Guys, Don and Peggy?
I don't know.
Some thoughts: I love when Peggy she says she knows what she is supposed to want, but it never feels right, and it never feels as important as her job. This sentence could stand as my whole fucking life and the way I approach my work. There is also that alcoholic thing going on, and as the victim of a partner with substance abuse problems that was hard to watch, where Peggy was supposed to be mother everyone behaving badly. Don just told Peggy more about his life than almost anyone else when we know he is notoriously secret, and what was that hand holding at the end?
There is something I love about the way Don and Peggy interact, too. I mean, not his sexism, or the way he uses her to substitute for his own lack of life, but the way they meet each other, the way they are platonic, the way they talk to each other as equals. Even when they fight, there is a profound amount of respect each has for the other. Don uses Peggy, and its gross, and while I want Peggy to fight back I find she responds to people much as I do, getting trapped in that place where people are a mess and need help and even though you know you should push them away, you can't help yourself but go to them, because you hate to see anyone suffer.
And back to that hand holding - was that a thank you? Or was that more?
Discuss.
I'm not sure. From a structural point of view I liked the hand holding being a nod to the first episode, where Peggy puts her hand over Don's and is rebuffed (which is good because he's telling her she doesn't have to sleep with him, but also bad because he's a massive bully at the same time, and because then the whole thing with Pete happens and argh). I really don't want it to be something more, I don't want Don to be "fixed" or back- it seems a cop out, and fanservice to the wrong fans.
ReplyDeleteI was really interested in the scene at the end, and when they're working in the office at night, in that I think that Don's "the best idea always wins" is bull, and that by this point Peggy is probably having better ideas/acquiescing to Don's "brilliance"- her gently criticising an idea is "shitting on it", him throwing out all her ideas and harrassing her is "doing his job"
I've never been a partner or family member of someone with substance abuse issues, but god those scenes were painful to watch.
When watching it I thought I didn't like it, now I just think that maybe it was just difficult to watch. And I had my hopes on Peggy getting free of that agency/that life in a way (by which I mean the having her credit stolen and being harassed by everyone, even the people (person) she views as favourable/a friend.
On a side note the scene of Mad Men that will always make me cry when I watch it is Don visiting Peggy in hospital. I watched it about a month out from my third admission to a psych ward (obviously not in the same circs), and the sheer emotional force of someone saying "forget about this, get out and move on" always gets me.
Also, I also loved her saying how nothing feels as real as her job- I can't always work the ridiculous hours owing to mental health problems, but it sums up how I feel when working in theatre too
ReplyDeleteMeusin, I agree about how I don't think it will devolve into anything sexual, and that Don being "fine now" or "back" would be too easy, and I don't really see the writers going there.
ReplyDeleteI think when it comes down to it, Don and Peggy really love each other, and it's a love based on respect, not sex or societal roles, like every other relationship we see on the show. I think that it's actually really unique for that. And while the relationship doesn't escape sexism, Peggy fights back, and refuses to allow Don to speak down to her. I actually think she uses Don as an excuse to get out of her relationship with Mark - because it isn't what she actually wants. It's what she's SUPPOSED to want, but she's tired of that charade.
It's interesting, the touching hands, because Don said he pays her money to thank her. And that's clearly not true - that was an incredibly heartfelt thank you.
This was really one of the best Mad Men episodes ever, I think. I'm off to watch it again - maybe I'll have different thoughts after!
Also, on your point of societal roles, I think it is really interesting how douchey the men with whom Peggy is in or has been in a relationship behave in this episode- both Mark and Duck are awful from their first appearances, and ignore what she wants/would concievably want to serve their own desires.
ReplyDeleteInteresting what you say about Mark - I'm not sure I agree, but I think that once she finds out he has her family there she might, because that makes so clear that he's not what she wants.
Yeah, I just watched it a second time, and I thought the way she said, "Of course you would use my birthday to get in with a bunch of people I don't like," and then "Of course you would stay," to Mark means she isn't really a big fan of him. And she kissed that other dude in the closet a couple episodes ago. I just got the sense she's been angry about this for a while - I mean, remember when he called himself her fiance to Don and she was mad? I think she really dislikes how he tries to subtly intertwine himself into her life. He's like a Nice Guy (TM), but instead of sex, he wants marriage.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Peggy's men are awful, but I also think they expect their women to be wedded to THEM and the idea of being a woman in a relationship, rather than a profession and achieving. I think in Duck's case, he's originally attracted to her talent and ability, but that's the thing he comes to resent in the end.
During his lost weekend last episode, Don told Doris the waitress that his name was Dick. He's been letting things slip, especially when he drinks. Plus, as much as he abuses Peggy, Don has good reason to trust her. He helped her out when she had her baby, she got him out of that scrape with Bobbie Barrett. They share big secrets, those two.
ReplyDeleteDon this season has been desperately grasping to make some kind of human connection and failing miserably every time until now. The morning after his night with Lane was almost as empty and awkward as the morning after his night with Allison. This time, as big a puke-stained mess as he was, he got it right.
I was seeing Peggy as the agency's little sister. The way the guys in creative talk about women around her like she's one of the boys, the way they tease the hell out of her, the way Joan and Don are always trying to mentor her and improve her whether she wants or needs them to - it all looks very much like being the youngest girl in a big dysfunctional family. But then somewhere between Peggy's knowing and unaffected reaction to Don's telling her he never knew his mother and his laying his head in her lap, it occurred to me that Don would see something of his mother in Peggy, which would explain his helping her get back on her feet after she had her baby and also some of his hostility toward her.
Finally, I was as fooled by Duck as Peggy was. I'd thought he liked Peggy for Peggy, and was disappointed to find out last night that he'd only seduced her because he thought he was one-upping Don. I hate that Peter Campbell was right and Peggy and I were wrong.
I did love that Don at least tried to take a swing at Duck for calling Peggy a whore. You don't talk about Don's babysister/mom like that!
Adding - I loved that Peggy phrased it "what I'm supposed to want." Because women aren't to decide what they as individuals want for themselves, society is supposed to do that for them. That's one thing several people said to me when I was a teenager asserting that I had no interest in marriage and kids. "Don't be silly! Of course you do! That's what girls are supposed to want." Seriously. And I was born about 40 years after Peggy Olson would have been. I so related to that.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the hand-holding thing goes, I saw that as kind of a mirror to his interaction with Allison the morning after they had sex. Instead of pretending that his moment of vulnerability had never happened with Peggy, he was able to look her in the eye and acknowledge the previous night, which I was REALLY glad to see.
ReplyDelete@snobographer I really like your analogy of their relationship as that of an older brother/younger sister. Makes a lot of sense, especially when you think about Don's tendency to bully her a bit, but also be protective of her. And when they were having the confrontation about Don getting all the credit for Glo Coat, it seemed oddly reminiscent of an older sibling using their age to justify having dibs on something.