Well she was certainly an attractive sexpot a season ago, especially when doing her zoobie-zoobie-zoo song. Possibly the producers are deliberately making her less attractive now so that we can fall out of love with her, along with Don.
I can’t give a source, but I’ve read tons of stuff about the movie business and I remember lots of accounts of non-actor spouses - and even some actor spouses - being irate over love scenes. Some directors simply ban spouses from the lot when such scenes are being shot.
As for Megan, I thought she looked much better as the maid when she took off the raccoonish black gunk around her eyes. That’s a style that shouldn’t be brought back. (Although I’ve seen similar since.)
Don seemed to really lose his patience with it towards the end when the actor was kissing her neck down near her chest. Megan kept playing it down in describing it as though it would be more chaste although she had to have known better, being there to witness other scenes (and I assume having watched the shows which I doubt Don ever has). Both in her initial conversation with Don and then at the dinner she kept reasserting that it was all very innocent*
Don is, of course, a huge hypocrite etc but Megan was something less than forthright about the situation.
- Yes, I know that by today’s standards what we saw was absolutely virginal. But even despite that, Megan was making it to be even less of an event than it was.
I think Don has something of the Madonna/Whore syndrome. Betty’s bikini and Megan’s love scene would seem to point toward this. He probably believes all women are whores, or capable of being or becoming whores (and spending his adolescent years in a brothel would teach him this), but he wants his chosen woman/women to be Madonnas and not be seen by other men as whores. The women he sleeps with are whores, but that’s okay…that’s what they’re there for. Then there are women like Peggy who aren’t objects of sexual interest at all… they’re women he respects and sees as friends. Joan is one of those and so was Anna his long-ago friend.
I’m just about ready to give up on this show. I never found it quite as compelling as others have but it’s definitely been watchable. Don’s character seems played out, I don’t find his story interesting anymore. Is there going to be a 7th season?
Yes, it will be the last.
I don’t think we’ve ever had enough insight into what Don’s thoughts are that you could assert this. He’s been fairly opaque on his thought process, only revealing what has been simmering along when he suddenly explodes into anger (as he did this episode).
And there’s certainly been no indication that he has had to justify all of his many, many, many other affairs. He seems to accept them as his due, just the way things are, to be continued until he bores of them or until the woman gets too annoying.
We have seen him get irritated by Betty, and abandon her to go hook up with his latest fling. As he did this epsidoe to Megan. But I don’t think he justified that behavior in his mind; it was just what he felt like doing, regardless of the consequences. And that seems to be how Don lives his life.
I don’t think that the secret was so much that Heinz Ketchup was looking for a new agency (although it would probably be a competitive advantage to keep that under wraps). The reason they were taking steps to keep everything on the down low was because they didn’t want to piss off the guy who had beans. What I’m not sure of is who told Mr. Beans about SCPD’s presentation to Ketchup.
I figure it is one of two people:
The Heinz ketchup guy, who told it to his baked beans guy for internal political reasons. This reason is boring from the perspective of the show. How cares about the internal politics at the clients’.
The guy at Peggy’s agency, who told it to the baked beans guy because now, even if they didn’t get Heinz (and if they did, bonus), he has shaken baked beans loose from SCPD and try for that one as well. This reason is potentially interesting from the perspective of the show for how it impacts Peggy when she learns this.
Though we do not know much about what Don thinks we certainly have his behavior available to us as an interpretive map to his intent and jacked up mental processes.
Super Don is a narcissist of the highest order, it would not be a reach for Don to take Megan’s love scene as an assault on his inflated ego. His ego bruised leveling the playing field is just a matter of course for Don.
This episode was quite good. There was the ongoing theme of infidelity, broken trust and people getting caught. SCDP has an “affair” with ketchup, symbolically meeting in Pete’s apartment of infidelity, and then later they book a hotel room. But of course, they are caught cheating, and of course it would be sloppy Pete Campbell who is at fault.
Then we have the secretary trying to cheat by leaving early and having someone else punch her card, and she is caught.
And Peggy, who betrayed her friend’s trust, was caught, but still didn’t get the account.
I thought Harry Crane in this episode represented the faithful one, who is treated like a mistress and not made legitimate “partner.” Even Roger handing him that money is just like Don handing Sylvia a stack of cash after he screws her. Poor Harry isn’t getting screwed in the good way.
Don’s anger with Megan is quite easy to explain. Don sees two kind of women, needy helpless ones that are good lays, and professional smart women. He respected Peggy and Joan in that way. But Joan spoiled his view of her by whoring her body. When he fell for Megan, he thought of her as that professional woman, but one he could be with, but she stopped working, and pursed acting which put her in a limbo. But that love scene set him off, because he was forced to see her as a whore, as “someone who gets paid to kiss people,” as he said.
I can’t believe this series is losing me, but so far this season I am so bored it’s incredible. Don has lost all charm and intrigue and is just a tight-assed loser intent on self-destruction. If Joan’s bust gets any bigger she’ll need two corner offices; she’s gone from Monroe to mannequin. And everyone else seems lost to weed and ennui.
What happened? More importantly, what’s happening? And what is AW thinking?
I’ve watched the show from the beginning. Always as it was broadcast–with commercials!–rather than marathoning seasons on DVD or streaming. So I know that each season moves slowly; the payoffs may come slowly but they have always arrived.
Don’s story is depressing this season; but his storylines have never been all that cheerful. I find other characters more interesting–there are so many! And I enjoy the design of the costumes & interiors, although we’re moving into an ugly era…
There’s only one more year after this one, so I’ll be stay with the show to the end…
But that’s just it: what Don has already done in this episode is a matter of course for him. He lashed out at Megan to make her miserable because she wasn’t following his every whim, and then went and slept with his mistress. That’s exactly what he used to do to Betty.
What he did not do was “organize his mind around Megan’s love scene to justify his affair with Mrs. Doc.” He’s never done anything like that. He never justifies what he wants to do – he just does it.
I am not suggesting he is justifying to anyone else but him, a narcissist must justify in order to keep their ego in tact. But, time will tell should the affair be made known to Megan what kind of verbal assault follows from Don.
Despite the love scene he has already justified the affair with Mrs. Doc, we just do not know how just yet.
Don never respected Megan as an actor. She did such a convincing job of lust and pleasure that he believed it was real.
There’s something happening here. What is is ain’t exactly clear.
:cough:
Interesting that Harry knows (or suspects) how Joan got her partnership. Someone upthread said that Ken was shown last season to know about it, which I don’t remember. Surely the fact of how Joan got her partnership is not common knowledge around the office? I would have thought that the partners would have kept it between themselves.
And speaking of which, I’m starting to hate Joan almost as much as I hate Betty. I get that she’s always been shown to be strict around the office, but I think she’s turning into a real bitch.
Good to see Dawn getting some more screen time. Interesting to see a different perspective on things, in her conversations with her friend. We are getting a bit of complexity with the character, in how she is torn between her friend encouraging her to stand up for herself, and at the same time wanting to not make waves and to keep her job. Until the friend mentioned it, I didn’t consider why Scarlett asked Dawn to punch her time card - that, being the only black employee, she might be afraid to say no. I wonder if that was really it.
Giving Dawn more responsibility is certainly bitchy 
Wasn’t she originally invited along? But she said she was too busy or something so Scarlett asked her to punch her out instead. I think asking Dawn was more a thing of opportunity than “Let’s make the black girl do it”.
I don’t think they’ve been exactly clear on what Joan’s current responsibilities are. I’d say that she needs an office manager except, for all I know, she still has that as part of her primary duties. It’d be like saying Pete needs someone to handle Accounts.