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MyLightyear
Jul 2, 2006
A blindness that touches perfection,
But hurts just like anything else.

Lady Radia posted:

This is 100% completely anecdotal, but a lot of fathers in the Mad Men thread at the time remarked that they felt - or heard from others who felt - similar to Don here, that they were expecting to have that "big moment" where their heart exploded with love for kids, but it had to develop independently, and took many years. But I don't know if that was just TVIV being TVIV or what.

As a 41 year old father with a 6 year old I can 100% confirm this was my experience. I can recall exactly when my son blew my heart up the way Bobby did with Don. He was roughly 3 years old and he “cheers” us when we sat down to dinner to drink, him with his water and us with whatever we were drinking. Neither of us taught him to do that, and to this day neither his mother or I knew how or where he learnt that.

Then again I’m also divorced, so I may be more like Don Draper than I’d like to admit. :(

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R. Guyovich
Dec 25, 1991

GoutPatrol posted:

As a new father, it took until we came home from the hospital and then it didn't really hit like it was love at first sight. The Bobby conversation hit me pretty hard when watching because growing up with my step parents already in my life as early as I can remember...I can think things I said when I was a little kid that could have hit that way. You don't mean it to hit that way...but they will.

Don complaining with Megan about love is connected to his big conversation with Rachel in season 1. "What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons." Him talking about wanting to love his kids this way...sounds like him falling for his own (advertising) bullshit? To talk about this idea of "love isn't real" so smoothly, so confidently 7 years ago, and now we see the darker, uglier side. His love for his children can be seen in the Carousel - growing organically based on his own experiences with them.

but that whole speech was almost immediately revealed as a masquerade. rachel menken doesn't buy it for a second and neither do we

Paper Lion
Dec 14, 2009




dons musings about love over the series are really scattered and his opinion is all over the place. he talks confidently about selling love and how its a construct, yet he also says not to use it so often in advertising for fear of cheapening it, not only as a sales tactic but just conceptually. you can see he loves his kids in the carousel but many years later is talking like he never loved bobby until that single moment. but these contradictions all come back to his core as a character. he just doesnt know what love is, period, because he never had any when he was young and then was raised in an environment where the physical act was bought and sold as a commodity. he knows its important, but he cant give it to anyone because he doesn't know what it is, and he can't receive it because he doesn't recognize it or makes excuses for why its not real.

edit i finished my rewatch the other day and the finale made me cry 4 times, a new record

Blood Nightmaster
Sep 6, 2011

“また遊んであげるわ!”
You know I can't recall crying at the finale but I know I can't rewatch The Suitcase without tearing up at some point. God that one gets me every time

Paper Lion
Dec 14, 2009




"birdie...", the fridge speech and don hugging him, and the coke ad always get me. stephanie bailing and leaving don alone got me this time too though for some reason.

kalel
Jun 19, 2012

For me it's Brett Gelman sitting naked on a deck chair. it's just so beautiful

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?



Holy loving poo poo this moment :xd:

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Season 6, Episode 6 - For Immediate Release
Written by Matthew Weiner, Directed by Jennifer Getzinger

Ken Cosgrove posted:

It was mutually assured destruction.

Bert Cooper, Pete Campbell and Joan Harris sit in Pete Campbell's office watching breathlessly as a middle-aged, bespectacled man runs through paperwork and runs numbers. It is a seemingly informal affair, all three of the Partners are dressed semi-casually, but this doesn't appear to be a social gathering. Joan offers to get the fourth man something to eat but he declines, before warmly reminding them that it would be a mistake not to ask questions if they really want to know something.

Who is this man and what is the spell he seemingly holds over these 3? Well that is soon made more than clear, he's an Underwriter, and he's running through their accounts to work out exactly how to value SCDP ahead of a public offering. The figure he's come up with 1.9 million shares, with 1.5 million held aside for the top people at the firm (presumably the Partners only) and another 400,000 set aside to be made available to the public at $9 a share.

Now Cooper speaks up, insisting that the price be $12 or else he can't take the number to the other Partners for consideration. The underwriter, seemingly used to these kind of theatrics, promises that he's made a careful review and the price is in no way an insult. But Cooper is also no stranger to the cut and thrust, and points out that while he can't go to the Partners with that number.... he can go to other underwriters. That makes his point clearly, and the Underwriter asks for another 24 hours to more carefully review the numbers.

Cooper gives Joan the nod on that, and the meeting draws to a close, Cooper escorting the Underwriter out though not before the latter makes a point of complimenting Joan on her spotless Accounts books, clearly enamored that she isn't only a beautiful woman but clearly accomplished with numbers as well. They leave, and Joan worries that maybe Cooper pushed the man too hard, but Pete is unfazed, passing Joan a drink and eyeing her up and down appreciatively himself before noting how everybody seems to want her.

"Pete. No," she warns, though not angrily, either assuming this is a pathetic come-on of his own or, more likely, worried he's going to try and pull the same poo poo that he did with Herb when they were after Jaguar. He giggles and assures her that he feels like things are looking good for the valuation, and that she needn't worry about whether Don will object to going public, instead she should focus on the positives: even if they settle on $9 a share, Joan's own portion of that is likely to net her about a million dollars.

She lets that number really settle in, a talented and intelligent woman who spent most of her life convinced that the best she could hope for was marrying well, now being told that she's going to be a millionaire in her own right and based entirely on her own merit. Pete, still just a little too "appreciative" notes that she's flushed and she admits she drank too much, before again worrying about how Don will take the move, pointing out that he doesn't seem to care about money (easier when you have a shitload of it!). Pete agrees that may be true.... but also that regardless of cash, Don doesn't like playing "in the bush leagues": he wants SCDP to be a bigger deal as well, and a public offering is likely to double their size.

He offers Joan another drink and she quickly - and wisely! - declines, deciding to call it a night and get out of the office before Pete gets a bit too over-confident. As she goes, she asks him if Clara reminded her that it was Mother's Day tomorrow (so today is a Saturday, May 11th), and he gets pulled a little back down to ground, reminded both of his own mother and of course Trudy, mother of his child. Still, that might have poured a little cold water on his ardor, but it is still a good night for Pete Campbell: personal access to money has been the one thing lacking from his privileged upbringing, and though he's had a successful couple of years at SCDP he's now about to finally join the ranks of the rich: now he can be the Tom Vogel of the family, the one with prestige AND money.



The next morning, Roger Sterling wakes up and rolls over in bed to see a young woman sleeping beside him. Playfully he bites her elbow, and she starts awake, scolding him playfully before sitting up and telling him she has to get to work. He points out that she doesn't even know what time it is and is surprised but pleased when she lets him in on a little secret: she woke up earlier and did her make-up so she'd look good when he woke up and aw her!

Her name is Daisy, and she works at the First Class Lounge at the Airport, and Roger makes the unusual "complaint" that they mostly seem to see each other when she just wants to see him, as opposed to when she has a lead for him. Yes, Roger is using her (and she him) to supply him with the inside word of when executives from large companies are in the lounge, so he can "bump" into them. Presumably he pays her for this, either straight up or more likely via expensive dinners, gifts and - in what is obviously mutually beneficial/pleasurable for each of them - sex.

He asks to see her later tonight and only seems half-jokingly jealous when he asks if she is seeing another boyfriend when she says she has plans. But no, as she reminds him, it's Mother's Day, so she's spending the evening out with her mother. Even now though Roger doesn't want her to go, giving her pause when he puts on a mockingly sad face and reminds her that his mother recently died. Exasperated by this transparent act, she nonetheless allows him to pull her back into the bed so they can enjoy their company a little longer, accompanied by an extraordinarily blatant male-gaze shot of her underwear.

In Cos Cob, Pete is enjoying a rare weekend at his actual home, it's Mother's Day and so of course to keep up appearances Mr. Campbell MUST be at home. Slipping into the bedroom, he strips down and slides into bed with Trudy who, still half-asleep, at first giggles and plays along with his instigation of sex before she properly wakes up, remembers everything, and quickly puts a stop to matters before they can go too far.

She's not particularly upset, more adamant that they maintain the new status quo she has insisted upon to keep up the illusion of their marriage. If anything, she's more offended when he complains that they're keeping up the facade of every aspect of their marriage EXCEPT "the one that matters", causing her to dangerously identify that surely he means Tammy when he says that, right?

Realizing he's in dangerous waters, he retreats to safer ground by sighing that he wishes she wouldn't keep dangling the axe over his neck. She retorts that if he really wants to know where things stand she COULD divorce him, is THAT what he really wants? He sighs again, lamenting the cruel fate that has befallen him, how was he know that there might possibly be consequences for his actions!

But when he complains that he's done everything she's asked of him, she throws him a bone. Giving him a knowing smile, she points out that she taken note of his efforts, offering a tantalizing glimpse of a return to normalcy if he just stays the course, suggesting that this current state of affairs might somehow turn out to be temporary after all and the possibility exists that their old domestic bliss might one day return.

Feeling a little safer, Pete lays comfortably back in the bed as she gets up and prepares to go wake Tammy, gently teasing her with great satisfaction as he warns that she doesn't want to give up on him just now because he has great things afoot. Still grinning, she promises to keep THAT in mind as well before leaving the room, and Pete - denied sex but offered potential salvation nonetheless - takes a moment to just revel in the feeling that somehow, someway, everything is going to work out okay after all.

In Manhattan, Megan is making dinner and Don is reading the paper, but Mother's Day is being celebrated because Marie is in town. It seems she has come to see Megan because her other daughter left her feeling blue after a phonecall where she was called the most insulting thing she can possibly think of: grandma. Yes, Megan's sister has a lot of children, and they were all eager to wish their beloved Grandma a happy Mother's Day, reminding her again and again that she is no longer a young woman. So she came to stay at Megan's, not outright saying it but making it clear that she prefers being with her childless daughter since there are less reminders of her own advancing age that way.

They're all surprised by a knock on the service entrance door in the kitchen. What is Don thinking when he turns and looks back, or when Megan asks him to answer it? That this is Sylvia popping around much like he often has at hers? About how he will explain it? About what she might want? About whether this might be the day that her religious guilt gets the best of her and she blurts out,"I've been having an affair with your husband, Megan!"?

But no, it's Arnie, and what he has to say hits Don in a different way. Their son, Mitchell, has popped home for a surprise visit, and while he's taking her for a walk around Central Park Arnold has come in search of wrapping paper because he figures Mitchell probably thinks just being there is gift enough, so Arnie is going to get something wrapped up for him to avoid disaster.

How does Don feel about this? He asks how long Mitchell will be in town - Arnie doesn't know - but is he asking purely for the utilitarian purpose of figuring out how long he has to hold out from cheating on his wife, or because he is eager for him to be gone so Don doesn't have to face up to the truth that Sylvia is more than just his mistress: she is a wife and a mother in her own right, she has her own family, one that loves her and that she loves, and Don (and yes, Sylvia is complicit too) is a stain on that.

But, just as likely it's just that he wants a timetable before he can go back to loving Sylvia again. Despite his frequent bouts of self-loathing, in the moment Don is mostly a completely selfless and thoughtless person.

Marie of course is enchanted by Arnie, as he is by her, especially when he tells her that he mistook her for Megan when they passed in the lobby. That is something "Grandma" is delighted to hear, and without a second thought she offers him the flowers in a nearby vase since "she is done with them", getting an exasperated,"Thank you, mother," sarcastic note from Megan who of course bought them for her.

He thanks them for the wrapping paper and leaves, and after Megan explains that he's a heart surgeon, Marie notes something about Arnie that Don would probably rather not think about given he is cuckolding him: Arnie is wealthy, talented and handsome, a real catch for anybody. She jokes that Don should watch him around Megan, which hits just a little too close to home, and Don of course turns it back around by saying he's more worried about her, stroking her ego while making out like the thought of extra marital affairs between the Drapers and the Rosens isn't something that is on his mind at all.



Peggy isn't (technically) a mother and it certainly isn't her day. Arriving home to the apartment she ended up buying after Abe entranced her with his vision of their children growing up in a multi-cultural environment, the reality is proving far less enticing than the fantasy. As Abe, wearing only overalls, works away at fixing an electrical socket, she explains that she found poo poo on the stairwell. He assumes a dog must have got in off the street, but she's convince it's is human poo poo, blaming it in a whisper on the tenant upstairs. Flummoxed, he insists she wouldn't do that, but Peggy insists she's a junkie and probably doesn't care where she shits.

She wants the junkie out of the building, but Abe insists they can't do that. Does he mean they legitimately can't, or that he thinks it would be a lovely thing to do? As owner of an apartment in the building, Peggy presumably has some say about the types of tenants renting out other apartments in the building? As a car skids down the road outside and a pedestrian roars out angrily about something, Abe tries his best to put on a smile, asking how her mother was, as it seems Peggy went to spend the day with her. Peggy says she was fine as she pulls out the curtains she picked up while she was out, but seems more than a little reluctant when she mentions that her mother wants to come see the new apartment despite it being in no fit state just yet.

As if to prove that point, Abe suddenly lurches back with a curse as he takes a mild shock from the electrical socket. Dismaying, checking on him as he cluthes his forearm, she says they need to get in a handyman, and when he asks why given that would be a waste of money, she figures honesty is the best policy and tells it to him straight: because he has no idea what he's doing!

Suddenly music begins blasting from upstairs and the two take a moment to stare at each other, both eventually smiling because hey, what else can you do but laugh?

Monday morning comes and Don arrives at work, Pete meeting him outside his office to give him the good news that Herb Rennet called and canceled their dinner for tonight, a dinner that Don clearly wasn't looking forward to. Pete suggests they have dinner just the two of them anyway as he wanted to discuss some things (presumably the public offering), but Don of course just offers diplomatically that they should enjoy their reprieve. Pete nods, not wanting to push the subject, wanting to get Don when he's in a good mood, and heads off on his way.

Inside his office, however, Don finds Roger waiting, who lets him know that.... the dinner ISN'T canceled, Herb Rennet actually wanted to make sure it was just Don and Roger in attendance tonight, no Pete, so they could "straighten" things out. Roger suspects that it could potentially be fatal regarding Jaguar, so he wants Don along with no exceptions, and he wants Megan along too in hopes it limits any potential explosions.

Don, certainly not eager to go to dinner with Herb after thinking he'd just escaped it, and certainly not eager to thrash out his recent scuttling of Herb's local radio push for Jaguar, complains that Megan already made plans with her mother since she thought he had a business dinner. Roger perks up at discovering that Marie is in town, insisting that she come along too, making it clear that he isn't requesting (even if he long ago lost his power to order Don around).

SCDP aren't the only ones dealing with Partnership issues though, at CGC a Partners meeting between Ted Chaough, Jim Cutler and Frank Gleason quickly devolves as Gleason - who is Art Director in addition to being a Partner - suddenly loses his poo poo over designs they're working on for a million-to-one shot at pitching to Chevrolet.

Quickly dismissing both Cutler and their secretary (who Cutler had pointed out probably didn't need to be there regardless since it was ostensibly a Creative Meeting, though he doesn't mind hitting on her as they leave), Ted asks Gleason what the problem is. He's confused as to why his old friend seems so upset about the work he's doing and his insistence that they shouldn't have dropped Alfa Romeo as a client on this off-chance they could get a bigger client, after all his job is usually to calm TED down!

"Ted," Gleason explains,"I've got cancer."

Ted is utterly stunned, surprising Gleason who admits that he thought Cutler - who did know - would have told him, surprised but pleased to learn their old Partner can still keep a secret (just not about their rocket-inspired designs to Chevrolet!).

It's pancreatic cancer, but what has Gleason so stressed out is the financial aspect and how it will affect Ted and Jim both. Because as Partner, if he has to cash out of the Agency in order to deal with his cancer (or should he die, and the assets go to his family presumably) then part of the Partnership Agreement is that Jim and Ted will buy him out. That's why he is frantic, because with Alfa Romeo gone (like SCDP, they chased a luxury car with a relatively small but affluent user-base) if they don't get Chevy, buying out Frank's share of the company is likely to put CGC out of business.

But Ted doesn't give a poo poo about that, he's worried about his friend. So what he can he do? He offers encouragement, support but most importantly an optimistic viewpoint. They don't have to worry about money, because Frank is going to do his best work and win them Chevrolet, and then he's gonna have so much money he can afford to build a wing at Sloan-Kettering and they'll kill the cancer, and Frank will live a long, healthy and wealthy life.

Gleason goes along with it, of course, exhausted emotionally and physically, just relieved to have put all his cards out there on the table and bringing Ted fully into the picture. But does he believe that they'll be able to win Chevrolet? Probably not, but all he can do now is his best and see what happens, everybody is going into this with their eyes wide open.



Roger takes a call at his office, pleased to hear it is Daisy (notice how he has zero problem compartmentalizing his lust for her and his lust for Marie). Roger was shining his boots, using Giorgio's shoe shine kit of course, but what she has to say quickly diverts his attention away both from that task and flirting with her. She's got him a lead, she isn't sure what he does but he's a big-time executive and his flight is currently delayed. Roger tells her to keep him intrigued (the mark doesn't believe her name is Daisy, Roger tells her to play on that) and instantly he's out the door, only stopping to dump copies of his awful self-serving autobiography out of his bag before going... and then racing back to collect his boots which he momentarily forgot.

Megan and Marie get into the elevator in Megan's apartment building along with two young girls. As they travel up, the girls shyly let Megan know that they're fans of her show, going so far as to ask for an autograph before getting off on their stop. Megan is flattered and kindly does so, watched with great interest (and some slight unease) by Marie.

At the first class lounge for Northwest Orient, Roger arrives at the counter to ask the lovely young lady named Daisy something, but can't help but spot her smiling at a fat middle-aged man who is waving to her. Taking a seat beside the man, Roger jokes that he knows he wasn't waving at him, and the executive leers over at Daisy and admits that seeing her helps take his mind off the wait. Roger agrees that delays like this make him wish he could just go everywhere in his car, which probably indicates that he's figured out this guy works for some automotive company, and adds cheekily that he could have Daisy in the back navigating for him.

They introduce each other, the fat man - Mikey - taking an immediate liking to Roger's easy charm, especially when Roger offers to get them a couple of drinks to help pass the time, promising he'll get Daisy to bring them over. Returning to his quasi-girlfriend, Roger asks her to get Mikey a Jim Beam and himself water "with an onion in it", as well as get him a seat on Mikey's flight. Today he is only pretending to drink, because he wants his wits about him while he clouds Mikey's.... he's got work to do and a mark to scam.

In Megan's wardrobe, she's still undecided on what she wants to wear, a fact her mother can't help but comment on when she enters the room all dressed up already and only needing her back zipper done up. Megan, in her robe and smoking furiously, admits she is pissed off that what was supposed to be a dinner with her mother has turned into attending one of her husband's business dinners. Marie though has another take, does Megan REALLY want to spend an evening with her mother rather than one at an expensive restaurant with her handsome husband?

Megan bitterly complains that it's fine for Marie since she seems to enjoy laughing at Roger's jokes (does she suspect their affair, or simply put it down to her mother's shameless flirting?), but when Marie immediately notes that she should probably go home since she's overstayed her welcome, Megan immediately crumples, unable to stand the thought of not having her mother there as moral (kinda) support.

In a mixture of French and English, they discuss what is really on Megan's mind: her marriage. She admits that lately she's felt a distance between her and Don that frightens her, and she isn't sure what is wrong or what she can do that can fix it. Megan points out that she's feeling and acting like a woman who has been married far longer than she actually has... but she thinks the solution is obvious. Complimenting her daughter, she points out how she has exceeded all expectations (including Megan's own, loudly voiced ones) but how that itself can be intimidating, especially given her own experience standing in Megan's shadow as she was signing autographs in the elevator earlier.

Megan insists Don doesn't care about that, but Megan - who knows a thing or two about fragile male egos - insists that it will be affecting him even if he doesn't realize it himself. So how to "solve" the problem? Simple, she needs to act more like Don's lover than his wife. Dress up sexy, entice him, make it so the only thing he can think of when he sees her is about getting between her legs. Shocked into laughter by her mother's directness, Megan can't help but see the logic in what she is saying. As Marie leaves, Megan shakes her head... but she's also smiling, in a far better mood before, and now eagerly seeking out something to wear that she knows will turn Don's own head.

Unfortunately, while the intent is clear, and the execution is phenomenal, the seduction is somewhat hampered by their dinner company. Herb is of course a pig, but Megan (and ESPECIALLY Marie) find themselves most overwhelmed by his wife. A pleasant enough woman with her heart entirely in the right place, she is unfortunately completely out of their comfort zone, though to be fair to her there is a fair bit of obvious "class" bias there. A middle-aged suburban wife, she's full of cheer and excited recounting of her trips to the city, but admits that she always ends up forgoing the museums and art galleries and ends up going on shopping sprees at Saks instead!

Megan tries to smile and find some common ground, admitting she and Marie enjoy shopping too, while Marie is utterly mortified at the complete lack of refinement of the other woman. What makes it most galling is that there is no sign of Roger, Don returning from having tried to reach his Partner unsuccessfully. Herb complains that he's done waiting and Marie hopefully asks if that means dinner is off. They're all surprised now by HER lack of refinement or understanding, Megan helpfully explaining that they mean they're done waiting to order. Marie is horrified, they're REALLY going to stay here and eat dinner with these two? WITHOUT Roger!?!

At SCDP, Cooper comes to see Pete in his office, walking with great purpose. He takes a seat on the couch, Pete - who was packing his briefcase to head home - asking with some amusement if he can help him. Bert, warm and friendly in a way he rarely is, happily explains that Pete has already done everything he can for him, and he is eternally grateful for it. He lists of Pete's (absolutely legitimate) accomplishments: he helped to grow SCDP while keeping it lean, he whipped the Agency into shape, he is largely responsible (along with Don's Creative of course) for not only keeping them alive but helping them grow.

And the end result of that? The Underwriter has reviewed Joan's books and come back with a number that Cooper is utterly delighted with.... $11 a share. Pete is shocked but thrilled, that's $2 higher a share than the initial estimate, the Partners' shares of the 1.5 million shares available to them are worth even more AND there will be an extra $800,000 in cash coming in from the public offering!

The news is SO good that Cooper admits that he would like a drink! Barely able to contain himself, Pete leaps to his drinks cabinet, admitting that he has no idea what Cooper actually drinks. Cooper's tastes are of course somewhat more refined, and Pete doesn't have either brandy or Spirits of Elderflower ("I don't have any laudanum either!" Pete jokes), and Cooper takes that all in stride, simply telling Pete to surprise him.

Bob passes by, calling out goodnight to Pete (who he calls Chief, because of course he does) and Pete calls him back, asking him to please go and grab Joan for him... and also some ice! Bob of course immediately agrees, while Pete considers when they'll break the news. The sooner the better, Cooper tells him to call a meeting for tomorrow, and gleeful Pete downs his scotch in one go, barely able to believe it: he's going to be a legitimate millionaire! Finally after all this time, something is going right for the guy born into a High Society New York Family and gifted everything every moment of his life since he was born!

Marie is also knocking the drinks back, listening with increasingly more obvious horror and disdain to Mrs. Rennet's excited stories about discovering their dog had given birth to a litter of puppies in the garage, right in the oil stain that Herb never got around to cleaning up!

"My God, listen to this idiot," Marie manages to gasp in French through a forced smile as she grabs the bottle out of the ice bucket and pours herself another stiff drink. Mrs. Rennet doesn't speak French (God I wish she did, just to call Marie out for being such an elitist) but stumbles slightly, clearly uncertain at hearing something said in a foreign language, perhaps suspecting but not entirely sure if what was said was an insult or just a passing comment.



Megan tries to cover for her, "agreeing" with Marie that the puppies must have been adorable. Don simply adds as nicely as he can that he loves puppies, and Herb - who seems a little embarrassed by his wife as well - chuckles that he can't love them as much as "this one" does, gesturing to his wife.

Mrs. Rennet seems to take that - as well as Marie asking Megan cheerfully in French if she can break the bottle over Mrs. Rennet's head - as a sign, suggesting that the three of them go and powder their noses so as to allow the men to discuss business. They leave the table, Don of course standing as a gentleman must when a lady leaves.... and Herb of course not moving an inch.

Now it's just the two of them, the client and the Creative, two forces that should rarely meet without the intermediary of an Account Man between the two of them, ESPECIALLY not these two. Herb certainly doesn't help matters by openly leering at Megan as she leaves, going so far as to quietly (but loud enough for Don to hear) quote from The Girl from Ipanema,"Tall and tan and young and lovely."

Don simply stares at him, then puts aside his disgust and returns to his seat, asking Herb why they're here tonight. Now Herb oozes his version of charm, explaining with the obvious bluntness he thinks is subtlety that he has a "kid" working for him who has shown some real success in his work on fliers, and he thinks it would be good for him to meet Don. Don ponders the meaning of this, perhaps wondering if could be something as simple as Herb wanting to give a talented young worker a chance to do something else (much like young fur salesman Don Draper once tried to get Roger to give that chance), and asks if the "kid" is looking for a job.

Herb chuckles at that, reminding Don that the guy already has a job. No, he just thinks given the success of the fliers that it might be good for this guy to come in and look over Don's work, even at the formative stages, and give his take on how it might be improved.

Oh my God Don is going to stab Herb in the eye with a knife.

Instead, Don considers, nods and then to Herb's great satisfaction reaches into his pocket and pulls out a card, asking what the guy's name is. Surprised by pleased, Herb tells him it's Chris Fawcett, and Don makes a show of writing on it and then passing the card to him. Herb, all smiles, takes a look at the name and number that was written.... and it's simply Chris Fawcett's name, with Don's crossed out. Bewildered, he asks what this is all about, and Don explains with a very genuine smile that this is the name of the guy who will be handling the Jaguar Account now.

Oh my God he just fired Jaguar.

Herb is pissed for sure, but also more exasperated, not entirely taking this seriously, instead complaining that Don never fails to "overheat". He complains about all the somersaults he's doing, as if he is the one who has been having to handle SCDP with kid gloves and not the other way around. Don though is committed, and now is taking absolute pleasure in insulting this man he detests, noting that he's surprised he's doing all these somersaults given his size!

Like all lovely assholes who think they have carte blanche to offend everybody, Herb is deeply offended that anybody would ever have the gall to do this back to him. He airs a list of grievances he has with the Agency that has basically given him everything he wanted aside from the awful local radio spots idea, because of course them bending over backwards for him wasn't enough, he wanted them to do with a smile! Pete Campbell "sassed" him. Roger Sterling didn't even bother to show up. And Don himself? Well Herb insists angrily that Don is going to end up working for Chris Fawcett who could teach him a thing or two about "knowing where your bread is buttered."

In other words, I have money so give me everything I want forever or I'll throw a tantrum.

Don simply smiles and passes the check to Herb, tossing aside all pretense to suggest that Herb buy HIM one more dinner, admitting that he's tired of always taking the actual cost for these meals out of the Clients' billing: doing away with the long established fiction that the Agency covers all the entertainment costs when on some level everybody knows the money is really coming from the Client.

Herb warns him that he better let Roger know he screwed up, but still can't quite believe it when the women return and Don - beaming with a smile - tells them that dinner is over and not to sit down. Surprised, sensing something is wrong, Megan asks him if he is okay, and with a genuine, beaming smile thrown Herb's way, Don declares with immense satisfaction that he has never felt better in his life.

They leave, the implications starting to sink in for Herb that he's going to have to explain to the rest of Jaguar (which he does NOT own or run, he's just a major representative for their sales in the US) that SCDP have pulled out of representing them or providing their advertising in America. Mrs. Rennet has no idea what is going on, simply calling after the departing trio sweetly that it was nice meeting them and she hopes to see them again soon! The poor lady, she's probably the only one who actually enjoyed tonight's outing from start to finish.

Back at home in their bedroom, Don grabs Megan before she can leave the room, telling her he doesn't care when she protests with a giggle that Marie wants an aspirin. Aroused by her outfit, hair and make-up in addition to his happiness over finally ditching Herb Rennet, Don wants to celebrate, and tonight he wants to do that with his wife rather than the lady downstairs.

He pulls her panties down and lifts her up, the two making out hungrily, the sound of their excited movements reaching through into the lounge where a tired and none-too-happy Marie is already opening herself up another bottle of wine. The phone rings and she answers, irritated to hear Roger on the other end, the only reason she really wanted to go to this dinner tonight in the first place.

She growls at him that it is too late to apologize, moving to hang up when he calls out asking to speak to Don. Now she is REALLY pissed off, so he didn't call to apologize to her but to talk to Don!?! Scrambling to salvage this call, Roger promises that yes he did call to talk to Don but in the hopes she would be there so he could talk to her next! She isn't done venting yet, though, Roger wincing as she rants angrily about having to spend the evening with that disgusting man and his disgusting wife (poor Mrs. Rennet, she's just a nice suburban housewife who likes shopping and puppies!).

Roger apologizes again and promises that something very important came up that he needs to talk to Don about. But in his attempt to stress that importance, Marie takes this as another insult, that he is talking slowly in case she doesn't understand him. "Forget.... my.... name...." she slowly spits back at him, then hangs up, Roger - who is of course at an airport - at a loss, because short of anything else he really DOES need to talk to Don, even if she's pissed off!

So he tries again, but though she answers it is simply so she can hang up, going back to drinking sullenly alone in the dark while her daughter has enthusiastic sex in the next room with her husband, all thanks to the advice that Marie herself gave her. Roger meanwhile is left in a conundrum, he's not in New York and he can't get hold of Don, and he has seemingly big and presumably urgent news.



Unaware that SCDP has just lost one of its most prestigious clients, Pete is out celebrating. Bob has come along, of course, hanging out at the brothel where Pete has decided to go "express his excitement" about his upcoming financial windfall. As always more interested in finding a way to ingratiate himself with his Boss than to get himself off, Bob asks the prostitute as she leaves the room if he can pay for Pete's time in there. She laughs and agrees he could have... but he's too late, Pete already took care of himself.

Pete emerges, seemingly a little drunk and looking extremely pleased with himself, chuckling as he asks why she is bothering Bob for... was he not enough for her!?! He does at least identify Bob as a friend, leaning in close and teasingly asking him what fake name it was he was using: Curious George?

Bob and the prostitute both laugh, because of course they're both paid to keep Pete happy. But as she leaves, another prostitute emerges from another room, a larger black woman who passes by and is watched with keen interest by Bob, who appears to have a particular type. But behind him, her John turns around and makes eye contact with Pete, the two staring at each other in utter horror.

It's Tom Vogel.

"H.... hello," Pete manages, completely at a loss how to react in this situation (not like that!). Tom stares back, quietly mumbling,"Good night...." and then immediately moving forward and past him without a word, trying not to make eye contact, and suddenly Pete's high is gone as are all thoughts of his money... because he and his father-in-law just caught each other at a brothel!

This isn't the kind of encounter you just move on from. The next day at SCDP, Pete pops into Ken's office (it's spacious, they really went all out making the 38th Floor senior offices luxuriant) with a "high level Accounts question", insisting it is purely a hypothetical. Taking a seat across from Ken, he asks what he would do if he caught his father-in-law in a compromising position.

Ken of course jokes that Ed is like that at every Sunday dinner after he gets a few drinks in him. Bob passes by outside the window and pauses to indicate he just so happens to have two cups of coffee! He looks first to Pete and then to Ken, but Pete shakes his head, Bob - who was witness to his encounter - is the last person he wants to see, so Bob simply moves on to go lurk somewhere else waiting for a chance to ingratiate himself.

So Pete comes clean, or at least as clean as he can, referring to the brothel as "that party house on Lex" and him banging a prostitute as "celebrating" before being more forthright about seeing Tom come out of a room with "the biggest, blackest prostitute you've ever seen."

How would anybody react to this? Ken, of course, laughs! Pete is mortified, but Ken is actually considering the implications, and seeks a little more information: was anybody else from Vicks there? Pete admits he didn't see anybody, before he spirals back down as he anguishes over the fact that he spoke to Tom instead of pretending he didn't see him.

Ken has solid advice though, offering a story from his High School years in Cabot as an example. Back then there was only one movie theater, and they screened a film called "Making a Baby" that was only allowed all-male or all-female screenings. Ken explains it was a delivery mechanism for "some filthy stuff" and that at a matinee showing he spotted his science teacher in the audience, though thankfully he wasn't "working the slide rule". Mr. Miller saw him too, and because both knew they weren't supposed to be there... neither one of them EVER brought it up to the other.

"It was mutually assured destruction!" Ken proclaims, admitting it's why he isn't overly worried about the so-called threat of nuclear armageddon in the Cold War, because he doesn't think the Soviets would risk being destroyed themselves by trying to wipe out America. But even as he's talking happily about how there is no threat or destruction, his secretary is buzzing him to say he has an urgent call from Hugh Hibbert and John Echolls from Jaguar... and NOW both he and Ken have something else to worry about. Pete, understandably worried about the fact Jaguar are calling Ken and NOT him, tells him to pick it up, then rushes to press up against the receiver as well to hear what is being said.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Don, the architect of the destruction that Ken and Pete are at that moment learning about, arrives to work in a good mood. Still, he is a little irritated that Roger didn't show up to the dinner, calling out a good morning to Caroline and asking if she has any idea where Roger has been the last 24 hours (haha, Marie didn't even say he called).

Caroline doesn't know, but they quickly forget that when a voice suddenly bellows out,"DRAPER!" and they turn to see Pete Campbell come blasting down the stairs with the fury and rage of a angry and vengeful God.... the effect somewhat spoiled by the fact he slips on the stairs and skids down a few steps before regathering himself and going back in his rage.

He demands to know what he said to Herb Rennet last night, a grumpy Don grunting back that he didn't say anything that shouldn't have been said last Christmas. Pete's shouting has gathered a crowd of employees, watching as Pete - making sure to stand on the elevated floor so he's taller than Don - accuses his impulsive actions of once again harming the company irreparably.

Ken rushes down the stairs followed by Bob and others, calling for Pete to calm down, while Don complains that they'd basically already lost the Account because Herb wanted to bring in "some kid to write copy". Pete though wants to rage, and so he defends Herb's action as understandable because Don "screwed him" last time. Now Don is angry himself, snapping back at Pete that he has to understand when it is over.... and then Pete lets the cat out of the bag, angrily screaming that their planned public offering is now ruined!

The gathered employees, including a just-arrived Joan, all take this in, none of them but Joan (and Cooper) having known that a public offering was in the works.... and that includes Don. Shocked, he can only say,"What?" while Pete screams that Don is already rich so doesn't care about the company. Finally Joan takes control, stepping forward and grabbing them both by the arm, insisting they step into the conference room rather than having this out in the open like this in front of everybody.

Ken joins them while everybody else realizes the show is over and returns to work... except for Bob, who pauses on the stairwell to watch the action happening silently behind the glass and try to figure out who is saying what. Inside, an excited Ken asks if they are really going public but Pete spits out that they're not anymore, while now Don is the one outraged, demanding to know why he didn't know about any of this.

To be fair, Pete did actually in a roundabout way try to arrange a dinner with him the previous night to let him know! Now though he just complains that he planned to tell him (and everybody else) this morning, but those plans have fallen through now because of course losing Jaguar is going to have a major impact on their valuation.

"Well I have some good news and some bad news!" declares Roger Sterling, appearing from nowhere through the doors of the Conference Room (Bob still frantically trying to eavesdrop) with a big smile on his face and completely failing to read the room.

"Don fired Jaguar!" roars Pete, and only now does Joan hear this little piece of info for herself, gasping,"What?" in shock, casting an angry look Don's way. Roger blinks, considers this, and then declares happily that now he just has good news! This Friday they'll be giving a presentation on Chevy's top secret new car: he got them an in to pitch to the biggest automaker in America, and that was going to necessitate dropping Jaguar (like CGC dropped Alfa Romeo) anyway since it would be a conflict of interest!

Everybody - except for Joan, who hasn't taken her eyes off of Don - are stunned, even Pete momentarily forgetting his rage to ask Roger if he's serious. He is, and proudly pats his chest pocket and takes great pleasure in telling Pete that he's already been given a check for $10,000 from Chevy because HE can close, he closes things.

Yes, after a lifetime of relying on Lucky Strike only to lose all his status in the Agency outside of his money, Roger has started to work things again and it has paid off. First through Freddy Rumsen and Ponds, then relying on being old drinking buddies with Mohawk Airlines, then with Bert Cooper and the Jewish wine company, then with Don and Dow (I still don't actually know if they're an SCDP client, they seem to be? Or at least open to working with them?) and now he and he alone has gotten them an inside look at Chevy, the car company that Don has been dreaming of having as a client as long as Roger has known him.

Roger happily explains that he just so happened to end up in Detroit with his new "friend" Mikey O'Brien, a big shot at Chevy who explained that they were looking for something cutting edge for their new car, and Roger sold him on the fact that THEY are cutting edge and also not afraid of a deadline (they have 3 days!). With awe, Ken quietly ponders getting Chevy. Not an inside look at a smaller subsidiary to hopefully work as a stepping stone to get to the bigger company like he's experienced so often with Pepsi and Heinz, but straight to the top, representing one of the actual biggest corporations in America at the highest level on their big new product.

Don turns a happy look Pete's way, noting that if he wants to go public it could only be bigger and better if they do it with Chevy as a client. Pete though is still disgusted and not ready to let go of his anger (exacerbated by his fear/paranoia over Tom), complaining that Don can't act like he had a plan or knew anything about this, it is pure luck that him costing them Jaguar just so happened to coincide with Roger getting them a look at Chevy.

But Don is already moving on, as always filled with renewed purpose, energy and drive when engaged on a project that excites him, always sure that THIS is the one that will finally bring him peace of mind and satisfaction like every other project or big life decision (marriage, fatherhood, starting SCDP, marrying Megan) has ultimately failed to do. He barks out orders, telling Roger to get him everything he can on Chevy, ORDERING Pete to box up Jaguar, telling Joan to collect Creative and get them into his office so he can get them working on this ASAP.

"Get them yourself," sneers Joan, her rage - quietly percolating all this time - cold where Pete's was hot. Her rage hits Don in a way Pete's completely failed to, he's perplexed that she isn't happy or at least relieved to be free of Jaguar, or more accurately free of Herb. As she walks away from him, he calls after her, asking if she doesn't feel 300 pounds lighter, and she whirls around to glare at him, snarling that if SHE could deal with him than Don should have been able to as well.

"I went through all of that for nothing?" she demands, getting to the heart of the matter. She allowed herself to be prostituted in order to both gain something for the Agency and to finally get something for herself that doing everything right all her life had completely failed to achieve. She hated it, she detested it, but she did it and it all ended up working out: she had a good job, a prestigious role, the work she put in on the Accounts made her an integral Partner and not just - as Harry accused - there as part of the price of letting Herb have his way with her. And from that was coming a public offering, a million dollars for her and financial freedom and stability forever for both her and her son, regardless of Greg and getting divorced.

And now, with one ultimately selfish gesture from Don who couldn't stand to take the slightest modicum of poo poo from Herb, he's effectively negated the sacrifice she made, and shown that ultimately giving up her dignity was pointless... all because of a decision HE made, that HE undertook, without the slightest consideration or even acknowledgement that the rest of them might have their own opinions or at least like to be involved.

But of course he's Don Draper, people calling him out on his bullshit more often than not make him grumpy that they don't see things his way or that THEY are the ones being overly emotional or letting their problems guide their actions. So he calls after her not to worry because "I will win this," and she lurches back after starting to walk away, freshly enraged that he's still looking at this entirely from HIS point of view. "Just once!" she hisses, pointing angrily at him,"I would like hear you use the word "we"."

Snapping that he thinks they're all just rooting for him from the sidelines of life, hoping that HE will decide whatever HE thinks if right for THEIR lives, she finally gets to make her exit, Don for once too caught off-guard by her fury not to get in the last word of defend himself. So instead he does what he always does, dives headfirst into whatever his latest obsession is to try and stop himself thinking about the problems he has caused. Yes Herb was a piece of poo poo and it was immensely satisfying to Don to dump him as a client, and yes it's pure chance that Roger of all people showed up to save the day and it turns out Jaguar was going to be gone anyway. But Joan is absolutely right, this was all about Don thinking about himself, how he feels and what he wanted. He was furious when he found out they were discussing a public offering without telling him, but how often has he just barrelled ahead and done his own thing and expected everybody else to fall into line?

So now he leaves the Conference Room, calling out to his Creative Team who made a pathetic effort to run and hide when he turned around, telling them to get into his office, ready to spend the next three days using every fiber of his being to create a presentation so compelling that Chevy has no choice but to give them their business, and then surely at last everything in his life will make sense and he'll finally be at peace and happy with himself.... oh and everybody will just love him again because he's the guy who made all their lives better the end forever!

Roger joins them, while Ken and Pete are left behind. Confused, worried about missing out, Ken asks Pete if THEY should be in that office as part of what Roger is about to show them. "I don't care!" growls Pete, storming out, equal parts furious and terrified that he has lost control of a situation where he was going to get everything he wanted and now it's all in jeopardy. Ken has no idea whether to follow him or to join Roger in Don's office, though apparently going to check in on Joan doesn't ever occur to him.



Inside Don's office, Roger is giving out the limited details Chevy has provided everybody: it's the XP-887, Chevrolet's attempt at building the "perfect" car, with details limited to mostly Chevy's top brass and the R&D team working feverishly away at it. But as Ginsberg guesses and Don confirms, if they're bringing in another Agency to present so close to the deadline, they're obviously scared about whether they can sell the American public on the qualities of their new model (that was partly designed by a "computer"!).

But Roger does have some other useful details, including the Agencies they'll be competing against: Campbell-Ewald, Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, and Cutler, Gleason & Chaough. They know the latter of course, but Stan warns that Campbell-Ewald are essentially Chevrolet's Right Hand Arm, and they have 200 people working in Detroit alone.

"You had to write that down?" Ginsberg observes to an unimpressed Roger, himself unimpressed that the names of 3 Agencies required a written list. Stan though is thrilled, their only competition are "Two steamships and a rowboat", ignoring that this essentially makes them a rowboat as well. Don takes charge, ordering everything he can get on Mustang from the library, dismissing the suggestion he look into prior Chevy work as well because everybody knows when it comes to American cars there is really nothing before or after the Mustang.... but Chevrolet are hoping THIS is it, their answer to Ford's supreme achievement.

As everybody settles in to research and start thinking of ideas for a car they haven't seen and don't have pictures of, with only technical specs to run with, Roger glows to see the energy and excitement from the team but especially from Don. "How about that," he notes happily, and Don looks back up at his old friend and colleague (and sometimes minor enemy) and agrees,"How 'bout it," with a smile, delighted to be chasing the dream he has always had.

All thoughts of Joan and how upset she was appear to have completely disappeared from his mind, or at least locked away safely for now to be used for guilty recrimination later or as fuel for him to somehow blame her for not having the "right" reaction to his decision.

At CGC, Peggy finishes up working late (of course) but as she leaves she hears thumping coming from Ted's office. She pops her head in to the door and finds him seated on the floor next to a tv blasting static, and asks if he's okay. Much like Abe it seems Ted doesn't know what he's doing, as he sighs that he just wanted to watch Hazel but can't pick up any reception.

Also maybe because Hazel's final season ran in 1966?

She giggles and helps him lift the TV back up onto the stand, suggesting that he head home (it's unclear but he might be a little drunk?), while he takes the opportunity to once again praise her work ethic and the utter commitment she pours into EVERY account she works on. He admits he needs a little of that drive himself right now, still careful not to give details regarding the XP-877 or Frank's cancer, but explaining that he's second-guessing his new angle on the upcoming top secret Chevrolet pitch, lamenting that Frank may have been right and they should have just stuck with Alfa Romeo.

He sighs that wanting something and needing it are two different things, but Peggy leaps to his defense, pointing out that it is HIS Agency and if he wants something he should go for it, no matter what somebody like Frank says. Losing his temper a little, but in a mostly directionless way, Ted complains that it is Frank's company too, wanting to defend his Partner and old friend while not giving away his health issues. He has relied on not just Frank's paintbrush but his pessimism for the last twenty years to help balance out his own often self-evident over-enthusiasm for bright, shiny new things.

But while Peggy acknowledges the benefits of being safe, she also admits that she has worked with far too many pessimistic people in Advertising, and she likes the fact that's he's..... Ted cuts her off there, snapping that he doesn't want her to tell him he's nice, he's tired of people saying how nice he is! But she wasn't, the word she was aiming for was... strong.

He kisses her.

She's shocked, of course, but not alarmed or even displeased. They stare at each other silently for a few moments, and then Ted gets a hold of himself and apologizes, simply saying he's grateful. "Of course," she whispers, still processing what just happened. Turning away from her, Ted tells her good night, and she takes the cue and makes her exit, though not without a lingering look back at him and the trace of a smile.

This wasn't like when Duck kissed her and the universe stopped making sense and she got stuck in a processing loop for several months before realizing,"Oh my God I'm having an affair with Duck Phillips?". She wasn't expecting a kiss but she didn't exactly reciprocate, but it appears she wouldn't be adverse to more. She leaves, Ted with his back to her, pretending nothing happened but angrily screaming at himself inside for pulling such a boneheaded move. He needs to get home (to his wife!) and get out of his own head for a little bit.

Don is in his elevator about to head up to his apartment when he hears Arnie calling out to him to hold it. He prevents the door from closing and a surprisingly disheveled Arnie joins him, asking Don if he wants to go celebrate with him... because he just quit his job. Don certainly wasn't expecting that! Why did he quit? Simply put, because his hospital "chickened out" and wouldn't give him the clearance to do a heart transplant, so the kid and the heart were sent down to Houston where the operation failed and now the kid AND the heart are both dead.

"In a way you're fighting God," Don suggests, but Arnie bitterly complains that God should be in Houston too. No, he missed his opportunity to make history (plus, you know, save somebody's life!) and now "some rear end in a top hat" in Houston will probably end up being the guy to do it while Arnie pisses away his career and life in New York City! Don, himself no stranger to wild heat-of-the-moment decisions in pursuit of some fantasy, tells him he can't think that way, but Arnie insists fatalistically that "fate hasn't chosen me" as he leaves the elevator.

Before he is gone, Don pauses him to tell him that while he may not cut people open for a living, he doesn't believe in fate.... you make your own opportunities. All bravado and even bitterness momentarily deflated, Arnie sighs and asks Don softly, almost plaintively if he's sure he doesn't want to go for a drink. Obviously regretting it, Don gestures to his stuff case full Chevrolet material and explains he has work. Arnie walks away, and Don watches him go, feeling genuinely bad for a man he legitimately respects and likes.... even if he is banging his wife on the regular behind his back.

Megan wakes as Don enters the room, asking how things went at work. He admits that he isn't entirely sure, he had hoped to sleep on it but now that he's home he's considering just taking a shower and going back in to keep working at it. So presumably it's no longer Tuesday and he has been working non-stop on Chevrolet ahead of the Friday deadline. Megan, seemingly still keeping her mother's advice close to hand, gets out of bed and moves up close to him, telling him that she loves him like this.

"Desperate and scared?" he asks, but revels in her telling him that he's fearless. She pushes him down onto the bed, assuring him that she means to do anything to help make him feel invincible, so he could literally jump off the balcony and fly to work. Undoing his belt, she goes down on him, Don closing his eyes and simply enjoying the sensation, thinking of her - as Marie advised Megan to aim for - more as a lover than a wife.



As warned, the deadline was up before they knew it. Don and Roger sit at the airport in the First Class Lounge, Daisy serving them drinks, with Roger eying up the LARGE contingent from Dancer who Daisy tells him have brought up almost half the seats on the plane. One of the Account men wanders over for a "friendly" hello, mockingly asking Roger if he is taking his "kid" (40+ year old Don Draper!) to look at colleges.

"No, taking him to pick out a car," Roger returns easily, and when the Dancer man pretends to be surprised to learn that they're there and asks when they were added to the mix, Roger hits him with a cheerful,"When they saw your work!", enjoying a bit of aggressive sparring.

But the Dancer man's reply confuses them both, as he admits that maybe Dancer shouldn't even bother going since after all somebody will want to pick up Vick's 9 million in billings. Pretending to cough he calls out to the other Dancer men to ask if they have a cough drop, before looking back at Roger and Don and adding that he knows THEY don't. All the other Dancer men cackle with glee, leaving Roger and Don more confused than ever.

At SCDP, Cooper sits in Pete's office and this time it isn't for anywhere near as pleasant a reason. Pete is on the phone to Vick, roaring at them to get Tom Vogel on the phone or he will be storming down there in person. Joan slips into the room, telling Clara to let her handle things before shutting the door to maintain some privacy (as if everybody on the 38th floor can't hear Pete bellowing) and letting them know that Roger just called from the airport asking if it is true they've lost Vick.... something SHE would like to know as well!

Pete slams the phone down, grabbing his coat, meaning to make good his promise to confront Tom in person. Cooper asks her to give him Roger on the phone and she is horrified, realizing it is true, they've lost Jaguar AND Vick in the space of a week? "They don't need to hear this right now," she notes nervously as she picks up the phone to transfer Roger's call, but Cooper assures her that Roger will handle it. If there is one thing that Cooper can rely on, it's that Roger knows how to put a lid on a crisis long enough to avoid an explosion... at least in the short term.

Not long after, Roger rejoins Don with new drinks for them both, looking over at the Dancer men who are all toasting each other and cackling away, utterly confident in their size and power. Roger, without a hint of fear or guilt, happily lies to Don that after talking with Cooper he can confidently say that Dancer were just screwing with them, and in retaliation he has organized with Daisy to lose their luggage. He raises his glass to the Dancer men who nod back, a little surprised at Roger and Don's seeming confidence.

Don, his fears put out by the lie, joins the silent toast and sips his drink, his mind fully focused once again on Chevrolet. Only now does Roger's mask slip a little, because now he knows what Don doesn't, that if this Chevrolet pitch goes nowhere then SCDP has just lost two major clients for zero gain and may once again be at risk of being branded a failing company.

In Tom Vogel's office, a picture of Tammy sits next to a photo of a smiling Trudy and a pouty looking Pete. The real Pete is pouting as he looks at the photos, but with naked rage instead of awkwardness to be in front of a camera. Tom finally arrives, shutting the door, and Pete complains that he had to come down here to his "lair", but Tom just grunts at him that he's tired of these displays and to spare him the outrage.

Suddenly Pete is all "come on buddy!" smiles as he seats himself across from Tom and asks him by name what he is doing? Trying his best to "subtly" blackmail Tom, he points out that they're both emotional and vulnerable but they're both adults.... and hey, the last 7 years have surely demonstrated to Tom that Pete has a "very short memory."

But Pete has made a classic blunder, one he should have known given his status being born into a High Society family: when you're rich and/or powerful then you get to sit on a high horse and make moral judgments on people without those same rules being applicable to you! So Tom, with utter revulsion and not a modicum or self-awareness, complains that his daughter is a Princess and could have had ANYBODY, but instead she chose a man who has no business being a father. It makes him sick to think of the man he saw (he doesn't say where) being with his daughter and granddaughter.

"WHY DON'T YOU LOOK IN THE MIRROR!" bellows Pete, furious again at the hypocrisy of Tom complaining about the kind of man who would frequent the brothel that.... he himself frequents! Is his wife not a princess too? Is it not revolting for Pete to have to see the man HE saw cooing over Pete's own daughter and being worshiped by Pete's wife?

But no, Pete missed his chance to become a millionaire thanks to the Public Offering, so he doesn't get to stand free and clear of moral judgement like Tom, who now insists still with disgust in his voice that Pete can walk out of the office like a man or Tom will call security to throw him out like the lowlife he is. Revolted himself, Pete starts to leave before pausing to ask why Tom doesn't think he'll retaliate if he really is a lowlife like he claims? Again Tom demonstrates the contradictory nature of being both a user of prostitutes and a condemner or those who use them, by simply sneering that he knows Pete will do the right thing.

He assumes, of course, that Pete won't want to destroy Trudy's idealized vision of her father, much like how he himself has chosen not to expose Pete but instead punish him in hopes of scaring him straight. What Tom doesn't know is that Pete is essentially separated from Trudy, that SCDP have just lost Jaguar, that Pete had all his hopes on a Public Offering, that Chevrolet is a long-shot... in short, now Pete has nothing to lose and the only thing standing between Tom and exposure is Pete's moral character.

Tom's doomed.

That night, Abe is reading in bed when Peggy joins him wearing a bandana full of complaints. The paint fumes in the living room are making her sick, they have to leave the windows open for the next couple of days so the paint can dry and they had kids "living" on the stoop constantly letting off firecracker and playing music... and Abe keeps waving to them!

Abe though is clearly enjoying himself, pointing out that the neighborhood is changing and now THEY are a part of that too. Peggy though is in a bad mood and spoiling for a fight, so she snaps that she doesn't like change! She wants everything to stay the way it was! This from the woman who fought her way up secretary to copywriter to Copy Chief, who is living with a man without being engaged, who had a kid and gave him away and moved on with her life, who has broken every mold there is as she pushes her way forward into the future.

But Abe insists that change is good, and that everything is getting better: Johnson is gone (by this point he'd announced he wouldn't go for a second full term) and the war is going to end (it will last another 7 years), and the worst case scenario for a new President is going to be Bobby Kennedy (they get Nixon!).

"....I love Bobby Kennedy...." grumps Peggy, still wanting an excuse to fight but slowly losing out to Abe's optimism, which after all is a trait she told Ted she admired. "Fine," comes the reply, and she turns to see.....



Oh my loving God :lol:

Yes, Peggy is fantasizing that it is her boss Ted Chaough sitting in that bed rather than her boyfriend Abe. With a cheesy grin as he reads "Something" by Waldo Emerson (the Ralph disappeared because apparently Peggy doesn't know that's his first name). "If that's what you want," Abe/Ted tells her, and she admits that she just wants him to kiss her. So of course Abe/Ted happily complies, and they make out, sweet classical music playing as she imagines being with her classy, friendly, supportive boss.... and in reality she's in bed with Abe while the junkie upstairs blasts loud music once again.

In Detroit, Don is unable to sleep, his mind still racing with thoughts on the upcoming presentation he has been dreaming of for most of his professional career. Finally he gets up, gets dressed and heads down to the hotel bar to drink. Another man is having a similar predicament, and arrives shortly after him, immediately spotting Don and coming to a horrifying conclusion.

"drat IT!" cries Ted Chaough, catching Don's attention. He stares at his "rival", then offers a sardonic,"Hello to you too," before going back to his drink. But Ted isn't done lamenting, his final hopes dashed when he asks what Don is doing in Detroit and the sarcastic non-reply (he's going on an ocean voyage!) confirming him what he already suspected, that SCDP are also pitching.

He asks the bartender (who is just trying to read his paper, having expected a quiet night with no customers) for the same drink as Don is having, taking a seat beside him at the bar and sighing that he's spent six weeks on this pipe dream only for it to be over in 2 seconds. Don chuckles at that, admitting he knew he was good but didn't realize all he had to do was show up!

But no, Ted is making a greater point, one he tried to make to Don after they both pitched to Heinz ketchup, an extended hand that Don wasn't interested in taking at the time: they're going to get screwed by the big boys. If it was JUST CGC as the small fry at the table, then the (remote) possibility existed that the strength of their idea alone might get Chevy to take a chance and help them grow. But SCDP in addition to CGC? That's two small agencies presenting boutique, quality work.... purely to give the bigger Agencies a little scare, probably in the hopes of a minor reduction in the billings Chevy gets. At best their good ideas will simply be taken and co-opted by Chevy for use by Dancer or Campbell-Ewald, and they'll be sent away with nothing... less than nothing, because both of them lost their luxury car clients by necessity to chase this white whale.

At first Don assumes that Ted is trying to wage psychological warfare, and continues to pretend complete confidence and a disregard for Ted's efforts to find common ground. But the more Ted talks, the more Don sees the sense in what he is saying. Chevrolet is General Motors, and they want numbers, hell they'll probably want whoever they pick to have an office in Detroit (giving Campbell-Ewald the home advantage). It isn't simply enough to be good (or even great), they have to be big too, and that is something SCDP and CGC aren't.

"This business is rigged...." Don finally agrees bitterly, his resistance to Ted knocked down by his lifetime recognition - despite now being rich himself - of the way the rich and powerful get to play by their own rules while dictating how everybody else has to play fair. He grew up in poverty, he went through his adolescence in a brothel, he has seen those with more exploit and use those with less (or nothing) his whole life.

His own wealth and success pales in comparison to the monsters of industry, but he has continually tried to convince himself that just like he talked his way from poverty into wealth, he could talk his way from being a big fish in a small pond to a big fish in a big pond, all while suspecting that at any time he'd simply be discarded or used or tossed aside like he has seen happen time and again in his lifetime (and as he himself has done to others, to be fair).

He orders another drink, sighing he should just let Chevy buy his brain and stick in a jar. He makes a mocking epitaph to his hopes and dreams,"Here lies SCDP, the little company with the big ideas." Ted of course can't help but compete, offering his own,"CGC, giving away Creative one car at a time."

Don chuckles at that, but is surprised when Ted asks him what he planned to go with, jokingly asking if this is a,"You show me yours, I'll show you mine" situation but on some level also still protective of his ideas, perhaps still holding out some faint hope that the quality of his work can somehow move mountains and get Chevy to put all their hopes for the XP-877 into a small New York advertising agency.

So he insists that Ted go first, and Ted agrees... though he has to stand up to do it, he's a showman after all. He runs through his idea, an appeal to youthful (and yes, reckless) adventure: just jumping into a car and hitting the road, throwing aside the map, just enjoying being on the road. It's for the young and "young at heart" (i.e old guys or people having mid-life crises), though obviously it's lacking a little something without accompanying art or the "song" that Ted was apparently going to sing.

Don nods away, he can see the appeal in this direction. As for him? His idea was a teaser: showing shots of faces of multiple people, young, old, male, female, teenagers, dads, moms, all with different expressions of wonder while music plays over the top. What could it be that they're looking at? What could this combination of power, technology, comfort and price be that engenders such a reaction? It's impossible to imagine.... but not at Chevy!

"The future is something you haven't even thought of yet," is the tagline he gives, before explaining that you run the ad for a week and then you finally show off the new car. Ted sits quietly, nodding thoughtfully, then agrees that this idea is "interesting", which is his way of reluctantly admitting that Don's idea blows his out of the water. "Hooray," mocks Don, lifting his glass, because of course now he knows thanks to Ted that no matter how good his idea is it is almost certain not going to be rewarded with the actual Account.

"Should we go home," sighs Ted in the silence that follows, but as Don sips his drink something about that line strikes a chord, playing off something that Joan complained about him earlier. "We," he notes, putting his drink down,"THAT'S interesting."

Ted can't quite believe Don still wants to stick around, and when Don notes that he has a better idea, he mistakes it for Don again believing he is smarter and more talented than everybody else, complaining that he DOESN'T have a better idea because he just heard it.... and this is why everybody hates him! But Don ignores that (gentle) insult, elaborating that he meant he had a better idea than giving up and going home.... why don't they go in together?

Admitting that they both have the Creative chops but not the Agencies to match, Don makes a proposal both of them would have thought impossible only 5 minutes ago. Don will figure out a way to convince Chevrolet that it is THEIR idea to have the two Agencies merge, while Ted will figure out what exactly they will present as their combined concept.

At first Ted doesn't believe him, then he points out the impossibility of doing it, then he reminds him that they have other Partners and can't just make these kind of carte blanche decisions. Don though is being serious, believes it can be done, AND points out that none of the other Partners are in this bar with them right now.

Remember how FURIOUS Don was when a decision was made by the other Partners without him? Remember how outraged Joan was when she pointed out that Don only ever thinks of himself and not "we"? And now here is Don using "we".... while still making all these decisions himself on behalf of everybody else without consultation!

He orders another drink but Ted belays that, pulling out some cash to pay their tab, insisting that they're done drinking for tonight.... because they have a long night and a lot of work to do before they pull off the unthinkable and aim for the impossible: SCDP and CGC are going to try and win Chevrolet.... together!



So the day comes, and Ted Chaough and Jim Cutler meet Don Draper and Roger Sterling in the lobby of the GM building, an awkward marriage about to be consummated. Cutler and Roger have been brought in on the plan (what about the other Partners?) and Cutler announces that he wants to make it clear that he's absolutely against this entire idea.... unless it works!

"I was just saying the same thing," agrees Roger, whose reaction to Don's decision on all their behalf would have been quite something to see. With that, they all four head into battle, hoping to prove Don's assertion to Arnie right.... there is no such thing as fate, just the opportunities that you make for yourself.

Speaking of making your own decisions, Pete Campbell is currently making a hate-filled made born entirely from anger and spite. He waits seething in the kitchen of HIS home in Cos Cob, Trudy arriving back from grocery shopping and gently chiding him that he wasn't supposed to be here till the weekend. But she says it with a smile, she really does seem to have warmed up to him again, something that is about to be changed in an instant as he lashes out petulantly to get back at Tom.

He tells her to sit down, asking if she knew that Tom pulled his business from SCDP? She didn't, but she admits that she also doesn't particularly care. Seething, Pete complains that they were going to be very rich but that Tom ruined that (Pete of course had zero part to play!), and just gets angrier when Trudy of course is immediately defensive of her father, insisting that he's done EVERYTHING for Pete and that she won't allow Pete to criticize him.

Boiling over, unable to contain himself even if he knows it is a mistake, Pete goes for mutually assured destruction and asks her if it doesn't matter that he caught Tom in a midtown whorehouse with a 200-pound Negro prostitute?

Jesus Christ, Pete.

She's horrified, disbelieving, but most of all sad. She can't believe he would say such a thing, but Pete complains that Tom gave him no choice. On that, Trudy lashes out, saying perhaps the truest thing anybody has ever told Pete: he has had LOTS of choices. She doesn't have to elaborate that he has somehow managed to always take the wrong ones, but while he's right that Tom IS a hypocrite he's also taken the path guaranteed to cause the most destruction for all of them, destroying himself in the process.

Because he's admitted he was in a brothel too, he's told her something vile about her father, he's destroyed all the trust and love he had slowly been stitching back together between them. She demands he take his things and get out, proclaiming that they're through, seemingly not even willing to put up with the pretense of marriage between the two of them anymore. Pete, still angry, feeling no satisfaction even from wrecking her idealized image of her father, simply storms out. He has achieved nothing from this, cost himself everything, and all to get a petty revenge on a man who - hypocrite he might be, and whose earlier support has always had an unspoken leash attached - overall really has been a net positive in his life.

At CGC, Peggy finishes up another late night at work and is about to leave when a voice over the intercom lets her know that Mr. Chaough wants to see her. She's surprised, asking if he's back, but the secretary simply says that's all the information she was given.

Peggy's mind races 1000 miles an hour, caught between wondering if it is good news or bad news re: Chevrolet, but also thinking about that kiss, about her fantasy. She checks her make-up, squares herself up and heads into Ted's office, asking him how it went.

"We got it," Don Draper tells her,"We won Chevy."

Just like it once did with Duck, the universe suddenly no longer makes sense once again as she finds herself in her boss' office... and he old Boss is in there hanging out and talking to her about "we"? Eyes darting between Ted standing smiling behind his desk and Don lounging comfortably on the couch, she asks what he's doing here, and a beaming Ted explains they went in together.

Peggy is still trying to wrap her head around it, all she can really articulate for the moment is understandably another,"....what?"

Ted understands, of course, explaining the reasons: Chevy wanted good Creative AND a large Agency, so Ted and Don worked together to give them both. On slightly less shaky ground, Peggy asks the pertinent question... is this a Chevy Account only merger? No, Don explains happily, and one presumes SURELY the other Partners have to know about this too.... right? RIGHT!?! Because it is a FULL merger. SCDP no longer exists. CGC no longer exists. In the place of two small-to-mid-sized Agencies is one large Agency, not quite up there with the big boys but at a large enough size to get notice from larger clients and be taken seriously.

She still can't quite put this enormous shift together, but what she's getting is simultaneously the change she supposedly hates AND everything being the way it was. Because as Don gently points out, he did this wrong once before, but now he wants to create the Agency of his dreams and tell her all about it so SHE can decide if she wants to come along.

Yes, Peggy Olson is once again working for Don Draper. She will once again be dealing with Roger Sterling, Bert Cooper, Joan Harris, Pete Campbell, Ken Cosgrove, Harry Crane and everybody else. The fresh start she made is in turn getting another fresh start, a mixture of two worlds merged into one and she still isn't quite sure what to make of any of it.... even after Ted points out she's now the Copy Chief at one of the Top 25 Ad Agencies in the country, and she's not even 30. Hell, HE is jealous of HER!

".... I just bought an apartment," is all she can manage, her current Boss and he old (and now current again!) Boss standing smiling at her, far from whatever fantasy she had about meeting Ted alone in his office to either celebrate or commiserate over Chevy. Don steps up with a congratulations and offers his hand, and eventually she shakes it, the implications really starting to fall into place now, leading to inevitable questions including whether they (CGC) will be moving? They will, Ted agrees, and he and Don can't think of anybody better to write the press release announcing the merger.

The thing is, she has nothing to go on, Don admitting they don't even have a new name yet. But he trusts her, Ted trusts her, and they're confident in her ability. So he wants her to describe the Agency that SHE would want to work for, and that is the Agency they'll build.

In a daze, she makes her way out of the office, first asking who she actually gives this to? She doesn't even know that! Don, for now, is content for that to be Ted. So she leaves, her entire world turned upside down in a moment, just like it will be for everybody else soon enough at the former CGC and former SCDP. The so-called rivals Chaough and Draper have merged, something new has been born, something bigger and hopefully better. What that will look like nobody yet knows, but they're asking Peggy to give them the framework to build on.



The implications are, of course, staggered. For everybody. We still don't know if the other SCDP Partners beyond Roger and Don know about this, and how will they react? It makes sense, it'll likely make them all rich, if they go public they can probably expect way more than $11 a share now. Gleason can retire knowing that he won't be bankrupting the company. Cooper will probably be pleased to still be involved in a much larger Agency, Joan might be aghast at Don again making decisions on all their behalf as well as all the extra Accounts work she is about to be saddled with but she's likely to see the benefits to her and her family, especially the extra money sure to be coming in.

But there's also the actual merging: will they have to leave Time-Life, surely even two floors isn't enough to fit everybody all in? How does Cutler and his obvious lechery fit in, as well as his status as a top level Partner? Will Ted and Don clash over creative vision? How much of a Copy Chief can Peggy really claim to be when two of her Bosses are the Heads of Creative? Does Bob have enough hands to carry coffees he just so happens to be able to offer to Partners? Will he have the time to lurk outside ALL their offices in the hopes of being noticed? Will Ken lose accounts to a more senior man like Cutler?

Plus, of course, Pete Campbell. The workhorse and engine of SCDP, for all his many other faults it cannot be denied that he helped keep SCDP afloat in tough times and built them up to the point they were considered a strong Agency, albeit a small one. But on the cusp of glory, will Pete find himself sidelined in the new merger? He was a Junior Partner in SCDP, what will his status be in the new entity? Are all the relatively small/medium sized Accounts he brought in going to mean all that much now that Roger Sterling of all people brought them to Chevy (and Don and Ted landed it)?

He's lost Vick, they don't have Jaguar anymore (a scalp he took from Lane), Ken is presumably lead on Dow (if they are a client?)... what is Pete's status? Will he go from Golden Boy to an also-ran? Will he face the indignity of being low-man on the totem pole, where Joan's status as the Accounts wizard puts her above him as simply the guy who worked hard and brought in some reasonable Accounts but lost them some big ones? Is his very Partnership itself at risk under the corporate structure of the new Agency?

Plus there is Don Draper himself, of course. Because this is yet another in a long series of fantasies he has plunged headfirst into with initial enthusiasm, positive as always that THIS time he will be able to fill the aching void in his soul that marriage, fatherhood, business success, starting his own Agency, and even remarriage couldn't. How long until he rankles under the new status? How long till his promise to make this the Agency of Peggy's dreams turns sour? How long till he realizes that the work doesn't ultimately bring him the satisfaction he wants it to? He's finally landed his dream Account of Chevrolet, he has created one of the Top 25 Ad Agencies in America... what will he do when THAT doesn't make him feel whole either?

But all those are questions for future episodes. This one ends with a still dazed Peggy Olson returning to her office, closing the door and taking a moment to just try and let it all sink in. Then she moves to her desk and sits down at her typewriter. She begins to type, a press release "For Immediate Release", as she begins to figure out just how to describe an Agency that doesn't yet exist.

As Ted's initial pitch went, it's an adventure and the roadmap has been thrown out of the window. As Don's initial pitch when, it's something impossible to imagine. Now all Peggy has to do is bring those two things together, and start them on the long road down an impossible adventure.



Episode Index

kalel
Jun 19, 2012

Jerusalem posted:



Holy loving poo poo this moment :xd:

there are so many "that moment"-s in this episode, idk how you could choose only one!

KellHound
Jul 23, 2007

I commend my soul to any god that can find it.
This episode has two of my favorite tiny moments. I love Marie's "She is the apple that goes in the pig mouth" line. And I LOVE Pete falling down the stairs.

Bismack Billabongo
Oct 9, 2012

Wet
This episode is a banger. Goodbye herb rennet you loving dingdong.

Bismack Billabongo
Oct 9, 2012

Wet
Good call on the Mairzy Doats.

Devorum
Jul 30, 2005

Pete falling on the stairs is a classic.

https://youtu.be/YI7pMpGnN7Y

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I have no idea if it was scripted or Vincent Kartheiser just slipped and kept in character, but either way it was perfect.

And yeah, the episode is insanely good. Season 6 has been really good so far but a bit harder for me to get into because they REALLY cranked up Don's unlikeability, but everything seemed to click into place with this episode and I'm really excited to see how the rest of the season progresses with this new status quo.

Bismack Billabongo posted:

Good call on the Mairzy Doats.

Man cannot hold his liquor :hai:

ulvir
Jan 2, 2005

while Joan’s anger is very understandable, Don did nothing wrong when he fired Jaguar. bringing in your own guy to “learn the ropes” is the first step towards getting cut off. the account was lost anyways, Herb just wanted to be the one to say it at his own leasure two weeks later

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I think it's important to remember that while Herb held obvious sway, he was NOT the be-all and end-all of Jaguar, and he wasn't their sole contact with the company, just an influential one. It's entirely possible they could have managed him or sidelined him, and even if it wasn't, Don was out there making all these calls on behalf of the entire company without a moment's thought for the other Partners, which was a major aspect of what Joan was objecting to. He went home, had sex with Megan, and when he showed up to work who is to say how long into the day it would have been before he told them he told Herb and Jaguar to gently caress off - it really did feel like he'd largely just already celebrated then moved on with his life before he'd even given anybody else at SCDP the benefit of knowing what he'd done.

There would be a distinct difference between what happened, and a situation where Don called an early morning staff meeting to let them know that Herb tried to push his own copywriter onto them and they needed to figure out how to deal with this now whether that meant trying to keep Jaguar or losing it. At least that way, everybody else actually gets to be involved instead of feeling like minor characters in the film that Don Draper apparently thinks his life is.

roomtone
Jul 1, 2021
Probation
Can't post for 20 hours!
if don had contained himself at that dinner, and talked with joan about why they should cut jaguar loose, she would have still been angry but i don't think it would be as personal. it's because don, who she's said in the past is 'one of the good ones' and has always seemed to appreciate him, obviously didn't even think about how she would feel. he just hates herb and this was the final straw - and a big part of why he hates herb is what he coerced joan into doing, so he's probably congratulating himself on some level for defending joan's honour at last, but even then, only as a secondary concern. it's selfish and patronising.

roomtone fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Feb 9, 2022

R. Guyovich
Dec 25, 1991

hey lieutenant...want to get into some trouble

Ungratek
Aug 2, 2005


“No you don’t. See, this is why everyone hates you” is a perfect insult of Don.

Scallop Eyes
Oct 16, 2021
You can say whatever you wnat about Don, but the man is nothing if not clutch on his job. His quick thinking may be self-centered and egoistic, but has saved Sterling&Cooper and it's offspring several times.

Pete falling down is one of the great comedy scenes in the season, I love it . And the start of him becoming a more comic relief character to me. By season 7 I don't think he has many big scenes that aren't funny.

Radia
Jul 14, 2021

And someday, together.. We'll shine.
THE KING ORDERED IT!!

episode good, write-up good.

I completely agree Don's decision to unilaterally fire Jaguar was bad, but... at the same time, I kind of get it. Herb is a disgusting excuse of a man. Having to constantly be around him grinning and bearing it must really grate on you eventually. Even so, Joan endured worse than him.

KellHound
Jul 23, 2007

I commend my soul to any god that can find it.
I think also Don firing Jaguar without talking to anyone else reveals that it is all about him. He opposed Joan sleeping with Herb part to defend her honor but I think more so because he wanted to win with creative alone. He wanted to get the account "the right way" aka the way where he gets most of the glory. And if you rewatch that episode, it also illuminates him leaving the room being the end of the conversation in his mind. As the main character of his life movie, important things don't happen without him.

Also, I think Pete does still get some serious moment. Like when he talks to his brother at the very end. I think Trudy is right when she tells Pete he is free now that his mom died. A lot of Pete's insecurities and shittiness come from him dealing with his mom. He is almost a decent person while he lives in LA. Removed from that old New York money scene, his buttons don't get pushed as much. I think that is why at the end of the series he agrees to relocate to Kansas. He has realized a lot of what brings out the worst in him is his formerly beloved Manhattan. His compliant about suburbia is there aren't any good city noises, so I think he'll always love the city more than the suburbs but any other city will do him some good

KellHound fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Feb 10, 2022

kalel
Jun 19, 2012

I think "classist" is a little harsh to describe the table's reaction to herb's wife. people like her exist at every socio economic bracket; she's not evil, she's probably not a bad person, she may even be very nice... but come on. We all have a Mrs. Rennet in our lives

Jerusalem I think you edge much more critically of the characters in general than me but this is a step too far. Annoying people are real, and they're out there! They could even be lurking in this very thread...

KellHound
Jul 23, 2007

I commend my soul to any god that can find it.

kalel posted:

I think "classist" is a little harsh to describe the table's reaction to herb's wife. people like her exist at every socio economic bracket; she's not evil, she's probably not a bad person, she may even be very nice... but come on. We all have a Mrs. Rennet in our lives

Jerusalem I think you edge much more critically of the characters in general than me but this is a step too far. Annoying people are real, and they're out there! They could even be lurking in this very thread...

Class goes beyond how much money a person has. They have to had made that money a certain way. Herb is the blue collar guy at a white collar table (and a white collar company). It's partly a new money thing but also certain types businesses regardless of how wealth their high ups are, will stay perceived as blue collar (mechanics, construction, plumbing, and car sales) because they aren't classy jobs to have. That might be part of why he wants to throw his weight around and bend SCDP to his will. He wants white collar guys that usually look down on him to kiss his rear end. And being a blue collar guy has probably helped me sell cars that aren't jaguars.

brushwad
Dec 25, 2009
I'd never thought about it until now, but there's some metatextual things happening in this season with Megan being on a soap opera that are pretty ... soap-operatic.

Radia
Jul 14, 2021

And someday, together.. We'll shine.

KellHound posted:

He opposed Joan sleeping with Herb part to defend her honor but I think more so because he wanted to win with creative alone. He wanted to get the account "the right way" aka the way where he gets most of the glory.

I think this is a bit of a misread of Don's character. He definitely likes praise and glory, but .. he doesn't care that much about it, compared to the satisfaction of 'getting it right', pulling off an amazing pitch or coming up with the brain genius idea.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

kalel posted:

Jerusalem I think you edge much more critically of the characters in general than me but this is a step too far. Annoying people are real, and they're out there! They could even be lurking in this very thread...

As I look in the mirror I realize at last the terrible truth.... my cat is to blame for all the problems in my life!

Mover
Jun 30, 2008


My take on Don is that he loves to cum.

kalel
Jun 19, 2012

Mover posted:

My take on Don is that he loves to cum.

in a few episodes, he laments that "sex is the definition of being close to someone." he says this as he's lying in bed with Betty post-coitus lol.

there is a little bit of truth hiding in Don's ridiculous statement though. one of the side effects of toxic masculinity is that men can sometimes feel like it's only "okay" to express themselves truthfully when they're alone with their female lover—this is what Don is implying when he says sex means being close to someone. according to classic norms, it's only socially acceptable for men to talk about their feelings in public after getting roaring drunk (see the penultimate episode of the series). sadly, we're still fighting this battle in the modern day. one of the reasons the finale is so powerful is that it's truly shocking, especially for male audience members, to watch two men openly weep and embrace each other in public. Don is aware of this at least on a subconscious level, but in his mind he's twisting it into an excuse to be a philandering jackass. "My wife can't give me emotional satisfaction" -> "my wife is making me do this."

we're going to see this play out over the next few episodes with the aftermath of the merger and Don's relationship with sylvia, but I figured I might as well talk about it here because otherwise I'm just going to forget lol

kalel
Jun 19, 2012

brushwad posted:

I'd never thought about it until now, but there's some metatextual things happening in this season with Megan being on a soap opera that are pretty ... soap-operatic.

Jerusalem posted:

Season 6, Episode 3 - The Collaborators
Written by Jonathan Igla and Matthew Weiner, Directed by Jon Hamm

They do go upstairs to the apartment, drinking coffee and smoking, Megan passing the time and taking her mind off her emotional state by detailing all the upcoming story-lines from To Have and To Have Not to a fascinated Sylvia, who admits to feeling guilty whenever she watches Daytime Television.

But when Megan quietly notes that she had a miscarriage, Sylvia gasps in delight and promises that yes she will watch the show! Except, of course, that Megan isn't talking about schlocky drama, she's talking about real life: she had an actual miscarriage. That's why she was crying, not because of firing the maid, but because she's been holding onto this information for the last two days and been utterly miserable.

I don't think it gets any more meta than this conversation—especially since it was directed by Paré's on-screen husband himself!

brushwad
Dec 25, 2009

kalel posted:

I don't think it gets any more meta than this conversation—especially since it was directed by Paré's on-screen husband himself!

Not to mention that Megan's character on the show is a maid!

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Season 6, Episode 7 - Man With a Plan
Written by Semi Chellas & Matthew Weiner, Directed by John Slattery

Sylvia Rosen posted:

I've been away, but I'm home.

Don is on his way to the lobby when the elevator stops at 16, a not unusual occurrence. Except this time instead of finding Arnold or Sylvia Rosen waiting, he finds only some luggage. Further down the corridor, he can hear the sounds of yelling, the two are having a heated argument and of course he finds himself enthralled, stopping the elevator door from closing so he can hear more of their domestic scene.

It appears that Arnie stuck with his decision to quit at the hospital after not getting to perform the heart transplant. He has found a new job, of course, he's a talented surgeon so he is going to be in high demand... but the job is in Minnesota, and Sylvia has ZERO interest in uprooting her life (of which her affair with Don is only a minor part) and going to live in a strange State where she knows nobody and has no familiarity with the culture simply because Arnie threw a tantrum at work.

But as Sylvia's voice becomes louder and shriller, accusing Arnie of hypocritically claiming this is all for them when it is really about him, and she screams at him to leave, Don realizes it is time to get out of there. It's one thing to eavesdrop, another to face Arnie - the man whose wife he is having an affair with! - where it will be obvious to both that Don overheard everything. Perhaps even more terrifying for Don... what if Arnie wants to talk about it? Talk about.... his feelings!?!

So he jabs at the close door button and breathes a sigh of relief when the doors close before Arnie presumably even has a chance to see they were open. The last thing he hears is Sylvia screeching,"DON'T FORGET TO TAKE SOME MONEY!", another reminder that the Rosens have argued about money before. It's also a reminder that Sylvia is still part of the increasingly out-of-touch mindset of the housewife sitting at home and relying on her husband to give her an "allowance", a set-up that Don himself had with Betty in the past that seemed old fashioned in season 1 and feels EXTREMELY old fashioned now in season 6.

At what WAS SCDP and is now something new, the realities of the merger are undeniable now. CGC have closed up their offices and moved into the Time-Life building, and now after finally getting a second floor and a little bit of breathing room, the SCDP employees find they have to somehow fit in an entire other Agency worth of staff to match.

Peggy catches up to Ted Chaough as they arrive on the 37th Floor, him jokingly asking if she is nervous about the "first day of school" though of course for Peggy she's basically back where she once was. She even stops by what was once her office, greeting Stan and Michael and introducing them to Ted. Stan introduces them to Margie, the older woman who we have seen frequently this season but not had a name for before now.

Ginsberg, being Ginsberg, immediately lets Ted know that when he saw him during his visit the previous week he thought he was taller but now sees they're the same height. Ted lets that bizarre observation sink in for a second before noting with a smile that he hopes Michael will still look up to him, impressing Stan who is pleased to see one of the new Partners (and Creatives!) has a quick wit.

Peggy greets Margie who tells her she's heard great things and they're all excited. But the moment they're gone, Margie sardonically notes to Stan and Michael that it was nice knowing them. Because, of course, the new Agency CAN'T sustain staff from both offices permanently, and she's savvy enough to know that another female Copywriter (one with experience at BOTH Agencies as well as a mentor/student relationship with Don AND the Copy Chief for CGC!) spells doom for her continued employment. Oh well, at least we finally learned her name!



The move continues. The floors are packed with boxes, furniture is being moved into offices, staff are standing around waiting to hear where they will go, both newcomers from CGC and existed SCDP employees who now have to figure out if they're sharing a space or being moved elsewhere.

Joan is, of course, managing everything with her usual competent authority. Lined up newcomers are told where they'll be going, one of the CGC Copywriters - John Mathis - making the disastrously stupid decision to try and flirt with her as she does her work. Luckily for him he is saved from a withering response when Ted's secretary - Moira - approaches to very sweetly ask why all the Creatives have been put into one office and insist on being given a copy of all of Joan's notes because "Mr. Chaough will be angry" if she doesn't have a copy.

Presumably Moira was the Queen Bee at CGC, and is now at the very least attempting to drive home her own importance to one of the new Partners of the merged firm. Of course, Joan herself is far more than "just" an Office Manager anymore, she's one of those self-same partners, and she's far too used to running things to let the newcomer secretary try and force her hand.

Ted arrives in time to hopefully defuse the situation, but it is really the presence of Peggy that saves the day. Their once turbulent co-worker relationship had mostly defrosted by the time Peggy left, and they're thrilled to see each other again. Joan even offers an olive branch by giving Moira her notes and asking her to take over informing everybody of their new locations so she show Peggy to her own office, which both gives her visible, somewhat authoritative role while also locking in that it is JOAN who makes these decisions, not Moira.

Still, there is only so much that can be done. Peggy is getting Harry's old office (and Pete's before that), inheriting the terrible column taking up the middle of the room. The good news is that she doesn't have to share (they're not shoving her back in with Stan and Michael), though her bigger concern is that she doesn't want to "share" her secretary, Phyllis.

Joan winces as a pain in her side gives her pause for a moment. She isn't sure if she just pulled something moving boxes or slept funny, but she takes a moment to recover and moves on. Some wit (probably Stan) has put a sign on Peggy's door calling her the "Coffee Chief", but the teasing and bad office aside it is good to be back. Joan notes that while everything changes outside, she is still in the same office and everything is the same in there.

They ask after the man in each other's lives (Joan's son and Peggy's boyfriend), Peggy getting a little tongue tied as she explains they bought a building(! I thought it was just the apartment, she bought the entire building!?!) together to live in before correcting that SHE bought a building for them to live in together. With that though, they part with a smile and an acknowledgement that they're glad the other is still here.

Peggy does take a moment after Joan goes though to consider that cursed loving column, before settling in to get back to work.

Don arrives to the crowd 37th Floor, making his way past the assembled people and furniture, stopping at his desk to consider that Dawn is nowhere to be seen. What he can see though is most of the Partners inside the Conference room, and now he has to consider whether he should join them given it is Day 1 or just hide in the relative safety of his office from the outside world.

Inside the room, Cooper is reading from a sheet of paper a proposed speech to make to the merged Agencies, highlighting what a success it has already been, taking time to acknowledge Ted's success at the recent CLIO Awards as Don joins them, having decided grace them with his presence. Reaching the end he realizes somewhat startled that... there is no end! So he just awkwardly takes a seat instead of finishing with a flourish, Joan acknowledging it is a beautiful message but they should wait to make it till AFTER they've made all the personnel changes.

That's Partner speak for,"We gotta fire a bunch of people."

Pete arrives with an apology, explaining that somebody commandeered Clara... and then freezes as he awkwardly realizes that there aren't any seats available. A delighted Roger points out that even Don managed to make the meeting before Pete, who must feel like he's in some kind of "naked at school and forgot to study" nightmare. He asks Meredith to find him another chair, but Moira - present to take notes on behalf of Ted.... who is there! - instead offers up hers.

That solves things nicely, and Pete of course takes the chair... at which point he feels like an idiot rear end in a top hat because Ted immediately decides to be a gentleman and offer Moira HIS chair, before relaxing comfortably and apparently entirely at ease against the desk on the side of the wall. Now Pete isn't just late, he looks like a chauvinist pig AND uptight!

....looks like....

Roger cracks a joke about the gallantry, though Moira, Meredith and Joan are all clearly impressed with Ted's gesture. Then surprisingly he gets down to business, pointing out that he and Cutler worked the room during the CLIOs and managed to arrange for an advanced introduction to Fleischmann's Margarine. Meredith, who started out doing this job with NO idea how it worked, points out that this would be New Business, but Roger complains there should be a section called Good News.... because this is good news!

Meredith takes that in stride though and runs them through the ongoing business, giving them a list of current Accounts in ascending order (that means smallest to largest she helpfully explains to Pete!), so they can work out which Account men will be running them. When she gets to the New York State Thruway, Pete chimes in to let them know that Henry Lammott at Mohawk considers that Account (from CGC) to be in competition with his, so he thinks they should get Burt Peterson to close it down.

Jim Cutler, up to this point seemingly enjoying the meeting and seeming to have found a kindred spirit in Roger Sterling (I feel like these two will bring out the worst in each other), chimes in to note that Pete should have convinced Henry it wasn't a conflict. Ted actually comes to Pete's defense, noting that Mohawk is an airline and far more prestigious, and the State Thruway is only a 250K spend anyway. Unfortunately, it's 250K of a Media Buy that was paid upfront, and Roger quickly guesses that money has already been spent.

This leads to the first dust-up between the Partners, as Pete complains they should have been told this earlier and Jim snaps back angrily that THEY should have told CGC that not only did Pete lose them Vick but cost CGC Clearasil as well! Pete of course immediately goes the nuclear option, accusing back that they should been informed that Frank Gleason was dying, which immediately draws the normally mild-mannered Ted into the fray to warn them that Frank is going to be just fine.

Don jumps in to try and be the adult in the room, trying his best to make this mountain seem like a molehill. He knows Henry Lammott on a personal basis (not as well as Roger) so he and Pete will fly up together to see him. Joan, mindful of the new arrangement, points out Ted has to be there as well and Don quickly agrees, but this creates another surprise as Ted asks what they'll be flying to get there and both he and Jim are surprised that they'll be flying up Mohawk. Because, you see, Ted is a pilot, he can fly them up there himself and land right outside of Henry's office.

There is no getting around just how impressive this is to everybody else, in the minor dick-measuring going on in this first proper meeting Ted just slapped a jumbo salami on the table. Pete tries to downplay it after Clara pops in to apologize but inform him he has an emergency call, simply snapping that however they're going they should go tomorrow. He leaves the room, Ted quickly taking his chair and utterly charming Meredith when he sweetly asks her to continue with the client list.

In any merger there is going to be an uncomfortable settling in period. This Partner Meeting was as much about figuring out the new social and hierarchical dynamics of the merger as it was running through the actual business to be done. The "winner" undoubtedly in this case was Ted Chaough, and thus the former CGC. He was there on time, attentive, sided (initially) with SCDP on an argument, showed thoughtfulness for his underlings AND impressed the women by being a gentleman at the same time, then dazzled (and unsettled) Roger, Don and Pete by his casual reveal that he has his own plane and is a pilot himself. How everything will eventually work out remains to be seen, but for this first all-hands-on-deck encounter at least it is Ted who is coming out smelling of roses.



In Pete's office, he grumpily answers the phone. It's Billy, the maintenance man at his apartment building, who has called because Pete's mother showed up hammering on Pete's apartment door demanding to see her husband. Billy let her in because he was worried somebody would call the police on her, but he isn't sure what to do for her now.

Pete asks to speak with her, but first apologetically asks Bill - who he acknowledges has already gone out of his way to be helpful - if he could go one step further and make her a G & T? "Gin and Tonic?" asks Billy, and Mrs. Campbell immediately perks up and tells him that yes please, that would be lovely!

Billy puts her onto the phone, and she sternly explains to her son that she found this address in a woman's handwriting on her nightstand, and she suspects his father is up to "his old tricks" again. Apparently this is not the first time his mother has revealed his father's infidelity, nor a confusion as to his current status, as through gritted teeth Pete reminds her that his father passed away (a nice way of saying he died screaming in a plane crash).

"You'd like that!" she accuses Pete, her obvious early dementia enough to convince her that her husband is still alive but not to rob her of her personality and more importantly her authority in how she speaks to her son, who she simultaneously seems to understand is an adult but also somehow still subject to her command. So when he explains that she is "confused" she accusingly demands to know what he is implying.

Caught between not wanting to be cruel to his mother but also frustrated by this imposition on his work over a delusion, he tells her to wait there while he calls Bud. But she doesn't want any part of that, Bud is likely to send "that girl Trudy" over to collect her. When Pete, rarely the most diplomatic outside of business dealings, snaps that Bud's wife is Judy, HIS wife is Trudy, she has a point when she notes that you can hardly be called crazy for mixing up the names of two daughter-in-laws that are THAT similar.

At the end of his patience, he tells her to let Billy - still making that Gin and Tonic - know that she will be okay left there on her own. Grumpily she points out that she WILL be okay, and Pete hangs up, angry and pissed off, not overly concerned about his mother's dementia at this point but more the fact it is taking time out of his day as he calls his brother. After all, it's the 1960s, while people knew about dementia/Alzheimer's it was still widely considered that senility was basically the inevitable result of getting older, and the layman's knowledge of how best to treat it/deal with it was largely in line with Pete's attitude of,"Get upset and confrontational with them".

Don finally gets to leave the meeting, but Dawn is still nowhere to be seen. He's approached by Peggy, who he is pleased to see, and Burt Peterson who... well he knew that was inevitable. So he's polite, shaking Burt's hand and simply saying it's nice to have the "old team" back together, ignoring Burt's ill-advised and kind of bewildering smug statement that "the worm has turned". After all, Don was there when Burt was fired from Sterling Cooper, and now Burt is back working with Don at the Agency he co-founded with Lane Pryce who instigated the firing in the first place.... but Burt's still just an Account Man, albeit a senior one, and Don is still a partner, why would you try and talk poo poo to him?

The phone at Dawn's desk has been ringing as they talked, and Peggy jokingly asks if he would like HER to get it. With a little grin he answers the phone himself, proving that it turns out he is capable of such an action, though he is as surprised by who is on the other end as that person is to get him directly: it's Sylvia Rosen.

She admits she was expecting a Secretary, worrying belatedly there might be one on the line. He asks her to wait and then makes a put-upon face before telling Peggy and Burt that he has to take the call. Burt gives him a hard little grin and taunts that they'll have plenty of time to catch up on those long flights to Detroit, so Don just forces a flat smile and heads into his office. "He's still a cold fish," complains Burt, as if he didn't go out of his way to be a dick (to be fair, they did fire the guy after his wife died!), but Peggy wisely keeps her mouth shut and doesn't say a thing, knowing that trying to get one over on Don is usually a recipe for disaster.

Inside his office, Don settles in behind his desk and returns to his call. Sylvia, now content that it is just the two of them on the line, tells him to come over. He can't, he explains, he has too much to do at the office, but when she moans that she needs him and NOTHING else will do, he finds this a pretty compelling argument! But instead of doing as he is told, he instead decides to set the parameters. Rather than rushing to join her at the apartment (one floor below his own) he instructs her to book a room and meet him at 12:30pm at the Sherry-Netherland, and to call him back with the room number.

While Don is making plans to cheat on his wife (again), Burt Peterson is seeing another ex. Roger has called him into his office for a meeting, Burt a little nonplussed by the odd recliner that is the only available spot for him to sit. Still, he takes his awkward seat, all hard smiles again as he gleefully informs Roger that he hasn't forgotten a drat thing.

Roger though is all smiles, explaining that you don't realize until something is over how much you enjoyed doing it. Burt clearly thinks this is meant to reference him once again being a Senior Account Man at the Agency, and for the first time he actually seems to drop the smug air and admit that Roger is right, clearly willing to let (or at least try) to let bygones be bygones so the two can work together again.

Except. That ISN'T what Roger meant. Roger meant that he regrets not reveling in firing Burt the last time (from memory he showed up late!), and so takes great, great, great satisfaction in informing Peterson that he is fired. Again.

Burt is shocked. Fired!?! But.... Roger can't just fire him! Except, well... he can! Taking perhaps TOO much pleasure in the task (I presume Roger specifically asked to be the one to break the news), Roger lets him know that nobody - either on the SCDP or CGC side - spoke up in his defense. When Burt warns him that Chevy won't be pleased about this, Roger reveals he's pulled another variation of an old trick he used when chasing Dow: while Burt is in this meeting getting fired, Ken Cosgrove - who he describes as a six-foot version of Alan Ladd - is being given a tour of the Chevy Factory in Detroit. In other words, the deed is already done, replacements found, and nobody on the Agency or Client side is bothered.

It's cruel, unnecessarily so in fact, and though Burt was being oddly smug with a clearly hostile bent, it's still pretty shabby treatment of a guy they already hosed over in the past. The simple fact is though, in spite of his apparent skills as an Account man, people simply don't like Burt, they find him a hostile, needlessly confrontational and unpleasant person to be around.

Pete Campbell, meet your future.

He falls back on the old standby of money, pointing out he is responsible for 4 million in billings, angrily asking how much money in Accounts Roger has brought in? Roger of course is partly responsible for Chevy, was involved in Dow, played a (minor) part in Mohawk and has in general actually been a more proactive force over the last season or so... but that's not relevant. Roger is a Partner, a Senior one. He considered the idea of Burt using his billings as a bludgeon to talk over or otherwise sideline Roger in meetings (much like Pete, who at least was a Partner if only a Junior one)... and now that isn't a problem for him.

Burt snarls that he's a real prick and Roger, true to his word eking every moment of pleasure out of this firing as he can, jokes that Burt just stole HIS goodbye. He storms out in a fury, striding angrily down the stairs where he is accosted by Bob Benson, who identifies him as presumably Burt Peterson and takes of course the first chance possible to try and kiss some rear end, introducing himself and explaining he believes he is supposed to report to him. Burt's response is hardly diplomatic, and probably puts Bob in fear that his own job rather than Burt's is on the line.... and so departs Burt Peterson once again, his second stint in a Sterling Cooper lead Advertising Agency lasting less than a day.



Don arrives at Room 503, entering silently when Sylvia opens the door for him. As she tries to walk on ahead, he grabs her arm and pulls her back into a kiss, then moves her onto the bed. Breaking off the kiss, he asks her to repeat what she said to him on the phone. "Come and see me?" she asks, but no that isn't what stroked his ego and excited his passion. So she repeats the words, that she needed him... and nothing else would do. It's all Don has wanted to hear his whole life, to be wanted, to be all that somebody either wants OR needs, and knowing that Arnie is now presumably moving to Minnesota, she has become all that HE wants: somebody who has nothing else in her life (he'd like to think) other than him.

While Don is cheating on his wife, he's also disappointing another partner in his life... a literal one in this case, Ted Chaough waits irritably in the Creative Lounge with the other Copywriters for Don's arrival so they can get started on ideas for Fleischmann's margarine. To kill time, one of the CGC Copywriters asks if he worked on The Daisy and Stan explains it was on the KKK Spot that never aired.

Ginsberg is impressed and says so, Stan thanking him until Ginsberg explains he means he's impressed Stan could last 15 minutes without bringing up that he worked on the LBJ Campaign! Peggy returns, explaining she spoke with Dawn (who we still haven't seen, was the actor unavailable for this episode?) who, unlike Peggy herself back in season 1 to Joan, wouldn't tell her anything.... she's an excellent Secretary!

Ted shrugs, if Don isn't here the they'll just get started and catch him up later. He decides that before they run through Fleischmann's previous campaigns though they have a "little rap session" about margarine in general. The CGC Copywriters, including Peggy, all grab pens and paper, all used to Ted's way of running things. Stan and Ginsberg are at a loss though, this system is completely at odds with how Don operates.

He tells Stan to Free-Associate, and the others kick things off with words they associate with margarine: Grandmother, yellow, even Ginsberg jumping in with the greasiness, cheapness and smell which Ted encourages him to keep working with... until Ginsberg says that people hate margarine. Ted pulls him up on that, asking who HATES margarine, and when Ginsberg complains that Ted said there were no wrong answers, Ted reminds him that.... he never actually said that!

Stan was confused but he's getting into the groove of things now, and is delighted and surprised when Peggy suddenly pulls a bit of trivia out of her rear end and notes it was invented for Napoleon III to use for his armies since it doesn't spoil like butter would. Ted is thrilled too, shifting focus and saying they should throw together a list of things you can use margarine for, with number one being... The French Army!

It's all very free wheeling, limbering up their minds, priming them to think in different ways, getting them engaged in the process before they actually start thinking about HOW to pitch an ad for margarine. For Stan and Michael it's a new way to do things, but they're smart and creative people, and Ted being right in there with them working on it is going a long way to helping them accept something different.

At the Sherry-Netherland, the passion and excitement is over and now Sylvia - her physical needs met - is taking the time to vent her frustrations with Arnie. It seems the argument wasn't so much triggered by Arnie wanting them to move to Minnesota (though that didn't help) as it was by his reaction to her concern over their son Mitchell. As Arnie mentioned to Marie in the prior episode, her son was going to France, and his trip has coincided with May 68, but Arnie's response was simply that she needed to "cut the apron strings" when she was anxious that she couldn't reach Mitchell by phone.

"You can talk about your kid," Don tells her as he steps out of the bathroom redoing his tie,"But I don't want to hear about your husband."

"I can talk about whatever I want," she snaps back, offended by this statement, even more-so when Don grunts at her to help him look for his shoes while she does it. Taking a seat across from her, he suddenly shifts his face to a stern, Patrician look and instructs her with quiet authority that he doesn't just want her to look for his shoes... he wants her to crawl on her hands and knees until she finds them.

Jesus Christ, Don.

He's taking a hell of a gamble, this kind of role-play might be fun for two enthusiastic partners, but is he reading the room right especially given the nature of what she's been discussing? Her initial reaction suggests he hasn't, as she scoffs and points to a corner of the room and points out that they're right there in plain sight. But Don isn't shaken, holding that intense eye-contact and simply telling her,"Do it."

She sits a moment, then stands up and in defiance of his order simply walks to the corner and collects the shoes. But when she returns to him, she can't help but play along a little, her glower having had no impact on his poker face. So she drops to her knees to put his shoes on for him, one side of her dress collar slipping off of her shoulder. She puts it back up, but Don liked what he saw, and now instructs her to get undressed and get back into bed.

Things are shifting back to something she understands now. His domineering orders were insulting, but now that she has collected his shoes without following his orders explicitly, and they've gotten closer to each other and she's partaking in a somewhat intimate act by putting his shoes on, she's getting back into the mood. Half-amused, half-aroused, she stands and strip down, noting that as she does so he's mostly concentrating on tying his laces.

Returned to the bed, she motions him to join her. Instead he stands, collects the key and tells her not to go anywhere... and then simply leaves the hotel room. Bewildered, not entirely sure if she's excited or revolted by his actions, she simply sits there naked in the bed, wondering what to do now.



At the former SCDP (what IS their Agency name now? Surely they changed it from SCDP, which still had Lane Pryce's name in it?), the Creative Meeting is starting to run out of steam. They're eating margarine on toast, but as a result most of the ideas they're coming up with now relate to bread more than margarine. Don arrives, looking actually confused that the meeting.... is just happening anyway without him? He offers a mild apology, saying he was held up, but as he takes a seat (and some toast) a clearly irritated Ted decides you know what? gently caress it, meeting's over!

He announces it more diplomatically than that of course, saying they've gotten some good ideas but now they can come back later in the week for a more traditional approach involving research and a more structured Creative session. Don of course is happy to have an excuse not to be in THIS meeting, so simply agrees and asks Peggy to set the meeting, and then somehow despite being the last to arrive manages to be up and out of the Lounge even before Ted who had already stood and clearly was prepping to make a more gracious exit, probably involving actually thanking the staff for the work they did.

So he follows after Don, catching up to him and asking what the hell THAT was, referring to Don's abrupt departure. Don points out Ted was the one who ended the meeting, and somehow has the temerity to sound offended as he points out that Ted had the gall to have the meeting without him! Ted's response clearly lays out one of the key differences between their approaches: if Ted has a meeting set for 1pm, then the meeting is at 1pm! Sure, they're Creatives, maybe you might be 5-10 minutes late.... but FORTY minutes!?!

"I've got better things to do," Ted warns him, before noting that "obviously" Don thought he did too. The difference, of course, being that Ted still showed up.

As he often does when confronted with a problem he just can't use his authority to insist his way out of, Don simply walks away. He's obviously pissed off to be confronted by Ted like this, but also knows that Ted is completely in the right and he is completely in the wrong. So he just goes into his office and closes the door behind him, leaving Ted unsure how to react next. After all, they're both Partners, they're both Creative Directors, and this is yet another part of the easing in process of the two Agencies, as they try to work out how best to navigate what is now a very complicated business relationship.

So all Ted can do in the end is to take a leaf out of Don's own book, returning to his office himself, closing the door firmly behind him. Moira had been about to follow him in, obviously wanting to give him messages, but thinks better of it and returns to her desk.

In Don's office, he puts through a call to Sylvia, asking her if she's still in bed. She is, reading a book, but the only answer she gives is to ask him if he is coming back. Thrilling to the fact that he imagines she is still sitting there naked where he left her, he closes his eyes and pictures it in his mind as he instructs her that she will wait there, not knowing when he will be back.

"What's gotten into you?" she laughs, but he simply instructs her not to answer the phone again and hangs up. Replacing the receiver, Sylvia takes a moment and lets it all sink in, now that she has a better sense of the game he is playing she feels on more solid ground and is a more enthusiastic participant. So when the phone rings again, she does as she was told, laying naked in the bed masturbating as she thinks about him calling on the other end, knowing that her not answering is following his orders, an idea that she knows arouses him and thus, of course, arouses her in turn.

With Sylvia dealt with, Don has another problem though: Ted. So he collects a bottle of Canadian Club and two glasses, and makes a point of having Moira buzz through and let her know he is there instead of just barging in. Once he enters, he explains to a wary Ted that the bottle is an olive branch, suggesting it would be better if the two of them simply discussed margarine together.

He pours them both drinks, knocking back his own immediately. Ted decides to accept the olive branch, knocking back his own and admitting he'll drink,"Whatever there is," (including "an Old Spanish"!) since all his drinks are currently still packed away. As Don knocks back yet another, Ted cracks jokes about how he has a girl wheel in a cart of drinks for clients and it's the girl that most appeals to the clients. But while he's talking, Don is drinking, and when he notes Ted isn't IMMEDIATELY downing another dose and pointedly tells him he doesn't have to drink if he doesn't want to, it of course has the opposite effect, as now Ted feels like he HAS to drink.

So Ted takes a big gulp, and then feeling like he has to keep up, forces another gulp to finish it off. The look on Don's face as he watches Ted do this is remarkably similar to the look he had on his face as he ordered Sylvia what to do in the hotel room. Because at its heart it is the same thing, of course, Don is trying to force others to bend to his will, and more than that to make them feel like they SHOULD bend to his will. This is both an olive branch but also a punishment to Ted, who dared to call him out (accurately!) on wasting everybody else's time, and so he intends to drive THIS meeting and establish early on that he is the dominant person in this relationship.

"It took 40 minutes to figure out no one knows poo poo about margarine," Ted admits when Don asks him if he wants to show him his notes from the meeting. This gets a laugh, and Don takes a seat, Ted asking if this is going to end up like their Creative session in Detroit where Don lay down while Ted paced. Don though says he doesn't plan to lie down till after his next drink, even as he's drinking, forcing the pace in a more subtle, less aggressive manner than he once did to punish Roger Sterling for making a pass at Betty.



Pete arrives back at his apartment, finding Bud waiting but no sign of their mother. Bud explains she went to the bathroom after spending 25 minutes searching for a dish for the nuts... then wishes him good luck and starts to leave. Confused, Pete stops him, asking where he is going, horrified when he realizes that Bud intends to leave their mother here in the apartment with him rather than taking her back to his house.

Appalled, he explains he can't deal with this right now with everything he has going on at work, bitterly asking if Bud even knows about the merger of if he never got past the sports section of the newspaper? Bud knows all about it though, and is bitter himself, complaining that Pete went to White Weld to underwrite SCDP's planned public offering instead of to to Bud's firms. That was not only humiliating to Bud but cost him enormously in the eyes of his Partners, forcing him to spin a bullshit story about Pete wanting to avoid the appearance of nepotism rather than admit that Pete either doesn't trust their firm or simply didn't even think about them.

Pete says he should thank him for keeping him off "that sinking ship", and when Bud insists he ride out the merger and then call him about business in 6 months, Pete becomes desperate and for the first time outright admits his fears: he thinks he's being pushed out. There was no chair for him at the meeting today, and while that might seem small it's a short step from no chair to no clients.

It's both paranoid and also plausible. Pete was the workhorse that kept SCDP going through tough times and helped build them to the position where they could have gone public but also where they were an enticing prospect for a merger which in turn helped them land Chevrolet. But he also lost them Vick, he hasn't exactly been the nicest guy to deal with for others in the Agency, including Ken Cosgrove but more importantly Roger Sterling. He was the one who spearheaded the revolting situation with Joan and Herb. Now there are a whole group of new Partners to contend with, now Roger is back on the ascendancy, Ken is working Chevrolet AND has the in at Dow. Now Jim Cutler is there working hand in hand with Roger Sterling. Now Pete is starting to look less like the engine that powers SCDP and more like an extraneous motor in the newly merged Agency... still useful, still acknowledged for the assistance it gave to get them there... but do they REALLY need it anymore?

To compound matters, it quickly becomes clear that his own brother has no idea about his marital situation. Bud talks about Pete having a long drive home, about how Judy has had enough of their mother after she snapped her in the face with a tea towel so now it's Trudy's turn to deal with her. There are no other options, she can't live in her own apartment because it's a huge mess after the cleaning lady quit due to mistreatment (likely driven by confusion).

Even if Pete told his brother the truth would it matter? It's clear that Bud has no intention of looking after his mother, despite forever being her obvious favorite son. He does, without a moment's hesitation, muse on the fact they could get the paperwork started to institutionalize their own mother when Pete complains that she should be locked up somewhere. As a family they're not particularly loving, largely the direct result of their parents of course, but the utter emotionless way Bud considers this really is quite something.

Bud leaves and now Pete is stuck there in his lovely little "bachelor pad" that he once dreamed would be the source of multiple guilt-free sexual infidelities and is now his actual home, and for the time being at least to be shared with his mother whom he was mostly alienated from even before her mind started to go.

Dorothy emerges from the bathroom at last, complaining that "he" is always later because they allow it, but does he really think Peter is any busier than the rest of them? Tired and grumpy, Pete reminds her that HE is Peter, but she moves on without a moment's pause to the reveal she mistook one son for the other (or possibly her late husband?), suggesting they go out to The Colony for dinner. No, Pete sighs, he has soup, and when she demands he take her to her apartment he tells her she will be staying here tonight and can sleep in the bed. She takes that without comment as well, simply offering him his glass and asking him to top it back up.

She might be asking her son to do this, or thinking he is a waiter or other member of staff. It doesn't matter. She's at the early stage where she's confused about exactly when and where she is or who she is talking to, but is otherwise seemingly fully capable of carrying out the segments of conversations she thinks she is having. Pete, who has no training and presumably no real desire to ease her through this process beyond the inconvenience she is causing him, is more concerned about how her current plight affects HIM than anything else. In that sense, as noted, he's largely just paying off the lessons learned from being raised by her.

In Ted's office, Don has a nice buzz going and his is a little slowed down, but he's otherwise fully cognizant as he tries to wrap his head around one of Ted's creative exercises he uses to help him break a creative block: figuring out what character from Gilligan's Island is represented by his product!

Ted is lying down on the couch, obviously the worse for wear from trying to keep up with Don's drinking, Don standing and noting that while he might have tricks for breaking Creative Blocks he is "impressed" that Ted has turned it into an actual formula. But he points out that while each of the margarine products might have some point of difference that can be used to attribute them to a character, they all share one commonality: they're NOT butter. Nobody likes margarine.

He starts to pour Ted another drink but this time Ted sits up with a start and cuts him off, telling him he has to eat something. "Ice doesn't count?" "jokes" Don, itself another quiet but obvious condemnation of Ted for not being able to keep up with his drinking pace. But he takes a seat as well, and this is HIS process, he has an audience and it's time to run through the movie in his head.

It is here, in these moments when Don gets to just allow himself to be carried away by the feeling he is trying to convey, that he often has his greatest success. He paints a picture of a farmyard, the sights and sounds, the pancakes on the table, the fried eggs, the cream, the poured syrup, the smile on the faces of the farmer, his wife, their children... and of course the square of margarine on the pancakes. Because he's selling the idea of nature, of the natural. Everybody prefers butter? But here in Don's imagination, the margarine sits and fits right alongside all the other favorites, all part of the same overall package, the fruits of heartland America, and margarine as a part of that.

Ted, to his credit, is one of those who manages to see somewhat through the artifice of Don's smooth voice and confident delivery. He's impressed, undoubtedly, but he treats this as a collaboration rather than as a passive audience member taking what Don delivered uncritically: the pitch has to have cows, and there must be bacon on the table as well, dammit! He forces the last of his drink down, Don watching amused and easily downing his own, the "benefit" of longs years of over-consumption.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

At Room 503, Sylvia opens the door wearing only her bed-sheet. There is nobody there, but a package from Saks Fifth Avenue is on the floor. She retrieves it and returns to the bed, opening it and thrilled by the dress inside, eagerly pulling the gift out of the box, mind racing with fantasies of what Don's further intentions for the evening will be.

Back at the former SCDP, Joan calls out for the person knocking on her office door to wait a minute, but they mishear and Bob Benson opens the door just in time to catch her in a seat hunched over a trashcan, obviously on the verge of throwing up. Apologetic but alarmed, he explains that he thought she said to come in, pointing to the
papers in his hand and explaining he brought everybody's paperwork for her (you can guarantee he volunteered!).

She tries to explain her obvious distress by saying she has food poisoning, but then gasps in pain and clutches at her side. Is it her appendix? That's on the other side of the body she reminds him, but whatever is the cause of the pain he knows she can't stay there. She insists though that she can't leave, she can't let people see her in this state, and Bob actually offers a surprising level of self-awareness as he suggests that they walk out together, because of course people will just think he's bothering her and being a kiss-rear end, and any look of pain on her face will be completely understandable because nobody can stand him. He doesn't put it QUITE like that, of course, but that's the spirit of his message, and it is plausible enough to convince her to accept his help.

In the Creative Lounge, none of them ever register Jane and Bob walking by, more caught up in listening to Margie - who is playing Cat's Cradle with Ginsberg - explain how she handles recording sessions with Secor Laxatives. Peggy is catching up on other details of Clients she used to work with, surprised but pleased to see Topaz Pantyhose got talked into doing television spots. Michael admits that while this was his idea, Margie now is responsible for the account, though Margie laughs that everybody there STILL calls her "Peggy".

As an aside, I wonder how Mathis and the other CGC Copywriter are taking this view of Peggy Olson? For them she's always been the hard-rear end Copy Chief, but here she is hanging out with the others, the atmosphere casual and relaxed, everybody on good terms and enjoying the new setup.

That's nothing compared to what comes next though, as a red faced Ted Chaough suddenly bursts into the lounge followed by an amused Don Draper. Ted has gotten excited, the conversation between the two of having apparently shifted from margarine to politics, and now Ted is VERY interested in learning which of the Democratic contenders his Creative Team prefers, waving off Don's reminder that Humphrey has all the delegates: Eugene McCarthy or Bobby Kennedy!?!

"....I'm voting for Nixon..." Mathis admits.

Ted is appalled, though he claims he suspected as much, asking what's wrong with him... doesn't he have any hope!?! Peggy now is extremely uncomfortable, perhaps even more-so than poor Mathis, and even Don seems to realize that things have gone a little too far now that a drunken Ted has been unleashed on the staff.

"I'm for Bobby," admits Peggy, surprising nobody in a futile effort to break the tension. Mathis starts to stammer out his reasoning for why he is voting for Nixon when he realizes that Ted didn't just slump his face into the table as a dramatic gesture... he's passed out! Peggy gently prods his shoulder, the SCDP Copywriters delighted by his ridiculous display. Now that the verbal part of the mess is over, Don is delighted too, taking great satisfaction in announcing everybody can call it a day and telling them to let Ted sleep it off. He has had his revenge, he made Ted humiliate himself in front of the staff, that'll teach him for.... being irritated that Don was 40 minutes late for a meeting....?

Only Peggy is left behind, collecting her notepad from Ted who, apparently still semi-conscious, groans,"I'm fiiiiine," when she tries to wake him. She leaves, worried about him, worried about what the others think, but mostly pissed off at Don because she knows him well enough to know he instigated this at least partly deliberately.

At a lovely emergency room, Joan sits in the waiting room next to a bowl collecting dirty dripping water from a hole in the ceiling pipe. Bob returns with a coke, telling her to drink it, but she declines. He's been on the phone to her apartment and reports back that the babysitter has agreed to stay, but he wasn't able to get a hold of her mother. Joan figures she is still up in the Catskills, likening her mother to Rip van Winkle, and is a little put off by Bob helpfully offering to tell the story to her if she likes it!

What the hell, Bob?

He insists he won't go until she's been seen by a doctor though, but Joan's thoughts have turned maudlin, as she considers what will happen to Kevin. Maybe he'll continue to live with her mother, but what if he ends up with Greg's parents? Unspoken of course is that Kevin's secret actual father, Roger Sterling, might even take an interest even if he has kept his distance and not made any kind of deal out of her lying to him about the abortion.

Bob promises it isn't anything fatal, just food poisoning, but Joan has convinced herself. When she winces and yelps from another sharp burst of pain, Bob takes it upon himself to use some of that Accounting schmooze with a helping dose of his surprisingly self-aware status as a bit of a boob to help her out. Aiding her to the nurse's station, he explains apologetically that he's a fool who probably should have just come to a nurse for help in the first place rather than waiting for a doctor but he and his friend Joan were embarrassed... after all, she did drink furniture polish!

Nurse Finnegan is horrified, her indifferent demeanor immediately broken as she asks why Joan did that. "She wasn't wearing her glasses," Bob explains, making it out to be a simple matter of vanity. Nurse Finnegan of course takes immediate action, calling to an orderly and instructing him to take Joan to bed four. She promises Bob that Joan will be fine and will see a doctor soon, and Bob - having yet again played off his demeanor as a bit of a buffoon - has succeeded in getting her the help she needed, as promised.



Sylvia, wearing that outfit Don bought her, is sitting in a chair reading Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show when she hears the key in the door. She leaps to her feet in excitement, quickly getting into a seductive pose, wanting Don's first sight of her to wow him. It does, as he stops and smiles and tells her she looks perfect. Of course having gotten the compliment she wanted, Sylvia now tries to discount it, admitting she had 3 hours to get ready, pondering whether the shoes go with the outfit etc.

Don assures her they do and she grabs her purse, asking where they're going. Don though simply sits on the bed and informs her they're going nowhere, and when she's surprised (and a little irritated) he asks her with a expectant look why she would think she is going anywhere, eager (and hopeful) for the right reaction from her when he tells her,"You are for me."

"You exist in this room for my pleasure," he tells her. As earlier when he instructed her to crawl to his shoes, she is uneasy and slightly confused by his attitude, asking if they're at least going to eat something? "Don't ask any more questions," he orders her, followed by another for her to remove her clothes, the same ones he bought her and that she spent 3 painstaking hours getting to look just right.

Caught between unease at letting this man essentially turn her (and tell her he is turning her!) into an object but also intrigue and a little excitement at the thought of playing along with this unexpected turn of events, Sylvia decides gently caress it, she's in for a penny, she's in for a pound. So she drops her purse on the chair and slowly slips out of her dress, showing off her lingerie with a half turn before removing her bra. "Like that?" she asks quietly, and Don nods, the barest hint of a smirk on his face, enjoying and excited by her complete submission, and of course in turn the sense of dominance it gives him.

It's a different story of course later than evening when he returns to bed in his own home, only one floor up from where Sylvia is probably also sleeping. He lays in bed beside his wife, pondering what he was thinking and why he chose to react the way he did to Sylvia, especially knowing her state of mind after overhearing the screaming argument with Arnie in the morning. I'd like to think he also feels guilt towards Megan for betraying her, but let's be serious, that thought probably never occurs to him.

He's not the only one having trouble sleeping though. Frank Gleason wakes in the morning to a storm outside his hospital room... and Ted Chaough seeing a disheveled mess in the chair beside the bed. Frank chuckles that Ted looks worse than he does, and Ted admits he slept on the floor of his office... not because he doesn't have a couch, but because he was so drunk he couldn't find it (it was several feet away from him!), because Draper knocked him out.... which he is quick to assure Frank he doesn't mean literally!

Frank is amused, noting that there must be a lot of work to do with the merger, but Ted ponders exactly what the drinking session yesterday was all about. He finds it odd that Don seemed more interested in him than the work they were doing, which on the surface seems a little hypocritical coming from Ted who spent months pursuing Don and trying to make his Agency's name by piggybacking off of Don's success and reputation... except for course all the time he was doing that, it was SOLELY about the work: Ted wanted CGC to succeed, and Don was a stepping stone to achieving that. Don though? Don seemed to take a malicious interest in breaking down Ted's entire Creative Process... not to mention the whole thing where he got him drunk enough to make a fool of himself in front of the staff.

"But you're not very interesting," jokes Frank, and Ted agrees... but Don doesn't know that! Frank was probably well used to Ted using Don conceptually as a yardstick and stepping stone so he is curious, what is the ACTUAL man like? Ted admits he doesn't know, he's mysterious and hard to get a read on: he goes long stretches without talking and then suddenly becomes remarkable eloquent.

Frank points out that Don has a long history of success, so of course he's going to be a charming person. But he thinks Ted is letting himself get too caught up in the mythos of Don Draper, he's just a person like them, and Ted has learned to work with difficult people before... after all, he worked with Frank! "And look at you," notes Ted, breaking his balls back in turn for the "not very interesting" crack. Frank is being serious though, quoting Sun Tzu,"If I wait by the river long enough, the body of my enemy will float by."

His advice to Ted? Let Don tire himself out in the early rounds as they sort out their respective standings in the merged Agency. After all, Ted's place is secure, and regardless of what happened the day before, he should go home, take a shower, then walk back into the Agency this morning like he owns half the place. He falls back to sleep, exhausted from even the effort of a conversation, while Ted contemplates his very reasonable advice.

After all, he may not technically speaking own HALF of the newly merged Agency, he was the driving force of the Partners who owned one half of the two Agencies that have merged. Don Draper is a big deal, but so is Ted Chaough, and if Don is coming after him then it means that - after all this time of Don ignoring Ted and CGC to the best of his ability - he finally sees him as a peer... even if one that may also be a threat to Don's own preeminent status in the Agency.



Pete is also preparing to go to work when Dorothy steps out of the bedroom, and this morning she seems far sharper than the day before. When Pete tells her he'll be back at dinnertime, she points out that this is because THIS is where he lives. Not at all, he insists, but she points out he has a razor on the sink and a hamper full of laundry, and with almost savage pleasure asks if Trudy is done with him.

"This is our pied-à-terre!" he insists, horrified that his mother - her mind slowly going as it may be - so quickly saw through his pathetic little illusion. But she is slowly losing her faculties, unfortunately, as she demands to know if his father also brings his prostitutes back to this place... or is it just for Pete's own?

She demands to be taken home, and Pete feels on more solid ground - and enjoys just a little too much informing her - that the place is being sprayed because it is overrun by vermin. "Oh," she says, suddenly a little of her harshness gone as she admits that she didn't remember that (because she didn't know, but her mind is in a state where she knows she forgets things she HAS been told, even if she doesn't like to admit it), but she still wants to get her things from there.

He points out the heavy rain and points out that... well... it's St. Patrick's Day! "It's May," she scoffs, but again looks lost and concerned when he insists that no it's definitely St. Patrick's Day! It's a cruel abuse of her memory issues, but Pete enjoys getting one over on her, and plays into her own prejudices by pointing out,"Who knows what's out there?" before leaving.

"I'll have the cook make your favorite for dinner," she says quietly as he goes, and for a moment that DOES give him a guilty pause. For all her faults, for the rather lovely way he was raised and the obvious favoritism she showed to Bud.... she IS still his mother, and something like this reminder that she knows what his favorite meal was and would have the cook prepare it as a nice treat is a reminder of not only what she is losing of herself, but showcases his own cruelty in exploiting her problem purely so as not to inconvenience himself.

He says nothing, just considers for a moment and feels bad... and then he's out the door, leaving his confused mother alone in his little apartment to while away the rest of the day with nothing to do and nowhere to go, not even knowing for sure what year it is or which of her friends and family are still alive and which are simply only memories now.

Don arrives to work feeling good, but pauses at Dawn's desk to note again that she is nowhere to be seen. He enters his office, and is surprised to find Peggy Olson sitting inside waiting for him. She greets him with a smile and notes he looks fresh, while Don - suspicious - takes his seat and asks where his secretary is, as well as whether this is how they do things in CGC, just walk into people's offices and wait in ambush for them?

Peggy explains gently that she wanted this to be a confidential visit, because when the merger happened her biggest hope would be that some of Ted Chaough would rub off on Don Draper... and not the other way around. Don can't quite believe she's come in here to argue on Ted's behalf as if he was being poorly treated, reminding her that he's getting everything he wants.... and obviously he also has Peggy on his side.

But this isn't the Peggy Olson who clashed with him so often in the past but was clearly always intimidated by his mentor status and the fact she used to be his secretary. She doesn't get cowed and she doesn't get overwhelmed by anger, just irritably asks him why they even bothered to do a merger if there are going to be "sides"? If he simply wanted her back he could have made her an offer, but he never even invited her to lunch!

Don gently mocks her, pointing out sarcastically that yeah sure they put the existence of the Agency at risk purely so they could have her back complaining. Peggy again keeps her cool though, simply telling him that they both know Ted can't keep up with Don drinking because NOBODY can (as Red in the Face demonstrated, even Roger Sterling can't!), and when Don sneers that Ted is a grown man, she hits him back IMMEDIATELY by pointing out.... so is Don!

"Move forward," she offers back, with the same level of contempt he puts into his argument-winning/ending one-liners, and walks out the door before he can't say anything more. Don is left stunned, not used to not getting the last word, certainly not used to being so clearly the loser in an argument, especially not with Peggy. She isn't his insecure secretary anymore. She isn't the overwhelmed Junior Copywriter. She isn't the emotional protege who struggled to articulate her feelings against his confident putdowns. This is an accomplished, successful, respected Copy Chief who just walked into the office of one of the Partners of her Agency to put him in his place and then walk out fully confident that it will have no impact on her position, career or work. This is a woman who just walked in there like SHE owns half the place.



Somebody who doesn't feel that way is Harry Crane. Sitting in his new office, he assures a worried Pete that he will be fine because Burt Peterson is gone and Ken is going to be spending most of his time in Detroit, which makes Pete the go-to for most of the work, which makes him invaluable. Pete is worried though, if it was just Roger Sterling as his competition he might be confident, but Jim Cutler is an unknown quantity and must have SOME value given he was in charge of Accounts at CGC which did well enough to be an equal size to SCDP under Pete's influence.

Harry has his own complaints though, pointing out that he's once again ended up in a lovely downgrade after too brief a time enjoying a bigger space. He doesn't mention it, but that demand that he be considered for Partnership must surely feel dead now: Ted and Cutler are in place, Frank Gleason is presumably still a Partner in name at least, Joan's status is very obviously firmly established especially given her mastery over the financial books, and as he himself already noted Pete is far from the spent force he fears he is. Does he regret his ultimatum now? His confidence that he was a major player in the Agency who could make demands?

There's a knock at the door and Clara enters, apologizing but insisting that Pete has a call he needs to take. Guessing who it is, he asks if she is injured and is up like a poo poo when Clara says she isn't... but there was a fire. He tells her to call Henry Lammott and reschedule for tomorrow since he doesn't know how long this will take, and heads away. Harry asks Clara quietly if the problem is with Trudy, but she just shakes her head and then leaves.

Harry, who had lost a lot of weight last season but appears to be backsliding somewhat, sits alone in his lovely little office, letting out a little burp and sitting doing nothing, hardly making a compelling argument for why he is a major player in the newly merged Agency.

Don managed to make it through maybe a couple of hours of work before loving off again for a nooner with Sylvia. Lying post-coitus on the floor, Sylvia notes that sometimes she just doesn't want to think about anything. "Who told you you were allowed to think?" asks Don, still in his domineering mood, but Sylvia appears more amused than turned on by this attitude today, turning around and asking him what she should be doing now?

He tells her that she must fall asleep the moment he leaves, because he's flying upstate, and he wants her waiting and ready for him the moment he comes through the door. In other words, when he says she exists only for him, he means ONLY for him. Not for herself, he doesn't even want her to exist in any conscious state between his visits for sex. When he is there, he doesn't want her thinking, asking questions, doing anything OTHER than what he instructs her. A passive, willing, unquestioning, submissive object for him to enjoy at his leisure with no other consideration.

But she's still willing to play along, the decision to submit is after all a far different thing than simply being dominated, so she tells him that she can do that. She is rather shocked when he picks up her book though and tells her he's taking it with him too, but again allows it to happen, Don removing even this pleasurable distraction, both because it would distract her from existing only for him and also because it is something she values and therefore HE wants it.

At work, Moira pops into Ted's office to ask if he has a moment for Clara, reminding him she is Pete's secretary when he clearly has no idea who Clara is. He nods and Moira motions Clara in, who explains that with Don currently out she thought she should let him know that due to an emergency for Pete they are going to reschedule the meeting with Mohawk this afternoon.

Mindful of Frank's suggestion, Ted decides gently caress that. Pete is canceling and Don isn't even here? No, they're not canceling the meeting and he wants to know what is even going on. At that moment, Don actually arrives, stepping in and noting that he's ready to go. Ted agrees he is too, grumpily pointing out that Pete wants to cancel, and Don agrees with Ted that you don't convince a client how important they are by CANCELING a meeting. He asks Clara how long Pete will be but she has no idea, which of course is no different from how Don himself operates.

Ted insists they not wait, but Don points out the heavy rain, suggesting they wait at least a couple of hours. But Ted waves that off with a grin, explaining that once you get past the clouds it's sunny as Summer!

Smash cut to Ted and Don rattling around in a shaking plane in the middle of a storm!

Don is horrified and struggling to keep his composure, while Ted is all business concentrating fully on controlling the plane. When Don tries to ask him questions, Ted is quick to quiet him, telling him now isn't the time for talk....and then finally they break free of the storm, the sun lighting them up, clear skies in front of them. Ted visibly relaxes, putting on his sunglasses, at total ease now. Don is still shaken but insists he is relaxed, so Ted teases him a little by adjusting the instruments to cause a sudden bump in their flight that makes Don snatch at the support, before cheerfully informing him that sometimes you can by flying and not even realize that you're upside down!

Trying to calm himself, Don pulls out The Last Picture Show, straining for the detached, quasi-arrogant calm he usually exhibits as he tells Ted that he likes to read on planes, not talk. Ted though points out that he'll need to talk when they meet Henry, since of course he's the one who knows him. Don admits this is true but points out that it doesn't matter what he says... because Ted is still going to be the guy that Henry sees flew them up there in his own plane.

"I guess that's true," agrees Ted with a grin, greatly enjoying the reversal of their fortunes: this time Don is the guy out of his element, Ted is clearly on top, and they both know there is nothing Don can say or do that will change that, no matter how much he can drink or how eloquent he can be.



Gail has apparently returned from the Catskills, and is more than happy to let a visiting Bob Benson into the apartment when he shows up with a football wrapped in a ribbon to give as a gift to Kevin while checking on how Joan's recovery is going. He explains obviously not for the first time that he doesn't need to SEE Joan, he really only wanted to drop off the gift, but Gail's excitement can't be contained as Joan steps out of the bedroom and realizes who is there.

Quickly closing up her gown to hide some flesh, she says hello while Bob explains again that it wasn't his intention to actually come inside, he just wanted to see if she was better because the hospital wouldn't tell him. Joan takes the football but notes warmly that at 2 years old Kevin is more likely to play with the bow, while Gail eagerly asks him to sit down for a snack. This time he is able to escape her hospitality, reminding her he needs to get back to the office, though he does admit he left his overcoat on his chair so people "know" he is there.

Gail escorts him out, then returns to gush happily over Joan having such a handsome young gentleman showing an interest in her! Joan points out he's too young for her, but Gail promises that she can tell from experience that younger men are NOT intimidated by powerful women!

Joan insists he isn't interested in her though, probably just in saving his job.... and no he didn't save her life since it turned out to just be a cyst on her ovary that was causing the pain. But Gail says even if he is worried about his job that's a perfectly reasonable way to think... and it doesn't mean that he had an ulterior motive, not every good deed is part of some master plan!

Considering the football, Joan can't help but smile... it is nice that a handsome young man took such an interest in her and bought a gift for her son, she can't deny that, even if she is wary of whether his ultimate intent was born from self-interest.

Pete returns to work, wearily explaining to Clara that his mother simply left the tea kettle on and it was mostly smoke as opposed to fire. He asks her to get Henry Lammott on the phone, and is horrified but not overly surprised to discover that Ted and Don went ahead without him. Clara, attempting to find a silver lining, points out that apparently the meeting went very well, but that doesn't please Pete at all. Angrily he reminds her that the point is that they went WITHOUT him. That means things are happening without him, which means people might start thinking he is excess to requirement. Insisting that her employment is tied to his, he notes that if things happen without him they'll soon happen without her too.

Well... no, she'll just be a secretary for somebody else!

Trying her best to ease her boss' bad mood, she points out that he shouldn't feel bad about doing something for his mother, and is appalled when Pete snaps,"My mother can go to hell! Ted Chaough can fly her there!" At a loss how to react, she timidly asks if he still wants her to get Henry Lammott on the phone, and he moans that he just needs her to give him a minute to think. She leaves, unhappy and concerned, while he stands fearing once again that his once seemingly unassailable position in the Agency is at serious risk

Don, high off the success with Henry tempered though it was by Ted winning the image game he usually so effortlessly dominates, returns to the Sherry-Netherland to celebrate victory as well as wash the bad taste of Ted getting the better of him out of his mouth.

To his surprise, Sylvia isn't simply waiting in the bed to be a passive object for his use, and he has to call out that he's here in the hopes of getting her attention. She emerges from the bathroom, dressed as normal, adjusting her earrings, acting completely normally and exhibiting none of the sultry posing or submissive swooning he was expecting.

He asks where she's going, and sweetly but with finality she picks up her top and tells him that she thinks it's time to go home. Mistaking this for another case of him imposing his will on her, he instructs that no it isn't, and when she tells him she thinks it's over, he smirks and insists it is over when HE says it's over.

This time she isn't remotely affected by his authority or his smooth voice or his intense look. She simply takes his hand and explains that she had a dream that he crashed in that plane ride. "But I'm back," he offers with firm authority, but that cracks when she continues that she dreamed she went to his funeral and Megan cried on her shoulder. "Stop it," he stumbles, but now SHE is the one in charge, telling him things while he has to listen. In her dream she returned to Arnold. They made love. She told him that she'd been away... but she was home now. And then she woke up, and she realized the "dream" that was the last two days (and the affair itself?) was also over.

As she tells him this, Don tries to stop it, but even he doesn't sound convinced. The mask of his in-control, domineering authority fell apart in a moment. His eyes are swimming with tears, he can barely hold his expression in place, he looks on the verge of falling apart, a far cry from the powerful man he always presents himself as, both at work but especially in the last two days in this room wallowing in his adolescent fantasy.

When she cups the side of his face gently, the intimacy is far more powerful than any pleasure he took from their sex, and now that he knows that it is final he feels it more intently than ever, and he doesn't want to lose it. Taking her hand, he kisses it, a common refrain from Don when a woman leaves HIM rather than the other away around.

The bastard child raised by a stern religious mother who then went through a troubled adolescence in a whorehouse, his relationships with women are fraught and complicated, often seeking out complicated or challenging women, but also longing for understanding and desperate for connections he actively prevents or spoils because he also fears commitment of any kind. This is NOT a man in total control like he wanted to fantasize, Sylvia does NOT exist purely for his pleasure, and he can't make the world stop for her when he's not there anymore than he can stop her from coming to her own conclusions and controlling the status of their relationship with her own decisions.

She feels for him, but she also pities him, and when he struggles to regain some level of control as he realizes how vulnerable he has made himself and accuses her of only leaving because she's CURRENTLY satisfied, she makes it clear she isn't leaving because she's had enough, but because at last her shame outweighed her satisfaction.

She takes her purse, and he gives up all pretense and begs her,"Please", but she won't be shaken. Turning, she tells him,"Let's go." He opens the door and she walks out, not looking back. He stands there for a moment, looking back at the bed, remembering the satisfaction that he was never able to get enough of, because of course it can never fill the void inside of him. But he doesn't see that, he sees the loss of the thing that was giving him satisfaction in the moment, and he laments that. At some point soon enough he will begrudge her and probably blame her for "ruining" what they had, but for now he's just a sad, empty man who has been shown for the second time today just how little control he actually has.



Roger, Cutler, Joan and Pete meet in the Conference Room to run through the names and figure out who will stay and who will go. Roger and Cutler argue the case for their own numbers, with SCDP having more Account Men but CGC having more Creatives, trying to find an equilibrium where neither "side" seems to get a bigger percentage of the final merged workforce. Casually Roger notes that Margie is gone, as is Steve Hagan (another first time name given a character present through most of the season in the background), so it seems her prediction was accurate that her days were numbered.

Pete claims they need Bob, so it seems that all of Bob's rear end-kissing paid off in the end as Pete comes to his defense... except Cutler casually points out that last hired, first fired means Bob should go and Pete... simply sighs but doesn't put up any fight at all! All those coffees, for nothing!

Joan though, as usual, demonstrates she's far more savvy and subtle about getting what she wants. She hasn't spoken up in Bob's defense either, and she was fully aware that Bob probably was hoping his kindness would pay off even if it was genuine kindness... but she's also not willing to simply see him lose everything without making some effort. So she casually points out as she prepares to cross him off that Bob was heavily involved in Ken's accounts, and now that Ken is servicing Detroit it will probably take awhile for Lawrence from the CGC side to get caught up.

"Fine. Lawrence is gone," mutters Cutler with absolutely no hesitation, zero loyalty for his own man, more interested in getting the meeting over even if it means people who were HIS employees end up jobless. Pete actually offers a small, grateful smile Joan's way, recognizing that she just saved Bob - he did WANT to do the right thing by Bob in return for all his brown-nosing, he just couldn't think of anything beyond his initial support - even if he has no idea she did it as a thank you to Bob for helping her. Satisfied herself but making sure not to show any particular enthusiasm or excitement one way or the other, she is all business as she moves on to the secretarial staff.

Don and Sylvia ride awkwardly up the elevator together, stopping at the 16th Floor. The doors open and she gets off without hesitation, walking away without a word or a look, making a clean break. Don watches her go miserable and not a little hurt that she was able to break things off just like that (who does she think she is, Don Draper!?!).

Soon he is home too, where Megan is enthusiastically telling him about her own day, including her success at negotiating vacation time, an acknowledgement that she understands how the show works but also confidence that they won't simply fire her and she will have a job to return to. Don is all encouraging smiles and nods, the perfect husband listening and acknowledging his wife, supporting her, being there for her.

It's all bullshit of course, he barely hears a word she says as she talks about the two of them taking a vacation, just the two of them together, her words slowly fading out in the rushing void of confusion and misery he feels at Sylvia breaking things off with him, of the complete loss of control that has left him feeling un-moored and adrift in a chaotic universe he has NO ability to manage, a helpless passenger just like he was in Ted's plane.

Pete is woken in bed by his frightened mother, informing him in a panic that "They shot that poor Kennedy boy!"
Half-asleep, irritated, Pete explains that was years ago, ignoring her insistence that she just saw it on television, looking at the clock and complaining it is 6am. "You'll be late for school!" she insists, herself un-moored and unable to distinguish between things she is seeing in the present and things that happened in the past.

Because Pete doesn't know it yet, but she was right, they have shot that poor Kennedy boy. In 1963, JFK was assassinated in Dallas and it shook up the lives of the characters just like it shook up the lives of most Americans. In April of 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. Now on June the 5th, 1968, Bobby Kennedy has been shot in Los Angeles, and he will die a little over a day later in hospital. He will not be the Democratic Nominee for President. He will not follow in his brother's footsteps and become President.

At the Drapers, Megan sits on the end of the bed watching and crying at the footage on television of Kennedy being cradled by Juan Romero in the aftermath of the shooting. Don enters the room having dressed, presumably intending to go to work, and quietly moves past her and sits on the edge of the bed, not looking at the television. He says nothing to his wife, offers no words of comfort, doesn't even touch her or try to offer comfort that way.

What is Don thinking as yet another Kennedy has been shot and likely to die? Is his mind still wrapped up in his own petty concerns re: Sylvia? Is he too overwhelmed to really process anything? Does he fear speaking or talking to Megan in case he says or does the wrong thing like he fears he once did with Betty after JFK's death? Does he in some way begrudge this assassination for sucking the oxygen out of the room and meaning there is no space for anybody else to feel miserable about their own issues?

It doesn't matter, none of it matters. Because whatever the reason, at the end of the day a horrible event has happened. As the credits roll, the song interspersed with bits of news reports covering the assassination, we are left with the last image of the episode being Don Draper failing in any way to be there for his wife and supposed soulmate. Megan weeps, and there is no comfort from the man who is supposed to be there for better or worse, in sickness and in health, till death do them part.

Maybe you could argue he himself needs support and comfort just as much and shouldn't be expected to bear the burden all himself... but the thing is, Megan would offer him that comfort and support if he needed it, and you can guarantee that she either already has or will try to talk to him about this. Don told Sylvia that he and Megan were drifting apart, a bullshit justification for his affair, but here in this terrible moment in American history, when these two should be close together to help each other, they are apart. Who is the person primarily responsible for once more pulling away and causing that rift? It is undoubtedly Don Draper.



Episode Index

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Feb 20, 2022

Randallteal
May 7, 2006

The tears of time
One Bob rises, one Bob falls

GoutPatrol
Oct 17, 2009

*Stupid Babby*

The Burt/Roger meeting is so great and I think I watch it once a month.

Ungratek
Aug 2, 2005


“I was thinking about you talking over me in meetings… now I don’t have that problem!”

I Love Loosies
Jan 4, 2013


They for sure only brought Burt back for this scene.

kalel
Jun 19, 2012

it's clear that Don is using the domination roleplay as a way to create an environment where he has complete control, as an escape from the ambiguous status quo at "his" agency. but really it's just an expression of the behavior he's always exhibited with his paramours taken to an extreme; he doesn't want them to exist except as extensions of his own desire. he has a recurring need to dominate women, to make them subservient to him—socially, financially, psychologically, sexually—and when he can't fulfill this desire at home, he goes out and gets it from someone else.

quote:

"Move forward," she offers back

a small callback to the advice Don gave Peggy in season 2 during her catatonic episode. here Peggy is implicitly equating their behavior (she has probably internalized some shame about her past)

kalel fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Feb 19, 2022

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Mameluke
Aug 2, 2013

by Fluffdaddy
Countdown to the review I've been waiting for Jerusalem to write since this project began...

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