That makes no sense. He wasn’t “taking credit for it.” He was simply trying to avoid Peggy getting pissed over it. He spoke about it at arm’s length – there were circumstances, she’s been here 13 years. He was excusing it, not talking himself up.
I believe they lost Vicks a long time ago.
Actually, 99% of that went unknown to Don until the end. The Lucky Strikes guy hit on Sal, Sal rejected him and then the LS guy drunk-called Harry late at night and said he wanted Sal fired. Harry, not knowing any of the reason, figures the LS guy was just drunk and stupid and wouldn’t remember. The LS guy comes to the offices, sees Sal and gets pissed and leaves. Harry goes to Don who chews him out and then calls Sal in. Sal tells him what happened and Don fires him. I don’t think the option to go back and fuck LS guy was still on the table; Don was just trying to save a bad situation with their largest client and firing Sal was the way to do that. Don says maybe he could have done something if Harry had told him right away but now they were screwed.
If the LS guy had approached Don and said to serve up some Sal, who knows? I know this would never have happened due to the homosexual angle but maybe Don would have or maybe not. But it wasn’t the choice Don had in the show, it was either “fire Sal” or “lose Lucky Strikes”.
Exactly. It was an awkward moment, to say the least.
Presumably, now that they’ve landed Jaguar their credit extension shouldn’t be a problem; the banker would probably advance them $100,000 more gladly. In addition to large account in general, if Mad Men is to be believed having a car account in particular is a major sign of validity and staying power for an advertising agency.
You could tell that as soon as the sleazeball mentioned that he had his eye on Joan, all Pete heard was “we have a shot!” Ken immediately called Pete out for not telling the guy that Joan is married. And of course, he pulled out every slimy trick in the book as soon as he got back to the office.
If there was a flaw with the episode, I’d say that I would have liked to know more about what other characters thought of the situation. Roger is the most notable omission, but Ken knows what happened, too, and he’s one of the more decent people at the firm. But I really find it odd that we got very little reaction from Roger.
Regarding Don and Peggy, my interpretation was that he was trying to avoid saying, you know, “we whored Joan out and this was her price.” He needed to say something. I don’t understand the idea that he was talking himself up by saying that.
If the writers chose to not have Lane’s embezzlement uncovered, they could probably do so without there being any believability problem. I’ve wondered if the problem will be that Lane thinks “That was really easy… I wonder just how much I could get away with.”
My understanding of the partner’s financial status:
Burt (founding partner) and Roger (son of founding partner) were already rich from Sterling Cooper when the show began. Burt’s sister is also somehow involved.
When Don was made partner and Sterling Cooper sold, Burt (and his sister) and Roger became really freaking rich and Don became moderately rich from his stake.
When they left and formed Sterling Cooper Draper Price, Lane and Pete received really good incomes from their share but neither got an immediate liquid wealth like the others had from when SC sold, so while they have a very good income for the 1960s (when taxes were much higher than now) they’re not necessarily rich yet. Is that correct?
Has it been made clear how much each partner’s share is? Presumably Pete doesn’t have as much as the others since he’s a junior (non-name-on-the-door) partner.
As far as $19k/year goes… my starting salary at a high tech firm in Silicon Valley as an R&D engineer was about $21K in the late 70s. I’d say $19K was pretty damn good!
See Post No. 53. Pryce is a name partner, but he’s still a junior partner, like Pete. Naming is separate from partnership type. That’s true of any partnership.
My favourite episode of the season, if not of the whole show. Wonderfully played and heartbreaking. How many more seasons is this show set to have? It really feels like they’re approaching the end, if not in this season, at least in the next one.
ETA: The scene with Meg seemed a bit oogly. I thought they were going to go into it more but it was just followed up by more of her conflict with Don.
Weiner has said there will be a maximum of two more seasons.
Definitely one more. No more than one additional one after that.
My father made about $5000 in 1966. We were unquestionably working class poor. A $19,000 salary would have given us a house in the suburbs. That was a very nice salary for anyone in their 20s at the time.
Nobody’s talked about the presentation itself. Not only was the tagline a good one, finally, but the presentation itself had massive parallels to the situations in this episode. We don’t know if Don actually gets it or not, but he might given that he reconciles with Megan after we see that she is something beautiful that he can’t own.
Don’s “met a lot of beautiful women” in his life. And “they never get tired of hearing it.” Of course “deep beauty arouses deep emotions” - that’s Don’s life. It “creates a desire, because it is by nature unattainable”." Those words are shown and there is an immediate cut to Joan at Herb’s door - he’s getting the unattainable. “We’re taught to think that function is all that matters, but we have a natural longing for this other thing.” Don has made his abilities foremost in his pretense of a life but the whole show is his longing for that “unattainable object [that] speeds by just out of reach.” Over various seasons it’s been other woman, California, a new life, he’s not really sure what it is but the temptation constantly frustrates him, and more so now that he has a beautiful wife that rejected the opportunity of advertising and is pursuing that other life, Peggy is moving on to make her own opportunities (she finally got to wear a smart, successful, adult dress better looking than Megan’s or Joan’s, yea!), and Joan the unattainable for him is revealed to be obtainable by a lesser man. “The difference is… he can have the Jaguar.” Some desires are made available by money. Advertising exists to tell you that a car is a meaningful desire. The show exists to tell us how insubstantial the objects of advertising desire are compared to the desires of real lives. “What price would we pay; what behavior would we forgive? … If they weren’t a little out of our control, would we love them like we do?”
Two more episodes, and maybe we’ll get an answer to that question.
Great writing tonight, and great acting in the looks that complemented and contrasted the words. One of the best episodes of the series. And it’s got to be leading up to a bang.
I saw this episode being about how women are attacking the glass ceiling from every angle, using everything they got. All of the women realize that their continued security is utterly dependent on the sheer benevolence of men. Joan knew her fate had already been bartered and decided by the partners- and she pulled out all the shots to make sure she is never that helpless again. Peggy knew she was always going to be seen as someone else’s project, and so she went someplace where she could name her own terms and start without debt to anyone. Megan already realized that her career in advertising would never be on her own terms, and she’s just coming up to the fact that acting doesn’t really happen on your own terms either.
The themes in this episode also called back to the episode where Peggy fires the asshole art guy for doing the lewd drawing of Joan and generally harassing Joan. In that episode, Joan resented Peggy for presuming that Joan couldn’t take care of the situation in her own way (by having dinner with the Sugarberry Ham guy). Here, Joan basically goes that route, and whatever else happens, becoming a partner is a huge step up for her, and something that Peggy would have to work for years to even dream of achieving.
Haven’t seen it mentioned upstream - pardon me if I missed it in a post - that Don’s mother was a whore and he was raised by his aunt and uncle. A psychiatrist would have a field day with him on this one.
Don’s mother was a whore, and his father was her customer. He was raised by his father and his father’s understandably pissed off and bitter wife.
Yep, just re-watched the firing scene on AMC.
Peggy: There is no number
Joan: 5% of the company
Peggy has got to return next season. Maybe not at SCDP, but we need to see her at the new agency. Will the grass really be greener? I doubt Chaugh would’ve offered her even more than she was asking unless he was sincere about giving her the job title & responsibily to go along with it. Meanwhile the creative department at SCDP is going to be a diaster now that Don has to handle all the crap he’s been foisting off on her because he doesn’t want to deal with it.
Then his father died, and he was raise by his bitter step-mother & her new husband.
Right, Pete & Lane each had the same stake in the company (12.5%), but Lane got his name on the letterhead. Roger, Burt, & Don each lost 1.25% to Joan and Pete & Lane .75%. So the stakes are now; Roger 23.75%, Burt 23.75%, Don 23.75%, Lane 11.75%, Pete 11.75%, and Joan 5%.