OK, I watched the vase-smack gif for a minute straight, per your request, Julia. I'm afraid, though, that I still think it's a little much. (This, I could watch all day.) I'm more amused by the debate raging in the Fray over just how damaging such a blow would have been to "Dr." Greg. The consensus seems to be that it depends on what the vase was made of—porcelain (headache) versus heavy ceramic (subdural hematoma).
Patrick mentioned the focus group scene, but I wanted to linger over it for a bit longer. Though my hope that somehow Chauncey Phillip's services would be enlisted in the testing of the Caldecott product didn't come to pass, the scene was still a highlight. Like Patrick, I loved Smitty's observation that the owners' descriptions of their dogs' predilections were really just thinly veiled descriptions of themselves. And the climax of the scene was hysterical: The owners freak out when they learn their animals have been eating horseflesh, and Annabel can't stand to watch. "Turn it off," Don commands. To which Peggy replies, "I can't turn it off. It's actually happening."
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StumbleUponThe last straw for me with Miss Farrell: When she scrapped Don's plan to go to Mystic, Conn., in favor of Norwich. How great would it have been to see Don Draper climbing the rigging of the Joseph Conrad? Or hefting a harpoon!
Like you, Julia, I'm looking forward to seeing where Mad Men goes from here, now that Betty knows Don's secret. My hunch is that the series won't lose much steam. For one thing, Don still needs to guard his secret closely in his professional life. Bert Cooper saw fit to keep Don's identity under his hat (so he could later use it as leverage), but Don's rivals and enemies might not be so magnanimous. And would a "friend" like Connie Hilton remain loyal if he learned Don stole an officer's identity over in Korea? Not likely. But I also think the series doesn't need Don's secret identity as much as it used to. We've noted throughout this TV Club that Mad Men has focused more on the changing times this season than it has in the previous two. As we approach the Kennedy assassination, escalation in Vietnam, Beatlemania, and the other watershed moments of the first half of the 1960s, I don't think we'll miss the mystery of the supersecret drawer all that much. There's too much other stuff going on.
Which brings us to the Kennedy assassination bet. The original wager, as I understood it, was about whether the series would dramatize the assassination in the manner that it has other historical moments, like the Cuban missile crisis and election night 1960. I agree that Weiner is cagey, but I still believe him when he intimates that the series isn't going to address the assassination head-on, as it were. Last week, during Weiner's appearance at the New Yorker festival, his interviewer broached the subject: "I know everyone's been asking you about the Kennedy assassination. That's something you're going to have to deal with on the show." Weiner's response: "Or not."
I do think the assassination is going to happen this season and wouldn't at all be surprised if Weiner upended expectations by having it happen in the penultimate episode, not the finale, as you suggest, Julia. A couple of weeks ago, we saw Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech go by in a flash—a snippet on the radio that did little more than temporarily slow Don's inexorable march into Miss Farrell's pants. I can't imagine Kennedy's death being treated that incidentally, but I don't think we'll see the boys at Sterling Cooper huddled around the TV watching Cronkite, either.
Oh, what the hell. I'll take the bet, Julia. For two old-fashioneds, I'll bet you that Kennedy lives through the opening credits of episode 3.13. I'm coming over to your office to shake on it now.
John
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Series creator Matthew Weiner has stated he leaves nothing for future seasons and puts everything out there each season, like its the last, and this episode could almost double as a series finale. I think when Mad Men eventually ends its run, there will be discussion whether this episode was the proper series finale and should have called it quits right here, or will Weiner have new and interesting places to take us in season 4?
-- guyroy
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"And the way that they saw themselves is gone." Julia, I think this pretty clearly refers to Peggy having her child and giving it away. Until Peggy told Pete about the baby, Don was only person on the show outside of her family and priest that knew her secret. Don was the one that visited Peggy in the hospital after she gave birth and had been out of work for a while.
-- BumblebeeMan
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Who's in charge, Betty or Henry? Something that surprised me was the amount of involvement Henry had in Betty's divorce advice. Does it ring true for the period that Henry went to the lawyer with Betty and apparently also knew the lawyer and may have selected the lawyer for Betty? And, when Betty told Don that she would be consulting with a divorce attorney and Don should too, was she simply parroting Henry's words?
Certainly since Henry's divorced he knows the routine and I can understand him giving Betty the benefit of his experience. Last episode Henry was willing to give Betty the time she needed and he would wait. Now, things are fast-tracked to Reno. I'm sure that it's been hard for Betty to continue to live in the same house with Don who continues to deny Betty's feelings. But, seeing Betty sitting in the lawyer's office on the sofa with Henry, reminded me of Betty sitting on the sofa with Glen last season. Then, when Don confronts Betty about Henry, they seem to be having their first real fight.
Anyway, I wonder if Betty/Henry are the 'lasting love' mentioned in the Roy Orbison song at the end.
-- lkd711
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I think season 4 will include a serious health issue for Don-perhaps lung cancer. Note the cough at the beginning of the last episode. Also the brief scene when Sterling's dog food heiress old flame states that her first husband died of lung cancer, there is a brief cut to Don lighting up another. Thoughts while I write an order for Don to get a screening cat scan.
-- ldbmd
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