But - as David said - Astrid was a photographer not a hair person and she could cut hair. (Did more people cut their own hair in the past?)

Sure, it's not impossible.

I figure he put himself through art school cutting hair. Or something. (Okay, I handwaved it because the rest of the episode was so awesome and it did seem to fit in with the "Unlike Americans, Eurotrash hippies don't totally suck at happiness" theme they had going.)

I was guessing that the Eurotrash were secretly penniless Romany, like in the show I never watched.

Not Romany, I don't think, but I definitely think they are fakers. From the moment the "viscount" introduced himself to Don.

Kurt cutting Peggy's hair was over the top but I loved it!

There's style and then there's hairdressing. I would have an easier time buying him styling her.

yes, I didn't think that he would cut her hair, but I thought that he would change it, restyle it or something. Plus, the inevitable clothing makeover.

(Did more people cut their own hair in the past?)

Bohemians did, just as wacky art students do today. That part really didn't strike me as a stretch. It's not like he gave her some cut that required massive technique. He just cut it to the length prevalent at the time (cf., Marilyn's hair on the recent cover of Vanity Fair).

My mother used to cut our hair. I didn't get my first salon haircut until I was six years old. She also cut her mother's hair when she still lived in Michigan. My grandmother quit getting her hair cut and grew it out after Mom moved, because she said only Mom did it right. And I gotta say, Mom was never close to being a Bohemian.

Heck, Hec, you cut hair!

I think it's a matter of what a person feels comfortable with and there are folks out there who aren't afraid to cut hair without ever having gone to cosmetology school.

I mean, my mom cut my hair, my brothers' hair and my dad's hair for years.

I've cut my own hair when it drives me to do it and I'm too broke to get it cut or cannot figure out what to say to the hairstylist.

Only just watched this ep -- the agony of my slow downloads is matched only by the squee of having a vacation day to watch and rewatch and rewatch!

The Eurotrash were definitely scammers. But highly entertaining scammers, who make friends with the rich and drink up all their champagne until they move on. Possibly circus people! (Okay, I have no idea where I got that one, but it sounds fun.)

Pete really did meet them in Newport! I was sure when he brought Newport up that he was just throwing his name around in response to the title, but then it came out later that they actually had been there.

My theory on "Dick Whitman" is that he's been using it as a code/fake name very recently. It's not someone who knew him as Dick in his past life (they think he's dead, and there's no way he wants to make contact with them); and it especially wouldn't be someone from the army (aside from the fact that they also think he's dead) without a lot of "hey, buddy, what've you been up to for the last 10 years". Plus, Don calls women, not men. He's been using the name more recently than that.

I'm not sure that Dick Whitman-woman is the same as the woman he sent poetry to, but then I'm still convinced that the only person he would've been sending that particular book to was Midge.

Joy lost the last page of her book. No need to say here how insane that makes me, I think?

Poor Salvatore. Brian Batt has this brilliant double-punch of the "this is so uncomfortable" look + retreating body posture every time the subject gets too close -- and Kurt came out so very easily; not that the response when he left the room was any better than you'd expect.

(The other uncomfortable look that it always calls to mind is Duck's look around alcohol. He can't (or thinks he can't) just say no to a drink, so he ends up physically pulling back away from them.)

As Vortex put it so perfectly, Peggy has her own gay!

I didn't find the haircutting to be at all unbelievable. I've cut my own hair many more times than I can count (even short), have cut friends' hair, have had friends cut my hair, have known sisters who cut each others' hair well into old-ladyhood, and ladies who grew up with it being the maid's job.... Hec would know better than me on this, but I think it's really just in the last generation or so that we got the idea that it would be dangerous fashion death to let anyone other than a pro touch it.

Considering how obsessive Weiner is about the style details of the show, Peggy's hair was purposefully anachronistic.

Yep. Somewhere in the S1 commentaries, Elisabeth Moss talks about how much she hated the ponytail and mousy clothes when everyone else was so fabulously styled, and how Weiner kept insisting that Peggy had to have it for just that reason.

Definitely Don's luggage being delivered to the house. WHERE'S BETTY? What a huge mystery to just slip in at the end of this totally stuff-happening-everywhere episode, as if you wouldn't notice.

The West was such a thing. The shift to LA reminded me of the move to Nevada in The Godfather Part II, where there was a very established look that carried over from the world of the first movie, and all of a sudden everything was Bright! and Shiny! and New! and Modern!