I read about that in an interview with Weiner. Of course, they don’t have to stick to that. The final episodes might not even be written yet.
I think it was those insane beach shorts of his. Dude has some legs.
Where I lived at the time (Texas, Oklahoma) they called them natural. One girl I knew said she might as well “go nappy” and then she went nappy, and called it that, then it became some kind of slur. Nowadays they’re referred to as afros or 'fros (maybe at the time too).
I’ve heard “natural” as meaning any hairstyle that doesn’t involving straightening (afro, twists, braids, etc.). Looking around, I stumbled over:
Characters pronouncing the secretary’s name as “Don” always confuses me, but especially in this ep – Don is in California…isn’t he? Of course “Dawn” and “Don” are two different pronunciations for me.
And yes, I voted Meh, because nothing really happened.
This came up when she started on the show but I guess out east (and maybe out west) they’re pronounced the same. Here in the heartland, it’s “Dawn rhymes with fawn” and “Don rhymes with John”.
I really didn’t feel that the episode was especially slow or that nothing happened. Although, I did mention to my wife at about ten or fifteen minutes in that this whole episode so far feels kinda like an extended “next week on…”, where they just pop in on someone, who says a random line, then move on to someone else, who says a random line.
But by the end of the episode I felt as if we had seen a lot. Not a whole lot of plot development, true, but there were some pretty strong statements made about the main female characters (Joan, Peggy, and Don’s wife) and where they are in their respective journeys. We see Don’s wife being rather more independent, but still somewhat tethered to Don. We see Joan learning that not only is she skilled enough to be able to operate as a proper businessperson, but also that there are now people who will accept her on those terms and not just as a “perk” of the deal. And Peggy, we see her struggling in her independence, and struggling with being without a man in her life. I also thought it was cute that Peggy’s best work still comes when she is riffing off of Don (whether she knows she is or not).
I also felt that we saw something pretty significant about Don, seeing him react to his wife, and seeing him turn away his two main vices.
Lastly, although this was fairly brief, I liked getting a look at how Lou Avery operates. He definitely struck me as an overconfident moron who nevertheless somehow has the respect of the people around him. The old Don would have cut that guy to ribbons. I’m looking forward to seeing how badly Avery fucks things up for everybody (probably, but definitely Peggy for at least a while).
Anyway, I felt like the episode had a lot going on even if, plotwise, we were mostly just checking in on everyone.
Huh. I thought in the heartland they were the same, and in New Yawk, dog would be dawg and Dawn would be dawn.
I was being a little glib but apparently it’s not as cut and dry as I make it. Here’s a map.
Dog is “Dawg” in the Deep South, amongst the more rural population. It’s more like Du-wog in NYC amongst those with thicker accents.
My accent is slightly on the southern side of neutral, and Dawn, Fawn, Don and John all rhyme.
I’m having trouble recalling exactly why they put him on leave. Was it a Freddie Rumsen “get clean” type of thing?
That map is exactly the opposite of what I’ve always seen. I believe it’s of the Midwest thathas cot/caught merger (“cot is caught” or CIC) whereas it’s in the New York City area that CINC (“cot is not caught”) is a prominent characteristic.
Well, duh. They do! Because all four of those words rhyme. 
Y’all are crazy-pants 
Anyway, here around Chicago, the Don/Dawn joke went right past me because no one here pronounced them the same.
I bet you think marry, merry and Mary are all the same word too! 
Yep!
Obviously.
My close friend can’t hear the difference even when I exaggeratedly say them for him, isolating the vowels. LOOK, my mouth is totally shaped a different way!! (I feel like Chris Tucker to Jackie Chan: Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?!) Nope, it doesn’t register.
I believe so. A friend of mine had a funny idea: Last episode, last scene, Don at Altamont (the free concert in California headlined by the Stones): Don gets shot or stabbed or OD’s to death, fade to black.
Back to this first episode – I voted “didn’t like” (for the reasons others gave), but one thing I DID like about it was the time it spent on the (supposed) inner workings of how an ad agency functions, especially in the first scenes. I always enjoy sequences like that.
No, I think he died of lung cancer. Thirstiness is one of the symptoms of lung cancer, and she said that he was wearing a wig when he died - probably the result of chemo.
She spoke of him quite fondly, which probably wouldn’t be the case if he died of alcoholism. And a doctor wouldn’t likely diagnose that an alcoholic would be dead in a year - not back then. Lung cancer also brings it back around to Don’s cigarette accounts in the early seasons. So… lung cancer.