Mad Men 2.9: Six Months Leave, 9/28/08 (open spoilers)

Cafe Society
21

Don had several reasons to be pissed at Jane. He wasn’t impressed to find her in tears over Monroe’s death. She made googly eyes at him. She presumed to buy him shirts (from Mencken’s even). She didn’t appear to get it when he told her his private life was private. She seemed to think okay, I won’t tell anybody, this is just between you and me, like they shared a secret. She let Mona into his office. Then she cried again.

And apparently Don thinks Jane’s been sleeping with Roger, which would make her a big ol’ office slut since she’s been coming on to Don as well.

Freddy peeing himself – I’ve seen drunks piss themselves but only when they were obviously blotto. Maybe that’s Freddy’s normal state – if he’s always pickled, nobody’d know if he was drunk or sober.

Don really likes Freddy. He could have at least made a lunch date with him before putting him in the cab. Let him know their friendship wasn’t over.

22

Demonstrating my hypocritical double standard, I thought “Oh, someone send this silly twit away” when it was Jane crying, but thought “Comfort her and give her whatever for needs” when it was Joan.

But then, Joan’s a classy dame who can be forgiven a moment of weakness, handled discreetly. (Whose office was she crying in, anyway–Roger’s?) Jane’s a twit.

23

I think Don also suspects Jane told Roger about Don’s marital problems.

24

About the Freddie intoxication thing… I’ve known a few hardcore alcoholics who only appear slightly buzzed but could blow a .3 on a breathalyzer. It’s kind of impressive, until you stop to think how drunk they must be how often in order to reset their baseline and appear fairly normal at that level of intoxication.

Practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes liver death.

25

A direct contrast to Peggy. Peggy’s attitude was basically “this is very sad, but luckly it doesn’t affect us so we can go back to work”. She’s very good at compartmentalizing. Of course she will breakdown upon learning of Freddy’s suicide, but Don will consider that excusable. The reason Don was pissed at Sterling was because Sterling brough his name up when breaking up with his wife. He sure as hell doesn’t want Sterling draggin him into his marital problems.

26

I just rewatched that final scene, and the interactions between Roger and Jane, and Roger and Don, make me think that he was sleeping with Jane, but I certainly hope it wasn’t her he left his wife for, since she’s a twit, and as has already been said, he’s clearly in love with Joan.

27

I guess Don did have a reason for that disgusted look towards Roger. It’s not that Roger is leaving his wife, it’s that Roger had the nerve to point to Don as his inspiration for leaving. I can’t believe his wife bought that. I also can’t believe she didn’t light into Jane, who was sitting right there, instead of Don. Or in addition to Don.

28

I rarely get to watch the show when it’s broadcast, so my chance comes on Monday or Tuesday night.

So to add my $0.02 to this:

I was very young when MM died, but I can certainly believe many people reacted the way portrayed in the ep. Hell, I saw people in my office wandering around in a daze when Heath Ledger died this year. People get close to celebrities, no matter how distant they are, and MM was a big part of (some) people’s lives. So that was believable to me.

I too thought Freddy was either narcoleptic, or was having a heart attack. I kept waiting for him to collapse. Then I thought he’d had a coronary at his desk, and finally realized he’d just passed out. It was very telling though, when Don said to him, “Good night”, when Freddy got in the cab, and Freddy said, “Good bye”. No doubt there’s a suicide there.

Betty and the lunch: Is she just lashing out? Manipulating relatively innocent people as she’s been manipulated? And what did Betty’s friend mean at the lunch about it being infinitely more fun? Could she have possibly meant a threesome?

Pete showed himself (again) to be a sneaky little shit. I bet he was an Omega in college (Animal House).

Finally, Don, Roger, and Joan, et al. Wow. The pressure’s really getting to Don, and I think he’s trying to do the right thing, at least as right as he knows how, but can’t help himself. Imagine if you told him he had to quit drinking. He’d try, and probably fail, but he’d try. Roger, on the other hand, would say, screw it. I’m going out in a blaze of glory. Joan, well, I’m still not sure about her. We didn’t see or hear anything about her engagement, so we can’t really judge about it.

29

No, she just meant that she was pleased to see him.

30

I appreciate the clarification. The threesome angle stretched things a bit too far for me, but OTOH, I was trying to think why she said it that way. She seemed a little too pleased to me. But maybe I was reading things into it that weren’t there.

31

I just took it to mean that Freddy knew the whole “six months off” thing was bullshit, and that he wouldn’t be coming back to work for them.

32

She was. But that doesn’t mean she was implying a menage-a-trois.

33

Yes, exactly. She’s talked several times about having a crush on Arthur, so she meant that she would enjoy having lunch with him and getting his attention, but nothing more.

34

Bingo. Betty enjoys the power that comes with fucking around with her friend’s marriage. She’s bitter with this false perception that Don is the perfect husband, and she wants to see others as confused and miserable as she is.

I know she comes off as distant and icy, but I really feel for Betty. She has no outlet for her feelings, no one to confide in, no idea what to do next. I would love to see her turn this separation into something positive for herself, but I just don’t see that happening.

35

Something I just found out – Roger Sterling’s wife Mona is played by John Slattery’s actual wife (who is also George Clooney’s ex-wife).

36

Whose fault is that?

I’m not asking to be a smart-ass. I love the show, but I have seen all of 5 minutes of the first season. Why is she so isolated?

37

I’m so glad we’re having threads for this show. I wouldn’t have picked up on Betty setting up Sarah Beth and Arthur. When she took her phone off the hook, I thought it was because she decided at the last minute not to go. Having so much fun baking cookies, etc. But yeah, it looks like sabotage. That’s cold.

Skald, I think Betty’s isolated because she can’t be honest with anyone. The only person she’s been honest with is Glenn, and he’s 11. She’s tried to be close to Don, but as we’ve seen, he’s not sharing his feelings with her.

38

It’s like when Freddy says, “If I don’t have that office to go in to everyday, who am I?”

For Betty, her entire identity and self-image is enmeshed with being The Perfect Wife. To admit to anyone that her marriage is not perfect, that her family is not perfect is impossible. To do so would drastically alter her sense of the world and her place in it. Notice how when she finally has to admit that Don’s having an affair (outloud and “to the world”, that is. Remember she told him he thought he could do whatever he wanted as long as nobody “knows about it.”), it throws her into a spiral of depression and despair for days.

It’s absolutely vital that a good face be given to the outside world. You don’t air your dirty laundry in public. It’s the times. This is long before everyone confessed everything to everybody on national television! :smiley: It reminds me of my father’s family during that time (50’s to early 60’s). Perfect on the outside. Really, really disfunctional on the inside.

39

What niblet_head said. I can’t vouch for every single detail, but certainly overall, the show is very accurate and true to the time. They’re just on the cusp of The 60s Revolution: this week’s episode was August '62, and the British Invasion was a scant 2 years later. I keep seeing teasers in the characters, in that they’re starting to bulge at the seams, almost, but not quite, ready to blow the 60s apart. For instance, I see Peggy as the proto-type feminist, the kind that will lead the charge less than 10 years later to break the glass ceiling. Not Peggy herself so much, just the type of person she is.

I think Betty is pretty conflicted. She’s confused about who she is: she spent time as a model, which stereotypically anyway, is a pretty shallow profession. Models are supposed to be airheads. Couple that with the times, where women weren’t supposed to work (except in very specific capacities: nurse, teacher, secretary, etc.), and she’s limited. I think she’s eventually going to explode in one way or the other. Either break down completely, or become her own woman. A person can dance on a knife edge only so long.

40

What she needs is a Mother’s Little Helper!
(To go with all that wine she drinks.)