Dr. Rape is a nice shorthand, and I think we can all agree that it was rape. But…I think looking at it from Joan’s perspective, she’s probably not even thinking about it as rape. 45 years ago, thinking of your fiance wanting to have sex with you was about as far removed from rape as you could get. I’m not saying that Joan’s forgotten about it. Far from it. But, to her, it really wasn’t rape. At most, it was just a simple struggle for power and Joan’s pretty good at playing that game.
To an extent, but I also think that (by her own choice) she puts a huge amount of her self worth and her ego into her appeal as a sexual object of desire. This continuing sympathetic notion of Joan as a puppet vs a puppeteer does not (IMO) reflect the reality of the situation. She may not be full empowered, but by no means is she powerless.
Is it her own choice? Does she truly realize that she is capable of being more than a hot secretary and clever wife? Honestly, I don’t think it’s ever occurred to her that she could do what Peggy has done, or something like it. Even if it did, she’d probably find it distastefully unfeminine and likely impossible for her. As for the puppet v. puppeteer, all the major characters on the show are both. They are not powerless, but are constrained by their roles as to how they can exert that power. All of them (with the exception of Peggy) don’t realize that they don’t have to accept those roles, and that their acceptance of them is what prevents them from truly being happy.
ETA: The Sixties was a great time for casting off those roles, so maybe that’s what we’re going to see happening in the upcoming seasons.
It did occur to her when she inherited the TV scripts job and absolutely excelled at it. Clueless Harry, then farmed that position out from under her feet and to just another suit.
I’m sure that incident just confirmed to her that such jobs are really out of reach and not worth getting her hopes up for. More’s the pity, because she would have been great at that. If she had a little more Peggy in her, maybe she could have campaigned for the job instead of just resigning herself to her fate.
Joan might be starting to realize that she be something other than secretary, wife/mother, or mistress, but does she have the slightest clue how do go about doing that? I don’t think so. I think she’s going to end up getting even more passive aggresive. I wonder if she & Roger will end up cheating on their respective spouses with eachother.
I wondered about that too, but Weiner said in this week’s extra that Roger and Jane are very much in love, and that Don is jealous of what they have. What I saw as passion between Don and Betty in that last scene, Weiner says is both of them realizing that they want something/someone else. Talk about misdirection! 
I don’t see how it would be in his interest to make his wife look foolish in front of his boss.
It wouldn’t, but Greg seems so envious and vindictive, he might not care. It doesn’t make sense, but when people are having a power struggle like Joan and Greg are, they don’t act logically.
I think he accomplished two things by making Joan drag out the accordion: He took his guests’ minds off of that botched surgery, and he lessened their high opinion of Joan. As much as they appeared to enjoy her performance, you know what they’re going to tell their high-class friends. “Oh yes, we met Joan, Greg’s wife. She’s beautiful, charming, and she’s a great hostess, but you know what she did last night after dinner? She played the accordion and sang a risque French song!”
If he needs to be schooled in the basics of how to set a table for a dinner party I’m pretty sure he’s not coming from an “I’m more sophisticated” perspective. If anything it made him look a bit like a social bumpkin. There was also an under-current of concern for him “doing well” in the older wife’s comment about she’s not “worried” for him if he was able to get a woman like Joan. It makes me think his peers (and thus their wives) might be thinking he’s not quite up to speed.
Doc R is definitely not well liked by his peers & their wives–and that is important in a medical career. Surgeons are allowed to have less “bedside manner” than (other) doctors–if the technical skill makes up for it. It seems as though he’s lacking there, too. Joan knows advertising, but she only knows about medicine from what the creep told her.
I wish we knew more about Joan’s past. (Scene of girl in braids, playing accordion in Uncle Stan’s restaurant for college money.) Surely, she could have married earlier if all she wanted was a rich hubby. But she enjoyed being a single girl in the big city. The technical aspects of her job came easy & she liked learning how an ad agency was run. Then she was distracted by Roger for a few years.
So–time to marry. Doc R is handsome in a way. And I think she actually cared that he had an interesting profession–not just one that promised to pay off. As a supportive wife, she could do some good. But she discovered that she could do more interesting work, just as that opportunity was snatched from her. Now she realizes hubby’s doing neither good nor well. And I doubt she’s forgotten the rape, even if she doesn’t use that word.
So Joan may be “forced” to work at SC a bit longer. Go Joan!
Well, this is a group who giggles madly at the phrase “cut the cheese” and page one another to eyeball naked coma chicks. Risque French songs seem right up their alley.
I have a hard time imaging Jane loving Roger or doing anything but using him for his money knowing that it can’t be too long before his third heart attack.
I suspect you’re wildly overestimating the sophistication and “high-classiness” of her audience. I didn’t get the impression that they had any particular airs, the boss’s wife freely acknowledged that she’d has to support her husband when he was getting started (with her salary as a teacher, not her trust fund), and commended Joan for doing the same, and apparently rather well.
I also suspect you’re underestimating Joan’s ability to gauge her audience. She chose that song for a reason, and she chose correctly. They left with quite a fine opinion of her, I think.
Jane’s seriously embarrassing herself. She has nowhere near the backbone required for the level of bitch to which she’s aspiring.
I have to concur that an accordian was nowhere near as goofy then as it is now.
And just in from the Pointed Irony Department: she was singing a song extolling the virtues of a “Magnificent Marriage”.
Peggy reminds me of my mom. She would have so marched in and demanded to smoke marijuana.
I keep picturing Betty with a rocks glass and an ashtray perched on her expanded tummy. But seriously, who flirts with a woman that pregnant? Especially then?
Grandpa bugs me and it’s not just because he looks like John McCain. He needs to have an aneurysm soon.
I know! Visibly pregnant women get catcalled and hit on, but he seemed quite serious about pursuing her. Was he hoping to slip in an affair before she was due or build up to it over nursing and nap time?
You’d be surprised. Betty is an exceptionally attractive woman, and pregnancy is, after all, a temporary state (and one she’s about to be relieved of).
You noticed that Joan didn’t sing “Who Stole the Kishka?” It went over great at Uncle Stan’s restaurant, but she picked another number for the doctors & their ladies.
Yeah, I’m probably projecting my own snobbishness on Joan and the accordion. The blonde’s comment that in her family, someone played the piano while mother read to them after dinner made me think that she was expecting something different, but you’re right, she acted pleased, and there were no smirks.
Damn, for some reason this didn’t record at our house. I just watched the first two episodes of the season this week and was wondering why they didn’t air a third on Sunday - we were out that night for our anniversary.
If you have cable with “On Demand” viewing, it might be available.