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!

I cut Dylan's hair, but not with any stylistic goal beyond making it shorter. I just run the clippers over his head and hope it doesn't look too much like he gets his hair cut by his Mom. (And if it does, eh, he's only one and a half. By the time he cares what his hair looks like he'll be old enough to sit still for a barber.)

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

ZOMGYES. I started twitching as soon as he picked the book up, but I didn't feel actual physical pain until he tore out that page. And did you notice how deliberately we were shown that it was a page with real text on it? SO MEAN.

I am waiting patiently for the Dick Whitman mystery to resolve itself.

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!

Totally!

Oh! And one more bit of rambling that I forgot. What do we think happened to Kinsey in Mississippi? I don't think he got beaten up in the riot (the wrong kind of anvilly, plus he would've been very carefully standing back from the truncheons). But does he magically come back less of a dick? Or did someone on the bus finally get sick of him and smack him, and he comes back and claims he was beaten down in the riot? (I'm inclined to think the latter, but my respect for Paul is the kind that is not.)

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

I forgot about this. This is when I decided that Don was evil. That's so SHITTY. I mean, I knew that he was self absorbed, but damn! (I also had a moment of John Glover love, when he played the devil in Brimstone and there was a scene with him in a bookstore, ripping out the last pages of books, and you could see that they were in the "Mystery" section. EVIL.)

And did you notice how deliberately we were shown that it was a page with real text on it?

Yes. And it was the very last page! I was hoping there would be a blank page at the end, but Weiner hates me that way.

(And he'd probably even check that the paperback edition available at the time did not, in fact, have extra pages bound into it. That is the extent to which he hates me that way.)

If you pause that frame and zoom in, the text on the page is probably something to the effect of "MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! TAKE THAT, BOOK-LOVING FANS! Love, Weiner"

I told Beau that if someone did that to me, I would lose my mind and give that person a beat down.

why not the title page of the book?

Because the last page makes it less obvious the book has been mutilated and will be discovered long after he's gone. Except in my house; I read the end first.

Because the last page makes it less obvious the book has been mutilated and will be discovered long after he's gone. Except in my house; I read the end first.

You think it was that deliberate? I thought it was just Don not giving a shit.