[QUOTE=AMC]
Sterling Cooper & Partners prepares for a guest. Don calls an old friend. Roger confronts problems at home. Pete underestimates Peggy
[/QUOTE]
Tonight mark’s the half way point in this half-season.
Eh, halfway through the mini-season and it feels like we’re not really moving. The previous episodes were an arc with Don being a slouch and then recommitting. So tonight was Don being a slouch and then recommitting? I can’t say I really care about Roger’s family either.
So, are we to believe that Don’s new found interest in the 1969 Mets will mirror his rise back to good graces with SC & P. Will Lou Avery crash & burn in August like my then beloved Chicago Cubs did back in the late summer of 1969?
And where is Bob Benson? in Detroit still working on Chevy. But I guess that thread is played out.
Thought the concerned friend talk by Freddie Rumson was a little too cliche.
Oh, and how far is Marigold’s commune from Bethel, NY?
Was it just me or did they seem to be frequently focusing on the corner of Don’s office where Lane hung himself? And I kind of pitied Don for how low he’s fallen; once able to leave the office at will and now forced to show up on time and work under Peggy.
Obviously it’s going to take more than one episode for Don to go back from zero to hero. I’d much rather see Don do that in the office with the rest of the SC&P characters than alone or with his wife in California.
I can understand wanting to put in a story line about hippies and “dropping out” and I guess Roger’s family is as good as any to do that with, IMO.
Did I miss a reference that explained the episode title? I know Mad Men likes being oblique on it’s titles, but this one was just opaque. Something computer-related, I’m guessing.
A System 360 seems awfully big for SC&P—but I guess the System/Three wasn’t introduced until later in the summer of 1969. And wouldn’t they have to put in the raised floor thing? How would you do that in the middle of the floor? Were there actually users who didn’t have keypunchers onsite? Seems like that would have limited functionality quite a bit.
IBM, and System 360 computer?
Elsewhere I saw something about the black door in the office looking like a scene from Kubrick’s 2001
Sure, but this episode was just treading water. It took him an hour to go from “Let’s do this” to “Bleah, such a drunk mess, so unhappy” and back to “Let’s do this”.
I think the IBM is definitely supposed to be the 2001ish monolith (2001 came out almost exactly a year before this episode is set). Especially as the computer guy was explaining to Don how everyone projected their insecurities and fears onto it. There was also a lot of moon and astronaut talk between Roger and his daughter.
I liked the credits music about riding a carousel and never being able to catch up to the horse in front of you. It seemed like a call back to Don’s Kodak Carousel pitch. Then the carousel represented Don’s happiness (and successful pitch), and now it’s highlighting Don’s awful position, stuck in a dead man’s office where everyone hates him and wants him gone.
nm.
If I recall correctly, there were many models of the IBM S360 computer.
The most expensive one was perhaps ten times more expensive (and far more powerful) than the least expensive one.
So, when someone said they had an IBM S360 computer, that could mean any one of a wide range of different computers.
Here is some info on the IBM S360 computer from Ask.com:
The release of IBM system/360 was on April 7, 1964. IBM’s System/360 was a family of computers, with model numbers that included models /20, /25, /30, /40, /50, /65, /67 and /95 within it.
The Mets pennant seemed ominous to me, since Don found it left over from Lane leaving it there. But on the AV Club page, one of the commenters pointed out that the Mets won the World Series in 1969, in one of the greatest upsets ever. I can tell that you know that but I’m guessing a lot of viewers and readers here didn’t. It could be foreshadowing that Don triumphs over Lou or someone else at SC&P, or that he just that Don improves himself. I don’t think Lou will crash and burn, partly because he’s not going fast enough to crash.
Also, I didn’t know if Burger Chef was real or made up, but it was a real fast food chain, that according to Wikipedia hit its peak in 1973.
I don’t know if LeaseTech was a real thing, but I’m guessing that was based off a real thing.
According to [url=“http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=5200&year=1969”] a $5,200 raise in 1969 is equal to over $34,000 today. I gotta say if I got that kind of raise I would be as miserable as Peggy.
Peggy and Joan need more screen time together. I would like to see them work together to win over a client or something similar.
My favorite line of the episode: “Well, Peggy, I don’t know if this will make you feel better, but I don’t think they thought about it at all.”
Do we know what Peggy’s salary is? I don’t remember if it’s been mentioned. I also immediately looked up on the inflation calculator what a $100 a week raise would be equal to today and was surprised she didn’t show more of a reaction.
Gently drift off the shoulder and come to rest in an embankment 
Speaking of the Peggy/Joan dynamic duo, am I correct in thinking the Avon thing sort of just fizzled? It hasn’t been mentioned since and it would be a large enough account to get some screen time if SCP wound up with it. Might always come back around, of course.
Ted offered her $19,000 to come to CGC (before they merged) as a copy chief. I would assume her pay stayed the same through the merger. Which would be around $125,000 in adjusted dollars.
I thought that Ken mentioned she’d have two accounts when he put her on… whatever it was. The other account would have to be Avon, I think.
SCP Creative has gone very odd this season. Ted is still Creative Director, in California… with no staff? So he’s servicing the Californian accounts all alone? We haven’t actually seen Lou do anything Creative, only randomly select out of whatever Peggy puts in front of him. From past seasons we’ve seen Don (and Ted) need to get involved in the process to satisfy the clients. Yet Bert avows there will be no creative crisis, and things are just dandy. SCP had made much of their Creative stars in Don and Ted; yet no clients are asking about their whereabouts?
I don’t know if Ted was being accurate in saying the key to Burger Chef was housewives and so they needed Peggy on it, or if he’s still hung up on her and was rationalizing.
You might be correct. I think Ken’s guy that he pushed off onto Joan was… shoes? But then Cutler says that Joan has two jobs now and puts her upstairs so she must have something else. Just weird that they’d never mention what they were doing for it or show any creative or anything. That would be a fairly significant account.
I think a lot of it was Ted just didn’t want to return to New York for multiple reasons (Peggy being but one) and so responded to “We’re pulling you back” to pushing the job off onto someone in the NY office.