It was definitely cancer but I don’t recall whether it was specified.
I find Kiernan Shipka (Sally) to be one of the best actors on the show of any age and I find the Sally Draper storylines completely engaging. They really lucked out when they cast her at a very young age.
I a little unclear on the whole Duck/Pete thing. Did Pete think Duck wanted him to land LearJet as a client for McCann? He mentioned something about a conflict. Then he found out it was a job interview. I didn’t quite understand the whole thing.
Put me down as one who thought they ate the Germans. The vet mentioned how they were all starving.
I agree. And I also think January Jones has played her role very well. Betty Draper is meant to be the way she comes off. It’s because Jones is a good actor, not a bad actor, that everyone hates Betty so much.
Duck was trying to headhunt for Lear. He knew that Pete wouldn’t take the interview so he tricked Pete. Essentially, Duck said that there was an opening that Duck wanted and he was setting up an advertising opportunity for Pete and, in return, Pete would plug Duck for the executive job.
At the meeting, Pete realizes that the Lear exec is there to interview Pete and that Duck was lying about the advertising angle. Duck was desperate to get Pete in the door because Duck needs the headhunting commission.
But, if all told was truth, Lear was impressed by Pete and is willing to buy out his McCann contract with stock options and move him out to Wichita to be some sort of executive (I don’t know the exact job he’d be doing). I guess we’ll find out in a few days.
I disagree.
The thing about Mad Men more so than most other TV shows is that each hour are only snapshots of people’s lives taken over a decade. We don’t see everything that occurs to every character but see enough to notice how people react, change (or in some ways) don’t change to what life dishes out.
Think about your own life. Do people you knew ten years ago act exactly the same today as they did then? Some may, but others have changed. Maybe for the better (or worst)
Betty accepting her demise shows how far she’s grown, but in her letter to Sally we still see bits and pieces of her vain, self-centered old self as she goes on and on about how she should look for the funeral.
The same with Pete. Yes, he’s excited to start anew with Trudy at Lear in Wichita, but he’s usually like that when new opportunities arise. Though his conversation with his brother and the thought of his father throws his philandering ways into his face. He does’t want to end up like them, so he’s suddenly a family man. Now, who knows.
If this show only covered a couple years of these characters lives, then yes, I’d say some of these story lines are contrived, but seven seasons (90+ episodes) for over a decade of people’s lives, especially a decade like the 1960’s which was a decade of change, then no, to me it seems natural.
Assuming Pete heads off to the heartland, that’s three fifths of the partners gone from McCann already. Ted sounded happy to stay there and Roger frankly seems to be running out the clock. Twice divorced, idiot daughter living with hippies, no real connection to his son or grandson. And his company now consumed and gone, even the people who who made it special scattering.
Thanks, Jophiel! And a drunk Duck is an obnoxious Duck.
Well, if we’re here to repeat ourselves, I’ll just say again that I don’t think Henry is that much of an asshole. Would Betty want him to take the boys from their father?
Nor I. He’s a much better father than Don is.
Henry’s kids are grown up. (And we never saw the side of him that divorced their mother–or did she divorce him?)
Don’s kids still need him & he knows it.
I mean that Henry is a better father to Bobby, at least, than Don ever has been. And Don’s never been a farther to Gene.
I was responding to a suggestion that Don’s wealth would give him an advantage in a custody dispute. And note my use of “if.” “IF” there’s a legal struggle, Henry wins. IF. I don’t say one way or another whether that’s going to happen.
Legally, wouldn’t the children go to the biological father?
You haven’t been paying attention. Henry was originally annoyed at the kids’ presence, and though he’s grown tolerant, he rarely addresses them. Don, despite being a non-custodial parent, we’ve seen taking the kids on weekends, going to Bobby’s summer camp, taking them out for dinner, making them milkshakes, and generally being attentive. When he’s abandoning everything else in his life, they’re the one thing he’s holding on to (well, that and his millions, probably).
It’s been a long, long time since the Don who skipped his kid’s birthday to go cruising around, and then brought back a puppy to make them forget what a schlub father he’d been.
There was a scene in an earlier episode where Betty had some sort of health scare, IIRC, around the 4th of July, and she’s sitting in a lawn chair cuddling Baby Gene as the fireworks go off. I think she does love her children, but she’s all wrapped up in appearance and status and I don’t think she knows quite how to show it.
I don’t believe we’ve ever seen Henry coming home from a baseball game with the kids or anything like that. It’s hard to imagine that he’s especially invested in them.
Obviously, Peggy, pining for her lost motherhood, is going to adopt them 
And marry Don. 
We don’t see that much of Henry and the kids, but both Henry and Don would be single fathers raising them. Don would still get visitation rights, no doubt, but I don’t think he’d win a custody fight. I actually don’t think he’d even fight one. But he can justify not doing so because it would be hard and disruptive to the kids.
IIRC when Bert was alive and running things he’d often stomp on Roger’s stupid ideas. With him gone it is no surprise that Roger trashed the company. If Robert Morse hadn’t already shown up in Don’s car, I’d have hoped for Bert’s ghost to haunt Roger.
Yeah, no one will be left by the end. McCann will undercut Peggy enough for her to leave, especially since she doesn’t have money to lose by splitting.
And start their own agency…