Peggy, to Allison: “My problem is not your problem.”
Well, it looks like Allison did not take Don’s rejection as well as it appeared last week, or even at the beginning of this episode. On the conference call, it’s clear how good Allison is at her job — she even gives Don a little bit of attitude. “Why is this empty?” he asks, holding up a bottle of booze. “Because you drank it all,” she quickly shoots back. But when Don gets a Polaroid of himself with Anna from his recent trip to California, Allison notices and it obviously upsets her. The Polaroid is displayed on his desk, he describes her as a dear friend, and Allison feels like nothing to Don.
Peggy, Freddy, and Don are still working with Dr. Faye Miller to come up with the perfect campaign for Pond’s. Several secretaries, including Allison, are sent in for a focus group, just like the one Peggy took part in during her early days at Sterling Cooper. Faye dresses down her wardrobe and removes her wedding ring in order to get on the same level as the girls in the test group. She tries to push Peggy’s idea (the ritual of pampering) but the test group soon devolves into tears. Dottie is crying over a break up, talking about how her boyfriend used to look at other women all the time, but they weren’t married, and who was she to him, really? Allison quietly cries in the corner, knowing that Don is watching her, until she eventually breaks down sobbing and has to leave the room. This whole scene was uncomfortable to watch; as a woman, I’ve felt these things and watched my friends in the same situation, but it also confirmed what Freddy had been saying all along. These women just want to be loved, they want to get married.
Peggy, meanwhile, had been watching all of this while trying on Faye’s wedding ring, which Don spotted. She chases after Allison to offer some comfort, and it’s shocking how quickly she turns that off when Allison reveals that Don is the cause of her sadness. She assumes that Peggy must have gone through the same thing with him. “My problem is not your problem,” Peggy tells her. “And you should get over it.” In some ways, Peggy knows exactly what Allison is going through with Don. She has seen him turn the charm on and then take it back shortly after, but she wants professional acceptance from him, not romance. She wanted the romance from Pete, and that certainly didn’t end well. When Don returns to his office, Allison is still there. She is quitting and she wants a letter of recommendation from Don. He agrees, but then has an even better idea. Write what you want, he tells her, and I’ll sign it. He doesn’t see how much that hurts her. She picks up something heavy (a paperweight? artwork?) and throws it at him, shattering a frame behind his head. It’s the second time a woman has been violent on this show — last season Joan smashed a vase over Greg’s head. “You are not good person,” she tells him, before grabbing her things and running down the hall, everyone emerging from their offices to watch her go. Adorably, Peggy peeks over the wall to spy on Don. They’re always watching each other. At home, Don starts to type a letter to Allison. “I hope you know I’m very sorry,” he writes. “My life right now is very — ” He gives up and passes out on the couch. It’s a little too late for that anyway.
Meanwhile, Pete meets with his father-in-law to tell him that SCDP has to drop the Clearasil account. Before he can get the words out, Tom lets it slip that Trudy is pregnant. Pete is thrilled, forgets about his bad news, and gets drunk with his father-in-law. This isn’t at all what he thought it would feel like, he tells Trudy, full of joy. “How would you know what this feels like?” she asks, totally oblivious that there’s already a little Campbell running around New York somewhere. She offers to break the bad news about Clearasil to her father, and while I love Trudy, I feel like she’s such an enabler for Pete. He cheats on her and does nasty things to get ahead at work, and she always sticks by him and offers encouragement. I don’t think Peggy would be so quick to put up with his nonsense. Instead of letting Trudy tell her father, Pete uses the baby news and Tom’s guilt over spoiling the announcement to land an even bigger account for SCDP.
While Pete finds out about his impending fatherhood, Peggy is off making new friends. She meets Joyce in the elevator and soon gets invited to a party, where Joyce offers her some weed and then tries to kiss her. Peggy explains that she has a boyfriend. “Does he own your vagina?” Joyce asks. “No, but he’s renting it,” Peggy replies. They meet a pretentious boho artist, but the police quickly break up the party and Peggy hides in closet with a writer, Abe. She’s charmed by his story about getting arrested for his work and they kiss briefly before Joyce reappears to whisk Peggy away into the night, the two of them laughing. Back at the office, folks are passing around a congratulatory card for Pete & Trudy. Peggy looks ill when she sees it, but heads straight to Pete’s office to congratulate him. He thinks she’s talking about his new clients, and it’s amazing how quickly his body language changes when he realizes that she means the baby. This is probably the first time they’ve even remotely acknowledged their past since Peggy told him about the adoption. In the lobby, Pete meets with his new clients while Peggy meets with her new friends. The contrast between the two groups is striking: men in dark suits, shaking hands vs. young people in bright colors, laughing. Peggy glances back at Pete through the glass SCDP door and their eyes meet. It feels like there’s still a connection between them, though they’re in such separate worlds right now. Then again, maybe they were finally saying goodbye to each other.
After a disaster of a day with his new, older secretary (Joan didn’t want to give him any more temptation, apparently) Don is drinking in his dark office again. Later, he passes an elderly woman with a cart of groceries in his hallway at home, her husband waiting in the doorway. “Did you get any pears?” he asks, over and over. “We’ll discuss it inside,” she tells him, as though it’s a private matter that she doesn’t want Don to hear. Don Draper has reached the point where old women don’t even feel comfortable discussing fruit in front of him. His apartment door clicks shut, and he’s alone on the other side.
AUGUST 22: Don and Pete go against Roger in efforts to win a new account in “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword.”
Photo courtesy of AMC TV.
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