You know, I can’t figure out what Harry’s deal is lately. Nor, where his storyline is going. It seems like they’re showing that he’s trying (but without much luck) to become a Hollywood insider, influencing stuff going on there. But all we get are his namedropping. Yet if he was totally useless at his job, we’d’ve had some clue via the “SCDP is on a tight budget” storyline. So… what?
I thought that look was her speculating that maybe she chose poorly in kicking Don to the curb. The newlywed glow of Henry has worn off, for her, and she’s reverted to never-enough-for-Betty.
I don’t think Harry is bad at what he does for SCDP, it’s just that what he does for SCDP isn’t the glamorous insider stuff he’d like to be doing. He name drops to his NYC counterparts because most of them haven’t even been to California, much less acquired a signed photo of Buddy Ebsen.
Alan Sepinwall talks about this practice quite often. Actors, other than the main main leads, will often sign deals to appear in 10 out of 13 episodes or a similar kind of arrangement. This makes the show cheaper to produce.
So we’ll get Don and probably Peggy and Pete (and not sure who else) in every episode, but many will be absent here and there (like Joan).
Yes, but it’s pretty clear that Don considers her to be his deputy even if he hasn’t formally given her the title of “Deputy Head of Creative”. Come to think of it if he did then wouldn’t she also be the sleazy Art Director’s boss?
Yeah, why is Don of all peope writing about himself? :dubious: He’s not quite old enought to write his memoirs (& even if he did it’s not like he can publish them until after he’s dead). It was a very clumsly plot device.
I was expecting Joey to humilate himself further by storming into Don and asking him to “set Peggy straight”. Imagine how that scene would play out. Or just show up the next day claiming he thought Peggy was jolking.
I think Don has, at least momentarily, come to the conclusion that his life isn’t what he wants it to be, and he has absolutely no one he can talk about it with. So the journal is an attempt, at least, to give himself some clarity.
I disagree. Don’s “overhaul” was fairly realistic, IMO:
[ol]
[li]He acknowledges (indirectly) that he needs to cut back.[/li][li]His admission - he needs to “Gain a modicum of control over the way I feel.”[/li][li]He begins exercising, but it’s no picnic (the brutal hacking smoker’s cough after just one lap was great)[/li][li]He repeatedly slips - drinks a beer (although instead of liquor) at home, obsesses over the liquor his associates are drinking, downs a “pre-date” drink before his date with Dr. Miller[/li][li]He does win a minor victory, in refusing some easy, quick sex with Miller.[/li][/ol]
He’s certainly not out of his downward spiral. But his realizations and struggles in attempting to break free of his two major tragic vices (alcohol and sex) ring very true to me. I’m not much of a believer in the classic REDEMPTION! recovery you can find in a lot of AA literature. Don seems much more human and realistic than that, though some of his journal writing seems clearly influenced by AA doctrine, and of course AA does good by a lot of people (and probably would by Don).
I agree with this. Just because Don is committing his thoughts and experiences to a journal doesn’t mean he ever intends anybody to read it but himself. In fact, I’d be really stunned if the audience ever sees him showing it to anybody.
I wonder if he’s knowingly copying Roger in this regard? Though it seems like Roger’s memoir is an exercise in futility–he’s not trying to discover anything about himself, he’s trying to rewrite his own history. I think Don is being much more honest in his attempt, actually wrestling with himself instead of telling drunken, dirty stories.
The draft lottery began in 1969. Before then it would have been unlikely that college kids would have been drafted. One of the reasons for the lottery was to make the draft fairer in response to criticism that working class kids were being disproportionally drafted. I read Joan’s remark as bitterness about her husband, not a realistic threat. None of those guys would have been in Vietnam in 1966.
That also makes Don’s education weird. The overwhelmingly majority of officers in the Korean War era would have been college graduates. Dick Whitman, dropout, could get into night school as Don Draper, but he wouldn’t need to. He would have already had a diploma from somewhere. Of course, he could be going back for some other degree, but I can’t imagine any degree in the 1950s that didn’t require more than 250 word papers. We wrote all the time in the 60s.
Sigh. Remember when this show used to be subtle? This was probably the most blatant episode of the entire series, from Stones’ lyrics mirroring the action to Don’s being hypnotized by booze in frreze frame to the narration telling everybody what they already knew.
And Joan. The only power she had in the past was over the secretarial pool. Anything beyond that was given to her by the men in charge, especially Roger. (Did everybody know they were having an affair?) I learned very early when working for a large bureaucracy to make friends with the secretaries because they could ease the myriad small frustrations of daily life. That’s just not true in a small company. People do things for themselves. Secretaries aren’t as crucial to a happy life. It’s not age - or shouldn’t be, to make it realistic.
The world changed around Joan, making her people skills less relevant. It’s a sorta parallel to the way Don’s skills have been damaged by booze and depression. Not that you’d know that by this episode. What, nobody mentioned the parallel between Bethany giving him a blow job in the cab and the cartoon blow job that Joan didn’t give Lane?
I was thinking about this recently. Back in the 60s I worked as a mail man, as we called them back then, meaning that work started around 6:30 am. I remember hauling a coat to work for seemingly entire summers because morning temperatures were in the 40s. That never happens any more. By late afternoon you regretted having the weight to drag around, but you couldn’t do without it to start. Global warming? Almost certainly.
But it just doesn’t strike me as odd to see people carrying coats in spring. That used to be normal.
The seventies too. Even in high school from 72 -76 I was cranking out multi page papers. My father’s college papers were also often quite lengthy. I’m not sure when this world of 250 word, 5 paragraph college or high school papers ever existed.
I don’t get so many roll eyes at the diary. It’s totally realistic for a person to start a journal or diary when they are turning, or trying to turn over, a new leaf or change behaviors. It’s so common IRL it’s almost cliche. “Journal” thoughts are not like out loud thoughts, they are often far more philosophical, introspective and musing of what might have been.
I think folks are being too harsh on the diary aspect. What was written in the diary wasn’t as important (meaning the voiceover) as the fact that Don literally has no one he can talk to about anything.
Not global warming. The coat, hat, gloves were what proper ladies wore, their street clothes, keeping their office clothes or their luncheon outfits from getting, say, gum on them from the subway seats, or who-knows-what from the taxi seat. It would be a light coat in late spring and summer, but tougher than your nice office clothes, which would probably have to be dry-cleaned.
Protection on another level as well, can you imagine Joan walking past a bunch of guys (Jets? Sharks? Construction workers) on her way from the train in her office attire?
And New York was a fairly dirty city in those days.
Ladies no longer have to wear outerwear, but I still see old ladies in their hats, gloves, and coats occasionally.
Also, at some time in the 70s I was writing an employee manual for nurses, nurses’s aides, etc., which specifically said that they shouldn’t go about in their uniforms on their way to and from work, but should cover it up with a coat. (Another weird thing was that they should shower daily and not wear scent.) The woman in charge of this project explained that back in her day, no woman, nurse or otherwise, would have been so brazen as to do this and so it had never had to be written in the rules before, which made me really wonder about the shower.
My first year in college I remember doing the coat and glove thing–no hat, though, except in winter. Second year in college I went full hippie and showed up in many classes without even wearing shoes. It was quite a change.
Re the Barbizon Bethany girl going down on Don in the cab. What exactly is it we’re supposed to expect she did? Gave him a full blow job and swallow? Play with him and tease him? What? He’s as cool and composed at the end of the ride as when he got in.
I think Betty is still in love with Don. She protests how much she hates him, but she was jealous of BJ Bethany, won’t move out of the house , eventhough Henry doesn’t want to live there. Look how resentful Henry was when Don picked up the boxes. He is used to servants as Betty said.
Henry represents the safe staid past that Betty wanted with Don. She sees Don moving on and represents an exciting furture.
Back then there was a wardrobe item called a “spring coat.” Often you bought it as part of your new “Easter outfit.”
Also, the first three years of college, fall 1966-spring 1969, I wore hose and heels to school every day. There was a strict dress code (a Catholic women’s college) and we were not allowed to wear pants or (God forbid!) shorts ANYWHERE on campus except in your dorm room or in the gym/on the playing field.
The fall of 1969 everything changed: my last year everyone was in jeans. This was gigantically radical.
Now that I’m remembering, even in elementary school (and I attended several all over the US, being a military brat) girls were not allowed to wear pants to school. If it was snowy, you wore pants (but not “jeans,” which weren’t around all that much) UNDER your dress and took them off in the “cloak room” when you were inside the building.
I remember the Easter outfits, every year I got new black patent leather shoes, a church-going hat, and a purse. Grandma and I would walk to St. Vincent’s. And the “Spring” coat, usually a light wool, in a pastel shade, not close fitting. Now the weather goes from end of winter to hot summer within a week. A raincoat comes in handy, but the Spring ensemble is a thing of the past.
Or just show up the next day claiming he thought Peggy was jolking.