I think part of him thinks that, not all of him. I think he thinks of them as exceptions. One layer of him anyway. He knows that part of him is wrong and hates it, but it is there.

This is a pretty amazing analysis of The Other Woman:

[link]

A lot of the discussion around this episode focuses on would Joan really do this, and hey, she's in a desperate situation because she has to care for her child as a single parent. Yes, it's true that Joan is a single parent, and it's true that that's a difficult situation. Except Joan hasn't brought that up. She hasn't talked about her fears about raising Kevin alone and hasn't seemed all that stressed about money (or alimony?), to the point that she declines Roger's attempts to pay off-the-books child support.

She didn't sleep with scuzzy car guy just because she was desperate for the stability. She slept with him because she's in a liminal phase.

Liminalty is the scary in-between times in our lives, the weird time when we're not who we used to be but we're not quite who we're going to be. Joan's in a classic — classic! — liminal phase right now. She's not the office vixen anymore, but she hasn't really transitioned to doting mother. And to top it all off, she's in the middle of a particularly traumatic divorce. Joan doesn't know who she is anymore; her entire identity is jeopardized.

How do you fit back into your old life, if you can't be you? By being other people. Joan isn't acting out or acting crazy, she's grasping for models of behavior. She used to be the absolute queen of decorum, never a hair out of place or a situation she couldn't handle. She is not that person anymore, and she doesn't know who to be next — but she's surrounded by men, some cruel, some decent, but all solid, all real, all right there. Maybe she could be like them, just for a little, just until things got easier or clearer. Liminality leads to mimesis, the imitation of the community around us in an attempt to reintegrate ourselves in our new form. Joan's just acting like the members of the community she's part of, and that community happens to be the bigwigs at SDCP. Roger, Don, Bert, Lane, Pete. Why would Joan prostitute herself? To fit in again.

Don's the son of a prostitute, a guy who's patronized many a sex worker, someone who has accidentally — or at least unconsciously — made people around him feel like they'd sold themselves. He's the guy who coined the term "that's what the money is for!" He threw money, actual money, at his protegée in an attempt to shame and punish her. Pete is a rapist, a cheater, a schemer, someone shockingly desperate to get what he thinks is his due. He has also partaken in the services of sex workers. Lane is an embezzler and philanderer, but he's so darn decorous that he insists that Don let him pay his fair share for the prostitutes they picked up together on New Year's. (That was $25 well spent.) Joan knows how deep Roger's lecherous streak goes, and she's been a beneficiary of it for a good chunk of her adult life. Bert Cooper embodies detachment, perhaps thanks to his lack of testicles. Heck, Joan's just one of the guys.

I don't usually link to comments on other boards - it just feels weird - but this comment, on Ta-Nehisi Coates' Mad Men discussion thread, just utterly blows me away:

I didn't view this episode as didactic, but I did view it as contrived, and I loved it. Because it was all about the women - women's ambitions, their desire for financial stability, recognition, dignity, and career fulfillment - and how men's perceptions of them threaten, vex, and enable those goals. It struck so many nuanced notes that I could relate to from my experience as a female. Sunday night, I wanted to personally thank Matt Weiner for writing (and being able to write!) a female-centric storyline that I could deeply feel and identify with.

I can see why people would be distracted by asking themselves whether this male character or that male character would realistically behave that way. In most movies and films, it is exactly the opposite; the women are used to tee up dramatic situations for the focal character, which is typically male. And the female character's actions might not ring true, because they are plot devices. In this episode, the males were pawns to the storyline; their actions were the contrivances that would position the women characters at very particular, intense crossroads. It's true - I could see the writers in the room setting up these situations, but the pay-off was so satisfying for me as a woman AND as someone who loves the short story format for its sometimes-evident mechanics, setting up the final gem.

White Collar is pretty obvious about its formula, but it works. There's a real clear emotional connection that we got to saw develop, and they're not that different for how they appear on paper.

Common Law is *so* forcibly Odd Couple bromance, coming in heavy off the bat with the show's name and central conceit WHICH MAKES NO SENSE, but I'm really not getting the organic vibe off of this. I keep thinking yeah, Starsky and Hutch, Crockett and Tubbs, Sam and Dean...they all make it work, and it pretty much worked right off the bat.

I guess I'm three episodes into Common Law so far, and they just don't click. The opposites attracting thing...it's all tell and very little show.

Michael Ealy is really pretty good at the half of the dyad he plays, but I find the other guy notably unremarkable. There's no there there in his tight-assedness.

It's so by the book that I can't help wondering if the racial thing was also deliberate.

However, next week looks like it features Henry Simmons, and he hasn't been in anything I could stand to watch since, oh, NYPD Blue. God, he's gorgeous.

On the tip of some of the other shows--Necessary Roughness--all its promos look angsty. I seem to recall it being more light-hearted, though not overtly funny as most of the other USA shows.

I'm a little confused by Fairly Legal and how they're playing the triangle. I generally like Shahi's character more than the description would indicate--I think she's really very charismatic, but they are writing her kind of stupid romantically--unappeallingly so.

Well, I enjoyed Necessary Roughness last year and I hope it will be good this year too.

I don't like how they're playing the triangle on Fairly Legal. I think that the back and forth is so sudden it doesn't make any sense.

I think that the back and forth is so sudden it doesn't make any sense.

Yeah--and it's Kate that bothers me, not so much the guys--they both want her--she's intelligent, warm-hearted and totally gorgeous. But I didn't feel they handled the transition of her getting back into bed with her ex very well, and are also short-shrifting her torn loyalties.

It's definitely not the concept or the acting--it's the writing for me.

I'm pretty sure I'll finish S1 of Necessary Roughness today, so we'll see how I feel about S2.

I can see why people would be distracted by asking themselves whether this male character or that male character would realistically behave that way. In most movies and films, it is exactly the opposite; the women are used to tee up dramatic situations for the focal character, which is typically male. And the female character's actions might not ring true, because they are plot devices.

Wow, yeah. I love this insight.

Wow, yeah. I love this insight.

Seconded. Or thirded. That's something I doubt I'd ever have thought of.