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I loved the fact that Don didn’t bother to warn anyone else about the elevator shaft too.
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Pete looked distinctly puzzled by the Pynchon book. I get the impression he was reading it because someone had told him it was the hip book to read, but that he just didn’t get it. In his way, he’s as baffled by the changing world as Don - but resentful too, because he’s young and STILL feels he’s missing out.
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It wasn’t that Megan was suggesting they should use Tomorrow Never Knows as the track in the commercial, but that she was trying to help Don out in his plea to understand current culture. It’s another way to underline the generation gap between her and Don - she was already automatically aware of Tomorrow Never Knows, while he’d (a) never heard of it and (b) couldn’t make head or tail of it when it played.
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I thought Peggy looked so disappointed/confused when one of her colleagues mocked the Heinz account was because it threw all her own efforts into doubt. “Is this thing I’ve worked SO HARD to get into just a waste of time?” That’s why she was somewhat resentful of Megan quitting. Megan gets it all handed to her on a plate, and yet doesn’t value it at all.
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Going back to last week, I like to imagine Sally having a total meltdown with sex and drugs as the sixties turn sour. If she was 13 in 1966 (as last week’s episode established), she’ll be 16 when the Manson murders happen and just a few months older when Altamont rolls around. Sally at 16, out of control in a year like that, would be something to behold.
Late to the party because we watch them streaming on Amazon (and had a birthday party to throw)…
OK, besides the elevator “scare”, two points we noticed:
They also set us up with Pete having a life insurance policy that pays off on a suicide, which if he’s already depressed and feels guilty when his affair inevitably flares out, opens some possibilities of him having motivation to lose it completely.
Joan planting the idea of Megan as a “trophy, failed actress, second wife”. Unfortunately, once upon a time, I’d expect this to go somewhere, but writing seems to have gotten a bit lazy, and likely it’s just an excuse give to us to root for them to defy it.
Anybody else been having the occasion Mad Men related dreams lately? I had one Saturday night. I was watching a deleted scene from episode 5.07. Mr & Mrs Heinz had just left the table leaving Don, Megan, Ken, and Ken’s wife. Ken’s wife was really made at not being in the loop, told everyone off, then dissolved into a puddle. 
I have no recollection of that story line at all, yet I’ve watched every episode. Maybe I have a brain tumor.
I will be deeply disappointed if Pete’s rifle is ever fired during the show. I’ve always taken it to be this emblematic as this thing Pete wanted for himself but is forced to stash away in his office because he can’t take it home. Plus it’s amusing to see it toted around from office to office. Seeing “Hur, hur… see there was a gun and so someone got shot!” would probably put me off the series with its cheap cliche.
I don’t recall that storyline either but it’s amazing when reading about events in previous seasons how much I’ve forgotten. It strikes me as a series that could be more enjoyable on second viewing.
Given Sally’s home life and especially being raised by “Bluto” (someone who dislikes her and she dislikes even more), forbodes a lot of trouble in her late teens.
Certainly it would be no surprise for Sally to go to Woodstock; she lives only a couple of hours away. Or she might end up in San Francisco during the Summer of Love.
Sally is established as having been born in 1954. Don and Betty married in 1953 and they didn’t “have to.” So she just turned 12 - as Kiernan Shipka did in real life. That puts her at 13 for the Summer of Love. Woodstock at 15 is barely possible if it’s close. Though who knows where she’ll be living by then.
None of these Sally Goes Wild plots is ever going to happen on the show. Like Pete using his gun, it would represent a failure on the part of the show’s writers.
I agree. It would be lazy and predictable for her to go wild hippie.
Sounds like they all sampled some of Roger’s acid ;).
I actually hope Sally becomes more involved in the glam rocker scene - Bowie, New York Dolls, Mott the Hoople.
Ascenray partly answered this, but he didn’t mention the “tape loops”. Paul McCartney went home and recorded a few seconds of weird sounds (by his playing bass, then distorting the sounds by playing it over after removing the eraser head from the recording machine, etc.), each on a short loop of audio tape. He brought them intoAbbey Road Studios. With John’s one-chord song playing (the result of a George Martin dare), various studio staff played each of the loops, at different speeds, on different playback machines. Meanwhile, engineer Geoff Emerick stood at the console, and whenever a Beatle shouted, say “Seagulls!”, he would turn up the volume for that loop.
Yes, it was pioneering. Not quite unprecedented, but definitely pioneering. Amazing that that was the FIRST song they recorded for Revolver.
How old is that neighbor kid that she flirts with? Does he have a couple years on here - might we see him do any of that stuff and call her?
Fourteen and fifteen year old runaways were not unheard of on the streets of the Haight. It would be more complicated for one to get there from NYC though.
It’s possible that Megan would make a move to LA as an actress, so that would simplify a trek to San Francisco. However, there’s virtually no ad business in California at that point in time and the show is centered around an advertising agency as much as it’s about Don Draper.
Apropos of nothing, I thought Joan looked stunning in that brown rose print dress. The color was so flattering.
He’s 2 yrs older than her so he’d be 17 for Woodstock. It’s perfectly belivable for him to spirit her off to Woodstock.
“I grew up in the thirties. My dream was indoor plumbing.” - I think this says a lot about the episode, and about Don in general. And about the series as a whole.
Also, one of my favorite cliches was used to good effect in this episode. I call it the “Ironic Wedding Ring Shot.” Whenever cheating couples are shown on camera, in any movie or tv show, their wedding rings are prominently displayed. When Pete and the train-buddy’s-wife were talking on the phone, both of them held the phones in their left hands, with wedding bands prominently displayed.
I’d still like to know who Lady Lazarus is.
I can confirm this to be true. We just watched them back to back in anticipation of the 5th series and the number of times Mrs Macau and I looked at each other to say ‘I don’t remember that!’ was surprising. The production changes on the show are also a shock when watched in quick succession.
Do watch it again.
MiM
I think the elevator shaft is entirely Don having his own hallucination/insight(???).
Pretty sure that Beth (Eeeeeee! Love Little Alexis!) will commit suicide, getting Pete thinking along the same lines-- is MY life really meaningless? Plus, Beth is a lot like Trudy in looks and in character. Both seem to be stuck in the '50s wanting to be the elite wife with the gloves and the neighborhood committees.
Sally is learning the most out of anyone, it seems. “Even our new grandma cheats.” Not to mention that, yes, sometimes men murder women for being women. The look on her face in the other episode under the couch reminded me of Danny in “The Shining.”