Different From The Inside (Mad Men Season 3, Episode 3)
Mad Men’s third episode of the third season, “My Old Kentucky Home,” is full of intimations of the changes that are to come, as well as the ones already underway. Social mores are changing, class distinctions are breaking down, and yet awareness of these changes is sinking in at different rates. Some, like Peggy, are rushing ahead to meet them, while others, like Roger, are unaware that they are dinosaurs, about to look as hopelessly “square,” outdated and outright offensive to their contemporaries as they do to us viewers.
The episode starts rather baldly with Grandpa Gene having Sally read to him from Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (in which the warmth of the climate inspired the natives to licentiousness and pleasure was the only pursuit) and then greeting Don with “How’s Babylon?” but proceeds more subtly in the rest of the episode as we observe how three disparate groups of characters spend a warm Saturday:
I am so high. ~ Peggy
Paul, Peggy and Smitty are stuck at the office working, ironically finding that drinking rum and coke (with olives) doesn’t give them ideas for a Bacardi campaign, at least not nearly as well as pot does, which they get from an old Princeton friend of Paul’s, a collegiate barbershop quartet-er turned drug dealer (played by an actor with a distractingly uncanny resemblance to Tom Cruise) who announces that he and Paul were the “two greatest cocksmen of Princeton class of 55” (a claim that Smitty pointedly questions) before being kicked out by Paul for revealing the Jersey scholarship-boy origins that Paul’s been covering up with a fake-y accent.
I went to Miss Dever’s secretarial school. ~ Peggy in response to hearing the boys' academic credentials.
After initially being treated like she’s invading the boy’s treehouse and literally being told to “Get out!” when they’re smoking the weed, Peggy barges in and introduces herself to Tom Cruise as “I’m Peggy Olson and I want to smoke some marijuana.”
I think so. ~ Peggy
Drugs are apparently good for Peggy, as she has a creative breakthrough and takes over the campaign, summarily dismissing Smitty and Paul with, “You both can leave. I’m in a very good place right now," and floating off to get to her Dictaphone before something harshes her mellow. When her new, motherly secretary Olive expresses disappointment and worry at Peggy’s drug taking, she gives an “I am woman, hear me roar” speech which, like Gene’s choice of reading material, is just a bit too obvious in both message and delivery, despite being gratifying sentiments to hear from Peggy:
Yes, the kids are going to be fine, the kids are alright (even if the Who hasn’t told them that yet). They’re working overtime, building their careers, breaking through barriers and unafraid of new things. They’ve survived the threat of extinction and can’t imagine the changes and horrors that lie ahead.
But we didn’t. ~ Smitty
At the upper end of the crust, Jane and Roger are having an old-fashioned Derby Day party at Roger’s country club (at which Don ironically has trouble getting someone to make him an old-fashioned) and the Campbells, Cranes and a stag Cosgrove are also in attendance. A very pregnant Betty frets that she looks like “an open umbrella” but is actually so beautiful that a strange man wants to touch her belly, and she looks happier than in any episode to date. Whether it’s hormones, a chance to get out to a fancy party in a new dress that’s not a maternity smock, or the mint juleps, we are left to wonder, but eventually even Don falls under her spell, perhaps goaded by everyone saying how beautiful she is, and ends the episode kissing her in the growing darkness at the edge of the party.
Each strand of this episode features a song, with the episode title referring to a Rorschach of a scene that reveals the character of these characters, as we get a shock cut of Roger in crude black face, down on one knee, singing “My Old Kentucky Home” in full Jolson mode. As he sings about darkies and Jane giggles in delight, we see the reaction of the party guests: Don looks appalled (and asks Betty if they can leave), Pete also looks disturbed and uneasy, but everyone else seems to find it funny.
I think we’re meant to see this as an example of Don’s natural nobility and egalitarianism, extended across race if not gender. In this, he’s linked to Pete, who despite his initial crudeness in the show (and his hilariously relentless self-centeredness) consistently exudes good breeding. Don finds Roger’s behavior distasteful and Pete finds it in poor taste. It’s not the same thing, but Don and Pete continue to be increasingly united in subtle ways that even they may not be aware of.
On the other hand, we see the archaic side of Pete’s manners when he and Trudy do a mean Charleston, a dance that was popular 40 years before, in their parents’ youth. (Watching them, you imagine the two of them practicing together just to be able to unfurl it on rare occasions like these.) Pete's a figure that straddles the old and the new: young yet conservative, hip yet traditional, open yet rigid. It will be interesting to see how he continues to unfold as a character.
Class distinctions are further played out when Don has a conversation (over old-fashioneds that Don mixes up for them both) with an older gentleman who has fled a wedding at the club. After both confessing that they are actually at work at these parties, they trade stories about their upbringings. The older man says he was raised in San Antonio, New Mexico “before it was a state,” and that no matter how expensive his cufflinks are, he feels like he has the head of a jackass at events like this. He talks about floating past parties like this in a boat when he was young, and looking on with envy, but that “it’s different from the inside.”
Don responds with a tale of working as a teenager parking cars at a roadhouse where “fancy people” went, and not being allowed to use the bathroom, so in revenge he would relieve himself in their cars’ trunks, adding, “There’s probably some kid out there doing it to us right now.” Don’s aware not only that he’s switched roles in life, that at least outwardly he’s now the rich stiff that valets and the like suck up to but secretly detest, but also that time is passing, and that there’s some kid out there who will soon graduate from peeing in his trunk to taking his office.
While Roger sings in blackface and makes crude remarks about people’s asses, Don’s natural graciousness is on display when he tries to rescue a drunken Jane who is literally falling down while loudly asking Don why he doesn’t like her. For this he is not thanked but penalized by Roger in a cutting exchange. Having been asked what’s going on in a suspicious manner that suggests Roger thinks Don may have hit on his wife as he once did on Don’s, Don bluntly replies ,“Your wife’s drunk,” prompting an exchange that would seem to signal the end of their increasingly tenuous friendship:
Roger: I don’t know what I did to get under your skin. My mother was right. It’s a mistake to be conspicuously happy. Some people don’t like it.
Don: No one thinks you’re happy – they think you’re foolish.
Roger: That’s the great thing about a place like this. You can come here and be happy and you get to choose your guests.
Roger thinks he has put Don in his place with this remark, rubbing in the fact that unlike Don, he’s a member of “the club” – meaning of course not only this country club, but the world of old money and social position (whereas Don has “no people” as Gene has pointed out before).
Earlier in the episode, his father in law tells Don, “That’s the trouble with you people – you think money solves everything,” but in fact it is people like Roger who think that. Don’s response to Gene, “Only in this situation” (Sally having stolen some of Gene’s money) shows both his pragmatism and his sense of self.
For Don, money is just a tool, an instrument, not a piece of his identity (which granted is a conundrum) the way it is for Roger and has been for Pete (who seems to have been liberated by having lost his inheritance). It is Don who acts with class and Roger who is classless, wielding money and position like a cudgel, while Don stays silent and polite even when he is horrified at Roger's and Jane's behavior, only speaking bluntly when he is accused unjustly after an act of kindness.
Don has long known that things are different on the inside -- that what people think, feel and are doesn't always match the facade they present to the world -- but he's learning that it's also different from the inside. That being on the inside of power and status isn't what he expected, or desired.
In the third strand of the braid, we see another example of work masquerading as fun, as Joan and Greg entertain doctors that he works with and their wives. Getting ready for their guests, they disagree about the etiquette of seating, with Joan deliciously answering Greg’s “I don’t want to argue” with “Then stop talking,” giving us hope that she will never let him physically or emotionally rape her again. Then with the adroitness that Joan is known for, she resolves things in a manner that’s diplomatic both to her marriage and his job (they’ll have a buffet and use the chafing dish that was a wedding gift from one of the doctors). As the party unfolds, it once again seems that Joan can do anything with ease and grace, as she hostesses elegantly while looking cool and beautiful.
But cracks appear in the façade in a kitchen talk with the wives, with the younger one unwittingly revealing that Greg making Chief Resident is an “if” not a “when,” and the older warning Joan not to get pregnant, both of which make her look worried and anxious. Rejoining the men, the conversation turns to surgery and Joan finds out that Greg has apparently botched a major operation but didn’t want to “worry her,” raising still more doubts that Dr. Perfect is going to deliver on what he’s promised in exchange for her giving up her freedom.
Most gallingly, he insists that Joan get out her accordion and entertain the guests with a song, prompting the older doctor’s wife to remark, “It’ll be just like the olden days” when people entertained in the parlor. And it does feel like a throwback, with Joan expected to perform like a geisha who must satisfy the man who’s hired her. Heartbreakingly, she sings a verse of C’est Magnifique, with all the allure and sexy charm of a Marilyn Monroe, and in the original French version of the song:
La vie est la
Qui vous prend par le bras
Oh la la la
C'est magnifique !
Des jours tous bleus
Des baisers lumineux,
bss bss bss bss
C'est magnifique !
Donner son coeur
Avec un bouquet d'fleurs
Oh la la la
Mais c'est magnifique !
Et faire un jour
Un mariage d'amour
C'est magnifique !
A marriage of love would indeed be magnifique, but as much as she tries to put a beautiful face on it, we worry that this isn’t what Joan has, and we see her gorgeous façade beginning to crack as doubts creep in.
Surprisingly, Don seems to be moving towards what eludes Joan, as he embraces not only his children (who he's always seemed to love) but his father-in-law, and not out of mere duty but a deep desire to finally be part of a family, to find his place not just at a desk, but at the kitchen table. Seeing Betty uncharacteristically reach for a bit of happiness at the party, he makes the decision to join her, despite the growing shadows around them.
This is the way the world ends this is the way that the world ends this is the way that the world ends – not with a bang but a whimper
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Comments
Another winner of a recap/analysis, Silkstone!
So this dance was from Pete's/Trudy's Grandparent's time...and the reference is to the roaring '20s.
Other than that...great recap!! You do a great job!
I found myself very intrigued by the exchanges between Peggy and her secretary, Olive. It was very apparent that Olive was mothering her to an extent, just as secretaries and assistants still "mother" their bosses. (I worked for a large law firm a mere 10 years ago, and observed secretaries sewing on buttons and even running to the local deparment store to buy shirts for court appearances, mostly for unmarried associates.)
I found it interesting that Olive stayed, even after Peggy told her she could go. If Peggy had been a man, you can be pretty sure Olive would have gone home fairly quickly. Peggy's little speech might have had a certain obviousness to it, but it also made pretty clear the huge gap in generational expectations that is about to explode.
I didn't have any problem with what Peggy said to her secretary - she's stoned, after all. The barrier between her thoughts and her expression was weakened. Even apart from that, it was gratifying to hear her say out loud how she feels about her situation. She becomes more confident by the day.
I found this episode surprising, with the all singing/all dancing extravaganza aspect.
Someone on Television Without Pity pointed out that the older man "Connie", that Don met at the bar of the country club was hotelier Conrad Hilton, who was born in San Antonio, New Mexico Territory. I wonder if he will reappear. I also wonder if the man who admired Betty, in her pregnant glory, will reappear.
Thanks for all the other comments. I was pushing the wall writing this till so late and there's so much more I could have written, and will think of later on. So I welcome the comments and thoughts you all have.
Jeanette, I also found the Peggy storyline disappointing and predictable. It seemed schematic. It didn't live up to the other two. I felt the country club section was by far the richest, while Joan's story also had some subtlety to it, but it also seemed rather obvious to me and I think most of its power came from Christina Hendricks' fantastic performance. I don't quite see the Twin Peaks thing. I saw her performing in a 1950's sort of way -- both as a housewife and as a "girl of entertainment" as it were. Outdated but not bizarre.
Brian, I agree that Pete and Trudy seemed to be enjoying each other. They're getting more fun to watch. I'm glad Trudy's stopped whining so much and bucked up. I used to cringe during her dialogue and now I'm starting to really like her. Like Rebecca, I do feel we're a bit in the dark as to how they got closer, though.
Newsie, that did have a bit of the "The good, bad and the ugly" to it, didn't it? Time will tell if Jane is any less trapped than Joan, though. I didn't get that she seemed truly happy -- comments about losing weight all the time, not eating, getting drunk -- it didn't add up to happiness to me. She is married to much older, sexist alcoholic, after all.
Flyover, I agree - it was obvious and yet points to an important change that's occurring. I just wish it had been less obvious. This show can be so subtle that it's hard to catch things and then once in a while (particularly this season) they seem to hit you with a 2X4.
Along those lines, Rebecca, I had that thought, too -- that her being stoned was not only what allowed her to say all that but "excused" the baldness of her speech, its obviousness. But it just didn't quite work for me. Peggy's storyline is usually beautifully played out. This felt like them trying to further her character in quick easy strokes rather than come up with a more complex scene to convey how she's changed. Stoned people may be truthful, but they're rarely interesting!
Suz, that's fascinating about Conrad Hilton! Did he give his name? Or did they connect the dots? I'm betting that he reappears, and Don lands Hilton as a client, which is especially ironic after his telling Pete not to do business (give out his card) at the party. And I also wondered about "the belly feeler" as I called him in my notes. I'm not sure what that was about. He might reappear, or it might just have been a little interlude to get Betty in touch with sexual feeling again, and to feel better about herself, leading up to Don embracing her at the end.
Tom and others, thanks for your kind comments!
I was waiting until you got here to make my observation that Betty, with her hair pulled back tight, seems to have a very small head.
And you're right about Joan's "performance", I think. It wasn't just bizarre for the sake of being bizarre. But an accordion? An interesting choice.
"can't wait to see how silkstone reads into this reveal"
Thanks for another great read!
And, I must say, so is Silkstone! Excellent summary!
I don't know that accordions were so strange in that era. As funny as they look to us now, a lot of popular songs were done on them in that era (as you probably know better than I do!) and more people played them as amateurs while now of course it's quite rare. I admire Joan even more if she can play one and sing so well -- I like finding out she has hidden talents, even more than the ones we know about!
Was anyone else afraid that Joan was going to do "Lady of Spain" or are you all too young?
Most women and those of less heeled means entered the advertising through the creative door. Creative has always been seen as a necessary evil in the advertising industry. Most of management is dominated by the account side not the creative side. That was true then and now.
Joan looks so sad having to play the accordian to rescue her husband, she almost looks raped again.
... I gotta admit - loved Bette's party dress even more when Don produced the matching pink coat and bag at the end of the episode. Bette does have a great eye for fashion!
Full of foreshadowing of the fall of the Wasp empire, culminating in the assassination that astute viewers have already pointed out will take place the day before the wedding of Roger's daughter.
How I love this show!
MTodd, thanks as always for your insights into the ad agency world. My own exposure was limited, but everything you've said has matched what I observed, too. One quote I had to cut (there are always so many I want to put in!) was Peggy's, "They hate Creative." I thought that said a lot. I may have to use it in some future piece....
Teresa, great catch about Jane representing a cultural shift in women's bodies and also Joan outclassing Jane at the office. Jane was behaving in the worst nouveau riche fashion in that scene -- even Roger wouldn't be that imperious. And she seemed like a little girl in her mother's high heels during it, too, in that she wasn't at ease with acting that way. I think the actress is actually playing that role brilliantly. We are seeing that Jane is a very limited, naive person who only had it in her to scheme to get a rich husband, but has no idea what to actually do with him or the life she's now got.
I'll go on the record to say that I think dark things lie ahead for Jane -- there are already hints of anorexia, and possible substance abuse and I think even suicide could be ahead. I think they may want to use her as a "bird in a gilded cage" example of how wealthy women were no better off - -just as constricted or more so as women who had far less money. It's Peggy, the working woman, who has the most freedom.
I think we'll continue to see stereotypes exposed for their inner truths and old divisions and distinctions shattered, which is of course what actually happened in the 60's. You actually can't overplay that aspect of things, as there really was a huge upheaval in social roles that has endured.
I also forgot to work in a comment to my posting about what Jane wears to the office in that scene with Joan. I wanted to say, "Is that a hat or a hair dryer on her head?"
Also, I think Joan's encounter with Jane was painful. Not only did Jane make a point of showing their relative positions, Joan may find it painful that she was not the one Roger left his wife for. I don't remember him ever offering her more than an affair.
No, Roger never offered Joan anything but he never seems to have thought of leaving his wife until the night he and Don were talking in a bar (when Freddy was fired) and Don said something about getting what you can out of life (can't remember the wording). It was like a light bulb literally went on over Roger's head and soon after he's left his wife. Jane happened to be the lucky lottery winner who was in Roger's bed at that time, so she gets to be Wifey #2. (I always thought Wife #1, Mona, seemed too good for Roger, anyway. She's played by the actor's real life wife, BTW.)
I think we've seen both Roger and Joan show some regrets that they're apart, and I wouldn't be surprised by a scenario in which they have an affair again - either after Joan leaves Roger, or as something that precipitates that leaving, perhaps after he finds out she's been unfaithful (and knowing Roger, may do something ugly if so). But for Joan, I think that would be a further act of desperation, not a liberation. I don't think that Roger really loves her, anymore than he loves any woman. He can't really see them as people, after all, just viewing them just as vessels to be filled, with his own fantasies and desires. And I think Joan knows this.
I think what turned the Pete /Trudy discord around was Pete's converstation with Peggy at the very end of Seas. 2. It changed Pete's attitude for 2 reasons:
1. Peggy totally rejected him, so his emotions were no longer divided--it would be Trudy or no one.
2. Knowing he had fathered a child took a lot of pressure off him; he and Trudy's failure to conceive wasn't "his fault," so he's now able to deflect Trudy's disappointment.
Is Joan a native New Yorker? The accordian is something I associate with the Midwest.
Did anyone else flash back to Betty's one night stand when she was talking to the creepy stranger. Hmm. What's the timeline on that?
And there should be a special kids Emmy just for Sally. Every week I just want to leap into the show and rescue her.
The accordian...when outside of German oompa music, actually sounds sophisticated. Think Venice or Edith Piaf. But I, too wonder about Joan's background. I wish she could rid herself of the idiot husband. She'd have made a much better match for Roger, though, perhaps wasted there as well. I wonder what ever happened to that "bird in a cage" that Roger gave her in the first season? Now she's a bird in a cage herself...just like Jane.
I've wondered how they would keep Joan on the show if she quit her job. Maybe she will divorce...that could lead to many possibilities, both for her specific storyline, but also showing yet another examination of a women's role.
Juliet, Smitty's follow up query is, "So you guys got a lot of women?" which I think makes it clear it's "cocksmen" not "coxswain" (pronounced "cox-sin") - -there's no "m" or "men" in that term and it's pronounced quite clearly in the show.
But yes, I also thought of Betty's zipless fuck in the Manhattan bar, as well as her flirtation with the tow truck driver. she's flirting with danger a bit.
Yek, I'd completely forgotten that bird!! great catch. And yes, accordion has had varied flavors at different times and in different cultures. It's kind of a joke instrument now but wasn't then.
And I agree Joan is capable of a lot more. She's the type of woman who would have an entirely different career if she had been born 10 years later. She'd be an executive, I think. But it was only when she did the scriptreading gig that she even began to think she might want more -- before that she pointedly tells Peggy she doesn't want her job.
Silkstone, I'm a complete Mad Men addict, and your summary plus the comments enhanced my enjoyment of what I thought of as a near flawless-episode. (I agree that Peggy's story line was a little ham-handed). I loved the Gatsby echoes, particularly going to "the Island" and Don and Connie (Hilton -- I completely missed that) being men from "out west," even though Illinois isn't quite as far west as New Mexico.
But I need to check myself on something -- the Sally/Grampa Gene storyline. I do tend to view things by my over thirty years in child welfare, but I felt that Gene's having Sally read about "licentiousness" in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was a foreshadowing that his growing dementia might cause him to attempt to molest her. The scene gave me the icks. Am I nuts?
I'll will make it a point to watch the rebroadcast with your review in mind. Won't that be fun!
In addition...the children, both Sally and Glenn (the boy with the crush on Betty) seem preternaturally "adult" at times. With Sally mixing drinks, getting drunk at the office and now, reading rather adult literature...she is and odd girl/woman. It is creepy.
I actually knew a coxswain in college. She was tiny, as they always are, because they are dead weight in the boat that the rowers have to carry and every pound counts. I can't see either of those guys as coxswains! (and there's only one per team/boat, too).
Adele and Suz, I don't think Gene will molest Sally. He only groped Betty because he thought she was his wife/her mother (who she no doubt resembles greatly). It was confusion, not perversion. He won't mistake Sally for an adult woman. Nevertheless, his reading material isn't exactly appropriate for a child, although I doubt Sally understood it.
On another Sally note, I noticed how easily she stole that $5 from him. This is far from the first time she's done that, I think (she probably lifts Don's change all the time, as many kids did/do). Similar to her stealing the whiskey at her dad's office. I think we're going to continue to see Sally get into spots of trouble.....
Adele, I kept flashing on The Great Gatsby, too. (One more observation that didn't make it into my post) And of course we know what that story was about and how it ended. I think the writers definitely wanted us to have that flash of recognition (I guess that would be a green flash, no?).
Jupiter, what a great compliment -thanks!
And I'm just remembering that we had an accordion when I was a kid, although I can't remember who played it. Growing up in Cleveland, that instrument was always associated with polka music.
There are so many little treasures in these episodes, it wouldn't surprise me if it was purposefully ambiguous. In which case maybe they chose the Tom Cruise look alike because it's commonly known how small Tom is. I love the implication that Paul might actually have been a lot smaller in university. On a team as serious as Princeton you're going to have more than one team (at least a 4x and a 8x), and at least one alternate. Paul, I'm guessing, would have been the alternate.
Also, this is the 60s. Is it going to be as highly competitive then as it is now? I'm sure they had a few average sized coxmen back then.
But cocksmen, in the sluttier sense, works too. That's the beauty of the line.
Also, his interaction with the housekeeper also had me feeling very uneasy.
Maybe I missed this in the comments..but did anyone else see the fury on Joan's face as she performed...(very very charmingly, I will add)
I am hopelessly in love with Joan, so maybe its wishful thinking...
Silkstone, I hope you're right about Gene not molesting Sally. It's just that we see him slipping farther and farther away from reality at times, such as peeling a large quantity of potatoes, thinking he was on KP duty. He's deteriorating and no one seems to be really paying enough attention.
I thought it was hysterical that the preppy drug dealer accused Kinsey of having been kicked out of the Tiger Tones -- I expected them to start leaping about with their fists raised and calling each other "bounders." And wasn't it the accsation that he couldn't sing, not his class status, that pushed Kinsey over the edge?
I usually don't post much, but your comments and Mad Men inspires me. Not to harp on it, but couldn't help noting in re Peggy storyline that Olive had (I think) a small cross on (the stoned Peggy admired it, but lightly, in passing) and she was going to go to the Cloisters. lllusions to Peggy's (fading? complicated? destined to come back and haunt her?) Catholicism. They may not devlop it more, but it seems like a strand that keeps reappearing. Wondering if Vatican II (circa 1962) will somehow show up.
Again I am impressed with how the writers get the whole issue with being in/leaving/having family wedded to the Church.
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/08/31/peggy_smokes_weed/
It takes a more feminist view of the show and focuses more on Peggy's story, with some very astute observations that deepen her section of the episode and made me appreciate it more.
Jeanette, I loved Life as a Dog, and remember that scene vividly, and yes, they have similarities. I think the difference in our reactions is in having a boy do that vs. having a girl do that - - which is interesting when you think about it....
Juliet, thanks for the tidbit about Slate! very funny. And like you, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a deliberate ambiguity. I'm going to have to re-run the ep On Demand from Comcast later and see what I can hear. I type notes as I watch the first time and then keep the rebroadcast right after going while I start writing down my thoughts but I'm in and out of listening during that 2nd run, mostly tuning in when there's something i want to clarify. I was sure I had the "cocksmen" line right!
Mark, the part with Carla made me uneasy, too. Older people of that generation went to racism very quickly -- I saw the same thing in my formerly tolerant parents in old age, suspecting black people of stealing without any evidence. I loved that Carla stood up to him as much as she did (I like Carla a lot).
Persephone, you're so sweet - thanks! And oh yes, I saw how angry Joan looked when he asked her to perform - and it was a beautiful contained anger, which Christina Hendricks pulled off with great finesse.
Kaybell, that's very funny about "bounders" -- I had the same reaction of feeling we were in the way-back machine. But even the Ivy League of George W. Bush in the early 60's was pretty old-fashioned and traditional and these guys were in college in the early 50's or so. Those institutions changed even more slowly than others.
But, no, the final blow was his revealing that Paul was a scholarship boy from Jersey and questioning his accent. Paul was offended by the aspersions cast on his singing but that was brushed aside when they both sang. I'm sorry that I didn't know what that song was, so didn't really comment on it, although I'm sure it was also chosen with meaning in mind....
and...Trudy and Pete may seem to be happy, but isn't it all a show, like the one they put on for the delighted audience at the club? Bote Trudy's fleeting, pained look when Harry's wife talks babies with Betty. And I frankly find her strained and patently false attempts at "us girls" with Betty painful. One thing I like about this show is that none of the female characters, no matter how briefly they appear, seems one dimensional--
yes, the whole birth control issue (a sort of ancillary to Vat II with the encyclical forbidding "artificial" contraception) blew things up too--many women (and men) just decided to use birth control anyway--and the male hiearchy started seeing massive dissent among the ranks.
Look forwrd to your comments next week--and the comments on your comments!!
Just ran the show On Demand from Comcast and they closed-caption it as "cocksmen". Smitty does immediately say the "oh the times you must have had" after Jeffrey makes this pronouncement. It's in a later scene (after scenes at the Derby part and at Joan's, and when Peggy comes in to join them and get high) that Smitty says, "So you two got a lot of girls?"
And Silkstone, now that I've found you, I'll be with you every week. I've always enjoyed Allan Sepinwall's (Newark Star-Ledger) summaries, and they're worth reading, but you're my new favorite. I do hope you're right about Sally and Grampa Gene, but there was just something about the look on his face as he heard about the pleasure seekers of the Roman Empire that gave me the creeps. I also wondered, what with Sally's precocious reading ability, we weren't being set up to see another very bright female about to be thwarted by her mother's/society's attitude that women only needed to be just smart enough and look very good. We know that Betty's already worried about Sally's weight. You can almost hear Betty/Daisy saying, I hope she's a fool, a beautiful little fool."
It seemed to me that Bette had her zipless fuck after she already knew that she was pregnant but hadn't told Don yet. It was like she knew she would have to get back with Don because of the pregnancy but was going to have a fuck on her terms first.
As far as Joan looking angry playing her accordian, I still think that she looked more betrayed and prostituted somehow.
Also, most of the marketing and advertising positions (at least on the senior level) are filled with those who came out of sales not marketing department. Sales people are a needed part of the process, but most only understand one thing sales. Since by nature sales people want to please clients they tend to approve what is already accepted in their world not breaking new ground with the unknown.
And I'm attached to the idea that this line is kind of meant to be misheard. Smitty's query about getting girls comes off as such a non-sequitur, it seemed to me like he was supposed to be showing his non-ivy league status by not at least wondering if they meant "coxmen." And it all fits in with the insider/outsider theme. But that may be me over reading everything.
But in the end I still can't decide which is more absurd. Paul once being skinny enough to be a coxswain, or two of Princeton's "great cocksmen" being in an a capella group.
And close captions mean nothing. They contract out that work.
Wonderful summary and great observations.
Hmmm. I live in Vancouver and watch the new series on American Movie Channel, part of my cable package. I am also watching year 1 and 2 shown (for the second time) in order on Bravo Channel.
Not sure what the writer meant, except that they may have such a low budget cable package that they can't get much else but local channels.
Adele, thanks! And yes, it's interesting what shows inspire such intense discussion. This one doesn't surprise me given its depth and quality. I agree with you about Betty putting pressure on Sally. I always think of Betty quoting her mother on womanhood, "Remember - you are painting a masterpiece." Uh, no pressure there! (I felt far more sympathetic to Betty after hearing that)
Teresa, yes, the zipless fuck was at exactly the point you name. i thought it was interesting that she seemed to possibly be contemplating a tumble with Mr. Bellyfeeler. Maybe pregnancy breaks down her inhibitions?? Or it just might be that Don's been unfaithful enough that she thinks she might as well be, too. I don't think we've seen the last of that aspect of her. What will be really interesting is if Don finds out. He's clearly not egalitarian in that regard (given how he reacted to her in a bikini).
MTodd, that's interesting about ad agencies being a link -- it makes a lot of sense. I remember there was such a huge gap in what the Creatives were like vs. the Accounts folks I worked for. Far more than on Mad Men, as by the time I was there (early 80's) people in Creative could dress a lot more "artistically" at work, act a lot looser, etc. while the Account Execs were very corporate. And both sides did tend to talk trash about each other.
Stellaa, glad you persevered and thanks!
Latethink, I love this line of yours, "Joan has bought an Edsel" - perfect! Yup, she bought a promising-looking package and opening it up has been disappointing.
Lisa, thanks!
Pollister, thanks for the Canadian info. I'm sure some people will find that helpful.
Welcome to the Kafkaesque world of Canadian cable monopolies.
Although I'll still take universal health care over universal cable.
I love your recap! And I continue to enjoy the quotations laced throughout the piece.
There was something so strangely wonderful about Joan at the accordion. She was so beautiful, coy, playful. But the thing that made this scene interesting was that flicker of hurt that crosses her face.
Drink, yes, agree -- again, I thought Hendricks played that scene to perfection, with just the flicker (as you say) on her face as she played of her feelings. She's terrific in that role.