I’ve read some speculation that he’s in the American South somewhere for basic training, and people saying it could be that hot in the morning in the summer. But we figure it’s what, October? Plus he says “I’ll call you Thursday night, your time”. It seems set up like he’s in Vietnam, but how common were phone calls home just to chit chat? Especially frequent, more than once a week calls?
I think it makes sense that he’s in Texas, while Joan is in NY.
I thought it was September, and the holiday in question was Labor Day.
That’s something someone from the northeast would definitely say about Texas.
I thought so initially, and bear with me here because I can’t watch it again right now, but here’s what I was working from: Sally was about to start school in the last episode and some time has passed since then. Someone says that it’s been ten weeks since they signed a new client, though that could have been going back long before the Lucky Strike thing. Joan’s pregnant enough to be showing a bit. Betty decided last episode they would be moving, and this episode they’re all packed up and ready to move out of the house.
I could be completely wrong, and it could certainly be Labor Day, but I was thinking it was Columbus Day. Now I know next to nothing about your Columbus Day, if it’s the kind of holiday where businesses would close, and like I said I’m working from speculation based on possibly meaningless things like people’s clothes looking more autumn-y, Don and Betty wearing coats when they meet in the house at the end of the episode, little things like that. I figured, Labor’s Day already past, and your Thanksgiving isn’t until November. But I could be totally wrong.
You are being smarter than me. I keep warning y’all about that. Stop, or I will threaten you again.
I thought it was obvious that they’re both still in love with each other, especially in the next to last scene. It’s the first time that they are really alone together since the middle of season 3 and they basically spend it flirting and eye-humping each other. The biggest surprise of the night for me was that they didn’t get down to business on the kitchen floor.
To be honest, the progress in Don and Betty’s relationship, and the fact that it did it with typical Mad Men subtlety, is what made the episode for me. Things I noticed:
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Betty wants to start over and is told by Henry that life doesn’t start over, it just carries on. But she knows this doesn’t have to be true, just look at Don.
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Don has been conflicted about his identity ever since Anna died. He was stuck between being with Faye, who was set on him outing himself as Dick Whittman, or being with Megan who doesn’t know and doesn’t care. But the truth is he wants to remain Don Draper in his everyday life, but he also needs someone who understands the importance of his life as Dick and how that shaped who he is today. That’s not Megan. He avoids telling her anything about his past (he just says, “I’ve done some things.”) and then proposes to her with ANNA’S ring, first trying to pass it off as a family heirloom and then just saying that it belonged to someone very important to him. The only person in his life right now who knows who he is and understands how important it is for him to perpetuate the lie is Betty.
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The second to last shot is of the empty kitchen focusing on the bottle of Rye and the glass that Betty and Don both just drank from while having a thinly veiled conversation about change. They could have easily each had a cup, but they share a drink from the same glass and there is a long lingering shot of it sitting on on the table, as in the offer, the relationship is still on the table.
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The next shot is of Don and Megan in bed. Don turns his head to look out the window while I Got You Babe starts playing. When he proposed to Megan he told her how he couldn’t imaging waking up and not seeing her in his bed. Immediately after having an honest, rational, flirty talk with Betty, he has Megan in bed with him and he turns to look out the window.
I think Don is going to start to miss the crazy and will be back with Betty by the end of next season. Or I could be completely wrong.
I don’t think it can truly be said she doesn’t care. She’d have to know, after all, to make that decision.
When Greg is calling Joan is at home, not in the office. Vietnam is 11 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time. If it’s 9 am there that would make it 10 pm the night before in New York. If he’s calling from Texas, it’s 10 am the same day in New York. That makes it more likely he’s calling from Saigon.
The month is probably October, because Megan puts a coat over her shoulders to stand on the hotel balcony. That’s possible over Labor Day in Los Angeles, but not likely. This week’s lows for Los Angeles are in the 50s, which is not shirtsleeve weather for most people. The problem is that while I remember schools being closed on Columbus Day in the 60s, businesses were usually open. But I have to admit I have no idea of the habits of NYC advertising firms of the time.
Worst. season. finale. for a show I like. evah. Didn’t even seem like a season finale, just another episode. (Joan’s pregnant, Don’s engaged, big whoop; I thought he’d come back and learn Faye was pregnant, or that he was under investigation for becoming Don Draper or whatever.)
I give the whole season at best a C+ on its own merits. I’m hoping when it comes back they speed ahead a year or so and the firm is on solid footing (since that’s a plotline they came nowhere near resolving) and Don and Megan Swan-neck are long since married and indulged in the felicity of unbounded domesticity, and then they deal with some more interesting developments. Vincent Kartheiser, January Jones, (whoever plays Harry Crane), Robert Morse, and several other returning actors got the easiest paychecks of their lives this seasons.
I think Greg thinks Joan is farther along than she actually is. He’s counting back from the last time he was with Joan. Joan’s counting on him being in Vietnam for the birth so she can just tell him it came a month early and by the time he comes home he won’t be able to notice any discrepency in the baby’s size. Then all she was to worry about is Greg finding out the baby’s bloot type.
I don’t get this complaint.
I actually liked the fact that they felt no need to leave us on the edge with a big cliffhanger. Sometimes life just goes on, with adjustments and changes and some new stuff and lots of the same old boring shit. Life is often filled with the everyday and the mundane, and if it’s written and portrayed and acted well, i think that the everyday and mundane can make for very entertaining television. I thought it was a good set of circumstances to end the season with.
Yes, he would have to, though I don’t fully understand what your quote has to do with mine, unless it’s just a related comment. Roger and Joan discussed the impossibility of Greg being the father, when Roger told Joan that lots of returning GIs “didn’t do the math”.
In trying to construct a timeline in my own mind, Joan is late and tells Roger she’s pregnant the week Don calls Sally to tell her about the Beatles tickets for “this Sunday”, which would be August 15th. Joan says something about her husband being gone for seven weeks. So she’s only about two and a half months pregnant (if I’m correct and we’re half-way into October now, which as I said, is debatable), and needs her husband to think she’s closer to four months along.
But I don’t see it working out. Greg’s not a great surgeon because of his shaky hands, and he’s kind of a dolt, but he hasn’t been shown to be an idiot or a bad doctor. It seems unlikely he wouldn’t figure out the kid wasn’t his one way or another.
But maybe he’ll end up dead or severly wounded in Vietnam, whatever, it’ll be a continuation of the boring and obvious path the show’s taking.
Ick. Don Draper makes my skin crawl. Just straight up revulsion. I think it’s always been there, but this episode just… blech. Could hardly watch. I’ve developed a visceral reaction to this character. It’s almost to the point where I can’t watch when he’s on screen.
Plus, I abhor the sound of kissing in a movie or on tv. I cannot stand it. All the fucking kissing with Don! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!!!
More Joan and Peggy smokin’ in the office!
I actually think they are setting it up for some sort of custody battle. I am thinking maybe Henry gets sick of Bbetsy’s shit and leaves her. Or simpy without Carla there the kids can’t stand living with Betsy (even more so). Don’s life stabilizes at least in the generic sense (married).
Fair enough, I was going a bit on what the creator said in an interview
I could be reading too much into it, but to me Megan seems to have an odd combination of ambition and syrupy sweetness so that she really doesn’t care. She lives in Tomorrowland where people get to be who they want to be and the past doesn’t really matter.
I don’t know that he’ll figure it out on his own though, unless he’s home on leave for the actual birth.
There’s a lot of variation in baby size as well as the developmental stages, sitting, crawling, walking, etc. There’s no fixed “normal” for him to compare the baby to.
But he has to figure it out, or what would be the point to this story line?
The NYTimes interview with Weiner said that the show hadn’t been renewed for a fifth season yet. I find that amazing. True, the ratings have never been great. Viewers declined this year from 2.9 million for the first episode to 2.2 million for the finale. (But compare that to Rubicon, which got a measly 1.3 million as its lead-in with that being a huge jump over the previous week.) The prestige value for AMC is enormous, though. They can’t afford not to renew it, even though they’d have to be out of their minds to keep Rubicon.
This season saw an 11-month jump. I’d guess next year will be at least seven. Does anybody want to see Joan bloat to 300 pounds at the end of her pregnancy? But with a stable married Don and perfect-with-children Megan, a custody battle with Betty provides a way to keep her in the series. Pete will have a child, Joan will have a child, Cosgrove is getting married and may become a quick father, Lane will have problems with the children he dragged back to America, and Peggy will be torn between lives. This year was “will the agency survive?” Apparently it will. Next year is “children and what they do to parents at work.” And viewership was continue to go down. Because, really, who wants to see children on Mad Men?
Fearlessly predicting the 60s since the 60s.
Those are the reasons I worry about Megan. To me, those are seriously legitimate items of concern. I wanted her to be smart enough to say “no,” or “we’ve only slept together 3 times and I’m not sure you know my last name, maybe we should move slower,” or “4 days ago, I made dinner reservations for you and your date. Who wasn’t me. And I know you haven’t dumped her in the interim.” or “You got angry when I filled in a federal form with information from the company records. Are you hiding something from the feds?”
But her actual answer of “I know who you are now and you’re trying to be a better person” or something like that was sappy and stupid.
My prediction: the next season is going to open with Burt in a trance. It’s revealed that Mrs. Blankenship mind melded with him on the last day of her life and now she’s trying to take over his consciousness so that she can finally run the company the way she wants it run.