Yeah, but I think she would have told him that immediately, not waited for him to figure it out in a few weeks.
I think that scene explained why Pryce was such a milquetoast with Putnam Powell & Lowe. And why he leaned on Don to come along for dinner – daddy probably doesn’t abuse him in public.
Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.
Mind you, I also thought that Don’s ending look at Megan was more wistful than horndog, which apparently doesn’t match the groupthink either.
Hee.
Even though her bearing scarcely betrayed it, I think she’s deeply disappointed in Roger. Really, he could not have handled the situation worse. Maybe she thinks he doesn’t deserve the information (“You want to keep it, then?” “Of course not!”), or wants to wait until he can’t possibly talk her out of it.
I think BECAUSE Joan is so self-sufficient and non-needy, Roger doesn’t consider her a serious possibility. These guys seem to need grown up children they can “take care of”. Same with Faye & Don - the minute she helps him out with something, his attention wanders. She should have made a hasty exit the second he clutched his chest - he’d still be utterly smitten.
I laughed out loud at Trudy’s getup. Hostess Snoball is an apt description.
I don’t know that its really unusual or outrageous (and less so then) for a man to smack his son across the face if he’s being extremely disrespectful and immature. It is when the son is 50, of course.
Surely, you’re not serious.
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He didn’t smack him across the face, he clubbed him with a cane. I don’t know about you, but where I come from that kind of assault between two men would be both unusual and outrageous.
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“Extremely disrespectful and immature”? Are we watching the same show? Pryce was doing nothing more than asserting his right to make his own decisions. (Whether those choices are advisable is rather beside the point.)
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Yes, regardless of whether he was “extremely disrespectful and immature” I would consider it unusual and outrageous for a man to visit any degree of violence on another man, worse if they’re father and son. You don’t get to solve personal problems through violence. Period.
Isn’t the fact that he’s 50 and not 5 a crucial element here?
I expect to read a lot of crazy shit on this message board on a daily basis, but you’ve got to be kidding me with this. Lane is a grown man, and he was making it clear that he’s not going to let his father drag him away from a life that he loves, with a woman he adores and a job he’s worked hard for. His father’s response was to club him in the head. It’s assault and battery. It’s a crime that Daddy!Pryce should have been locked up for. If you think it’s ever justifiable to club somebody over the head with a heavy cane, then I sincerely hope that you don’t have children.
Never mind Trudy’s getup, it’s weird seeing young men wearing my grandfather’s pajamas.
IMO, his father is “old school” English, meaning he’s very patriarchal and colonial, and as long as he’s alive, he’ll rule his family with an iron fist. No doubt the old man remembers the British Empire clearly.
Unlike others, I do like Faye. Don needs comforting now and again, not just idolization (or idealization). Like most people, though, Don needs different things from different people at different times. I don’t think Don and Faye could make a permanent go of it, but when he needs what she can provide, he’ll take it. Other times, he may need a good slap in the face from a hooker.
As for Roger, I thought it was interesting to see him panic and cold-call people he hadn’t talked to in a long time. As Lee said, he inherited the account (and the agency), so he really doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Joan is stronger than even I’ve given her credit for.
And I thought Trudy looked nice in the nightgown, until I remembered she was pregnant. But non-pregnant Trudy in that? Yeah, I’d have no problem…
It’s not the elder Pryce whose behaviour is puzzling. He’s a shockingly abusive asshole. I’m wondering about Lane. He’s in his 50s, has a job, an income, a place to live, a life. He’s not dependent on his father in any way. He doesn’t seem to see him much or like him much. What does he care what his father says?
Quoting from Four Weddings and a Funeral: “Scarlet, you’re blind. She looks like a meringue.”
Yeah, it might still be common to use corporal punishment with actual children, but even then, it’s a smack on the cheek or the bottom to get their attention, not to deliver a potentially critical head injury. Normal people don’t beat their children to the ground with a deadly weapon and stand on their fingers until they capitulate.
Pete doesn’t know it, yet, but with Don’s secrets and Roger losing the only reason he matters, he is becoming far more important to the firm. He has shown an ability to bring in business and he is starting to feel like he is the only adult. He coeverd for Don, IMO, not so much because he wants to hold something over Don, but because he thinks Don would simply screw the whole thing up and with it the firm. Not that Pete won’t use it, but I don’t think that is his motive. Remember, Pete is the new partner, he wants to establish himself and he is trying to do that by being extremely repsonsible toward the well-being of the firm.
Except that Lane still has a wife back in London. (Although if he’s supporting her back home, perhaps the current arrangement could stand.)
I wondered about that, also. The preview of next week’s ep shows Joan reacting badly to a phone conversation with her husband. This may be a longshot, but it could be that she didn’t get the abortion, figuring her husband would come home on leave, they’d do the horizontal bop, and then she could claim it was his child. That would effectively ace Roger out of the picture. If he doesn’t come home, then she’s in a real pickle. You can fake seven weeks early birth, but not three or four months.
I got that too–we know she wants a baby, cleared the decks to get pregnant even after knowing her husband joined the Army, with all the attendant possibilities inherent in that. Joan’s diatribe to the day care set over the tacky cartoon makes it abundantly clear that she’s aware of what might happen to her husband, yet she’s still leaving the possibility open for a baby. When she talked to Roger he said it had been “some weeks” since their knee trembler in the alley, which means (assuming she and hubby had sex before he left seven weeks previous, and I’m about 100% sure they did) that the gap between last sex with hubby and sex with Roger is only a few weeks apart, which is negligible to explain when the baby comes, especially if hubby is in the 'Nam and isn’t there to note any discrepancies between birth date and the baby’s appearance. I think she’s still pregnant and will be nailing hubby after he gets out of boot camp–it usually runs about six weeks and there’s almost always a leave afterward so if she knocks boots with him she’ll have bracketed her tryst with Roger and will have plausible deniability regardless of when the baby’s born.
My Aunt Lola was a Playboy bunny in the New Orleans club during the same era. She told me that at that time, it was a Gentleman’s Club so fathers and sons going together wouldn’t be an anomaly. Familial bonding and all that…
Lane is having a delayed adolescence, in my opinion. He thought he was out from under his father’s thumb (or rather, cane) and has been finding out that life in the freewheelin’ US of A suits him right down to the ground, complete with Playboy Club Key and interracial love interest. Instead of being the ground down, stuffy flunky of his betters he’s being perceived as an exotic man-about-town and he’s loving it. He really thought he was free and clear, showing off his new success and life to Dear Old Dad–until reality crashed into his head again. That scene was fucking harrowing. Poor fucker. The bit with the stuffed animal and balloons was awful as well–it set up the horror that awaits his poor son if Lane doesn’t toe the line.
Someone mentioned that Lucky Strikes still makes up 70% of the billings, but would that still be the case since they brought in Ken and his accounts? I assume Lucky Strikes would probably still be about 50% even with Ken’s accounts, so it could still tank the company if they pull out. On the other hand, maybe Honda will be ready to launch their car line soon…
I thought Pete and Trudy looked adorable in his baby blue jammies and her Snoball (heh!) pink outfit. They looked like two overgrown kids playing at being adults. How funny then, that they had the most adult relationship and attitude. Pete’s really grown on me in the last season or so. Which means he’s probably going to do something heinous in the next few weeks.
Interesting that in an episode where everyone is being broken down (minus Sally), Peggy wasn’t seen at all. Guess her star’s on the rise.
I’d say “unspeakable monster” isn’t too far off for Pryce Senior. Especially considering that his sadistic attacks probably began in Lane’s early boyhood.
If Joan didn’t get the abortion & Roger notices she’s pregnant? He already informed her it would not be “his.” She is a married woman; any child she has will be her husband’s. Could she fudge the conception time? Those were the days before you posted your ultrasounds on the internet, so the details wouldn’t be office gossip.
Whatever her decision, I just don’t see her wanting to rekindle the affair. Yet another reason for him to feel increasingly useless.
I’ll steal SmartAleq’s answer about Lane having a delayed adolescence. America’s the Land of the Free, and dammit, Lane’s free!..in a manner of speaking, or so he thought. Turns out he was wrong.
And what’s wrong with meringue? 
I think Peggy was ruled out of the episode by the structure, as it was important that Don be increasingly isolated. She’d have been too helpful.