I enjoyed the ep but there is very little that enfuriates me more than the "poor pitiful white dude" syndrome. Poor Don has it all but is just so unhappy. See also my hatred for American Beauty. I'm over his character.

I don't think our sympathies are supposed to be with Don at this point. I don't think we're supposed to feel like his problems are anything except his own making.

I don't think he's irredeemable either but that's for this season and the next to play out.

I sort of see Don at the end of it all on a beach in California, following Anna's path.

Me too, Hec! I think he is totally unlikable right now and is headed for a crash and renewal at some point.

and is headed for a crash and renewal at some point.

I hope! I'd be bummed if they took the Sopranos route. (Character is unchanging. Nobody really changes.)

I enjoyed the ep but there is very little that enfuriates me more than the "poor pitiful white dude" syndrome. Poor Don has it all but is just so unhappy.

Yeah, this is where I'm at. Whether the show wants me to sympathize with him or not (and I agree that it doesn't), I'm at a point now where I don't really care if he turns it around. I just hope he doesn't take Megan down with him.

One funny story Jessica Pare told last night was how she found out she was going to be a regular on the show - she hadn't gotten the script pages yet for the ep where Don proposes, but the costume designer came in and said "I, um, I don't know if I'm really allowed to tell you anything, but, um...I need to measure your ring size."

I believe they do want me to sympathize with him at least a little bit. Why else show his shitty childhood scenes? Also, in Monday's ep Sylvia said she, "...prayed for him to find peace." Poor wealthy, successful, good-looking, top-of-the-food-chain Don. Ugh! They need to do something - anything - to make me give a damn about his character at this point. He used to be more complex but now he's just a straight up entitled asshole. More Peggy! More Joan! More Betty! More Sally!

It was a very plotty episode - not so much with the recurring motifs and metaphors that they've been prone to over the last couple seasons.

I like when things happen! So I liked it quite a bit except for agreeing with all the discontent with Don, whom I've generally liked and found interesting as a character, but the way he treats Megan, ugh. Be fucking happy for her success, for fuck's sake.

"I tolerate it, but I won't encourage it."
"You're perfect."

Megan has low standards for perfection.

Well, for someone who also seems to hate himself, Don is a narcissist.(And I do still care about him, but it was always annoying that all he thought would fix everything was a hipper scene and a hotter woman. Even if I liked the psychologist better anyway.) I'm not so sure that Don is capable of that kind of give-and-take, at least not with somebody he's married to. Megan has rejecting parents that have made her really insecure.

He sort of deserves to be wearing medallions and too-cool shirts that don't fit around his expanding middle trying to chat up young girls in the Regal Beagle in a few years, but somehow, if it happened that way, it would seem really sad.(Sometimes things are sad, of course, especially on this show.)

So Matthew Weiner doesn't dislike Don, and doesn't think we should, either. [link]

I find I enjoy Mad Men much more when I don't read what Matthew Weiner wants us to get out of the show.