Really. The whole episode lays the ground for that one scene, and then just leaves us hanging.
Yep.
And they didn’t exactly draw from a broad group – it was all secretaries, which may be a key market for Ponds, but not the only. They just want to be able to tell Ponds that market research supports their pitch. And Don doesn’t even care about that much.
Did we know that Faye was married that time Don thought she was coming in to his office to come on to him?
! splutter
:eek:
Would it kill Don to answer any question about himself? He’s that stooped over old lady, growling “inside” in the face of every question he hears, regardless of how innocuous it is.
I know that Manhattan has the nation’s most expensive apartments and always has, but it’s surprising how dank and dreary Don’s place is. Surely he could afford something airier- I see him more as the ultra modern swinging bachelor pad “as close as you can get to California and be in Manhattan” type place with lots of natural light and a balcony and modern (for the 1960s) art on the walls. And while perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Pears are Soviet spies and have ample expense accounts they certainly don’t seem rich- you’d think he’d spring for a ritzier place.
Hollywood gossip trivia: I was surprised to learn that Elisabeth Moss and Fred Armisen have already broken up; they haven’t even been married for a year. (Scientology maybe?)
I was waiting for someone to point out old “She’s Lovely/She’s Engaged/She Uses Pond’s” was pretty well dated by that time.
I think this is the same furnished apartment he had Joan lease on a couple days notice. He’s still adjusting to being single. Plus there’s no one really prodding Don to upgrade his pad. Other than his housekeeper, children, and prostitutes Lane is the first person he’s actually invited in (& even then he was plastered).
And there were prostitutes.
I don’t know why, but the notion of letting a work friend make it with a prostitute on my bed ‘ewws’ me out. I suppose the kid’s bunkbeds would be a worse place, but mainly since money is no object I’d want him to take her to a hotel or to his place or some other place that’s not my bed.
As TheTerribleTako said, Miss Blankenship is funny in her (even more) old-fashioned-ness. “… she’s a woman.” Also, does she always stand to answer/talk on the phone?
For someone who started out so dead sexy they are really making the New York Don a model of decrepitude. He looks like he smells of cigarettes, old man aftershave, and whisky.
Re him not being poor re the hundreds of thousands he got for selling his part of the firm to the British company I imagine that’s being beat up by the cost of whatever settlement he made for the divorce, the cost of still carrying the house, and the start up costs of the new firm is crunching him a bit. Plus he’s just kind of tight with money per his poor background.
You kind of want to like creative, take charge Don as the avatar for the go-go charge of the 60’s, but as the seasons of Madmen Men progress Don comes off more and more like a self involved dick. I’m not despising him, but it’s really hard to feel sorry for him. He’s brought all his troubles on himself.
Don will end up a better person; Pete will end up a worse person.
I love this show 
Why Peggy’s sudden interest in Pete? Is he the one who got away? Has she been seeing their kid? Does she just want a piece of that pasty bottom?
I think Peggy and Pete are just two incredibly awkward people who are comfortable with each other cause they share the same goals and neurosis. I don’t know if he’s the one who got away, but I think Peggy realizes that they’re very alike in their outlook. Peggy’s just much less weaselly about how she gets what she wants since she’s more talented than Pete and had Don looking out for her. They’re a matched set in some ways.
I believe Peggy has moved on, but she still envies him because it looks like Pete’s getting everything they both wanted as the decade goes on. He has Trudy, who’s a saint for putting up with him, his own apartment in the city, partnership, a place in the boy’s club, and now a child. It’s everything Peggy wants in addition to her job, but because she’s a woman, it’s been very elusive for her. So she looks for Pete clones, because subconsciously, she wants Pete’s life, just not necessarily Pete himself.
Natural light? A balcony? In Manhattan? Don may be rich, but he’s not THAT rich.
Don’s place - a largish 2-bedroom in the Village - would probably go for around $4,000 a month these days (or at least it would back when I was living in NYC eight years ago). That’s pretty much what you’d expect for someone like Don.
Mr. and Mrs. Pears probably have rent control, seeing as they’ve had their apartment since the Wilson administration.
No, we saw at the end of Season 2 that she had gotten over Pete. And the baby was adopted; he is definitely out of the picture. Peggy & Pete do get along well, as co-workers.
She was surprised how strong Pete’s news hit her–but she would like marriage & a family with the right guy. So she lay down for a while & went off to lunch with her new friends.
Not surprising that she was not all that sympathetic when Allison was causing a spectacle about an unwise but entirely consensual drunken hookup with Don. (Although the news of Ken’s engagement might have added to Allison’s sadness–they had an affair at the old company.)
That’s exactly why she took it off. She’s there to learn from them, not the other way around.
:: shrugs ::
I don’t demand that everyone share my taste. She’s just never done it for me, not even on Firefly.
Which is not to say that Joan doesn’t rock. I adore the character of Joan. I just think her sexiness is in her personality, not her looks.
I don’t think Peggy is interested in Pete qua Pete: rather what Pete represents. She doesn’t love him or want him, specifically, to love her; rather, she wants to love someone (a good man, natch) as she once loved Pete, and to be loved by him him return.
Re the notion that Pete is not talented or less talented at what he does, many forget a statement made earlier in the series in season one or two by Wiener, that when it comes to the advertising business “Pete is always right”. Recall that he’s the one doing market research out the ass while everyone else is going with their gut. Pete may be awkward, and charmless, and occasionally weaselly, but he’s no fool when it comes to the nut and bolts of his job.
Allison was over the top, and it’s at least implied by her actions that she really did (IMO) have, however foolish, an expectation for something more to develop between them. As silly as she may be, however, the whole awkward interlude does point up the fact that Don will fuck just about anything. Client’s wives, his kid’s teachers, European teenagers, quasi-nieces, secretaries, etc. without a backward glance. I’d worry about the pets if he was sleeping over.
I loved this episode. It was funny, dramatic, covered a variety of characters’ issues and moved story lines along. Aaaand, it was directed by John Slattery.
Particularly loved Peggy’s head popping up over the wall into Don’s office, doing her headslam on the desk, her surprising (to me) acceptance with her new friend’s attraction to her, taking a toke, her bitchslapping of Allison… it was a great Peggy episode.
And yes, I was disappointed that the pre-show warning about nudity was just because of the pictures.