Chekhov’s gun did not go off.
From the beginning of this season, Suzanne Farrell has been a controversial character. Is she innocence, youth, and the new world that is coming? Or is she a lunatic bunny boiler? Does she dance barefoot with flowers in her hair, or does she call radio stations in the night and say “Play Misty for me”?
Or both.
Suzanne Farrell: AMCtv
And then there’s the meta-argument. Can we not tell because the character is complex? Or because she’s poorly written?
So anyway. The Gypsy and the Hobo. She sits in the car, a loaded gun, adding enormous tension to the scenes of Don’s confession, because we know she’s out there. She could come in. Hell, I might go in. The wife’s out of town, after all. You don’t have to be a loony to just open the door and say “Don? Are you all right?” And then all hell breaks loose. At some point, I think Don kind of forgot she was there, but that’s beside the point. We never forgot that there was a loaded gun just outside.
That didn’t go off.
Suzanne got out of the car and walked home. And then the next morning, she was delicate, vulnerable, a little weepy, and very sympathetic. That’s not a gun, you think, that’s a hurt young woman! All this time, you think, all season, it seemed like she was a loaded gun, and now it turns out she isn’t. How clever! How smart!
Now she’ll go off.
Wait. And. See.
120 Responses to “Chekhov's Gun”
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riverdaughter – “disappoint” was the wrong word, you made me sad because you put that up after I was out. I was ready to chow down at home when I read it and was disappointed that my dinner would need to be sacrificed to make a worthy defense.
What Deborah said.
less of me – Bull Durham was hot. and I was never a big Costner fan.
Suzanne needs to call in a designated hitter because she ain’t gettin’ it out of the ball park with the juice she’s bringing to the show.
So, Don’s having this affair to show he’s still in the game?
gypsy, daughter of Thurston – Don WAS lying to Betty when he was telling the truth – or more to the point, he had a BIG secret that was waiting in his car while he told his BIG secret.
I hope this Suzanne story has run its course. The show also has the knowledge that Don’s actions were illegal and it would maybe be interesting to see if Betty likes getting to keep secrets about Don that make her more of a partner in their marriage since she is soooo bothered by anyone knowing about the problems of her private life.
And up above, the rivery one is casting Hamm together with common laundry products!!! wooo, this a tough crowd.
I hope Abigail isn’t lurking around.
riverd– BTW, If it is to nail down that account, as we are all aware, we should expect and demand teh Draper to service the Clorox.
I’m not entirely convinced this gun has had the bullet’s removed and locked away … however, there are an awful lot of loaded guns on this stage, and only two episodes to deal with them.
What I want to know:
* Did Betty wrap Henry’s letters with a bow and store them in a drawer somewhere? Somewhere, say that she might have left Don’s Hilton cufflinks?
* Will Henry be at the Sterling wedding?
* Will the Sterling Wedding take place? And what will happen with Mona/Jane/Roger all in the same place?
* Is Conrad Hilton done with Don for good?
* Who’s prospecting to buy Sterling-Cooper from PPL and what’s going to happen to Moneypenney and Pryce? If Moneypenney goes back to England, does Joan get her job back?
* Where is Sal?????
* Peggy/Duck, seriously?
* Will Duck lure anyone away to Grey?
* Who won the Darwin contest? Ken or Pete?
* Danny and the business card? Red Herring?
** But then, that would leave Don in his same pattern of lying to Betty, doesn’t it? Does he want to start right back up with that again? **
gypsy, can Don keep himself from lying, or is his lying pathological?
I’m thinking about what he said to Peggy, “This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.”
So even though he deliberately switched the dogtags, it never happened. There’s only “forward” for him and facts that don’t support that direction are discarded. It becomes the Army’s fault when he explains his past to Betty.
This man is not a simple liar, that’s for sure.
# 101 riverdaughter, I don’t know Peer Gynt but I agree that Suzane is written in a way that’s meant to make it hard for us to make up our minds about her. What I wrote earlier was:
“October 27th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Victoria, I don’t think Don forgot Suzanne. He just knew he couldn’t go back to the car. I assume Suzanne saw all the house lights go on and figured he had company.
I can even understand his gratitude to her for still asking how he’s doing, when (as you suggest) she has every reason to be angry with him. But if ever a guy needed a little sympathy, wouldn’t it be right about then?
She continues to say she knows it’s not for the long run and her behavior seems consistent with that. But I think we’re all having a tough time believing her.
Is that a reflection on her — or us?”
“* Who’s prospecting to buy Sterling-Cooper from PPL and what’s going to happen to Moneypenney and Pryce? If Moneypenney goes back to England, does Joan get her job back?
* Who won the Darwin contest? Ken or Pete?”
I hadn’t thought about it until now, but if PPL sells SC before either Pete or Ken gets the heave-ho, the new owners may decide the whole thing is a bunch of nonsense and bring in a new head of accounts.
@ 113 Melissa- I don’t think they would bring in someone new. Accounts seems to be a very person based business. The client needs to trust who they are working with, and have a relationship with. My guess is they will just pick someone. I could see Roger suggesting a coin toss.
@#14 CPT_Doom: My hat off to you – a great analysis. I keep telling non-basketcases that MM is like Douglas Sirk meets Hitchcock on steroids.
And to any who think Suzanne is ‘badly written’ and ‘not a 1963 character’, I think you may be relying on memories of soap/movie characters and not experience of real people. In the car, she would have quickly guessed that Don had run into Betty or someone, and her fear for her job would have prevented her from causing scandal. She’s not likely to go Misty on Don for the same reason, though she may seek more subtle revenge – she or her brother. As long as Weiner & Co keep setting them up, we’ll be in suspense.
I agree she isn’t Maggie Siff, though. Sigh.
I’m no expert on Peer Gynt, but wasn’t Peter Peer, Trudy the Green Lady (she is dressed in Kelly green) and Trudy’s father the Troll King? Just some food for thought…
The best part of these blogs is reading other's theories and offering a few of one's own. We dissect every little nuance of this show, probably to excess and the extreme. Nevertheless, it's what makes this show so darn enjoyable. Here's my two cents . . .
Suzanne commits suicide (maybe due to pregnancy) after Don turns his back on her; Danny is left alone with Don as his only resource. Don is forced to face the same difficult decision that he made with Adam. We understand how painful the last decision was and Don will be driven by the extreme guilt of Suzanne's and Adam's death to honor his commitment to Danny at the risk of losing his family and Betty.
(…or Suzanne blackmails Don for Danny's sake — she wouldn't do it for herself but she would for her brother.)
Who knows? Whatever happens, I'll be entertained!
I referred to Suzanne as "that mousy little schoolteacher" in another post. Ha. I recall her taunting Don by saying, when he was not obviously hitting on her, "You are just like all the others, drinker, philanderer, etc." That led me to think that the other dads came on to her very directly and she was frustrated by Don not doing that. He said, "We are just talking here." Later she phoned his house and told him she did not know why she was doing it. But he knew why and so did she. I think Don wanted her to give him the green light, maybe because she was Sally's teacher. Don is a risk-taker, and as Suzanne pointed out, she lived just a few miles from his home, so the risk was greater, and maybe that was exciting for Don, having this woman almost on his front doorstep and Betty none the wiser. The scene where Don sees Suzanne dancing around the May Pole with her class, flowers in her hair, seemed to definitely announce that she was a new kind of woman, a hippie type, one who might end up in San Francisco. He is intrigued by women who are rather bohemian, as with Midge and the young girl in California and now Suzanne, who jogs and doesn't wear makeup and lives in an apartment over a garage. As to her brother, that seemed to connect with Don's own younger brother. Don was more sympathetic to Suzanne's brother than to his own brother, but he handled him in the same way, with money.
HAVE YOU WRITTEN ABOUT THE PEOPLE MAGAZINE ISSUE ANYWHERE?
I was outraged that People Magazine in its Sexiest Man Alive issue didn't include Jon Hamm in anything but a silly "Separated at Birth" page comparing his photos to those of a brunette Fabio.
I fully expected to see Jon Hamm on the front cover!
Hudsunn, news comments really should go in a news post. It's been mentioned in comments in a recent one.