Foreign.

Hi, I'm Jenna.

And I'm Steve.

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Let's get started with Mad Men C to Z.

Welcome, everybody.

We're here talking about Mad Men Season 1 episode the Long Weekend.

The episode opens with Sally and Don at home, and we can see that Betty's father, Gene, is visiting along with his new girlfriend, Gloria.

There really seems to be a whole power move here between Betty and Gloria about Jean's health.

So this is how Betty expresses her love and affection for her father.

He's saying, did you hide the sugar bowl from me?

And Gloria says, I've got some Howard Johnson's packets in my purse.

Betty talks about diabetics and how sometimes they lose their legs, which seems like she reaches for something extreme there.

But she's obviously protective of his health and judgy about Gloria not being protective enough.

I think it just comes down to the fact that Jean has clearly moved on from Betty's mother and Betty hasn't moved on, and she's having a really hard time accepting that.

Jean is focused now on another woman.

And with the pretext of needing Dawn's help to get the suitcases, which he doesn't even accept at first, he's like, we're only going for a weekend.

And she's like, I can't get the suitcases out of the closet.

And she says that just so she can go upstairs with Don and complain about Gloria.

In the commentary, Matt Weiner talks about the theme of fathers and daughters in this episode.

So this first scene opens with something that's very on topic.

We're going to see a bunch of other relationships and moments that relate to this same theme.

Yeah, you can see Betty having a really hard time with her father's new girlfriend, and she's really making it about her here.

It's not a great look.

Dawn, I notice, isn't very sentimental about other people's issues unless it's for work.

So it's interesting that even though he doesn't like Gene very much, he tries to help Betty see that her f is lonely, and he advises her to let him have this.

And she is not having this, it.

Seems like a normal human reaction of the adult children to perhaps be stuck on a lost parent, whereas the other parent is moving on out of necessity.

The next scene takes us to the office.

The team is looking at a Kennedy ad.

And it's a jingle that says Kennedy's name over and over.

Paul makes a reference to a Maypo ad, which I didn't know what that was, so I looked it up.

It was a successful campaign for maple flavored oatmeal.

And it had an animated character saying, I want my Mapo.

So again, it's disparaging Kennedy as a kid in upstart in the face of his opponent, Nixon.

Again, we see the generation gap between them.

Pete says the ad is incredible.

And even Don begrudgingly admits that it's a lot more fun.

It's lighter, it's not clouding the mind.

As they roll into the Nixon ad, it's all Stern and Nixon sort of lecturing the potential voters.

And they shut it off rather than listen through it, realizing that they're getting their butts handed to them in the ads by jfk.

Everybody can see that the Nixon ads are inferior.

But when Don says it, it seems disparaging too.

He says it's light, it's fun, it doesn't cloud the mind with, I don't know, issues.

So he acknowledges the appeal of the ad, but it also feels like he wants more from the candidate than Elgingle for president.

He also relates to Nixon and basically walks through Nixon coming from nothing.

The Abe Lincoln of California, that JFK had a silver spoon.

And Don explicitly says that he sees himself in Nixon, which is an interesting observation.

He has a pretty long speech for Don.

Usually in office meetings he's pretty quick with the one liners.

But here he's a bit revealing.

He says Kennedy nouveau riche, bought himself into Harvard.

Nixon is from nothing, self made.

You know, he was the vice president six years after the Navy.

Yeah.

So he is really revealing more about himself and how he identifies with Nixon.

Pete, on the other hand, who of course has a very opposite upbringing from Don, he does a lot of grasping every time we see him in this episode and this scene is no exception.

He's always trying to present himself as somebody important and knowledgeable.

Even when what he's saying isn't useful.

He goes, the President is a product, don't forget that.

To the team.

And nobody says anything.

And it's not that they weren't getting that in the first place, so he didn't need to say it.

And Then at the end, we get Roger coming in, and they're depressed about how everything is going.

Pete offers a hearty, let's go down swinging.

Like that's not helpful.

Yeah.

And it's funny because that's truly what they're all feeling as they watch what's happening.

And I also like the parallels between Roger and Don's comments, where they're repeating what each other has said.

It draws a funny connectivity between the two of them and their perception of where this campaign is going and how Nixon's blowing it.

It should never have been this close, they say.

I had that in my notes, too.

Don says that to the team as they're watching the ads, and Roger comes in later and he repeats that exact line.

And I wonder, do you feel like this emphasizes that they're both really in sync in terms of business, or that they're both behind the political times, that it has surprised them?

Or what do you think is the messaging behind this repetition?

Because we get it later in the.

In the episode, too.

From listening to Weiner's commentary, I got the vibe that he wanted to convey that there wasn't this sense of inevitability and perfection in Kennedy before he was elected and Camelot was started.

It sounded like what he was intending to express was that you had this incumbent vice president who was expected to win the election handily running against a Catholic who was young and inexperienced.

So the deck is stacked in Nixon's favor against Kennedy.

Yet over the course of the election, we see that it's not going to turn out the way everyone expected, you know, six months earlier, whenever it was, you know, Kennedy locked down the nomination.

So I just interpreted it that way.

I also think there's a parallel between Don and Roger in terms of that generational look, that they're both of the Kennedy generation or mentality.

And this young upstart JFK appeals more to the youth, and they're outsiders to that movement.

A couple of really sly on brand lines in here where Pete says, there must be any number of people harvesting mud on this guy, meaning Kennedy, which is exactly where Pete's mind goes, because that's the way he operates.

And somebody found says he's a womanizer.

And Don, on his brand, says, well, that's not going to hurt him.

So it's funny how everybody personalizes it the same information differently.

This moment at the end of the scene where Roger tells Don to be on his best behavior with Rachel because he says, I know she bothers you.

It's a little weird It's a miss, which is unlike Roger.

He's pretty good at reading the room.

Rachel bothered Don in the first meeting, but a lot has changed.

So I found it interesting that Roger hasn't read that or kept up with that status.

I wonder if it follows on your prior comment where they're looking at everything through their own lenses.

And I wonder if a Rachel is much more troubling to a Roger than a Don.

And that's where the miss is coming from, because Rachel's not a fit for Roger.

However, as we've both said previously, it appears Rachel is quite a good fit for Dawn.

I'm nodding my head.

That's not helpful.

The next scene is Roger out in the office talking to Joan, and the dialogue is full of double entendres.

Roger basically is telling her that his wife and daughter are gonna be away for the weekend, that him and Joni can go out anywhere they want.

And it becomes clear that Joan's upset.

She's not happy, and she's not especially amenable to Roger's advances.

Here he says, we can go anywhere.

We can see a Broadway show.

And she says, how about a movie?

Have you seen the Apartment?

And I did some research there.

The Apartment starred Jack lemmon and Shirley MacLaine.

It premiered in 1960.

Billy Wilder was the first person to win the Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture for the same film project for that.

For the Apartment.

And it's about a man who tries to move up in the corporate world by lending his apartment for romantic encounters.

Joan's discomfort with the way Roger treats her is clear when she identifies with Shirley MacLaine from the movie.

And I notice he tries to brush away her concerns in a way that's very similar to how dawn brushes away Betty's feelings about her father and Gloria.

Except Roger wants Joan to go out with him over the weekend and Don wants Betty to stay at the beach with the rest of the family.

Yeah, Joan doesn't seem to slam the door shut here, but it's clear that Roger hasn't made the sale either.

And I think the way he's dismissing her comments and in their interaction, it seems to me it's a continuation of her concerns, which she voiced in prior episodes, where she's starting to realize, where does this relationship lead for me?

What do I get out of it?

And ultimately it might not be something where there is a good ending or a long term benefit for Joan.

And it seems like she's awakening to that reality.

I agree, and I don't feel great about myself.

But somehow Roger still, even when he's being really slimy, he still managed to be.

Manages to be really funny.

He says, are we actually getting in a fight over a movie?

And he's like, you know, Mona had a dream once that I hit a dog backing out of the driveway.

And I didn't hit the dog.

We don't even have a dog.

And even just that funny story.

And it cracks Joan's armor a little bit.

But she's still not going to call him later as he, as he asks.

Her to do the next scene is the pitch to the Menken store.

So we've got Rachel and her father hearing the pitch from Paul.

Sal jumps in, and we've also got Don in the conversation.

And they're talking about major changes devoting a large portion of the ground floor to the restaurant, major construction.

And it's clear Rachel's father is struggling with all this change and challenging to say, why do I need all this change?

And Don gets pretty blunt and direct with him.

I really appreciate the writing here that with the father and daughter, each client has a backstory and they have preferences that sometimes become obstacles to the marketing that Sterling Cooper wants to run.

If every client were just a supplicant to Don's genius, it would be so dull.

It's what grows within the constraints that's so interesting in their campaigns.

It's interesting to me too that Don is no holds barred in making the pitch and basically cites Rachel as the educated and sophisticated youth market that they need to start chasing with their store.

What father could resist that pitch?

Yeah, he has a great little monologue.

The father is saying, why can't I keep what I have and just build on it?

And Don says, you don't have anything.

Your customers lives have changed.

They're prosperous, they develop new tastes like your daughter.

And as you say, that's a pretty good argument for a.

For a father who's clearly proud of his daughter.

In his commentary, Weiner talks about casting the actor who's playing Rachel's father and how he wanted someone who could strike that balance between assimilation into this society where he's thrived and created a successful department store chain, but also retaining some of that otherness that he did come to this country with nothing as a Jewish immigrant.

And Weiner is, I think, justifiably very proud of the casting because Rachel's father really does walk that line perfectly in this scene.

And I really enjoy the writing where Don is talking about how the young generation doesn't really care about the story of struggle and success.

And, you know, it's boring to them.

And Rachel jumps in to defend her father and talks about it isn't just a story or a pitch.

It's the reality of what this man has achieved in his life.

And I just love the writing there of Rachel's loyalty to her father, even as she, at the same time, is advocating for change.

I noticed that, too.

I didn't watch the commentary for the episode this time before we recorded.

She says, his life is not just a phony story.

He actually started from nothing.

And then she says, who here can say that?

And we know that Don has a lot in common with that, at least economically.

Being protective of her father, but also mindful and wary of how her father thinks about Don't.

In a minute, she says to him, I guarantee you there is nothing about you he likes.

It's an interesting dynamic where she feels like she knows better in terms of business, but she also has some.

She has some need for approval from her father.

I didn't get a vibe of the need for approval, but I like when Don backs down and apologizes if he gave any insult.

And I love the writing that the father says, none taken.

And again, I love that writing in the context of who the father is, what he's faced in his journey in this new country as an immigrant.

So the fact that Don is calling out that his grandkids may not find his story compelling or interesting ranks so low on his.

His list of insults that I.

I get the sense the character truly isn't insulted by what Don was saying, you know, And I just love that writing in this scene between the three characters.

I do, too.

And I especially notice that in Don's speech to Mr.

Menken about how his customers are changing and he can't stay the same.

Don loves moving forward, and he is comfortable becoming something new.

He's presented as being slick and modern and edgy, in contrast to Rachel's father, who looks a little stodgy and traditional.

But it's also true that Mr.

Menken built something honestly, and he's proud of that.

Don is somebody who wants to run away from his life, and Abe Menken wants to live in the place he's built with the clients he has.

And that's very respected and should be very respected.

So I love that the writing shows us that piece.

We also get our truth call out for this episode.

In this scene, Mr.

Mencken asks, why would I want to own a store that I wouldn't want to shop in.

And Don says, I don't know if that's true, but in fact, it is true.

His daughter would want to shop there.

Mr.

Menken will not.

And as the scene goes, I think we really see that of that three of them, it is Rachel and Don against the father in terms of this plan.

He starts to concede that it is very well thought out.

He says, I hope you two know what you're doing.

That's an interesting line because it could apply to this revamp of the store, but it also seems to have some potential applicability as some foreshadowing of what's to come in this episode.

And on their way out of the meeting, Rachel and her father talk a little bit about Dawn.

He says, he's very good, persuasive, a little dashing for my taste.

A couple of episodes ago, Rachel was talking to her sister, who told her, she's a modern woman, she has a right to romance.

And now her father is trusting dawn with the business plan she and Dawn's team created.

So it does seem like it's paving the way and peeking the door open just a little bit for Rachel to feel comfortable about spending more time with Don.

I do like Don's line to Rachel when she says, I can guarantee you he likes nothing about you.

And Don says, what about you, Rachel?

Again, dawn continues with the non stop flirting with Rachel, and she leaves.

And she doesn't say anything.

She doesn't give herself away.

In the next scene, we see Joan's roommate, and she's telling Joan that she got fired for covering for her boss in her job.

And we get that she's struggling to earn money.

Joan is very sympathetic and even a little bit anti men, which we haven't seen from Joan yet.

She says, we're constantly building them up and for what?

So Joan says that all in solidarity with Carol.

But then when Carol says, I hate Manhattan, sometimes Joan can't go along with that.

She says, don't say that.

The city is everything.

So just like she loves being part of the office ecosystem, being part of Manhattan is exciting.

It's a necessary piece of her identity.

And she and Peggy share that, in spite of Joan pretending to be blase about it.

Yeah, and the vibe I get from Joan in this scene is she's less sympathetic to her roommate and more just angry herself, as we talked about earlier in her interaction with Roger in that relationship.

And she says, let's go out and find some actual bachelors and empty their wallets.

This city has everything, which is A funny outcome when you're complaining about having to build up men in order to obtain things.

And then your solution for how to drive away the blues is to.

To go take advantage of some men who are perhaps, you know, more ready targets or less demanding targets.

It makes me sad that she feels like that's her solution.

I wish for Joan that she had something better to go home to and look after and pursue.

And instead she reaches for men again.

You want better for her.

Yeah.

Agreed.

In the next scene, Pete comes into Dawn's office and lets us know that a client, Dr.

Scholz, is going over to Leo Burnett, which is a competing ad agency.

Pete says Rowley called it dull and humorless.

They're disappointed with the creative.

Don says, well, what did you say?

Because Pete's job is to manage the accounts.

And he goes, I don't know.

I've never lost an account before, especially one that was here before I got here.

Again, this conflict between Don and Pete, with Pete being very happy to show Don that he's not as good as he thinks he is, and Don being irritated by absolutely everything that Pete says and does is a comforting tension that we always get in the office.

In the office.

And we also have the repetition with Roger and Don's dialogue.

Again here, when Pete says they're losing a client, Don doesn't reveal to Pete that he is upset over it.

He gives a cliche.

He says, the day you sign a client is the day you start losing them.

We're going to hear Roger say that again in a minute.

I think in this scene, it's really Pete hoping to kick dawn and Don, trying to show that the kick doesn't hurt him or injure him in any way.

It's fun as the door closes and Don sweeps off his desk and we have Peggy coming in to ask what the buzzing tone is and sort of sees the carnage.

And then Don goes over to commiserate with Roger and they use the same line.

So, again, I love the writing here with the parallel lines spoken by different characters.

And we haven't seen Don have a lot of professional setbacks so far, so I appreciate that they're included here.

He's set up to be so successful that I sort of suspect Pete is making it up, that it's not really creative.

That's the reason they lost the account.

I also got the sense in this scene that when Don's telling Roger, it's as a peer and as a friend, more so than telling his boss.

And there's some potential of getting chastised or some negative reaction from Roger.

It's like two friends talking about it.

Yes.

Don goes to tell Roger that they lost the client.

So he does take responsibility.

He acknowledges that.

Pete said they blamed creative.

It surprised me a little that Roger seemed unconcerned overall.

He.

He said eventually an accountant will start reading the mail.

And he kind of took responsibility too.

He said their billings had been creeping up.

As you said, he's just focused on going out that evening and having fun.

Jones rejected him.

So again he appeals to Don and he says, give me tonight.

You owe me that.

I can use you as bait.

Given that Roger is a Nepo baby in this company, this scene makes me wonder if this is evidence of that nature is a self made person who built this thing from the ground up.

Does Burt Cooper say something similar in this moment and get distracted by the fact his wife and daughter are out of town for the weekend?

Or is Burt Cooper much more focused?

And I think this tells us about Roger and his seriousness as a professional, as a madman.

Roger has a lot of lines here that are very memorable.

And again, you don't want to call them charming because it's not a good look.

But also it is a little bit dashing and a little bit funny.

He says a bunch of things like, well, I guess we'll have to cut back.

Let's go fire somebody.

And then he says, it's Labor Day weekend.

Between now and then, we have to fall in love a dozen times.

He also says this epic line, when God closes a door, he opens a dress.

He knows there's casting down the hall.

And he says, if Freddy Rumsen's brain works the way I think it does, slow and obvious, we can go downstairs, look at the women who are showing up for casting, and find somebody there to hang out with for the weekend.

It's interesting to me that dawn doesn't show any enthusiasm for this plan.

And Roger says that he can use dawn as bait.

So that was probably my favorite line of the scene.

The next scene is a really uncomfortable one to me.

Pete is pulling on Peggy in this scene, trying to get information from her.

His behavior is already really gross before his attempted gaslighting.

He's that worst example of somebody who is really obsequious with superiors and an absolute bully to those he thinks are beneath him.

Even though he and Peggy hooked up, this is a pure power move to use her to get information.

And he feels entitled to pressure her for it and shocked when she doesn't serve it up to him.

Yeah, I like the way she doesn't serve it up to him because she's dedicated to her role and safeguarding the information she's entrusted with as a professional.

But I also like the fact that she doesn't resort to his tactics, dishonesty, all the different ways Pete tries to get what he wants.

Peggy is just straight up honest and straight to the point on every aspect, including her confusion about whether Pete likes her or doesn't like her.

The honesty doesn't leave Pete with much room to wiggle.

When he asks her for information and she refuses to give it to him, he says, what's wrong with you?

She is honest and it is disarming.

I'm just trying to do my job and you're making it very difficult.

And he takes her and he lowers his voice and he says, you're not being very professional right now.

And it's so condescending and terrible because he's obviously the one not being professional.

And she says, I cannot believe I'm in this conversation.

Their exchange back and forth is really, really.

You can't take your eyes away from it.

He says, do you think this is easy for me?

And she says, I don't know.

I don't know if you like me or you don't like me.

Every time I walk by, I wonder, are you going to be nice to me or cruel?

And he says, what am I supposed to say?

I'm married.

So it takes him aback for a second when she says cruel, but more immediately, he's already defensive.

He has no responsibility here, and good for her for pushing back.

I wonder if this is a moment in their relationship where there's a major shift in power because up to this point, Peggy's been looking for the intention, seeking it, enjoying it, suffering in order to obtain it.

This is the first scene where it feels like Peggy's put a stop to all that and now she's asserting herself, demanding what she demands.

And if Pete can't handle that, well, that's his problem.

So it, it feels like a very empowering scene for Peggy's character.

Yes, that pushback when he says, I'm married, and she says, yes, I know, and I heard all about how confusing that can be.

Maybe you need me to lie on your couch to clear that up for you again.

And his response that some imagination you've got.

So ridiculous.

Because A, she's telling the truth and they both know it.

And, and B, he just alluded to their relationship when he blamed her for acting unprofessionally because of it.

And Then he turns around and says, she's imagining things.

He is so small.

And he takes a shot at her writing ambitions.

So when he talks about, that's quite an imagination, you know, maybe she can use that in the future for writing so we can see his resistance to the path that she's starting to carve out for herself there at the firm.

And the line always brings it back to Pete.

Pete is all about Pete.

He says, good thing you're a writer now.

What do you need me for?

And she doesn't need him.

No.

And all the viewers, we all nod our heads and say, no, Pete, she really doesn't need you.

She really doesn't.

The next scene has us joining Sal, Ken and Paul, who are chatting up the ladies who have shown up for the casting call.

They're all telling their own ridiculous stories.

Roger and Don stroll up like sort of two heavy weights and scare them off.

And then Roger starts to work the room and introduces himself to a couple that he fancies.

I notice when we enter this scene that Sal and Ken both have semi elaborate pickup lines and they're both gross things about twins.

And Paul uses the same thing he tried on Peggy.

His line is, do you like Ukrainian food?

It didn't work with Peggy, and it is not working here either.

It's funny how Roger pulls rank in order to pursue his targets and then picks two and basically dismisses everybody else and everybody just leaves.

I mean, what can you do?

And then Roger's off with his double entendres again and invites the two ladies up to his office for conversation and drinks.

Yeah, this scene where Roger picks out twins from the casting is gross.

Everything about it is cheap, from the fluorescent lighting to the insignificant things they talk about.

And they pretend like there's a genuine connection.

It's very awkward.

Roger's determined to make it a good time.

And we see Don standing apart from it and trying to leave several times, but Roger holds him in it.

As you mentioned, you can see Roger's wealth and privilege works in a way that Ken and Paul don't have.

And you also understand Roger does this on a regular basis.

He's practiced at it.

He wonders why he doesn't have a good relationship with his family or why Joan won't commit to him.

And he spends his free time doing this.

He's so hungry for attention.

The thing I find interesting in this scene is why is Don not into this?

Is there some integrity or good reason that he's not interested?

Personally, I don't think there is.

I think this is just not Don's thing.

Don isn't looking to prey on wide eyed casting models who've shown up for a commercial.

He's out there looking for the midges and Rachels of the world.

So this really is not at all interesting to him.

Which again, I like the writing because we get into Don's mentality in a way that seems more sophisticated than just simply that he's a philanderer and will philander with anyone who comes along.

I agree.

It's interesting seeing Don reject Eleanor so thoroughly because we've seen him interested in pursuing other women and he's not in a hurry to get to his wife.

He has multiple chances to say a yes here and he never takes it.

I think there are a lot of reasons why that might be and I appreciate that the writing doesn't spell it out for us.

I think humans are complex and there are multiple reasons for our behavior and for our choices.

And the writing respects that in the viewer.

The next scene cuts to Joan and her roommate getting ready to go out.

I just wanted to say that Christina Hendricks looks as beautiful as she's looked in the series to this point as she's all dolled up for a night out on the town with her roommate.

As they're getting ready, the roommate makes a rather major confession to Joan.

Yes, Joan's roommate Carol confesses that she's loved Joan for a long time.

She moved to Manhattan to be with her, and Joan has a pretty selfish response.

It's similar to Pete's scene with Peggy in that she minimizes Carol's feelings and denies what she's hearing her say.

Joan wants everything to stay the way it is between them, and it's easier to pretend that Carol hasn't proclaimed her love for Joan.

So that's what she does.

The easier thing.

She says, you've had a hard day.

Let's try to forget about it, okay?

And it's worse because it seems kind.

But instead of acknowledging Carol's feelings, Joan is only taking what she needs from this relationship.

It seems incredibly selfish in the moment.

So even if Joan is overwhelmed or surprised and shocked by it, you'd think there would be some display of empathy or some consideration for the feelings of somebody who's probably pretty nervous confessing this to someone that they've longed for for quite an amount of time.

I'd also say it's a heartrending scene where it's clear this isn't a moment of passion or any sort of come on.

It's the expression of deeply held feelings that she's harbored for a long, long time, and she's finally gotten up the nerve to express them.

And then the answer that comes back is, you've had a hard day.

Let's go drink our faces off.

Your heart does break for Carol, and it won't be the last time.

Yeah, it's a heartbreaking scene, and it's a distant second in terms of Carol's heartbreaks to come.

When the episode cuts back to Roger having, I guess, fun, Eleanor's legs are over Don's lap and she kisses him.

He doesn't kiss back.

He says, I should get going.

And Roger is coming in.

He's riding Mirabel in her bra and panties, and they're laughing and collapse on the carpet.

And again, everything about it leaves a bad taste.

It doesn't feel good.

It doesn't feel fun or flirty or genuine.

It just feels really sad.

I also like the writing's contrast between the two sisters, where Mirabel seems to be the crazier one who's, you know, ended up like this with Roger, and Eleanor is the more responsible one who is interested in a potential fling, but she's not going out there with wild abandon quite like her sister.

Although later on, Eleanor says, I've been around the block a few times.

But her sort of implying that Mirabel is a little more innocent and that's why she's hanging around to make sure she's okay.

I took that the exact opposite.

I've been around the block a few times.

She lives around the block.

This is her way.

This is how she rolls.

So that's interesting.

We have the opposite take on it.

I notice in this scene between Roger and Mirabel, Roger again brings up his daughter, and he also did that with Joan.

So you can see that his relationship with his daughter is on his mind, even though he doesn't spend any time with her.

So he says to Mirabel, why is she so angry?

You're only a little older than her.

You're not angry.

I wish I could talk to her without her rolling her eyes.

And of course, she's right.

I have nothing to say to her.

So it's evident that he cares about it, but not enough to actually do anything about it.

And it's such an odd scene because Mirabel is, as Roger points out, only a couple years older than.

Than his daughter.

He's cheating on his wife as they lay there.

And the scene has a funny intimacy to it, which seems unusual because if I put myself in Mirabel's shoes and Think, okay, you know, what is this old guy confessing to me about?

It morphs into, you know, passionate kissing.

And I guess they get busy.

But.

But it is an interesting sort of pseudo father daughter moment.

Even though obviously Mirabel is not related to Roger, it's almost the conversation he can't have with his own daughter.

But it's still so shallow and really it's him monologuing and her giggling.

So the fact that that's what he needs from relationships with women is problematic.

We then cut back to Joan and Carol, who are back at the apartment with a couple of older guys that they've picked up.

The two guys don't even know each other, so they've just stumbled across the two roommates and now they're up in the room.

Joan lures her man into the bedroom where she's going to get busy with what she's interested in.

And Carol is left out in the living area with the other guy who gives her a kiss.

And this to me is the heartbreaking moment when it's clear that Carol's real love is off in the bedroom and Carol's left with this drunk older man.

And he asks her, what are we going to do?

And she says, whatever you want.

And it.

And it's heartbreaking.

Yes.

When they come to the apartment, Joan is being really flirty and these men are just ordinary older men with nothing terribly interesting to say.

I just talked about how Roger clearly has a pattern of this type of behavior about finding women and knowing what to say.

And here you see Joan knows how to handle herself.

She invites one guy into her room on the pretext of helping her change a light bulb.

And it feels like this fun, that she's.

This quote, fun.

It seems like she's messaging Carol very directly that she'd rather be with this old boring guy than her.

And that's super sad.

And it amplifies the thing she resisted identifying with when she talked to Roger about the movie, the apartment.

And then this other guy hits on Carol and she pauses him at first and then she gives in.

You could do whatever you want.

It's, it's Vegas sad.

It's.

There's sex everywhere and there's no feeling in it.

It's just glittery and empty and expensive.

Yeah, nobody comes off looking very good here because Joan, you know what joy is?

Joan getting a temporary short term escape or thrill.

Carolyn is basically giving up and wallowing in her own hurt and pain.

And the man with Carol obviously has no interest or concern about where Carol's head is, and she doesn't look happy as she's sitting there.

But that's not on his mind, nor any consideration in his decision calculus.

Do you think Joan's behavior here is revenge at Roger or messaging Carol or escaping herself or a little bit of everything?

I didn't think about it as modeling for Carol, but now that you mentioned that, I think that's an interesting possibility there.

I guess I'd interpreted it.

It was simply Joan entertaining herself the best way she knows how, out of her frustration from a relationship that she's starting to realize is a dead end for her.

And I just took it at that.

But it is interesting how much of this is a modeling or message to Carol as well, that, hey, what you talked about is never going to happen, and that's not something you should entertain.

The casting here is really perfect too, because it's not that the men are monstrous, but they're clearly not the type of men that Joan aspires to marrying at all.

It's never going to be that.

So it just makes it really unfortunate and ugly and miserable.

In his commentary, Matt Weiner calls it one of the saddest scenes in the show, and I really have to agree with him.

It's a heartbreaker.

We cut back to dawn and Eleanor in the office.

And Eleanor's clearly interested in dawn, so she's playing it very cool.

She's interested in him.

She tells him to tell her what to do and she'll do it.

Dawn replies that she's selling too hard.

So clearly dawn is not interested, not having it.

That's interesting, isn't it?

Because Joan knows exactly how to play soft and how to play direct and win.

And this younger woman, Eleanor, she doesn't quite have that mechanic down yet with Dawn.

She doesn't know how to drive things so that it all proceeds smoothly.

It's not that Don was completely averse.

As you're watching it, you think, okay, this feels like the type of thing that he would say yes to.

But it doesn't quite work.

And part of it is her awkwardness.

I interpreted it the other direction on that.

This isn't Don's jam.

This is not what he does.

It's not what he's about.

He's older now.

He doesn't need to pursue this.

I took it mostly out of Don's perspective of just, nothing wrong with Eleanor, but she's not his type, and this is not something he engages in.

I agree with that.

I just happen to think that both things are true.

She's new at this.

Right.

So I don't know how many women in the city are aspiring to be able to manage men the way that Joan does.

And she's just not quite there yet.

We then hear the shout from Mirabel.

It turns out Roger's having a heart attack.

Dawn quickly takes command, tells him to call an ambulance and get out of there.

As he goes to administer first aid to Roger, who's on the floor complaining of chest pains.

Yeah, Don is instantly good with the deception part.

How does it look?

He says, call an ambulance and leave.

So the girls have to go.

In just a second, we see the ambulance carting Roger out.

Don is walking with him.

Roger's moaning, mirabel.

Mirabel.

And Don grabs him by the hair, slaps him across the face and says, your wife's name is Mona.

So more than the fact that he's having a heart attack, Don is focused on appearances.

He here's the story.

Let's get that straight.

Let's do that first.

I was wondering what the paramedics think as they see this little drama play out on this.

The stretcher.

They don't say anything, you know, and then they just proceed to put Roger in the back of the ambulance.

But I love that scene because it just had a surreal quality to it.

But to your point, Don's making sure that appearances and the narrative are all ticking and tying.

And we can't have Roger moaning about Mirabel.

And then we see Don with Roger in the hospital.

And it is a huge contrast to the calm, polished, charming Roger we know.

I think John Slattery does some really great acting here.

He's weak and he's scared.

And he asks Don if he believes in energy.

Don avoids this question.

He goes, that thing that gives you get up and go.

And Roger presses on.

No, like a human energy, like a soul.

And Don, who a few episodes ago said, either Jesus lives in your heart or he doesn't.

To the Belja Lee clients, Said says, I don't know.

What do you want to hear?

To which Roger answers, jesus.

It's an interesting scene because I think Roger is now facing his own mortality, and it's an acute problem he's facing.

And in this moment, where is Don?

Is Don a compassionate friend, consoling him and supporting him, comforting him?

I don't think he is.

I think Don is freaked out.

I think Don is freaked out that in this moment, this instant, life has turned and Roger could be potentially in mortal danger here.

Because, you know the speed at which they call the family in and say, hey, the family needs to speak to him immediately.

Suggests it's touch and go whether Roger's going to come through this.

And it seems like Don wants no part of any sort of larger philosophic discussion or even to offer any real comfort to Roger.

He.

It's almost like Dawn's on the defensive here, answering Roger's questions in a.

Or avoiding Roger's questions, you know, rather than engaging with him.

And Roger expresses some regret for, quote, living the last 20 years like he was on shore leave.

And then he says, God, I wish I was going somewhere.

What do you think he means by that?

Do you think that's religious?

Or do you think the path he's on with the.

With the women and the drinking and everything isn't a pursuit that's meaningful and he knows it.

I think it's the latter that you mentioned there, because I think he alludes to it and touches on it in all his relationships.

And it just feels like he's got a hollow spot in his own sense of self and his achievements, and he's seeking to scratch that itch throughout the series.

And then Roger's family comes in, and the sight of Mona makes Roger start sobbing.

He doesn't want his daughter to come in and see him look weak, but Mona insists he says he loves them and the three of them come together as Don backs out of the room, he's looking in at their family reunit while he separated behind the glass and the door alone again.

Yeah.

In his commentary, Matt Weiner says that this is the moment where Don realizes that life is about this family and what Roger's having in this moment with Margaret and Mona.

And Don realizes that's exactly what he does not have.

I also wanted to agree with your point about John Slaughtery in this scene.

I think he just kills it.

It's some of his finest acting in the series, in my opinion.

And you really buy that?

This is a scared man who's looking death in the face in that moment.

And it just really well done.

And I felt it really pulled me in as the viewer.

And you get his range because it's so easy to believe that John Slattery is just being himself as Roger, that he's this charming, slick, glib, devil may care kind of charmer guy walking through life.

And then you get this scene which is completely opposite of that Persona, and you believe it because we haven't seen much other than some tense disagreements professionally.

We haven't really seen another side to.

Roger until this scene, and we forget about it.

Having Seen the series already, but there is a bit of a cliffhanger element to this scene.

You know, will Roger pull through, or is this the end of Roger?

We really don't know.

It would be terrible to have normal Roger.

It would.

The next scene is Joan back at the office with Burt.

The gentleman that she was with earlier has accompanied her there.

Burt immediately dismisses him and kicks him out of the office.

And they get to work sending telegrams, notifying clients that Roger is okay.

Joan's very upset, but working through it, it's clear that Bert is aware of who this gentleman was who's come in with her.

Yeah.

So Joan rejected Roger's offer to go out the last time they saw each other, and now he's had a heart attack.

And again, with the acting.

I think Christina Hendricks has some great moments here.

When Bert gives her the directive to type the telegrams, she says, of course she's got tears in her eyes.

She has straight posture, calm, professional demeanor.

She gets to work, so she's got a tear on her face.

But she is an exit row person.

I mean, you can count on her to do what needs doing, which is impressive.

And you can see the pain and the cost to her.

She is genuinely concerned.

She really cares for Roger, and she's got some guilt and some pain and worry, and all of that is on her face while she's doing her job.

Yeah, I really love her acting in this scene, and I really think it helps us climb inside her head emotionally to understand what she's feeling, you know, the character Joan, and just.

Just really well acted and striking that balance between giving us enough but not giving us too much, that it's hitting us over the head.

In the next scene, we see Don calling Betty to tell her what happened to Roger.

He lies a little bit true to form, saying he just keeled over, but he does admit that it was awful.

He did seem honestly shaken by it.

And Betty offers to come home, and dawn brushes her off.

Betty complains about Gloria again, and it's.

Her selfishness is mixed with real pain.

And it's so much great writing that we can feel sympathy for Betty here.

She says, how can he pretend like she never existed?

I still pick up the phone to call her sometimes, and that is such a real experience for people who have lost somebody.

And then she judges Gloria for making, quote, some pot roast with ketchup.

And how her father being with Gloria, feels like he didn't really love her mother.

And she is really going through some stuff here.

And of course, Don stuff is always bigger.

So, you know, he.

He doesn't have any time for that.

I do notice that she rallies and offers to join Don, and she also reminds him to eat something, which is her way of taking care of him.

But I think this scene really illustrates how broken their relationship is, because in this moment, she can't sense how shook up her husband really is.

Dawn is a mess here, as big a mess as we've seen in the series to this point.

And then she's going to go on about her father moving on from her mother with.

With the girlfriend.

She does say the right thing.

She offers to go out, you know, to come back.

But if she could really read what a mess Don is, she should be, hey, I'm coming back.

Like, let's make this happen right away.

And that doesn't happen.

And I think on the other end of the phone, we have the same problem with Dawn.

He's kept her at arm's length, he's secretive, He.

He's not emotionally engaged with her.

So now, in a moment when he's so emotionally broken, she can't tell or see that.

And she treats it much like she would any other phone call from him where, you know, he's spewing his half truths about what's happened.

And it just feels like a very tragic moment in the relationship to say, hey, when things hit the fan the way they have, you can't be there for each other.

And if you can't be there for each other, as a viewer, it makes me wonder, okay, maybe this thing is unsavable at this point.

You can see that Don's way of caring for Betty is to brush bad stuff aside.

She says she knows that life goes on, but it's hard without her mother.

And he says, stop thinking about that.

And that's not very helpful to her.

But for him, that's good advice.

He would just compartmentalize a negative feeling and move past it.

And Betty says, I can't.

I try.

And to me, that feels like progress for her individually to name and claim her feelings.

But as you say, they don't communicate well as a couple in a healthy relationship.

And I don't think we've ever seen them do that.

And couldn't we reflect that advice right back at Dawn?

Just brush by it, just push through it.

And it's like, you can't, can you, Don?

You can't, because you've looked into the eyes of a dying man who's afraid, and you can't do it.

Yet you sort of throw the same Advice back at Betty.

To me, it's an interesting moment of just how each of them are failing the other in this relationship.

Well, and all of his brokenness too, because the past that cha.

That's chasing him, that he's trying so hard to escape, he's pretending that he's moving forward, when really, as we'll see, it might be impossible.

So it is fake advice.

Just like saying that that love is a fairy tale invented to sell nylons.

There's a quick scene when Don comes out of the phone booth and sees Pete in the lobby.

Here's Pete grasping for power again.

He's gone to the hospital to check in with Don to see what's going on with Roger.

Pete doesn't really have any business there.

Don hasn't called him to let him know to ask for his help.

But Pete shows up because he wants to be in the room where it happens.

And while they're there, the TV shows a report with another ad for Kennedy.

We get this historical moment where Dwight Eisenhower has said he can't think of a time when Nixon made a decision, when Nixon is trying to present himself as a leader who helps out.

And then the President turns around and says, if you gave me a week, I might be able to think of a decision that his vice president made.

It's a jfk actual negative ad they used against Nixon, and it's devastating his boss.

The President has nothing good to say about him in that moment.

So I really appreciated that little peek into the evolution of the campaign to this point where now Kennedy's going on the offensive with negative ads about Nixon's leadership.

The next scene opens with dawn knocking at a door.

Did you have any doubts about whose door it was?

Yes.

I had no idea the first time I watched it.

When Rachel opens the door, dawn asks for a drink and she's like, oh, of course.

And everybody's house has a full bar set up.

Did you notice that?

It seems so old fashioned.

I thought it would have been Midge.

So when it was Rachel, it catches me by surprise.

I think Rachel's a good choice here for dawn, but it does surprise me.

And it's really a nod to her privilege.

She says she got the telegram that Bert and Joan had sent to the clients and she says, are you happy with the doctors?

I can have my father make a call.

Because of course she can.

That's.

That's how her life works.

And dawn answers, I don't know.

He's rich, they're taking care of him.

Well, it feels like they're doing a little pantomime of professional interactions here.

At one point, she says, you know, look, I'm not going to pull my business over this.

And that kind of sets aside the professional facade that's going on here.

And we start to get into the.

The real truth here that dawn is disintegrating right in front of her face.

And he confesses to Rachel details that he didn't share with Betty.

He says, roger looks gray and weak and his skin looks like paper.

And we've talked about how Rachel is disarmingly direct.

She says, I'm sorry, he's your friend.

You.

You don't want to lose him.

She doesn't use euphemisms like, be sure to eat something the way that Betty did.

She's speaking directly to the heart of.

Of why Don is so upset.

And it's interesting, too, because we've seen Don's character to this point, always in control, always making his pitch, sticking on the message and the rest of it.

This feels to me like the first scene where he's really not on a script, he's not working lines.

Here we're getting the unvarnished truth of his emotional state in this scene in a way, we just haven't gotten it in any other scene to this point.

Okay, I'm not 100% sure I agree.

I feel like as their dialogue continues to progress here, he's saying, this is it.

This is all there is.

And she says that's just an excuse for bad behavior.

He does feel legitimately bad about Roger.

He is coming apart.

And we saw that in 5G with Adam as well.

He.

Not quite as much as this, but we did see him come apart there.

And it feels a little bit like he is there using Roger's heart attack as an excuse to get her.

Like, she owes him, to cheer him up.

Like it is not her job to make him better.

So for him to show up and demand a drink and demand to sit down and unburden himself, again, he's so selfish.

Like, in a contest between Don and Roger, it is really hard to know who's more selfish overall.

They're huge takers.

You know, he could go anywhere.

He could go to his wife and have this conversation.

And he's been flirting and pressuring Rachel the whole time.

So I think he is legitimately upset and coming apart.

But I also think the user in him is pressing this advantage.

I.

I don't have that interpretation, and I agree with you.

This is completely inappropriate.

And I think all Rachel's objections are all from the appropriate perspective of, hey, this isn't an excuse for bad behavior.

This isn't an excuse to leap off a cliff and make a mistake.

She calls him on all of those things.

In his commentary on the episode, Weiner talks about him reaching out to her because he's failed after reaching out to his own wife.

And that, to me, emotionally rings very true to him in his state right now.

This isn't a calculated pitch, that he's walking in there saying, here's what I'm going to say and how I'm going to maneuver tactically in order to get what I want.

I think he's coming in there with disarmed and in a weak emotional state.

He's vulnerable.

Yeah, he wants to engage with her, and she's putting up some resistance, but I feel like she's on the side of behaving properly and he's on the side of somebody whose sort of desk has been wiped clean.

And now he's just trying to collect the pieces and figure out where he sits.

I know that he is genuinely interested in her and intrigued by her, but I.

I feel like it's a crutch he uses.

Sort of like Joan when we talked about her earlier.

This is what he knows how to do to make himself feel better, and that is why he's here.

They kiss, and then he pauses and says, no, not unless you tell me you want this.

And in the most uncertain language.

I mean, not that she's uncertain, but she's always in such control of herself.

So the way that she says, yes, please seems so small and not in control.

I find it a little bit shocking for her character that that's the way that she acquiesces to this moment.

That's interesting.

I didn't interpret it that way.

To me, it was her very curtly and precisely giving her consent that, you know, she's expressed her objections, she's resisted this.

She hasn't been the pursuer here at all.

And at this point, he's checking in with her to get her consent to proceed, and she's granting it.

And honestly, I found it very sexy and very romantic.

And I agree with you.

It's maybe not the way I would expect Rachel to talk, but from my perspective as a viewer, it just made it all the more interesting to me, the way she expressed it.

Next we get a very short scene between Bert and Joan.

They're leaving the office after their work.

He says, Ms.

Holloway, I know it's none of my business, but you could do a lot Better.

And she, thinking he's talking about the man who walked her up that night, says, oh, he's just a friend.

And he says, that's not what I'm talking about, my dear.

Don't waste your youth on age.

They're in the elevator at this point, and we see tears in her eyes and she stands tall and she doesn't say anything.

I found this a little contradictory.

We know Bert remembers Roger as a little boy.

He's still the young one, and Bert's in charge.

So if, in fact, Bert is referring to Roger, the fact that he's telling Joan not to waste her youth on old age, referring to her relationship with Roger, first of all, it reveals that Bert knows.

And second of all, it's a little funny to have him viewing Roger as somebody who is older now.

Yeah, I took it as very much a father daughter moment, as per the theme of the episode, because it feels like he has her, well, being at heart here.

And it feels again, that, you know, I always consider Bert as this voice of reason and sort of stripped of emotional emotion and distraction and just cuts to the facts.

And I think he's objectively correct about this.

And I wonder if this is just another strong underline in Joan's mind that someone who, you know, she probably knows Burt Cooper as well as anybody in the office is also declaring this relationship a dead end for her.

And just hearing that at this moment of vulnerability where she's concerned about him and potentially putting aside her own concerns and issues in the relationship out of her fear and concern for Roger.

The fact that Bert uses this timing to express this point to her, I think is really interesting.

Well, and there's never another opportunity when they would be alone together that he could communicate that concern to her either.

It's interesting that he notices and cares enough to say it because it's not a business thing.

And that's maybe the first thing we've gotten from Bert that's not strictly about business.

Yeah, agreed.

The final scene of the episode is dawn and Rachel smoking on the sofa.

Don's laying on Rachel with his back to her and smoking and talking about his childhood.

And he gets into a long litany of exposition about his life, things that we as viewers did not know about until this moment.

I thought it was interesting that Don refused Rachel's cigarette so that instead he could talk.

So she's smoking, and he's shut down all of Betty's discussion about missing her mother, and he shut down.

Roger's about a belief in a higher power, but Here with Rachel, he tells her and us about his parents and how he was raised.

And that brings us to our Double dip question for this episode.

What do you think makes Don open up to Rachel about his past in this moment?

We would love to hear your insights.

So listeners, please email your thoughts about this to us and at www.madminc to .com.

we would love to hear what you think and we are looking forward to sharing your thoughts and comments on a future episode of All Things Mad Men.

From Chip and Dip to Zooby Zoo.

The interesting thing about Don talking about his past is it's not a sad sob story.

He's not self pitying in the way he conveys it.

It almost feels like testimony.

Just the facts as he goes through what.

What are some pretty sad and sorry facts of his childhood.

Yes, really.

The only judgmental thing he says is I was raised by those two sorry people.

And everything else is short sentence after short sentence of sadness.

My mother was a prostitute.

She dialed and died in childbirth.

I don't know what my father paid her.

He was a drunk.

He got kicked in the face by a horse.

And all the time Rachel doesn't say anything.

She strokes his hair.

She's there.

She listens.

And given what she knows about Don Draper and the image he's presented to this point, it's got to be a fairly shocking revelation to her of just what a modest background he comes from.

Particularly in the light of earlier this episode when Don seems to be dismissing the story of her own father.

And I'm sure when she calls him out and defends her father, part of it is this sense of this person who grew up in privilege and is now a high powered Madison Avenue executive diminishing what this immigrant has achieved.

And now she sees the truth is quite the opposite.

What a gift on Rachel's part to be supportive and to listen when we've seen so many characters brush away important things that other people are telling them.

How lucky Don is that he says this to somebody who receives it with respect and care.

Yeah, it's interesting because we don't get any comment from Rachel in this scene and it would be so fascinating to hear what she has to say about what she's just learned about Dawn.

I suppose we'll get that in future episodes.

Yes.

All in all, this one is a really dark episode.

We've got Betty's storyline about her father moving on with Gloria.

It feels sad.

Joan and Carol's relationship, Roger's health scare and forcing him to face the emptiness of the way he lives.

Peggy and Pete's confrontation.

Don's loneliness is so bleak, and his relationship with Rachel here does not feel like a positive development for either of them.

And even the firm's work on the Nixon campaign doesn't seem to be going well.

There's just not a lot to grab ahold of and feel positive about in this episode.

We get some great lines, a lot of them from Roger again.

But our characters don't seem to be in happy places with things to look forward to and they're not very good to each other.

It's pretty hard to take.

I'm going to call out one exception.

Peggy.

Peggy plants a flag in the middle of the office and makes it clear that Pete isn't to touch that flag.

So there's the one glimmer of sunshine.

I suppose she does, but she's got to endure his bossiness, his gaslighting.

And he slices at her again and you can see he's cut her as he walks away by pretending like it never happened.

I'm glad that she stuck up for herself and you do cheer for her there, but you also get the feeling that she's gonna have to keep enduring this from this awful man indefinitely.

There is just such a darkness where some of the other episodes you could cheer for them.

The writers really didn't give us any excuse, much to much to cheer for here.

It was all pretty sad.

Everyone has to put up with Pete.

I just think Peggy's on the path to Pete's powers diminishing over her.

And his ability to hurt her, control her or manipulate her is declining, which I'll take as a positive sign.

How do you feel overall about the rest of the episode in terms of, you know, where it's standing in terms of enjoyability?

It really feels.

We're up to full speed now in terms of the series where we've got all these, the big six busy and active, and we know about them and where they're headed.

The mystery of Don Draper's background has been opened up a lot to us at this point, and we're really starting to get into the heads of Joan characters like Roger as well.

So it feels to me like it's just gathering strength and momentum at this point.

For me, this episode is so sad and a downer that it doesn't feel like.

I really kind of felt like in episode three, it felt like regular Mad Men to me, but here it's sort of like it takes a pause.

You know, we talk about how some people just can't get into the show.

If you watch this show first, I think it would be very hard to keep watching because it does really wring the viewers out and make it hard for them to feel optimistic.

It's definitely a dark episode.

That's it for this episode of all things Mad Men, from Chip and Dip to Zooby Zoo.

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Thanks for listening, everybody.