bobbie barrett

Mad Men s5e10: Christmas Waltz

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“You do not know how hard I’ve tried to ignore this at work. I know what I’m doing, I have some control.. but then he found a way to ruin that, too.”

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Ahh, Christmastime! How appropriate considering this will be my final review of 2017. This episode is jammed full of advantageous lies and harsh/totally awkward truths. Don is finally back in action at the office, Joan gets served, Kinsey cosplays as a giant baby, and Lane is in deep shit with the British taxman.

Hey-o, once mega pretentious Paul Kinsey resurfaces with the Hare Krishna! He’s apparently fucked it up/tumbled down the ranks of every ad agency in town, and goes to the Hare Krishnas for guidance but at his core, he’s still that arrogant writer we know. He turns to Harry Crane for help getting his atrocious Star Trek spec script to Roddenberry and co. Oy vey.

Lakshmi comes to seduce Harry to keep Kinsey on the line, purely because he’s a great Krishna recruiter; she’s got zero romantic interest in him. Part of the reason Kinsey even sticks around there is the prospect of building a life with her, so it’s a real dick move on her behalf. Thinking of his friend, Harry decides to lie to Kinsey re:his garbage script, and pops him cash and a plane ticket to start a new life in Los Angeles (not unlike what Don tried to do with Adam). Just get away from it all, Kinsey. The lie is more beneficial than the truth here.

Sure, maybe he’ll get shit on in LA, maybe he’ll be rejected 1000 times over, but at least it’s real; Los Angeles would be way better than living in Krishna limbo just to be exploited by a lady who ain’t ever gonna fuck you, Paul. And for once, Harry isn’t acting like a total knob, it’s a Christmas miracle! (Though he does bang Lakshmi in the process. Whatevs.)

“You’re all getting bonuses, and we aren’t!” || image courtesy of Twitter

Let’s move on to Lane and his shady shit. Looks like he’s in a giant money hole with the UK government, owing a whole pile of taxes on his portfolio with no way to pay. Pride is one hell of a drug; he further’s SCDP’s line of credit at the bank semi-fraudulently, claiming that the numbers for 1967 were commitments instead of just projections. He spins it to the other partners as a ~cash overflow~, so his now-possible Christmas Bonus could cover what he owes. The other partners put the kibosh on their bonuses, opting to give them to the staff. It’s blinding how quickly his entire plan was fucked.

As if it all couldn’t be shadier, he forges a check. A truly shit idea; pride and desperation lead him down that path, as those books were once sacrosanct to him. He won’t even tell his wife what’s up.

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This side of Lane is super sketch, similar to his season premiere infatuation with the wallet titty lady. Lane is culturally (and somewhat literally) so far removed from the other characters at the office that any time we peep some insight, it feels like we’re seeing something he’s been grappling with for months, whether it’s this tax debt or his estrangement from Rebecca and subsequent Chocolate Bunny.

Lane very rarely opens up to others, so we can only take a stab at his motivations. We know he’s been knocked about and beaten down by life (and his total dick of a father), but instead of being Don about it he’s pretty .. meek? Stiff upper lip and all that, I guess. And similarly, Don is a guy who plays shit close the the vest, but we see him 24/7 and thus understand him a little better. Pride also interferes with Lane even entertaining the thought of asking Don for the cash, which we know that he would’ve given without batting an eye.

Joan gets served with divorce papers via Shit Husband (and person) Greg, and after launching an airplane model at poor Meredith, she’s more than ready to engage in some Jaguar roleplay with Don. Natch, they end up at a bar. Don and Joan are both survivors of failed marriages, wondering whether tomorrow will be better than yesterday.

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Don’s connection with Joan reminds me a touch of his relationship with Anna, in that their affection for one another is unmistakable but never turns physical. Intimacy can be profound and non-sexual; I think that for Don, this is super important. He’s a guy who uses sex for a lot of things, but feeling love/showing affection ain’t it. The emotional damage he experienced at the hand of Archie and Abigail growing up adds to it, especially living in a whorehouse. He has the ability to be open and relatively honest with ladies who keep him at arms’ length, like the numerous casual bang partners. Joan’s instincts about men are so keen that she knows this better than most. After all, she and Don are alike; they’ve both used their overt sexuality and attractiveness to entice and manipulate other people. They get it.

Dancing around the idea of banging around and the lingering sense of ‘is that all there is’, Don references Bobbie Barrett’s attitude of “I like being bad and then going home and being good”. That’s obviously been rattling around in his head with all the recent changes in his life; and his analysis of those dudes who are obsessed with a sporty Jaguar is pretty telling. “He doesn’t know what he wants.. but he’s wanting.”

They’re both in a headpsace at that bar; boozing and deflated, Don feeling estranged from Megan in her new iteration, Joan begrudging her (soon to be ex) trashhusband. She admits that she tried to use her success at work as a way to be in control of her life, in denial about the end of her marriage. Don brings a touch of wisdom and lightness, a really nice gesture. Keep moving forward.

“Congratulations.”

“For what?”

“For getting divorced. Nobody realises how bad it has to get for that to happen.. Now you get to move on.”

And obvi, it’s way easier in the mid 60s for a Don Draper to get on with it than it is for a Joan Holloway, or even for a Paul Kinsey. But no matter who you are, moving forward is way smoother when you have someone in your corner to help and when needed, along with a good kick in the pants to force you to be honest with yourself.

At home, a rightfully pissed off Megan releases him back to the office with her bit about how he loved that job way before he ever loved her, and I suppose (along with Joan) that’s enough of an asskicking to launch him back into Inspirational Rallying Speech Don. Thank fuck.

“Last year at this time, whether you knew it or not, the survival of this company was on the line. l look at the faces in this room who have given their all to this tenuous recovery and l say, prepare to take a great leap forward. Prepare to swim the English Channel and then drown in champagne. There are six weekends between now and the pitch.. we are going to spend them all here. We will celebrate Christmas here, we will ring in the new year together.. And in the end, we will represent Jaguar, and it will be worth it. Every agency on Madison Avenue is defined by the moment they got their car. When we land Jaguar.. the world will know we’ve arrived.”

Thanks for reading, everyone! Here’s to 2018.

Mad Men s5e4: Mystery Date

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“You know, there are some parts of town where we can run into some people I worked with.”

Hello, dark-ass episode! This episode is filled with nightmares, fever dreams, literal murder, shame, but not without a tinge of light at the end of the tunnel.

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As we all know, Don’s a guy with a whole lotta hangups. Even with our initial glimpses of Don on the show, he’s ~an adulterer~ though of course, we don’t know it just yet. You see him banging Midge in the pilot and hanging around at her Village digs, and that’s what we know of him. They have a chat like a couple would, he frets about work and being a fraud while she soothes and reassures during their pillow talk. Then as Caravan pipes up, he boards the train home to his idyllic suburban home in Ossining at the very end.. revealing his picture-perfect wife and 2 kids.

quelle surprise.. || image courtesy of Giphy

What starts to come into focus as Mystery Date unfolds is just how deeply ashamed Don is of his past fucking around, how intrinsically broken he is inside. This show has never really presented Don’s philandering in a good way, but there’s a pretty harsh fluorescent DMV floodlight blasting directly upon his bullshit here. Here’s a guy who hates himself, deep down.

Banging around with Midge, Rachel Menken, Bobbi Barrett, that annoying Palm Springs teenager Joy, the incredibly irritating Miss Farrell, tons of other randos like the remarkably uncomfortable elevator encounter Andrea.. he’s looking for someone or something to fix whatever the hell is wrong with him, and he plunges in hardon first. We know he’s never had a loving mother figure in his life which certainly doesn’t help.

That feeling of isolation and shame eats away at him, and he’s terrified that it’s some keystone part of his personality he can’t move past; marrying Megan was maybe a move to convince himself that it’ll be better this time around. He was unhappy while married to Betty, and you never know.. perhaps he’s right, Megan will save the day with her sunny bubbliness and her love for him. Maybe she’ll coax him and love him into fixing that part of himself. But hey, Don.. we create our own demons.

Ginsberg knocks a presentation out of the park for Butler Shoes Footwear, and natch, rattles off like a maniac about the idea of Cinderella being inherently dark; and it does make sense. Think about it– a woman with only one shoe desperately running, hobbling, to get the fuck away from a dark, imposing figure of a man. Ginzo describes the ad’s moneyshot with the chase, Cinderella’s shoe, as we see Andrea’s limp leg from under Don’s bed later.. juxtaposed against that sumptuous white carpet after he strangled her to death in his fever hallucination.

And Don frantically shoving Andrea’s body under the bed is the inverse of the oft-discussed Speck murders in this episode; instead, it’s a dead girl under the bed versus a frightened live one.

Because of Speck looming over everyone, there’s talk of people popping up at your door and what might happen. The soldier who crosses Joan’s threshold should theoretically be fulfilling a dream for her; Greg, her husband, back from Vietnam on leave, with less than a few months to go before he’s back home for good and they can be a family again.

But we all know Greg is more of a shit nightmare creep than a daydreamer’s hero. We know that he raped Joan on the floor of Don’s office. We know that he’s a wildly insecure manbaby, whom Joan married more for the expectation of a lady of her time than true love. We know that they’ve tried to make things work, with some nice moments here and there, but at the end of the day Greg is just the handsome face she settled for. Either way he’s her husband, and she’s relying on him to be home soonish and help her day to day make sense; instead, he volunteered to stay in Vietnam for another year because he feels “needed” over there. Fucking hell.

The surprise news is dumped on Joan at a classy Italian dinner with her mother and Greg’s distraught parents, immediately followed by some bro blaring an accordion to ease the tension. Last time an accordion made an appearance on this show was when Joan had to serenade a similarly uncomfortable trash dinner!

image courtesy of The New Yorker

So, Joan ditches said shitbag husband once and for all, thank fucking Christ. She has reached her limit of bullshit, and Greg and his microscopic dick can go and be Very Important(TM) in Vietnam. Good riddance, dead weight.

As the dawn of the next day arrives, it seems everyone’s waking from their nightmares, and probably none more than Joan. Don’s shit fever dream only lasts that night, whereas Joan is breaking out of one she had been living for years.

And while Don is left feeling wary of his wandering eye in the harsh light of day, Peggy is consumed with guilt and embarrassment over a split-second moment with Dawn and her cash-addled purse. And in fairness to Pegs, I feel like she was more worried about having a relative stranger in her house when she’d swindled Roger for so much cash that day (roughly $2600 in 2017 dollars!) rather than a race thing. Either way, that split second moment of hesitation with her purse on the coffee table as they said goodnight is something she can’t really bounce back from.. awkward.

image courtesy of Crasstalk

Joan lies on her bed next to her tiny baby and her mother, mulling everything over and wide awake. This isn’t the life she thought she’d have, and it’s certainly not the one she was sold, but at least she doesn’t have to worry about Greg and his bullshit Fragile Man Feelings(TM) anymore.

Can everyone break out of their bullshit? Can we ever really do that? Guess we’ll have to see.

“I mean, she’s running down this dark side street. And it’s outside a castle, so it’s got those walls and the cobblestones. And she’s running, but she’s only got this one incredible shoe for her incredible gown, so she’s hobbling, wounded prey. She can hear him behind her, his measured footsteps catching up.. she turns a corner; those big shadows.. And she’s scared. And then she feels a hand on her shoulder and she turns around. And it doesn’t matter what he looks like, he’s handsome at that moment offering her her shoe. She takes it. She knows she’s not safe, but she doesn’t care. I guess we know in the end she wants to be caught.

….See? It’s too dark.”

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Mad Men s2e7: The Gold Violin

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“Like the song says, Enjoy yourself — it’s later than you think.”

Don is pondering buying a new car from Breaking Bad’s Elliott at the Caddy dealership. Seeing a guy like Don Draper walk into a Cadillac dealership must spell out ‘instant sale’ to salesman Wayne. From his outward appearance — impeccably tailored suit, polished shoes, not a hair out of place — Don is a guy who wants the whole world to regard him highly, and what better way to do that than with the ultimate status symbol of a Cadillac?

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Flashback to the 1950s when Don was a bright-eyed used car salesman with big hair and a frumpy suit and tie. He hasn’t yet mastered sales, as he can’t quite close the current deal. A mystery blonde comes to see him and asks for him by name, appears puzzled that it’s this guy in front of her. She then reveals that she knows he’s not Don Draper.

G A S P

Back to the Cadillac dealership, Don has second thoughts and splits. Does he deserve a Cadillac? Wayne is peeved and surprised.

Because of how much Don impressed the Martinson coffee guys with Kurt and Smitty’s youthful jingle and his pitch, Cooper has let him know the door has opened for him to sit on the board at the Museum of Early American Folk Art, to be among “the few people that get to decide what will happen in our world.” In so many words, Don has arrived. And now he needs to act the part, fancy Cadillac in tow.

Now, here’s the rub with ‘Making It In America(TM)’; you’ve got to keep it up, with intense fervour. Shiny, top of the line new car every few years, perfect partner, marriage, and immaculate home.. and well-behaved kids who don’t jam Play-Doh in the nice leather seats of the Cadillac. The higher you climb that mountain, more people will be hanging out at every single goddamned precipice to knock you down.

And, we’re back to the Cadillac dealership. Don confidently buys that Caddy! At the same time, Jimmy Barrett is ringing the Draper house to let Betty know they’re invited to a big shindig for Grin and Barrett being picked up. To top it off, Betty is pleased that Don bought the car. He deserves it since he works so hard.

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image courtesy of Butterfly Mind

Word on the street is that Cooper’s got a Rothko painting in his office, which is generally off limits. After hours, Jane sneaks Kenny, Sal and Harry into the office. Sal notices Ken’s depth when he’s talking about the painting; how it evokes a feeling, it’s nothing super concrete or obvious. It just is. Kenny notices Sal isn’t like everyone else in the office, and gives him a new story to read.

Somehow Joan hears about their painting escapade, and sacks Jane on the spot. Joan feels as though she’s being replaced with a younger, sassier version of herself, and she’s pissed off. On her way out, Jane cleverly pops by Roger’s office to say goodbye and gets un-fired, remembering his attraction to her. Magical.

The truth about the Rothko is revealed! Harry meets with Cooper to go over some media numbers, and Cooper’s brief explanation is pretty in line with what we know about him.

“People buy things to realise their aspirations, it’s the foundation of our business. Between you me and the lamp post, that thing should double in value by next Christmas.”

Sal and Kitty have Kenny over for dinner that weekend, and it’s awkward as hell. Sal pretty much ignores his wife to pay attention to Ken, yapping about the story he wrote. He’s like a teenager with a crush, and Kitty tries her best to include herself. It’s actually pretty sad, watching as Kitty feels alone in her own home.

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Kenny’s story is inspired by a piece he saw at The Met. The Gold Violin itself is meant to illustrate that in some cases no matter how lovely and perfect something looks, it simply cannot work. It’s a status symbol, it’s gorgeous and stunning and flawfree, but ultimately worthless. Take a gander at Betty and Don, or Sal and Kitty for that matter.

The Draper family takes the new Cadillac out for a Sunday picnic, and leave behind an hysterical amount of trash in the process. Don launches a beer can to see how far he can throw it! Ha. The Draper picnic is a beautiful scene that glosses over the complete disorder and mess that is that family.

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image courtesy of Salient

And then you see Betty and Don breezily leaving a pile of fucking ruination behind, a heap of literal garbage in their apathetic wake. It’s a jarring dénouement to what looks to be a wholesome, pristine family activity.

It’s party time! These scenes are uncomfortable as all hell. Jimmy spots Betty, they make small talk and then shit gets mad real.

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image courtesy of Popcritics

After they’ve had a few, he cuts to the chase. “What do you think happened between the two of them?” Though simultaneously offended and mortified, Betty hears what Jimmy is saying. He plants the seed and confirms her nagging suspicion that Don is unfaithful to her. After all, they both know how to read the people they’ve married, and see how neither seem to be bothered that their respective spouses are nowhere in sight.

At the coat check, Don is getting ready to split and Jimmy delivers some shrill realness. Whether he’s pissed he doesn’t actually have a shot with Betty or that Don and Bobbie had a few bangs, we’ll never know.

Jimmy: “You know what I like about you? Nothing! But it’s okay. You got me everything I wanted. What did you get? Bobbie? Lots of people have had that.”

Don: “Excuse me?”

Jimmy: “Please. I laugh at you. I go home at night and I laugh at you.”

Don: “I don’t know what you think happened.”

Jimmy: “You. You wanna step out, fine. Go to a whore. You don’t screw another man’s wife. You’re garbage. And you know it.”

Don looks completely disgusted and offended, but also like he’s about to cry. He knows deep down that Jimmy ain’t wrong about him being garbage. As much as Don is a human dumpster fire who can be so incredibly antagonistic at times, I feel for him in this scene. Even though he excels at compartmentalising his life — keeping being the best bang in the city separate from being adored by his kids, has a great job but also fucks around — he can’t quite grasp that American Dream he’s scratching at. He’s flawed, like all of us, and he knows it.

Don and Betty drive home in stunned silence.

And natch, Betty voms in the new Cadillac.

Mad Men s2e6: Maidenform

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“I went to sleep in my bra, and thought I was so-and-so.”

“Thank you for that.”

The Decemberists’ ‘The Infanta’ blares as this episode opens with our ladies getting ready for the day. 1962 means a fuckton of undergarments.

Duck’s ex-wife and kids pop into the office, with their gorgeous family dog Chauncey in tow. Their interaction is incredibly tense, and his ex-wife looks very on edge; she remarks that Duck isn’t good in the afternoons, referring to his alcoholism.. shots fired. The kids clearly aren’t thrilled to be there, and it all appears to be a formality. Duck is a weird guy, but maybe this will shed some light as to why.

His kids let it slip that their mother is remarrying, to some dude that Duck actually knows. He takes the news serenely and has positive and uplifting things to say to his kids, but you can see the panic and sadness in his eyes. On top of apologising and admitting to Don that he really fucked it up with American Airlines, his personal life is a complete mess.

Post-weekend after his kids leave, Duck runs off to sneak some booze in a back office; Chauncey’s adoring brown eyes are on him, and he puts the bottle down. Angry about everything that’s gone wrong, he walks Chauncey outside and closes the door behind him. He doesn’t look back as he barks at the glass doors. U G H poor Chauncey. Duck is obvi a powder keg, and things just are not going right.

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GOODNIGHT SWEET PRINCE

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Rewind back to Memorial Day weekend. Don and Betty are at the country club, and Don is chatting with a guy named Crab. Arthur spots Betty, and they have a short exchange; he feels uncomfortable and responsible since she changed her times at the stables to avoid him. She doesn’t confirm or deny but tries to be sunny about it, emphasising they should be friends. His hardon evaporates once Sally and Bobby run up to Betty and hug her, shrieking “mommy”. Betty looks strangely disappointed.

Similarly, Don is later disappointed to find out Bobbie has (adult) children. I’ll yap about their sweatbang in a bit.

At one point during the Memorial Day country club lunch, the host takes a moment to honour the veterans in the room, and Don stands up for his service in Korea. Sally looks up at him with nothing but sincere love and admiration in her eyes, and Don feels like a fraud, like trash, for just a moment. It stays with him and he splits during the bikini fashion show, making up an excuse about going to the office.

Feeling low and wanting to indulge that emotion, he rings Bobbie and she’s got plans with her son. Ah, shit. She remarks on the car accident, he doesn’t think about it at all. Time to head back to the house and drink milk alone. Anything seems better than being in that country club.

The Playtex campaign revolves around the idea that women fall into two categories; you’re either a Marilyn Monroe or a Jackie Kennedy. Men want them, women want to be them, et cetera, yadda yadda yadda. Apparently this all came to be in a booze-soaked after work sesh at a bar, and Peggy wonders why she wasn’t invited out with the guys. She gets left out of a casting session for Playtex as well, the last straw.

Peggy goes to Joan for advice on how to get the guys to invite her to shit, not knowing if she was maybe left off of a memo. “You’re in their country, learn to speak the language.” Joan has never had her job, nor has she wanted it, but she parts with some very Joan-esque advice: “You want to be taken seriously? Stop dressing like a little girl.” Go out and get that respect for yourself, like Bobbie Barrett told ya.

Pete trying to interact with Peggy in a playful manner is kind of hilarious. He’s working with her on Clearasil, and she’s very different from the girl she was just a couple of years ago. He tries to talk to her as if she’s some bookish loner, but that is definitely not the case. He thinks he’s got a great idea for a Clearasil tag, Peggy doesn’t agree. Pete tries to remind her that he’s in control of the account and the father in law connection — she’s not attempting to defy him, but she is on the creative team.

Post-Playtex presentation, Peggy overhears the guys are all planning on taking the clients out to the Tom Tom for some titties and cocktails. She puts on a new dress, gets her hair set and shows up on the sly – they’re all thrilled to see her, save for Pete Campbell, making a weird sourpuss face. Whatevs Pete, Pegs is in your world now.

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image courtesy of TheFW

Don is pissed that Betty chooses to wear a bikini to the pool, calling her desperate and wanting to be ogled. Yikes on bikes. In other news, he’s telling Bobbie to stop talking in a sexy context. Then she lets it slip that other ladies are talking about Don and his dick that’s been dragged across Times Square. Apparently he has a reputation, which is something of a nightmare. He’s not pleased, and leaves her tied to the headboard.

The next morning. Don wakes up to have a shave. Sally sits in the bathroom and watches him, admiring. “I’m not gonna talk, I don’t want you to cut yourself”.

He smiles at her, then catches his reflection and who he is. Don stares into the void for a Kubrick moment, entirely lost in self-loathing. He asks Sally to leave him alone; we focus on his image. What kind of man is he? He’s certainly not the real Don Draper. Contrasting with our ladies at the beginning of the episode, he can’t look at himself in the mirror anymore.

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Mad Men s2e5: The New Girl

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An iconic episode, one of my favourites. The mystery of Peggy and Pete’s lovebaby is revealed, Peggy gets some great lady schooling from Bobbie, and Don miraculously manages to look debonair while wearing a sling.

Pete and Trudy are at the doctor, yapping about pregnancy, lack thereof, and all that crap. They are having issues conceiving a baby, though we know Pete is plenty virile. Pete brings up the then taboo idea of being one of “those childless couples”, and Trudy simply isn’t having it; she wants to have a family with him, and as she tearfully explains that idea, he gets it. The good news is that the doctor can blow up her ovaries, or do whatever..

Joan is engaged! The office is buzzing. Roger makes a crack about “relatively young love”, but she looks happy. He seems reticent, and Joan picks up that maybe he’s over the entire idea and concept of marriage, not just his wife.

“This is America. Pick a job, and then become the person that does it.”

Actual Don Draper realness in that quote right there.

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image courtesy of Blogspot

Bobbie is set to celebrate selling Grin and Barrett to CBS. Don goes to meet her at Sardi’s, and he runs into Rachel Menken (Katz) and her very boilerplate Husband(TM) Tilden. They have a strange interaction, it’s awkward and short; Rachel sees what he’s doing with Bobbie and appears disappointed, almost. Don is in a cloud of disenchantment and sadness after they run off to the theatre, so he and Bobbie drunk drive to Long Island to hit up her beach house. Always a great idea.

“God, I feel so good.”

“I don’t feel a thing.”

If there was one sentence that sums up Don Draper, it’s that. He’s constantly seeking out stimulation, something to shake him up and make him feel something, but at the end of the day it’s a flatline. It both motivates and paralyses him.

Natch, they get into a car accident. Don fails the sobriety test (the legal limit in 1962 was .15%! Jesus Christmas..), and comes up short on the $150 fine. Don rings a mystery woman, who is revealed as Peggy! She offers to let Bobbie stay with her to allow time for the black eye to heal, and these two women could not be more different.

Bobbie is generally insecure around Peggy, wondering what the real reason is that she’s helping her out. Bobbie offers a bunch of sage Lady Advice to her in the meantime, though Peggy fires back at her with shade at every turn.

Bobbie: “You have to start living the life of the person you want to be.”

Peggy: “Is that what you did?”

Bobbie: “You’re never going to get that corner office until you start treating Don as an equal. And no one will tell you this, but you can’t be a man, don’t even try. Be a woman. Powerful business when done correctly.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

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image courtesy of Mashable

We flash to Peggy in a hospital in 1960, all fucked up on tranquillisers. She can’t remember what happened clearly, and the doctor informs her that she’s had a baby. Peggy stares off into space in disbelief, or wishing to forget it entirely. Her mother and pregnant sister are there, appearing supportive.

At some point, Don comes to visit Peggy in the hospital and offers some sage Don Draper advice to her. After all, she essentially bounced from a job she was beginning to flourish at.. what’s the deal?

“Is that you? Are you really there?”

“Yes I am.”

“What are you doing here?”

“You got a promotion and disappeared.. your Christmas present is sitting on your desk. I called your house, and your roommate gave me your mother’s number.”

“Oh, God.”

“Your mother told me you were quarantined.. TB. I guess that was supposed to lessen my concern.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do they want you to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.. Do it. Do whatever they say. Peggy, listen to me. Get out of here and move forward. This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.”

In this instance, I think this is really stellar advice. I know that Don is ultimately just trying to get her back into the office and doing his thing, but I feel that he knows a bit about her as well. He knows that she wants to succeed at advertising, not be a housewife; he knows she’s different from the rest. He sought her out to remind her of the importance of getting on with it, to let go and to move on with life. What the doctors are saying and the judgement doesn’t matter. He sees a bit of himself in her and wants to bring that out.

At home post-accident, it sounds like Don recommitted to his marriage at some point. Betty is understandably upset that he didn’t phone the house after his accident, but he plays it as that he didn’t want to worry her and call so late. He has high blood pressure, and thinks the booze and the meds didn’t make good bedfellows. Betty offers a sensible response.. “You should call me. I’m your wife. You promised you wouldn’t disappear like that anymore.”

Peggy takes Bobbie’s advice to heart, and point blank asks Don for her bail cash she loaned him. The flaw in moving forward is that sometimes you forget it almost entirely. She thanks him, and calls Don by his first name; he’s clearly taken aback. Good for you, Pegs!

At dinnertime, Betty withholds the salt with their meatloaf dinner. When Sally asks why, Betty replies that it’s because they love him. Upon hearing this, Don stares off to some far away place.

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image courtesy of Fanpop

“I’m sure glad I don’t have problems.”