Also, why does every married man cheat on his wife. I can't recall seeing a situation where a married man has the opportunity to to cheat, yet chooses not to.

Same reason everyone smokes? Even at the height of its popularity, I'm pretty sure smoking levels never went over 50% of adults.

Was everybody really so miserable all the time, with only flashes of laughter to ameliorate the grimness?

I think that's the beauty of having set it against the backdrop of an advertising agency--that veneer of pretty they worked so hard to sell being the complete antithesis of what "real life" was like.

Fuels the cynicism-- I think it's part of what made that dinner scene with the couple who owned the peanut company so heartbreaking. They were, while a successful well-off couple, too normal to fit into New York. (Weren't they from Pittsburgh?)

The Utz people?

Yeah, them. Where the Lenny Bruce-like comic called the wife a Hindenburg.

yeah, they were from PA

I was at a party this past weekend, and there was a huge jar of Utz pretzels. I pointed and laughed.

Oh, my recording of The Closer cut off near the end of the Fritz/Brenda conversation. What I got out of what I saw is that there are things that Brenda won't do and won't discuss and I guess Fritz just has to be okay with that. (I saw up to the part where Fritz says something about how if they're going for the bigger house both of them have to want it.)

Anyway, I think that they were talking not just about the house, not just about the not having kids but about the whole relationship.

that veneer of pretty they worked so hard to sell being the complete antithesis of what "real life" was like.

Yeah, I really agree.

Oh, and while we're talking about veneer of pretty, that shot of them all shiny and ready for their AA meeting was just gorgeous.

What I got out of what I saw is that there are things that Brenda won't do and won't discuss and I guess Fritz just has to be okay with that. (I saw up to the part where Fritz says something about how if they're going for the bigger house both of them have to want it.)

I think that the discussion was about them having kids. I seem to recall that her health issues (the ones that made her have to stop eating sweets) had something to do with her ability to have children.

Do folks here know already that the Project Rungay fellows are now blogging Mad Men? This week's post is particularly nice and meaty.