# Mad-Men: 5.11 "The Other Woman" (open spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 28, 2012, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296 "2012-05-28T00:21:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/141 "2012-05-30T02:28:15Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > Joan would NEVER go to that ‘date’ without protection! Even if she did get knocked up, she would get an abortion. And I don’t know why the sudsy soap opera complication of Joan getting pregnant from this would even figure in the show, it would serve no purpose to the story at all. Mad Men is NOT a soap opera type show, it’s beyond that kind of melodrama, which is why it’s so good. I wasn’t implying Joan might get pregnant, I’m saying one of her first actions on the show was to set up the new girl to get nailed by her boss (or a salesman, Roger, etc) as a rote part of the job. Remember Peggy’s awkward (and turned down) attempt to make herself available for Don? She expected (based on what Joan told her) that this would be part of the job. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/142 "2012-05-30T02:32:44Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I hope Eve comes into this thread. She’s the expert here on Broadway. Now if we only had an expert on Madison Avenue… ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/143 "2012-05-30T03:33:46Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > A several month period for rehearsals and out-of-town tryouts is standard. Musicals do often take longer, but it totally depends on how troubled the production is. If everything gets changed, and important people are replaced, and all the scenes are rewritten, then it will take much longer. Isn’t that only true for really big, major plays? I thought that smaller plays would only be staged in NY city (or near New York city) without out of town tryouts. I’m surprised that that’s true for all plays. And wouldn’t someone who’s just breaking into the business be auditioning for both on-broadway, and off-broadway, and off-off-off broadway stuff? ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/144 "2012-05-30T03:45:26Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > With regard to the Megan/Don scene, it would have been good if in a previous episode there’d been a short scene where she discussed travelling with her work and he was only half-listening. It’s hard for the audience to tell if she just sprang the Boston thing on him or not. > [@Rhiannon8404](#): > > I assumed she’d told him and he hadn’t been listening. The way she said it was as if she thought he knew already. I expected her to launch into a “we talked about this - weren’t you listening” sort of rant. That’s what I expected; it was odd that Megan didn’t say anything about having told Don before. > [@Sampiro](#): > > I wonder if Herb’s gift of an emerald necklace was expensive or, as befits a sleazoid, green glass. Eh, Joan either will find out as soon she goes to a jeweller to sell it. ---
**Author:** ![Mixolydian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Mixolydian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mixolydian)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/145 "2012-05-30T03:52:43Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > And when Pete reported what she had said, namely, “You couldn’t afford the price,” he \*knowingly \*took it completely out of context. She said it to him as a way of dismissing him as a scum-sucking bottom feeder, but Pete \*reported \*it to the partners as though she were literally willing to fuck the client **IF SCDP WOULD PAY A HIGH ENOUGH PRICE**. Not a metaphorical price, but an actual dollars and cents price. That was NOT what she meant or really what she said when taken in context. I’m not sure I entirely agree; my first reaction was the same as yours, but I subsequently thought that with Joan knowing what a slimeball Pete is, she guessed he might perceive it as he did, and she could find just how high (or low) these boys were willing to go, always having the last word in the process. If she was as insulted as your interpretation makes her out to be, I don’t think her response would have been as low-key as it was, even uttering the same words. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/146 "2012-05-30T04:13:36Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > A several month period for rehearsals and out-of-town tryouts is standard. Musicals do often take longer, but it totally depends on how troubled the production is. If everything gets changed, and important people are replaced, and all the scenes are rewritten, then it will take much longer. Or in exceptional cases, shorter. Oklahoma! is somewhat legendary in the annals because it was out-of-town for only 20 days, although that was partially because it had been in pre-production from July 1942 to March 1943. **Little Murders** , the play she auditioned for (and didn’t they leave it a little mysterious as to whether she got it or not?), was not a musical, FWIW. It certainly played longer in Boston that on its first B’way run. ---
**Author:** ![BluePear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@BluePear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BluePear)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/147 "2012-05-30T05:09:17Z")
> [@shy\_guy](#): > > I agree with this. I go back and forth on whether Don takes Megan’s career even a little seriously, but I’m absolutely sure that he couldn’t care less about the minutia of the theater. Plus, he’s been crazy busy with Jaguar. I think he wants to, but there isn’t much she’s exposed him to that he actually likes. That play they went to in the previous episode he didn’t enjoy. Her friend insulted what he does (at a dinner they didn’t show). And it seems like everything that has to do with acting and Megan is talking her away from him. She’s not in the office with him. They no longer have a common work to talk about. To him she’s just away on auditions, away with her acting friends, and maybe away training for a play. He’s adjusting. ---
**Author:** ![jellyblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e480ec/32.png) [@jellyblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jellyblue)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/148 "2012-05-30T06:14:01Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > (snip) And why is it that whenever Megan shows anger it’s a “tantrum”? I don’t think there was anything childish about what she did in this episode. It’s Don’s expectation’s about Megan that are selfish. Seconded. But when Don chases her around the apartment like a sociopathic maniac, it’s Manly. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/149 "2012-05-30T11:45:01Z")
I see something a little different about the Peggy thing. Pure practicality. A number of characters in this season have had bit roles in each episode, sometimes just kind of crammed in (Roger with Ski’s, Pete once or twice had one sentence), some not at all for a number of episodes (Cooper for instance, but thats been for a while, but Betty (good, no Betty) or Sally (quite good when she gets a spot)). Peggy to me has had that position this season. She’s barely featured in a lot of episodes, and never really in anything major apart from this one. She’s gone because she’s written out for a while. She’s not had much of a storyline when within the company, and I’d be surprised if she gets one while outside… I’ll be sad to see her go, to me, its her, Don and Joan who have been the major players and we’ve just lost one… Actually, Joan hasn’t had a big role in a lot of episodes either… ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/150 "2012-05-30T15:02:51Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > Isn’t that only true for really big, major plays? I thought that smaller plays would only be staged in NY city (or near New York city) without out of town tryouts. I’m surprised that that’s true for all plays. And wouldn’t someone who’s just breaking into the business be auditioning for both on-broadway, and off-broadway, and off-off-off broadway stuff? Little Murders was intended to be a major Broadway play. Nobody could know ahead of time that it would fail. It indeed was far more successful in 1969 off-Broadway and had numerous stock productions. I saw one staged in college. As Jules Feiffer’s first play, it was as big as could be. It was staged in a 1200-seat theater, which is on the large side by Broadway standards. The original cast included Elliott Gould, Richard Schaal, Heywood Hale Broun and David Steinberg. I can’t figure out what part they thought Megan could play. There are two female roles and both went to much older actresses and stage veterans, Ruth White and Barbara Cook. The intention clearly was to show that Megan was contending in the major leagues, not for smaller off-Broadway parts. So she was a newcomer. It was the first play for both Steinberg and Schaal, BTW, both of whom went on to comic success but not in the theater. Schaal was married to Valerie Harper at the time and Gould of course to Barbra Streisand. That could make for some fun stories had Megan gotten the part. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/151 "2012-05-30T17:29:54Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Lots of really interesting ethical debates stemming off of this one, and even practical ones. > > For example, imagine > > 1. Joan in Reagan’s U.S.A., financially independent and very respected in the biz, no worries over how she’s going to pay her son’s tuition in a few years (since ex-husband’s not much help) but always having to remember what (in addition to hard work and talent) got her there > > vs. > > 1. Joan in Reagan’s U.S.A., looking “very good for a woman her age” (late 40s/early 50s) but no longer lusted after by men and having to worry about how to pay for a kid in college and remembering a time she could have been wealthy for one night of “close your eyes and think of England” > > Which do you think would have the worst/biggest regret? If the pitch team had come back and said “I’m not sure about that dealership guy, he didn’t seem to be buying it” and Joan had thought, then said(in less blunt 1960s language of course), “When he was here, he only took his eyes off my tits to get a better look at my ass. I bet I could change his mind for 5% of the company,” I’d have a different answer to that question. It’s one thing to sell yourself, it’s another to be pimped out and passed around as a piece of SCDP property. That’s one of the things that was so awful about the whole thing, Joan didn’t have agency. Hopefully, as a partner, she’ll be able to get some back. [Link to the Mad Style post from the TLo blog](http://www.tomandlorenzo.com/2012/05/mad-style-the-other-woman.html) From that post: Joan wears the mink that Roger gave her that she said she’d always remember getting from him. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/152 "2012-05-30T18:49:57Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > It’s one thing to sell yourself, it’s another to be pimped out and passed around as a piece of SCDP property. That’s one of the things that was so awful about the whole thing, Joan didn’t have agency. Again, I’d feel worse about this if Joan didn’t have the exact same attitude towards her secretarial pool in Season One. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/153 "2012-05-30T18:53:09Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Again, I’d feel worse about this if Joan didn’t have the exact same attitude towards her secretarial pool in Season One. I don’t think she thought the secretaries were “required” to sleep w/ the bosses, just that they often did and she’d rather they didn’t end up knocked up because of it. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/154 "2012-05-30T18:54:19Z")
Peggy’s “pass” at Don was very obviously rooted in her previous interaction with Joan. It wasn’t because Peggy thought Don was so dreamy, it was because she was led (by Joan) to believe this was required of her. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/155 "2012-05-30T19:30:28Z")
Peggy could be Don’s kid sister- she has sex (or sex like stuff) with who she wants and it doesn’t really matter if she’s in a relationship: Pete, Duck, movie theater guy [that one was like she was trying to think “who would most piss off my mother? Ooh, a stranger with a joint in a movie theater… too bad he’s white and American, but, there’s always the weekend matinee”), her boyfriend of course. There were a couple of moments the other night when for the first time I realized just how much Elizabeth Moss looks like Bette Davis. No idea if this is something that’s been commented on 8 million times or if I’m the first person ever to think so, but if they ever do a movie in which a young Bette is a character she could totally kick it, and Peggy is also a character I could totally imagine Bette having played (if it was set in the 1930s/1940s instead of 1960s, obviously). ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/156 "2012-05-30T19:56:35Z")
I was speaking of the very beginning of the series. After Joan talks to Peggy and sets her up with birth control, Peggy makes a mistake (I think it was letting Pete see some research) and Don tells her if it happens again, she’ll be fired. Peggy makes a very awkward pass at Don and Don tells her to drop it. Peggy is obviously relieved, albeit embarrassed (and this sets up the relationship between her and Don for the series), because sleeping with Don was NOT something she actually wanted to do. She was led to believe it was expected of her which is evident both in her nervous attempt at it and in her relief when she’s shot down. The person who led her to believe it was Joan, both in her words and her actions. I very much doubt that Peggy was some unique snowflake in this and that Joan didn’t give every new girl the same treatment (lecture and pills). Joan was complicit in the whole “getting pimped out and passed around like a piece of SC property” thing years ago so I’m hardly going to clutch my pearls for her today. ---
**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:** [May 30, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/157 "2012-05-30T20:01:45Z")
I wanted to ask about Megan’s audition. We saw very little of it… just that the guys asked her to turn around. When Don got home and she was already home after the audition, she was very mopey and morose. Then she said she was waiting to hear, so she was in the running. Does anyone think that was a “casting couch” type of situation… that Megan was asked to do something-- I’m not sure what, but similar to what Joan faced, namely, “if you want to be considered for the job, certain things will be required”-- that she felt was demeaning and inappropriate, but that she did it or didn’t refuse to do it in the future, which is why she felt yukky afterwards, even though she was one of the finalists? That she figured out that this was “part of the game,” as Pete said; it was what she would have to get used to if she wanted a theater career. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/158 "2012-05-30T20:07:21Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I wanted to ask about Megan’s audition. We saw very little of it… just that the guys asked her to turn around. > > When Don got home and she was already home after the audition, she was very mopey and morose. Then she said she was waiting to hear, so she was in the running. > > Does anyone think that was a “casting couch” type of situation… that Megan was asked to do something-- I’m not sure what, but similar to what Joan faced, namely, “if you want to be considered for the job, certain things will be required”-- that she felt was demeaning and inappropriate, but that she did it or didn’t refuse to do it in the future, which is why she felt yukky afterwards, even though she was one of the finalists? That she figured out that this was “part of the game,” as Pete said; it was what she would have to get used to if she wanted a theater career. I kind of assumed that she didn’t go through with it and that was why she was so mopey. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2012, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/159 "2012-05-30T20:07:52Z")
I didn’t think anything actually happened at that audition (there was three guys there and… well, just no) but rather Megan realized that this was how she’d be treated no matter how serious she was as an actress. And her ascension in the theater could directly depend on, not how hard she works, but how she responds some day when it’s just her and one dude in a room. It was a depressing awakening. And this was her “leave my advertising job for” dream job – how does she possibly explain failing at it to Don? It’s embarrassing and demeaning. ---
**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:** [May 30, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296/160 "2012-05-30T20:17:48Z")
I don’t think that scene was meant to imply a casting couch, only that Megan was treated like a piece of meat just like Joan. The whole episode was about women reacting to the roles they’ve been put into (in Megan’s case, she is trying to secure a literal role in a play), Joan and Peggy are dealing with roles that are less defined. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-men-5-11-the-other-woman-open-spoilers/623296.md?page=9)