<p>The cigarette company wants nothing to do with the guy that threw them under the bus with the NY Times editorial, which Don wrote at the time to save his job. Now he’s trying to spin it that it was nothing personal, he is that good ( it worked), and imagine how it will look to have him on their side. </p>
<p>@Roshke…thanks.</p>
<p>I still don’t buy the cigarette meeting. If they keep Don, it just looks like the ad agency is hypocritical. I don’t see any benefit to Philip Morris because it’s a completely empty mention of their competition. </p>
<p>I didn’t watch last night’s episode live because I had been traveling and didn’t think I could enjoy it to the fullest. Saw a headline from Vulture about how good it was in my Facebook feed this morning, so I took time to watch it a little while ago. All I have to say is that was Mad Men Perfection!! </p>
<p>The Don/Peggy scene nearly brought me to tears. I don’t know what we’re supposed to think of Bob Benson; personally I considered him an accessory to murder (Pete’s mother and his friend who probably threw her overboard) and I’m glad Joan turned down his proposal. Still, they seemed to be playing Benson as a sympathetic character. Maybe he’s just there to show how things have changed/not changed since Sal.</p>
<p>One thing’s for certain; Joanie sure knows a closeted gay man when he kisses her.</p>
<p>I loved this episode. The show is at it’s best when it focuses on Don and Peggy that way. But I will say I am completely baffled by the Don/Megan scenes. Why is she in NY? I thought she ended it a few episodes ago. Now she acts like all is well and there is not even a reference to what transpired last week. It just seems to oddly untextured and such a contrast to all the layers shown in the relationship between Don and Peggy. Maybe that’s the point, but it still seems weird.</p>
<p>Am I the only one confused by Megan’s hair? It was long when she arrived from CA, cut above her shoulders in the next scenes. Did I miss something?</p>
<p>Wigs and “falls” were huge in the late 60’s. Women with, say, shoulder-length hair would agument it with a fall, which was a kind of wig that covered the back of the head and was usually a longer length. Your bangs, etc., would be your own hair. And while we’re on the subject, Joan’s hair looks a lot more “1969” down in a flip than it does up … just sayin. </p>
<p>This was the first episode this year in which Matt Weiner wasn’t listed as a writer. </p>
<p>I saw this in a hotel (after my kid’s graduation) so wasn’t able to concentrate. </p>
<p>I liked the clear focus and repetition of types of family, good and bad and phony. I liked that they finally clearly identified Bob as gay. </p>
<p>And it was interesting that Bonnie and Megan end up flying to LA alone, both seemingly disillusioned and Megan bluntly having moved more completely out of NYC and Don’s life there. The ending showing the work family, especially after the long and emotionally honest scene between Don and Peggy, was striking as a potential setup.</p>
<p>I compare Bob’s really nice 1969 sports coat and tie to Pete’s, which might be the ugliest thing ever. And he acts ugly in it toward his soon to be ex-wife. </p>
<p>There was that great contrast between Lou’s idiocy - I love seeing happy families! - to Peggy asking “are there families like that anymore?” as Don’s comment stirred her to excellence. </p>
<p>Questions -</p>
<p>Can somebody explain why Don was looking at what seemed to be a pristine newspaper with the Kennedy assassination headline?</p>
<p>Is Don an alcoholic or not? If he is, and that’s what the Freddie interaction seemed to say, then he can’t just pour himself a drink with Peggy (not supposed to be doing that anyway, he could be fired!)and do some good work, have a glass of wine with Megan, etc. </p>
<p>I believe Kennedy’s assassination coincided with him having to tell Betty that he’s really Dick, not Don. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as their marriage went. Is this symbolic of Don and Megan? Probably. </p>
<p>Megan was digging in the closet for the fondue pot and must have taken out that paper. And the paper triggered the memories.</p>
<p>The JFK killing was Margaret Sterling’s wedding and it was there that Betty decided to divorce Don. That connects it much more closely to Don and Megan, though of course Megan has no idea what that date means to Don’s old life. </p>
<p>Loved this episode on so many levels! But, the end shot of the family of “Don, Peggy and Pete” was very poignant. They are also a family…and were finally able to settle down and relate together at Burger Chef, exactly how Peggy is presenting it. Life imitated art. They haven’t done a very good job breaking up Don and Megan…too confusing, not even showing them discussing the events from last week. Discussing fondue pots, really? So glad Don sort of put Peggy in her place…showing her who the “master” of the game really is. He did it with such maturity, too. Can’t wait for next week. </p>
<p>What a man Don Draper has become - his reaction to the breach of contract letter & his secretary’s advances, his mentoring of Peggy, how he accepted Megan’s rejection, needing to connect to his kids during the moon landing. It was also nice to see Roger stepping up as well and his connection with family during the moon landing. I think he proved Bert wrong about leadership. </p>
<p>However, I’m going to be anxiously awaiting all the analysis of last night’s ending. I am well aware of Robert Morse’s long history on Broadway and thought it was interesting that his swan song was a little song & dance. However, I’m not so sure I get what Matthew Weiner was trying to accomplish with Don’s reaction. Thoughts? </p>
<p>This season I had to deal with the fact that I don’t write the series and don’t control what happens. I would have written SC&P out and moved Don into a different life. They didn’t. They are more wedded to the characters and the concept of the agency than I am. Ah well.</p>
<p>Key moments in this episode:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Bert tells Roger that Cutler has a vision for the firm … but he’s not on my team. We then hear Cutler’s vision and it’s horrible: pushing the firm into media buying for other agencies, putting the computer first and trusting in data to buy ads for other firm’s clients. The interesting and illuminating side bit is Cutler’s statement that over Dresden he wanted to live. Get it? Surgical precision for ad buying compared to fire bombing. The USAF tactics in WWII were described as precision bombing but what actually worked and actually happened - Hamburg, etc. - was massive destruction of civilian population centers. That’s actual war, not imagined war of precise hits on specific targets. So when Bert says he’s not on my team and Roger hears that, he knows - as a WWII veteran - that there will be a lot of casualties at the firm, a lot of losses on his team. </p></li>
<li><p>Cutler clearly thinks - it’s obvious now - that Don convinced Ted to go to CA. They emphasize this with a cut to Don making a somewhat confused face after Cutler reminds Ted of what happened the last time Don talked him into something. In Don’s mind, that was Chevy. In Cutler’s mind, that was CA. I assume this comes out. </p></li>
<li><p>Best line: Don says to Peggy when she tells him they won Burger Chef “they heard what I heard”. Much of the show is about Don becoming a father. He tells Megan he’ll always take care of her. We earlier heard him trying to take care of Anna’s pregnant niece. He tells Sally not to sound so cynical and asks if she wants her brothers to talk like that. And he tells Peggy it’s time to spread her wings. This isn’t Father Knows Best. Don’s father was a mixed bag at best and his other role model ran a brothel. But he’s trying. </p></li>
<li><p>I thought Elizabeth Moss was wonderful in this episode. The scene with Julio was emotional. The scene on the bed where she’s scared to go on the next day - essentially what every actor has felt many times. Peggy uses her relationship with Julio, just like Don has used his life, just like actors pull their characters out of their families and friends. </p></li>
<li><p>I haven’t seen this written about but Jon Hamm has shifted his portrayal of Don this season. He’s added an important layer: mature equal talking in a normal voice with calm mannerisms the way Don would be. It started this year with his long talk with Sally; he treated her like a person with a brain, like someone whose opinion he valued. He had moments of this in the past but this was a sustained characterization that matched a tone of voice to Don’s form of physical stillness. Then Don talked with Peggy about Burger Chef and ideas. Their roles were reversed; she had been drinking and was demanding stuff from him just as he used to. And he talked to her about creativity and how he did it in that same voice and manner and so they worked together and then they danced together. In this last episode, Don treats her as an equal. He sets her up with the exact words she would have used to introduce him. And that mirrors the way Don and Megan would interact at meetings - and Peggy could not because she was not ready. It’s not that Peggy is now Megan but that this relationship has become this now. </p></li>
<li><p>Bert’s line to Roger: you have talent and ability. We’ve always seen it, the quickness at decision-making, the ability to recognize a situation (outside of his life and family). He goes to Don’s apartment, lays it out, knows Don will see it and leaves. He hears Ted wants back to NYC, says “Ted’s in, let’s vote”. Decisive. My point is this: Bert was Roger’s father. Not biologically but in real life and now Roger has to take over the kingdom that both his fathers started. He has to grow up. The long voyage of finding himself was a luxury a son could take but now he has a job, which is to save his fathers’ legacies. </p></li>
<li><p>We finally understand Joan better: she wants the money. She needs the money because, as Bob made clear, she’s living in a 2 bedroom apartment in NYC with a kid and her mom and she’s almost 40 and she wants love but … she needs stability.</p></li>
<li><p>I can’t add up SC&P shares. Joan has 5%, Pete has 10%, Ted has 20%. That leaves Bert, Don, Jim and Roger for 65%. If Ted has 20%, then Don has 20%, which leaves 45%. If Jim has 10%, then Roger and Bert can’t each have 20%. On the other hand, if the companies merged equally, then Jim would have 30%, which makes no sense. So I throw up my hands. Maybe Bert had less because he was older (and didn’t do any actual work at all).</p></li>
<li><p>I have to say it was great to have Robert Morse go out with a musical number. Bravo! Robert is 83. His first role on Broadway was in 1955 in The Matchmaker. Interestingly, his life is somewhat close to Don’s: his father died at age 10 (in an accident) and his mother was institutionalized. The key plot elements in that swan song to me were his call to “Don, my boy” and the words of the song itself. Bert has also been Don’s father in a way that Don never has seen. He’s promoted him, defended him, scolded him, punished him and in the end voted for him (because Don is on Bert’s team and that’s the loyalty of a form of family). The song was his last bit of advice. “Love can come to anyone / the best things in life are free.” Think about that in the context of Don’s career, not his life. He sold the Kodak Carousel based on that very thing, on the family events that become memories, the birthdays that come around with the calendar, the sunny days spent together, the rainy days spent inside. His ad pitches, even when fake, are appeals to the heart. That is what has made Don powerful creatively and Bert sees that: your creative urge is free, your ideas are free and love can come to anyone, sometimes physically and sometimes in the form of knowing you have it right. It’s a valentine and a benediction and a bit of fatherly advice with some scolding thrown in.</p></li>
<li><p>I was floored by the shot of Sally in the exact same pose as her mother, arms crossed with cigarette. Who is she to become? That is an open question. She never wore lipstick to the pool before. We are a weird mix of our parents’ traits.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I was also struck by that shot of Sally and had the same reaction: just like Betty. Sally is trying to play/find herself as an adult, putting on lipstick to go to the pool because she’s intrigued by the visiting boy; using that boy’s language about the costs of the moon landing in her conversation with Don, lighting up like her mom. </p>
<p>We’ve seen more warmth from Don in the past few episodes: his genuine happiness at the idea of seeing and helping his “niece,” reaching out to his children, and his patient nurturing of Peggy who sometimes behaved toward him like a trying child. </p>
<p>Loved Robert Morse’s farewell. Like all good things on Mad Men something was alluded to rather than referenced.Here it is (be sure an listen to the opening dialog): </p>
<p><a href=“I Believe In You - Robert Morse - YouTube”>I Believe In You - Robert Morse - YouTube;
<p>How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying</p>
<p>Thanks for the Robert Morse link! That’s the way I always think of him – it’s been difficult for me to see Robert Morse in Bert.</p>
<p>I think Roger’s always been willing to step up to the plate - he just needed a chance to do so and he psychologically couldn’t while Bert was still alive (I hate the fact that Bert is gone, though - I love Robert Morse in this role and he was delighted to be working.) Anyway, I’m interested to see where Harry, Cutler and Lou end up. I think Lou will be kicked to the curb (yay!) and Don will have Harry’s back in the end. Harry stuck his neck out for Don when he told him about the Commander cigarette account and over the years, Don’s been pretty good about taking care of the people who have taken care of him. As for Cutler, a lot can happen there. As they say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. </p>