people were telling me to go see the movie based on James Franco's novel that I am Francoed out. I have reached peak Franco.
posted by sweetkid at 5:59 PM on April 25, 2014 [4 favorites]


(*He still owns the house AFAWK)

Forgot all about that. So theoretically he could have moved Megan into Anna's house -- but there's no way that would sit right with him. Anna will always be the woman on a pedestal no matter how much he thinks he loved Betty and loves Megan.

Plus obviously Megan was given, or took, the independence to choose her own home in LA. I wonder if she'd have taken Anna's house if Don had offered it (with or without knowing who it came from).
posted by tracicle at 7:10 AM on April 26, 2014


Anna's house is in Long Beach, so totally inappropriate for an actress going on lots of auditions, taking classes, needing to seem hip and with it, showing up at the right parties, etc. Nowadays of course there are lots of wannabe actors who live in Long Beach and just make the commute up the 405 to deal with all that. But in the late 60s when things were cheaper and less developed, and your husband is a wealthy ad executive anyway so you can basically live wherever, why bother?

She's definitely living in what would have been the hip young creative part of town at that time.
posted by Sara C. at 7:57 AM on April 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


(I am a little embarrassed that my first reaction was "Anna lives waaaaay out in like Long Beach, right? Like near the airport? That's barely in town. Megan would not live there, peroid." although if Don still owns the house is it occupied? Who knows.)
posted by The Whelk at 8:06 AM on April 26, 2014


Why be embarrassed about it? For the LA of the time it's basically true. Well, it's not really "near the airport", but all the rest, yeah.
posted by Sara C. at 8:16 AM on April 26, 2014


Didn't Don sell Anna's house while he was in CA with his kids at the end of Season 4?
posted by luckynerd at 10:39 AM on April 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


I actually meant he'd end up there on his own, without Megan.

The last we heard about the house, I think, is when he talks to Stephanie after Anna dies and he says, "I'll take care of the house" or somesuch and she asks if she can stay there for a while.

Don't bring fact into my fantasy!
posted by Sweetie Darling at 11:44 AM on April 26, 2014


I made a new post for this week. Is that how this works?
posted by dry white toast at 6:54 PM on April 27, 2014


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