Ken is one of my favourites, so I enjoyed his story.
I think part of it is the issue with the big ensemble cast they have; there’s so many people that each person gets about 2 seconds of face time.
IvoryTowerDenizen, I also thought the waitress was Don’s old hippie (beatnik?) girlfriend Midge, originally from season one. I had to look up the actresses to verify. Not the same actress, but I do think there is a strong resemblance.
Or she could just be an archetype: Don is drawn to a certain type of brunette (Sally’s teacher from season 3).
Don saw a waitress who reminded him of Rachel Mencken from Season One. He dreams about her (Rachel) and uses the Topaz account as a pretext to set up a meeting with her only to find out that she recently died. Seeking closure, Don attends Rachel’s wake/memorial (or whatever the Jewish equivalent is if it’s different) only to get the cold shoulder from Rachel’s sister who apparently knew about the affair Don and Rachel had. I don’t think that Don realizes that Diane (the waitress) reminds him of Rachel, only that she seems very familiar. The waitress screwed Don because she thought that’s what the hundred bucks was for and apparently she isn’t the sort of pass up on a hundred dollars. Don screwed her because he had this weird fascination with her as some sort of mysterious link he couldn’t figure out. I didn’t find this story line very satisfying but so it goes.
Ken’s father-in-law worked for Dow in their marketing head. For the longest time, Ken resisted pushes from Sterling Cooper to hit his father-in-law up for work but during one of the lean periods he finally got forced into it. Ken’s father-in-law retires and Ken’s wife pushes him to get out of advertising and start writing again (he’s had a short story published and was working on a novel in previous episodes). The next day, Ken goes to work only to learn that he is being fired due to bad feelings when he left McCann – where he worked briefly after the old Sterling Cooper was bought out. At the time, Ken feels as though this is some sign for him to start writing again but at the end of the episode he informs Roger and Pete that he’s been hired into his father-in-law’s old position and will now be heading one of SC’s largest clients. Roger expects this means that Sterling Cooper will be dropped but Ken says that he’s keeping them on if only so he can be a dick to them.
Peggy’s feeling lonely and unfulfilled in her personal life and had a falling out with Joan to whom Peggy feels socially inferior. She tries to get back into things by accepting a blind date with the brother of one of her creative staff. They hit it off, Peggy tries to turn it into some whirlwind thing with a trip to Paris but… she can’t find her passport. The date sort of ends there with the guy saying he’ll see her in a couple weeks due to him traveling. The next day, Peggy finds her passport at work – a not subtle metaphor for work stepping all over her personal life.
I got the Midge thing too. I think that actress looks way more like Midge than Rachel. But you might be right in the archetype thing.
Good to know I wasn’t alone. Archetype idea is a good one.
I always get that after there has been a hiatus, regardless of the show. The first episode almost always seems choppy and forced as the actors look for the groove they were in when last together.
I remember Rachel having a phone condensation with her sister about Don, back in Season 1. Her sister calls Don a “shikker”, which is Yiddish for drunk. I guess she remembers him as that married alcoholic Rachel was seeing way when.
Peggy proposed jetting off to Paris to her date, drop everything and just go! But she couldn’t find her passport…now, did that guy have HIS passport in his pocket, or back where he was staying? Because if he didn’t, well, it was just a silly idea. If he did have his passport on him, that would have made the whole thing more painful to Peggy the next day.
You’re reading into it. The two half seasons were shot together. For the actors, this was the next week.
I hoping this episode starts a trend of minimizing the pile of bodies that had been brought into the show. That hurt the last two seasons. Two many people, too many new characters, too many stories with too little time for each.
The best thing Weiner could do would be to reduce the final cast to just the people who are still around from the first season. They’re the only ones we really care about.
I know. That’s why it felt so awful. 
Thank you **Jophiel **for the explanations using small words. I swear - sometimes when I watch this show I feel like I’ve never seen an episode before!
I agree.
The past few seasons have definitely felt too scattered.
Except for Stan Rizzo, of course. Him and his beard.
So memory is fuzzy and this season is really just a piece of crap, I guess.
I thought the episode had a dreamy/boozy feel that made the viewer question what was real and what was a dream or hallucination. I’m guessing what comes next is some kind of hangover.
This comes pretty close to what I was trying to put my finger on in the my previous post. Perhaps someone more versed in production can help to dissect it, but it almost felt like it was filmed or lighted differently(?)Maybe the music was subliminally dark?Maybe the characters are all jaded now and that combined with the new era comes through to give everything a darker tone? I don’t know but I noticed it on Sunday night and thought it was maybe my buzzed state or the dim lighting in my living room so I watched it again yesterday and it felt the same. If it is intentional - and I assume it must be- wow, that is some effective technique.
He’s going to shave off his beard and we learn …it was Sal all the time!
I liked the use of Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is?” the song is surreal with this thread of circus music running through it; it set the tone perfectly for the episode.
I think the waitress looked like Don’s ‘type’ more than any one woman from the show: dark hair and eyes, and kind of damaged. He did grow up in a brothel, after all. Betty was kind of the opposite of all that and being married to her required him to adopt a fake persona. Now, he’s kind of out in the open; although still calling himself Don.
I think part of it is the slide from the Hip Bubbly 60s into the Brooding Contentious 70s with the Viet Nam stuff and Watergate looming on the horizon. That shift in atmosphere mirrors the shift in the mood of the culture.
That first 10 minutes with Don directing the model in the fur coat–holy shit. He practically melted my TV with his pure sexuality. Yikes. And dropping the ciggie in the coffee cup where it sizzled– I almost had to look away from time to time as it was so intense (but I liked it).
I think the visual Don Draper is one of the THE most attractive men ever to appear on screen. His type won’t appeal to everyone, but it pings the heartstrings (and lower) of women of my generation. He radiates the same kind of mature male eroticism, that for instance, Clark Gable did when he carried Scarlett up those stairs. One does not see that any more.
Having said that, there’s no way I would ever be interested in dating him or even meeting him. I was talking about this with a girlfriend (in my age group) last night and we said there isn’t one guy on the program that we would even be interested in having coffee with. <shrug>
But I could watch Don smoke a cigarette until the cows come home.
Hells yes, on all points. I can’t think of anyone more suited to play DD than Jon Hamm. He’s cute when he’s on SNL or giving interviews or even his small part (Jon Hamm, small part: this does not compute) in Bridesmaids but as Don Draper, holy crap. That first scene was indeed salacious and I ate it up.
FYI Tom & Lorenzo’s blog post is up. I agree completely with everything said about Peggy & Joan in particular.