Mad Men - General Discussion

[sistermagpie]

22 hours ago, Melancholy said:

I think Don was *very* substantial. There are a lot of genuine feelings and opinions there. The issue is that it's mostly feelings that don't play well in society- pain, bitterness, anger, id, fear. Don affects a smoke-and-mirrors manner to play well in society- but the deeper substance is always there both fueling and then, undermining the image. 

Yes, it’s more that he doesn’t *want* to go any deeper, because that terrifies him. He tells Peggy that you can move forward and it will be like the past never happened, but in fact he’s haunted by his past. You see his past identity driving his actions all the time. He just doesn’t want to really integrate because his dream is to leave it all behind. He wants the surface guy he pretends to be to become real. That is, he doesn’t want to be shallow, but he wants to be that “good man” he poses as. But he can’t because he’s a very damaged person. Unfortunately it’s easy for him to run away from that because people keep treating him in ways that are based on how he comes across.

Edited February 6, 2017 by sistermagpie

[TigerLynx]

Don did leave it behind though, and not just by taking Don Draper's name.  Don was successful and respected in his profession, he had a wife and children who loved him.  Dick/Don came from nothing to be a top executive, partner and owner in an advertising agency.  However, for whatever reason, it was never enough.  I have no idea why Betty stayed with him for so long, but she gave Don a lot of chances, and he continued to cheat over and over again.  Even after the debacle of selling Sterling Cooper, then forming their own agency, then merging, and then being bought out again, and all the faux pas Don had made, there were still people in the advertising world that wanted Don Draper to work for them.

[qtpye]

Yes, it was this juxtaposition of a man who had everything you could want.  He was handsome, talented, charming, rich, and had a beautiful family.  Yet, he was totally miserable.  He was coddled by everyone around him as well.  Don could just disappear from work and he had a job and everything else awaiting him back home,  Heck the beautiful people in LA were dying to hang out with him and he rejected them.  I still remember that man walking up to him and inviting him to their world of shallow leisure and luxury.

Getting back to the topic of Don and Megan.  I remember when Anna's niece came around pregnant and it is the first time we see Megan actively jealous of another woman.  She pays her to go away.  Later that night Megan tries to seduce Don with the sexy dancing and a threesome, but it falls flat.  The long distance relationship would be hard for many couples, but it was the final nail in the coffin for Don and Megan.  They were complete strangers at this point with little in common.

[Melancholy]

I wouldn't say Don was coddled. I think a bunch of the characters were actually pretty demanding and hard on him. I could easily say that about Peggy, Megan, Bert, Joan, Cutler, even Pete and Roger in their way. While some complained that they wanted more emotional intimacy or a closer friendship, it was only on their terms- particular to Ted, Megan, Lane, Peggy, even the European nomads, ultimately Stephanie. 

Moreover, when people were being their most doormatty/suck uppy to Don while the audience was all "You going to take that crap from Don?" it didn't feel like coddling as in the indulging or over-protecting a man as you would a child. That's Roger. IMO, Don got away with crap because he was otherwise too necessary to cut loose without the wronged person making a sacrifice of their own interests or because people were hardcore seduced and loved/liked him too much to see straight. I think it was usually the former but in the critical relationships of Betty and his kids, it was the latter. The coddling lives in "That is a sensitive piece of horseflesh. He shouldn't be rattled" but that was also self interested but uniquely Pete. 

Edited February 6, 2017 by Melancholy

[qtpye]

20 hours ago, Melancholy said:

I wouldn't say Don was coddled. I think a bunch of the characters were actually pretty demanding and hard on him. I could easily say that about Peggy, Megan, Bert, Joan, Cutler, even Pete and Roger in their way. While some complained that they wanted more emotional intimacy or a closer friendship, it was only on their terms- particular to Ted, Megan, Lane, Peggy, even the European nomads, ultimately Stephanie. 

I was talking more about, how he could disappear for a long time and have a job still waiting for him because he is that talented.  Even the high officers and directors of my company would not be able to get with stuff like that.

The last season has him walking out the door, not telling anyone where he was going or what he was doing.  Peggy even explains to someone that, "he does this sometimes".  Don could disappear at will and have a walk about, but it never hurt him professionally.  I think we all dream of shirking off our personal and professional responsibilities to have an adventure, but that is not an option for most people.

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, qtpye said:

I was talking more about, how he could disappear for a long time and have a job still waiting for him because he is that talented.  Even the high officers and directors of my company would not be able to get with stuff like that.

Tom and Lorenzo made an interesting point about that in their Mad Style recap where they were talking about Don racing those cars in the desert. There he is looking awesome in his white tee-shirt and denim and they pointed out that most people would not be able to wander into a garage where two good ole' boys were working and have them let him drive their car, even if he offered to bankroll them. Don gets offered stuff because of what he looks like and how cool he naturally is.

But at the same time, of course it's not as simple as what that kid said to him, "You don't have character--you're just handsome." Because Don is talented. He's not just allowed to come and go because he looks the part. He can do it because he's valuable to the company. But still, the whole demeanor is part of it.

It's just that no matter how good-looking he is and how much he proves himself, *he* still feels wrong inside. If Don was somebody else he'd look at himself and think "If I was *that* guy I'd feel good about myself." But no, he'd still have all the same problems. 

[qtpye]

1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:

Tom and Lorenzo made an interesting point about that in their Mad Style recap where they were talking about Don racing those cars in the desert. There he is looking awesome in his white tee-shirt and denim and they pointed out that most people would not be able to wander into a garage where two good ole' boys were working and have them let him drive their car, even if he offered to bankroll them. Don gets offered stuff because of what he looks like and how cool he naturally is.

Loved Tom and Lorenzo and their fashion style analysis of this show was always a treat. 

I think one of the reason Don gets away with so much is that he pretends he can always run away.  Think if I introduced to to some people, you had to hang around for a week, that you knew you would never see again.  You might be more confident and cool then you usually are, because you have no stakes.  This is Don 24/7

Don ran away from his life once and he was always prepared to do it again, hence the money stash that Betty found in the drawer.

The problem is as his life progressed, he had more at stake and could not pretend that he could leave it behind, like he left Dick Whitman in the past.  Dick Whitman had nothing and Don Draper has everything.  Also, after Anna died, what does he run, too?  His sojourn into middle America was a disaster.  He could no longer fit in with these people with his money and polish.

He must have came to the understanding (I hope) during his coke epiphany, that he no longer had to run.  I doubt if he ever became great at relationships or stopped disappointing his children, but he probably finally accepted that he was Don Draper and there was no longer any reason to run.

[txhorns79]

Quote

But at the same time, of course it's not as simple as what that kid said to him, "You don't have character--you're just handsome." Because Don is talented. He's not just allowed to come and go because he looks the part. He can do it because he's valuable to the company. But still, the whole demeanor is part of it.

I think that's true.  We saw with SC&P that the other partners apparently let Don get away with a lot due to talent (missing meetings, dropping Jaguar without discussion, showing up at work whenever, etc.) until the Hershey meltdown pushed them too far, and he was given a time out. 

Edited February 8, 2017 by txhorns79

[Melancholy]

19 hours ago, qtpye said:

Loved Tom and Lorenzo and their fashion style analysis of this show was always a treat. 

I think one of the reason Don gets away with so much is that he pretends he can always run away.  Think if I introduced to to some people, you had to hang around for a week, that you knew you would never see again.  You might be more confident and cool then you usually are, because you have no stakes.  This is Don 24/7

Don ran away from his life once and he was always prepared to do it again, hence the money stash that Betty found in the drawer.

The problem is as his life progressed, he had more at stake and could not pretend that he could leave it behind, like he left Dick Whitman in the past.  Dick Whitman had nothing and Don Draper has everything.  Also, after Anna died, what does he run, too?  His sojourn into middle America was a disaster.  He could no longer fit in with these people with his money and polish.

He must have came to the understanding (I hope) during his coke epiphany, that he no longer had to run.  I doubt if he ever became great at relationships or stopped disappointing his children, but he probably finally accepted that he was Don Draper and there was no longer any reason to run.

I think this is all true. A lot of Don's biggest professional coups where he ends up dominating when  the suspense was ratcheted up (calling Pete on his blackmail, the "I don't have a contract" scene, the Shut the Door, Have a Seat gambit, getting Dow by yelling at their executive team) come from Don's Give No Fucks attitude that he doesn't need any of these people. He doesn't need to beg or suck up or compromise like many would to keep on keeping on this luxurious rarified life because none of it means that much to him. I think the audience gets a clue that actually Don Gives Too Many Fucks to up and leave when he doesn't go with the Euro-trash rich nomads but instead comes back home. I think the other SC&P characters get it after Don begs his job for back in S7. 

[Bryce Lynch]

Sally responding to Betty asking if she had asked Megan about Anna Draper with, "Daddy showed me some photos and they spoke very fondly of her." was probably my favorite moment of the series.  She was so smart to know exactly how to cut down her conniving mother without her even knowing she did it intentionally.

I am convinced this was the moment Betty's first cancer cells formed.

[Melancholy]

What do you mean about Betty's cancer cells?

I agree this was a great Sally moment but I always thought she cut down Betty intentionally. Sally knew Betty was jealous of Megan. Sally didn't know about the identity theft but she did get that Betty jealousy wanted to poison things between Don and Megan and the thought of them all sharing fond remembrances of this Anna that Betty regarded as a powder keg but Don sadly said helped him and he would have wanted Sally to meet her would drive Betty nuts. (Wow. Run on sentence.)

Spoiler

For another awesome Sally moment, Sally preferring to go to Megan's in Commissions and Fees and twisting a "She lets me EAT whatever I want" insult. I find basically all of the characters on this awesome show entertaining. However with Sally, there's really a particular guarantee that any scene where she's a focus is awesome.

Edited February 9, 2017 by Melancholy

[sistermagpie]

23 hours ago, Melancholy said:

agree this was a great Sally moment but I always thought she cut down Betty intentionally

I think they meant that Betty didn't know that Sally was intentionally sticking it to her, because there were no photos or signs of fondness, particularly. So Betty thought Sally was reporting it directly.

Spoiler

And that drove her so nuts the stress birthed the first cancer cell. LOL.

Edited February 10, 2017 by sistermagpie
For spoilers!

[NutMeg]

I dont like this conversation about first cancer cell, because it's horrible, but if you want to go there I'd say the first one was born before episode 1, when Betty unconciously realized that Don was gaslighting her. 

[Melancholy]

6 minutes ago, NutMeg said:

I dont like this conversation about first cancer cell, because it's horrible, but if you want to go there I'd say the first one was born before episode 1, when Betty unconciously realized that Don was gaslighting her. 

Not only is the "cancer cell" bit in poor taste, it's also spoilers for this thread. I understood each episode thread was just allowed to cover the events leading up to that episode to preserve spaces for new watchers. 

[NutMeg]

18 minutes ago, Melancholy said:

Not only is the "cancer cell" bit in poor taste, it's also spoilers for this thread. I understood each episode thread was just allowed to cover the events leading up to that episode to preserve spaces for new watchers. 

I'm sorry, I didn't realise when responding that this was not the all season thread. Very, very sorry for any spoiler :( If you haven't seen the rest of the series, I do envy you though, because you're going to go on one hell of a ride.

Sorry again, and in the future I'll check if I am indeed in the All season thread.

[Melancholy]

9 minutes ago, NutMeg said:

I'm sorry, I didn't realise when responding that this was not the all season thread. Very, very sorry for any spoiler :( If you haven't seen the rest of the series, I do envy you though, because you're going to go on one hell of a ride.

Sorry again, and in the future I'll check if I am indeed in the All season thread.

No, I was saying this to alert the monitor/inform the Original Poster who made the joke of the rules. By the time you responded, the cat was out of the bag with Bryce Lynch's comment. I've already seen the whole series. 

[NutMeg]

6 minutes ago, Melancholy said:

No, I was saying this to alert the monitor/inform the Original Poster who made the joke of the rules. By the time you responded, the cat was out of the bag with Bryce Lynch's comment. I've already seen the whole series. 

Right, I hear you. I'm happy to read you were not spoiled and as I said above I'll pay more attention in the  future which thread I'm replying to. 

[sistermagpie]

On 2/8/2017 at 8:00 AM, Melancholy said:

I think this is all true. A lot of Don's biggest professional coups where he ends up dominating when  the suspense was ratcheted up (calling Pete on his blackmail, the "I don't have a contract" scene, the Shut the Door, Have a Seat gambit, getting Dow by yelling at their executive team) come from Don's Give No Fucks attitude that he doesn't need any of these people.

Also, isn't that sort of what happens in season 4, how he starts off giving a bad interview because he doesn't want to talk about himself but then the reporter eats up his version of events where he was the lone hero throwing off McCann? People always wanted him to play the part. It just naturally came with a downside (and he wasn't actually a mystery man, just a guy who could bug you as much as anybody else).

[Athena]

Some posts have been moved into this thread from S5x09 Dark Shadows because they reveal whole series spoilers.

[Melancholy]

Random thought. Ted and Duck somewhat interact with what I believe are the main three characters (Don, Peggy, Pete) in similar ways. They're both disastrous love interests for Peggy. They're both on a roller-coaster of friend, frenemy, enemy, rival with Don and they battle with Don over company turf and even Peggy. And Pete goes through a period of "Maybe this guy is the mentor and role model that I NEED!" to "Jesus, this some pathetic guy and I'm annoyed to even hang around and risk contamination of his Loser-Disease."

Edited March 3, 2017 by Melancholy

[qtpye]

I was thinking of Don the other day, (Heinz was in the news for finally using his ketchup pitch) and I was thinking how all women ended op falling in love with him in some way (even if it was a crush/platonic/mentor figure role) like Peggy.  It kind of annoyed me after a while, until I realized why he never seemed to take any joy in his high desirability to the opposite sex (or to anyone for that matter).

He carried around the rejection of his step mother, who hated him and frankly called him a "whore child".  It seemed like she despised him, but not quite enough to throw him out on the street.  After his father dies, she takes him to the brothel to live with her.  This of course was not a good situation , but I thought it was interesting that she did not abandon him at an orphanage (not horribly unusual in this time period, Babe Ruth was abandoned in an orphanage by his father, but he is considerably older then Don).

One of the reasons his relationships tended to fail, is he was always looking for that maternal acceptance.  It is why Anna Draper was the true love of his life.  Only she could fill that void.

The only time that he was rejected was when he abandoned his work to at first look for the waitress (the weakest story line in all of Mad Men history) and then try to find Anna's niece.  When he gets there he finds the niece is bewildered to why the heck Don would think they had some kind of special connection.  I know many people have pointed out that the niece did not have that attitude when she reached out to Don for money after running away from a hippie commune.  My take was that she was pregnant and desperate....she always heard Don had money and thought it was worth a shot.  This does not make her a nice person, but he was probably her last resort.  Of course, Megan immediately could see why she would be a threat, in her pregnant radiance, and pays her a large sum of money to go away.  She is a little taken back, but not horribly unhappy, because Megan is giving her a lot of money for the time and that is what she needs.

I also want to talk about how Don ended things with Megan.  In his last contact with her, he writes her a check for one million dollars, which she silently accepts.  I was a little angry at the scene at the time.  I thought that Megan married him for his status/money, and though he was not a good husband to her, she basically lead the life of leisure she wanted.  I know she quit her soap opera job, but she would have never gotten that gig, if it were not for her husband casting her in a commercial.

I thought Don was much more awful to Betty, who I truly felt sympathy for.

Then I realized Don paying her off showed how little he cared about her.  It was like the secretary who was crying in the bathroom, who he offered money.  Don sincerely loved Betty (it was not just keeping touch for the children), but he really did not care about Megan at that moment, because he never really knew her.  He projected on her what he wanted and was disappointed that it did not pan out.   He fell in love with an ideal that only existed in his own head.  With Betty, he did love her, but was too damaged to truly be a good husband to her.

Edited March 24, 2017 by qtpye

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, qtpye said:

He projected on her what he wanted and was disappointed that it did not pan out.   He fell in love with an ideal that only existed in his own head.  With Betty, he did love her, but was too damaged to truly be a good husband to her.

Yes, so much about his relationship with Megan was *not* letting her know him or vice versa. Superficially it was the opposite since he told her about being Dick Whitman, but it was more like there was this big performance of how close they were and then once Megan completely destroyed the fantasy Don just threw a blanket over his head and stopped engaging in a lot of important ways. Don and Betty lived together long enough and raised children enough to at least get that everyday knowledge. Betty knew Don more than Megan even without Don telling her things. Like for instance, her line about him and money. Sure she didn't get the story of how he grew up a dirt poor kid, but after a while she knew that just from his behavior.

It's funny, because remember their trip to Rome where they both get into this fantasy of *not* knowing each other. It's that conflict at the center of the series, that people swing between wanting something unknown and new that holds infinite possibilities and wanting to be known. In the end the former always kind of leads to loneliness because there really is no magical connection between strangers that's the same thing as knowing someone.

1 hour ago, qtpye said:

I know many people have pointed out that the niece did not have that attitude when she reached out to Don for money after running away from a hippie commune.  My take was that she was pregnant and desperate....she always heard Don had money and thought it was worth a shot.  This does not make her a nice person, but he was probably her last resort.  Of course, Megan immediately could see why she would be a threat, in her pregnant radiance, and pays her a large sum of money to go away.  She is a little taken back, but not horribly unhappy, because Megan is giving her a lot of money for the time and that is what she needs.

Yeah, he's that "man with the checkbook" as her mother calls him. She was desperate, she knew this guy cared about her aunt--he was like family to Anna and so was very likely to help her. Megan's buying her off would do nothing to change that impression. Don probably would have wanted to do something more personal for Stephanie if he'd been there, but Megan blocks that connection. Later on Don's kind of desperately trying to create one that isn't there.

[qtpye]

2 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Yes, so much about his relationship with Megan was *not* letting her know him or vice versa. Superficially it was the opposite since he told her about being Dick Whitman, but it was more like there was this big performance of how close they were and then once Megan completely destroyed the fantasy Don just threw a blanket over his head and stopped engaging in a lot of important ways. Don and Betty lived together long enough and raised children enough to at least get that everyday knowledge. Betty knew Don more than Megan even without Don telling her things. Like for instance, her line about him and money. Sure she didn't get the story of how he grew up a dirt poor kid, but after a while she knew that just from his behavior.

 

2 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Yeah, he's that "man with the checkbook" as her mother calls him. She was desperate, she knew this guy cared about her aunt--he was like family to Anna and so was very likely to help her. Megan's buying her off would do nothing to change that impression. Don probably would have wanted to do something more personal for Stephanie if he'd been there, but Megan blocks that connection. Later on Don's kind of desperately trying to create one that isn't there.

The funny thing was that Megan went from this pure angelic mother figure to "lady I will pay off to go away" very quickly.

He thought he had his maternal ideal in a package pretty enough to be a model/actress.

Tom and Lorenzo (everyone should read their analysis about the fashion on Mad Men, even if you do not care anything about that stuff), pointed out a scene deep in the second marriage where Don is thinking about his trip with Meghan and the kids to Walt Disney Land.  The trip in which they supposedly fell in love.

Megan is in the passenger seat, wearing a head scarf smiling adoringly at Don,  and she is wearing earth tone colors.   The kids are singing happily in the back seat.  

Why is this important?  Megan has never dressed and presented herself in such a frumpy manner...never.  She has always dressed, at first, as the beautiful slightly European sophisticated glamor girl secretary.  Then later, she dressed in the expensive, but not flashy clothes of a rich man's wife.  Later, in LA, she had the clothes of a rich trendy bohemian dilettante, who did not want to advertise how wealthy she really was.

The truth of the matter was, when he told her about Dick Whitman...her thought was probably something along the line of "Who the heck cares what his true name is...the awesome Don Draper wants to marry me and I can quit my job as a secretary....yeah!  I am not saying that Megan was a gold digger.   She just saw, as anyone woman in her position (she was on the older side, for those days, to be unmarried and the acting career was going nowhere, and she did not have the drive to start as a secretary and work her way into a copywriter position) social and financial advancement in marrying Don.  It is obvious she would not be interested in this middle aged divorced man of three if he was a janitor.  When Don finally realized this, he felt duped, like he was one of the Jons at the whorehouse.  It was more his fault, but it robbed him of any love he thought he felt for her.

[Melancholy]

See, I don't think Don was paying Megan off to go away. They apparently reached an agreement and they were in the office to sign the papers. Megan was sour about it and was all, "I don't want anything from you. Let's just sign the damn thing! I want to be divorced ASAP!" Don decided to give her a million dollars, far more generous than the existing settlement, even though she was on her way out anyway. IMO, Don paid far more than necessary to get divorced to assuage his guilt. 

I think Don loved the version of Megan that both he perceived and that she presented in order to hook him. However, that was't Megan. A lot of that perception was tied in Don "loving" Megan for being a second chance. Don thought that was supposed to be Megan's role in his life. That could be some of the purpose of Megan's youth- it's good that Megan is 26 because it's part of the hypothetical where Don met her when he was 26 and there was nothing but a happy, virtuous future. But then, the fact that Don is actually 40 who lived a soap-opera messy life that also produced 3 kids keeps intruding into that fantasy. However, that "second chance" element is a big part of why Don indulges her so much in S7. It's done to assuage guilt. 

[txhorns79]

Quote

However, that "second chance" element is a big part of why Don indulges her so much in S7. It's done to assuage guilt. 

I agree.  I think Harry's comment to him about how Megan should have never quit her soap really got to him.  It's entirely his fault that she quit her job and ended up in California.  He made promises to her about a fresh start, then entirely reneged after she had already made plans.  He then proceeded to lie to her for months about his own job.  There was a lot of guilt over those things.   

[qtpye]

23 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

I agree.  I think Harry's comment to him about how Megan should have never quit her soap really got to him.  It's entirely his fault that she quit her job and ended up in California.  He made promises to her about a fresh start, then entirely reneged after she had already made plans.  He then proceeded to lie to her for months about his own job.  There was a lot of guilt over those things.   

You think there would be some guilt over the affair with Sylvia.  I often wondered why the heck Don had so much sex when he seemed absolutely miserable doing it.  When did he first cheat on Betty?  Did he ever feel any remorse for his affairs, particularly since he held his wife to such strict virgin/whore standards?

[txhorns79]

Quote

You think there would be some guilt over the affair with Sylvia.  I often wondered why the heck Don had so much sex when he seemed absolutely miserable doing it.  When did he first cheat on Betty?  Did he ever feel any remorse for his affairs, particularly since he held his wife to such strict virgin/whore standards?

I think he felt remorse over the affair with Sylvia, but only as it related to Sally.  I didn't get the idea that he gave Megan much thought as to that issue.  With Betty, the only time I think he was remorseful was when he was essentially caught, like with the affair with Bobbi.  And even then, he was only remorseful after initially denying anything had happened, and essentially abandoning the family for a few weeks.   

[voiceover]

The Audience channel started with S1, E 1 today.  It looks like it'll be one ep a day (I checked), so no bingeing.

I remember when Grease first hit theaters.  I was the age the characters were *supposed* to be.  We said, "They're SO OLD!"

Then when the re-release came out (15 years later?), I thought, "They look SO YOUNG!"

Kind of my reax today.  Here's a non-seedy, non-bloat-y Don!  Here's Peggy, looking like a virgin!  Even Roger looked about 20 years younger than the last time we saw him.

Ten years ago, my friends.

[Melancholy]

I also recently started re-watching from the beginning. (Not with Audience. I'm trying to hook a friend.) I didn't pick up this "Don is actually Dick and hiding who he is and can thus, project the same artifice on others" and "Sterling Cooper doesn't know who the hell it hires" foreshadowing at first.

The Marriage of Figarro

Pete: George Pelham over here, who is from research, and who has more degrees than a Russian protractor.

George Pelham (in an English accent): That's quite an introduction.

Rachel: From the other side of the pond, I see.

Don: We take his word for it.

Edited June 13, 2017 by Melancholy

[voiceover]

That second meeting over cocktails is a reminder -- to me at least -- that Rachel really was the only woman for Don.  Gaaaaahhhhhh!!!

Anna was the mother he never had, and Rachel was the mate.  And she figures out why in just a few moments.  They both twigged (she did it first; he recognized the truth of it) that the thing they shared was the sense of Otherness.

I didn't pay close enough attention to the first few eps, the first time around (frankly, I was a little bored early on, the first time around), and hadn't remembered that all the guys hit on Peggy.  Yuck.

[voiceover]

Eeeeyyyeeeuuuwwww, Glen!

It's like the moment in Blue Velvet when Lynch pans the camera down to the severed ear & the bugs.

[voiceover]

"How do you sleep at night?"

"On a bed made of money."

I love Don's comeback to that hipster douche.

[Inquisitionist]

The entire long scene of Don at Midge's "party" is fascinating and very quotable.  The "there is no big lie" line, Don getting high and saying he feels like Dorothy with the world turning into color ("The words, man.  You are good with the words."), and the topper as he leaves the party while the police are in the hallway ("You can't go out there."  "No, YOU can't.") are all fabulous in their pointed understatement.  Plus we get the hobo flashback.  Truly one of my favorite episodes. 

[voiceover]

I only watched one episode of Sons of Anarchy.  It was the first ep of the last season, and I'm not ashamed to admit, Charlie Hunnam in the previews drew me in.  It started after Jax's mom had murdered his wife, and I saw the flashbacks -- woah!  

So Maggie Siff played the Great Love of two AMC tragic heroes!!  There's gotta be a ton of useless Buzzfeed/Vox/Huffpo thinkpieces on *that*.

But I think she's terrific, and I'm not (very) jealous.

Just watched the ep where they finally do it -- on her narrow sofa, yet! -- and it's pretty much as I remembered: who knows if they were sexual equals but boy could they kiss!

[voiceover]

So: "Indian Summer" should be renamed "Dear Penthouse Forum:".

[film noire]

On 6/20/2017 at 8:08 AM, Inquisitionist said:

 ("You can't go out there."  "No, YOU can't.") 

Such a great moment. 

On 6/19/2017 at 6:46 PM, voiceover said:

"How do you sleep at night?"

"On a bed made of money."

And another.

And  yet another; the look between Don & Sally always stops me in my tracks -- and then both of them in perfect profile, mirroring each other -- so beautiful.

Edited June 27, 2017 by film noire

[Dev F]

So I've been away from Mad Men and these boards for a while (I missed everyone and their great commentary!), but recently I've been rewatching some random episodes, and for the first time I'm noticing some interesting resonances with a particular element of Dick Whitman's backstory.

Basically, we didn't learn until very late in the series about Don's time in the whorehouse -- specifically, about how, when he was a young boy laid up with a fever and basically abandoned by his family, one of his uncle Mack's prostitutes nursed him back to health, then molested him. There were a lot of complaints at the time that it was a dumb and pointless revelation, a generic "Don's childhood was tragically Dickensian!" revelation to add to the pile. But I always saw it as both hugely important and extremely specific: it's about laying out how Don came to see love and devotion, even of the maternal variety, as primarily transactional, as if no one could ever really love him unless he had something material to trade for it.

So it's interesting that in my recent rewatches, I've seen echoes of both that idea and the backstory that spawned it in much earlier episodes of the series:

1. Season 1, "Babylon": This is our only glimpse of the whorehouse setting itself prior to season 6, as Don falls down the stairs and has a flashback to the birth of his brother, Adam, with a bunch of women in nightgowns gathered around the birthing bed. I don't know if anyone realized it at the time (I think my guess at the time was that they were all members of some weird religious cult), but in retrospect it's clear that the women are Mack's hookers. But what I didn't notice until this viewing is what preceded the flashback: Don trips on the stairs because he's struggling to bring up Betty's breakfast in bed on Mother's Day -- which is both an echo of the maternal Aimee serving young Dick soup in bed before raping him, and a (perfectly normal) transactional moment in a marriage: You've been such a great mother, so today I'll pay you back by making you breakfast! And it fits with some of the larger character arcs in the episode, helping to explain why even when Betty tells Don how much she loves him and how desperately she wants to be with him ("It's all I think about every day"), he somehow finds it hard to accept.

Another minor detail: The series was never totally clear about the sequence of events in the whorehouse, so I'm not sure whether this even makes sense chronologically, but in the whorehouse flashback in "Babylon," there's one whore in particular who's more prominent than the others. She's blonde, younger and prettier than the others, and she eyes young Dick pretty intently as he picks himself up off the floor. I wonder if she's actually supposed to be Aimee.

2. Season 2, "For Those Who Think Young": Another holiday visited by the specter of the whorehouse, as Don meets Betty for a Valentine's Day tryst at a fancy hotel, where they run into Betty's old roommate with a much old man, and Don has to inform Betty that her friend has clearly became a call girl. On earlier viewings, I've mostly focused on what the encounter means to Betty -- how it forces her to confront the possibility of a more exciting life where's she's not just a good little wife and mother -- but I realize now that it likely influenced Don's reactions in the episode as well. I always got that this episode shows the danger of Don moving from his faux-cynical denial in season 1 (Oh, you really want me? Sure, whatever) to his realization at the end of the season that he wants the American Dream of belonging and family as much as anyone, how he ends up putting Betty on so high a pedestal that he has a hard time thinking of her as a sexual being. (Hence, his uncharacteristic inability to perform in bed during their Valentine's Day date.) But the whorehouse connection maybe helps explain why thinking of her as a sexual being has become particularly difficult -- because their chance encounter has prompted him to look at Betty in her sexy lingerie and think about her party girl ex-roommate, about Aimee. About the fact that he doesn't want his relationship with Betty to be some cheap, meaningless transaction, but he doesn't know how to think of sex as anything other than that.

This connection also lends additional meaning to Bobbie Barrett's role in the season. I've always seen her as Don's convenient hate-fuck, by which he exorcises all the negative feelings he refuses to admit into his relationship with Betty. (As Bobbie herself puts it, "I like being bad and then going home and being good.") But now I think she's more than just a convenient outlet who shares his need to get some on the down low; she's specifically a way for him to vent his rage at Aimee. Here's another woman who grabs his crotch and tells him she knows he wants him, and who tries to frame their relationship as a Be nice to me and I'll get my husband to do what you need tit-for-tat -- but this time Don can grab her right back, and sneer that he'll ruin her husband if she doesn't do what he says. She suffers for being Aimee, so Betty doesn't have to.

Another minor detail: It's probably purely coincidental, but I found it interesting that after Don fails to get it up for Betty, he decides to get room service for them, and the first thing he tries to order is "vichyssoise and a BLT on white toast." For some reason the moment inspired him to eat soup in bed . . .

3. Season 5, "Mystery Date": This one is the most obvious connections, and I can't believe I never put two and two together before. Like young Dick, Don is coughing and feverish, so he goes home to go to bed, where in his delirium he images a reenactment of Dick's molestation -- his old flame Andrea breaks in and, again insisting that she knows Don wants him ("I can feel you against me"), initiates sex despite Don's protestations. This time, having decided that Megan offers him the opportunity to escape the darkness of his past, he's even more vehement in his repudiation of what Andrea/Aimee represents, insisting "I'd better not see you again. You're not going to ruin this" before strangling the fantasy Andrea and stuffing her under his bed. But, echoing one of the other storylines in the episode, she ends up in the same position as the victim of serial killer Richard Speck who survived, indicating that this attempt to exorcise Aimee won't be any more successful than his previous. And, of course, Don ends the season realizing that he can't count on Megan to wave all his problems away, and begins season 6 actually dating his next Aimee stand-in: Sylvia Rosen, the maternal figure with the distinctive facial mole who gratefully accepts his transactional gestures when they have sex ("You found it in the cookie jar").

But unlike in season 2, he's only trying to hide this psychological fudgery from other people, not from himself. ("This didn't happen. [taps his temple] Just in here.") So for the first time, he's confronted with memories of the real Aimee, not just distant echoes and extremely veiled copies of her. And that's why, by the end of the season, he's finally able to work through some of the issues she provoked so long ago, providing his children, at least, with a real glimpse of their father and his past that isn't transactional at all.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Dev F
Tweaked the description of Sylvia, because her being brunet does not connect her to the blonde Aimee at all, duh. :p

[sistermagpie]

9 hours ago, Dev F said:

But unlike in season 2, he's only trying to hide this psychological fudgery from other people, not from himself. ("This didn't happen. [taps his temple] Just in here.") So for the first time, he's confronted with memories of the real Aimee, not just distant echoes and extremely veiled copies of her. And that's why, by the end of the season, he's finally able to work through some of the issues she provoked so long ago, providing his children, at least, with a real glimpse of their father and his past that isn't transactional at all.

I loved everything in this post! And it also made me wonder what you think about the whorehouse scene in Signal 30. Because I've also been rewatching eps with commentary (finally got that box set!) and I always remember Signal 30 as the moment where we, the audience, got our first real information about Don's backstory. I remember that when he told the madam that he "grew up in a place like this" everyone thought he was being metaphorical or something because we thought he'd grown up on a farm and didn't yet know that after his father died they had to leave.

Reading your post I thought about how that scene probably seemed unreal at that time because Don's so open and easy about it, casually sharing his backstory with this woman (an older prostitute who's running the place rather than being one of the hookers) and offering his opinions on the business when she asks if he thinks she should get a TV. 

That ep takes place when Don's feeling really good about Megan--he impulsively suggests they have kids after being at Pete's and looks at Pete in disgust when he sleeps with the prostitute, confidently claiming that if he'd met Megan first he never would have made the mistakes he made with Betty, etc. This, of course, after Don chooses to not sleep with anyone at the whorehouse. That moment also, it just occurs to me, is surprisingly open for Don in that while he might be looking down on Pete he's still openly seeing the connection between them. As Pete points out, he isn't scolding Roger (who Don claims isn't as guilty because he's "not happy"--presumably since Don has always seen Roger's marriage to Jane as bad and presumably now thinks he's suffering for it). Don very very rarely acknowledges parallels between himself and Pete but here he seems confident enough to not only admit to them but give Pete advice. (In season 6 he'll be back to distancing himself while cheating.)

So it seems like in this ep he feels confident enough in Megan being his savior to be open about himself in a couple of surprising ways. And yet, somehow he's still in denial because he's only being so open because he's feeling like he's found the answer. It's like him telling Megan that he's really Dick Whitman. It seems like a big step forward but somehow Don's still faking himself out. He's not laying himself bare about being Dick Whitman the way he does at the end of S6 with Sally (even though he's presumably not telling Sally the sordid details of his life).

Edited July 10, 2017 by sistermagpie

[film noire]

5 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

 It's like him telling Megan that he's really Dick Whitman. It seems like a big step forward but somehow Don's still faking himself out. 

I think that's because Don tells the one person in his life who truly doesn't care, and upon whom his duplicity had no (seeming) impact -- Megan has no investment in any of it, so it's like confessing to a stranger on a train -- and by confessing into what is essentially a void,  no consequences come from his admission to her.  Don's confession turns into the proverbial tree falling in the forest; it happened, but nobody heard it.

Edited July 10, 2017 by film noire

[sistermagpie]

5 hours ago, film noire said:

I think that's because Don tells the one person in his life who truly doesn't care, and upon whom his duplicity had no (seeming) impact -- Megan has no investment in any of it, so it's like confessing to a stranger on a train -- and by confessing into what is essentially a void,  no consequences come from his admission to her.  Don's confession turns into the proverbial tree falling in the forest; it happened, but nobody heard it.

Yes, it's really hard to imagine Megan reacting to Don's story any differently than she reacted to anything else about him. I'm sure she just saw it as somebody reinventing themselves, just as she'd tried to reinvent herself. She'd of course be sympathetic to the little boy who was unloved. She probably didn't have any strong feelings about desertion. (She does use it against him in Far Away Places and he flips out.)

It really is like a tree falling in that it doesn't even really seem to affect the relationship between Don and Megan deeply. At least it doesn't to me. There's the obvious, almost childlike moments of Megan referring to his birthday and the "Call your mother" line, but it never seems to make them more intimate to me. It's actually different than what we see with so many other characters who know his secret--or know some secrets--like Roger, Peggy, Pete and Betty. It's almost like because it comes so early in their relationship it doesn't give her as much insight as it could.

[qtpye]

17 hours ago, film noire said:

I think that's because Don tells the one person in his life who truly doesn't care, and upon whom his duplicity had no (seeming) impact -- Megan has no investment in any of it, so it's like confessing to a stranger on a train -- and by confessing into what is essentially a void,  no consequences come from his admission to her.  Don's confession turns into the proverbial tree falling in the forest; it happened, but nobody heard it.

 

11 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

Yes, it's really hard to imagine Megan reacting to Don's story any differently than she reacted to anything else about him. I'm sure she just saw it as somebody reinventing themselves, just as she'd tried to reinvent herself. She'd of course be sympathetic to the little boy who was unloved. She probably didn't have any strong feelings about desertion. (She does use it against him in Far Away Places and he flips out.)

It really is like a tree falling in that it doesn't even really seem to affect the relationship between Don and Megan deeply. At least it doesn't to me. There's the obvious, almost childlike moments of Megan referring to his birthday and the "Call your mother" line, but it never seems to make them more intimate to me. It's actually different than what we see with so many other characters who know his secret--or know some secrets--like Roger, Peggy, Pete and Betty. It's almost like because it comes so early in their relationship it doesn't give her as much insight as it could.

Don quest for the perfect maternal love in his wives always messed him up.  He really thought he had hit the jackpot with Megan.  He later realized Megan's supposed understanding about the Dick Whitman situation was mostly indifference.  Meghan might have some affection for Don, but she never loved him the way Betty did.  He was a handsome rich succesful older man and marrying him would make her life easier or so she thought.

Later when Don begins to realize that his vision of perfect maternal Megan, who also loves advertising was no more real then an actress he would cast to play the perfect mom in a cereal commercial, he felt like a fool and he was done with Megan for good.

He was very passive aggresive about the death of his second marriage.  He was out, but still left it to her to make the first move towards divorce.

[Melancholy]

1 hour ago, qtpye said:

He was very passive aggresive about the death of his second marriage.  He was out, but still left it to her to make the first move towards divorce.

One of my favorite Joan lines. "Men don't take the time to end things. They ignore you until you insist on a declaration of hate." Although while I think Don checked out of his marriage to Megan when he walked off the Beauty and the Beast set, he tried reviving it a bunch of times after The Crash. 

I also don't think Don told Megan much other than his parentage and real name and the military desertion that allowed him to take the Don Draper name. When he confesses to the vets that he killed his CO, it's like he's saying it for the first time. I never get impression that Megan knew about his whorehouse days. Don didn't recognize his first sex as rape until after The Crash. IMO, Don wasn't exactly telling Megan about his life for the therapeutic benefits of talking or because he thought Megan was owed all information. Based off what Don appeared to tell Megan and how they went on to barely discuss his past, it was like he was just telling her germane information that affects a wife on a practical level - that he's living out a crime, that there was a Mrs. Draper before Betty, and why his parents aren't around and haven't been for some time. His outlook for change was very limited. He just wanted to enter the marital contract with a cleaner conscience and avoid the fear of being found out about the ongoing identity crime and for Megan to have some perspective on his poverty issues and to know to back off on sensitive subjects. He deliberately turned away Faye- a psychiatrist girlfriend who was delving into the past instead of just leaving it there. 

Edited July 11, 2017 by Melancholy

[sistermagpie]

32 minutes ago, Melancholy said:

One of my favorite Joan lines. "Men don't take the time to end things. They ignore you until you insist on a declaration of hate." Although while I think Don checked out of his marriage to Megan when he walked off the Beauty and the Beast set, he tried reviving it a bunch of times after The Crash. 

Hee--that line popped into my head too. (It also made me think how it's funny that Richard ultimately is the one who pulls the plug on his relationship with Joan.)

33 minutes ago, Melancholy said:

He just wanted to enter the marital contract with a cleaner conscience and avoid the fear of being found out about the ongoing identity crime and for Megan to have some perspective on his poverty issues and to know to back off on sensitive subjects. He deliberately turned away Faye- a psychiatrist girlfriend who was delving into the past instead of just leaving it ther

Yes, it's really fascinating to figure out exactly what Don thinks he's doing with Megan. Because I think the way it's set up it's really clear that Megan represents him *stopping* the kind of self-reflection he'd started after The Suitcase. When things get stressful at work he literally rips out the pages of his diary to write his fake (but smart and effective) letter, then Faye gets supplanted by the easier Megan.

He tries, it seems, to pretend that there's something else going on. Like telling Peggy she reminds him of her because she has a "spark," but obviously Megan doesn't see him at all the way Peggy does and while Megan will certainly stand up for herself at times, she never, imo, reads him the way Peggy does. I mean, we know that one of the things that probably makes him think she's like Peggy--her passion for advertising--isn't real. 

Then he also spits out the basic facts about his life, something that in the past he's only done when he had no choice or felt really connected to someone, like with Rachel. So it's like he's taking a shortcut to intimacy and feels like he's being honest this time, but still doesn't seem to really get that it's not the facts that make people know him.

1 hour ago, qtpye said:

He later realized Megan's supposed understanding about the Dick Whitman situation was mostly indifference.

I love this because yeah, that really is what it is. Her blanket acceptance didn't signal a deep understanding. She wasn't Anna, the other woman who was immediately understanding because she was an outsider too. 

[film noire]

6 hours ago, qtpye said:

Don quest for the perfect maternal love in his wives always messed him up.  

Yes. And even his awareness of his behavior didn't help.  Don said he didn't want to make the same marital mistakes with Megan, only to have her end up as unhappy as Betty (which is the closest Don gets to ownership, imo). But he then -- frustratingly, as always with Don -- ends up doing and divulging with his second wife (who doesn't care) what his first wife needed (and desperately cared about).  He gives the gift of disclosure to the wrong woman in the wrong marriage, who has no idea the gift even matters.

Whereas Betty got it -- got the secrecy,  got that it hid something crucial in him, the real Don down in there somewhere she could never get to (no matter how many times he "looked at her like that",  that look always disappearing in the end) and she might have helped him achieve some kind of unity, if he'd told her.  She wouldn't have shied away, I don't think -- from shooting birds to climbing that final staircase as stoically as any existential hero facing a firing squad, she had the ability to chew glass and survive the cuts - and she may even have been intrigued by it: Betty Draper, International Wife of Mystery, no longer living a small suburban life when she wanted a world made of high glamour in Rome and the penthouse Megan ended up with.  He robbed Betty to pay Meghan the one thing Betty Draper yearned for, and never got: Don telling his wife the truth.

Edited July 11, 2017 by film noire

[Dev F]

On 7/10/2017 at 11:21 AM, sistermagpie said:

I loved everything in this post!

Aw, thanks!

Quote

And it also made me wonder what you think about the whorehouse scene in Signal 30. Because I've also been rewatching eps with commentary (finally got that box set!) and I always remember Signal 30 as the moment where we, the audience, got our first real information about Don's backstory. I remember that when he told the madam that he "grew up in a place like this" everyone thought he was being metaphorical or something because we thought he'd grown up on a farm and didn't yet know that after his father died they had to leave.

Yep, I remember it being really puzzling on first viewing. At that point we did know a little bit about the family having to leave the farm -- Don tells Conrad Hilton at the beginning of season 3 that he comes from "Pennsylvania by way of Illinois. We lost our farm, ended up in coal country" -- but I don't recall anyone putting two and two together after "Signal 30" and realizing that they must've moved from the Illinois farm to a Pennsylvania whorehouse.

Inside the story, I think it speaks to how deeply Don was repressing this aspect of his past. And I think it's interesting that the first time he mentions it openly is in the episode immediately after "Mystery Date," when he strangled his Aimee surrogate to death and insisted that he'd never have to worry about that shit again.

Quote

So it seems like in this ep he feels confident enough in Megan being his savior to be open about himself in a couple of surprising ways. And yet, somehow he's still in denial because he's only being so open because he's feeling like he's found the answer. It's like him telling Megan that he's really Dick Whitman. It seems like a big step forward but somehow Don's still faking himself out. He's not laying himself bare about being Dick Whitman the way he does at the end of S6 with Sally (even though he's presumably not telling Sally the sordid details of his life).

Exactly. Like you said in your subsequent post, Don's not really confronting his past; he's doing a shortcut version where he blandly confesses and his confessor assures him that it's no big deal and he doesn't need to worry about it anymore. That's how he uses Megan all season, and it's how the madam functions in "Signal 30": to deal with a bleak period in your past filled with loneliness and dehumanizing abuse of all kinds, just have a pleasant chat with a nice lady in an upscale brothel, give her some advice about TVs, and you'll be right as rain! It's not until season 6 that Don actually starts engaging with the whorehouse stuff in a meaningful way -- a way that has the potential to both wound him and heal him.

Speaking of those season 6 flashbacks, one thing that struck me when I rewatched all the young Dick material in the past few days is how much more baroque the whorehouse looks in season 6 than in its first appearance in season 1 -- and how much I prefer the original, more rugged aesthetic. In "Signal 30," he tells the madam that the establishment he grew up in "wasn't as nice; we called it a whorehouse," but season 6 makes it look pretty swanky, lots of brightly colored dresses and soft pillows and whatnot. In season 1, everything was more appropriately dumpy-looking, though I guess part of the reason was to not make it obvious that what we were seeing was a whorehouse. And I guess Don, too, would be soft-pedaling the whorishness of everything in his head at that point, but it seems weird that when he finally is ready to confront that aspect of his past, he would suddenly start to think of the place as the freaking Moulin Rouge.

My other big regret about this set of flashbacks is the final one, in which young Dick watches Uncle Mack toss a minister out on the street, and hears that "the only unpardonable sin is to believe God cannot forgive you." It seems like such a waste for this big religious moment to come without the involvement of Abigail, who's been the voice of misbegotten Christianity in Don's head this whole time. Why contrast a random one-off character with Uncle Mack, whose religious perspective has never been significant previously? Why not set Mack against Abby, the crass unbeliever vs. the smug believer, or the minister against Abby, the voice of religious forgiveness vs. the woman who once said of Communists, "They are souls, but they can't be saved"?

I've always suspected that the scene was sort of a "Ugh, let's make the best of what we've got" moment for Matt Weiner when Brynn Horrocks was unable to reprise the role of Abby for whatever reason. It's a shame, because this could've been a nice sendoff for the character, who never appears again and thus takes her final bow just beating the eff out of little Dick with a spoon in "The Crash."

Edited to add: One last thing I noticed when rewatching the flashbacks -- the sequence of the brothel scenes is actually clearer than I'd realized, as Abigail is very visibly pregnant when she and Dick arrive at Uncle Mack's place in "Collaborators", and very clearly not pregnant during the flashbacks in "The Crash." So the "Babylon" flashback must go in between them, meaning the blonde prostitute could certainly be Aimee. It's still weird, though, that the scenes in "The Crash" are so nonspecific as to timing; neither Adam nor Abby's sister are there to give us a sense of how much time has or hasn't passed. Did all of these take place within months of Dick and his stopmom's arrival, when Ernestine is still around and Adam is a baby? Or does it take place years later, once Ernestine is dead and Adam is a little older and has developed a relationship with his brother? Again, it's a shame Weiner didn't take this last opportunity to flesh out the backstory a little more.

Edited July 12, 2017 by Dev F

[film noire]

Off topic: I wish I could move all you guys over to the "I'm Dying Up Here" forum -- Melissa Leo is kicking all kinds of ass.

[Melancholy]

On 7/11/2017 at 11:52 PM, Dev F said:

My other big regret about this set of flashbacks is the final one, in which young Dick watches Uncle Mack toss a minister out on the street, and hears that "the only unpardonable sin is to believe God cannot forgive you." It seems like such a waste for this big religious moment to come without the involvement of Abigail, who's been the voice of misbegotten Christianity in Don's head this whole time. Why contrast a random one-off character with Uncle Mack, whose religious perspective has never been significant previously? Why not set Mack against Abby, the crass unbeliever vs. the smug believer, or the minister against Abby, the voice of religious forgiveness vs. the woman who once said of Communists, "They are souls, but they can't be saved"?

I've always suspected that the scene was sort of a "Ugh, let's make the best of what we've got" moment for Matt Weiner when Brynn Horrocks was unable to reprise the role of Abby for whatever reason. It's a shame, because this could've been a nice sendoff for the character, who never appears again and thus takes her final bow just beating the eff out of little Dick with a spoon in "The Crash."

See, that worked for me. The "I'd tell you to go to hell but I never want to see you again" is one of my favorite lines. The random preacher in the flashbacks worked as a contrast to the random preacher in the present day. Don is more likely to react to a random preacher like Uncle Mac than like Abigail- aggressive, irritated that this is cutting into sinning-time, and somewhat correct that the preacher is annoying. 

I also think there's an effectiveness that Abigail's Christianity wasn't delved into. She came in strong in the early season flashbacks as a devout Christian who made everything about bible-thumping and judging others. Then, we see in S6 that she shacked up with Uncle Mac, husband of her sister, but still acted like she was above the prostitutes and could treat Dick like dirt because he was a son of a whore/"had sex", and still spoke with religious tones like naming Adam. I don't believe that she ever expressed to anyone, let alone in front of Dick, how she reconciled her whorehouse life of sleeping with her sister's husband with her purity obsessions and opinions that entire swaths of humanity were irredeemable for having different opinions. That all made Don particularly furious at her, beyond anyone else. Based on her circumstances (brought up to expect life as a horseshoe, cruel husband, facing poverty and starvation, serial miscarriages), there may well have been a more 3D Abigail to understand even though child abuse can't be excused. However, since she never gets into where she's coming from, she's just rendered a monster. To that end, she's a cautionary tale for how others see Don. 

[voiceover]

*skims thread*  Wow.

What a supercute dress Joan wore today!

[Dev F]

On 7/13/2017 at 1:27 PM, Melancholy said:

See, that worked for me. The "I'd tell you to go to hell but I never want to see you again" is one of my favorite lines. The random preacher in the flashbacks worked as a contrast to the random preacher in the present day. Don is more likely to react to a random preacher like Uncle Mac than like Abigail- aggressive, irritated that this is cutting into sinning-time, and somewhat correct that the preacher is annoying.

It is a good line, and I agree that the point was to confront Don with how much he's become like Uncle Mack. In fact, it's essential to his arc for the season -- to go from Aimee warning young Dick, "Little boy, find your own sins; stay away from Mack's," to Aimee's molestation and its aftermath guaranteeing that Mack's sins will become Don's own, to this scene, in which Don finally confronts the full weight of what Mack has bequeathed him, not just a fucked-up sense of love and sexuality but a despairing belief that he could never be un-fucked-up. And that in turn leads him to do whatever he must to stop Ted and his own daughter from inheriting his sins, before it's too late for them as well.

My issue with the scene is the one I have with a fair number of moments in the later seasons of Mad Men -- that I understand intellectually what it's getting at, and it's well constructed and psychologically sound, but it just doesn't hit on an emotional level the way it could, because it relies on clever symbolic parallels instead of on the visceral reactions of characters we've come to care about. It's basically a scene where Don remembers his young self watching his uncle yell at a character we've never seen before or since about theoretical religious issues. That's like, four full degrees of separation away from a punch in the gut.

In fact, it feels like such a missed opportunity that it's one of the very few times over the life of the series that I find myself imagining how else the scene could've gone (something I find myself doing constantly on lesser shows -- oh, hello, Game of Thrones :D ). Like, what if it had been a scene between young Dick and Mack in the aftermath of Abigail's beating as seen in "The Crash"? We could see Mack trying to comfort Dick, thus paying off Don's strange comment back in season 3 that his uncle "was nice to me." And in doing so he could convey his cynical materialism to Dick himself instead of to some random preacher, and we could see how it leads Dick away from his stepmom's infuriating devoutness and toward Don's own contempt for religion. A scene like that would make it easier to not just get what Don is going through but to feel what he's going through, because we know that Uncle Mack matters to him and can influence him in a way that random preacher doesn't and can't.

Edited July 18, 2017 by Dev F

[small potatoes]

2 hours ago, Dev F said:

We could see Mack trying to comfort Dick, thus paying off Don's strange comment back in season 3 that his uncle "was nice to me."

I've always wanted it explained, as well. For lack of an explanation, though, I took him to mean in comparison to the way he was treated by his father and stepmother. Compared to those two sorry, abusive people, Uncle Mack was nice to him. It's a sad commentary. 

But I don't see Mack as the type to offer comfort and I think the infuriating devoutness of his stepmom, by itself, was plenty to fuel his contempt for religion.