Mark called Peggy old-fashioned. He thinks she’s a virgin. She’s not. Peggy hasn’t just had one bad affair gone very, very wrong, but she’s had dirty sex with an older man in broad daylight. It stung her to be called old-fashioned. The lie she’s telling him stung her, maybe some sadness for the old-fashioned girl she used to be, and maybe anger at Mark for needing her to be something she just ain’t.
The next day, she lets it out all over Freddy Rumsen. Everything she said to him was correct, but it was cruel. You’re old-fashioned, (I paraphrase from memory) she says to him, disgusted.
Last week in Public Relations, we watched Don not say to Betty and Henry, You people get the hell out of my house. In the very next scene, Don told (soon-to-be former) clients to get the hell out of his office. The scenes between Peggy and Mark right into Peggy and Freddy felt like a similar thing. Only this time it was herself she was yelling at, herself she was disgusted with; her own dissatisfaction with the role she’s set herself up to play for this boy that she cannot stomach. (I’m saying she can’t stomach the role, not the boy.)
But what was clear in Christmas Comes But Once a Year was that Don Draper is the most old-fashioned of all, and it is really starting to show. And it is not his prettiest look.
I love the writing on Mad Men so, so much. One little comment from the side can reveal so much about a character. Henry’s mother referring to Betty as “a silly woman” (in PR) gave me so much insight–reminded me once again that this isn’t like other television. That the reasons I don’t much like Betty or respect her are valid–I’m not the only one who feels this way. She is starting to look like a ridiculous person to people who meet her. And last night, Joey called Don pathetic. ohh!… interesting. And then of course, the scene with Allison. Suddenly Don is a dinosaur. Drunken, pawing his secretary. This is who he’s become. He didn’t act on Phoebe’s advances. Phoebe, I gotta tell you, and despite her nurse’s uniform from way back when (oh right, way back then), feels like the future. And at this moment Don ain’t going for that.
Folks, it’s only episode 2. This is where we are. But this is Mad Men, and I have a lot of faith that this is not where we stay.
62 Responses to “I’ll have an old-fashioned”
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#45 jd…So am I and I'm starting to dislike this season with a vengence. Apparently Weiner & co. have decided that every character on the show has to be miserable 24/7. Wonder what humiliation they will dream up for Ken C.?
After a very ho-hum start to season 3 it did bounce back with the last few eps especially "Close the Door…", that was one of my favorite MM eps of all time, and I had really high hopes for S4.
Mr. Weiner if you're reading this you had better get this season in gear. Right now it's just boring. You can't convince everyone that a rotten egg smells like a rose forever.
#51 — it's not boring. It's fascinating how such a slow pace, so much can happen to advance the plot.
No, he's not "Dapper Don" this year, is he? He's losing his Mo-Jo, but I think he'll get it back in Acapulco. Remember when he went to California and disappeared with the swinging jet setters? He needs an escape like that.
#52 I liked "jet Set" very much…it is one of my favorite eps. It had some dash and flair as well as some mystery and we learned new things about Don/Dick when he was in Cali.
Having Allison hook up with Don didn't advance the plot one bit IMO. It only pulled another character's life down into the blackness. It wasn't necessary at all. We already knew that Don was becoming pathetic and that Allison obviously felt pity for him at the begining of the ep. Allison's character has always been a breath of fresh air(Trudy too) on a show that is growing so pitch black that it's just depressing to watch.
I had such high hopes that after last season's finale the show would go in a whole new direction, become lighter, give us some positive energy. I guess no one should expext that MM could stay on their great run forever but Mr Weiner has let the show down creatively…more of the same old gloom and doom, IMO, IS boring. The show is getting so creapy that it's turning into a bad horror movie instead of great TV. Making ALL of your characters suffer isn't "art" it's just unimajinative writing.
#27 Jimmy:
Also, why does everyone keep saying it’s his first Christmas alone? Betty was Reno bound with Henry and baby in tow before Christmas of ’63.
I assume Don spent last Christmas with the Sally & Bobby, either in Ossining (probably) or at his new apartment (less likely). There's just no way he would have left them alone with Carla while Betty was in Reno. So, I think this really IS his first Christmas alone, made all the more painful knowing that Betty and Henry are spending Christmas Day with his kids.
I appreciate where they're taking Don this season — I think they really had to show him in complete despair. I just hope it isn't a 12-episode trip straight down the elevator shaft before we get a little redemption. I don't think I can take it. And Roger's going to have to be really damn funny to make up for that.
Peggy is the new "Don Draper".
I find it interesting that for so many folks the tension was rooted in "When is Don/Dick going to be found out?" Including me. But when it was all said and done…when Pete tried to unmask him, when Betty got wise…no one really seems to have cared all that much. Nothing happened that probably wasn't going to happen anyway. Tide/All/Gain/Cheer…no matter what label you slap on it, it's more or less the same thing. As long as the wash gets clean, who cares. Bert Cooper didn't really care whether it was Dick Whitman or Don Draper or Donald Duck who was handling his accounts. For Betty, the unmasking was just one more lie in a long string of dishonesty.
Now Peggy on the other hand…I think she's woven a more fragile web than Don ever really did. I can think of so many ways this could all come tumbling down for her. Dick more or less "created" Don Draper…and fiction isn't really lying, is it? Peggy…well, she's just lying.
I've always felt the first 4-6 episodes of the season are the set up for the rest of it. I'm not too bothered by the fact that I'm not adding to my list of favorite episodes, because I know the pay-off is right around the corner.
I'm LOVING this season so far…. Just had to add that after reading some of us are not.
Hear hear miss steere! I am enjoying this season too! It is full of possibilities.
Had a couple of thoughts about Betty: Having married a well-bred advisor to Nelson Rockefeller, shouldn't she be more of a society doyenne by now? She was heading in that direction with all the charity work when she was still married to Don (which of course is how she met Henry in the first place). Now that she's Mrs. Francis, she doesn't seem to be doing much of anything (besides torturing poor Sally). Yes, Sally, who's headed into anorexia-bulimia territory, which can almost always be traced to a gal's issues with her mother … Sally, who will definitely end up smoking pot and dropping acid in the Village in just a few short years! That's thought number one. Number two, Henry's mother at first seems to be one of those uber-WASPy Connecticut women (or is it Westchester where she lives?) … If you knew any WASPs growing up, you know there's an emotional detachment factor. My WASPy friends' parents knew me, the Jewish gal, for years and years, and still didn't know my first name. That kind of thing. Maybe it was all the gin & tonics, or the lack of flavorful food in the house. My point is, Henry's mother seems to be one of those emotionally absent, Mr. Magoo-ish women – at first – but that line to Henry when she finally gets him alone: "They're terrified of her" – is SO telling. She doesn't miss a trick and has totally picked up on the fact that the kids (really just Sally, since Bobby is such a little ass-kisser who wants to please everybody) are scared of and hate their mother.
Gypsy, spending time with his kids, which every time we've seen in the past involves them sitting in front of the TV while Don does something else should not strike anyone as being "with" them. If having a physical proximity is all Don's craving that's infinitely pathetic.
Your longstanding Betty hate is…well. Interesting, I guess. You take the verdict of one character as a validation of your interpretation?
I've always felt this show presented Betty and Don as equally flawed. If it moves away from that, I'm done with this show.
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