Mad Men: Seven Twenty Three Rewatch

September 21, 2014 9:31 AM - Season 3, Episode 7

Betty tries her hand at local politics. Don is forced into thinking about the future. Peggy receives a luxurious gift.
posted by tracicle (9 comments total)

This episode has never stood out to me, but on rewatching it, there are a lot of things I love. To wit:

All of Betty's clothes in this episode, from the white dress with black polka dots to the floral, boat-neck dress she wears to meet Henry. Also, Betty's hair when she meets with Henry. I don't think my hair has looked that good a day in my life.

Peggy, when she opens Duck's gift: "I hope yours is a different color." "Elegance and success. Duck. I wonder who wrote that for him."

Bobby Three hanging up the phone on Henry. Foreshadowing!

Don, bewildered on hearing that Hilton wants him to sign a contract: "I gave him my word!"

Suzanne: "So you're different, huh?" Don: "Is that impossible?" Suzanne: "You're all wearing the same shirt." It's not often that someone tells Don that he's just like everyone else.

Cooper, turning the screws: "Would you say that I know something about you, Don?/After all, when it comes down to it, who is really signing this contract anyway?"

And finally, "16 Tons" as the outro music.
posted by donajo at 11:09 AM on September 21, 2014 [3 favorites]

I watched (? is that the right verb? listened to?) both DVD commentaries and really enjoyed Andre and Maria Jacquemetton*, who wrote the episode, more than the one with Weiner and Robert Morse.

They talked about how the thread running through this episode is Don becoming/accepting being Don Draper. He's too tied down with babies and furniture and clients to be a hobo, he's too old to be seen as cool by the hitchhikers and Suzanne, he's beholden to Hilton and Cooper. So Dick Whitman hallucinates his old man, takes a blow to the back of the head, wakes up and realizes he's stuck with where and who he is. (At least for the moment)

(*They are very charming and their repartee is delightful.)

I can remember everyone on first watch being really squicked out over Peggy's affair with Duck, particularly the "I want to take off your clothes with my teeth and give you a go-round" line. But when Don blows up at her (again) because she mistimes a conversation (again), it makes sense. Plus, it's not like he's disgusting looking.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 11:42 AM on September 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

Always entertaining to see someone who's able to throw Don off his game, as when Connie gives Don a lecture on Bibles, family photos, and showing up to work on time, all while sitting in Don's own desk chair.
posted by ChrisTN at 3:07 PM on September 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

Maybe I didn't realize the breadth of its sphere of influence, but would Silent Spring have been really big among the Westchester County Junior League set?
posted by ChrisTN at 3:14 PM on September 21, 2014

My knowledge of Silent Spring is from a decade-ago American Studies course and wikipedia, but yeah, they would have heard of it, at least. According to wikipedia, there was a CBS special about it in April, 1963, as well as congressional hearings that summer. And preventing an "industrial park" from building a water tank seems exactly like the kind of NIMBY-ish project the Junior League would take on.
posted by donajo at 7:02 AM on September 22, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yes, it definitely felt like an OMG PROPERTY VALUES/ introduction of "THE ELEMENT" into the community issue, but the JL had enough self-awareness to wrap itself in OMG NATURE.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 12:17 PM on September 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Peggy looked so guilty walking into SC with the same clothes she had on the day before. Luckily for her, Don walked in right behind her looking even more distressed with his busted up face.

All of Betty's clothes in this episode, from the white dress with black polka dots to the floral, boat-neck dress she wears to meet Henry. Also, Betty's hair when she meets with Henry. I don't think my hair has looked that good a day in my life.


Yes, especially the outfit and just the way she looked in general when she met Henry at the bakery. They couldn't have filmed her more to her advantage. I don't think she's ever looked better. On first watch, when it became clear that Betty and Don were truly getting a divorce and realizing that Betty wouldn't be in the show as much, I remember wondering who was going to be MM's clothes horse. She got all the best clothes.

They talked about how the thread running through this episode is Don becoming/accepting being Don Draper. He's too tied down with babies and furniture and clients to be a hobo, he's too old to be seen as cool by the hitchhikers and Suzanne, he's beholden to Hilton and Cooper. So Dick Whitman hallucinates his old man, takes a blow to the back of the head, wakes up and realizes he's stuck with where and who he is. (At least for the moment)


Yeah, Don got knocked down all over the place. Even literally.
posted by cwest at 10:33 PM on September 22, 2014

Bert Cooper, incisive as usual. Also sitting at Don's desk, just like Connie Hilton.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:14 PM on September 26, 2014

This is a red letter episode for Don in Total Asshole Mode. I liked it a few episodes earlier when the guys asked Allison what mood Don was in and she said "I always guess wrong" or something like that. We're still in the days before his Season Four bottoming out, but right now he's like a coiled snake at work, alienating everyone he sees as beneath him and doing a poor job of attempting to handle those above him. Bert knows he needs Don but is vocally tired of his bullshit, Connie is curious about what Don can do for him but also cautious (and can throw Don off his game like nobody else), Roger and Betty are both irritating distractions he's pretty openly tired of appeasing (in his eyes), and Peggy is his above-her-station former secretary. I feel like Sally is the only person Don has endless reserves of loving patience for right now, though we could end up scraping the bottom of that barrel at any moment.

The hitchhikers were fascinating and almost like a payoff to the sense of menace and impending violence running all throughout "The Fog" for me. Wiener seems to love to have that impending, hard to articulate dread running through this show, as we saw in Season 6 when it felt like Megan was being set up for a Manson-style murder the whole time.
posted by Navelgazer at 8:38 PM on February 2, 2020