slop101

since no one else was doing it...


discuss...

Tracer Bullet

Good episode. Loved when Don put the smackdown on the brother.

Was it really common to call condoms "Trojans" in the early '60s?

Patman

This episode just flew by, I was shocked when the episode was over.

Was there really a Pepsi diet drink by the name of Patio? Ye gads!

Don really can sell snow to eskimos.

slop101

I didn't quite understand the ending with Don and Peggy.

Count Dooku

Peggy was hurt that Don reacted to Ann Margaret the same way all the other men did, and she was upset that Don shut down her "we need to sell to women differently"-thinking so bluntly.

The final scene showed that Peggy was becoming enough of a professional to put it behind her (after a one night stand) and deal with Don head on, just like the guys do. The old Peggy would have cowered in her office afraid to approach Mr. Draper with any more ideas.

Count Dooku

What did Don say? It's a drink that sounds like a floor. (and it's dietetic!)

DJariya

Really good episode.

It was good seeing Peggy gain some confidence and be in control, especially after the 1 night stand and approaching Don in the final scene.

Betty's brother is such a douche bag. Good to see Don put him in his place.

Frankly, I don't blame Roger's daughter for being pissed at him about his relationship with Jane and bringing her to her wedding. Roger has always been an ego maniac and everything is about him.

Buttmunker

Don and Betty will regret taking in Betty's father. In 1963 (and for the next 15 years, I guess), it was very common to do so. Now, though, we just throw them into institutions.

uteotw

I don't really get the whole Peggy thing, or maybe it just felt like too much. Why exactly did she go the bar, fake being a secretary, and hook up for a one-night stand? Because her idea was rejected? Because that's just the type of person she is and just felt like it (kinda like Don)? Meh.

I'm totally mesmerized by the sets on this show. Every single one is pure genius.

SonOfAStu

I thought for sure when Don and Betty got up in the middle of the night that the sound we heard was her father taking a leak in the kitchen. Wonder how many $$ worth of booze he poured out.

mugwump

I liked the exchange between Don and his father-in-law regarding the accommodations.

I watched this late last night and as soon as my eyes opened this morning I had "Bye Bye Birdie" stuck in my head. Not a great way to start the day.

Tommy Ceez

After being called a prude 100 times and realizing that she takes the things in the office 1000x more seriously than the guys, she went to a bar, got drunk, hit on some guys and got laid, just like they do, and she was over it.

She was grabbing her place in the office, not as the girl doing girl ads, but as just one of them

Count Dooku

I think that it's so easy to think of MAD MEN as "The Don Draper Show", that viewers overlook the fact that the show's female lead isn't wife Betty Draper, it's Peggy Olson --and the show has to pay service to the evolution of her character, even if it does so in briefer, sketchier strokes because so much time will necessarily be focused on Don Draper.

Even though she has never heard the word, Peggy is a feminist --considering that the FEMININE MYSTIQUE was just published in 1963, Peggy is like "the last of the proto-feminists".
Peggy is charting a course in the world for which she has no guide or map. Peggy wants to be a new kind of woman (even if she doesn't fully realize that, yet) and when she looks around her she sees Betty (Grace Kelly swallowed a basketball) and Joan (Marylin Monroe with typing skills).

When Peggy looks to her mentor and father-figure, Don Draper, for guidance or reassurance, he tells curtly informs her that every man wants, and every woman wants to be, Ann Margaret --a 25 yr old SEX BOMB playing at being the virginal teenage girl next door.

So what does Peggy do?

She does exactly what every man on the show does.

Don is living a lie --literally, living his life pretending to be someone else.
And Don's "advice" to Sal last week?
Essentially: You're gay and you're pretending that you're not gay. I'll keep your secret, but you need to "limit your exposure" --get better at living your lie.

So, Peggy play acts at being something she is not. She uses Joan's "subway"-line at the bar to flirt and pretends to be secretary on the make for a good time.
And what did Peggy learn? That she could do it, but (I think) she didn't like it or like the person she was pretending to be. And even if Don/Daddy/Boss doesn't approve, she's going to chart her own course --but she's soon going to get some company.

FinkPish

I thought the same thing.

Was there anything in or after the scene where Peggy goes into Don's office to talk about Pampers? My DVR cut off right as he lights up a cigarette.

I liked this episode, but I wasn't sure I understood Don's slo-mo vision of the maypole dance. Was it the teacher specifically or what she represented (happiness, nature) or something else? He was stroking the grass, but I'm not sure what that means.

Tommy Ceez

I think she reminded him of the Beatnik chick he used to sleep with

FinkPish

Could be. Or maybe the feelings that being with that type of girl brought up, the freedom, the disconnect from real life, which for Don was getting more and more stressful and complicated.

Did folks notice that Roger's daughter's wedding was the day after JFK's assassination?

Tommy Ceez

LOL

She cant win

Jadzia

As a woman, I interpreted Peggy's actions a little differently. I sense that Peggy is conflicted by the duality of her situation - she wants to be taken seriously at work for her brains, but she is also a little awed at Joan's feminine ability to attract male attention. She is not sure if she wants to be "one of the guys" or desired as a woman. (Note her uncomfortable "thanks" when she was told she wasn't fat anymore at the meeting.)

After over-hearing Joan flirt with the male clients, she goes to the bar and even uses Joan's line to pick up a guy. But she is clearly in control of the situation and she leaves the one-night stand as casually as a man would. Someone on another site even pointed out that her 'this was fun" line came directly from what Pete once said to her.

So I took the whole sequence of events as Peggy assuring herself that men do find her desirable, AND that she can be just one of the guys. I thought it was pretty powerful.

HotThang

Did anyone else catch the date of Roger's daughter's wedding?



Spoilered just in case you wanted to go back and have the "whoaw!" moment yourself. :-)

Edit: LOL! I type too slow, Finkpish!

FinkPish

Look 3 posts above yours.

Count Dooku

Jadzia,
I think it's an interesting semantic choice you make.
First, you say that Peggy's duality is: "she wants to be taken seriously at work for her brains, but she is also a little awed at Joan's feminine ability to attract male attention" --then, in the next sentence you describe the duality as: "She is not sure if she wants to be "one of the guys" or desired as a woman."
You equate (for Peggy) being accepted as professional with being accepted as a guy.

I think Peggy is in the nascent stages of realizing that she doesn't want to make that equation for her life.

Peggy is in control during her night out, but she's playing at being something she's not, and quoting Pete's "This was fun." doesn't say much for her opinion of the night (in my opinion).
Was it fun?
She went to a crowded bar, and hid who she really was, just so she could go to bed with some guy who was clearly beneath her, that she will never see again. And what was "the other stuff" they did instead of having sex? She gave him a blow-job or a hand-job? Did he perform orally on her? (remember it's 1963)

I think it can be powerful for Peggy to realize that men do desire her, just as long as they are actually desiring who she really is.

slop101

BTW, I got a huge laugh out of Joan's rocket-brazier.

Jadzia

In 1963, that was the reality (and still is to some extent). Peggy has no female professional role models at the office. Don is really whose position she aspires to be, but as a woman she can never truly *be* Don. So she has to somehow try and fit in with all the guys around her or else be dismissed like one of the secretaries. This is something women struggle with even today at work, but Peggy is on the frontlines dealing with it.

I don't know how many times in my own career I have experienced this - the boys club going out to strip clubs, playing golf etc. - it can be very hard for a woman to feel like she can get ahead in this type of environment. When the bosses are all guys, you kind of have to be one of the guys to fit in.

When she went to the bar, she was playing a role, pretending to be someone she wasn't - in many ways just like Don did in the last episode when he was out of town. Although for her as a woman, she had to play herself down and be the opposite of the role she plays at the office.

I find her fascinating because I think her struggle resonates so much with how many women feel. You can totally be balls out at the office and make people respect your mind and authority, but as a woman at the end of the day you still want to feel pretty and desirable. Peggy wants to be respected like Don, but she also wants to be desired like Joan. She is trying to find that balance between the two.

OldBoy

if you're gonna do it at least make the title pretty

Patman

Have Joan's proportions been this big in the past seasons?