small potatoes

I stand corrected.

I see your point, but the character's name is Shy and Fats Domino was known for his shyness. It's mentioned in the first paragraph of his Wiki profile. Also, there was some banter between Midge and Susie along the lines of I thought he was supposed to be fat. On second thought, though, Fats Domino would have been playing piano, and Shy Baldwin was straight up crooning like Johnny Mathis.

Shy Baldwin was based on Fats Domino. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ardeW1HPhH0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fats_Domino

When Joel and Midge are riding on the carousel talking about divorce, the background music is The Carousel Waltz, the theme song from the musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein. (I'm more familiar with it as part of the intro to Tunnel of Love by Dire Straits). Carousel is about an abusive husband and a wife who makes apologies for him. I wondered if that was ASP's way of foreshadowing that Joel might actually turn into a wife beater. Watching him beat up on the heckler at the end of the episode reinforced the idea. http://www.vulture.com/2018/04/rodgers-and-hammersteins-carousel-after-metoo.html

I read Dare Me recently, and I found it very frustrating. There weren't any details about the sports they were supposed to be cheering for. Did the football team win? Were they any good? What was the score? Was it cold outside in their skimpy cheerleading outfits? Those were bigger mysteries than the murder.

Great post. I'm intrigued by your last paragraph. Aside from Roger liking acid, what were some of the adaptations that surprised you?

Nice catch!

I agree. It would have made a great finale.

Yes on both counts. That's exactly what I was thinking.

I love the scene in The Color of Money when Eddie gets hustled by the character played by Forest Whitaker in a very early role for him. As one of the reviewers on IMDB put it, you can see "a history of the man's failures" written on Newman's face. As mentioned, the Tom Cruise character isn't in the book, which is a slow-paced mainstream novel. One of the chapters has Eddie settling down with a University professor and helping her open an antique store. He combs the Kentucky hills searching for antique quilts to resell. Walter Tevis also wrote The Man Who Fell to Earth, which was made into the movie starring David Bowie.

Random Harvest is one of my all-time favorites.

I agree about Peyton List, and it's too bad because I really like the story line.

Well, the whole situation was a demeaning job, except that I would call it a position, and I'm not sure how demeaning it was. Better yet, I would call the marriage a business partnership, one in which Don ultimately felt Megan deserved her share of the profits in addition to the many benefits she had already received.

I like your use of "performative" in this context, and your description of the marriage.

Yeah. I think it's important to acknowledge this. It's not like Don robbed her of her youth and innocence. I disagree. I don't think he rewarded her for pouting, or simply out of guilt. I think he straight up paid for her services, with a generous bonus. It was Severance pay.

That's interesting. Thanks for pointing it out. It would be nice if the show creators acknowledged the influence of the movie.

Me, too. I liked it. Reminded me of Freaks and Geeks.

Another example of a mentally rehearsed speech occurs in Severance when they meet in the lawyer's office and Megan tries to act like the injured party.

Whenever it was that he decided he was through with her didn't come soon enough. It was probably about the same time he had his tooth pulled. MegaDon is so much easier to watch in Season Six because Don isn't faking it anymore. They're much more natural together when they're not trying to convince themselves, and the world, that they have this once in a lifetime romance.

No. I'm not saying that. I don't think either Don or Dick thought of her as a Madonna, and Don could have had a cast of thousands if he merely wanted a secretary with benefits. It was as if Don Draper picked out a wife and forced Dick Whitman to fall in love with her.

Megan was more than a secretary with benefits. She was a walking advertisement for SCDP. Did you hear about Draper? Married his secretary. Have you seen her? Va Va Va Voom. On another forum, a poster suggested she was Part Two of The Letter. Thanks.

Most of what I'm talking about happened in the episodes leading up to Tomorrowland. She hand-delivered Beatles tickets, demonstrating competence. She comforted Sally. She put out for him the first time they were alone together in a room. She was already a well-thought out option. The way I see it, he made the decision to marry her, but in order to marry her -- to satisfy his inner Dick Whitman, his superego, or whatever you want to call it -- he had to fall in love with her first. That's what happened in Tomorrowland. Don and Megan went through the motions of falling in love, because you can't just pay a woman to be your wife. On some level, I think, Don was aware of this and repressed the thought. When he finally admitted that Megan had been a business decision all along, he felt compelled to reward her generously, as if she had been a minor partner or a valued employee. It was severance pay.

This has all been said many times before by other posters on this and other forums and it's true. Megan was the easy option and made him feel good about himself. I like the way you expressed it, particularly the idea that he felt relieved. But relief isn't love, and neither is preferring one woman over another because she's easier. And marrying that easy woman in 2.5 seconds isn't about love, either. It's about desperation. I agree. That's his hope. And that, too, is different from falling in love.

I don't think Don ever believed this. He didn't think Megan would solve all of his problems; he thought getting married would solve some of his immediate problems, and Megan was the best candidate for the position. She provided eye candy for social functions, maternal instincts for his children, and a willingness to slap him around some in bed. She was perfect for the job. Once he decided to marry her, he set about proving to himself and the world that she was the great Love of his life, but he knew better from the start. That's why Megadon was so painful to watch. He was faking it. He put everything he had into faking it but he could never entirely convince himself. So, really, Zou bisou and orange sherbet didn't so much remind Don that there were problems in the relationship or that Megan was a separate person with her own needs, as much as they reminded Don that he was faking it.

These are not the first seeds of doubt. Don has never been comfortable in the marriage. The Zou Bisou scene is a pretty obvious example. I like what you said up-thread, that it was as if he cast her in the role of his wife. I've always seen it that he hired her for the position. But Dick Whitman couldn't allow himself to do anything as cynical as marrying for convenience. That would have been too close to exchanging sex for money. Before he could get married, he had to be in Love, and we had to watch him brainwash himself into believing Megan was the great love of his life.