This was a great rundown but I didn't really love this episode either and kinda agree with your first post. There is a lot going on here and this was a very "heavy" episode but heaviness is not what I like most about the show. So even though that analysis was spot on it didn't make me like the episode any more but it did make me appreciate it a little more.

Thoughts on Episode Seven Twenty-Three

- I didn't like the the story-telling layout of this one simply because it somewhat ruined the "surprise" of the Peggy and Duck hook-up.

- I felt bad for Don this episode - he never gets to sit in the chair in his own office, first Hilton takes it then Cooper. And I really believe that SC is scamming Don about the employment contract - I don't think Hilton or his lawyers really said anything about it. I think they would just naturally assume that Don already had a contract with SC that they wouldn't even think to check. I think that SC was worried (rightfully so) that Hilton would try to steal Don away from SC so they wanted to get Don nailed down. Also, Cooper is a master strategist - he's held onto Don's secret since Season 1, I believe. I think Don is going to be seriously pissed when he finds out about all of these machinations (and for god's sake, don't try to talk to him THEN, Peggy! You'll end up sleeping with Cooper or something. )

- Betty, Betty, Betty. I can't tell if she is really actually attracted to governor man or not. She's so icy sometimes that she's hard to read. It was quite funny seeing her on that huge, gaudy fainting couch though.

I wanted to post part of a review of the episode I found on this blog since we were discussing the Don Draper/Dick Whitman dichotomy earlier ITT:

-There also seems to be a general consensus that Sally's teacher, Ms. Farrell, is going to turn psycho on Don once they begin their affair. She certainly changes moods quickly enough...and unfortunately, our dear Don seems intrigued.

-Poor Don. He just can't accept the fact that he'll never be a hobo and/or hitchhiker and he can't stop romanticizing them. I loved the scenes with the flashbacks to his father - or maybe that's really supposed to be Don's own conscience talking? "You grow bull****" was a great line.

-I'm still grossed out by the Peggy and Duck hook-up. I'm gonna need another week before I can really talk about it.

Season 3: Episode 8 - The Souvenir

Hopefully, this episode will garner some more sympathy for Betty...or maybe not. It was good to see some other sides to her - and for Don to see it. But it seems like Betty can never really be happy unless she's in some sort of fantasy state as the mundane problems of the real world are too irritating to her. Her little speech to Sally about the "shadow kiss" was interesting considering she just had her first kiss with Mr. Governor-man. I wonder if she's going to be able to resist temptation. I felt a twinge of pity for Don at the end of the episode when Betty turned cold on him after he'd given her that charm for her bracelet. I thought that was a thoughtful gesture on his part, but she pretty much rebuffed him. Ack, she's so so so hot and cold...it would be very frustrating to live with someone like that.

And Pete. What in the heck are you thinking Pete? At first, I actually bought into the whole - "I'm being a very nice neighbor to the domestic help" act of Pete's but I should have known. He's another one who's very child-like as it seems he must absolutely have Trudy around every second or he's going to do something naughty. I can't quite tell what he feels for Trudy - do you think he actually loves her or not?

And JOAN! We got to find out what happened to you. I wonder if it would have been seen as a "step-down" for her to have gone from working in the office to working as a manager in a woman's department store. It seems like it would be a good fit for her though - she's diplomatic, has a lot of fashion sense, and is diplomatic....

Interesting character development episode...I never really realized how similar Betty and Pete's characters are until they juxtaposed them like this.

Not from me. I thought she was typically icy. I suppose it's a measure of how good an actress January Jones is, because really dislike Betty.

That was my favorite part of the episode. I thought that speech could be interpreted in many ways.

You definitely should have know. I never thought Pete was just being nice, though I didn't anticipate he was going to force himself on the girl either.

And maybe you can add Sally to that category. Sally, Betty and Pete all gave into temptation somewhat, and deceived others afterwards. And they all involved a bit of fantasy.

I must say that I didn't really enjoy this episode as much, because it was too much about Betty and not enough of the office characters were there. My wife loved it, though, particularly the attention to detail.

Hey, what about that ridiculous haircut Betty sported in Rome?

the way they show how Pete interacts with Trudy is brilliant. i mean that whole sequence of him coming back from work and she had just set the table for dinner is so eye-opening.

I really enjoyed this episode, especially the parts where Tony chooses business over sex with the female don and Christopher gets heavy into smack. I think Furio is going to be totally badass.

You mean her updo? You didn't like how big and glorious it was? It reminded me of Audrey Hepburn's final 'do in My Fair Lady.

I was reading a blog that discussed how they think Betty will be done with Henry, the governor's man, now since his plan to delay the city's plans for the reservoir didn't work...anybody else agree?

The hair was spot on perfect for an early 60's in Rome vibe.

The next week preview sort of hinted that she does get together with him but those previews are cryptic and usually presented to misdirect. But she used a line to Don about the postponing thing sort of implying to us (the audiance) that she had postponed the inevitable with the goveners man.

To answer your question, I don't know? The Betty character is tough to read and the character is starting to annoy me. I greatly enjoy looking and January Jones though

I realize the haircut was perfect for the time and scene; I was just mocking it for fun.

I thought the preview was more cryptic as to whether they get together or not. My guess is that the relationship will not end up going any farther.

That was Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. My Fair Lady was 1964.



Was hoping Pete would be more likable. Thought they would give him a Seven Year Itch moment. But no, he was just a rapist.

AAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

I can't even process this latest episode because now Don Draper is strongly associated with PETE CAMPBELL in my head.

NO DON SAY IT AIN'T SO.

I hope that's not the last we've heard of Sal. He is a great character (and the actor who plays him is terrific).

I didn't understand anything on this episode.

First off, no woman was running in the dark in 1963. The mini running boom started in 1972 after Frank Shorter won the Olympic Marathon. Boom died, the running shoe for the masses running on city streets hadn't been invited yet.
Didn't understand Connie insisting on including the moon in the Hilton ad campaign. He must be kidding!?
How did Jr. from Lucky Strikes know Sal was gay?

I agree with you on the running thing, but not the other points. I assume that there is some historical basis for portraying Connie as eccentric. And even if there is not, it's good for dramatic purposes. Besides, the moon bit served a nice purpose of showing how Don at the whim of the client.

I also think it's ok to assume that the Lucky Strikes guy picked up a signal from Sal during the course of their long day of shooting the ad, even if we did not see it on camera.

Thoughts from Season 3: Episode 9: Wee Small Hours

OK, I think I'm sufficiently calmed down from earlier to talk about this episode now.

Poor Sal. Poor, poor Sal. Don turns out to be not as unprejudiced a character as people assumed he was. He even said "you people" to Sal...it was heart-breaking to watch Sal's face when Don fired him. The actor who plays Sal did it perfectly. (It was funny at the commercial shoot earlier though when Pete took a drag on the Lucky Strike cigarette and spent the rest of the scene coughing in the background. He's such a tool. )

I was very worried for Carla. I thought for sure that Betty was going to try and fire her because she walked in on Betty and Henry. I like how the show is introducing Civil Rights movement into the atmosphere of the characters. They understand it purely in ideological terms and an issue strictly concerning the South rather than looking at their own actions and how they treat African-American people in their own immediate vicinity. It's such a superficial sympathy.

Betty, Betty, Betty. So I was definitely wrong in thinking that she would forego pursuing Henry based on the last episode. Her reaction to the appearance of the woman speaker at her fund raiser was classic, rude Betty. And then when she took the money to Henry, I couldn't believe she actually didn't have sex with him. It's like Betty wants to be like Don and have affairs with whoever happens to catch her eye...yet, she wants something more from her affairs than Don does. Don seems to be perfectly happy with the temporary nature of an affair while it seems like Betty wants a more permanent affair in the sense of something that would completely destroy her marriage and lead to a new life for her. Or maybe that's just me reading too much into it...

Damn you, Don. When you showed up at the teacher's house, I started to get queasy because your words and actions were very, very, very similar to Pete Campbell's last week with the au pair. Ewwwww. And this is the first time I thought of Don's own actions as kind of childish. It seems like he started up this affair in part because of the fact that he got severely reprimanded by Hilton. He needs some sort of distraction from the frustrations of his real life so he starts up an affair instead of - oh, I don't know - directly addressing his real problem, which is the eccentricity and lack of boundaries of Conrad Hilton. Don needs to draw a line in the sand with Hilton and not keep pandering to his every whim imo...what do you guys think?

I did enjoy the fact that by the end of the episode, Don was in same position as Sal had been earlier: getting burned by the whims of a client.

I think these are pretty much the standard differences between why men and women cheat. Women are into the attention; men just want some strange (until it stops being strange and then we move on).

Don's behavior is, and has always been, somewhere between childish and cowardly (if there is much difference between the two). He unleashes his misfortunes on those around him and he runs from responsibility. He is not an enviable man. He is not much of a man at all.

----------------------------------
I had a major problem with the reintroduction of the Roger/Don conflict last week.

Roger knows Don; he is perhaps his closest (only?) friend. Roger knows that Don is a very private man - one who is inclined to do things like disappear to California for weeks.

Roger also knows people; everything in the show has portrayed him as the master accounts man. His only suspect people judgment has come in the arena of women, a very standard male inadequacy. However, when it comes to business, Roger is a master.

For Roger to involve Betty in the contract process:

1) coming on the heels of his recent conflict with Don for meddling in his private affairs
2) knowing Cooper had and was willing to play the gin card
3) knowing the general distaste any man (and especially this man) has for involving his spouse (and the probable subsequent nagging) in business affairs

was out of character and generally baffling. This was a scorched earth move for their friendship and Roger should have (and would have) known it.

It did not seem like payback and there was poor business motive established. This move would have made more sense if they hadn't sold the company; why is Don's contract a big deal now? The entire contract play was out of place and weak, though I expect this to be revisited and clarified.

It's 1963. Not many people were aware of the gay presence. Don seems less uptight over gays than the boys in the office.

How does anyone know anyone is gay? Gaydar existed before there was a word for it and Sal has consistently been portrayed as a fancy man.

I dunno...this doesn't really feel like an adequate rationalization to me. There's a difference between being aware of something and choosing not to discuss it openly because it's considered a "delicate" subject and not talking about something because you're completely ignorant of it. It seems like the first scenario is more appropriate for Mad Men - even Betty mentioned something in passing about lesbians before.

I think that by Don using the "you people" line to Sal suggests that he is just as uptight - if not more so - than the boys in the office.

At least Don didn't giggle. And he did ignore what he saw in the hotel room.

This is purely my own opinion at this point, but I think Cooper and Roger were very very worried that Hilton would try to steal Don away from SC so they manipulated Don into signing the employment contract. They were desperate to get Don locked in right away. The more time that passed, the greater the likelihood that Don would have talked to Hilton about it and then their jig would be up. I don't think Hilton and/or his lawyers had anything to do with it at all.

God help them if this actually turns out to be true and Don finds out about it.

The worst part was Don suggesting that Sal should've slept with Lee Garner, as if it was part of his job. I was confused if Don said it because Sal is gay, and Don looks down on gays, or if it's because Don has mixed work & pleasure before (the affair with the Jewish daughter).

Either way, Don was a total scumbag this episode. I never thought of him as this ignorant when it came to blacks, women, gays before this episode.

He only ignored it temporarily. It seemed to me that Don didn't really believe anything that Sal told him about what happened with Lee Junior "cornering him" precisely because of the fact that Don saw Sal in the hotel room with the bell boy earlier. Sal was being judged and damned by Don for that episode in the hotel room more so than what actually happened with Lee Junior. Lee Junior never said to fire Sal, right? He just wanted him off the Lucky Strike account.

And Harry Crane can't seem to do anything right.

Oh - Christina Hendricks (actress who plays Joan) just got married this weekend in NYC.

I was disappointed with this also, mostly because so much of the comedy occurred when Roger and Don confided with each other. And the conflict seems like it might limit Roger's screen time.

This happens with every great TV show. It starts to get away from what really drew me in to begin with. I haven't been real excited about the past few episodes. It's still a great show and it can get back to where it was in my mind but I don't care much for what's happening right now.

The Hilton story line is weird due to the strangness of Conrad. I am much more interested in the characters of Sterling Cooper and atmosphere of the times than the Draper household and we have been getting way too much Don and Betty lately.

The Sal portion of this episode was very strong however. Recently here in the lounge there was a thread about great non-verbal acting performances and Sals face when getting fired is one of the best I have seen.

I want more of the office boys and girls and Roger and Joan. I thought Peggy getting a room mate was a place they were going and then we never got another whiff of it.

I still love the show but I hope it shifts to a different direction as I am not happy with its current story lines. I didn't care for the California diversion at the end of season 2 either.