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

For non-New-Yorkers...the Second Avenue subway construction began last year. HA. Sorry, Peggy.

Okay, wow - I'd just started the ep when I wrote that last post. That was some powerful stuff.

I'm still processing, but I found it kind of unrealistic. I find it hard to believe that no one said anything nasty or offensive. Even Roger. Suddenly, the casual racism that we've seen from everyone went away?

Have not watched tonight's show but about Don and change. I think there was one important thing that gave the illusion of change but was not.

Back when Don was married to Betty, she was a woman he could control (until the end) but the vibrant independence that attracted him before he married her vanished when she became a housewife. He dominated her, but was bored by her. The women he cheated on her with were women with lives of their own, women he could not control. When he married Megan, and she proved so talented as copywriter and dealing with clients it was the perfect situation for him. Here was a women busy doing work he found fascinating (the same work he did, but working for him). He had a lively interesting woman he could still dominate.

But when Megan moved to acting that changed. She remained interesting, but now she is independent, with a life apart from him he can't control. So now he turned to cheating again. Hec pointing out that this particular profession involves so much time away from Don that it would have destroyed marriages even to better men who shared the attitudes of the time. But in Don's case it would not have mattered if she became independent with something with much more flexible schedules - freelance drawing that could have been done at home or something. Just spending time in a life he could not have controlled would have been too threatening to Don. He can't really deal with a long term romantic relationship with a woman where he is not totally in control - where she has space of her own. Maybe in professional relationship, or platonic friendship, but not a long term sexual or romantic relationship. That is one reason why none of his affairs ever lasted for the very long term. Women who interested him were not women he could control completely and sooner or later that would lead to the affair ending if nothing else did.

I find it hard to believe that no one said anything nasty or offensive. Even Roger. Suddenly, the casual racism that we've seen from everyone went away?

Harry Crane's concern over his TV clients was pretty offensive. And it was painfully clear that nobody had any idea what to say to the black secretaries - Joan's pathetic attempt at a hug was embarrassing.

Pete, I loved in this ep. His one redeeming quality all along has been his anti-racism, and I liked seeing him genuinely sad and angry while everyone else was mostly worried about how they were going to get home.

I find it hard to believe that no one said anything nasty or offensive. Even Roger. Suddenly, the casual racism that we've seen from everyone went away?

I think the casual racism is evident in the way Harry and Henry both kept referring to how "they" will burn down the city. I think upper middle class New Yorkers of the era would certainly have a lot of ingrained racism, but they'd also distance themselves from the overt racism happening in the south during the Civil Rights era.

I don't think they're particularly enlightened or cognizant of their white privilege, but it would have been extremely uncool for Manhattan sophisticates to be overtly racist.

Incidentally, as I recall from reading histories of the show, Sesame Street was based on the West 80s in the late sixties. It was a particularly vibrant mix of cultures and classes and pretty open.

Huh, I always thought Sesame Street was in the Bronx.

I thought it was Brooklyn!

So either the UWS or Alphabet City. [link]