Apparently that prank with the Young and Rubicon (Y&R) guys dropping water bombs on Civil Rights protestors was a real incident that the NY Times reported on.

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Did everyone see that the scene at the beginning of Mad Men at Young and Rubicam was straight out of the NYTimes from Memorial Day weekend, 1966? Down to the heavy-handed dialogue.

Here's the deets: [link]

And so begins the rehabbing of Betty (Draper) Francis.

It was an interesting narrative gambit to write her pregnancy weight into the story (without Betty being pregnant), and made her character more vulnerable. And the cancer scare will (one hopes) give the character a pivot so she won't be so monstrous as she's been trending over the last two seasons.

January looked a lot like young Cybil Shepherd in this episode.

And the cancer scare will (one hopes) give the character a pivot so she won't be so monstrous as she's been trending over the last two seasons.

I have a feeling they'll just make Henry worse and worse so we'll like Betty more.

In other news: daaaaaamn, Pete. I am kind of afraid about Roger tossing him through that window.

I have hopes that Actual Competition will spur Roger into revelance.

I liked our new copywriter, Michael Ginsberg -- he felt very period-accurate in his language and mannerisms (Peggy has never sounded very Brooklyn, but of course the character might have consciously changed her accent.) It could be very interesting to have some real competition for her, too.

I did not like the Betty-is-fat storyline much, mainly because this show has never done well with fat makeup. (January Jones may have gained some pregnancy weight, but unless she gained it entirely in her chin and then added botox, that was a latex face.)

That said, the scene at the end when she finishes Sally's sundae...yep, that's how it happens. You start finishing your kids' leftovers because it's bad to waste food and before you know it your fat pants become just pants. Sigh.

Pete is just asking for Roger to stab him in the neck, isn't he.

It's interesting seeing how irrelevant Sterling and Cooper have become to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, but Pete, seriously, Roger will have you thrown off the Brooklyn Bridge if you don't stop.

Sending Roger to the Staten Island Ferry was great, though.

My uncle was an insurance exec in NYC just at this time, so occasionally I feel like I'm watching a documentary for a minute or two there.

Jessica,

she definitely gained pregnancy weight and you could see it when she stepped out of the bath. It might have been a latex face (like they did with Peggy), but Peggy's was off, and January's looked right.

I thought halfway through they were really going to kill Betty. Could they kill her off?

she definitely gained pregnancy weight and you could see it when she stepped out of the bath

That was a body double - the editing was painful.

If you look at pictures of pregnant January Jones, she's got a very typical thin-woman-smuggling-a-basketball kind of figure. Nothing at all like how they're trying to portray Betty.

really?

well damn.

Here is a writeup of last night's ep including a discussion of weight issues:

[link]