Mad Men Season 6 Episode 3

Sorry about this being a little bit later than I would have liked, 
mind you, you didn't know that 
but I have been having major internet issues!

Somethings have been there all along and it takes one split second to recognize it.

The opening credit sequence with Don free falling is one of those for me.

I never paid attention nor heed to it before and I am sure many of you got it ages ago but I only just got that Don is free falling.
I mentioned that I felt it was a bit of television jet-lag and it continued this episode with the flashbacks.  If you thought a 24 hour flight from Oz to Europe with a 12 hour difference was bad enough, try 30 years ago minus the 1960's.

Whoa, Don was so ugly as a teenager and so badly cast that I actually googled the casting director for Mad Men.

Excuse me Carrie Audino and Laura Schiff, I know you have been working hard casting all of Don's girlfriends and extras to play the background secretaries and copywriters but you should have done a better job with casting Don at that age. Gee whiz.

Via www.uproxx.com

Don had a few good lines that his shrink would have had plenty of fun with.

Post coital conversation where I am wondering why is Sylvia 
( his new mistress / nieghbour ) wearing a negligee - 
I thought they were getting up to mischief but I digress.


She asks him if he doesn't mind sitting across the table from their respective spouses.

His response?

"They're both good company."

It is funny love and fancying someone isn't it?
I forgave Don every peccadillo for the last 5 seasons:
his womanizing, his moodiness, his being a less than mediocre father.

But during the meeting about inside politics at Heinz he comes up with the following sentence.

"But sometimes you gotta dance with the one that brung ya."

I had to rewind that 3 times before I understood it by the way.
I realized that my infatuation with Don was truly waning. 
After all he had done thus far, 
I got turned off because his use of the wrong verb tense.

 I love a girl who gives a good retort without needing to raise one decibel and pursing lips.

Joan didn't have many lines but she beautifully delivered,

"There's a part you haven't seen in years."

Normally I am a Mad Men fashion junkie but all the outfits in this episode were like the losing outfits on Project Runway.
The only person who dressed well was Sylvia - Don's mistress.

Peggy giving morale to her copywriters was just as awkward as a gawky father gatecrashing and dancing at a teenager's party.

Peggy handled the office incident quite well.  
Her temperance always did serve her well though.

Megan is breaking down.  She fires the maid and then the mistress is consoling her.  That's the problem with confession, it give the other such a invisible, unnameable power.

Megan was not looking good this episode.  
That green sweater with those collars and her hair and make up really reflected her inner turmoil.

When Megan was wearing that tufted duvet coat with 

the bell sleeves and mao collar, 

I knew she had a death wish regarding her relationship with Don.  

I don't think she really cares that much anymore.

She also let Don go alone to that dinner...

I was really shocked at his forceful stance with Sylvia. Micky Rourke in 9 and a half weeks must have learnt his tricks from Don.

That mating ritual of Broadway show tickets and a hook up in Manhattan was so not sexy. 

Could someone give me the number of the company that did all the PR about the swinging sixties?  

We thought - when I say we - I mean you and me thought we invented all kinds of crazy when having fights with our partners right?  Oh no, we are just reinventing the wheel folks.  

Crazy has been going since Eve got sick of Adam.

Both these women are at the opposite spectrum of crazy: one hysterically wild with emotion and one silently and morally ambivalent.

But I never liked Pete's wife anyway and I am not a huge fan of his either so unless he confesses his undying and unrecognized love for Peggy then I am not that bothered either way.

I did pause at the last screen shot.

This is what I adore about Mad Men.  

The tableau like screen stills that are like a part Edward Hopper / Vermeer painting.

There is Don in front of his apartment front door with his wife who admitted she had a miscarriage inside in bed after he has had another dalliance with another woman and yet he doesn't go inside and sits on the lobby floor.

The flashback with that incident peeking through a door seeing a pregnant woman let herself be subjected to something that was obviously not a willing act and psychologically layered has scarred him.

Maybe I am overreaching but it seems like he doesn't want to ever know the truth and prefers always being outside physically and emotionally other than where he should be, i.e. his home.

Heavy stuff folks.