I didn’t really like this episode much. The characterizations seemed to be a bit off. There were a few reaction shots from people that were just confusing. Don’s hitting on the young girl was out of character - for Dick Whitman.
The relationship he has with Anna was so strange… They look to be roughly the same age, but she’s not even remotely romantically interested in him, or he in her? Given how much love they profess to each other, that seems strange.
And I don’t buy that she wouldn’t have figured out the cancer. Even if they were trying to hide it from her, she’d have to figure it out by the types of specialties she was visiting and the kinds of tests they were doing on her. She doesn’t seem stupid.
The scene with Joan and her husband seemed very awkward to me. Her reaction while he was sewing her up was strange. She went from fear to admiration to crying. The moment she started admiring him was when he started telling her the story to take her mind off the pain - at that moment, I thought she was learning that he’d be really good with children. Then his story took a turn into ‘donkey dick’, and she started crying almost immediately. The way the scene was shot it looked like she became upset that he went for the vulgar, but that seemed a bit wrong too. So hell if I know what was up there.
The first thing I thought when he started being nice to her was, “This guy is SO doomed. Vietnam, here we come…”
Anyway… When they rang in 1965, I was thinking how cool it would be if they do this show in real time - advance a year in the show for each year the show runs. Then if the show lasts 10 years, we’d get to see the 1960’s turn into the 1970’s all over again, and watch people live through all that change in real time. It would be very cool. But it looks like they’re accelerating it a bit. Other than the Korea flashbacks, the show started in 1959-1960, didn’t it? That means they’ve gone through five years of time in Don’s world in three years.
Yuck. I hated this episode. I thought Anna’s lines were more schmaltzy than usual. Yes, yes, Anna is the perfect mother Dick never had. Obvious!
Don taking hookers and Lane back to his apartment? I can see trysts like the one he had when he was with Sal, it’s not like he hides he’s a dog from his co-workers, but back to his home? I’m not buying it.
Too obvious with Joan at the gyno, talking openly about having abortions. Possible, yes. But again, too obvious.
I like my Mad Men to shock and amuse me. This episode annoyed me.
Well, it’s not as if she went to BARNARD or anything ;).
My thought was that Don low-balled it to Lane - he had really wanted to gift him the evening anyway. For some reason I remember him paying his call girl $100 in the other show.
And Anna wanted her niece to stay, in part, because she had WEED. She’s probably already having some pretty bad pain…
I’m thinking he was stoned…Mrs. Mix agrees with you (looking for another bedpost notch) but I thought it was Don’s best attempt at being sincere - something he’s not used to. Why else would he be talking about how he had felt about Betty? Skeevy yes, and maybe her Mom is an effective cock block, but I predict the niece(?) returns at some point.
So, is Harry’s (TV/media guy) self-assuredness going to play itself out with an inevitable rise to power, or is he in over his head and not the right guy for the job when television advertising becomes a cash cow?
I think that she knows, and I suspect that Dick figured out that she’d prefer to go on pretending that nothing is wrong… and knew he’d never be able to keep quiet about it if he stayed, and so had to go.
At least I hope that’s what happened, because Don has turned into a chump this season and it’d be nice if Dick didn’t go that way, too.
Depending on how far Weiner takes the storyline into the future, I’m sorta expecting that Joan will get a can’t-have-a-child storyline mixed up with Dr. Rape coming back from Vietname with a love child for her to raise for him.
I’m with you. It seemed as though they are having a hard time determining what stories to work on so they filled it with a ton of the Lane/Don revelry which didn’t add to much (the whole comics line about them being gay?). That minor bit of male bonding went on far too long when there are so many other storylines we are curious about.
Her sister said that she brought Anna’s X-rays to specialists. I didn’t get the impression that Anna herself had been carted around to specialists. Her other doctor visits were under the guise of her polio.
That said, I was fully expecting the “You have cancer” “Oh, Dick, I know…” exchange as well and was surprised when it never came.
I didn’t see it a a minor bit of male bonding. It seemed like his time with Lane was the first bit of real human interaction/intimacy that Don (not Dick) has had in a very, very long time. The gay joke was funny but they did look like they were on a date. Don was relaxed and smiling, and he seemed genuinely happy to have somebody with him who really just liked him for him. Turns out, he’s actually pretty funny when he’s not trying to be charming or trying to be anybody besides a guy who likes movies and food. He’s got no friends, and every date or interaction he’s had with women has been skeevy as hell this season. Even the morning after wasn’t really awkward, and Lane seemed genuinely appreciative of Don’s effort.
After the shitty Christmas Don must have had, and the shitty year he’s had, it was nice that for a little while, he could be with a few people who genuinely like him, with no rivalries or sexual politics.
I agree with pepperlandgirl. The male bonding between Lane and Don was the best part of the episode. Lane enjoyed America, but he didn’t seem to enjoy being at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce too much. With Don making an effort to be his friend, he has more reason to stay and tough it out with SCDP as opposed to running back to England to fix things up with his wife. Two lonely men finding comfort in each others company is ripe for comic mischief. Plus, maybe Don can find more of an equal in Lane as opposed to his relationship with Roger where Roger always assumes the role of the superior.
But absolutely in character for Don Draper. I think this is part of the melding of Don and Dick that started at the end of last season. Don’s starting to take on more of Dick Whitman’s traits in his everyday life and the Don Draper persona is seeping out of Dick even when he’s in California. Still cringeworthy though. I kept shouting “No, Don! Don’t ruin the only good relationship you have!” at the TV.
Dick’s supposed to be at least 10 years younger than the real Don Draper. So, unless the real Don married much younger, I’m betting Anna is at least a decade older than Dick. Don 2.0 probably wouldn’t mind shacking up with an older lady (a la Bobbie Barrett), but Dick Whitman probably wouldn’t. He also probably feels bad enough about stealing a dead man’s identity, hitting on his widow might have been too much of a low for him.
I’m not sure Anna would be all that upset about Don and the niece. She was giving them some interesting looks.
And I think that Anna and Don simply don’t do it for each other sexually. And they’ve been together long enough to build a more familial relationship anyway. But I don’t think it would have been out of the question for them to have gotten together if things had flowed slightly differently.
When Anna dies essentially Dick Whitman dies as well since she’s the last living person who knows him by that name (save perhaps for the random people of no real importance from his youth).
I can’t think of a more crass or inappropriate relationship than a sexual one between Dick and Anna. Even Dick Whitman, son of a prostitute and a dishonest man, would never cross that line.
Thought It’s not clear if Anna’s sister & neice know that Dick Whitmen is Don Draper. They probally just think “Don” abandoned her and Dick is an ex-lover. Cooper just doesn’t care and Pete’s long stopped caring as well.
The writers very likely had to have Dick Whitman hit on somebody, anybody just to underscore that Don and Dick are more of the same man than you’d believe. Yes, he gets to smile and paint in in shorts and generally let his hair down (see that sport coat) when he’s Dick - but it’s not Tyler Durden, he’s still the same man whore.
I gave up trying to predict story lines in S1, when I refused to believe Peggy was pregnant. It seemed like too much of a cliche, in a show that generally avoids them.
So I don’t know what to think about Joan apparently trying to get pregnant. I thought all of that was just to show us that Joan feels better about marrying Greg and that, like everything else she does, she’s trying to do what she thinks a “good wife” would do. She tries to arrange her work schedule to accommodate Greg’s, she fixes him a special dinner, she lets him work on her injured hand – next step, give him a baby. I think she’s trying too hard to be happy.
I liked Don and Lane and their night on the town, especially at the movie, with Lane yelling gibberish Japanese. Cool that the audience laughed too.
I think Anna knows she has cancer. Her comment to Don when they were hugging, something like “You’ll get through it, you always do” – double meaning? If she’s been going to doctors all her life, she’ll be in touch with her body. Breaking a leg is serious stuff. It doesn’t just happen. “Frying an egg in bare feet”? I think she’s being brave, not just for her family but especially for Don. She doesn’t want him to let her down, but mostly, she loves him so much that she doesn’t want to give him the opportunity to let himself down.
They know Don Draper is Dick Whitman, but they know him as Don Draper, not as Dick Whitman. They know Don as the Don Draper persona, not the Dick Whitman one.
I thought Allison looked okay, like she’d forgiven Don for the crassness of handing over her bonus check on the morning after. Maybe she’s glad he’s pretending it didn’t happen. Surely she couldn’t have expected much from him.