I thought it was a great episode. I've complained that they're a little too on the nose with some of their thematic links and parallel stories this season, but I thought this was structured perfectly.

I love how Mad Men creates characters that I've never seen on TV before, and creates stories that I haven't seen either.

I've never seen anyone quite like Pete Campbell. It's like somebody took Frank from M*A*S*H and treated him like a complex human being instead of a caricature.

Certainly there have been some dark and complex leads in HBOs dramas, but nobody quite like Don Draper. No career women like Peggy, no sexy secretaries like Joan. They're very fully realized.

And I've never seen an acid trip portrayed that way and leading to the dissolution of the marriage in a calm, sad, reflective, freeing way.

The last two episodes have both been really, really strong.

I wonder if Don is a Virgo. Most of the Virgos that are known to me are maddeningly sure that they are always right, no matter what the discussion or argument is about.

But that really is My Issue!

But that really is My Issue!

I don't know what it says about Mad Men but people do seem to bring Their Issues to their response to it more than most shows.

At least that's how I read most of the antipathy towards Megan, and, previously, Betty. (Not that I haven't had issues with Betty myself, but I think my point holds.)

I agree that the last 2 eps have been really strong.

I thought Megan's comment about Don's mother was REALLY beyond the pale. I mean holy shit. I GASPED when she said it. I knew nothing good would follow.

That is just about the most hurtful you could be to Don, period.

Him chasing her around was really unsettling. At first, it didn't bother me because I thought it was one of their "plays", but then it was obvious Megan was alarmed.

quester,

leave me alone. I'm a Virgo. That trait you describe is really a Capricorn or Taurus trait, but whatever. :-)

::quester gets her Capricorn all up in le nubian's grill::

I don't know what it says about Mad Men but people do seem to bring Their Issues to their response to it more than most shows.

See, there it is. I was laughing as I posted that last because I recognized as I was writing it that I was doing exactly what David was talking about.

I find myself feeling much more sympathy towards Megan than I ever have towards Betty. It may be that living with Don is impossible, but I think Megan is made of stronger stuff than Betty is.

I really haven't missed Betty at all...her setting seem pretty stuck on "querulous" and it's tiring.(Initially, she seemed more like a full character...now, she stamps her feet and begs for compliments...I kind of wish January Jones had to stay pregnant for two years, like an elephant. Megan's okay...I *preferred* Dr. Faye, but not enough for a shipper war or anything.

I'm with Erika.

I miss the more multi-dimensional Betty we saw in the first two seasons. And I hope they swing back in that direction.

I liked Dr. Faye, but that's from a modern perspective. She was largely in the show to show exactly who Don could NOT be with. The very issues he had with Faye (her honesty, her ethics, her self assurance) are the same kind of frictions he's now experiencing with Megan. Megan is younger, but also wants to be treated with professional respect, and honesty and kindness.

That violent side of Don has always been present. He shoved Betty rather roughly when she challenged him, and his finger-bang of Bobbie Barrett was dark stuff too.

Having grown up on the other side of the 2nd Wave of the Feminist revolution, I don't think people who grew up afterwards realize how condoned/expected/tolerated a certain amount of physical domination/violence was expected from men in that era. Backhanding your wife for mouthing off would not get somebody a label for being a "wife beater."

It fell somewhere in the same cultural space that validated beating your kids with a belt as punishment. There were even plenty of cultural indicators that you were less of a man if you didn't.

Men and women expected it, which is why you had songs like The Crystals "He Hit Me And It Felt Like a Kiss." (used recently in the closing credits)

To be clear, I'm not validating that POV at all, or defending Don or anything like that. I'm just reporting what I remember.