I really liked the scene where Peggy calls out Don on the “I thought you didn’t do stunts?” thing, and he just smiles it off. Really sums up their relationship.
But I’d never got the impression that Peggy and Faye were close (neither, apparently, had Faye).
I doubt her heroin dealer would be able to cash a check.
Maybe he just borrowed his dad’s cane.
We’ve seen that Betty is very susceptible to being marketed to. Like the Heinz guy said, the ketchup and relish is where the attention is at now, so of course that’s what Betty has.
Did anyone else think Faye seemed a bit dismissive or even passive-aggressive in her refusing to have to a drink with Peggy? She didn’t seem too upset about ending the contract (and thus getting to date Don openly) so I wasn’t sure if she had something against Peggy personally or just a lack of interest in continuing any office “friendships” once she leaves – except Don, naturally.
I think Faye wasn’t up to Peggy’s wide eyed admiration. Yes, she’s a successful woman. But she hasn’t always done everything perfectly. (Who has?) Besides, the news of her relationship with Don is about to come out–which might tarnish Innocent Little Peggy’s opinion of her.
Except that Innocent Little Peggy isn’t really the Catholic School Virgin. I’ve been wishing that Peggy & Joan (Glamorous, Efficient Doctor’s Wife) could really have a slightly tipsy conversation & share what each of them actually knows about men & work. Faye would have a lot to add, too. But it was too early for Consciousness Raising Groups.
I don’t think very. I think it was primarily that they lost the tobacco account and that tobacco companies don’t generally change their ad companies, so it would be hard for them to get another tobacco account, and he just decided, having lemons, to make lemonade.
On the other hand, perhaps he saw her addiction as a metaphor for the company’s addiction to tobacco accounts. Quit cold turkey and move on, instead of begging for scraps.
I saw nothing surprising about Faye’s reaction to Peggy. They’re professional colleagues, first off. Second, they’re both New Yorkers from very established working class societies nFaye is careful about who she necked friends with and likely rarely makes friends with clients’ underlings.
I think it’s the latter. He doesn’t want to be around for the weeping – remember he doesn’t have his own office and does much of his work at home anyway. And he offered a blanket “nice working with you” because he doesn’t want to be bothered with one-on-one conversations.
I think it’s a bit of both, really. Though I got the feeling not so much that he saw her addiction as a metaphor as that when he looked at her he saw himself in the last couple meetings. The thin veneer of having it together, with the almost sweaty “I’l do anything you want, any way you want, any price you want” clutching desperation clearly visible underneath…Don Draper is not the sort of man who wants people looking at him the way he was looking at Midge.
As he told her, it doesn’t matter if her work is good or not. That desperation is going to drive potential customers away no matter how good she is. And judging from what we saw of her work, she really is quite good. She’s in essentially the same position as Don–a lot of talent and good work, but rapidly dwindling opportunities if that massively off-putting desperation doesn’t take a damn hike.
Exactly. Like most penultimate installments of a season, this was a “setup” episode to get everyone in the right place and lay the groundwork for much bigger events in the finale.
Having said that, I will be surprised if they can get everything resolved in the finale. The focus on Don’s personal struggles and his increasing self-reflection this season suggest that his transformation will be the centerpiece, but for my money Sally Draper has stolen the season. Early on she acted in impotent rage against her mother, but now she calmly but clearly disputes her mother’s tyranny, so Betty has to escalate the battle (i.e. obliquely threatening to move the family). My suspicion is that Sally will figure prominently in the finale and will be a critical factor in Don’s final choice of the man he wants to be.
The actor who plays Roger Sterling shouldn’t receive a paycheck for his work… it’s to much fun. He gets the best line.
From this episode “I have to learn people’s name before firing them” (or something like that".
Episode theme: Desperation. SCDP is desperate for some new clients (Don would offer a date with his mother). Midge is desperate to sell paintings/finance her habit (“She’ll do anything!”). Sally has figured out how not to look desperate–and it’s working–but she loses it about moving to Rye.
“But I’m a child psychiatrist.” Perfect for Betty.
I thought it was a very good episode, and that the letter was brilliant.
The fact that Don composed it after staring at the avante-garde painting suggests to me that he realized that this was a golden opportunity. A big cultural/social change is coming, and Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Price is now perfectly positioned to lead it in the ad world. They can spin the loss of big tobacco not as the sign of a declining firm, but a hip, cool firm shedding its baggage so it can be free to take on the old guard and represent the new.
I think we’re going to see a finale in which orders start flying in to the firm from non-traditional sources or traditional companies looking for non-traditional ad campaigns. There will be a burst of creative energy from Peggy and her young team, and they’ll end the season on a high note. I also suspect Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Price is about to become Draper-Campbell-Sterling-Price.
If the Roger Sterling character weren’t so juicy, I’d say they’d lose him as well as the last of the ‘old guard’, and the agency would become much younger with Draper running creative and Campbell running accounts. They’re the only two who are really worth their weight as partners anyway.
I was thinking that if Heinz comes back into the picture, they could end the season on a brilliant new campaign for Heinz Ketchup. As I recall the history of Heinz, they always had a Ketchup that people liked the taste of best, but the slow-pouring aspect of it hurt them in the market. It was somewhere in the mid-60’s that they hit upon the campaign of making a liability a feature, and tying the taste of Heinz ketchup with its thickness (eventually leading to the Carly Simon ‘Anticipation’ commercial in the 70’s which was one of the biggest commercial successes in history).
Well.
…I really liked Midge’s painting, though I don’t like modern art, but I thought it was interesting and would fit into a ‘modern’ home very well. I am SO glad Don didn’t hit that, though he was expected to, the way that husband bugged out of there to go ‘food shopping’. (I predict sometime soon he’s going to grab any cash or valuables they might have, if any, leave her on her own, and that will be the end of Midge. )
…We seem to be getting set up for something, though I don’t know what, with Sally and Glenn’s conversations (innocuous, but strangely serious for a couple of kids). Neither one is happy at home, but they seem too young to go run off to San Francisco to be hippies…don’t they? For a minute there earlier, things were looking up for Sally, doing well at Dr. Edna’s office, and Betty thinking about letting her eat with the grownups. Then Betty caught her sneaking off to be with creepy Glenn. Though I can’t blame Betty a bit, that was a big setback for their relationship.
…That’s all I can think of to comment on, except to try to predict next week’s finale. Either Don is going to pull a rabbit out of the hat, find a major client, and save the company, or it will end on a cliffhanger. Why yes, I did put a lot of thought into that!
I’ll bet her purse is hidden somewhere in the apartment and it was just part of her act.
Sally and Glenn will be 15 and 18 respectively in time for Woodstock and it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine them running off to go (much to Don & Betty’s horror).
It’s a reasonable fear; though Peggy is probally the absolute last person in the firm Don would fire (for both in-universe & real-life reasons). Danny dealt with being layed off surprisingly well.
A not particularly relevant question perhaps but I’ll ask anyway: when Don gave the heroin hubby $10 he makes a comment like “Oh… ten dollars… okay then”. Was he saying that because he was upset by how small the amount was or surprised by how large it was. (Per the inflation calculator$10 in 1965 would be $67.29 in today’s money; in case you’re interested, the $150,000 Don put up [which I think would be most of his wealth] would be just over $1 million in 2010 USD.)
I’m evidently not that good at predicting the writing on this show. I thought that the Number 4 painting was going to somehow inspire a really modern-art green bean ad.
How much would a full page NYT ad like that cost in the mid 60’s?
Don paying Pete’s 50K was perfect.
Pete’s wife really dialed up the entitled bitch princess mode when she realized her dream house was threatened. Her position, however, was not irrational. I’m not sure why she nastily warned Pete off asking her dad. He wants his FIL’s ad business, but I don’t recall him asking his FIL for anything else re money.
I think Faye is going to dump Don.
I thought there were going to use tiny guy more, but he’s gone after just being used mostly as a sight gag.
Peggy is choosing to hang on to the ginormous asshole art director?
Where the hell did Pryce come up with $ 50,000? I thought he was a middle manager and he did not get any part of the giant buyout cash when the British firm bought Sterling Cooper.
Betty trying to hang onto face time with the child psychiatrist was amusing, but a little cheap as a dramatic stunt.
That whole scene with Midge being willingly pimped out by her husband was unbearably sad.
Cooper and Sterling are major sources of capital and they hold significant shares in the firm. Cutting them loose would be painful. And, really, they don’t hurt anything by being around.
Cooper, in particular, has always shown concern about his legacy. I suspect he won’t just disappear.
And, really, most successful firms keep their old guard around – they don’t just cut them loose, even if they’re no longer hands-on.
One other question I have that a bit off topic is that I notice they have a number of different writers doing the scripts. The show is full of very precise nuances and spaces in the dialog. How do they make sure the individual character’s voices are real and consistent across all these different people writing scripts? Does Weiner change them up as he sees fit? How does that work?
I don’t think Pete was even considering asking his FiL for the money. He has the upper hand now after using his unborn child to force his FiL’s hand re the rest of the accounts. I don’t see Pete ever agreeing to move to the suburbs either. He’s too in love with NYC. The Campbells will end up staying in their luxury co-op through the worst of it; send Tammy to private school, and he never does learn how to drive.
What happens if one of them dies? Does Jane become a partner (what about Sterling’s daughter)? Does Cooper even have any heirs? We know he never had children and the only realitive of his we know of is his lesbian sister, Alice and she’s his age if not older.
