# Mad-Men: 5.04 "Signal 30" (open spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 16, 2012, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-04-signal-30-open-spoilers/618907 "2012-04-16T00:34:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-04-signal-30-open-spoilers/618907/141 "2012-04-21T14:14:16Z")
> [@Made\_in\_Macau](#): > > After dinner Trudy asks about dessert and subsequently Pete says he’s having too much fun for coffee. > This jarred with me, and the only way it makes sense is if coffee were thought to send you to sleep in 1966! Is this true? He meant he wasn’t through drinking yet. ETA: Oops. Didn’t see previous post. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2012, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-04-signal-30-open-spoilers/618907/142 "2012-04-21T15:40:35Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > It was a plot point in the novel _The Lonely Polygamist_ a couple of years ago. Thank you! Great book. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-04-signal-30-open-spoilers/618907/143 "2012-04-22T02:28:55Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > But in 1966 Farrar, Strauss & Giroux was as likely to publish a collection of genre sf short stories by an unknown as Jaguar was to sponsor NASCAR. Or at any time since for that matter. I was coming in here to say the same thing. Doubleday, yes. But a short story connection? Not unless Ken was writing under the name of Ray Bradbury. It was interesting that Peggy bought a copy of Galaxy to read his story (since I doubt this was her usual fodder.) But the types of stories that he wrote were not Frederik Pohl era Galaxy fodder. Jakobssen a few years later I could maybe see. Nor If, nor F&SF, and definitely not the Campbell Analog. Sol Cohen had gutted Amazing/Fantastic in mid 1965, and he had worked through the backlog by then. I don’t think Moorcock had taken over New Worlds yet. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-04-signal-30-open-spoilers/618907/144 "2012-04-22T02:31:52Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > But in 1966 Farrar, Strauss & Giroux was as likely to publish a collection of genre sf short stories by an unknown as Jaguar was to sponsor NASCAR. Or at any time since for that matter. I’d they’d publish one by Philip K. Dick if they had one. But not back then, certainly. Not even Dick. However, there were plenty of sf writers who also were in ad agencies to make their money, so that part at least rang true. Ken should mention Gravy Planet some time. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-04-signal-30-open-spoilers/618907/145 "2012-04-22T02:42:51Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Why do y’all think this is? He seems to be really in love with Megan. Frankly, I don’t see what he sees in her. I think the “let’s make a baby” line, though said drunk, expresses his serious, old-fashioned, husband/wife love for her. I wish I liked her more, but she seems air-headed, capricious, shallow, and manipulative (though sort of innocently, the way a wife of that time was expected to be). Megan plays Don expertly. She is not air-headed, she is not capricious, she is not shallow, but she is manipulative in spades. And she’s not psycho. Don killed his past last episode - and I bet Megan is keeping him tired out enough so that he is just not that interested any more. Megan will never have a headache. She doesn’t understand Don perfectly yet, but is learning. BTW, this was my favorite episode of the season. I also saw Signal 30 in Driver’s Ed in 1968. I like how the safe old '50s, early '60s world is changing as shown by coverage of the mass murderers. I also loved the contrast between Don’s real background and Pete’s privileged one is shown - in the sink, the whorehouse, and the fight. Don would have won. Don wouldn’t have been cut out by a jock either. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-04-signal-30-open-spoilers/618907/146 "2012-04-22T04:41:50Z")
Remember though, that Don also lost a fight in the office, just like Pete did. When he spent the night working with Peggy, he ended up in a fistfight with Duck and Don ended up saying “uncle.” It was telling that earlier in the evening, Peggy asked Don if he ever killed anyone during the war he said no and then when he’s fighting a drunk and crazed Duck (maybe he was a little daffy, too), Duck says somehting like “I killed 5 men on Iwo Jima,” and he looked like he meant it. I think Don sees the worst of his own personality in Pete, but Pete doesn’t have any of Don’s positives. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-04-signal-30-open-spoilers/618907/147 "2012-04-22T07:44:12Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > I think Don sees the worst of his own personality in Pete, but Pete doesn’t have any of Don’s positives. Many of Don’s positives seem to be coming from the very background he is ashamed of. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-04-signal-30-open-spoilers/618907/148 "2012-04-22T10:15:31Z")
Excellent point, Pete is Don with a cushier childhood. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-04-signal-30-open-spoilers/618907/149 "2012-04-22T14:14:06Z")
That’s true, and I think that one of the implications of that is that no one ever expected a damn thing of Don, so everything he’s accomplished is something he can congratulate himself for. Pete was raised with the expectation that he’d be very successful, and no matter what he actually accomplishes, he’s only meeting (or worse, not meeting) expectations. No points will be awarded for just doing what’s expected of you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-04-signal-30-open-spoilers/618907.md?page=7)