Welcome to our next-to-last open thread for season three. My heart is pounding.
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437 Responses to “Open Thread: The Grown-Ups”
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Burt,
I would kill for your Rolodex.
The show's had a very good history with second-to-last episodes of a season, with the Don/Pete battle in "Nixon vs Kennedy" and Don's reunion with Anna in "The Mountain King" Those episodes set the bar high for the season finales the next week, as this one is expected to – although this one has the high bar of last week to go over as well.
I wonder:
Will Eleven Twenty Two be dealt with tonight? My bet's on yes.
Oh, and I think we'll go to the Sterling nuptials tonight.
After last week's bombshell episode, it's hard to imagine what could top it this week.
Unless it's … the Kennedy assassination. Can I just say that some corner of my brain keeps wishing that event would somehow not take place in the Mad Men universe? Is it crazy to wish that the show will somehow veer off into alternative history? It's awful knowing that it's going to happen (any day now) and knowing I can do nothing to stop it.
I'm a newbie here…love this site. I'm 81 yrs old and this era was my life!
My husband and I owned a financial trade magazine at the time, and worked with advertising agencies all the time.
I can't believe how true to life this program is…warts and all! It's exactly how it was…the scheming, deceit, office chicanery. I particularly like the costumes. Balenciaga was the reigning designer at the time…i.e., betty's petticoated circular skirts. I wore them all the time…but almost killed myself dieting to keep the small waist it required!
Marital infidelity was rampant at the time in this milieu.Women killed to land a job in this field and had to endure…what today is considered harassment…in good grace to hold on to their jobs. The stepford wives mentality was only too true for the women in the forties and fifties. But the sixties saw them starting to rebel and think for themselves! I'm sure most of the men ( women too) later died from lung cancer, as you rarely saw anyone without a cigarette dangling from their lips!
It was an exciting time…and thanks to the end of WW2, the mores of the country changed forever!
But I wouldn't have missed it for anything.
Thank you Matt Weiner, for letting me relive scenes of my life all over again. Now…can we bring back circular skirts again…they were soo femmine!
I know I've read MW speaking about writing the series and he's said, much like the Sopranos, episodes 11, 12 & 13 are pivotal each season. The climax of the year is usually in episode 12 with a denouement in episode 13. Given what we saw last episode, I hate to even venture a guess as to what we'll see tonight.
Damn time change, I feel like we're having to wait an extra hour!
I just realized Leonard Cohen released 'Suzanne' in 1966.
Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.
And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body with his mind.
Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she's touched your perfect body with her mind.
I didn't know that Lisa, thanks for telling me. Now I'm proud of myself for making the connection.
Red Medicine, I also think Pete will leave SC or will be engineering something about its sale.
@11 Taiga,
We've been talking about that all week on the Hobo & Gypsy thread, below.
OK, I'll go check it out.
You kids are something – I can't even think of glancing at a computer when the program is on – sometimes I holler at the TV (something I generally don't do…) or I get up and pace during the (damn) commercials but I'd be nervous about missing something in the show!
But you can be sure I'll be here in the morning!
Hello Grandma Bea,
It's always wonderful to have someone post who lived through the time of the show – and I think it's great to have people your age posting anywhere. Both my parents are your age (I'm 41).
I read one article that said that the speech in the series was off: that people of that class did drop their "g"s and say "woulda" and "gonna" as we do today. What is your memory?
I'm pretty sure tonight's episode is going to cover 11/22/63. The title reminds of Don's quote from "The Long Weekend:"
"I remember the first time I was a pallbearer. I’d seen dead bodies before. I must have been fifteen. My aunt. I remember thinking, ‘They’re letting me carry the box, they’re letting me be this close to it, they re not hiding anything from me now.’ And then I looked over and I saw all the old people waiting together by the grave and I remember thinking I, I just moved up a notch."
The idea of a death leading to someone still living being treated differently. Also, the public manner of the assasination, the way the gory pictures were re-reprinted in life and Ruby shooting Oswald being shown on live TV.
Grandma Bea welcome!!! We're so glad you're here.
I am so excited for tonight's episode but also dreading it . . . .once it's over, there is only one more ep until next summer.
off topic
but, i was rewatching Three Sundays from season two recently and it made me wonder if we know for sure how Don's "dad" died. I can only remember him saying he died in an accident. And in that episode, when Don refuses to hit Bobby, he tells Betty his father beat him and it just made him want to murder him.
Emily – Don tells Rachel that his drunk father was kicked by a horse.
Hi Grandma Bea! I loved reading your comment, and look forward to more of your reminiscences and input! Welcome aboard and enjoy!
oh yeah!! ok i feel dumb now.
i knew he explained it i just couldn't remember when. thanx!
I wonder if the title of "The Grown ups" may refer to how the children see the grown ups reacting to the Kennedy assassination? Wouldn't it be interesting to see an episode entirely through Sally and Bobby's eyes?
i'm so excited i get to watch tonight's episode in HD!
and did anybody else notice that the time-stamp for comments is still an hour fast? or at least it shows that on my computer
Here we go kids — the next-to-last episode of this fine, fine season.
Duck!
I waited all night for this moment.
It's go time!
James Bond would kill for Don Draper's neutron briefcase.
Mona!
Back online, having spent the last two days catching up on the past three weeks – so excited for this episode!
Oh crap. Pete…
"have a seat"
never a good thing to hear
So that's why Pryce was wearing his scarf in the office in the preview clip.
Uh, Oh! Pete didn't get the promotion.
I'm surprised Lane isn't wearing an OxBridge school scarf.
Well, that's the most eloquent screw-over I've heard…
Tying up loose ends night?
Ken gets to be an SVP. Pete gets cocoa made with water instead of milk.
First. A thing like that.
Granted, I don't know anyone who's gotten married before 25, but are all young brides this immature and pouty?
Daisy Wick!
Jeez, Margaret's being ridiculous…
I love Mona.
Wow, Margaret is dressing so much like Jackie O., but she still looks like a little girl playing dress up.
Margaret's wearing "new girl blue".
Golly, what a pissant.
My mom got married in 1969 at age 23, and thought she was an old maid
Whoa. Roger, wrong thing to say.
Roger & Mona can't marry off the brat fast enough!
Gah, with the pissy little girls!
Leopard skin pillbox hat!! Really!
I've heard of girls wanting to date people like their fathers, but Roger seems to have ended up with a wife like his daughter. Kind of creepy.
Hmm, I'm truly wondering who is going to be JFK in this episode.
The episode's title is ironic. No one is acting like a grown up.
Ha! Ellery Queen.
And Don is being incredibly loving…
I just finished catching up on past eps of Community and it's kind of surreal to see Alison Brie back in the period clothes.
Number of not-so-grownups so far =3
@#53– We know Matt loves him some Dylan!
Funny how the only people acting like grown-ups are the true elders — Roger, Mona, Lane, and the Drapers.
Ah, Roger, you should have ended up with Joanie – the occasional vase-bashing would be far preferable to the teary histrionics.
what the hell does liberating East Germany have to do with Johnny Walker whiskey?
@ 46 Andrea-totally agree
@ 54 Andrea-well said
Roger to Jane: "What are you going to do? Commit suicide?"
Uh-oh. ANOTHER suicide reference.
@12 that's one down, three to go.
#62 @Robin D
I'd count Trudy as a grown up.
If Greg is on this episode we know which side of the grown up divide he'll be on…
Ugh… DUCK.
That Uncle Herman, such a Smooth Talking Man
So hoping Don has to work for Duck next season…
"Peewee"? Really? That's the name he uses in a booty call?
"I have to go to the printer."
She learned from the master.
was "nooner" a current term in '63?
Three shots have been fired….
Kinsey is disgusting, but not Duck's homophobic proclamation?
"Kenny and his haircut." Bwah!
OMG Here is the JFK episode… I've been so anxious to see how it will play out.
Oh wow, there it was. Gone unheard during Pete's little sorry for himself session.
Bulletin on TV.
OH NO. IT's finally happening!
Kennedy!
Who cares?
And here it is!
@Jan (#68): "I’d count Trudy as a grown up. "
In actions, certainly, but her tone is still horribly childish.
Here we go. Kennedy.
There it is. Walter.
WAIT FALSE ALARM
Oh wow and even crazier…Duck paying attention, but then he turns it off when Peggy comes in. I guess he didn't want to kill the mood?
Oh, it's where everyone is going to be the minute they found out.
Ouch.
Duck is not going to let an assassination get in the way of a booty call.
He will die by Chauncey's hand.
I love Dead Kennedys.
Jesus… I feel like I need a smoke myself.
OMG. Carla and Betty having a smoke break together!!!
Sally comforts Betty.
Unlike when Grandpa Gene died.
This response is interesting – considering the SC office backed Nixon, the staff seem surprisingly upset. I wonder if people today are more politically polarized, or less compassionate in that arena, but I know many people who wouldn't shed a tear if the president they hadn't voted for were to be killed. :/
Interesting choice to use the Chet Huntley NBC film instead of the Cronkite CBS footage that we're all so familiar with.
Nice touch with Carla sitting down with Betty and lighting up a cigarette. I guess in moments like those the boundaries of class are suddenly meaningless.
I think that's the first time we've seen Carla smoking.
Matt said he'd deal with it in some fashion. Head on.
Duck has a tattoo.
I hope they don't go overboard with the JFK crap. So many issues to resolve…
I wonder if Susanne will use this as an excuse to contact Don.
Oh wow Margaret, -shut up-.
"take a pill and lie down"
How 60's.
I think I finally understand how it must have felt that day…
I'm at a loss for words.
I really wasn't expecting to see it played out so starkly.
My mom is sitting here with tears in her eyes.
Most people of the era will tell you where they were when they heard the news.
Peggy will not be one of them.
For the rest of her life, Peggy will have to lie whenever someone asks her where she was when she heard Kennedy was assassinated.
I was 4 in 1963 — all I remember was that the TV coverage was non-stop and it preempted all the kids' shows.
@Greg Yeah me too. My nationally televised moments have been Oklahoma City, Columbine, 9/11. But until now JFK's assassination has just been a history book thing. This makes it seem real just like the ones I've been through. I guess we react the same way for most of them. Everyone's lost their masks temporarily (except maybe Don, but I guess he lost his when Betty found 'Dick').
I had just finished an act of sexual congress with a Duck
@Andrea. I've only experienced Columbine and 9/11, so this is eerie in its familiarity. The terrible sentiment and horror of it all. You're right.
So Trudy is Don and Pete is Betty?
"The whole country's drinking."
I would gladly watch an entire series of just Pete/Trudy.
I love Trudy's whole look! Gorgeous.
I would have gone with a black velvet shoe though.
I can't believe it, but I love Pete in this moment.
No one came to the wedding!!! LOL!
Maybe Roger brought some shoe polish? That should fix everything!
No cake — can Margaret ask for a do-over on the wedding?
Don's got an Old Fashioned. Naturally
"Like Natalie Wood or something…"
Great choice of words!
I can't even imagine everyone getting up to go to a wedding – I stayed in the same room glued to the television for 10 hours on 9/11, afraid to leave. Granted, I was also manning an emergency phone bank, but I don't think I could have left to go about any normal daily activities, let alone a celebration.
I think the 'grownups' are the ones who stayed home, or at least the ones who went into the kitchen at the wedding reception. Everyone else – avoiding reality.
Black lace at a wedding? It looks like it's layered over silver, but seems like a faux pas/ eff you for the time. Really Jane?
That dress is enormous. Having been in a wedding yesterday, I have no idea how she can even move in that thing.
125, it's the next day, 9/12 instead of 9/11.
Mad Men: "Everything's going to be fine."
Vulnerable Don is so much sexier than Dashing Don.
Oh man, that could have gone so poorly.
black lace? Better than blackface.
Don, I am loving you this episode.
My earliest memory is of watching Ruby kill Oswald. My heart was pounding in my throat thinking I'd see it again.
#3- I totally agree with you. All the season finales get the awards and memorable speeches, but I personally find the second-to-last episodes superior/more interesting. Maybe it’s because they’ve contained major Dick Whitman flashbacks and this adds to the Don Draper story. Looking forward to tonight’s episode (which I get to enjoy tomorrow morning from iTunes).
Oh, Henry. When your date notices you ogling the hot married chick, it's time to be way more subtle.
Robin D., that's not Henry's date, it's his daughter.
#133 Joy — I agree! Don seems more grown up now that his secret is out and he's that much more appealing.
I was 18 months old, so I missed most of it. I'm told my older brother, age 3 and a half, was fascinated by the funeral.
How Grace Kelley/Hitchcock was that exit by Betty? Amazing episode so far. Even Margaret is acting far more like a grown-up.
Before it came to America was it just "Dry"?
Don seems a lot less defensive and prickly. He seems like the real, kind, vulnerable Dick/Don is coming through. He's there for Betty.
Deborah (137)
That was this episode's Suzanne in the car.
@Deborah (#137): Wow. That's one heck of a first memory. The first big tragedy in my life was the '86 Challenger explosion, but I have plenty of benign memories from before that.
At Deb #137
My earliest memory is of watching Ruby kill Oswald. My heart was pounding in my throat thinking I’d see it again.
One of my earliest memories, too. My mom saw it, yelled "I think they shot him," and we all rushed into the room.
Drunk Jane, what a surprise.
@138 I thought it was his daughter.
Wow, Jane really cannot hold her liquor.
YES!!!
AMC puts up their recap videos sooo early!
I was 3 years old. I don't remember anything about the day. But the immediate echoes were powerful in my youth.
Roger Sterling: Drunk-dialer.
@Roberta (#141): Ah. Doesn't make his leering any less inappropriate , but at least he's only (?) neglecting his kid.
NBC's Tom Petit "Oswald has been shot"
God, my heart just aches when Roger and Joan have scenes together…
Draper /facepalm
I wonder how many takes they did with January screaming?
Oh God, that was it. I was 2 1/2, I still can see it that clearly.
Don is discovering the limits of denial.
They need to put the TV set near the fainting couch.
Don, I don't think that was the best possible response to your confused daughter.
Poor form, Betty Draper. I really hate to see "nice" Don get rebuffed.
I think JFK will be dealt with tonight, but only in the background, as much as something as big as this can be. Maybe lots of office and Chez Draper action while the TVs are on behind them.
Otherwise – I can’t even speculate.
Sure would like to see the return of Anna, and I sure hope NOT to see Suzanne. But that’s just wishful thinking on my part.
Rendez-vous with Glen?
Wha Wha What?!
Whoa!
He wants to marry Betty?!
"I can make you happy" — he's more of a fool than I thought.
Henry is unaware of the bill of goods he is getting
Holy cow. There is Betty's escape route.
wow didn't see that one coming…..
Maybe we'll have an ironic twist ending to the season where Betty gets caught cheating.
*sigh*… Betty. Why? WHY?
I barely know you, but I want to marry you.
* How many housecoats / bathrobes / dressing gowns does Betty have?
* Poor Sally-mander. She's old enough to have the conversation, Don.
* Roger turning to Joan, Betty turning to Henry, Peggy having ongoing booty calls with Duck…? The world's all topsy-turvy.
Between Peggy, Betty, and Jane, there's a lot of Old Man Lovin' going on in these latter episodes… the Electra themes aren't really working for me.
So, we have a pattern – Betty runs to another man every national crisis.
Maybe we'll have to wait until the Gulf of Tonkin or Watergate for her to actually leave Don :lol
Roger's true love is Joan. Nobody is going to argue me out of that.
Roger wasn't necessarily drunk dialing. Jane was way drunker.
That scene when Betty met with Henry felt very ominous, I thought she might get caught or something. I don't know why…
#175: LOL! Nice one, CPT_Doom.
Henry Francis: "I can make you happy"
Betty: "lol."
Just because we all forgive Don immediately doesn't mean Betty will. He's lied to her their entire marriage.
I don't know anything about you except that you're pretty…so leave your husband and three kids and marry me!
Betty doesn't love him!
#176 Melville. Yup. Joan and Roger will have a 2nd or 3rd act next season…
Betty's driving Gene's car – a hardtop version of the convertible Kennedy was in – very ominous indeed JS
So who's the grown up – Henry or Betty?
Love me some Pete Campbell in a turtleneck.
I take it back — Trudy goes back to the children's table.
#173 Robin, my mom had a whole wardrobe of them. They were called "at home gowns."
WHOA!
"I Don't Love You!"
Don! What! BETTY!
I am just incoherently flailing over here right now.
If a divorce means getting Betty off the show, I'm all for it!
When your wife says she's sick of you, maybe patronizing and commanding her isn't the best move in this situation, Don?
Don at the end there – sort of a match for JFK's presidential painting? The looking down. Just a thought.
@188 Jan: What's wrong with Trudy? I think she's being a lot more realistic than Pete regarding his lack of a future at SC (even if she does unrealistically think he's God's gift).
Bobby gets that something is not right
Oh man, didn't even think about the two couples in the convertible ad!
Don in the chair in the bedroom would have made such a spectacular closing shot.
@198 secsmom
I know, right? I hope Peggy's redoing it.
Peggy's not redoing the ad. She looked at the timing and figures it will be okay.
Skeeter!
What a finish. It's the End of the World.
Skeeter Davis! I LOVE the closing music of this show!
And the night comes again to the circle studded sky
The stars settle slowly, in loneliness they lie
'Til the universe explodes as a falling star is raised
Planets are paralyzed, mountains are amazed
But they all glow brighter from the brilliance of the blaze
Oh man, that "preview" was such a tease!
Haha, I know the previews usually tell us nothing, but that one wasn't even trying to trick us. Just all the past dramatic moments lined up.
Don looks like a ghost floating through Sterling Cooper and into his office.
Oh, my gosh! When Peggy described that Aquanet commercial earlier in the season, I never connected it with the assassination car setup! That storyboard gave me a chill!
Bobby gets that something is not right
Oh, he and Sally both know something is not right in their little Denmark.
There's no way Betty leaves Don for real.
Deborah (177)
The fact that Jane was only semi-conscious doesn't make Roger less of a drunk-dialer. It only means he's more experienced at drinking.
What a crushing episode… CRUSHING.
@#195– Glad I wasn't the only one to see that.
Andrea (195)
Yes, and it also echoes Don at the end of "The Wheel," when he returns home to find his family gone.
I just re-watched the Zapruder footage on Youtube, in close-up… it's absolutely horrifying. I don't think I'd feel comfortable watching a commercial of a couple in a convertible so soon after that.
Roger was never better than in this episode. And Jane was damn good in that scene.
Ugh, Jane. She keeps trying to be Joan and failing miserably.
Pete's eating cereal. When things go wrong he reverts to childhood.
This was the best one ever, y'all!
I started singing "It's the end of the world as we know it" fairly early on in the episode — should have known that this WAS the theme, but that they'd use a less anachronistic song for it.
Which reminds me that "End of The World" was in Girl, Interrupted, which featured our Peggy!
For some reason Alan Sepinwall found this one "disappointing," but the man is a fool who admits to watching Battlestar Galactica, so whatever.
http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2009/11/mad-men-gro…
The music when Don came up to the bedroom is directly from the scene where Don was shaving in the second season. Ominous and heartbreaking.
Getting back to Don's line "Everything's going to be fine" and Betty calling him on it: Anyone else think she's doing something terrible to him, and will continue to do so, JUST to prove him wrong?
@Melville (#220): Looks more like leftover casserole to me, but the meaning holds.
What an amazing episode! I love that Pete drinks hot chocolate and cares whether or not it's instant. That marks him as being more childish. I want Margret's blue pillbox hat the and dress too. Mona was right, she was acting like a spoiled child.
I find it rather sad that Peggy is Duck's booty call, and kind of sick that Paul calls her on it. Paul is correct, but still, he didn't have to say it.
I totally called the moment of finding out about the JFK assasination. I knew it was going to be it when Harry said he couldn't turn down the TV! I also called people crowding into Harry's office to watch.
It was so strange to see Sally comforting Betty. Sally, for a moment, was a grown-up.
The moment when Don and Roger exchanged glances at the wedding reminded of a western, right before the shoot-out.
Seeing Don and Betty dance together was hot. Someday, I want a man to look at me that way, and kiss me on a dance floor.
The shot of Henry and Don framed in the same shot was genius. It was a brilliant moment of true cinema. It's moments like this that make me wonder why television still doesn't get the respect it deserves. It's not the seventies anymore. Television is an art form.
The phone call between Roger and Joan was touching. He has strong feelings for her, and she knows him so well.
To answer Betty's question: A few of Dallas's finest were probably paid off by the mob, and let a former numbers runner/current nightclub owner with connections preform a hit.
Pete and Trudy seem like they have a good marriage. He agrees with her that staying home on Monday is the right thing to do, and she's encouraging him to do the right thing for his career.
Don, while patronizing, is right. Betty is enduring an emotional one-two punch. First she finds about his past, then the president is killed. Betty is in no condition to make major life choices at this moment.
Sally clearly knows something is wrong with her parents.
I love that Don and Peggy are the only ones who showed up to work. It says so much about who they are. It was also so strange to see Sterling Cooper so still and empty.
Welcome, Grandma Bea.
That song just kills me.
Another really painful episode. Betty telling Don she doesn't love him was right up there with Sal's firing.
I'm very confused.
217
the Zapruder film wasn't shown to the public (on TV) until the late 70's.
Life magazine bought the film from Zapruder and published some still frames but not the most devastating ones.
can someone remind me what the color blue stands for? I know green is change.
1st there was the talk of "something blue"and margret's wedding Trudy was wearing a blue hat when she heard about Pete's job, beautiful blue dress before the wedding and a blue sweater later on as she and Pete were watching TV.
Betty was wearing a blue scarf when she was telling
@ Alex P
I think Betty may be too self-absorbed to be that calculating. I think she'll wind up hurting him, no doubt, but I don't think it will be just for the sake of hurting him.
Just an aside — I never watch MM until Monday after everyone has gone to school and work for the day. Get a nice little brekkie ready, and sit down to watch the new ep.
HOWEVER…I scroll through the live feed comments before going to bed on Sunday night! It heightens the anticipation, reading your short comments without a context.
@Red Medicine (#222): "For some reason Alan Sepinwall found this one “disappointing,†but the man is a fool who admits to watching Battlestar Galactica, so whatever."
On behalf of my fellow BSG fans — Hey!
That said, I don't agree with his quibbles about this episode.
The people watching tv in the hotel kitchen reminded me of Bobby Kennedy's assasination.
@#233– Seriously? That sounds like a terrible idea.
# 90
Nice assassination Duck!
Duck on Kurt and Smitty
"They're a couple of homos"
Smitty sure seemed to have eyes for Peggy during their Bacardii "brainstorming" session.
#198, #209 You guys are so smart. Haven't watched it a second time yet but you picked up on the front seat/back seat storyboard first time around. Thanks.
@#233
I read the comments live as well, it helps me get through the ETERNITY until it is 10pm in Seattle.
Ummm… Betty? You've had approximately 6 sentences worth of interaction with this guy, and now you're thinking of marrying him? Somehow, I don't think Don was the whole problem in your current marriage.
I think I say this now after every episode: crushing final scene.
I'm actually really saddened by this… Don and Betty could be divorcing. This really bothers me.
You know, I *always* watch the encore presentation of the episodes, but tonight I couldn't handle it.
Don — so sad after Betty's rejection like he knew she would dump him if she found out the truth and she may.
"It's going to be okay."
I hope so, Don.
@ Adwoman 244
I so agree. And it really worries me for Don. Depsite his philandering ways, he cares deeply for his family. I can see him becoming an absolutely terrifying monster if his family dissolves.
@109 — Ha, here is me at that point: "Grandma Peggy, where were you when you found about about President Kennedy?"
Oof. I thought I was going to make it through the rewatch, but I'm just too pooped. Looking forward to see what else people have to say in the morning. Night all.
@#243– That's funny, I NEVER watch the encore. I always wait a full 24 hours to digest and reflect before watching an episode a second time.
But I'm making an exception tonight.
Roberta, I disagree about Peggy not redoing the Aquanet ad because it's being filmed after Thanksgiving. I think she was working on the Aquanet copy because she knew the original concept is now horribly inappropriate, but it's OK because it's not being filmed until "after Thanksgiving", so she has time to come up with something else. That was my impression, anyway.
I, too, was reminded of JFK's presidential portrait when Don sat looking downward in the chair in the bedroom. Great imagery, as usual.
@ 238 Chuck Schick- I think this a typical case of rumor mill/telephone. Kurt is gay, and somehow as the word spread, what Duck heard was that both of them were gay.
My predictions for tonight:
-JFK gets shot, but it’s not a big deal to the Drapers or Roger Sterling. The wedding goes on anyway.
-Ken gets officially selected as head of accounts over Pete, who heads over to Grey and maybe informs Duck that Don is under contract now (we never saw him learn about that, but I’m assuming that he knows something)
-Grey is one of the potential buyers of Sterling-Cooper (with Duck gunning for it), but the issue won’t be resolved until the season finale.
-Betty encounters Susanne (at the market, perhaps) and starts to suspect that Don is involved with her in some way. Again, this issue will only be resolved next week.
I just noticed Jane's dress. Isn't it awfully inappropriate attire for wedding? Or are we to suppose that she is in mourning in a way?
@128 — I don't know. My heart was with the people who didn't want to go to the wedding. I'm not afraid to say I loved Pete in this episode. However, the adult and responsible thing would have been to honor what was really a work commitment. That being said, I'd be on the couch too.
Good for Betty, I say. I think we should believe her when she says "I don't love you anymore." Maybe it's a little superficial that she judges it by what seh feels in a kiss, but at least her personal standards are consistent – remember her talk to Sally about the first kiss, and that every kiss after that was a shadow of it. I guess Don't last kiss wasn't even a shadow for her…..(although from a spectator's point of view the gesture was quite compelling).
Pete's distate at his colleague's callous reactions to the assassination impressed me once more with his sense of decency that comes through despite his frequent horridness. He was also visibly uncomfortable by Roger's blackface.
You look like Natalie Wood or someone is a nod to the fact that Elizabeth Rice, aka Margaret Sterling, portrayed Natalie Wood in a tv movie.
In the interview with the actress who plays Suzanne Farrell on the Mad Men site, she said that Matt Weiner told her to listen to the Leonard Cohen song “Suzanne” and that would explain everything in terms of Suzanne’s relationship with Don.
Thank you so much for publishing the lyrics!
Someone should do a tally of how many times Don and others say "Everything's going to be all right" in this episode.
2#231–googled symbolism of blue and came up with "strength,optimism,new beginnings,power,loyalty,faith,and protection."
Ouch, how are the mighty fallen. Don can be a real jerk, but I felt so bad for him. Betty is furious because he lied about his name, not because he cheated on her a gazillion times. It's so cold somehow: "I don't love you anymore because you ruined the fantasy I've been living in." Sheesh. There are so many places they can go from here – Don could woo her back (he's good with a challenge), or he could call on the pretty teacher, or he could get himself a new flavor of the month. Or they could do something I never even considered. Whichever way they go, I CAN'T WAIT! P.S Bring back Sal, even if just for a scene. Pretty please!
Suzanne Farrell will be having her 19th nervous breakdown right about now.
I feel sad for Don. His worst fears have been confirmed. Once Betty found out, it's over.
@196 — I think it's a continuation of the theme of the end of the world, or the world being knocked off its axis — Trudy is like, the hell with this and all bets are off. Damn, I've liked them as a couple this year.
#109 – hilarious!
No promos for next week? Even on the AMC website – every week this season they've had a 'sneak peek" for the next episode… except not this week. Interesting, huh? It makes me wonder if it will be something unusual like a flashback or a flash-forward or something else. Tonights episode felt like a season finale.
I thought Greg was unemployed now. Did I miss something? What else is new.
@ 259 Scott Draper-Watching this episode, I had a feeling that Sally is going to become a Stones fan, even though I can't say exactly why.
And the difference between Henry and Don is…what exactly? That Henry didn't just say that everything would be fine (because he did)? She figures Henry is telling her his real name? And that he wants to take her to her favorite movie? Oy. One empty fantasy exchanged for another, IMO. So yeah, I agree with #241/Gypsy Howell.
Betty, time to stop imagining your life as one lived through your partner, where your partner is the cause of your happiness.
The television coverage ever-present in the background serves as a transitional thread as it continues seamlessly as they shift from character to character, scene to scene. Everyone has it on 24/7. Later to be known as "the CNN effect".
#235 I had the same reaction and, in the same moment, I wondered, "how many people just posted that same observation on BoK?"
When I saw Don in the chair in his bedroom after Betty told him she didn't love him any more… all I thought about was Anna Draper's line:
"It means the only thing keeping you from being happy is the belief that you are alone."
Don looks so alone.
As much as I like Don, he's serial cheater who views his wife as a pretty bauble on his are to make him look good. They don't have a deep friendship, and no real intimacy. I don't think Betty is being cold, I think she's being human.
Can you imagine being in a marriage where you husband cheats on you, doesn't let you in emotionally, and has been hiding behind a false identity the entire time you've been married? I can't because the betrayal would just be too much.
I think we will be saying good bye to Betty at the end of this season. She may pop up occasionally during child hand offs and child rearing discussions, but I think she will no longer be a main player.
Betty knows less about Henry Francis than she did about Don/Dick when she fell in love with him.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Let's not forget that Betty's current downward spiral began with the death of her father (then adding to it the loss of the husband she thought she knew, AND the death of the well-loved President and the feeling that the world is upside-down. She has had overwhelming losses this season and it stands to reason that she would be depressed/acting out. Affairs usually happen during those vulnerable times.
Do we think that Henry and Betty's "love" is based on anything other than physical attraction at this point?
@Scott Draper 272
As ironic as it seems, the lack of information Betty has about Henry is probably working in his favor. With the knowledge of his true character and other things that can only be learned through time totally absent at this point, Betty is free to "invent" the perfect replacement for Don in her mind. Sure, the physical attraction helps, especially since Betty seems to put so much stock in a kiss, but I think the real attraction is to version of Henry in Betty's mind.
235, I caught the kitchen/Bobby Kennedy reference at the encore.
Also, everyone was staying home from work, but Carla was still expected to take care of the Draper kids while they went to the Sterling wedding. She couldn't stay home and mourn with her family. National tragedies aren't quite the great equalizers that we like to think. Almost, but not quite.
Jane: "He was so handsome! Now I'll never get to vote for him!" Jane was not 21 yet in 1960, so she wasn't old enough to vote in that election.
Hi, have been reading the past few weeks, enjoying so much great commentary.
Did anyone interpret that Betty finally grew up? She went with Don to the wedding, after initially pouting not to, rejected Don, told him the cold brutal truth, and had a rendezvous with the guy she is infatuated with-adult to adult.
One other thing, at the beginning of the episode, Don's blathering about needing someone in Art, I believe. Was this Sal's original position?
I don't know that she is leaving Don for Henry. I think that's assuming a lot. His wanting her gives her a sense of confidence, but I don't know that she's going to the chapel — yet.
The scene of Pete wearing the back turtle neck, with his face half in shadow reminded me of the cover to "Meet The Beatles." It could be a subtle way of hinting that Pete aligned with youth culture/the younger generation. It could also have just been an accident, but I think the picture is too famous for it to be a coincidence.
The scene at the end, when Don in his office with his back to the camera reminded me of the iconic photograph of JFK during the Cuban Missile Crises-the one when he's leaning over his desk. Here is a link. I'm not sure how to a hyper-link, so you'll have to copy and paste.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33979925@N02/3172971…
More observations:
Pete in the apartment before the wedding "I thought everything was beginning to change"
Don't worry Pete, it's coming.
And Sally's look at Don after he told her nothing happened when Ruby shot Oswald. Parents: your kids know when you're lying to them!
"I can make you happy." Famous last words among all of Betty's suitors, I'm sure. The woman will find herself unhappy with that man.
By the way, WHAT do we know about Henry? Other than he is in politics. He goes after married women and is a flirt. At least that is what seems to be implied by the ladies who pushed Betty into meeting with him. I have a feeling Betty is smitten with another "Don." One who still has the illusion of perfection.
That credit song.
Automatically thought of Girl Interrupted. Loved Trudy in tonight's episode. And Hildy! Nice to see her.
@ 262 elle- I'm glad someone else posted about a lack of previews for next week online (I know we're not supposed to talk about what we see in them.) I thought there was just something strange with my computer or the AMC website.
Mona rocked in the way she and Roger co-handled Margaret's fit.Her deadpan "You're not worried about India?" was the funniest line of the episode. (Given that it's an episode without too many funny lines.)
"Good for Betty, I say. I think we should believe her when she says “I don’t love you anymore.†Maybe it’s a little superficial that she judges it by what seh feels in a kiss, but at least her personal standards are consistent – remember her talk to Sally about the first kiss, and that every kiss after that was a shadow of it. I guess Don’t last kiss wasn’t even a shadow for her"
I'm not sure whether or not to believe her declaration of non-love, but I definitely didn't believe her when she said she'd felt nothing during their kiss the previous day. I think she was quite into it at the time, quite moved by his assurance that everything would be okay. It was only after Oswald was murdered that she realized that Don couldn't really promise that. She felt like a dupe for falling for his pretty words yet again, and rather than admit to it she pretended like she'd been unmoved all along.
"As ironic as it seems, the lack of information Betty has about Henry is probably working in his favor. "
I dunno, I think one of the main things Henry has going for him is that he's so totally open about who he is and what he wants. She found out more about Henry's working-class childhood in one lunch date than she'd learned in ten years of marriage to Don.
#275, yes they're trying to replace Sal. He was the art director.
Duck and Peggy are bound together forever now, because whenever someone mentions JFK they'll think of each other.
I'm wondering if part of the attraction Betty has for Henry is that he's a father figure. His daughter must be only about 10 years younger than she is.
Comparisons are being drawn between JFK and Don, but I'm thinking of Trudeau. His wife left him to raise their three young children while he was in office.
@#140 Cammille: I was 18 months old, so I missed most of it. I’m told my older brother, age 3 and a half, was fascinated by the funeral.
I was 3 as well, and the only memory I have of the events was watching the funeral procession with the casket on TV at my neighbor's. My mother later told me it was the only time she saw my father cry.
I was born 17 years after JFK was assassinated and it's always just been history to me. Watching this episode tonight, I actually cried. When the news anchor announced he was dead, I gasped and felt a tinge of shock, like I didn't know history.
Great episode.
I think Duck forgot about her in his haste to call his kids — telling. No comforting her or asking if she wanted to call her Catholic family.
@ 286 Ms. Darkly- I don't think Duck and Peggy have a real relationship. It's not like what Joan and Roger had. What Duck and Peggy have is all about sex, and for Peggy a way to advance her career.
I thought his actions said a lot about Duck in a positive way. Even though he's divorced and has a rocky relationship with his kids, in a time of crises he wants to be there for them.
#274, excellent observation about the class divide.
RG, I think Joan and Roger both assumed their relationship was all about sex; a lot of their connection was in the office. I think they miss it more in retrospect.
Oh, I agree it's not a real relationship, but I found him unchivalrous. I guess that's not a word. Anyhow, it was the combo of that and making sure to turn off the TV before she came in so that she wouldn't see the news.
I really, really hope she noticed that.
@ 289 Deborah Lipp- I agree that at first, Joan and Roger were all about sex, but it evolved into something much deeper. I don't see Duck and Peggy's relationship turning into something more.
#285 Kelley99, I'm right there with you – born 20 years after the event (almost to the day – my birthday is 11/25/83) and I don't think I will ever feel it on a visceral level like the people who lived through it.
This episode has done a much better job making it feel like the world turning upside down (without turning into a This Is The Most Important Thing To Ever Happen In Human History special) than anything else I've seen dealing with the assassination.
FINALLY – less Draper time, more other character time! This was an excellent episode; having not been alive when Kennedy was assassinated, the news reel footage interspersed with the characters talking to one another made the situation even more tense (reminded me of how I sat in front of a TV for an entire day after 9-11).
Pete and Trudy sitting together was a stark contrast to Don and Betty…also, was anybody else surprised that Pete didn't dump his coffee on Ken while leaving at the beginning of the episode? I have to say, while I knew it would happen, the choice of Ken over Pete for head of Accounts felt unsatisfying because that subplot has been abandoned this whole season and because we've had so little insight into Ken's character to begin with. Pete handled the situation better than I thought. I hope he doesn't jump to Grey's; he's right not to trust Duck. And speaking of Duck, what happened to Peggy's "second guessing" of men that was alluded to in the episode description?
@273-All Betts Are Off: "…the lack of information Betty has about Henry is probably working in his favor."
You nailed it. Does Betty really pick her men any other way?
I will be very pleased if Betty decides to divorce Don and is not a lead character anymore. When she was in the car with Henry, I think that's the first time I saw her smile in all three seasons! She's a downer and never seems to be happy. Don needs someone less high maintenance.
I kind of agree with Sepinwall's criticisms–not that I didn't think that it was a great episode, as Mad Men can do very little wrong in my mind–but I was disappointed that after last week's incredible, amazing, heartbreaking powerhouse of an episode, the assassination kind of cut us off from seeing how Betty got from the more optimistic note that last week ended on to 'I don't love you anymore.' I was going crazy by the end with all the archive footage–though there was a bit too much of it–but that's probably just me getting antsy knowing that we've got one episode left. I wanted every second I could get with our characters.
Also, Henry's marriage proposal? WTF? If I recall correctly, they have interacted in person no more than five times (Derby Day party, meeting at the bakery, town hall meeting, when Henry dropped by the house, and the last time, during which Betty hurled a large and heavy metal box at Mr. Francis' head). That, plus three or four letters and a few tense, subtext laden but polite and aloof phone calls and he's asking her to leave her husband and marry him? That seemed very, very off to me.
@264-RetroGirl: you said: "Watching this episode I had a feeling that Sally is going to become a Stones fan, even though I can't say exactly why."
My best theory has something to do with this exchange:
(Setting: Betty running screaming out of room after Oswald has just been shot on live television). Sally, alarmed, walks in:
Sally: "What's happening!?"
Don: "Nothing. Go upstairs.
(Sally, wordlessly, hangs head and does as she is told).
Strange turn of events. Strong episode but some things don't ring true. #296, I totally agree with you on Henry's proposal. My husband said it doesn't seem right, either. And Betty's lying (or misguided) if she thinks she doesn't love Don. After what he told her last week, and how she took it, and how she closed her eyes when he kissed her at the wedding—with Henry right next to her—one could tell she still loves him. But the effort seems pointless after such a shock.
I just noticed on the opening credits for this episode
"Directed by Barbet Schroeder"
Same guy who directed Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway in Barfly. And Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh in Single White Female.
Well, Henry is thinking about marrying Betty, but we really don't know that she's thinking about marrying him. We just know that she's deeply shocked and needs someone who can make her feel safe again and Don doesn't make her feel safe.
But then, I'm thinking Duck isn't so bad for Peggy, either. She wants a sex life but she also works all the time. He isn't likely to put the pressure on her that a younger man might and he's in a position to be generous with her in helping with her career. There's nothing about her that suggests she'd enjoy being a wife and mother–working or not. So, Duck makes her feel both respected for her work and can't-keep-his-hands-off-me sexy. Who knows what makes people sexually attracted to each other. It is often invisible to outsiders. And I think maybe he's the source of the confidence we've seen in her since she first slept with him.
#270 – you are so right… one glass of iced tea in a bakery and they are ready to get married? It's ridiculous.
@125-Joy: Day of or day after — I hear 'ya.
@126-Andrea: I just realized what Margaret meant. That makes me wonder why the Church allowed the wedding to take place in the sanctuary at all that day. I think all the churchs were left open 24 hours from that moment in Dallas right on through the next whole week.
@ 174/310 sjrw-Agree with you about Duck and Henry, but I would not turn down the silver fox that is Roger Sterling.
I think a family friend had that same clock radio.
Really interesting that Don’s more concerned about keeping Betty from the reality of the assassination than his kids.
True. Notice I didn't add Roger to that list.
“I heard the church was packed.” “Those weren’t -our- guests.” Wow, what a set of lines.
Hahah, I love who was standing in the kitchen watching TV.
282 Dev, I read the kisses totally differently…when she and Don kissed, he was kissing her. She didn't even move. Her mouth was closed. It did nothing for her.
With Henry, she was kissing him back, she was so passionate and into it. And she actually SMILED at something he said.
I don't really know why, but I like Henry all of a sudden. Like others have said, he's been a lot more open and honest about himself. And it seems like he's actually interested in getting to know Betty. Betty is totally unknowable to Don, and that's part of her appeal to him, but they can't have a real relationship because he puts her on a pedestal and refuses to know her. He told her everything about himself and still talks to her in platitudes and treats her like a child during a crisis? I think that was the last straw for her.
Betty is "dead inside" where Don is concerned. She knows for sure that he has cheated on his at least once and no doubt she suspects that there have been other times. Now on top of all of his cheating, she finds out that he has lied about his identity. "It's too much, too little, too late". If Betty had not been pregnant with baby number 3 the marriage might of ended sooner.
I agree about Henry. She doesn't know this man and she's flattered that he's asking her to marry her?! She's grasping at straws and at this point who can blame her. Divorce is scary no matter what the decade but in 1963 it was a much bigger deal than in 2009.
Betty was acting like a child during "the crisis." I was in high school during the First Kennedy Assassination; yes, everybody was glued to the TV for the next few days. I was so sure that Weiner wasn't going to let us see everybody glued to the TV–but he went ahead & did it. And did it well.
People were mourning–but not everybody lost it totally. Especially not nominally Protestant Republicans like Betty. Yes, she's been under stress. Yes, she'd had a death in the family. But she was so sure she was the only person who'd ever shed a tear.
Yup, Henry will be able to make her happy.
Can anyone tell me who Betty was referring to when she said "he's 26 yrs old"? It was when she was watching tv and Don came in and told her to get ready for the wedding.
I was 7 when JFK was shot, they sent us home from school early. It was interesting seeing how they portrayed the children in this episode. I know I was interested even though I was young and I remember watching the news and the funeral on TV.
They say that is when the US grew up, we were never naive after that.
Is Don really hurt by Betty's declaration? I thought he had no feelings for her.
#308: "She’s only willing to leave Don, because she has a bridge to another man."
I don't think this is necessarily the case. Last season, sans Henry Francis, she threw Don out of the house and was pretty willing to do without him until she discovered that she was pregnant. I think that her passion for Henry serves as a point of reference for her to see that she is no longer in love with Don, but I don't think that having him as an option is the reason she's summoned the courage to dismiss Don–that would probably be more closely related to the whole finding out that he's lied about his identity for the entirety of their relationship.
Barbet Schroeder – this definately had a "Reversal of Fortune" look and feel to it.
What about the hot and cold?
I like Henry coming up to Betty on his white charger.
Could Don get Betty on adultery? And get custody of the kids, like Happy Rockefeller's husband?
Pete’s black turtleneck is quite mod for him. Someone’s ready for the latter half of the 60s.
Wait. Oh shit. Poor Don.
Hmm, is that the doctor’s office dress on Betty?
Yes, I too was wondering who Better was referring to when she said, "He's 26 years old." Anyone know?
Bobby: “It’s cold outside.”
It’s mighty cold inside, too, kiddo.
#316 and #320: I believe she was referring to Lee Harvey Oswald.
Wow, he has never felt a thing and never will for Betty and his fam…so weird to me right now…it is so clear….he never had them what a fake? BUT HE IS who he is underneith…right?!…and now he knows what he really had?….this is my take… I enjoy this site and all of the great insights. I know I may be way off but I love to read what all of you have to say.
I think that Henry is helping Betty to feel more safe in her decision to leave Don, but the damage was done long before Henry came on the sceen. Although I agree with other posters–she does not know this man and in short marrying him would be like being with Don, she knows nothing about Henry either. Ironic, no?
Back to Betty…First of all, Betty knows for sure that Don has had and least one affair and I'm she sure suspects that he has had more. The final straw is her finding out that Don has been lying to her about his identity. It's the case of "too much, too little, too late". Over season three Betty has become less and less intersted in Don's need for approval and sometimes she seems somewhat indifferent to him. In season's one and two she seemed more willing to please and wanted her marriage to work.
Now she's realized that it's probably too damaged to repair. But hey, this is Mad Men so you never no.
If she hadn't had unplanned for baby number three then she might have left him even sooner. She has more backbone than
Yes, I thought she meant Oswald too.
I wasn't born yet when Kennedy was shot, but my mom went into a depression and was physically ill for a couple weeks afterward. I can only compare it to our own 9/11. I know I was glued to the tv that entire, horrifying, incongruously gorgeous, sunny day.
Not sure if Betty would divorce Don with the laws of NY in 1963. I think she's just dreaming.
A great episode. Wishing there wasn't only one more left, waaahh!
Weiner was right when he said the Kennedy assassination had been done. I found this episode strangely unmoving. And I feel that a lot of plot points were left undeveloped this season and are now being picked up again all in one episode revealing how little they were developed.
Disappointing. (And I liked Battlestar Galactica, fwiw.)
Betty challenging Don's "It will be all right" is a big deal. In the sexual politics of the time, the man was the one who knew things. The woman got patted on her pretty little head and was told not to worry about it (lie down and take a pill (while the men handle things)). If a man said to you that it would be all right, you were expected to smile brightly and stop worrying. Coming back at him in any way would be considered emasculating and rude behavior.
I was six when Kennedy was assassinated. I was home sick from school, watching tv, sitting in my child-sized rocking chair with the chair pulled up close to the tv, holding a small baby doll. I just remember disoriented, like solid ground had fallen away beneath me. After it was over, I realized I'd gripped my doll's little head so hard I'd pushed one of her eyes in. She had to go to the doll hospital to have it fixed.
My mother had a pegnoir almost exactly like the pink one Betty was wearing doing the laundry. The matching gown that went underneath it had several rows of rhinestones at the neck. It was ok to wear your nightgown and pegnoir or gown and robe to cook breakfast in the morning, but after that, you were expected to at least change into a house dress.
I don't think it's fair to Betty to say that she's only ready to leave Don when she has someone else in her pocket, etc. She's completely financially dependent, with children. If she were the one to leave, she could be accused of desertion and she would not get a cent, maybe not even get her children. Another man ready to take care of her and her kids is kind of essential — even if she did work, she would not be able to support herself and her children in the lifestyle they've become accustomed to or anything like it. If her husband were ordered to pay child support, well …. he's capable of just about anything to get out of a situation he finds intolerable. Why would she think she could trust him to support her and his kids after a divorce?
The problems of the surface interactions between them are not peculiar to Don and Betty — they're very much in the style of the times — it's accurate retro.
@321
Thanks sundance
One more comment. I think Roger is starting to realize that he has married a dud. Yes, Jane is very pretty but she's spoiled like Margret and she has no idea how to conduct herself at public funtions. She doen't fit in with the adults because she isn't one and she drinks too becasue she is uncomfortable in her surroundings. Besides her looks and the initial sexually attraction there seems little between her and Roger.
For Roger, "Red" or Joan is the one that got away. And Roger is starting to realize that more and more.
Donny Brook, I know what you mean. "I'm scratching at this season and trying to get in." But I can't. Been trying to hold off judgment until the end, hoping that I'd feel some sort of pay-off, but so far, nothing. When I find myself cheering Pete, wishing and hoping to get just a glimmer of him, I know something is terribly, terribly wrong.
Having been alive for both the Kennedy assassination (though very young then) and 9/11, I can say without a doubt that 9/11 had a much greater impact on me. I was very disappointed in this episode. Weiner was right–the Kennedy assassination has been overdone. I also think its purported impact is overblown. It was but a blip in my life and did not, in my opinion, usher in the 60s. The 60s started when the Beatles arrived. Hair, inspired by the Beatles (for men) and their girlfriends (for women), was really the issue that defined a generation. Everything else, drugs, war protests, the sexual revolution, flowed from that initial rebellion against the strait-laced 50s.
Wow!
I was nine when Kennedy was killed. The principal at the DC area Catholic elementary school, who was from Texas, announced it over the P.A. system and we all went into "prayer mode". A little later on, school let out early and we all went home. My mom was in the living room with the TV on, crying, when I got there.
I had an afternoon paper route at the time and JFK's assassination presented a literal "stop-the-presses" moment, so I didn't get my bundle of newspapers until after dark.
It was a cold, rainy evening and it seemed like all of the customers on my route wanted to talk about what had happened, and nobody seemed mad that the paper was being delivered so late.
Walking home in the dark, after I had finished my route, I was sad, confused and a little scared.
Two days later, when Oswald was shot, it just added to the surrealism of that weekend.
The episode was handled exactly as I hoped it would be – but it stirred up some powerful memories for me!
Hullaballo-that's the beauty of Mad Men. The characters are 3 dimensional. I could not stand Pete last season and tonight I sort of felt sorry for him. The characters are always changing along with the situations that they find themselves in. It's called great writing.
I was a month shy of my 5th birthday when Kennedy was shot. I was playing with my trucks on our living room floor when Walter Cronkite came on TV to announce that Kennedy had been shot. My mother, who had been ironing clothes and watching soap operas, became very upset and called my father at work. When Cronkite announced that Kennedy was dead, my mother began to cry, the first time I had seen her – or any adult – cry. The television was also on in our house when Oswald was shot.
The perfect recreation of the physical culture of 1963 suburbia, the clothes, the chainsmoking, the age of the Drapers (about the same as my parents), combined with the actual television footage (which I saw live at the time), was very jarring to me tonight.
Much as I usually focus on the plotline of this series, tonight was very very odd for me.
#330 Annie:
How old were you when Kennedy was shot?
The Kennedy assasination. Changed. Everything.
Everything, including the impact of the Beatles was a direct result of that event. It was pivotal to what happened in the rest of the decade, and the remainder of the 20th century, and truly this country Never. Got. Over. It. Period.
#317: Bobbi, Yes, it's true, as a country, we were still really naiive, in that we believed what the media told us, that the institutions were to be trusted . After Kennedy was shot, (and even more horrific, seeing Oswald shot live, i.e., not a tv drama, it was real) I think the scales fell from our eyes. We lost our innocence and did, indeed become grownups.
I was just a little older than you, about 9, I think, in 1963, and I was deeply interested, as I think were the Draper kids, especially Sally. Interesting this time, how it was Betty, not Don, who realized they couldn't be shielded from reality, even if they didn't fully understand it yet. Just finished watching this twice, (I'm on the West Coast), so I'll write more tomorrow after I've processed more fully.
Wonster, I find myself in complete agreement.
And I am feeling the opposite of Annie R.
The death of Kennedy wasn't the end of a "policy agenda." It was the shattering of an archetype of hope and possibility. America had never seen this archetype before. One principal reason for it is because of television. Eisenhauer used TV… but by the 60s almost all of America was plugged in. The assassination and its aftermath was a TV event unlike any other in the short history if TV in America.
After JFK, LBJ passed the Civil Rights Act and Medicare–legislative accomplishments that a number of historians doubted that JFK had the leadership chops to accomplish through Congress. In any case, my point is that LBJ made for such bad television. He understood politics, but had no archetypal powers among the American public.
As we see people like, say, Pete and his wife, Betty, all the males in the office for that matter, we need to remind ourselves that these people had rooted for Nixon in 1960–but were transformed by the PR/media magic of the Kennedy archetype. When Pete, with his arm around Trudy, refers to Johnson as "more of the same" he is not, in my opinion, talking about policy agendas…. he is talking about the archetype of the powerful "old men with power"–jowly, froglike, reptilian, like the old guard at Sterling Cooper, like his dad, like the men of the country club traditions to whom Roger was paying homage with his blackface version of "Old Kentucky Home."
I was 7 when Kennedy died. My sister was 14–a budding teenager. My mother not THAT much older than Betty Draper. A mystique died that day. Yeah, maybe it was false and, in its falsehood, deserved–like any fabrication–to evaporate in the bright glare of reality. But it was powerful while it lasted. It made people BELIEVE. It made believers of people who were sure the nation would have been better off under Nixon.
And it made America feel like it had lost a national hero. My sister and I lost a symbolic father that day. My mother lost a symbolic husband.
I actually gasped when Henry proposed to Betty. He's almost the anti-Don; he's always told her exactly who he is and where he came from, right down to telling her he used to move furniture. The one time he did something that pissed her off (not showing up for the fundraiser), his explanation made perfect sense; their chemistry would have been obvious to anyone watching them, which would have been much more of a problem for her than for him. She feels like she can trust him, and that's huge. But he knows a lot less about her than she about him, and he's the one proposing. Hoo boy.
I agree with Lisa @269. Yeah, I felt bad for Don. But if I found out that I was married to someone who not only screwed around on me repeatedly behind my back, but also was concealing a crime for which he could easily be imprisoned, and made up a whole fish story about his background to hide it, I don't think a partial confessional over a decade and three kids after the fact would have gotten me over it. Even if he looked like Jon Hamm.
I was kind of surprised that Peggy would openly talk about Duck in the lobby of her building. Does she not care who knows?
I think Betty is one of the most fascinating characters on the show. I don’t think we’ll be seeing less of her. I would like to point all the Betty-haters (and everyone else, b/c it’s that awesome) to this blog post:
http://whattamisaid.blogspot.com/2009/09/sexism-makes-me-hate-betty-draper.html
#302 said “I’m thinking Duck isn’t so bad for Peggy, either….Duck makes her feel both respected for her work and can’t-keep-his-hands-off-me sexy.”
Valid points, but…CHAUNCEY!!! Duck cannot be forgiven, no way, no how, and so I can’t accept him as being good for Peggy–it’s just a matter of time before he screws her over and sends her out the revolving door like an inconvenient Irish Setter.
What a week for the adorable Alison Bree. Thursday night she’s a sexy skeleton, appearing in a drug hallucination then Sunday she’s dressed up for a wedding, upset about the Kennedy assassination.
Loved the episode. This is the one everyone has be anticipating and it did not disappoint. Fantastic bridge between last week’s episode and the season finale.
I think this episode really made me dislike Betty. She’s only willing to leave Don, because she has a bridge to another man. He may or may not be willing to leave the campaign for her. It’s completely possible that he’s trying to string her along.
@ 302 freeperson- You made an interesting point. The relationship seems strange, but it does seem to be working out well for both parties involved, at least for the moment. Peggy needs to be with someone who respects her career, which Duck does.
I completely agree with you about what attracts people being a mystery. I remember a couple in high-school. They weren’t supposed to last through graduation, and yet somehow managed a long distance relationship through most of college.
#174: Totally agree. What is it with the young women hooking up with the older men. I find neither Duck nor Henry appealing.
#316 and #320- Betty was referring to Oswald.
Oswald was 24 when he killed JFK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald
I was born 7 years after this event. The scene where Betty and Karla sit on the couch together made me cry. Brilliant t.v.! I feel sorry for Don. I've felt the pain of a Woman telling me "I don't love you any more" and it really is soul destroying. When Don sits in the dark, I could totally feel his pain. Great stuff. Love this show.
"Automatically thought of Girl Interrupted."
So did I, which played during a suicide and then you had Roger mention suicide, which seems to be a recurring theme this season. The finale should be interesting…
henry aggressively flirted w/ betty while she was pregnant w/ her husband's baby–w/ the husband @ the same event. think about that. and she was very pregnant. henry is don, having NO sexual boundaries. that is why betty is attracted to him. henry = don BUT worse. henry = daddy too. henry's "openness" is his scam, his game, his way in.
It makes total sense to me that Henry could propose to Betty. Men in politics (indeed men in general) take their cues from the boss. His boss, Nelson Rockefeller, fell in love with and married a woman with children, then they had their own. Betty is beautiful and comes with a ready made family. She also fits into the circles in which Henry travels – he met her at the country club, she's in the League, she lives in the right ttown. He has a job opening for "wife" and she's who he wants to hire.As for five meetings, go watch The Clock.
Please MW, make this happen. Please let Don and Suzanne find each other again and let that be the train wreck it is meant to be.
What kind of car did Henry pull up in – round rear lights – a Ford? Next to her Lincoln – and her husband's Cadillac. I think that was mean to show their social/financial disparity. And in 1963, marriage was the default position for women – remember the ONE divorcee in the neighborhood two seasons ago – how threatening she was to Betty? Bets does NOT want to be that woman. So Henry offers her the reason she would need to leap off the good ship Draper. Marriage. And a movie. Jeez, doesn't that sound swell? She'll be singing in the rain if she marries him, for sure.
About Duck & Peggy's "nooner" …
Just before Peggy knocked on his hotel door, Walter Cronkite delivered the first CBS bulletin, which was at 1:40 pm (ET).
Then we see the two of them sitting up in bed afterwards, when Duck turned on the TV, just in time to see Cronkite's announcement, at 2:38 pm (ET), of JFK's death.
That certainly was a "quickie"!
Deborah — can't wait to read your morning-after post on "The Grown Ups"!
It was painful to see Don so utterly crushed sitting in the darkened bedroom, head in hands. I was surprised that he slunk out of the kitchen the next morning without so much as a perfunctory kiss to Betty's cheek, but I guess her icy expression signaled that she didn't feel any better the next morning after all. Was he scared of inciting her wrath in front of the kids, or was it his wounded pride that made him continue to marginalize her feelings? I know people think Don deserves her cold shoulder and, of course, he does, but Betty's narcissism makes it impossible to be on her side. She needs to accept her share of the blame in the failure of their marriage.
I was thinking, just after the show, that it wasn't just the Kennedy asassination that started the Sixties — it was Oswald's shooting. This was handled beautifully. I was ten, and I remember it all; days in front of the TV — the first real-life horror marathon. There have been many since. But with this one, it was as though, once the initial shock was over, the whole country just shrugged; the center wasn't holding any more and everyone knew it on some level. This is beautifully played out with all of the characters; Trudy realizing that playing by the rules doesn't work any more. The wedding, painful to watch. Roger giving up on his drunken trophy wife. Peggy losing herself in her work. Betty saying, essentially, "to hell with all of this." And Don/Dick, becoming a tragic figure very different from the can-do-no-wrong golden boy of the first season. Fabulous.
I think a lot of people who are dissapointed in the portrayal of the kennedy events have missed the point. The genius of this episode was that it was one of the rare moments where we get to see nearly all of the characters (except don & peggy) in a vulnerable, raw state. In the office and most situations, we see the characters with their guard up, presenting the image they want everyone else to see. The fact that this event actually happened and those who were alive for remember their feelings, where they were, etc makes the characters much more relateable and I think this gives an incredible insight into their characters in way few other events could. When people react to events within the "mad universe it's much more difficult for us to relate because we dont have the same context. Here, the context was universal and seeing their reactions gave seasons worth of depth to some characters such as Pete and Betty. I thought it was very fitting how neither Peggy or Don really reacted emotionally to the event at all and was surprised to see Cooper in the kitchen during the wedding. He's probably the last person I would have expected to be in there.
Thank you, all of you, who have shared your personal stories of the JFK assasination and the impact it had on your lives. I had just turned 2 years old, so I have no memory of it. I was old enough to remember the RFK assasination, and remember reading articles about it in Time magazine at the laundrymat.
Some years ago, PBS played tapes of the JFK assasination through to the funeral, as though it were happening live. I didn't watch it completely, but watched enough hours of it to get an more visceral idea of what it must have been like. Sure, I'd seen documentaries and other television programs about the Kennedy assasination, but watching events unfold as though they were happening all over again was truly moving.
Hi all. First time poster. I have been a fan of this site all season and I have really enjoyed the added insights and perspectives that all of you provide. I have just watched this week's episode, (I watch it on demand on Monday mornings) and have not read this week's posts, so I am sorry if I am repeating what others have already said. I am a big fan of MM but I have gotten a kick out of reading that people have screamed at the tv and have cried during an episode. I can now add myself to that list. I believe I am a little older than most of you, (56). I do remember that weekend like it was yesterday. Although I have seen the Cronkite broadcast hundreds of times over the years, Mad Men put me right back to that time. I sat wathching the show with tears in my eyes. I was 10 years old and in 5th grade. When I heard the news, I was outside the school playing a game called "running bases" with my friends. All we kept saying was that it was probably a rumor. All weekend long my mom kept saying how "she can't stand it" and what was the world coming to. We didn't leave the tv for 3 days. Thanks for letting me recall those days.
# 217 – "I just re-watched the Zapruder footage on Youtube, in close-up… it’s absolutely horrifying. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable watching a commercial of a couple in a convertible so soon after that."
In May 1964, the Postal Service issued a five-cent stamp to honor President Kennedy, designed by Raymond Loewy.
There was a bit of public outrage that the stamp depicted JFK with the top of his head missing, but it was a very popular commemorative issue nonetheless. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stamp_US_1964_5…
Mama Louise,
This series of YouTube segments from 11-22-63, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI31gIJbUHk&vi…
begins with the first audio bulletin on NBC. For about the first six minutes, it’s just the initial audio from NBC News, with Chet Huntley, Frank McGee and Bill Ryan. It then switches to video for the remainder of this first link, then is all video in the subsequent YouTube links/parts.
The total running time of all 25 YouTube parts, is about 4 hours.
For anyone who is too young to have seen any of this historic video, even with the primitive set-up and technical problems, this is probably the most complete, uninterrupted source material from a U.S. TV network available.
#219 and #353: it's important to remember that no one saw the Zapruder film that weekend, so the images depicted in Peggy's storyboard wouldn't have been as familiar to viewers then as they are today. Life ran still frames a week later, but it wasn't publicly seen until 1975 when Geraldo Rivera (!) ran it on his TV show.
As for the TV coverage: I KNEW they would be in Harry's office watching "As The World Turns!" I'm kicking myself for not having predicted it here! They so explicitly established that Harry has to watch TV during working hours, and we know nothing on this show is accidental. The show was sponsored by Niagara Spray Starch and Nescafe. Whose accounts were those?
Anyone who wants to get a real sense of the TV coverage that week needs to see the History Channel documentary "JFK: Three Shots That Changed America."
Wondering if anyone noticed the similarity of the Margaret/Mona/Roger/Jane scenes with Neil Simon's Plaza Suite? Thought that was amazing. Loved it.
I know I'm late (I tend to live blog comment on the FB fan page), but I disagree with the prior assertions that Jane is Roger's "the One". Pretty obvious who it is, as of this episode. You phone "the One" when the world comes to an end. You don't joke that she should commit suicide or that you'll cut her out of her dress. Don't see anything ever coming of it–unrequited love. Sigh.
My speculation–I feel that somebody is going to commit suicide in the final episode. There's been enough foreshadowing of it. It might be Suzanne's brother and that would be a way to bring Don and Suzanne back together before the season ends. But, I really think it will be Betty who will "try" to commit suicide " Or maybe she'll just "take a pill and lie down" but, ooops, Carla then finds her unresponsive, and calls Don, and then Betty has to go away for a"rest." Then, at the beginning of next season, she comes back from her "rest" and Don is torn between his obligations to a beautiful wife who is "dead inside toward him" vs. his need to run off and find out who he really is in the crucible of the 60's. Just my $.02.
@ #343 Kay:
Is that KAY? From the Basket of Kisses, The Early Years?
This episode certainly brought back a lot of memories. I must be the same age as Jane, I missed being old enough to vote for JFK but I was fascinated with the Kennedy family and especially Jackie. I was home with my young baby when I saw the first bulletin that the president had been shot — I was stunned and couldn't take it all in at first. Someone commented on the churches being open. I was in Memphis at the time and I remember going to church and praying for the family. Afterwards, I went to see my parents — my father had been watching TV and saw Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald — it was so surreal. Like Betty, I couldn't stop crying — I remember going to bed for what seemed like a couple of days and crying constantly.
When I was married in 1961, I wore a Jackie Kennedy pillbox hat covered in white velvet leaves and pearls with a "veil of illusion" attached. Jackie had a great influence on me at the time. I was thrilled that the First Lady cared about the arts.
As for the episode last night, I thought Mona and Joan were both terrific. The real grownups.
My impressions of Don sitting on the chair at the end; it was Dick sitting there with the realization and confirmation that he could never have someone like Betty.
Thinking about the temperature.
When the episode opens we see Pete curled up on his office couch in his coat as if he were homeless. Did anyone notice that when Pete saw Ken in the cold SC office that Ken was the only one not wearing an overcoat? I imagine that's because Ken is a warm, happy person whereas everyone else it sad and cold. Later, when SC 'turns on the heat' Don is boiling while Pryce remains comfortable. Maybe Ken and Pryce are the two most contented people at SC.
Other references to heat and cold:
Don is very warm and happy when holding baby Gene, Dick Whitman wants to be warm and happy and contented.
Pete doesn't initially like the Hot Coco because it isn't 'real', but accepts its warmth.
Don is so hot when he dances and assures Betty that everything will be alright at the wedding, then kisses her with passion,
Betty is ice cold as she tells Don she doesn't love him anymore.
A chill ran through the entire episode when JFK is assassinated.
I'm praying that there will be no suicides in the next episode.
La R̻veuse @ 356 РI didn't, but you are dead on. The hysterical bride, the parents playing different roles to get her over her cold feet and to the wedding, the series of small disasters that happen to the family (ripped tuxedo, broken ring) and of course the locked bathroom door Рin MMs case with the stepmother as young as the bride, rather than the bride herself, locked in.
I loved how Peggy described her mother has being so emotion that "there was no room" for anyone else to feel anything.
I think Janie Bryant went above and beyond with the costumes on the women in this episode – all of which were evocative of Jackie Kennedy. Betty's outfit at the wedding compared to some of the beautiful things Jackie wore on her trip to France, the pillbox hats on both Margaret and Jane, but of them a bit over-the-top, Mona's hair and Jane's dress for the wedding. But the single best was Trudy's dress for the wedding – utterly stunning and perfect for the time and the type of woman Trudy is.
#359 Virginia – My parents were married in '61 and my mother's dress and hat/veil were very Jackie-esque, too. She was late in her pregnancy with me on 11/22/63. I've heard her version of that day and the days that followed, many, many times.
I was teary-eyed last night through most of the show. The constant news coverage was so reminiscent of 9/11. I'd love to comment more today, but I'm very numb, as I was on 9/12/01. For as much as I've seen and read and heard about JFK's assassination, today I feel as if I lived it. Kudos to MW and crew for bringing the history alive for someone who doesn't have a story or memories of that fateful day.
The clothes Don was wearing when Betty told him she didn't love him were the exact same clothes Oswald was wearing when he was shot.
I was thrilled that there was no scenes from next week at the end of the ep – keep us in the dark, wondering – bravo!
My favorite line (though very hard to choose) was Don's in the last scene with Peggy – she says, "Why are you here?" and he says, "The bars are closed." I didn't catch what he said at first, but then I laughed out loud when it sunk in – great to break the darkness and tension with that ultimate Don comment!
One odd thing – I was very surprised that we got no reaction shot of Sally in the second to last scene – the one where Don leaves the house in the morning. Sally is usually the one who "gets" what's going on with the adults. Hmmm. But I LOVED the shot of Don almost hiding behind the wall peering at his family – out of reach to him. Heartbreaking and brilliant.
@freeperson – loved your comments (#302) about Duck and Peggy's relationship. I thought you were right on and I haven't seen anyone else comment as intelligently on their connection. Thanks!
I thought the JFK piece was handled really well. The scene where all of the phones are ringing off the hook and then abruptly stop, was chilling.
I was barely 2 at the time (birthday is 11/9), but a portion of the day of the assasination is one of my 1st memories. My mom says she picked up my older brother at school and he told her that the President had been shot (she didn't believe him). We then stopped by the bakery (this is the part I remember – I can still picture getting out of the car, the curb, and how the bakery looked inside), and the lady in the bakery was crying. For someone to be crying in public made a huge impression on me.
I think Betty is too narcissistic to really love anyone. I've always thought that she was raised by a critical, cold mother (we've had some hints of this, and she treats her own children the same) and her ability to love deeply, is just not there. She believes in a romantic, idealized version of love, but doesn't know what a deep, mature love is. Henry, given his "proposal" when he barely knows her other than her beauty and her social standing, is not offering her "mature love" either, but the same trophy wife status. What will happen with Betty and Don? I don;t know but either their relationship changes dramatically or I just can't see it continuing show-wise.
I think the last show will open the door for next season to bring back Sal and Joan. I am wondering if Bert Cooper dies – we saw some foreshadowing of that when Roger pointed out that all of the men in the photo of Bert's old collegues had died. His death and the planned sale of SC, would definitely call for a "new" SC. The description of next week's show also mentions Connie. A new agency perhaps formed with Don, Sal, Joan, Peggy and Pete?
To me, this episode was about the senses — hearing things, smelling things, seeing things, feeling things (or not feeling things), tasting things, etc.
1) sounds: a) Don gulping the water when he takes the pill right before the first commercial break; b) the sound of the wind whistling past the Draper kitchen as silent Betty serves breakfast to the kids while Don stands in the threshold of the kitchen entrance watching them; c) the symphony/cacophony of the telephones ringing at SC and then they suddenly stop. Silence. d) the omnipresent television sounds; and e) Betty's scream.
2) smells: Peggy noticing the heavy cigarette smoke in Duck's hotel room; Karen complaining about the scent of Duck's aftershave.
3) sights: the side by side shot of Don and Henry as Betty emerges from the ladies room was interesting though to me not nearly as interesting as the shot of Don looking in at his family as Betty serves the kids breakfast. For a brief moment, it is as though Don is looking at a painting or a photograph. An outsider looking in. Whose family is this? Who do they belong to? Can he be a part of it? Is this something he can hold on to, or will it crack and fade and eventually disappear the way an old photo might? And when he steps into the picture, it's clear that Betty wants him to keep moving on. He is not welcome. The look that Bobby Draper gives was very moving. The kids have observed fights and silences between their parents before, but not like this. Something is definitely wrong.
4) taste: Mona asking her tablemates what they thought of the sweetbreads; Roger encouraging the guests to have two entrees; Peggy complaining to Karen about the high price of a lunch counter meal when she could have eaten at her desk; Pete complaining to Hildy about the instant hot chocolate.
5) feeling or not: the building's freezing, the building's too hot; Betty feels nothing when she kisses Don; Jane feels no pain because she's passed out drunk while Roger calls his former lover; Don and Betty take pills to help numb their pain/make them sleep; Duck unplugs the television to block out bad news while he and Peggy make love, though he admits he's distracted.
What an episode and what a show!
My mom was always incredulous that I didn't remember watching the funeral with her. She'd always say, "You were sitting right by me for the whole thing – how could you forget it?" And I'd always say, "Mom, I was only 9 months old!" Then I'd get a "Hummph!" in response. I miss my mom.
I think that the 'Grown ups' of the title refers to everyone, just as some posters have said that the nation had to grow up after the assassination. Some huddled together & licked their wounds, like Pete & Trudy, some found no solace with family & turned to work, like Peggy & Don, some soldiered on with their lives, like the wedding party & guests. Don tried to comfort his family by again dismissing a life-changing event, with disastrous results. Betty used the event to flee her unhappy life.
Then there are the odd little scenes that drill down deeper: Roger turning briefly to the person who managed at one time to break through his narcissism – Joan. Betty & Carla crying & smoking on the same couch but not comforting each other. Duck turning his back on the event in order not to buzzkill his tryst. All of the Peggy's roomate/Jane/Betty married man subtext conversations.
Clearly, Betty views men as the fulfillers of her happiness and will always be sorely disappointed until she looks for more in life. For Henry, it was love at first sight and he's treated her with respect, common sense and devotion so far. I think his proposal empowered Betty to tell Don how she really felt – a shock for Don because she had him and me fooled on her forgiveness level until she met Henry in the parking lot. True love is fine and good, but Henry is a politician in the '60's and Betty is no heiress – if she leaves Don for Henry, she's going to have to grow a pair to put up with a lot thrown at her. Bubye, Junior League, for starters.
Don was the only one not emotionally affected by the assassination, showing his disconnect from really living his life. I wonder what his emotional state will be if Betty really leaves him.
"My speculation–I feel that somebody is going to commit suicide in the final episode. There’s been enough foreshadowing of it. It might be Suzanne’s brother and that would be a way to bring Don and Suzanne back together before the season ends. But, I really think it will be Betty who will “try†to commit suicide †Or maybe she’ll just “take a pill and lie down†but, ooops, Carla then finds her unresponsive, and calls Don, and then Betty has to go away for aâ€rest.†Then, at the beginning of next season, she comes back from her “rest†and Don is torn between his obligations to a beautiful wife who is “dead inside toward him†vs. his need to run off and find out who he really is in the crucible of the 60’s. Just my $.02."
Betty has never struck me as the suicidal type.
I know many have commented on Jane being a child. But I find it interesting that she is unwilling to turn a blind eye over the assassination and what it might mean. Whereas Roger is trying to pretend that life will not change. He tries to save the wedding celebrations from being impacted by Dallas. He tries to steer Jane away from the news about the assassination. And in the end, he calls his old lover and tries to cling to her emotionally. Even his daughter, Margaret, is more upset over how the assassination might impact her wedding celebrations than what it means for the entire country.
I think the JFK assassination is a sign that Jane is about to grow up and Roger is about to lose his child bride on an emotional level.
I really liked this episode, so am a bit surprised by those disappointed, but this is MM, so opinions will always vary.
I was one of those who really liked the way MW handled the assassination – it was not the “big event we are all supposed to know about,” it was an interruption into the lives of the characters, but playing against the backdrop of those character’s lives this season. It felt very real, and I was also moved when the announcement of Kennedy’s death came – Carla and Betty together on the sofa were the highlight for me.
I think this episode fits right into what MW seems, IMHO, to be exploring this season – the transition from the 50s to the 60s. I have always thought Baby Gene was meant to represent the literal birth of the 60s as we consider them – tumultuous, with typical mores and values being questioned, the world seeming chaotic and unpredictable – and this episode is when they arrived (but the characters don’t really know that – Pete is going to go to work as usual on Tuesday, but he will be very different).
I agree with Olfacta @348 – the 60s began truly with the shooting of Oswald, and that was evident tonight. I also felt a lot of reference to 9/11 in Betty’s reaction to the event – particularly the “What is going on?” line from Betty. Don specifically told Betty before that that we’ve lost Presidents before and always survived, which is true, and used similar reasoning with the children when he got home on Friday. But even Don is flummoxed by the Oswald killing – it seems so impossible he just denies it to Sally, even though she must have heard Betty’s scream.
I also really felt like MW was pointing us to Pete and Trudy as representing the change about to hit. The relative “hipness” of their clothes while being relaxed at home, the decision to forgo the wedding, the potential taking of the clients (representing the more cut-throat, and less family-feeling, corporate world that we’ve already seen come to SC with the PPL purchase), even Pete’s shock at the way others reacted to the shooting showed them much more forward-thinking of the characters.
It is also interesting that the two moneyed Republicans – Betty and Pete – had the most extreme reactions to the events. Really shows the widespread appeal of the Kennedy charisma.
Peggy and Duck’s casual sexual relationship – which seems like more than just booty calls (he does stay over at her place) and less than a real relationship – is also a hint of the sexual freedom to come. Peggy is very much being of Helen Gurley Brown’s model in her relationship with Duck, and that is very modern – but then again, we also saw Duck in a hip turtleneck in an earlier episode.
Betty is also a sign of that change coming – but she has always represented the awakening understanding of so many American women that the dream life they were sold was a bad bill of goods. I think it is also interesting that Betty hasn’t left Don – and that so many are making the leap that she’s moving to marry Henry. I think Henry’s attraction to her – and the understanding that she can still attract powerful men, even after three kids – gives her some confidence in dealing with Don on a more adult level, but I don’t think we can assume she’ll run off to him. I don’t even think we can assume she’s thinking divorce – there are issues of status and her legal rights in New York (but she has to know can use Don’s fraud to force him to consent to both the divorce and any division of property she wants). I don’t know that she has any plan at all.
As I said after last week’s episode, the problems in the Draper marriage are far deeper than Don’s lie, and we saw that in his treatment of her in this episode. He is still treating her like a child in many ways, and what she has always wanted is a more equal marriage. Don certainly is more comfortable and loving after revealing the secret (btw, I love how subtly that’s shown – Don doesn’t have to keep the front up with Betty and Hamm acts that sense of freedom brilliantly), but Betty is still the junior partner in a very unequal team. And she’s fed up with it.
I don’t think Betty ever loved Don, and I have a feeling she makes very quick decisions about men – after all, she was taught that her looks were her only asset. We have the sense the relationship with Don was fast-paced, both her father’s and her brother’s comments about Don’s lack of people at the wedding shows there was certainly concern about the marriage within her family. She was sexually attracted to Don, and he seemed perfect, so she went for it. Don, on the other hand, I believe really loves his wife, and can’t understand why things aren’t the way they were at the start – remember, his cheating and paternal attitude towards Betty are just what were expected at the time. He is acting exactly as men in his time were told they should act with their wives and he isn’t understanding the effect that has on Betty, or how much of her unhappiness springs from it – I don’t think she even really understands it. Betty has grown in fits and starts from the beginning, and that is one of the great touches in the show.
Now the only question is – what the hell are they going to finish with? I really hope Sal gets at least a better wrap up – my only evidence to hold on to that hope is Bryan Batt’s name still in the opening credits.
This show was powerful and raw. I actually watched the second airing of the show last night to capture everything. I was in 2nd grade when JFK was killed…this episode brought back memories, and helped explain the different 'adult' reactions that I didn't understand at the time. The characters in this show are so multi-faceted – I don't know what I'll do with my television set after next Sunday and before next August. As someone who dabbles in community theater, I am so envious of the meaty roles on this program…so well-written, so emotion-tugging. Just amazing.
I'm watching my tivo's ep now – I love how at the wedding Betty sees Henry & stares at him & eavesdrops on his conversation. Don sees her stare, but doesn't even bother to check out what or who she's looking at. She then cuts a 'you're a putz' look at Don.
Little Janie at last proved herself to be more of a spoiled child than Margaret. Not that Margaret was disposed to ever like the homewrecker–but Jane continued to force herself on her, rather than concentrating on being a good wife to Roger.
Margaret certainly threw a tantrum after Jane's "gift"–but the cold reality of the assassination woke her up. Her first reaction may have been that the wedding was "ruined." But she apparently loved the groom, so she wanted to go ahead. At the reception, she behaved well. Nope, most of the people in the church weren't there for the wedding; she understood. She was happy to greet her friend (Henry's daughter!) And she was glad her parents were getting along.
Poor Janie. Dressed in black lace–certainly not suitable for a wedding guest in those days–and people were too preoccupied to be scandalized. All the drama about "which table" forgotten in the wake of a national tragedy. So she'd rather hang out with the guys in the kitchen than stand up with Roger–who had fought for her right to attend the wedding–for even a few minutes.
Then she ended up drunk on her ass, as usual.
#316, #320, #338, #339: Rewatch the episode. Betty CLEARLY says he's 24. Someone just mentioned the wrong age to begin with.
@ #345 Stagmom, I was thinking the same thing. Granted I'm only 27 and didn't grow up in the era, but I love old cars and I believe Henry was driving a Ford Galaxy. When I saw that shot I thought of the juxtaposition of the two cars. The Ford is bathtub white, a standard color for a rather standard car. The Lincoln is big, luxurious and if I'm not mistaken, the Drapers' 3rd car (in saying this I am assuming when the Drapers kept the Lincoln they also kept Betty's station wagon).
Think about the lifestyle Betty has come to know, versus what we see of Henry Francis. He grew up in the Westchester area but presumably now lives upstate near Albany. He works for a politician and probably doesn't make the kind of money that Don does. And said politician is soon to loose the GOP nomination to Barry Goldwater, who rejected east coast GOPers like Henry Francis. Betty has in her mind this idea that Henry is someone new and different, but he almost seems destined on the path to becoming a has-been after Rockefeller looses the nomination. So how is this man, who already has children, going to support Betty and the three kids? I think this plot line could be developed further in the next season.
Also, I was stuck by the dual symbolism of the black and white cars parked next to each other along with the symbolism of Carla and Betty sitting next to each other watching TV and smoking cigarettes. These are odd times and are leading to people acting in ways they normally wouldn't.
> also really felt like MW was pointing us to Pete and Trudy as representing the change about to hit. The relative “hipness†of their clothes
I totally agree with this, right up to and including their clothes. I know people have mixed feelings about Pete, but I've been saying for most of this season that in the end, it will be Pete who is ultimately the most changed, who grows the most, who ultimately becomes the most likeable and relatable character on this show (at least among the men).
When he said he wasn't going to the wedding, and why, I actually said out loud to my TV: "Good for you, Pete." But also, good for you Trudy. I've had issues with Trudy from the beginning (but mostly because practically her first line in Season One, as they drove past Penn Station on their return from the honeymoon, was "when are they gonna get rid of that old relic?" And I'm sorry, but you just do not trash talk Penn Station on my watch and expect to get off lightly), but lately, and especially last night, I really started to like her too.
Both Pete and Betty had almost the same line last night at different times, Betty's "What's going on?" vs. Pete's "I don't understand what's happening," or words to that effect. The subtle difference between Betty's line, with it's subtext of "I don't like this, make it stop," and Pete's, with it's more intellectual undercurrent of "I'm trying to make sense of this and can't," made him much more identifiable to me. Betty is consumed by frustration, hurt and rage. Pete is simply bewildered, trying to make sense of it, to find, God help us, " the teaching moment." That Pete, given his privileged background, had the one line that somebody almost had to have at some point, that "it really that things were starting to change," (under Kennedy) — and that by Pete's lights was a good thing, and something to mourn the loss of, was especially poignant to me. Pete is spoiled and tantrum-prone, and makes some really stupid choices at times, but it's clear to me that he truly wants to be a better person in a brighter world, and has very little idea how to go about that. The fact that he's willing to at least try to figure it out without any real guidance makes me like him despite all the things there are about him to maybe not like so much.
# 365 Jeff Says:
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:52 am
The clothes Don was wearing when Betty told him she didn’t love him were the exact same clothes Oswald was wearing when he was shot.
***
Wow, is this true? I didn't pick up on that — and yet I kept wondering about Don's outfit for some reason. The v-neck sweater over collared shirt look just didn't look like Don to me, not his usual "at-home" style. I actually wondered why he was dressed like that.
Huh! I didn't notice it either, but now that I think about it, that's exactly right!
What's funny is that through that whole sequence, I remember thinking there was something … off about Don's clothes. At first I thought it was that they didn't quite seem right for the period, or that they didn't seem like something Don would wear, but now that now that I think about it, they are in fact the clothes that Oswald was iconically wearing when he was killed. Maybe it was just my subconscious trying to make me notice.
Wow.
"# 4 magenta Says:
November 1st, 2009 at 8:25 pm
I wonder:
Will Eleven Twenty Two be dealt with tonight? My bet’s on yes."
What does eleven twenty two refer to?
Foobella, Eleven twenty-two is the date of JFK's assasination. November 22.
The more I think about this episode, the more depressed I get. Someone else said that they felt like it actually happened yesterday and we are mourning today. That's kind of how I feel. I wasn't born until 1970, so I didn't see this all unfold. I've watched the History Channel and other coverage of this "event" over the years, but yesterday made me feel as if I was really going through the entire thing.
It's amazing to me that I actually liked Pete and Trudy. I know on other blogs, people have said that the characters we see on there today will NOT be part of the hippy movement/Woodstock. But, I can't help but wonder if Pete and, especially, Jane will get involved. If Jane is 20, she'll only be 26 in 1969. What a culture shock that will be for Roger!
I wanted to put my arms around Don when he was in the bedroom after Miss Self-Centered told him she doesn't love him anymore. I don't think Miss Ferrell is the "one" for him, but I do think he deserves someone better than Betty. Someone who will love him for who he is, not what he can give her.
#266-workingmom: Thank you for pointing out that this really marked the beginning of our 24/7 relationship with news — as you put it, the "CNN Effect." Among all the other ways our notions of "reality" were shattered that day–(#331-SmilerG: "…the surrealism of that week-end…")–the emergence of our feeling that we "needed" television was undeniable. I think every person who watched spell-bound over the next several days felt an emotional connection to the newscasters and hung on their every word. Thus began our bonding with the airwaves — on a level that I don't think anyone was quite aware of at the time.
On another note, isn't it ironic how Harry, sitting 3 feet from the only television on in the S/C office — with news of the tragedy emanating from the tube — was the last to be aware of it? Sharp Televsion Department Guy.
sorry – the ripped tuxedo and broken ring above was a reference to the play/movie Plaza Suite
I haven't seen mentioned yet how prominently Pete's shotgun was framed in the background when his secretary brought him his cocoa in the morning. When he found out that he didn't get the promotion, and the camera didn't follow him back into his office, I was afraid that he was going to shoot himself. Now I realize maybe it was foreshadowing for the Kennedy shooting? Or the death of his career at Sterling-Coo?
I'm surprised how much I really like Pete now. It seems a lot of his flaws (complaining about the quality of diner cocoa) are a result of his moneyed upbringing and mean mother. He's got a lot of depth and though still childish he's grown a lot since Season 1.
As far as Henry proposing, well the man is nothing if not direct. Plus, he works in politics and could use a trophy wife, so why not. He's definitely Betty's safety net that allows her to tell Don how she really feels, or doesn't feel. After the Whitman reveal, she's finally got some leverage to use, as well.
Also, not to start any political debates, but a few of the lines that Pete and Trudy threw out there remind me of some fears about our current president and some threatening situations that have popped up among the radical far right*, such as death threats and even standing outside an Obama rally with a gun. Pete's quote about how it was going to be the time for big change and now…not. Trudy saying you don't shoot someone just because you don't like their politics. It gave me chills.
(*No offense intended to Republicans – I'm talking about the truly out there. Not just someone with a difference of opinion)
Also, I have a new theory that the series (not season) will end with Draper's suicide. Maybe.
#380- Thank's Joanne. That went completely over my head. duh.
#382- Maybe you have something there. Maybe Pete is going to "go postal" at the office?
One more thing. I know that Elvis doesn't compare to the JFK murder. But, Elvis was my first experience with losing someone who was so "beloved." I'll never forget my mom running into the room to change the channel to the news (she originally heard it on the radio), then falling to her knees and bawling like we lost a family member. I was 7 and didn't know what to do. It was horrible. The phone was ringing off the hook with friends and family calling to ask if we heard about Elvis.
Some people are complaining that the JFK assassination shouldn't have been covered as much as it was on Mad Men. I disagree. Should they ignore rock 'n roll and the Beatles too? NO. I want to see next season showing the Beatles arriving in New York and their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show.
#380 Joanne,
Confession time.
It's last night, I'm sitting in my living room, watching that scene (Don alone in the Draper bedroom): and here's Anne B, alone on her couch, both arms outstretched to the TV set. Don, baby. Come here.
I feel like the biggest idiot ever for admitting that, but there it is.
Anne B, that's how I felt too. And I think he looked particularly HOT when he was standing next to Henry waiting for Betty to come out of the restroom. Mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmmm. Usually, I don't get all ga ga over Don, but last night's episode, he made me swoon.
"Pete’s quote about how it was going to be the time for big change and now…not. Trudy saying you don’t shoot someone just because you don’t like their politics. It gave me chills."
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.
Wow. I have to say that I really like this blog. You folks come up with some things that I didn't even think of. When I watch this again, I'm going to pay even closer attention to everything.
I also agree with those who brought up suicide in the last episode. Except I don't think it's going to be Betty. I think it's going to be Suzanne. Don will then have to deal with Suzanne's brother (the bizarro Adam).
I have loved every moment of S3 up until last night when Henry said he wanted to marry Betty, and Betty told Don she doesn't love him. It just did not ring true for me AT ALL.
That said I am so, so excited for next week.
Last night was another example of MW's expertise in what he does.
Not having been born yet in '63 (hell, not even being born in this country!), AND being a history major, I've certainly seen the footage of that day and the week following…and have read scads of stuff about the impact, lots of which has been mentioned already (the loss of naivete, America growing up, the Beatles as relief, etc).
But last night really made me FEEL. Not because of what happened; because we were shown the impact on people. I'm still walking around today feeling like I actually went thru it last night.
Couple of echoes to comments above–the moment of awakening was not the assasination, but rather Oswald's shooting. That the President is in a position of danger was not unheard of to most people, but to actually watch Oswald being paraded (relatively) unprotected down a people-filled hall and ACTUALLY SEE his shooting?
Pete in the turtleneck was quite the Mod wasn't he? And Trudy's dress for the wedding was SO perfect…
The cinematography last night was amazing! My wife noted the color scheme and camera angles for Joan talking to Roger on the phone: one red wall echoing her hair whilr the other wall echoed her clothes…even the phone color was complementary.
Last comment, and one that I don't think I've seen yet (did I really just read thru 380! comments?)…part of the accuracy of the MM world…Pete's conversation with Trudy about the nasty "he deserved it" comments said by some after the assasination. That's something that gets glossed over in the "Camelot/hero adulation/everyone mourned/the nation lost a great man" retelling of the story. Not everyone mourned THAT day…it became very un-PC to not worship Kennedy, but while everyone lost a President, not everyone lost a hero.
And a BIG thank you to #365 Jeff! I sat thru that scene thinking "something about what he's wearing…dark sweater…cuffs folded back…what IS it?"
#389 Lisa. I think you have something there with Suzanne possibly committing suicide and Don dealing with her brother. We all knew the moment Don gave him his card that it was going to come back and bite him.
As for Suzanne, it would be fine with me if she were gone. I find nothing in, around or about her that is appealing. Yes, she's attractive enough for Don to boink, but other than that, her character is flat, boring. No fire about her.
Someone mentioned that the following Monday was a National Day of Mourning. S/C was closed, bars were closed, the funeral was being televised, and people were still in shock.
How come all businesses didn't shut down the day of 9/11 and the day after? In fact, I got in trouble with my boss because I left at 10:30 a.m. on 9/11 (even though they closed the place at 11 a.m.). We had to be at work the next day! Just goes to show you how obsessed this country is with work, work, work these days. Unreal.
#391 #365
Wow. I just went back to look at a picture of Oswald and you are so right and that is so creepy. Betty shot Don down when she told him she didn't love him? Or is this foreshadowing for worse?
# 343 Kay – "…henry aggressively flirted w/ betty while she was pregnant w/ her husband’s baby–w/ the husband @ the same event. think about that. and she was very pregnant…"
That's been my take on him all along, he's a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Any philanderer worth his salt knows there are lines you just don't cross. Hitting on a visibly pregnant married woman is one of those lines. I can't even see Don doing that, his honor code is a step or two higher.
Henry will be done with Betty as soon as he bangs her.
I could've sworn Matt Weiner said he wouldn't even touch the JFK storyline. So much for that.
Will Ken Cosgrove ever get a background story? We're hitting the 4th season and nothing!
I also viewed the breakfast scene at the end as Don taking a mental snapshot of his family, knowing he may not be coming back.
"Also, I have a new theory that the series (not season) will end with Draper’s suicide. Maybe."
This has been my assumption from pretty early on, which is why I kind of think the people who are looking at a suicide as the season-ender are jumping the gun.
I mean, it's kind of hard not to imagine it as a pretty likely conclusion when the first image of the first episode, in minute one, is an (admittedly animated) shot of a man — presumably Don — jumping out of a tall building.
As far as the whole going in to work the day after 9/11 thing is concerned, I used to work in the WTC ( although not when it was hit). I actually left my job about two weeks before the first attack back in … '92? Is that right?
Anyway, I was there alone late at night when a fire broke out in one of the lower levels (you might have to be a New Yorker to remember that). There were only probably about twenty or thirty people in the building (1 WTC) at that time, and only some of them were with our firm, but I remember going from floor to floor, office to office, knocking on every door to tell people that there was a fire in the building and that we should be evacuating.
Not one person took me up on it. They were all "too busy." I'll never forget that, and in the aftermath of 9/11, I remember thinking that half the people who died that day probably knew what was happening long before the towers collapsed. They had every opportunity to get out, and didn't, because they didn't have time. The FedEx guy was waiting. They were expecting an overseas conference call.
They literally lay on their death beds, wishing they had spent more time at the office.
The people who got out that day were the people who simply didn't give a fuck — the secretaries, the mail room guys, the cleaning staff. The people who could honestly say: let them go ahead and fire me! The ones whose jobs just weren't a big enough deal to them to worry about losing.
I think that attitude was so pervasive that a lot of places really did take the "well life is for the living! There's business to be done!" attitude without even considering how utterly vile and offensive it was. But I also think that a lot of the people who made the decision to keep their offices open were the ones who were in similar people to the ones who "too busy" to get out before the second plane hit. They simply viewed their jobs (and indirectly, themselves) as too important, too vital to the continued existence of the universe, to even consider not coming in to work, and if they had to be there, everyone else did too.
I remember seeing a similar mindset the day after the blackout. I was out (just taking a walk, not heading in to work), and the streets were crowded with people on their way to work, despite the fact that every news report was full of entreaties to people to stay home unless their jobs were "essential."
You never saw so many people who had managed to delude themselves into believing they were "essential."
Sad, really.
How come all businesses didn’t shut down the day of 9/11 and the day after? In fact, I got in trouble with my boss because I left at 10:30 a.m. on 9/11 (even though they closed the place at 11 a.m.). We had to be at work the next day! Just goes to show you how obsessed this country is with work, work, work these days. Unreal.
A bit off-topic, but I think that was partly due to the difference between the two events. With the Kennedy assasination, the terrorist act (and that's what it was) was seemingly over with his shooting, and the country knew there would be a funeral the following Monday. I believe Johnson deliberately asked businesses to close that day. With 9/11, the events changed so quickly no one really knew when the events would end and if you closed how long it would be. That is why the Oswald murder was so horrifying – the population had already moved into mourning.
In contrast to Johnson, Bush urged people to go on with their lives, in part to minimize the huge economic impact of the attacks. I live in DC, and knew of restaurants and other tourist spots where all the staff were laid off the day after 9/11, with people believing it would be months before they'd be getting business again. Urging people to shop and to travel and to live was the strategy to deal with the much larger impacts of the 9/11 attacks.
My company did close – we were in downtown DC and did not return to work until 9/13. I remember the terror of having to travel through downtown DC on the Metro train, which goes underground the area with all the museums and federal buildings here. I knew I would be in the tunnel for a good 20 – 30 minutes and literally prayed my way through it. The next day when I came out of the same train system to go to work, there were National Guard troops at every intersection, armed with machine guns – not a pleasant or comforting sight.
# 396 gh Says:
November 2nd, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Will Ken Cosgrove ever get a background story? We’re hitting the 4th season and nothing!
***
I always got the feeling that Ken was supposed to be Mr. Normal All-American guy. One of those people with no dark secrets, no fatal flaws, etc. But then again, who knows what season 4 will bring!
So many great insights here, so much perception. I can barely keep up. Basketcases rock!
#393 Joanne, you are SO right! We had to go back to work, and our phones didn’t even work! We had no internet and no phone (NYC suburbs), we were a computer company, and yet we were required to come in.
Deborah, I worked for a major university. Luckily, the President had the good sense to close the place down that morning. I still cannot believe that we had to come into work the next day. Some of my former co-workers at other companies told me that they didn’t get to leave. They setup a t.v. in the lunch room and watched the coverage there. I’m not in New York, so I cannot imagine how it must have been for you folks. To think that you still had to go into work is unbelievable.
And to this day, I cannot believe that 9/11 is not a national day of mourning where we all get the day off and government facilities are all closed.
That scene of Don sitting in the chair in the darkened room, reminded me of Bill Mauldin's cartoon, "Grieving Lincoln".
Don is grieving at the possible loss of his family and at the definite loss that the Nation has suffered.
http://www.billmauldinbiography.com/Page15.html
@Rosey: Yeah, I should clarify that my theory about Don’s suicide is new only to me.
Despite the opening scene with the falling man, it never really crossed my mind that Don would do himself in. It seems more like a possibility now, but who knows. I’ve learned to expect the unexpected from this show.
Also, I wouldn’t rule out a suicide at season’s end, but I can’t figure out who it would be.
Kudos to the keen eyes that caught Don’s wardrobe = Lee Harvey Oswald.
A quick add to that: it’s also the same outfit Gene Kelly wears in SINGING IN THE RAIN in the sequence for “Moses” with Donald O’Connor. Don also wears a similar shirt/sweater/pants combo when they all have to work overtime for American Airlines.
http://www.amny.com/polopoly_fs/1.1108113.1245812443!image/1035733774.jpg_gen/derivatives/feature_416/1035733774.jpg
I can't figure out why Duck did that either.
Someone will commit suicide? Maybe Betty, like Eustacia Vye in 'Return of the Native'? If someone's going to go then Suzanne does seem the most likely, I agree, but there's already been a suicide on this show.
My respect for Betty will increase leagues if she leaves Don and doesn't marry Henry. Remember that she has her father's house now, she has a place to go. I can't help but wonder if she would take Sally and Bobby with her.
And why did Duck unplug the TV, rather than just turn it off?
I’m not here to bash Don, and I know Betts can be a doozy sometimes but while he (Don) gave Betts a life with him, a home, and children it still was really just a scrim, a well painted backdrop for what they both probably hoped/thought would be a life of happiness and contentment. I know I’d try to convince myself that I didn’t love Don if I found out my life was built upon a lie, and it would be easy enough to hate him for that. I don’t know if Betty has quite figured out where her life is going but the reality of hurting Don rings true.
While everyone is speculating a suicide, I am throwing in my guess- Joan’s Husband. But then again I think he will be killed in Veitnam.
I think Henery is using Betty. polotical reasons? I don’t know why he is using her but I think he is.
#405: "A quick add to that: it’s also the same outfit Gene Kelly wears in SINGING IN THE RAIN in the sequence for “Moses†with Donald O’Connor. Don also wears a similar shirt/sweater/pants combo when they all have to work overtime for American Airlines."
Kelly's character is SINGING IN THE RAIN is also named Don. Interesting that Betty's favorite movie is about a man named Don who specializes in creating illusions (movies) that are very distinctly divorced from reality (as rendered obvious when the films switch to sound, the aftermath of which becomes the focal point of the movie).
The parallels don't end there. Don Lockwood (Kelly's character) worked his way up the ladder to the peak of his profession from very humble beginnings–starting with a song and dance vaudeville hobo act–and ends up leaving his blonde paramour, who he's dating solely for appearances, for a demure, earthy brunette, although by that point, the comparison is stretching pretty thin.
I have to say- I am a Big DD fan- but I am even down on him now- as Betty has rejected him, he’s kind of lost his status even in my eyes. She may have been the key – not his brilliance or the job or the accolades- to his mysitque.
Did anyone notice how panicky- and Not DD-like – he looked as he danced with her? It was as if he were really a different person.
I wonder if next years theme will be about redemption?
Losing his family is as low as he can get- I don’t think he’ll suicide.
Anyone think he’ll volunteer for Vietnam to right his past wrongs?
#415 Sundance: Wow, thanks! I'm going to have to rewatch SITR now!
Actually I noticed that while Don may be good at many things, he’s a horrible dancer…did you notice him bopping up and down all over the place?
Is it just me, or is Peggy starting to look slightly heavier again after losing her baby weight? I'm worried Duck has knocked her up.
# 414 – "And why did Duck unplug the TV, rather than just turn it off?"
I wondered that too.
I'm guessing that if Peggy arrived and had heard fragments of the early news reports and wanted Duck to turn on the TV, he could've pretended that it set was broken — so they could get on with the "nooner".
[and I still think it was more of a "quickie" than a nice, leisurely "nooner" @ 346]
# 409 Michelle Says:
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:17 pm
as Betty has rejected him, he’s kind of lost his status even in my eyes. She may have been the key – not his brilliance or the job or the accolades- to his mysitque.
****
Yeah, Betty was a status symbol for him, and that was important because despite his outward confidence he seems to have pretty low self-esteem. Now he may have lost her for good. You are right, he definitely had a “panicky” quality about him. Don is worried that without the beautiful, sophisticated Betty by his side, validating him, he will be diminished in the eyes of others. Hmmm…so now I don’t know if I believe that he really loves Betty or not. Maybe it’s just the validation that is so important to him? Having a woman like Suzanne, for example, by his side doesn’t quite make the same impression on other people.
Something else that keeps bothering me more and more…Duck’s behavior. Was he really so hard up for a nooner (pun intended) that he unplugged the TV? He hears a report about the President being shot and he doesn’t want it to spoil the mood? Really? REALLY?
But he cared enough to turn it back on AFTER? REALLY?
ANd he doesn’t even turn to Peggy when they hear the news…it’s like she’s not there…gotta call the family…REALLY?
@ 412 dancewosleeping- I don't see anything wrong with him calling his family. He's divorced, but he still cares about them. He wants to tell them the news if they haven't heard. He has older children, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to talk to them after a national tragedy. He wants to be part of their lives, despite the divorce.
I took it as an odd compliment to Peggy. He sees her as an adult. In Duck's mind, she can deal with the situation. She doesn't need to talk to someone the way someone younger would. I know Duck's daughter isn't that much younger than Peggy, but trust me on this, Duck still sees his daughter as daddy's little girl.
Paul will be "thrilled" when he sees Peggy has re-done his Aqua-net commercial. Like Jackie versus Marilyn, his idea is scrapped because of death.
This is minutia, but for what it's worth, Henry's car is indeed a 1963 Ford, but it's not even a Galaxie; it's a Custom 500, which was the cheapest el-strippo full-sized Ford that year. I read it as a government car, with the blackwalls and dog-dish hubcaps.
#409 & #410 – I thought Don's bad dancing was symbolic of not being in synch with his wife. Perhaps it's another clue to his humble beginnings.
I appreciate the post illuminating why Betts would like Singing in the Rain so much and "Helen Bishop's" detailing how the five senses were invoked. I think that subconsiously helped what could have been an otherwise somewhat static ep.
#415 you're a genius. ;o)
Re Henry's ability to give Betty the lifestyle she's used to, I believe he's said that he was a lawyer before taking on his government job, so I don't think he's strapped for cash. Granted, the salary he's pulling for Rockefeller probably isn't all that much compared to Don, but he's probably set up well enough. He can always go back to practice law, which explains his easy willingness to drop out of the Rockefeller campaign.
As for his car, maybe it is a government car as Jeff says, or maybe he's just not into social climbing that much, which makes you wonder what Betty sees in him. He doesn't strike me as being a wolf in sheep's clothing. To me, he comes off as a confident guy who was immediately attracted to Betty and had no problem letting her know about it. I think he's sincere. Judging from the reactions of Francine and the other Junior League ladies, he has no problems attracting women, so I don't think he needs to throw around words like marriage just to get Betty or any other woman in bed, unless he meant it.
If he can make Betty happy, I say more power to them. Girl is miserable.
Re Henry's ability to give Betty the lifestyle she's used to, I believe he's said that he was a lawyer before taking on his government job, so I don't think he's strapped for cash. Granted, the salary he's pulling for Rockefeller probably isn't all that much compared to Don, but he's probably set up well enough. He can always go back to practice law, which explains his easy willingness to drop out of the Rockefeller campaign.
As for his car, maybe it is a government car as Jeff says, or maybe he's just not into social climbing that much, which makes you wonder what Betty sees in him. He doesn't strike me as being a wolf in sheep's clothing. To me, he comes off as a confident guy who was immediately attracted to Betty and had no problem letting her know about it. I think he's sincere. Judging from the reactions of Francine and the other Junior League ladies, he has no problems attracting women, so I don't think he needs to throw around words like marriage just to get Betty or any other woman in bed, unless he meant it.
If he can make Betty happy, I say more power to him. Girl is miserable.
Oops, sorry for the double post. I have the world's worst DSL!
Another person cannot make you happy. You have to be happy within yourself and love yourself first. It is too much responsibility for another to have that burden of making their spouse happy all the time.
I absolutely hate when I'm dating someone new and they say,"You make me so happy. I haven't been this happy with anyone before." Ughhhhhh, don't put that on me! Everyone is happy in the beginning, until the honey moon period is over.
@spike, Betty is a miserable person PERIOD. I don't think it matters who she is with, she will always be an emotional wreck. She needs psychological help and maybe anti-depressants.
#404 – I'm a first time poster, and am glad to see someone finally speculating on Ken Cosgrove's role. I feel he's the "everyman" – probably not perfect, but no skeletons in his closet either.
Ken seems to have a natural gentlemanliness about him – asking Sal if it was okay to call his wife to thank her for dinner; give Sheila a quick and unaffected kiss on the cheek when she was in the office; accpeting sharing job duties with Pete without any angst; rushing to help cut-off-foot Guy after the accident.
While he seem to be playing the field with women, there's no sense that he's treated any woman wrong. I hope they don't tamper much with Ken, it's nice to see a character who's like most of us – just a regular guy getting along in the world in a regular way.
@ 429 PJ-When it comes to women, Ken strikes my a playboy. He goes from woman to woman. He's the one with the little black book full of phone numbers. I don't think he'd ever force himself on a woman. He strikes me as like Roger in that respect-if she doesn't want me, it's her loss.
I don't want them to tamper with Ken, but I would like to know a little more about him. We've never even seen the inside of his apartment, and I'm curious to see where he lives.
@Helen Bishop (#368): Very nice observations about sensory input. I think we could also add Betty's exasperated "You can't even hear me right now!" and Don's surprisingly self-aware "No, I can't."
Better late than never…..
PEGGY get the powder you don't want to return to work "greasy & calm".
Regarding "Singin in the Rain":
"The parallels don’t end there. Don Lockwood (Kelly’s character) worked his way up the ladder to the peak of his profession from very humble beginnings–starting with a song and dance vaudeville hobo act–and ends up leaving his blonde paramour, who he’s dating solely for appearances, for a demure, earthy brunette, although by that point, the comparison is stretching pretty thin."
Actually, I don't believe this is completely true. The Don Lockwood never really dated the Lina Lamont character. We only saw him escort her to two movie premieres. That's it. Other than that, he spent most of the movie refusing her romantic overtures and refusing to date her officially.
Another interesting thing is that the Don Lockwood character was the one who exposed the Lina Lamont character.
But who plays Cosmo Brown to his Don Lockwood? In previous seasons I'd say Roger, but at this point he's alone.
# # 417 debrika Says:
"Is it just me, or is Peggy starting to look slightly heavier again after losing her baby weight? I’m worried Duck has knocked her up."
I thought the same thing. In the final scene as she turned to go into Sterling's office to watch the funeral, she looked like chubby Peggy from S1.
I like Henry Francis, but is it possible he'll be indited for the liquor scandal that was mentioned on the radio in one of the early season three episodes?
I don't know where to put this, so:
Here are some random specs:
Office:
Sal and Joan will be re-hired in a kind of "La Ronde" plot twist, where everything winds up as it was at the beginning.
The antithesis of the end of season two – Don has a contract and winds up working for Duck.
Pete and Ken are back to their original positions. Duck grooms Peggy; she needs a mentor!
Home:
Betty's brother has contact with the stewardess and puts one over on Don and Betty re: house.
Don is offered some figurehead position on an advisory board of Lincoln Center or some museum and he and Betty join forces to become a power couple.
Connie dumps Don. Lucky Strike dumps SC, but under the new owners, they inherit some really neat clients.
I also thought the episode might take place in the future OR the past.