We received an interesting email from a Basketcase named Angie:
I’ve always wondered about the scene in the pilot where Peggy goes to the doctor for birth control pills. Doesn’t this seem strange to you? Why would Joan send her to get BCPs on her first day of work? I don’t remember them ever coming up again. I always wondered if that was to try and throw viewers off the track of her being pregnant. Anyway, out of two seasons of fabulousness, that was the only thing that ever struck me as being a little out of place.
Great question, and here are my thoughts: The entire day consisted largely of Peggy being told that she had to be sexual on the job. Joan starts with telling her that if she really does the job right, she’ll be in a house in the country (i.e. she’ll land a husband). Joan, Marge, and Pete all tell her to display her body more. Finally, Joan sends Peggy for the Pill. All of this is the reason that Peggy puts her hand on Don’s; she has every reason to believe that her job is to be sexual for her boss. She doesn’t want to for personal reasons, but because even on day one she is ambitious.
I imagine the conversation went something like, “You’re in the city now, dear, and you’ll have needs those Brooklyn doctors can’t meet. Here, let me set up an appointment for you.”
I also think Angie is correct in guessing that it helped explain why Peggy got pregnant (she thought she was already protected) and threw the audience off-track.
13 Responses to “Sending Peggy for the Pill”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
I think it's a situational thing. To Joan, Jane obviously don't need the talk about how you should strut your stuff for success, while Peggy wasn't thinking in those terms at all.
Well, even The Pill has a failure rate — however, during those early days each had ten times the level of hormones of the current birth control pills.
My guess is that Peggy later skips the Pills, because they're a daily reminder of her sexuality after Pete told her to forget their first encounter, the other guys at the office indiscrimately hit on her in a repulsive way, and Pete later also disapproves of her having fun even dancing.
Why remind yourself of your sexuality daily, when the thought has been negative for months on end?
Which would leave Peggy unprotected during her second, unexpected fling with Pete in the early morning office.
I think Joan strives for perfection: Peggy should be sexier, Jane should be less revealing.
Judy: The pill's failure rate is almost entirely because of the placebos taken during menstruation. It is likely to have been less discussed then, since sex during menstruation is still taboo; more so then.
But Peggy definitely got pregnant the first time, before the pill would have been working; you have to be on the pill for a full month before you're protected. The season opens in March and ends in December: That's nine months right there. By the time Peggy and Pete had sex the second time, she was already gaining weight.
Umm–ends in November.
Thanksgiving and all. So, eight months, but close enough.
Contrast that with how Joan treats Jane in S2. She’s always telling her to dress less provocatively. Was this because in S1 she was sleeping with Roger and expecting him to eventually leave his wife for her, and by S2 she knows better?
Joan may be a beotch in her manner, but her heart is in the right place in a certain way.
My mother, who was a secretary in the mid-late 1960′s, has said it was common for her office managers to get more involved with the “girls’” personal lives than would be considered appropriate today – she said that the scene where Joan tells Peggy she’s gaining too much weight rang especially true.
I have had the same thoughts as judybrown. I seriously doubt she took the pill for more than a month or two. After all the price was about 1/3 of her weekly salary! and most of the advances she got were turn offs.
Re: Joan striving for perfection.
She wants things to run smoothly. No complaints, alarms or surprises. It may be one of the only times we see her admit what she really wants. Christina Hendrick and Matt Weiner both suggested that Joan avoided actually settling down and getting married because she had in her mind it was not what it was cracked up to be. In season 2 it seems like it is becoming less of a choice for her. Was she ever making a choice or just avoiding them?
I think we're all overlooking a pretty workaday answer for why Peggy went to see that particular doctor at Joan's behest. Peggy was starting a new job, presumably with health benefits that require a physical in order to qualify for insurance (note Don in season 2 going to see the doctor because of his "insurance physical). I'm pretty sure a doctor's visit would have been considered just sort of a standard, starting a new job kind of thing, something all the employees probably needed for their file. So Joan presumably sent Peggy to the doctor that she and the other office women use for their physicals and, as an above poster mentioned, probably nudged Peggy to get the pill while she was there.
I'm at a disadvantage not having Season One (or two)on disc, or even DVR: I can't check the fine points.
Didn't realize it was only nine months from episode one to the last — it makes sense that the pill hadn't yet taken effect, rather than that Peggy had abandoned The Pill.
I'd also assumed that the baby was premature — another reason Peggy would have been able to be in denial.
I think that Peggy getting The Pill on her first day at work was part of becoming A Big Girl In The Big City. It was part of the package with her advances on Don & her letting Pete in. (And it was also useful deflection for The Pregnancy.)
Jane was being a bit too obvious for Joan, who was always covered up–except for the night of Roger's heart attack when she was called into the office. Of course, with her body, "covered" Joan would still stop traffic.
And I don't think Joan was really eager to retire to the country. Surely, she'd already had opportunities. But she enjoyed being A Big Girl In The Big City–she'd marry "someday." Until realized she was past 30 & hooked up with Doctor Rapist. Hey, he looked good on paper….
I wondered, too, if Peggy asked Joan for a referral either during her interview or during a follow up call after Peggy had been offered the job.
Thanks, everyone! Very interesting.
I recently watched a rerun of the 1st episode and noticed that while Peggy is being examined, she focuses on an object across the room, and the camera gives a shot from her p.o.v….eerie foreshadowing of Joan's p.o.v. shot during the scene with Dr. McRapist.