Chekhov’s Gun
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.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I just have to say something in this character/actor’s defense.
For most of 3 seasons, there’s been LOTS of Betty bashing, now it appears to be Suzanne bashing.
At one of my regular activities, whenever the talk turns to this week’s ‘Mad Men’ episode, one of the women is especially critical of Betty and January.
Being the tactful type, I suggested that it’s often true in the best films and TV that the writers allow you to make assumptions about a less-than-appealing character for quite a long time. Later on, they reveal “facts” and plotlines and dialogue and scenes that give you new insight into the character. I suggested that this was true for Betty (and BTW, also for Pete).
I still think it’s unfair to call Suzanne a bunny boiler and a loaded gun. If Don/Dick didn’t have a fidelity problem, this affair wouldn’t have happened at all.
But her presence in his life may still make a “loaded gun” incident possible — and not just her business-card-carrying brother. What if Carleton or Francine figures it out? Didn’t Carlton have an affair with Suzanne?
October 27th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I can’t really figure Miss Farrell out either.
For such a supposedly devoted and caring teacher she seems to miss a lot of class time on no notice. She’s ready to take a week off to be with Don at the drop of a hat. It would have been a school week…Oct 31, ‘63 was a thursday. I remember that Holloween was a pretty big deal at school for us elementary grade kids…she’s just gonna blow her kids off that week? And what about her meeting Don on the train? wasn’t that a school day too?
I get the feeling that the writers sort of got stuck with her character so I guess I’m in “poor writing” camp. Anyhow I hope we’ve seen the last of her!
October 27th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Maybe she won’t set off Chekov’s gun, but maybe she isn’t the Farrell that’s supposed to set it off. It could be classic MM misdirection to take her out of the equation, and have Don ready to make things right with Betty – then have Danny Farrell finally make that call to Don and ruin everything.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
She’s loaded all right, but not how you might think.
Following the Peer Gynt theory of Don Draper, here is the blurb from wikipedia about who Suzanne may be:
“He runs his head into a rock and swoons, and the rest of the second act takes place in Peer’s dreams. He comes across a woman clad in green who turns out to be the daughter of the troll mountain king. Together they ride into the mountain hall, and the troll king gives Peer the choice of becoming a troll if Peer is to marry his daughter. Peer agrees to a number of issues, but withdraws in the end. He is then confronted with the fact that the green-clad woman is with child. Peer denies this; he hasn’t even touched her, he claims, but the wise troll-king replies that he begot the child in his head as he desired his daughter. That is the troll-human way. Crucial for the plot and understanding of the play is the question asked by the troll-king: What is the difference between troll and man?The answer given by the Old Man of the Mountain is: “Out there, where sky shines, humans say: ‘To thyself be true.’ In here, trolls say: ‘Be true to yourself-ish.’”
OK, So I believe that Don and Betty are supposed to end up together if Betty is Don’s Solveig (or is it Anna?). Don is on an existential journey in search of his true self. He has many adventures, loves many women and takes on many roles. But his home is with Solveig and eventually, he comes back to her. In the meantime, his life is all about avoidance. I think the Green Woman, Suzanne, is the person who will temporarily take Don away from Betty. I don’t know how this will happen but I suspect that she’s loaded already, if you get my drift. When that knowledge comes to light, the fragile thread that keeps Don and Betty together right now will snap. Don will want to avoid responsibility. Betty will see right through him. Will she also move forward in her own storyline in A Doll’s House and move out?
As for the Old Man of the Mountain, my guess is that this is Burt Cooper. The Ayn Rand/ egoism “Be true to yourself-ish” line just sounds right.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
@ robert #4 — Could even Brother Danny be a red herring? Perhaps he meets with an accident and someone finds Don’s card in his pocket.
Even if Don tries to explain it away to others by saying he was helping just a hitchhiker, devoted sister Suzanne may not react well, especially when she learns that Don didn’t deliver him to the job she had arranged. Add the pain of that loss and betrayal to the perceived cooling or end of the affair and she might not be as careful and thoughtful as she was when carrying her suitcase away from Don’s house in the dead of night.
If Francine finds out and projects her hurt about Carleton’s fling as a justification to “help” Betty … if Carleton finds out and feels jealous of Don or possessive about Suzanne (even though it’s long over) … if another parent or neighbor puts 2 and 2 together … there are a lot of ways this could blow up.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
@Lawnmowerman…Good catch regarding the dates! You are correct, Halloween was a big deal when I was in grade school in ‘67.
@riverdaugher…Love the Peer Gynt stuff!
@Peggy Joan…I sorta agree with you on Suzanne.
She may have a few loose screws, BUT, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that, relatively speaking, there’s something admirable about her. I did not see Suzanne playing “gypsy” to her respective “hobo” as did the other women featured in the episode.
Betty, of course, stays in what’s still basically a loveless marriage out of pity for Don and following “practical” advice from the family lawyer.
Annabelle dumped the love of her life, Roger, for someone who could run her father’s dog food company.
Finally, I’m in the camp that saw Joan reacting relieved by Greg’s enlistment. I think she looks forward to the prestige of being the wife of an officier (if not a gentlemen).
However, Suzanne was part of her relationship with Don, KNOWING there was no future in it, because she truly connected with him. She worries about her job (a practical consideration) almost as an after-thought once she realizes that they’re finished.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
If Suzanne is poorly written, so are a lot of people I know in real life. She doesn’t strike me as a vengeful person, just someone who didn’t count on what kind of defenses she’d need in order to avoid getting hurt. If Dick Whitman came to her as a boy in search of a mother figure, Don Draper the man came along as well – and he’s the dangerous one. The more the show sets her up as Dick’s surrogate mother, the more I suspect that her fate will be a tragic one – one that may echo that of Dick’s biological mother – with Don unwittingly following in his own father’s footsteps.
I know that Mad Men has used unexpected pregnancy on two occasions already, but if Suzanne were to experience complications from pregnancy (or from attempting to end a pregnancy, possibly at Don’s urging) it would mirror the flashbacks in the first episode of S3 and fulfill all of Don’s darkest fears: 1) becoming like his own father, 2) causing his alter-Adam (Danny) to lose his source of hope, and 3) potentially costing him the family with Betty just as it seems to be on the verge of getting better.
Judging from what we’ve seen of Suzanne so far, I don’t see her setting out to sabotage Don’s life on purpose, but I do worry that if Don’s world gets hit with shrapnel, it will be from hers exploding.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
She’s totally going to go off. She’s the Gloria Trillo to Don’s Tony Soprano.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Matt: Here’s a clue of what is going to happen from ActIII of Peer Gynt:
“As an outlaw, Peer struggles to build his own cottage in the hills, and while he’s doing this, Solveig turns up, insisting on living with him. She has made her choice, she says, and there is no returning for her. Peer delights and welcomes her, but as she enters the cabin, an elderly woman in a green dress appears with a limping boy at her side. This is the green-clad woman from the mountain hall. She has in a way cursed him, and he has to remember her, and all his previous sins, when facing Solveig. This Peer can’t handle, and decides to leave, with the excuse: “I have got something heavy to fetch”"
So, in the play, Solveig has Peer’s number. She knows the kind of person he is and she decides that she is going to stay with him anyway. Peer is happy about this but just as they are about to start their lives together, the Green Woman shows up with proof of his infidelity. Now, Peer can’t just go on with his life with Solveig. He has to remember what he’s done with this Green Woman and he runs away from Solveig. (Or does Solveig run away from him? This is Weiner’s interpretation, after all.)
At first, I thought that the Green Woman was Joy from last season. And there are plot elements that would support that. The swooning at the pool, the Mountain King daddy who has no qualms about paying them a visit in bed. That was just weird and “trollish”. But now I am more and more convinced that Suzanne is the Green Woman and all the signs have been there all season that his relationship with her was somehow different and not likely to end well. There are a myriad different ways it could end badly including her getting pregnant and coming to Don for a possible reconciliation or money for an abortion. I think the business card that Don gave Danny will come back to haunt him. Will Danny demand honor and satisfaction for his sister? Is he the limping boy at the Green Woman’s side? And while I don’t think Suzanne is a bunny boiler, I can see her cursing him for pretending to Betty that he had nothing to do with her. It is her job that is on the line if she’s pregnant. We know that Don has a good side and a Dick side. Will Don be a Dick to Suzanne?
Stay tuned…
October 27th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
riverdaughter – I buy it until I think the whole emphasis of the show is that Don and Betty aren’t destined to be together.
I like how you get the existentialism to tie into the Randian egoism and that works I think with the zen and Taoism Bert is drawn to.
And Chekov learned all he knows from Ibsen.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
“Bunny boiler” is certainly an insult, but “loaded gun” is not. That’s why I linked to its definition.
Basketcases have speculated this, there is no evidence.
I’ve actually never seen Fatal Attraction, which is why I don’t, personally, use bunny boiler. I usually refer to Play Misty for Me. In it, the Jessica Walter character doesn’t start out vengeful, merely incredibly needy and a little delusional. I tend to think that’s where Suzanne is; not a mean bitch, but a needy woman who is made crazy by having her relationship taken away.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
less of me: Oh, I think Don and Betty are destined to be together. But aren’t each of them going through an existential crisis? There are actually two (well, three) Ibsen plays going on here. Betty is Nora from A Doll’s House. She is an unformed person. She is a caterpillar who never metamorphosized into an adult insect. What will make her move on with her life? We can see that she is starting to take initiative and grow up but what will really push her to do it?
And isn’t the perfect relationship one where both individuals are self-actualized? People rarely get that far but they can get close, right? Betty loves Don for his kindness and fundamental decency but she hates his mysterious act and avoidant nature. Don loves Betty’s beauty and sophistication but he doesn’t understand her need to be taken seriously as an adult and to break out of convention. When they get these things sorted out, they will be madly in love with each other. It’s just going to take awhile, like several more seasons, the Vietnam War and the sexual revolution. In some sense, society has to change in order for these two characters to change, especially Betty.
Betty and Don are not going to end up like Roger and Anabelle. They both want the same things: family, home, each other. They just need to find themselves first before they can be comfortable there.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Abigail Spencer referenced Leonard Cohen’s song Suzanne in her interview on the AMC site:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30egIKHT-pM
I close my eyes and she holds my hand. Sorry, but I just faded off into a nice memory. My girlfriend in college was exactly like Miss Ferrell. Man, I really know how to screw things up.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
To me the idea of Suzanne as, overall, a loaded gun is too trite for MM. The vengeful mistress destroying Don’s life? Meh, not so interested in that, you know?
But Suzanne’s presence was clearly a loaded gun during Don’s confession to Betty and it was very Hitchcockian of MM not to have it go off during that scene. Hitchcock memorably pointed out that it is far more suspenseful for the audience to know there is a ticking bomb, but not having the bomb go off. Certainly there was an explosion in the Draper marriage with the confession, but our sense of worry was heightened by Suzanne’s presence in the driveway.
Then her character was made far more sympathetic by her slinking off back toward home and her sadness on the phone with Don the next day. I have never seen Suzanne as a crazy person – in fact I thought the arrival of her brother was meant to explain Suzanne. Her eccentricity is caused by the hurt of seeing her brother destroyed by the prejudices of society. She doesn’t care aobut societal mores, and therefore engages in multiple affairs with married men, because she has seen the damage those mores have caused. I also wonder if she concentrates on married men because she is worried about having children with her brother’s condition.
That doesn’t mean her story line is completely defunct, of course. Her existence could still pose a huge problem for Don if the affair is revealed, after all even Betty has a breaking point. I would hate for MM to go back to the well of unexpected pregnancy again, but her death from a botched back-alley abortion could be one way to affect Don’s life.
I would not be surprised, though, to see her character just disappear, with maybe a quick glimpse a la Rachel in S2.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
On a lighter note, Leonard Cohen bears a striking resemblence to Boone (Peter Reigert) from Animal House.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Wasn’t Carlton’s affair with someone in Manhattan? Suzanne would be a local call (remember the phone bill that tipped off Francine to Carlton’s affair), so unless Carlton is like Don (and Roger, etc., etc.) and a serial adulterer, it would seem no.
Given her concern about her job security (as belated as it is), it doesn’t strike me that she’s a homewrecker in the making. And I’m not getting a girl-gone-crazy vibe from her (yet — of course, it’s still possible).
I had a similar thought on the pregnancy speculation and the potential for a botched abortion, though.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
I still vote for badly written. Actually I vote for boring and contrived. Suzy is worse than Joy, another vapid fling who was really just a sounding board for Don’s latest existential crisis. At least Rachel, Midge and Bobbi were natural characters. They felt like real women, not dream women.
I hope Farrell doesn’t turn bunny boiler, because it is so predicable and even more contrived. I still think it’s uncovincing that Miss “caring sensitive liberal teacher” is also an enthusiastic homewrecker. Maybe her brother will find out that Don broke her heart and he’ll take revenge on her behalf.
After Betty’s talk with her lawyer it would be an interesting time for Betty to have proof of Don’s infidelity. I want Farrell to have a point, but I also want her off the show.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
You’re such the romantic riverdaughter! (no snark)
And you make a good case that I agree with, society will have evolve for Don and Betty to get back around to each other in mutually acceptable personae. I just don’t think the 60’s is enough time to make it authentic.
And if the writers can’t make it feel right I hope they try something entirely different. I prefer free jazz to Unchained Melody.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I posted this another thread but got no response so I’ll try it here:
This is a question to the Observers out there, that pertains to future predictions:
Don parked Suzanne in the car down the street from the house, was he careless enough to park in front of Carlton’s house?
Those two scenes – Don leaving the car and the family trick-or-treating at the end – looked to be shot from the same camera position.
Who in here knows the neighborhood?
How long was Suzanne in that car? on that street? and who saw here?
Can anyone force themselves (ha! I know it’s tough) to watch it again and give me some additional perspective?
October 27th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
“bunny boiler” as a cultural reference, to me, doesn’t mean a character is full-out crazy in the context of Mad Men.
When she was out in the car, if she had come into the house I think it would have been set up as concern because Don just disappeared… I mean, if you were waiting in the car for someone and they never showed, wouldn’t you worry about whether they had been hurt and couldn’t get help?
- this show holds lots of surprises but having a real creepy “stalker” character as a female is not one of them I would think the writers would go for. Too much of an OTN series of events.
But they did do the “and who are you supposed to be” which was very OTN. Like a vase on the nose on the nose. Too obvious for anyone who knows the show. In the director’s cut in my brain, Carleton says that to Bobby but the camera has a two shot and Don does a mini-flinch. And then it’s just Don’s semi-impassive non-readable face.
I also hope, hope, hope they do not do a Suzanne is preggers story line. ugh. Tho I do expect to hear from her brother somewhere down the story line.
Peer Gynt as a Mad Men theme, to me, makes sense in the context of Don in CA with Anne (the cripple) with the child (who is not crippled here.) The Green Lady was Joy and her dad was the king of the trolls and the story ended when Don left Palm Springs and didn’t take up with the itinerant proto-Eurotrash.
…in the director’s cut in my mind.
In any case, if Suzanne does figure into future Mad Men episodes, I hope Betty takes a cue from Joan and whacks her with a Peer Gynt Hummel figurine… ah the catharsis of destroying a Hummel and whacking her child’s teacher who has been screwing her husband at the same time… in the director’s cut in my mind.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
less of me: Well, we know that Betty has somewhere else to go. She has another house. We can reasonably assume that Don will be generous with her, as he was with Anna. Maybe it will be a long drawn out separation instead of a divorce. He loves his kids. There would still be plenty of contact between them. But they would have the freedom to develop on different tracks.
If the Peer Gynt thingy holds, we can expect Don’s business side to take a dive. Will he lose everything and have to go elsewhere to get his mojo back? Will Betty take up with Henry and find fulfillment in politics? She’s well read, well bred and pretty. She could become a fundraiser or get involved in a campaign. There are options.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
I suspect that if Suzanne got pregnant, she’d just “take care of it” herself. Although I suppose, having given Danny a big chunk of what is probably her only disposable cash, she might need money.
Don’t put all that cash in the bank, Don! It might come in handy.
I really hope we don’t go down the ‘botched abortion’ path. I know things like that did and do happen in real life, but it would border on soap opera if they went there.
Seriously, you’d hope that a woman who’s having serial affairs with married fathers of her students would have the sense to be on the pill. It’s not like she didn’t see her affair with Don coming from a mile away, and encouraged it at every opportunity. Plus, she “knows how this ends.”
October 27th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
gypsy: Not everyone died from back alley abortions. Presumably, Don could give her enough money to see a good doctor. Unless he’s so worried about his tenuous relationship with Betty that he becomes a total prick to Suzanne and doesn’t return her phone calls, forcing her to track him down in public.
Like at a wedding.
Just a guess.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
No, I know that riverdaughter. Lots of women just quietly have an abortion and the daddy never even knows. (I won’t go into how I know that.) I just hope it doesn’t go into “back alley coat hanger” territory just to make a point about the times. “Oh look how awful it was!” Or to add what I consider to be unnecessary melodrama to an already heavily dramatic show. But given what we saw with twilight sleep, maybe the writers will go there. I just hope they don’t feel they have to, to keep this interesting.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Falafael, I agree with you on poorly written. This woman would have been born in the late ’30’s so she’s about 15 years too old to become this woman. She would have had her early childhood shaped by WW2 and her early teens by Korea. Neither of those historical events created any kind of consciousness movement the way Viet Nam did. And other than having a run away brother with a debilitating illness there was no vinegar about her to cut the cloyingly saccharine sweetness. She too over emoted over everything, except the potential fallout of her actions.
But there’s two more episodes, plenty of time for the gun to go off.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
#13 – Thank you so much for that link! I think it explains a lot!
October 27th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
esme, The Cineplex of My Mind was a Glen Campbell hit if I recall. Cushy seating? over-priced popcorn for sale in there? Better than Sundance no doubt.
Couldn’t get to the music clip until this morn, now I’m an accordian-phile. Thanks. You kids were off working different ideas last night when I got back online.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
riverdaughter- I’ll buy Don as Peer Gynt if you’ll consider him as American Navy Commander Shears.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_on_the_River_Kwai
Remember the last line of the movie?
October 27th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Deb, you really never saw “Fatal Attraction”?
Girl! I had to see that thing, just to stoke my own outrage (I have wavy hair, and I swear Adrian Lyne had it in for us curly girls for about a decade). I found the film unintentionally hilarious.
The scene with Glenn Close sitting in the oversized tee, listening to Madame Butterfly, turning a light on, then off, then on, then off, while mascara runs down her face over the married guy? I still try to do that, like, once a week.
Good times.
On a brighter note … my local paper suggests that hip parents steal the Drapers’ Halloween look (complete with the woman hiding in the back of the Cadillac):
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/parenting/detail?entry_id=50397
It’s a penny-saving idea, and a way to get the whole family (even Dad’s girlfriend!) involved in the Halloween fun.
Note to Frank: I hear we’ll be seeing you soon? That’s — as they say where I come from — totally rad.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
@5: I am somewhat lost–how do we know for sure that Carlton had an affair with Suzanne? I mean, we know he ran into her running, but there’s an “etiquette” of not talking to other runners. But do we know that they actually had a relationship, or that he just desires her?
If Suzanne gets pregnant and has a home abortion and dies, it’ll be too reminiscent of Revolutionary Road.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
less of me – I must have missed that one.
was that before or after Glen hit the junk?
ahh yes, reclining leather seats, no Hummels in sight. grapes from nubile Don Draper in a loin cloth that he puts in my mouth with his own while Roger Sterling stirs the air with a palm frond out of sight but ready with an appropriate bon mot. state of the art sound system between my ears. No annoying producers acting important.
…in the – well, you know the rest of it.
glad you liked the Gus. He was contemporary with Django Reinhardt – what’s not to love? wish I could have musical accompaniment to posts instead of a new window.
I left some gifs on the Joan thread. If I had the time, I would love to find an audio only of Peggy’s famous KY Home line. Maybe someone else has one. I found a site with various recordings but couldn’t locate that particular one but I was also sort of in a hurry.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
less is more: Oooo, I love war movies. I haven’t seen Bridge on the River Kwai in years. Must go back and watch it again.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Belle Lettre, we don’t. People are just guessing.
Anne, I’ve really never seen it.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
If I were Dick Whitman I would have changed my name to Django Reinhardt. It’s fun to say!
Oh Mademoiselle Peyroux was good too.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
I vote for mostly bad writing like many have stated above but also some bad acting too. We don’t (or at least I don’t) like Suzanne from mainly two scenes: her drunk dial on the phone and her blatant pass at Don in front of the kids during the eclipse. I feel the acting is very one-dimensional; there’s not a lot of subtleties in her expressions. When Joan reacts to Greg’s army enlistment, everyone sees different feelings in Christina Hendricks’ acting: happiness, relief and horror. It’s very complex.
Suzanne comes off as too emotional in the classroom, drunk on the phone, and whorish in front of kids. She’s a hypocrite. She keeps trying to convince Don and the audience that she’s smart because she is aware that the affair can’t be emotional, must be secretive because of the consequences, and that she knows it has an end. Yet every scene, she says she wants to be out in public with Don, shows how emotionally attached she is, and is about to wreck the Draper home (not that they need any help).
Suzanne’s hitting on Don is much more subdued than the way Bobbie Barrett did it. But we end up liking/admiring Boobie for her cougar-empowerment. We don’t like Suzanne cause she did it in front of the kids (bad writing) and she is this know-it-all (bad acting). Or maybe it’s all good writing and acting because we aren’t suppose to like her character? Who knows. But MW had made it clear in the commentary that Don has an emotional connection with Suzanne that he doesn’t have with Betty. I’m not feeling it though. Just compare Don and Suzanne scenes to Don and Rachel (or even Midge) scenes. The latter made me emotional watching them. The former has made me want to gag this season.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
less is more: Do I know you? Have you been through my iTunes library?
October 27th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Shoot, I posted twice. #35, I mispelled Bobbie into Boobie…Ugh. Feel free to ignore.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
river-Kwai-daughter, saw it saturday again. I had completely forgotten about the change of uniform thing. It’s got Japanese (Bert), Colonel Nicholson (Lane) and British efficiency and honor.
Of course to follow the plot all the way through the downside would be many martyred executives; the upside? no glass ceiling for Peggy.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
I also agree with the bad writing, as well as her coming off as incredibly reckless–trying to kiss Don in the car in front of his house and neighbors, and then impishly sliding down in the seat and grinning mischievously. I don’t know, this just incredibly annoyed me. Of course, Don is the one who drove her there.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Empress, somehow I don’t think Boobie would mind.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Less is more: too funny! Lane has spent so much effort getting SC ship shape and Bristol fashion. Will he blow it up at the last minute?
October 27th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
belle & empress – it sure has me confused. After all the terrific writing and acting on this show, why would Suzanne be the one part they can’t get right? That doesn’t make any sense to me either. I’m beginning to just chalk it up to “we’re supposed to be confused and ambivalent about her” and leave it at that. Maybe someday it will all be revealed and make sense, or maybe she’ll just fade away.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I got into the library because you left the key in your robe.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
#41 – LOL.
yes, I think Boobie would take it all in stride…
October 27th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
gypsy has it. Why would she be the only badly written or directed character on the show? We will know when we know.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
oh less of me, you ALWAYS say gypsy is right! hmmph.
okay, so she is right, but still.
it’s easy to be right when your dad left you for a three hour tour and never came home. no wonder she gets this show.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
gypsy: How well written does she have to be? She’s unusual, especially for Ossining. She’s an outsider, living close to the edge of the dominant social class of the suburb. She is like a governess. Not the hired help, not one of the citizens. She’s poor, a free thinker, a bit Bohemian, idealistic, young. A potential Peace Corps volunteer, which is what I hope she does after she serves her purpose of breaking up Don and Betty’s relationship. She doesn’t fit in but she’s sweet. That’s what Don loves about her. Her life looks like what his might have turned out like. In short, she is not on the path to success and until the last episode, that didn’t seem to bother her all that much.
I’m not sure why everyone is saying she’s not well written. She’s just an incongruous person in the right place at the wrong time for Don. She has a life but it’s nothing like the one he worked so hard to achieve. That is part of the attraction.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
@ 35 Empress Rouge- I don’t think Bobbie’s a cougar. She and Don may have an age difference, but I really don’t think it’s enough to classify her as a cougar. If she went after Ken, that would be cougar territory.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Riverdaughter, not to beat a dead horse into horsemeat, but the part that doesn’t quite do it for me about Suzanne is that I honestly just don’t FEEL the passion or heat between the two of them. And yet, I’m supposed to imagine that here are these two people doing something unbelievably reckless and dangerous and they both know it, but they’re doing it because they can’t stop themselves… or something. But I don’t feel it when I watch them together.
When Don & Betty were in Rome, it was so hot I wanted to tear my own clothes off. With all his other women (except Joy- I didn’t get much from that either, or obviously the stewardess but in that case I think that was the whole point) I can see and feel the attraction. The scenes are HOT. Intellectually I understand what Don/Dick sees in Suzanne, I’m not exactly sure what she sees in him except he is DON FUCKING DRAPER, but emotionally I don’t feel it. That’s what I’m talking about.
But I give up trying to analyze why that is.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
esme, for pouting (chop,chop) YOU GET NOTHING!! ha.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Continuing the beat the horse…. lest you think I’m ONLY talking about sexual passion, in the amazing scenes between Don and Anna, I felt such a deep and loving connection between the two of them, it made me almost want to cry. Clearly it wasn’t sexual, but it still was deeply emotional. I don’t get that with Suzanne.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
LOL. less of me, I think you must be the only person who saw that gif. glad it made you laugh. I was so happy when I thought of it because it just seemed so… right.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
@50: I agree, the pretty ingenue thing doesn’t do it for me. Joy and Suzanne and Jane are beautiful creatures, but leave me cold. There is no heat. I never got Joy and Don, and comparing Jane with Roger to Joan and Roger–well, you know.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
I thought The Shining was an inspired lead-in to the mounting domestic madness of Mad Men we were about to experience.
Since I’m way off the topic reservation anyway, a question: Did you feel for just a teeny split second that Don was going to get physical with Bets near the desk drawer?
It was funny because I felt a vague dread sense of violence in that office but never felt the vase was coming until it hit Greg in the head.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
The thing with Joy is that Don wasn’t getting into any kind of relationship with her – they were just fucking, and they both knew it. A little roll in the hay. Not passion, just sex. That’s fine. That’s cool.
We were supposed to feel something more between Suzanne and Don… and I just didn’t.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
gypsy: I get the writing for this character. But you are right that there is no spark between them. Maybe the actress was miscast. She’s a bit too vanilla for me, if you get my drift. Midge was an expressive beatnik and her body language showed it. Rachel was driven and glamorous. Joy was young, carefree and exotic. Bobbie was sexy as all get out.
Suzanne? Not much of anything. I think there was enough of a character written for her to draw on but she just comes off as not there. She can’t convey the inner Suzanne through all of those conversations. So, they come off as non-sequitors. First she’s a dancing free spirit, then she’s a concerned teacher, then she’s hitting Don up on the phone. She’s looks slightly slutty and snockered. I remember a moment during the parent-teacher conference when she made a comment about Gene’s death and it came off all wrong. I mean, the LINE was the wrong delivery. It was a bit high school drama club wrong.
That’s what I think was wrong with Suzanne. The actress didn’t get her and couldn’t carry her personality effectively. Bobby Barrett was ruthless sex kitten all the way through. Rachel was smart, sensitive and glamorous all the way through. Midge was an independent, non-conformist all the way through. Joy was a devil may care, take life by the horns all the way through.
Suzanne was supposed to be complex and caring and idealistic and independent all the way through but she’s not. She just couldn’t carry off this part with enough subtlety and nuance. She might be great in another part but not this one. There isn’t enough innocence. Maybe that’s why she comes off like a bunny boiler. She seems too jaded.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
For those of you who are in the “Miss Farrell is crazy” camp, you should get a kick outta this. I finally remembered Abigail Spencer from How I Met Your Mother where she guest starred in a episode called “How I Met Everyone Else” in season 3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_I_Met_Everyone_Else
Basically, she plays the new girl Ted is dating, “Blahblah” (since future narrator Ted can’t remember her name). Blahblah is ashamed that she and Ted met online (World of Warcraft actually) and wants them to make up a romantic story about how they met, leading to the flashbacks. Barney introduces the hot/crazy scale saying that Blahblah must be crazy because no girl that hot would have to resort to online dating if she weren’t crazy. Turns out she is crazy. She is crazy jealous and storms off declaring she is a superstar and writing a memoir.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Did you feel for just a teeny split second that Don was going to get physical with Bets near the desk drawer?
Push her away from the desk, maybe. But I didn’t think it was going to go any further than that. He was trapped. He knew it and she knew it.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
History does not produce a uniform population. The 50s had the Beats, and there have always been disaffected radicals.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
riverdaughter, exactly. That’s why I said before somewhere on one of these many threads that when I hear the WORDS they’re saying, it sounds fine. I just don’t feel it in the scene.
Of all the parts to miscast, though, in an otherwise beautifully cast and acted show….
So is that all there is to it? Maybe.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
#35 and #56 – great posts…
These inconsistencies must have a purpose – plot-wise. So many of us are not feeling any chemistry between Don and Suzanne – it can’t be just my own misinterpretation… and yet that last phonecall with Don/Suzanne made it seem like we were supposed to see their connection… I don’t see it, I don’t feel it. She has to be a loaded gun…
October 27th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I’ve tried horse meat. It wasn’t bad. But boiled bunny is just not appetizing to me at all.
However Artie Buco had a tasty rabbit recipe I remember.
Makin’ like a baby and headin’ out Cases. Be well.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Please remember that when you criticize “fans” or “people on this board” as a general group you come into conflict with our comment policy.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
gypsy: Yeah, I think so. She’s just not cast right. Her lines don’t feel organic. Does that make any sense? They feel like they came out of nowhere. That whole conversation during the eclipse? That could have been very intense but instead it came off like, WTF??, where did THAT come from? She should have been like an observer of human folly, wistful and wondering what would make suburban men cheat on their wives since they have it so good. But the wistfulness wasn’t there. Instead, it sounds like she’s clubbing him over the head with accusations on infidelity. And he has to play that back to her and it comes off all wrong. She puts him on the defensive instead of letting him into her thoughts. If that was flirtation, why didn’t she just knock him out and have her way with him?
I’m betting the director realized this but it was too late to recast her.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
On Joy. I also found her strange and empty but I attributed it to the off-center quality of the entire trip as well as a commentary on the Jet Set themselves.
You know who has hot sex scenes? Peggy.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Absolutely, Deborah, every generation has had a group that doesn’t adhere to the current conventional wisdom of how to behave. Midge certainly reflected the beatniks. Joy, who was just out of her teens, had been molded by her European nomad lifestyle. Even Anna lives against the grain. I just had a really hard time buying that this person who’s so emotionally attached to the hurting and troubled in the world, someone raised in the era she was, would have plopped herself down in the midst of upper/middle class suburbia. Not a lot of at risk kids to help. Not a lot of nightlife, activities or young singles to keep you busy. Unless you move from school system to school system looking for fathers to play with.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Aran: Suzanne is the governess. Even the well-off have to have teachers.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
@1 I’ve actually had difficulty posting here lately because of all the Betty bashing, so I understand your point. However, Suzanne is a different case, because I truly think she is being written and played as unstable. There will be a point when the people who believe that will be either proven right or wrong to a large extent. I think perceptions of Betty are, for many, carved in stone even when I don’t think the perception and the intent of the MW & Co. match up.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
I agree that she will go off at some point, there’s something more there. There are two episodes left and in Mad Men time…A LOT can happen.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Did you catch her reference to Little Italy? Don took Betty to Rome. The mistress talks about Little Italy and Don has no interest in going.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
“Riverdaughter, not to beat a dead horse into horsemeat, but the part that doesn’t quite do it for me about Suzanne is that I honestly just don’t FEEL the passion or heat between the two of them.”
The problem could simply be that Jon Hamm and Abigail Spencer (the actress who plays Suzanne) simply do not have a strong screen chemistry.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
DRush76: Jon Hamm could have the right screen chemistry with a bottle of Clorox. I’m inclined to believe that the fault is hers. She just can’t carry off this part. The only time I saw her come close to what was required is when she was in his car after he picked her up during her run.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
An Abigail Spencer interview has been posted on the blog:
http://blogs.amctv.com/mad-men/2009/10/abigail-spencer-interview.php#more
October 27th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
I think, as an aside, this show works brilliantly. At the exact same time Don is finally coming clean, he’s still lying to Betty.
It was like the end of The Color Blue. Everyone’s lying. Sterling’s lying about his ‘friend,’ Bert’s lying about wanting to be there, the Brits are lying about why they want all the SC principals there, Betty’s lying about being the happy, glamorous wife, and Don’s lying about who he even His. A bunch of liars celebrating an evening about awarding lies.
Spectacular.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Even if she is a ‘free spirit” sort of person which I don’t get from her. I am sure the school has a proper dress code policy, I know my middle class school did during that time. She always looks like she just woke up and threw something on to go out and feed the chickens. I guess it would be easy to warm-up to her if I had someone in my memory bank that I could assoiciate her with but I do not. The most believable scenes with her was in Don’s car after he picked her up when she was running. And her last scene on the phone when she just came out of the shower. That scene was a good one with her, I believed her pain and disappointment.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
oops, also I thought the scene when she and Don were talking about the color blue had some sweet moments.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
For anyone interested in Peer Gynt, here’s a link to an online , illustrated edition.
Pretty neat . Click on the page to turn it.
http://www.archive.org/stream/peergyntdramatic00ibseuoft#page/n1/mode/2up
October 27th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Oh, yes. Totally with you on this one. This episode got Don off just a little too easy. Yes, there was some drama but you know something else is coming.
My prediction: Ms. Farrell is going to go off like a keg of powder. Possibly bunny-boiling territory coming soon. She’s going to decide she can’t live without him and oh boy, is Donald Draper going to have some trouble on his hands. I think Betty is going to get wise and then we’ll see what kind of fish ol’ Dick/Don has to fry.
I was touched by this episode because I think it showed (proved?) that Don and Betty really do love each other. There is still a question as to whether Betty provides enough ’soul food’ to keep Don from straying, but we may see things develop from here on out.
Either way, I sense some big tragedy coming to a theater near you soon!
October 27th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
“Betty and Don are not going to end up like Roger and Anabelle. They both want the same things: family, home, each other. They just need to find themselves first before they can be comfortable there.”
Riverdaughter, I agree with you 100% on the above. Also love your Peer Gynt parallels/analogy and I think you’re on to something there.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
I made the suggestion in another thread that perhaps Suzanne was a Hitchcock macguffin ever since her introduction to MM. Along with that goes the unstated thought that Suzanne will perhaps just fade away. I see that #14 above has suggested a similar thing.
That suggestion was made, not on my oh! how smart prognostication skills, but on hope. Hope that she will just go away because she is so intensely boring. Her appearance sucks the interest out of any episode. The exception of course was the use of her during the confrontation scene. But we didn’t have to see her then, did we?
Hope the final two episodes don’t include her. There’s too many other characters and plot points I would rather see.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Again, I’m not feeling “powder keg” from her at all. Remember, she’s already scared for her job, and I highly doubt she’s going to push it deliberately. If there is anything more from her, it will probably be something unintentional, like she runs into Betty in the store and bursts into tears, and Betty is left to wonder why. And it probably will not take long for her to guess; she knew Don was a serial philanderer even before Bobbie, who was merely the last straw for Betty. (Does she really believe Don has been sleeping “in the office” because he’s been working so hard? Or can she only handle one bombshell revelation at a time?)
October 27th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Why isn’t it possible for one character to be poorly written or poorly acted? If either Weiner isn’t sure what he wants or the other writers don’t really get it, or if the character is miscast, it could happen. And I think it has. Either that, or Weiner is being deliberate in manipulating the audience into ambivalence, which means he’s not really writing an character meant to act like an actual human being, but a device. I think we can see from this thread that Mad Men viewers deserve better.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
# 81 Meowser Says – she knew Don was a serial philanderer even before Bobbie, who was the last straw for Betty.
——-
Meowser – I was not aware that Betty knew about Don’s other flings. I thought she just knew about Bobbie. Did I miss something?
October 27th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
@ Donny Brook #82
Why isn’t it possible for one character to be poorly written or poorly acted? If either Weiner isn’t sure what he wants or the other writers don’t really get it, or if the character is miscast, it could happen. And I think it has.
Agree. One of the things we spoke of at length here after Season One was “How could Vincent Kartheiser be so terrible as Connor on Angel when he’s so brilliant as Pete Campbell?” Not to restart that argument (I discovered that some people really liked him as Connor), just making the point that, even with writers and actors we know are greatly talented, sometimes one character just doesn’t work.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
riverdaughter you disappoint me.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Here is a possibly way out there theory: in Episode 10, in Suzanne’s apartment, you can faintly hear “The Singing Nun” song aka “Dominique” playing the background. This song was actually released in 1963. The song is happy and gentle, sort of like Suzanne herself. I hadn’t heard this song in many years, so I did some internet research to see if I could learn more about it and to figure out if had any potential relevance to the story other than it happened to be a hit song in ‘63. Here is what I found out: The composer/singer of the song was a Belgian nun who was called in French “Soeur Sourire,” the smiling sister. She later left the convent and opened a school for autistic children. In the ’80s, things got bad for her financially due to the Belgian government claiming she owed back taxes on “Dominique” despite the fact that she gave all the profits from the song to her religious order. The threat of the back taxes put her school in jeopardy. She ended up killing herself by overdosing on barbituates and alcohol.
My theory is that the playing of that song was intended to foreshadow Suzanne’s eventual death by suicide. Perhaps she leaves a note blaming Don for her death.
October 27th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
irregardless of the misdirected writing or acting – I think her character does have a definite under current going on. I believe there is another shoe to drop here. She may be called a free spirt, but I think she is a lonely recluse not unlike the character that Deborah refers to in the movie Play Misty For Me. The women is not intouch with normal reality. I do not think she means to harm anyone however – she just wants attention.
#86 Helen you may be on to something, perhaps she would not harm anyone else but she may harm herself.
October 27th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Gingere, Betty told her shrink she knew her husband was unfaithful in S1, Bobbie was introduced in S2.
October 28th, 2009 at 6:18 am
Less is more: Ehhh, whatever. Nobody’s perfect. I think I got most of it right. I still blame the actress. She’s showing us too much troll too soon. Maybe that’s meant to throw people off and make us suspect her. But IMHO, Don’s supposed to be attracted to what he sees as her purity and innocence even though he wants to boff her green wickedness. Something about her is discordant and people are picking up on that. Whether it is intentional or not remains to be seen.
October 28th, 2009 at 8:36 am
I don’t know if this has been mentioned about the actress who plays Suzanne, and I certainly don’t want to provide additional fodder for the “haters”, but I think she is the, “I love blogging!” woman in the Twix commercial. If not, she looks remarkably like her.
For the record, I like her role in MM and I think she did a great job with it.
October 28th, 2009 at 8:49 am
I think that the Suzanne storyline/portrayal is representative of what most single women having affairs with married men looked like: they ended with a whimper after starting with a bang. Sulking off in the dark after obediently doing what she’s told because she’s afraid of the consequences to her reputation and her livelihood, seems to hit an historically accurate note. Despite the mistaken interpretation that the general “pornification” of our popular culture is a marker of women’s sexual liberation, I would argue that MM shows us how little has really changed: Is it still rape if it’s your husband (or helpful neighbor)? How young is too young? (Think Roman Polanski as victim/Pete Campbell as plantation owner.) To hold this character or plot line to a post-Fatal Attraction mindset, is, I think, to miss the greater point.
October 28th, 2009 at 8:58 am
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.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:27 am
BroncoRoger – I believe that is her in that commercial. I thought the same thing.
Meg Burdett – Agreed. I posted elsewhere that this has ended, for now, as it should – but it’s not over. We may not see her again until next season, but she will resurface. She teaches at the kids’ school and the school year is young. Lots of time for Don and Betty to attend holiday programs and other school-wide events. We may even see Don/Betty and Francine/Carlton all together at the school when Ms. Farrell appears. That could be interesting . . .
less of me – I see there is still no answer to your query @#19. I don’t have the answer, but I have been THAT girl, in the parked car while all hell is breaking loose. She sat there for a long, long time.
For what it’s worth, I think her character is well written. I totally get her and Don’s (actually Dick’s) attraction to her. She’s not a bunny boiler or a back alley abortion candidate. The powder keg is Don. The relative marital calm won’t last forever. Dick Whitman’s true needs/wants/desires are beyond what Betty can provide.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:41 am
There are surprises in store for the last two episodes, I’m sure, but isn’t MW’s true gift and, based on his interviews, true interest to drive home the subtle points about life? The truth about marriage is that no one person can be all things to another. Don cheats for so many reasons. He wants validation, excitement, hot sex, emotional connection, conquest, achievement, etc. He picked Suzanne because, simply, she was there and she was not Betty. She was the free spirit to Betty’s Princess Grace. Suzanne’s hourglass began to wind down, however, when the fling became a relationship. Don liked her at first because she seemed happy and she validated his own discontent. Their last major conversation, however, centered on how Don was a very sad man (not how he truly wants to be seen) and how he was disappointing her on some level. Tick tock . . . . Betty is smarter in that she had her one night stand to restore her confidence but realized the futility of philandering as a way of life when she decided not to pursue Henry. Fairy tales end with “happily ever after.” Real life is the ever after.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Yeah Laura Lynn, you and I are very much on the same page re: Suzanne. And I’m not personally attached to the character like you’ve explained you are.
We were having some fun discussion yesterday and I wrote a long stream of consciousness thingy last night defending the acting and directing too after RD detailed why she doesn’t think it’s done right. But I thought the thread was dead and didn’t post it.
I’m already out there predicting she’s a significant part of next year.
And regarding the car, AMC is running bad (mostly) horror movies this week so I couldn’t rewatch to confirm my suspicions of how this season might wind up.
Won’t the JFK event rock her particularly hard? Her reaction could be the wildcard.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:54 am
I’ve predicted before that Suzanne will end up like Marilyn Monroe – there have been sooo many Kennedy tie-ins this year. The real-life story of the nun who sang “Dominque” is a fore-shadowing of her eventual fate. I believe she will flip out and commit suicide.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:57 am
#86 I think you are right. She will leave a note and Carlton will be suspected. And Betty will be the one to tell Don the tragic news. And then there will be a sad scene telling Sally that Miss Farrell has gone over the rainbow.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:04 am
One suicide plot is enough for the show. Don/Dick hardly needs the guilt of another one in his storyline.
Theoretically Ms. Farrell will simply move on to the next married man she perceives to be unhappy. If the affair is made public, then I’d have to guess it was for the plot purpose to give Betty the proof she needs to put the screws to Don for a decent financial settlement in a divorce. However, given that she knows his generosity to his not-really ex-wife, Anna, she hardly would need to do that.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:17 am
#94 Sarah, I like Betty and agree she’s got a lot going for her, but I don’t see the shag in the backroom of the bar having any lasting effect on her confidence, felt more like experimental payback to me.
And I really believe she backed away from Henry just because he snapped here out of her little Victorian bodice-ripping romance fantasy by explaining to her the nuts and bolts of a real affair in their real world, namely she would have to be the aggressor, the arranger, because she was the one that had the commitments and the need to be discrete, not him. She thought he’d sweep her to the swoonin’ sofa and things would be all poetry and such.
She had that great look of simple enlightenment on her face when she got what he was saying. I think she’s just stepping back to re-think why she wanted the Henry. Not sure she’s ruled it out yet.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Don/Dick hardly needs the guilt of another one in his storyline.
Why not? Might make him think twice about his next affair.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:31 am
less of me: I will concede that Suzanne is written in such a way as to provoke a sense of uneasiness in the audience. Clearly, *we* see something about her that we don’t like. Mayne she’s supposed to be incongruous. There is something about her that isn’t sweet and innocent (her drunken, brastrap telephone call, her denial of the hang-up, the fact that she doesn’t seem to care that he’s married and has kids.) But he is supposed to be seeing something else in her and I don’t think that something else comes across. That’s why I think she is acted poorly.
One other thing. Ok, two other things. She is getting closer to him and Betty, I mean, *physically* closer to him. She starts at school, then she moves to running in his neighborhood, then she follows him on the train, then she’s right outside his house. She is getting closer and closer to her target- the Drapers. The green woman in Peer Gynt was supposed to represent infidelity and eroticism and the consequences of that and her curse was to come between Peer and Solveig.
Then, there is her name- Suzanne Farrell. Another one of Peer’s paramours is the dancing woman. Don first sees the Suzanne as a dancing woman. But the thing about the dancing woman is that she has no soul. One of the complaints about Suzanne is that she seems poorly written. But maybe she seems discordant and incongruous because she hasn’t got a soul. What is it that propels Suzanne? She’s rootless. Is she also soulless? Certainly, Don doesn’t think so but is he really a good judge of character given that he doesn’t know himself? Is Suzanne selling him an image that Don, the ad man, is buying into? Is that another manifestation of the color blue?
I don’t know if Suzanne is going to be around next season but I think her presence will continue to be felt and will have long term repercussions. She will be the thing that breaks up Betty and Don. I think their connection is too fragile to survive Suzanne. It may be a long time before Boy wins Girl back.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Why not? Might make him think twice about his next affair.
I’m hardcore against another suicide for Don to deal with from “the been there, done that” angle but again gypsy you make me re-think it.
They could make that an interesting thing to look at, and I see there’s that crime and punishment flavor I sense you’re looking for.
No cheap pottery involved though.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:36 am
okay, here’s my wild guess.
Suzanne’s brother gets killed somehow, or maybe he simply dies because he hits his head when he has a seizure and the only contact information the police find on him lead them to contact Don – who has to go tell Suzanne about her brother. She’ll also find out that Don let her brother out on the side of the road rather than taking him to the job site.
maybe Don finds out when he’s at home, like so many others were, because of the Kennedy assassination.
fwiw – I think the Kennedy thing will be this week, not the final episode, so that means I think this will happen in the upcoming episode. the reason I think the assassination will be this week is because I don’t think MW wants that to be the final take away from this season – he’s focused so much on the Draper’s, I think the final episode will deal with them.
I’m in the “I don’t feel the heat” between them camp. maybe that’s because Don feels somewhat conflicted about schtupping his mommie figure. or maybe that’s because AMC isn’t Cinemax.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I am having a hard time accepting that a song in the background by an artist who is today obscure, and who didn’t commit suicide until after she was no longer famous (so that the news was a footnote, not an event), constitutes foreshadowing.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:54 am
What Deborah said.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:54 am
esme- interesting speculation.
And that of course leads to how Don explains the brother. He could lie again — it would be so easy to come up with some story abut picking up a hitchhiker along the side of the road, feeling sorry for him, wanting to lend a helping hand, etc. Betty might buy that, especially knowing now what she does about Don’s guilt about Adam. Suzanne, out of fear for her job, might not contradict his story. 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?
And the alternative is telling the truth. I think we have a pretty good idea how that could end up for Don & Betty.
A very interesting dilemma for him.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
esme- what’s with everyone needin’ the heat?
Remember <Bull Durham?
Sex is a lot like baseball and the fastball is the easiest pitch to hit. What’s wrong with the curve, the yakker. The slider’s a sweet thing to watch and gets the job done more often than not. The knuckler, uh? Plenty a different ways to retire the side, no?
That said, I vote to move the show to Cinemax. or ESPN.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
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.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
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.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
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?
October 28th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
** 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.
October 28th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
# 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?”
October 28th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
“* 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.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
@ 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.
October 29th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
@#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.
October 29th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
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…
October 29th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
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!
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:50 pm
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.
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:54 pm
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!
November 24th, 2009 at 8:32 am
Hudsunn, news comments really should go in a news post. It’s been mentioned in comments in a recent one.