Mad Men Season 2, Episode 9: Six Months Leave

It's easy to identify the date, the episode starts with Don waking up with his smoker's cough and lazily going to pick up the newspaper in front of what we realize is a hotel room, not his home.  We see the lead story - Marilyn Monroe was found dead the day before.  It's April 6, 1962 and Peggy is feeling pretty good about not having sold the Marilyn v. Jackie ad to Playtex.  But at the office, the rest of the women are shown sobbing over the fallen starlet.

What does Marilyn's death tell us about the Mad Men world?  Beautiful, successful, married to a baseball hero, yet so depressed that she let pills take her life?  Is the takeaway that not everything is as it appears?  That beneath the stylish veneer, things are ugly?  Sterling Cooper is a hot, young(ish) Madison Avenue firm, yet behind closed doors there are men literally pissing themselves.  "Don's perfect" says Betty's friend and for everyone on the outside the Drapers have the ideal marriage.  But we know of his lies and infidelity and even her toying with an affair.  Roger, married for 25 years, is secretly pining for the beautiful new secretary in the office?  Joan, engaged to a doctor, has a deep sadness as well, what is her unfulfilled dream?  Was it for Roger to leave his wife for her?  Was it to be married and a mom by now?  Or was it to have a bigger role at the office, be something more than just an office manager?  There is how it looks and there is how it really is, and those two things are far apart in this episode.

Pete, Sal, Peggy and Freddy get ready for the Samsonite pitch and Freddy does a great job with his part, until he manages to wet himself and then passes out drunk at his desk.  We'd been foretold about Freddy's drinking, and thought him a funny guy (with his musical zipper) but this was shocking and sad.  It's all fun and games until you pee your pants.

The three cover for him and the pitch actually goes well in his absence (they love Peggy), but Pete is not about to let this go.  Pete is the kid who reminded the teacher when they forgot to assign homework, so you know he's going to go blab about this, violating the bro code.  Even though Sterling Cooper is run like fraternity row at Dartmouth, Freddy has violated their unspoken commandment - thou shalt not be an embarrassing, sloppy drunk. Pete runs with the info to Duck and Duck, either because he's dealing with his own alcoholic demons or because he wants to gut Don's department, uses the information to demand Freddy's head. 

Up in Ossining, Betty's riding partner Sarah Beth comes over to borrow a dress and finds Betty still in her nightie, hair a bit disheveled, and Betty still pretty out of it.  But like any good housewife in the 60s, her friend is oblivious and only concerned with her own problems.  And what are they?  Boredom.  She fantasizes over Arthur, the young stud at the stables, and is surprised Betty doesn't.  But then she doesn't have to.  "Don's perfect."  Betty didn't even roll her eyes at that, it would take too much energy.

Betty has kicked Don out of the house, but communication was never their strong suit so he takes her words to mean he should stay away entirely and that only confuses the kids.  Sally even called his office to find out when he'd be home and Jane, in a confused panic, said "Wednesday" before realizing she should have said nothing.  So Don picks the kids up and spends time with them so they're none the wiser, though hearing him promise "Salamander" he'll be back before she knows it is heartbreaking.  Betty gets a good look at the real Don when he comes up with a perfect lie on the spot that they can tell the kids - she still has no idea just how good Don is at lying. 

The locked, private drawer in Don's office comes into play as Betty is seen trying to jimmy it before noisily dropping the screwdriver and drawing Carla's attention.  Poor Carla.  She tries to be helpful and supportive but is just shut down.  Betty shows such fondness for her mother's housekeeper, yet seems pretty hostile (jealous??) towards her own.  Carla tries to give her sage advice as a married woman, but Betty doesn't want to hear it.  The only help she wants is in getting to the bottom of all of her husband's lies.

Don is told about Freddy's unfortunate accident but does not react the way Pete, Duck or Roger expected.  They realize Freddy broke an unspoken code.  They can all drink themselves into an early grave, but they can't do anything that makes them or the firm look bad.  And Freddy crossed that line. But Don likes Freddy and doesn't want to see him thrown away like that.  Still, when Roger praises Don for his loyalty to Freddy it's hard not to wonder why he can't be as loyal to his wife and kids.

Betty proves to be fairly manipulative and diabolical, setting her "friend" Sarah Beth up for an affair with Arthur.  Betty is taking misery loves company to a whole new height.  She manipulates those two for her own pleasure and it's a really ugly side of her.  If she can't have the perfect marriage with no infidelity, then no one can. 

There's more misery at the dinner when Roger and Don have to tell Freddy that he's taking a "six month leave" which everyone knows means he's getting fired.  Freddy puts up a weak fight, but there's nothing much for him to do.  At least Roger and Don seem troubled by having to fire him, but Freddy is such a sad, lost puppy (maybe he can meet up with Chauncey?).  It is a sobering (pardon the pun) side of alcoholism, that you can be the funny, life of the party, that everyone jokes about, and then you become the pathetic loser that everyone makes fun of.

So Don is separated from his wife and kids, he just had to fire a guy he really likes (because of another guy he regrets hiring) and he's been drinking. A lot.  Roger tries to talk to him, man-to-man, but Don doesn't engage.  He doesn't want to talk about his private life (huge surprise).  He's fully cocked to the pissed off position and he needs only to hear Jimmy Barrett's voice to send him over the edge. He punches the "comic" in the face and then leaves to go drown his sorrows with Roger.

Roger finally gets Don to open up a bit.  He admits there's trouble in paradise and Ken and Barbie are having marital trouble.  But instead of the discussion being about Don's infidelity and Betty's knowledge, Roger is actually having a completely different conversation in his mind.  He's apparently fallen in love with Don's secretary but feels that she's the unattainable prize that his marriage to Mona is denying him.  But the combination of alcohol, desire and magical thinking leaves him taking away from his "it's your life" conversation with Don that it is his god-given right to leave his wife to pursue Jane.

Freddy's ouster makes room for Peggy to move up and while she doesn't want her ascension to be at her mentor's expense, Pete is right that she should be proud of herself. She achieved this promotion because of her talent, not because Freddy pissed himself. Regardless, she feels a connection with Freddy and this is bittersweet.  It's also, sadly, a realistic portrayal of office politics.

OBSERVATIONS:

The main event occurring at the office is the annual blood drive and it brings out the competitive streak in the men.  While Don talks about its humanitarian benefit - doing something good for mankind - he also tries to figure out ways his department can win and get the press that comes with it. 

I love Sal's subtle reaction to Freddy handing him a very full glass of alcohol.  If that's the norm for Freddy, no wonder he's about to lose his job.

Joan had told Roger in Ep. 1.06 Babylon that he would one day leave her for a younger woman and she was right.  Only, he didn't leave her (she did get engaged in Ep. 2.05), he just never tried to move their relationship to the next level.

Repeated iterations of "There's no reason to talk about it" - the recurrent theme that some things are best put in the past and forgotten.

The bag where Jane picked up some extra shirts for Don is from Menken's.  Karmic?

The pseudonym Don gives to the bouncer - Tilden Katz - is the name of Rachel Menken's new husband.  Don has Rachel on the brain.

When Roger sends Freddy to the cab he tells Don to send him to McCann.  This firm is constantly used as a foil to Sterling Cooper.

Don doesn't realize how he is giving Roger permission to leave his wife for Jane.  He thinks he's the subject of the drunk conversation at the bar, but it's really Roger who's wondering why he can't pursue what he really wants and why being married means you can't chase happiness.  When Mona comes and chews him out it's too late.  Roger has made his decision and Don is angry, he never intended to be part of that. 

The Draper advice for all situations - don't look back, move forward - is in direct contrast to the wonderful carousel he spoke about in Ep. 1.13 that went forward and backward, around and around, to a place where we feel loved.  This new advice encourages not taking responsibility and not being accountable.  If you never look back, you never have to face those you hurt in the past.

QUOTES:

Don (to Ken): There'll be women fainting. I'd think you'd like that.

Roger (to the reclining Joan):  Many's the time I've dreamed of finding you like this.

Joan: This world destroyed her.
Roger:  Really? She was a movie star who had everything and everybody, and she threw it away.  But, hey, if you want to be sad.
Joan:  One day you'll lose someone who's important to you.  You'll see.  It's very painful.

Don:  Bets, what do you want? Listen, if your mind's made up, I'm not going to talk you into it.
Betty:  I thought you can talk anyone into anything.

Carla:  Splash cold water on your face and go outside.  You'll notice things are right where you left them.

Don: I don't think it's in my contract that Duck can fire someone in my department.
Roger: You don't have a contract, and I can fire anyone I want to.

Roger:  Your loyalty is starting to become a liability.

Don:  Freddie had a bad day. Can't you find something else to do besides dining on the drama of other people's lives like a bunch of teenage girls?
Paul:  Sorry, Don.  It's funny.
Don:  Sure. It's just a man's name, right?

Roger: There's a line, Freddie, and you wet it.
Freddy: You see? We're laughing about it.

Roger:  All I'm going to say is do you want to be right, or do you want to be married? I know marriage isn't a natural state, but you do it.

Roger (to Don):  You're so secretive.

Freddy: What am I going to do?
Don: It's not an ending. It's a fresh start.
Freddy:  If I don't go into that office every day, who am I?

Don: That was a real Archibald Whitman maneuver.
Roger: Who's that?
Don: This hothead drunk I used to know.

Don: I don't feel bad at all.  I mean, sometimes.  Mostly, I'm just relieved.
Roger:  Really? Do you fall in love?
Don:  That would be easier.  Then I'd know what to do.

Don:  It's your life.  You don't know how long it's going to be, but you know it's got a bad ending.
You have to move forward.  As soon as you figure out what that is.

Don (to Peggy):  Don't feel bad about being good at your job.

Lack of subtlety: 
Hollis saying, "Some people just hide in plain sight."

Suicide count:
Don saying, of Marilyn Monroe, "Suicide is disturbing."

Oh how quaint things were back then:
Yes, that is how we used to defrost freezers.  You people have no idea how we suffered in the old days.

Literary references:
Betty is reading Ship of Fools which came out in 1962 and dealt with a disparate cast of characters on a trip seeking happiness and fulfillment but ultimately finding it all an illusion.  It was named after a Platonic allegory about oblivious passengers on a voyage to nowhere and mirrored the world's (oblivious journey) turning a blind eye toward the Holocaust.

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SPOILER-Y OBSERVATIONS (READ ONLY IF YOU'RE CAUGHT UP)

This is one of the most called-back episodes.  At the end of Season 6, Don, like Freddy here, is a drunk liability to Sterling Cooper and is given a "leave of absence" that the man is supposed to recognize as the boot.  Unlike Freddy, however, Don ignores what the partners really meant and continues to think that he'll be coming back to work as Season 7 starts.  We discover then that Don is still working, in a fashion, by using none other than Freddy Rumsen to act as his Cyrano.  The support and kindness that Don showed Freddy here will come back around as Freddy tells him to "do the work" and gets Don back on path.

The line Freddy says just before he leaves - "If I don't go into that office every day, who am I?"- sums up Don at the beginning of Season 7.  Without Sterling Cooper to go to, who is he?  Don may be courted by other firms, but for some reason he is no one if he's not at that office.  He needs it so badly he agrees to ridiculous terms of rehiring, working under Lou, taking orders from Peggy, no longer being the cock of the walk.

Freddy does "go for the cure" as Roger suggests, joins AA and gets his drinking, and life, mostly back together, though he stays a freelancer, possibly forever tainted by his reputation at SC. Peggy remains loyal to Freddy who she believes was instrumental in giving her a start in the business.  In Ep. 4.02 he comes back with a new clients, Ponds Cold Cream, and he and Peggy butt heads about creative approaches.

Betty does not yet act upon her desire for another man, instead using her friend as a stand in with the young stud at the stables.  But soon she will take that next step.

Roger mentions that one of the top ad agencies, BBDO, just hired "a colored kid."  That is the first time racial integration of the big firms has come up and it will be a bigger issue in seasons to come ("backfiring" for SC when their pro-equality ad is taken literally, leading them to hiring their first black employee Dawn in Season 5).

Don's smokers cough is a misdirection as someone will develop lung cancer by the end of the series but it won't be him.

Don mentions his father, without letting Roger know that's who he's talking about. 

Mad Men Season 2, Episode 8: A Night to Remember

Betty blows off some steam by racing her horse to the point of exhaustion.  She later beats up an innocent chair.  She's got issues -- she knows that what Jimmy Barrett told her about their spouses is probably right -- but she's not ready to deal with that head on.  She's not the only one avoiding things.  Peggy goes to church because she feels she has to, but the new priest in town can tell she rather be somewhere else.  At Sterling Cooper, Harry would rather just do the job he envisioned when he created a media department than the daily grunge work that is actually involved.  Finally, Duck once again ignores that he has no ideas to contribute and Don ignores that Pete would actually be a better head of accounts than Duck.  By the end of the episode, everyone will face reality, right?

The horse got off easy after we see what Betty did to that poor chair.  She's not nervous about the dinner party, and she's not mad at the chair for wobbling, but this is many years before Lorena Bobbitt and she has no idea how to deal with her issues with Don directly.  So she lashes out at inanimate objects.

Peggy may not know her place in the congregation, but she knows where she stands professionally and when Father Gill asks for her help promoting a dance, she gives it.  She will not be bullied or cowed to softening the message - she knows what young girls want to see.  But she still agrees to hear what the people in charge of the dance have to say.  Of course, the clucking hens do bully her and force her to change the flyers.  They were too risque, the couples too close, the theme "a night to remember" too scandalous.

She comes up with a new, tamer approach, but Father Gill isn't done with trying to exert pressure on Peggy.  He uses their time to pester her about taking communion and otherwise confess her sins and ask for forgiveness.  I'm trying to pretend I'm at all interested in this storyline but failing miserably.  The only redeeming moment was Peggy's baptism in the bath at the end of the episode when you see how troubled she is by what the priest had said to her.  I also like how at the end of his day he pulls out his guitar, not to sing a traditional hymnal, but an old blues song asking god to lead him to the promised land. It reminds us that priests are people too.

Harry finds a goldmine in his efforts to get some help with his TV accounts.  Joan volunteers to read scripts and look for problems/opportunities.  She thrives under this additional responsibility and her creative juices provide some great results. Joan has a knack for this and she's thriving at having so much responsibility and room for creativity.   So, of course, in 1962, the buxom redhead who is doing a great job ... is passed over and the job is ultimately taken from her and given to a man.  It is a heartbreaking scene.  Harry doesn't mean to be a sexist jerk, but it never occurs to him that the best man for the job would be a woman.

Duck and Don spar a bit on how best to sell the Heineken clients.  Don suggests a strategy to get them into stores and Pete backs him up, but Duck is dubious.  For the millionth time, Duck is trying to sell Don on the client's ideas/concerns rather than be open-minded to Don's approach.  And Pete once again proves that he would have been a better choice for account manager than Duck.

The dinner party goes well.  Duck is a late addition and his sobriety wagon-riding makes the drinkers a bit uncomfortable, but he's there and that's what Roger wanted.  The guest of honor is Crab Colson, a friend of Don's, who is now with the PR firm Rogers and Cowan.  Roger and Mona are there and the Draper kids are their perfect selves, with Sally entertaining and Bobby being cute, until it's grownup time.  It's typical snooty bourgeois crap, the upper crust who drink too much and complain about how expensive their yachts are.  Duck, still trying to appear the teetotaler, doesn't engage in any pregame imbibing, while Crab's wife Petra is tipsy enough to walk into a wall and later fall off a chair.

So, as I was saying the dinner party goes well...until Duck notices that Betty is serving Heineken with dinner.  He figures Don must have put her up to it, to prove that his approach to Heineken is the right one (rich suburban wives will think it exotic, like Burgundy wine, and will buy it for the home). Betty is not amused and feels manipulated, a pawn in some game her husband is playing with this strange fellow from work.  She does not like to be played with like that.  As soon as the guests have left and Carla goes home for the night, Betty lays into Don.  And we the viewers know this has nothing to do with a social experiment or beer and everything to do with her knowing that Don is back to his cheating ways.

Finally, Betty lets it rip.  "I know about you and that woman."  Don's "whats?" have little effect on Betty, she knows what she knows and she knows that he'll deny, deny, deny.  He looks disgusted by her accusations, how could she even suggest he would sleep with "that woman?"  How could she believe what Jimmy Barrett said?  It's sickening watching just how well Don can spin lies and act like he believes what he's saying.  But for once, Betty is not buying it, she's not going to bury her head in the sand any more. "You embarrassed me."  She says it twice, for effect.  She's using active words and putting the blame squarely on his shoulders; it's something of a turning point for Betty who typically acts more like Don's child than his wife.  She knows not to engage Don in a debate, that he'd probably win and deflect attention from the truth. 

The next day Betty, zombie-like, can barely get through the day.  You see an empty bottle of wine on the nightstand and an empty wine bottle on the floor. She rifles through all of Don's pockets, looking for some evidence and the lack of any evidence only manages to make things worse.  Not only is he cheating, he's going out of his way to make sure she never finds out.  He's meticulous about his cheating.  But now she knows, so she has to do something about it.  By the end of the next day, she tells Don not to come home.

Don, the consummate salesman, who can pitch anything to anyone, can't sell Betty on the idea that he's a loving, faithful husband.  She's starting to realize that everything about Don being part of an act, a sales pitch of one form or another, even if she doesn't realize the scope of this.  She sees all the scraps of notes he has in his desk drawer symbolizing that wherever he is, whatever he's doing, he's busy thinking of an angle.  She doesn't feel that Don has any genuine feelings for her, at least no loving ones.  She doesn't see how Don compartmentalizes his life and puts inconvenient truths out of his mind.  He probably really does love her, as much as he can love anyone or anything at this point.  But he does not see that lying to her and cheating on her obliterates the love .

OBSERVATIONS:

Don says, of housewives as a potential market for Heineken, "They can buy this sophisticated beer and proudly walk it into the kitchen instead of hiding it in the garage."  That harkens back to Season One when Don was drinking beer that they kept in a fridge in the garage rather than in the kitchen.

It's so sad to see Joan as the pretty bird who should just fluff her feathers, or at least set the table and grab her husband his water.  Greg wants the barefoot and pregnant wife, lounging on the sofa eating bonbons.  He'll settle for the office manager who "walked around with people staring at you."  But someone who reads scripts and comes up with ideas, that's not for his Joanie.  It's not just Harry and Greg who don't consider Joan for the job.  When Roger hears she's been the one helping Harry, it never crosses his mind that she should have the new job either.

Don's face during the meeting with the Heineken execs is priceless.  As Duck goes on and on about Don's beautiful, educated, perfect wife, and as the exec mentions how well Don seems to know his wife, you see just a hint that things are in a very fragile state between Don and Betty.  Also, when Don asks the execs, "Why would I lie?" we know the answer.  It's what Don does.

Cute moments: Peggy pretending to be her secretary when Father Gill called; Roger standing at the closed door of his office waiting for Harry to get it, the secretary's double take upon seeing a priest at the copy machine.  I also like the subtle bit where Pete stands in Don's office after hearing about the dinner party that he wasn't invited to and looks at Don, perhaps waiting for an invitation. Instead, Don looks at him, shrugs as if to ask why Pete is still there, and then Pete forlornly leaves.

Literary references:

Peggy mentions Horatio Hornblower and Moby Dick.  HH tells the story of a naval officer who rises from poverty to the top of his profession.  MD deals with issues of class and social status, good and evil, and obsession, fate and freewill.

QUOTES:

Father Gill: I see you at church, but you don't seem very comfortable.

Harry:  There are things to do that I didn't know were my job.
Ken:  How could that be? You made that job up.

Ken:  You need someone to lay down on the barbed wire so you can run over them.

Roger:  Crab, Duck. Duck, Crab.

CYO rep:  I don't like the way they're dancing.  They're too close together.  Maybe leave some room for the Holy Ghost.

Peggy:  You're supposed to tell them that they should trust me.  That's your job.

Greg: I thought you just walked around with people staring at you.

Betty:   You just do whatever you want, and I put up with it because nobody knows.

Don: I don't want to lose all this.

Father Gill: There is no sin too great to bring to God. You can reconcile yourself with him and have a whole new start.

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SPOILER-Y OBSERVATIONS (DON'T READ UNLESS YOU'RE CAUGHT UP)

Years later when we wonder why Joan dislikes Harry, and why Joan is generally so pissed off about the hurdles she has to climb to get anything at the office, we can remember back to this slight.  She obviously had a knack for the job and should have been considered for it.  Instead, she was relegated back to the secretarial world where Harry thought she belonged. But Joan will fight to take a place at the boardroom for many years to come.

 

Mad Men Season 2, Episode 7: The Golden Violin

"Afraid you'll fall in love?"

Interesting question to pose to Donald Draper.  Don has already given us his view on love - that it doesn't exist, that it was made up by admen like him to sell pantyhose, etc.  He tells Betty he loves her, loves the kids, yet does he really?  Can you do the things he does and really love the people who you're hurting by your actions?

The Golden Violin is the name of the story Ken Cosgrove asks Sal Romano to read and it's based on an actual violin he once saw at the Metropolitan Opera that was perfect in every way, except it didn't make music.  There are many things in this episode that reflect that concept.  Sal as a husband, for one.  Sweet, smart, talented, only he's not attracted to his wife.  Don as a husband, for another.  Great provider, successful, handsome, only he's not at all who he says he is and has no grasp on the concept of loyalty.  Roger's marriage, for a third.  Twenty some-odd years, one daughter, he and Mona appear to have everything, only Roger is not faithful to his wife.  Nor is he in love with getting older.

As Don looks for a car to replace the one he wrecked while driving with Bobbie Barrett, he flashes back to when Don was himself a used car salesman, circa 1952.   He's glib and comfortable, a real go-getter, but without the cocky air he now has as he glides through the Sterling Cooper office.  Don's about to be rattled, as a woman comes in saying that she knows he's not really who he says he is.

Don leaves the dealership, possibly spooked by the memory, but Roger gives him a good old fashioned "you deserve it" pep talk about treating himself a little.  Of course, Don doesn't exactly deprive himself of much and his hesitance on the Cadillac may be more what it reminds him of than the monetary expenditure.

Duck may finally have gotten some good intel for the company, spending the weekend finding that Martinson Coffee is not happy with their agency and are looking for a new (read, younger) approach.  So the two Mr. Smiths come in and pitch their generation's view of the world, introducing Don to the burgeoning Students for a Democratic Society (which was formed at the University of Michigan in 1960 and promulgated its manifest in 1962).  He tells Don that today's youth doesn't want to be told what to do, what to buy, they just want to be.  So their approach to the client is a happy jingle that welcomes people in rather than pushes the product down someone's throat.  Don is impressed.

The meeting with the client goes very well and Don commends Duck on a job well done.  Yet it's Don that gets the attention and accolades, as he is welcomed into the upper crust by Sterling and Cooper.  After congratulating Don, Roger leaves the meeting and then Bert makes a telling comment.  "Would you agree that I know a little bit about you?"  Bert, of course, knows that Don is not Don but a draft dodger who assumed another man's name and identity.  He lets Don know that it's time for Don not to let that keep him from stepping out of the wings, onto the stage, and joining the show.

Harry has been called into a meeting by Bert and the other guys warn him that he'll be questioned about a new, mysterious painting that Bert has hanging in his office.  Jane takes the men on an adventure, breaking into Bert Cooper's office to check out the painting.  Harry is a confusing mix of bravado - he went out of his way literally to let the other guys know he had a meeting with Bert and brags about "his department" - yet he's scared and insecure as well. When he finally has his meeting with Bert you can practically sense the flopsweat as his moment approaches and Harry struggles - and fails - to say just the right thing.

Joan gets wind of the office shenanigans and uses it as an opportunity to get rid of Don's secretary.  But Jane is a pretty savvy girl for a 20-year-old secretary.  Rather than walking out of the office after getting fired by Joan, she has the instinct to go to Roger instead.  Instead of fessing up to actually having done something worthy of getting fired, she makes it seem Joan was jealous of her and fired her in a snit.  Roger comes to the rescue and (reminiscent of Duck telling the gum chewing secretary not to worry) tells her to come back to work on Monday. 

Ken is the guest of honor at dinner at the Romanos and Sal is totally smitten with his coworker, and shows off his cooking and entertaining skills while his wife Kitty is forced to fade into the background.  Neither Sal nor Kitty get what they want and they're stuck with each other for very different reasons.  Kitty isn't oblivious, in fact it seems that she's more aware than Sal is, but what choice does she have?  But it's funny that Ken missed the awkward dynamics and left wanting a marriage like that (be careful what you wish for!).


In a battle over Roger's heart libido, Jane and Joan square off.  Jane tells Joan to talk to Roger about her firing and Joan correctly notes that Roger should not have been pulled into this in the first place.  Jane lies about having run into him on her way out...unless "running into" means passing by his secretary's desk and opening his door to talk to him rather than leave.  Once again, Joan sees where she falls on the power meter and it's apparently below a pretty younger girl that Roger has eyes for.

Don and Betty are their usual beautiful selves at the party Jimmy Barrett is throwing.  Bobbie Barrett comes by with a network exec and Don is all business.  Betty leaves to let them talk shop and Jimmy comes over and, after buttering her up with flattery, he drops the news that their spouses have been having an affair.  Once again, Betty has it all and has nothing.  It's like the brand new car that they can't fool around in or let the kids sit in with messy hands.  Her marriage looks perfect on the outside, but it doesn't play.

And that car that Don was so careful to keep clean?  It's now as messy as his life.

OBSERVATIONS:

Roger mentions the song "Enjoy Yourself" (It's Later Than You Think) to Don.  Here are some of the pertinent lyrics:

You never go to night clubs and you just don't care to dance
You don't have time for silly things like moonlight and romance
You only think of dollar bills tied neatly in a stack
But when you kiss a dollar bill, it doesn't kiss you back

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think

It's advice that Roger takes to heart in dumping Mona for the young, beautiful Jane. 

For all his talk of being a progressive hipster, it's Paul who won't break into Bert's office, while Jane manages to convince Sal, Ken and Harry to join her. Sal, the art director, of course recognizes the painting in Bert's office as a Rothko.  How the four view the painting provides some insight into their character as it acts as a sort of $10,000 Rorschach Test.  Jane dismisses it as "smudgy squares," Harry panics that there is one correct opinion about the piece that will seal his fate with Cooper, Sal searches for the meaning buried inside, while Ken just experiences the painting. 

Fun fact we learned - the expression "cup of Joe" may have come from Joe Martinson, a man who imported and roasted coffee beans in the late 1800s in New York. 

QUOTES:

Wayne Kirkby:  You don't need to see yourself in a Cadillac. You're walking about in one every day.
... Those are wonderful if you want to get somewhere.  This is for when you've already arrived.

Anna:  You're not Don Draper.

Roger:  Where'd you get that sweater? I want to make sure my daughter never buys it.

Harry:  Two possibilities either Cooper loves it and you have to love it, like in an "Emperor's New Clothes" situation, or he thinks it's a joke and you'll look like a fool if you pretend to dig it.

Ken:  It's like looking into something very deep.You could fall in.

Bert:  Crane, focus, please. We didn't make you head of television just to shorten your attention span.

Bert:   People buy things to realize their aspirations. It's the foundation of our business.

Bert:   Philanthropy is the gateway to power.

Jimmy:   All I know is I know her, and you know him, and there they are, and they don't care where we are.

Jimmy:  You know what I like about you? Nothing. But it's okay. You got me everything I wanted.

Lack of subtlety: 
The car salesman telling Don: "I bet you'd be as comfortable in one of these as you would in your own skin."

Oh how times have changed: 
The Drapers leaving all the trash after their afternoon picnic.

Suicide watch:
Discussing sneaking into Bert's office, Ken says to Jane "are you suicidal?"

Whore count:
Jimmy says to Don, "You, you want to step out, fine. Go to a whore. You don't screw another man's wife."

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SPOILER-Y OBSERVATIONS (DON'T READ UNLESS YOU'RE CAUGHT UP)

First mention of Ida Blankenship, who was Bert's secretary at the time.

First introduction of Anna Draper, who becomes one of the most important characters on the show.  Her relationship with Don unfolds slowly, with the details coming out in subsequent episodes.  We will soon learn that she was the recipient of the book "Meditations in an Emergency" that Don mailed in Episode One and her presence will be an important one for Don for many seasons to come.

There are numerous references to horses in Mad Men, usually involving Don. Here, for example, Bert tells Don (about moving up in society): "It's time for the horse to catch the carrot."  In Season 7, Episode 7, Pete refers to Don as "a very sensitive piece of horse flesh."  The award Don takes home in Season 1, Episode 5 is a horseshoe.  Don's father is killed when a horse kicks him in the head.  Betty deals with her depression by jumping horses.  There's even a shot of Betty with a drink at the Stork Club next to a statute of a horse with a ballerina on its back.

Jane coming back to work after being fired parallels Don's return in Season 7.  Once again Roger flexes his muscle to defy the will of another, rehiring someone he doesn't want to lose, but conveniently doesn't tell either his partners or the formerly fired employee about his plan. 

Mad Men Season 2, Episode 4: Three Sundays (Recap)

Betty's tears of joy after spending the evening as part of Team Draper at the end of last week's episode are all dried and Betty is back to feeling like she's alone in the marriage.  She's the only one who's charged with disciplining the kids and Bobby's (quite age-appropriate, mind you) rambunctiousness and fibbing are driving her up the wall.  It doesn't take a Freudian analyst to realize that Betty may be overreacting slightly to her son lying brazenly to her face.  But when she turns to Don for some of that good early 1960's brand of punishment (before time outs and taking away your iPhone), he's not there for her.  Her frustration builds, as does Don's, until it erupts quickly and violently and Betty learns that poking at things can be dangerous.

But first, it's the Sunday before the Sunday before Easter and Peggy is joining her mother and sister at Mass.  Peggy tries to sneak out and instead meets the new priest with whom she quickly forges a bond (the young people stick together).  Father Gill is invited over to dinner and his arrival is met with the same excitement as if the Holy Father were there himself.  Peggy's mother and sister are old-fashioned Catholics (favorite moment - when the mom says, after he gives a new age-y blessing before the meal "That was beautiful. Are you doing to say grace now?") whereas Peggy has a more tenuous relationship with the religion. 

What we see over the three Sundays is how jealous Peggy's sister Anita is.  To her mind, Peggy should be if not shunned for having a relationship with a married man and bearing a child out of wedlock at least held accountable.  But her mother beams and expresses pride in her younger daughter and Father Gill goes so far as to ask Peggy's help in preparing his sermon.  Why should she get all these good things when she'd done something so bad?  Where is the praise for Anita, the good sister who is a dutiful, married mom?  So she intentionally sabotage's Peggy's relationship with Father Gill, "confessing" to him her anger at her sinful sister.  By Easter, Peggy now knows that the priest knows her secret and that her Draperian efforts to put it away in the past will not be helped by her sister.

Our first view inside the Draper household is consistent with how we last saw Betty and Don.  They wake up late Sunday morning with Don being amorous and Betty playful, only to be interrupted by their two adorable cherubs.  We assume that once they dispatched the children, they were able to continue where they left off.  Then we see budding bartender Sally mixing the world's strongest Bloody Mary (and pointedly saying to her dad, here's number two) as the family lounges around on a lazy day.  The idyllic moment is interrupted by Bobby playing around with the stereo, much to Betty's consternation. The look she gives Don when Bobby blatantly lies about what he did - with Don intently ignoring her and staying out of the matter - conveys volumes.

Over the episode, Betty becomes increasingly irritated with Bobby's behavior and what looks to us like little blips build up to much more in her mind. And she goes from the relaxed, loving spouse to the angry, bitter mother who feels like she's all alone, out-numbered, with no support from her husband.  She wants Don at her side, backing her; instead he's disengaged.  He plays the husband/father role only to the extent of doing the easy part, but he wants no part in disciplining, scolding, correcting and certainly not spanking.

Roger Sterling is having his own problems as a father.  The expression "generation gap" hasn't been coined yet and still you can feel the chasm developing between Roger and his daughter Margaret.  She does not hide her disapproval of her father - of his drinking, of his need to spend money, of him.  She's now Brook's fiancee, Roger has lost whatever connect he had with his little girl.

So rather than repair their relationship, he goes elsewhere to seek validation.  He finds the one person who will respond appropriately to his money - a prostitute that Ken and Pete had hired for one of their clients.  Roger had spotted her and wanted her and he could have her - all they had to do was settle on the price. He exerted power over her, getting her to bend her rules, and help shore up any damage to his self-esteem occasioned by Margaret's strong disapproval.

At Sterling Cooper, the troops are mobilized to put together a winning pitch for American Airlines.  Don, a master at reinvention, comes up with the idea that American should not try and explain the past nor run away from it (the recent plane crash), but instead act as if it never happened. "There is no such thing as American history, only a frontier.  That crash happened to somebody else.  It's not about apologies for what happened." Their focus, he maintains, should be only on the future, only on moving forward.  Not at all an unexpected direction from someone whose very being is premised on acting as if the past never happened.

While we see the time and effort that goes into preparing the pitch, and trying to land such an important client, we also sense the underlying excitement.  Even though everyone is working hard and giving up their weekend, there is electricity in the air at Sterling Cooper.  There's something exciting about everyone pulling together to land that big client.

Sally Draper is particularly excited to spend the day at her Dad's office and watching her interact with the Sterling Cooper crew is priceless.  Being just a child, she lacks a filter and so she has no trouble talking to Joan about her breasts or to Stan about what he does with his girlfriend.

After working through the weekend everyone is ready, freshened up and dressed to impress, the conference room filled with anticipation and hope.  They've put in the work, it's time to see if it pays off.   Only, they discover that their "in" at American was just canned and they are no longer in the running to get the account.  Don sums it up aptly, telling the team that they have to deliver a stillborn baby.

Speaking of babies, as they are about to embark on the doomed meeting we cut to Father Gill in the confessional.  There, Anita decides to tell him about Peggy's out-of-wedlock baby.  There's no question she's not doing this because she wants god's forgiveness or needs to unburden herself.  She's doing this to spite Peggy.  She's the good Catholic girl who's done everything by the book, why is Peggy the one getting all the attention?

After the perfunctory meeting, Don is angry - Duck Phillips lost them an existing client (Mohawk) and failed to land a new client.  But, while Sterling Cooper didn't land the American Airlines account, and while they actually lost an account in the process, Roger has no regrets: 

Don't you love the chase? Sometimes it doesn't work out. Those are the stakes.
But when it does work out it's like having that first cigarette. Head gets all dizzy.
Your heart pounds, knees go weak. Remember that? Old business is just old business.

The place was alive, electric, as everyone bore down with one goal. It was exhilarating.  And the chase was fun, even if they failed to catch their prey this time.  And it echoes what Don said about advertising, which is also what can be said of relationships as well.  New is what's exciting.

It's unclear how much of this pep talk worked with Don and when he comes home from work, he looks spent.  He doesn't want to talk about it, he doesn't want to deal with anything.  Bobby acts up at dinner, ignoring Betty and accidentally spilling Sally's drink, and Betty again asks Don to do something about his son.  What happens when pressure builds and builds?  Eventually it explodes.  And that's what Don does, unleashing the anger that had been building at work.  Is that what Betty wants, he asks.  For him to bring the rage he keeps buried and throw it and everyone and everything around the house.  Betty wants him to co-parent with her, to be present in the house and take his role seriously.  But, Don can't fathom a middle point - where he doesn't disengage and where he doesn't explode.  This is another part of Don's past that he steers clear of.  He's so fearful of turning into his father, that he rather be emotionally unavailable - basically checked out - than risk being abusive.

Don has a heart-to-heart with Bobby about his own father and it's sweet and tender and the most open and vulnerable we've seen Don with anyone in the family.   It's certainly not an excuse for leaving disciplining up to Betty, nor making her feel like he's disconnected from his parental role, but it does help explain why Don wants to be the good dad who comes in, tousles hair, and jokes around.  It also lets both Betty, and the viewers, realize that there's a lot percolating just below the surface with Don - and that it can be dangerous taking the lid off.

The episode ends on the third Sunday, Easter, with Peggy and her family at the church where the children are enjoying an Easter Egg hunt.  Father Gill comes and talks to Peggy and she applauds him for his sermon and he thanks her for her help.  And just as she's feeling good about what she did, how she was able to help him, he hands her an egg and says it's for "the little one."  And Peggy realizes that she can't escape her past.

OBSERVATIONS:

Betty is reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story Babylon Revisited an interesting choice for a number of reasons.  First, it could be asking you the viewer to revisit the Season 1 episode Babylon where Peggy first's comes to the attention of Freddy Rumsen as a girl with ideas, where Betty tries unsuccessfully to express her sadness over her mother's death, and where Don reconnects with Rachel Menken while drifting farther from Midge.  Second, it could be because of the story itself where after the Stock Market crash, the formerly affluent revisit their wastrel ways. Is this a warning that the good times will not last?

Don channels John Kennedy, who included the famous "ask not" phrase in his 1961 inaugural address, when he says "Ask not about Cuba, ask not about the bomb."  This was the acme of the country's hopefulness and optimism and Don was trying to connect with the country's focus on its future, rather than fear of the past.  It is of course a major theme in his life, to forget the past and always move forward.

There are interesting little touches - how the secretaries have to wait in line for their food, how they eye their former sister Peggy as she enjoys the benefit of her new position, and how formally people dressed even on the weekends.  There's also a nod to salary discrepancy with Joan noting that Sally makes more than the rest of them.  Sally's question to Stan, whether the black lady in the picture is his maid, also highlights the era and how interracial couples in the pre-Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) era were highly unusual.

We see Bert as the patriarch of the office and he's a bit of an oddball, so it's easy to think of him as innocuous.  But he shows a nasty side as he's willing to get a secretary fired when he mistakenly believes that she's dropped gum on the floor which has stuck to his argyle socks.  Duck shows how little bite he thinks there is backing Bert's bark as he tells the girl not to worry, that Bert won't remember firing her.

Sally spends a lot of time around alcohol, whether acting as bartender at home or sneaking some of the office staff's drinks at the office. 

Easy time stamp for the episode with Joan turning the calendar page to April 20, 1962.

QUOTES:

Margaret: Brooks has other interests besides drinking.
Roger: That'll change.

Peggy: I can only speak for myself, but the sermon is the only part of Mass that's in English, and it's very hard to tell sometimes.

Bobbie Barrett: I was thinking how I could avoid getting bored with you.

Betty:  That's it? I said to him "Wait till your father gets home" and that's what he gets "Go to sleep?"

Betty:  You think you'd be the man you are today if your father didn't hit you?

Sally: You have big ones. My mommy has big ones, too, and I'm going to have big ones when I grow up.

Don:  I like to see us blowing up bridges behind us.

Don:  We got a lot of bricks, but I don't know what the building looks like.

Roger:  But I want everything I want.
Vicky: Isn't that the perfect thing to say.

Sally: Let's have a conversation.

Don:  There is no such thing as American history, only a frontier.

Duck:  Our job is to bend down the branch.  Let him pick the fruit.

Roger:  You wouldn't think dinner would be pushing it on the extras.

Anita:  It's a terrible sin, and she acts like it didn't even happen.

Don (on Duck): We hired him to bring in new business, not lose old business.

Don: You want me to bring home what I got at the office today? I'll put you through that window.

Bobby: We have to get you a new daddy.

Don:  He's a little kid.  My father beat the hell out of me.  All it did was make me fantasize about the day I could murder him.
Betty:  I didn't know that.
Don:  And I wasn't half as good as Bobby.

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Spoilery observations.  (Don't read until you're caught up!):

This is not the last time the agency will be delivering a stillborn baby.  When Roger insults the Honda Execs. in Ep. 4.06 The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, they have to go into a pitch knowing that the client will not hire them.

Mad Men Season 2, Episode 2: Flight 1

This is one of those episodes that is easy to time stamp as American Airlines Flight 1 did in fact crash, on March 1, 1962.  In the fictional Mad Men world, Pete Campbell's father was on-board and found his final resting place somewhere in Jamaica Bay.  This tragedy was the impetus for some posturing and power moves at Sterling Cooper and for some harsh realities back at the Campbell residence.

The episode begins in Montclair, NJ where pseudo-Bohemian Paul Kinsey is throwing a soirée for friends and co-workers.  The Manhattan and 'burbs crowd is a little off-put by the gritty surroundings, but Paul is thrilled to be out here blazing a trail, in touch with real America.  He's playing rock music, wearing a jaunty scarf, and conveying his coolness as we have seen him do since last season when he was trying to woo Peggy with how hip he was.  Elsewhere, Ken Cosgrove is making the moves on an intoxicated girl, Harry has brought the previously unseen Jennifer, Sal is squiring his main squeeze Kitty, and Peggy gets friendly with an old friend of Paul's from college.

Paul introduces Joan (whom he once dated) to his new girlfriend Sheila.  Their encounter is brief but terribly uncomfortable.  Joan, who bristles at being called a "senior secretary" and corrects Paul that she's an "office manager," is no happier when she's told that Sheila, who is black, is an office manager too.  Joan is condescending and shows a really unpleasant side of herself.  Paul must have known the conversation could take this turn as he pointedly told Sheila NOT to talk to Joan without him present! Besides learning that Joan is catty and insecure, we also learn that Paul stole a typewriter from the office which he believes is his right because he's "a writer."

Don and Roger come into work the next day to find all the desks and offices abandoned and everyone crowded around the radio.  They think the office is listening to reports of John Glenn's homecoming parade, but instead they're listening to the news that American Airlines Flight 1 to Los Angeles has crashed.  The admen, good with words, start quipping about the accident, while Don and Roger make sure to protect their airplane client Mohawk Airlines from any collateral damage.  Two phone calls are highlighted.  One, from Duck Phillips' friend Shel Kennealy at American, mentioning that in light of the crash they might be looking for a new agency.  Two, from Pete Campbell's brother telling Pete that their father was on the doomed jet.

Pete reacts to the news of his father's sudden death not with sadness but with confusion - about what he should do and how he should feel about it.  He goes to Don for answers, despite their contentious relationship.  Last year Don tried to fire Pete and Pete tried to unmask and destroy Don.  Ultimately, their mutually assured destruction resulted in them maintaining a wary détente.  But when he's lost and unsure what to do, it is Don to whom Pete turns for answers.  He so wants to emulate Don Draper that he looks to him for instructions on how one handles news like this.  Even when Don tells him to go home and be with his family, Pete pesters him to make sure that is what Don would do in the same circumstances. 

Don does not take the news well that Sterling Cooper will be using this opportunity to land American Airlines.  Not only is the timing unseemly (he notes only three hours have passed since their plane went down), but to go after American they would have to break up with Mohawk Air - a loyal and reliable client.  Don seems to be arguing in favor of a guaranteed good thing and showing loyalty to a client over pie-in-the-sky for a big score.  But Duck thinks that Don is not jumping at the chance to pitch American because the offer wasn't directed at him (they didn't come to Sterling Cooper for the Don Draper treatment) but that it was Duck who made the inroad.  I happen to believe that Don was feeling a sense of fidelity - which I know sounds farfetched for a man who went AWOL, stole another's identity and cheats on his wife.  But that's life; in business I've never seen Don be disloyal.

Pete finds out that his father spent their inheritance (more likely, his brother's inheritance as Pete was not his father's favorite) and that his family, with their storied pedigree and history, is basically broke.  I don't know if that helps Pete at all to realize that his father couldn't have helped him financially with the new house, even if he had wanted to, since Pete is well aware that in the "Salt and Pepper" duo with his brother, he was the less favored spice.

In a great slice of life scene, the Drapers host Francine and her husband Carlton for a night of drinking, chatting, and cards.  Carlton starts talking lustily about a high school-aged babysitter that his wife hired and Don is uncomfortable with the direction the conversation is taking.  Don is obviously not a prude nor is he the poster boy for faithfulness, so it is interesting that the same man who once cheated on both his wife and mistress is so distasteful of Carlton's leering.  This seems to be another time for Don to take what he perceives to be the moral high ground, like he did with Duck, Roger, and Bert courting American.

The show has been coy about Peggy's storyline from last season, but it offered up some info with this exchange at her mom's house: "Peggy: And I'm capable of making my own decisions. Her mother:
Really? State of New York didn't think so.The doctors didn't think so." Peggy's family is upset at her avoiding church which, being practicing Catholics, is a big part of their life.  When Peggy leaves for the evening, she's stopped by her sister who reminds her to say goodnight to her nephew.  But the baby is a clear reminder to Peggy of the one she no longer has and you can see her discomfort.

Back at the Draper home, we see more inklings into Betty's parenting style, which is right out of the 1950's "show them who's in charge" handbook.  She is frustrated and angry with Bobby for not going to sleep when he's told and for getting away with it.  Carlton tries to help her see it from the kids perspective and says how he fought going to sleep when he was a kid, and Don takes a gentle approach, scooping Bobby up in his arms and carrying him back to bed.  But that's not what Betty wants.  She wants the parents - the father in particular - to be a scary figure to be obeyed or crossed at your own peril.  

Betty is also upset with Bobby beyond his ruining card night.  She calls him a "little liar" and tells how he was praised for a drawing he did in school which turned out to be a tracing of a photo from a book.  Rather than applaud his ingenuity or skills, she was furious that he took undeserved praise. It becomes clear, at least to Don, that this may not be about Bobby at all. Betty's comment "I know what little boys do" is a loaded one and if she doesn't like fibbing, she really picked the wrong guy to marry.  Once the Hansons leave, Don mentions that Carlton seems to have put on a few pounds. Betty chalks that up to his being happy (which she thinks he should be for cheating on - and then being forgiven by - Francine), but Don knows the truth, that Carlton still has a wandering eye. 

The scene between Joan and Paul gives us another way at looking at her boorish behavior at his party.  It was easy to assume she was jealous or racist, but perhaps she was just pointing out Paul's pretentiousness.  Her comment about his girlfriend, "Describe her to me," hits on what may be her most interesting characteristic to Paul. That Sheila is another hipster accoutrement like his scarves and pipes.

Duck tells Pete that Sterling Cooper is like a family and that's true down to its dysfunction.  He preys on Pete's naked ambition and vulnerability to engage him in pursuing the American Airline account.  Pete walks out of the meeting unsure but when his other surrogate father, Don, snaps at him and sends him away (Don is upset having to stab his client in the back and unknowingly takes it out on Pete), Pete knows where his loyalties lie.  So he goes to join Duck in the pitch to American Airlines, using his personal connection to the tragedy to give his company a leg up.

At the end, Don sits alone in the restaurant where he had to give the bad news to Henry Lamont of Mohawk Airlines.  He was clearly rattled by the client's words, about feeling stupid for trusting and believing in Don and the company.  Does that hit home for Don?  Does he realize that others are trusting in him who shouldn't?  Is that why he made the big morality pitch for Mohawk, when he has no trouble lying to Betty about where he is?  And why does he turn down the offer for sex with the beautiful girl at the restaurant?  Is it his conscience getting the better of him - when he sees himself in others (be it Carlton or Duck) does he not like what he sees?

Throughout the episode, Peggy vacillates between Manhattan working girl and Brooklyn Catholic girl who should find a man and settle down.  At Paul's party she is confident and sexy, at home with her mother and sister, or finally at the Mass they guilt trip her into attending, she's the good little girl. Which path is the right one for her, most emotionally and personally fulfilling, and does she have to choose just one?

OBSERVATIONS:

Bert warned Don in Season One that he might not have the stomach to handle the business side of  the company and Don's reaction to them jumping at a chance to pitch American Airlines proves that.  While it's easy to laud Don's apparent nobility and loyalty, it is important to remember that they are in a business and one does have to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves.

It's pretty obvious  it was Paul getting his retaliation against Joan by posting her ID showing her age.  Peggy has always seemed intimidated by Joan, but her response after learning Joan's secret shows that she may feel she has more of an upper hand.  Youth is starting to become more important than anything else in the culture. 

It's crazy to think about two big news stories on one day - with the parade honoring the first man to orbit the earth occurring at the same time as the then-worst single airplane disaster in the history of U.S. commercial aviation.  Truth sometimes is stranger than fiction.

It's easy to make fun of Pete - just ask Roger - but he really is a tragic character.  Seeing how lost he was after learning of his father's death, and how much he needs a father figure in his life, is really sad. The quote that brought this home for me was when he said the only thing he really knew about his father was that he didn't like advertising - in other words, he knew only that he had disappointed his father.

Don may cheat on Betty, but he does not engage in the lascivious fantasies of Carlton who wants to bro down talking about the hot young babysitter.  He quickly cuts off the conversation.  Remember back in Season One "Marriage of Figaro" how Don watched as Carlton made the moves on Helen Bishop?  Don seems to have some disdain for Carlton and the way he lusts after women.  Maybe it's not that he's a cheating scumbag, but that he's so vulgar and uncouth about it.  Don may cheat, but he does it with panache!

Betty's irritation with Bobby - and calling him a little liar for tracing the George Washington portrait and passing it off as his own work - is misdirected anger at Don.  It's Don who she knows is lying to her, but she can't prove it.  

Roger was not correct, John Glenn would not be on earth for the rest of his life.  In 1998, he returned to space as part of the Space Shuttle program.

The American Airlines plane crashed because of a rudder control system malfunction.

QUOTES:

Eugene:  So you work for these stuffed shirts?
Peggy:  I work with them.

Paul:  I'm here because this isn't Greenwich Village.  This is America.

Joan:  I have to say, when Paul and I were together, the last thing I would have taken him for was open-minded.

Peggy:  I'm in the persuasion business, and frankly I'm disappointed by your presentation.

Roger:  It's incredible what passes for heroism these days. I'd like ticker tape for pulling out of my driveway and going around the block three times. It's not like people were shooting at him.

Don: There's life, and there's work.

Don:  What's it been, four, three hours since the plane went down? You'll have to forgive me for not looking at a bunch of bodies in Jamaica Bay and seeing the opportunity.

Don: We have the one whose planes didn't just fall out of the sky.

Duck:  I know how you had it in your head.  The president of American Airlines sees a Mohawk ad, falls in love, and says "Get me that guy." Well, I'm sorry it didn't play out that way.

Don (to Carlton): I'm enjoying this story so far, but I have a feeling it's not going to end well.

Peggy (about church):  Doesn't mean the same thing to me that it means to you.

Peggy: And I'm capable of making my own decisions.
Anita:  Really? State of New York didn't think so.  The doctors didn't think so.

Betty:  What about all that praise he accepted for something he didn't do?

Betty: I don't need a book to know what little boys do.

Don (to Betty):  I'll say whatever you think I should say, but I'm not going to fight with you.

Pete:  "Fighting about facts," my mother calls it. We do it all the time. Argue over something that's actually one thing or another.

Joan:  You, out there in your poor-little-rich-boy apartment in Newark or wherever. Walking around with your pipe and your beard, falling in love with that girl just to show how interesting you are.

Pete:  Of course, it turns out I really didn't know anything about him except that he did not like advertising.

Don:  What kind of company are we going to be?
Roger: The kind where everyone has a summer house?
Don: I can't believe I look like an idiot for wanting to be loyal to these people.
Roger: Take off your dress. You get a chance at American Airlines, you take it. End of discussion.

Peggy: I never would have guessed you were in your 30s.
Joan:  People should not bring their personal problems into the office.  ...  Is it so hard to just leave everything at the door and just do your job?

Henry Lamont: I'm glad you picked this place.  It reminds me of Pearl Harbor.  For many reasons.

Lack of subtlety award: 
Little Sally making the cocktails for all the grownups.

Cultural name dropping:
George Innes was a 19th Century American Landscape painter

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SPOILER-Y OBSERVATIONS (DON"T READ UNLESS YOU'RE CAUGHT UP ON THE SERIES)

Don's loyalty to Mohawk Airlines is showcased here, but it's not embraced by Roger or the rest of Sterling Cooper who believe landing an even bigger client is more important that allegiance to an existing client.  Later this season, in Episode 9, Roger will tell Don (viz. Freddy Rumsen) "your loyalty is starting to become a liability."

Duck tells Don that he knows what Don's fantasy was.  The president of American Airlines would see Don's work, fall in love, and have to hire him.  But that's not how it is going to play out.  Duck has the connection, he's made the first overture, and he'll be the one to land the airline.  This is echoed in Season 7 when Bert Cooper tells Don that his plan for getting back his old position wasn't going to work.  Don may have thought he'd swoop in and save the day and he'd be welcomed back with open arms, but that's not how it's going to go.

After Bobby and Sally both think they've seen a ghost (maybe Pete's father paid them a visit?), Don goes up to check on them and finds them sleeping together.  This is revisited in Season 7 when Bobby, having stomach aches from his parent's constant fighting, finds solace by crawling into bed next to his big sister. 

Sterling Cooper is thick with cynicism.  Whether it's Roger's barbs at what he claims to be the undeserved attention national hero John Glenn is receiving or the fact that the first thing Duck thinks of when he hears of the plane crash is that it's an opportunity for the agency.  Outside there are idealists like Pete's sister-in-law with her bouquet of thoughts, but in that office it's distrust and disdain of everything.  A plane crash is an opportunity to come up with the best one-liner.  If you are trusting, you're just asking to get your heart broken (just ask Mohawk Airlines).  Much later in the series, after an epiphany or two, Don tells teenaged Sally not to be cynical and tells her that such cynicism is not a good influence on her younger brothers.

This episode mentions one of the first firsts in space - John Glenn's orbit of the earth.  In Season 7, Episode 7 the focus is on another first - man landing on the moon.

One of the best relationships on the screen this episode is one of its most tragic - Sal the closeted gay man and his unsuspecting wife Kitty.  They are so sweet together, it's sad that the relationship is built on lies and it's sad to see how the marriage progresses based on unrequited love and unfulfilled needs.

The answer to the question what kind of an agency will we be continues at least through the end of Season 7a where the partners decide to sell out to McCann Erickson for a big payday - to be, as Roger jokingly said in this episode, the kind of agency where everyone has a summer house.

Henry Lamont, of Mohawk Airlines, tells Don that the restaurant where he's about to get the bad news reminds him of Pearl Harbor.  In Season 4, Episode 5, Roger raises the specter of Pearl Harbor and the battle of the Pacific when bristling at the firm's attempts to land the Honda Corporation.  Then Roger wasn't about lining the firm's pockets regardless the cost.  Then he let his personal feelings, his deep-seated resentment and sense of loss, blind him to the opportunity that Honda presented.  So Roger may not hold loyalty above money, but he does hold resentment higher.

Here, Peggy is shocked to learn that Joan is in her thirties.  In Season 7, Peggy bemoans hitting her 30th birthday (Don doesn't help, but replying "shit").

If you think Don's latest secretary Lois is inept, just wait until Ep. 3.06 A Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency.

The show was trying to be mysterious, dangling clues for us about certain unknown facts such as the slow roll out of info on Pete and Peggy's baby.  Here, they hint that her sister may have adopted the child and throughout this season they hint at the whereabouts of the child.  Later, we learn definitively that the baby was put up for adoption.

Mad Men Season 7, Episode 7: Waterloo (Recap)

When we first met Bertram Cooper, in Mad Men Episode 1.02 "Ladies Room," he said, in his own inimitable way, as he left the frat atmosphere in Don's office, "So much yarn, so little time."  Time finally ran out for Bert Cooper on July 20, 1969, just after man first set foot on the moon.  "Bravo," he said of humankind's great accomplishment.  And "Bravo" we all said not just to the founding father of Sterling Cooper but also to the actor who brought him to life - Tony Award-winning Robert Morse.  In Bert Cooper we saw a man spanning two centuries, from the opening of the Eiffel Tower and the painting of Van Gogh's Starry Night in the late 19th Century to men soaring on a rocket beyond that tower, through that night, to place a flag on a distant orb.  He embraced the future while still being a relic of the past, an Ayn Randian iconoclast with a taste for Japanese design, a childless man with strong paternal instincts.  He was the glue that bound the agency through its many incarnations over the near-decade that we've been following it.

So cut him a little slack if he decides to do a song-and-dance number for Don Draper before he shuffles off this mortal coil.

That final image, of the fantasy-reality line being blurred with the former "How to Succeed in Business" Broadway star doing an MGM-themed dance number for his last hurrah, was brilliant and ridiculous, the height of artistry and the nadir of Matt Weiner's hubris.  How you perceived that scene - and I loved it immediately - may depend on whether you took the blue or the red pill when you started your Mad Men ride.  It is a surreal look at a place and time, almost like how our memories ever so slightly skew the story of our lives.  Nothing is quite the way it seems, yet the overall feelings are real.

The feelings brought forth in this episode were very real.  The common experience of all the characters on the show was watching the moon landing on TV.  For that one moment in time, almost everyone in the country was focusing on the same thing, sharing in that pride and wonder.  But how that moment was observed was so different for everyone.  Don, Peggy, Pete, and Harry sharing the experience not with family but in a hotel room, hours before a crucial presentation.  Betty spending it with friends and family including her daughter who alternates between becomingher mother's  doppelgänger to becoming her own person with her own opinions and views.  Roger, not watching with some whacked-out group of hippies higher than the astronauts, but with Mona, their son-in-law, and their grandson.  And Bert, experiencing the moment alone with his housekeeper, beaming with pride and joy.

The news anchor's failure to pick up the second part of the famous quote.  Neil Armstrong's muffing of the first half (leaving out the "a" that makes all the difference).  The scratchy, wiggly black and white picture, so different from the crystal clear images beamed back by the Mars rover decades later.  It gave a sense of being there in that moment.  I was ten at the time and remember it.  It was a moment that the country needed, turning attention away if only briefly from the war in Vietnam, the counter-culture, the disintegration of the family, the growing malaise, and the other turbulent changes the late sixties wrought.

Peggy tapped into the chaos and the need for comfort and togetherness in her Burger Chef presentation. Reminiscent of Don's Carousel pitch that closed out the first season, her story was one borne of nostalgia for the family table of old, full of sentimentality and longing.  She - representing moms everywhere and playing that role by using her neighbor Julio to stand in for the child she could have had but doesn't - takes control of the room and sells the hell out of the pitch while Don looks on, grinning like the proud papa he is.  Yet, it wasn't a passing of the torch so much as a sharing of the light.  Finally, Don is willing to let others shine bright.

The arc of Donald Draper over these past seven episodes has been stunning.  He went from humiliated and debased to triumphant and esteemed.  The pariah who scared away the Hershey clients was the superstar whose presence was the key to closing the McCann Erickson deal.  And how did he accomplish this transformation?  By following Freddy Rumsen's advice and doing the work.  No Superman/Batman moves here, no sleight-of-hand.  Don put his nose down, put his ego aside, and worked.  His growth was earned.

And what growth there was.  Last episode, when Don remarked about how he used to solve problems - abuse the people whose help he needed and then take a nap - was the first real glimpse that Don was admitting what an a-hole he'd been.  The Don of old was so self-absorbed, so keen on developing and maintaining his image and mystique, that he couldn't have let any truth ever slip through like that.  But now he can admit the games he played and how he hurt those around him.  He had a chance to put his own interests first, as he always had in the past.  Make the Burger Chef pitch, win the client, and try to save himself at the firm.  Instead, he gave up all that to Peggy.

Don couldn't be with his kids to watch history being made, but he reached out to them and in that brief exchange with Sally may have helped her steer a path towards happiness.  Rather than embracing the cynical at such a young age, she quickly set herself on a better course.  Rejecting the handsome jock in favor of the nerdy stargazer was another step off of Betty's well-worn path.  

The old Don may have done or said something he regretted almost immediately to Jim Cutler when it became clear his job was in danger, or maybe he would have just run, but instead he stayed and fought for his job.  And he used his experience down at the bottom of the ladder to save Ted from making a similar mistake.

This episode, this season, was about getting what you always wanted and yet finding that it wasn't what was really important.  Ted and Pete got LA and both of them missed what they left back in New York.  Peggy got the big account, but what she really craved is family.  Don got his job and position back, yet he had no one to share it with.  The next half season will hopefully find everyone, with work taken care of, focusing on what will make them truly happy.  Bert has provided the road map for that discovery, "The Best Things in Life Are Free."

OBSERVATIONS:

I don't know why there's so much hate out there for Harry Crane.  I love how he was the one person to tear up at the astronauts landing on the moon.  It was a nice call back to his emotional exit at the end of Season 1's finale when he left the room after the Carousel pitch in tears.

Bert gave a fine tribute to Ida Blankenship after she passed on that made his death after seeing the great achievement of the Apollo astronauts fitting: She was born in 1898 in a barn. She died on the thirty-seventh floor of a skyscraper. She's an astronaut.

Roger lamented to Don that his final words to Bert were the lyrics to a song, so perhaps Don's hallucination was triggered by that. That song lyric "let's have another cup of coffee and let's have another piece of pie," is from the 1932 musical Face the Music.  It was sung by a now down-on-their-luck group of folks waiting for things to get better. 

The hunky teen visiting the Francis house was wearing the #32 - looks like the jersey of then-Heisman trophy superstar Trojan OJ Simpson.

Julio asks Peggy for a Popsicle.  That brand was one of Peggy's first major pitches (Ep. 2.12 - The Mountain King) and she came up with a sentimental angle tying into the idea of breaking it and sharing it with someone you love. 

There was a fifteen second pause after Don said to Megan that he could finally move out to LA, broken only by him asking if she were still there.  That was all the proof he needed that their relationship was over. Unlike his violent, emotional breakup with Betty, this marriage didn't explode, it died from lack of interest.

Peggy said to Don that he'd never seen her present before and that was true, but it was also true, as he told her, that he had "overheard things."  Specifically, when she presented the Heinz Ketchup pitch right after Don did, he listened in with his ear pressed against the door. 

We knew Meredith had a crush on Don, but watching her "comforting" him after he received his termination letter was priceless: "M: Tell me what I can do. D: You can get my attorney on the phone. And we can't do this. M: You're right. Not right now." 

So much meta-commentary on the show - Lou referring to "Don Draper Dinner Theater," Pete saying "the Don Draper show is back."  Even Jim Cutler talking about being "backstage" to what Don was doing. 

Roger and Don have done everything in their power to avoid going to work at McCann and now their salvation comes from letting themselves be devoured by that same huge company.  Perhaps the deal won't go through.  Don's off-handed comment about Bert's sister still being alive leaves open the possibility the deal could be halted.  But perhaps their surrender is a sign that there are worse things than giving in. Roger valued Don,  Don valued his coworkers, and the rest of the partners valued cold hard cash more than keeping Sterling Cooper small and unencumbered.  This play was a Hail Mary on Roger's part to keep from losing everything - and very possibly to prove Bert wrong.  Because Roger finally acted like a leader.

Don tells Sally not to be so cynical when she mimics the football player's comments about the space program. That harkens back to Bert Cooper calling Don cynical after the latter penned the  New York Times ad that nearly destroyed the company in episode 4.12 Blowing Smoke.  It was in that scene that Bert announced he was leaving the firm and that they had created (in Don) a monster (an accusation repeated the next year by Peggy).

So where do we go from here?  It's possible the purchase doesn't go through and we spend some episodes on the two sides wrestling for control, but I think that's unlikely as there is so little time left.  Instead, with their financial futures secure, I believe Don, Peggy, Pete, and Roger will focus on achieving non-material happiness.

Don has felt unloved since birth and has never let any evidence that he was loved interfere with this deep-rooted self-I loathing.  There was a small crack in this shell when Sally told him she loved him early in Season 7.  Now it's time for Don to explore whether he is capable of accepting love - and giving it.  He did the first selfless thing we'd seen him do when he let Peggy (whom he loves in a way, even if he doesn't realize it) give the presentation and his feelings of pride watching her pitch must have reminded him of the feelings he discovered he had for Bobby after they went to the movies together. The problem with hoping Don also finds romantic love before the series ends is that there doesn't seem to be enough time for him to find and build a new relationship, so that leaves him with repairing an old one.

Peggy has struggled with being at the forefront of a movement that didn't even have a name at the time.  She was blazing a trail for herself as a woman in a man's world and made certain sacrifices along the way.  Now that she's turned thirty and achieved career satisfaction and success, the lack of someone to share that with leaves a huge hole.  With Ted coming back, she might look to him.  But I'm not sure he's emotionally stable enough to give her what she needs, especially if he has to hurt his wife and children in the process.

Pete is free once more and on his way back to New York.  He and Peggy have never actually had a relationship and when they had their fling they were in a different place emotionally and career-wise.  Now they're nearly equals (true, he's a partner and she's not, but the disparity between them is not that great any more).  Pete showed he could be interested in an ambitious career-minded woman, but he has unresolved feelings for Trudy that will have to be worked out.

Roger's true love is Mona.  That's obvious.  He blew it once but perhaps their new role in helping raise their grandchild will bring them back together.  Roger was in an extended childhood until Bert Cooper died.  Before that he had ridden the cushiony coattails of a rich and successful father and an indulgent mother all the way into his fifties without breaking a sweat.  Finally, when Bert called him on not being a leader, and when that failing was about to result in him losing everything that mattered, Roger took the first steps into adulthood.  Maybe he can put away the LSD, hippie girls, and naked parties and be a grownup.

The number one song this week?  In the Year 2525 by Zager and Evans.  As the space age hit its apex, thoughts and fears about the future ("some machine doing that for you") were rampant.  

QUOTES:

Ted: Good spot for smoldering wreckage.

Lou:  Shall I invite them to "Don Draper Dinner Theater?"

Meredith:  I know you're feeling vulnerable, but I am your strength.

Jim:  You know, Ted and I, whenever we would hear that your agency was involved, we'd always be so intimidated.  What's that man up to? Such a cloud of mystery. Now that I've been backstage I'm deeply unimpressed, Don. You're just a bully and a drunk. A football player in a suit. The most eloquent I've ever heard you was when you were blubbering like a little girl about your impoverished childhood.

Pete:  That is a very sensitive piece of horseflesh.  He shouldn't be rattled.

Joan: I'm tired of him costing me money.

Julio:  I don't wanna go to Newark.
Peggy:  Nobody does.

Bert: No man has ever come back from leave. Even Napoleon. He staged a coup, but he ended up back on that island.

Bert (to Roger):  I'm a leader and a leader is loyal to his team.  Don doesn't understand that. But I do. And you have talent and skill and experience. But you're not a leader.

Pete:  The Don Draper show is back from its unscheduled interruption.

Don:  Sometimes actions have consequences

Peggy:  I have to talk to people who just touched the face of God about hamburgers!

Jim:  I hope you all realize this is a pathetic ploy and a delusion.
Roger: It is until everybody votes on it.

Don: You don't have to work for us, but you have to work.  You don't wanna see what happens when it's really gone.

Oh how things have changed:

Does anyone still follow the "don't swim within an hour after eating" rule?
 
Suicide count:

Ted cutting the engine, discussing why the astronauts might be better off if they didn't make it, saying that signing a 5 year contract would be for the rest of his life.

Pete refers to Lane Pryce.