I still think that the distinction between the two (Cosgrove was “Head of Accounts”, Campbell “Accounts Manager,” or somesuch) was another one of Lane’s head games. I don’t think we ever got to see Cosgrove bossing Campbell around, per se.
That’s because Ken & Pete were both made Head of Accounts; Lane didn’t tell either of them that they were sharing the position. Pete found out the next day from his secretary. At the end of season 3 Ken was made “Vice-President of Account Services” with Pete working under him.
Peggy’s strip-off with the pig was a great bit of television. (The set designer and the director must have spent most of the week getting the heights and angles right. I wonder who they used as a stand in for Elizabeth Moss.)
In movies and tv these stunts always work. In real life, though, there’s only one outcome: the pig spends the rest of his career trying to destroy Peggy by any means, usually foul. The art director is a major player in a small ad agency, far more important than a mere copywriter. I don’t like the way this is going, and I really don’t like that they replaced Sal with the cartoon opposite. Everybody else on the series is nuanced. He needs to be.
It’s also telling that nobody would have noticed or cared if the pig trotted out his sexism at the hiring meeting. And certainly nobody would have given a thought as to how Peggy would deal with him.
BTW, did you notice that both Peggy and the jingle writer Clio winner were wearing pantyhose? It existed by then, but didn’t get common until miniskirts made it necessary, and that was after 1965. I get it for Peggy: in strip poker (and tv time) it counts as one item, unlike stockings, a garter belt and panties. But the other? Most women still wore stockings under business wear. Meaningful or nitpicky?
I noticed the pantyhose as well, I assumed the costume designer made that choice because garters and stockings carry a large freighting of sexuality these days and they wanted the scene to be everything but sexual. Garters would have made the modern viewer think, “Uh huh, gonna get busy now!” which would have been completely wrong for the scene–pantyhose, on the other hand, scream businesslike/no nonsense, which is just what they needed.
Peggy was seen in pantyhose a couple of seasons ago. * Extensive* research revealed that they were available–just not common yet.
I did notice them, and a little alarm bell went off in my head.
I remember very well when I first wore them, I was in 7th grade in a small town on Long Island, New York, and it was 1967. I guess it makes sense that a Manhattan hipster such as Peggy would already have access to them, and SmartAleq’s insight makes a lot of sense to me.
Except that the Clio winner, who was going to a bar and who picked up Don Draper, also wore them, and “no nonsense” was exactly the opposite of her planned evening. (She certainly planned to pick somebody up. It just happened to be Don.)
As usual with flashback episodes, I’m having problems with the timeline.
When were Don and Betty married?
According to Wiki:
Look at what that means. Betty was born in 1932, but has already graduated Bryn Mawr, moved to Italy to model, moved back to Manhattan, started modeling, met Don, and got married, all by the age of 21? Quite the prodigy.
Don’s life is equally crowded. He appears to be the same age as Betty, having been 19 when he went to Korea. The Korean war starts in 1950. Dick Whitman is a replacement in his unit, so his identity takeover probably isn’t until 1951.
That means he comes home, gets out of the hospital and the Army, works as a Cadillac salesman, transfers to the fur company, and is doing well enough to be given the chance to write the store ads and get married. All in two years. No wonder he looks wide-eyed.
And that means he is only 33 in 1965 continuity. And looks six years older. 
The character’s intentions are not the issue here–I’d expect any sensible career woman would have jumped on pantyhose as soon as they were made available, as indeed they did, since they’re infinitely more practical and easy to cope with if you have to wear them all day long. No, I figure the costume designer of the show made that decision specifically to avoid bringing the viewer to an incorrect conclusion about how the Peggy/Butthead interaction was going to play out–they wanted her to be nice and frumpy and apparently all the things Butthead was saying she was, but to win the interaction conclusively by co-opting his terms and attitudes and hanging him by them. Which would have been muddied somewhat if there had been a sexual vibe introduced into the scene by a garment style that has been relegated to fetish wear in the here and now. Same reason why Peggy’s bra was a completely sensible white bullet model–no sexual freighting to stand in the way of the scene. If anything Clio-Woman got pantyhose purely to buttress the commonplace nature of the garment in the mind of the viewer, even though she did end up in a specifically sexual encounter. We aren’t supposed to find Don’s lost weekend hookup with her as anything other than happenstance and tawdriness, hence the unsexy undies, the drunkenness and the remarkable unnatractiveness of Doris the French Fry Lady. We’re getting our noses rubbed in “this ain’t romantic or sweet or cute or nice or sexy, people.”
I think it lacks a big, looming question. What’s in Don’s desk drawer? Will Betty find out about his affairs? What happened in Don’s past? Instead there are a lot of little questions (or large, vague ones). How will people react to the changing culture? Who’s going the way of the dinosaur? Will the new company remain an old boys’ club or evolve?
And yet I, too, find this season is as good if not better than those of the past. Hamm was excellent as a man who really has nothing left to ground him in reality, and Peggy was hilarious.
I really buy this. It’s a testament to Hamm’s acting abilities that he can really come off as pathetic and unattractive (kind of like Brad Pitt in Kalifornia). I also feel like the art director could have been plucked out of a modern day Brooklyn cafe.
I didn’t recognize Jay R. Ferguson as the Butthead ersatz nudist. He was a child star in lots of movies and shows- most notably perhaps Burt Reynolds & Marilu Henner’s son in Evening Shade but he’s gotten a lot heavier and beefier since his teen idol years.
I loved this episode. The part with Don waking up with the Dairy Queen girl had me in stitches. Peggy still never ceases to amaze me. And I liked the flashback scenes.
Couldn’t they have found anyone shorter to play nebbish boy? Maybe “E” or Scott from Entourage? 
Oh… about nudist a-hole. Has he been introduced before this? I just don’t remember him before this ep.
No, he’s new.
Pete is also convinced that everyone is out to get him. He says that Lane doesn’t like him, he accuses Roger of sabotaging his accounts, last season he lamented that during the “contest” with Cosgrove he had all the crap accounts and Cosgrove got the good ones, etc. Some of this might have a root in reality but I think that Pete works hard to try and hustle work, has some good ideas that are often shot down such as the “black media” thing, but really has to struggle at something that seemingly comes easy for Cosgrove. Cosgrove is a good looking single (ok, now engaged) guy who’s always happy, does well at his job, gets short stories published in national magazines and Pete gets put upon, has in-laws walking over his decisions about his home and family, a nasty mother and a wife who yells at him for getting a rifle. Some of that has resolved itself but it’s all just built up over time.
In short, Pete is both envious of and threatened by Cosgrove, especially since they both compete in the same field unlike his relationship with, say, Peggy.
I think that is a perfect comparison. It takes a lot of skill to make the audience forget that you’re unbelievably handsome and attractive.
Pete is also comically self-centered – “I’m expecting a child!”
All the characters are self centered really, but Pete wears it on his sleeve.
I’m on the fence about the enjoyability of this season, but it is still early. I understand the comments from those that say there is a lack of a “big thing”, of mystery.
Remember in season 1(?) where Don goes to his home desk drawer, pulls out “something”, then goes to meet his half-brother, and confronts him…we’re drawn into the tension, and given the possibility that Don might have a gun, but pulls out money instead. Remember that scene, the suspense? That I think is what has been missing lately.
This week I’ve come to further respect Jon Hamm’s acting abilities, both from the Emmy Awards backstage scenes, and from Mad Men in the scene where he is addressing the group at the office and is clearly drunk - I’ve been around a lot of drunks, and his face - sort of a stroke-look - was very nuanced but very clearly said “drunk” to me, even without speaking.
Raza: I agree that Hamm is a great actor. I’ve caught him a few times as a guest on comedy podcasts (Doug Loves Movies, Nerdist) and he comes off as pretty funny and down to earth.
The current issue of Rolling Stone has a great Mad Men article and lots of photos. The cover alone is pretty swanky.
Is it Joan, Don, and Pete all standing naked and covered with blood like the True Blood cover?