Season 6 Episode 9: The Better Half

"It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are."

- Roy Disney

The episode is called "The Better Half" and the main characters are given sexual, emotional and work choices within their triangles: Don with Betty and Megan; Betty with Henry and Don; Peggy with Don and Ted; Peggy with Abe and Ted; Joan with Bob and Roger; and Joan with Bob and Pete. Megan also has the distinction of playing two roles on the TV show, a brunette and a blond against Arlene, a bi-sexual, who chooses pleasure between a man and a woman (or perhaps both at the same time).

There is no surfeit of conflict here: it begins and ends with Peggy between the two creative heads Don and Ted. She does not take sides and is criticized for it by Don, and later by Abe who calls her "complacent". Peggy later accidentally stabs Abe but does not blame her, yet calls her the "enemy". Roger and Pete are bookends to each other and are both estranged from their families; Betty and Don rekindle their sexual attraction to each other; and every time we see Don with Megan, we hear police and / or ambulance sirens, signaling trouble. 

At summer camp, Bobby teaches Betty and Don a song, "Father Abraham had Seven Sons." When they sing, they raise their right arms, which is the symbol of the raised fist, a gesture used to signify unity, solidarity and resistance. It was most famously used in 1968 (the year of the episode) during the Summer Olympics, when the African American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, stood on the platform and received their gold and bronze medals with their fists raised and heads bowed while the Star Spangled Banner played. At the time, this gesture was a symbol of Black Power for African Americans. Their non-verbal communication became front page news around the world.

We are also given an abundance of political references to external conflicts: when Duck Phillips is talking to Pete about a potential job, Pete asks a question instead of answering one. Duck calls it a "Yankee wrinkle" a reference to a New Englander from a Southern perspective. The Civil War is also brought up when Arlene is rebuffed by Megan and says "status quo ante bellum, everything as it was" a reference to a time before the (Civil) war. Race too is referenced with the mention of the Planet of the Apes movie, a parable about race relations in America, and when Abe reminds Peggy that the neighborhood youth (criminals to Peggy) were brought to America in slave ships. And as Abe becomes more radicalized, he calls a NYPD officer a fascist and voices his solidarity with the May strikes in Paris (France) and the Prague Spring (Czechoslovakia) against the Soviet Union. When Don comforts Megan on the balcony, she is wearing a t-shirt with a red star, which is the trademarked symbol of Macy's department store*, but the red star has also been associated with Socialism and Communism since 1917**. When Abe agrees to move from their neighborhood and sell the building, he says "not everyone is a pioneer." While we take this to mean a reference to their failed attempt to gentrify the neighborhood, we should not forget that the "pioneer" movement was an organization for children modeled on the Scout movement and run by the Communist Party. The Vietnam War is also obliquely mentioned when Joan reminds Roger that Kevin's father is an Army doctor "a hero over there" and the nurse that Bob Benson recommends to Pete is "Army trained."

The conflicts of East and West (Cold War and Vietnam War), Black and White (race relations in America), Culture and Counter Culture (Tradition and non tradition) and the rising emergence of women breaking the glass ceiling in corporate America are the recurring sub themes of the show. And while we shouldn't give too much weight to these signs and symbols, we should acknowledge them as cultural shadings for the overall development of the plot and tension between the characters.

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* When R.H. Macy was a sailor, he received a star shaped tattoo. He used this symbol as branding when he opened his eponymous store in 1858.

** Megan's father is also a Socialist / Marxist.

Season 6 Episode 8: The Crash

My heart leaps up when I behold

A Rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the man;

And I wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.      

- William Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up" 1802

When Peggy quotes Wordsworth's poem with the line "The Child is father of the man", she is giving us an idea of the structure of the episode. Wordsworth wrote how a child sees the world, so sees the man, i.e., our experiences in our youth, shape our perception and emotions in the future as adults. When Don sees Peggy comforting Ted, in his drug induced state he is reminded of his illness as a teenager. Amee Swenson, a prostitute in the brothel, takes care of him during his fever and coughing* attacks, spoon feeding him soup. Don's memory of this reminds him of the Granger Oatmeal ad campaign that he previously designed, showing a Norman Rockwell type illustration of a mother feeding a small boy. Don finds it "in the archives" i.e., his memory. When Ken performs the song and dance routine, Don asks, "where did you learn that?" Ken answers, "My mother, no, my first girlfriend". Here is the key to Don's attraction and conflict with Sylvia: it reminds him of Amee Swenson, the mother figure / prostitute who was also his first sexual experience. Amee also betrayed him by telling his family of their experience resulting in the young Don being beat with a spoon by the step mother. 

Peggy is also the mother figure / girlfriend in this episode, first comforting Ted, then being sexually attracted to Stan. Peggy's advice to Stan, to experience grief and not bury it with drugs and sex is what Stan (and Don) should be doing, but don't. It is the road not taken, as she and Ginsburg quote Alice** to give us a literary equivalent to the surrealism they are experiencing in the office.

Christian symbols pop up: "I hate how dying makes saints out of people" when describing the death of Frank Gleason; Ginsburg comparing Stan to St. Sebastian (death by arrows) and then throws a Xacto knife to his arm; Stan says that he's come up with 666 (the numeric symbol of the Beast in the Book of Revelation) ideas for Chevy: Sally reading Rosemary's Baby***. However, the symbols seem more cultural flotsam than a meaningful plot line.

We also find that Wendy, who offers herself sexually to Don and then she sleeps with Stan, is Frank Gleason's teenage daughter. She is the mirror to Sally and we can only assume that she is using sex, as mentioned by Peggy, to dull the emotional loss of her father. Sally is also beginning to be aware of her sexuality and dressing provocatively. Betty asks how she earned the money to buy the skirt "from working on a street corner?".  We have the tension pitting the jealous (and protective) mother with the daughter and morphing Don's memories into the mix that combines the confusion of emotions of mother and girlfriend.

When Ida robs the apartment, she tells Sally that's she's Don's mother. Ida is a counterfeit mother to a counterfeit son. And even though it's preposterous, Sally believes her, because she doesn't know her father. Ida also becomes the embodiment of advertising, as discussed by Don and Ginzburg, which is to say anything to get your foot in the door. And when she steals, what does she steal? Time from Don (watches)****.

The Crash, starts with a car crash and ends with an emotional one. Wendy uses divination of the I Ching to arrive at Don's silent emotional question: "does anyone love me"? Don's self realization leaves him cold to Sylvia, Megan and to his co-worker and rival Ted, who he dumps the responsibility of the Chevy account on.

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* Don's coughing and smoking makes me think that the show may end with Don dying of lung cancer.

**
“Alice came to a fork in the road. 'Which road do I take?' she asked.

'Where do you want to go?' responded the Cheshire Cat.

'I don't know,' Alice answered.

'Then,' said the Cat, 'it doesn't matter.” 

-Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865

*** In the book and movie, the husband is an actor (like Megan) who "prostitutes" himself to Satan and pimps his wife to have his child. Betty says that Megan was on the "casting couch" (prostituting herself) in order to get a role on Broadway. The implication is that Megan is "preparing" Sally for sex .

**** We also learn that they work in the "Time Life" building.

Season 6 Episode 7: The Man with a Plan

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men*

Gang aft agley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!

Modern Translation 

The best laid schemes of mice and men

Go often awry, 

And leave us nothing but grief and pain, 

For promised joy!

- Robert Burns, from his poem, To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, 1785

Don's brilliant plan that landed the Chevy account becomes real and the (painful) merger of the two firms is played out (perhaps represented by Joan's cyst which was benign but painful?). The effects and repercussions of it shake the identity and insecurities of several characters. We are given a preview of the conflict during a meeting with the partners. Bert Cooper reads a draft press release about the union where he says, "and in closing" and stops: he's missing the ending. He doesn't know it and neither do we because it's ambiguous and changing.

Chaos reigns as Ted's firm moves in. Space is tight, compressed and claustrophobic. People are let go (Roger lays off Burt Peterson to protect himself), jockey for power (Joan and Moira) or maneuver for territory (Peggy gets a windowless office with a hand made door sign that says Chief Coffee Writer and Harry complains about being moved again to a smaller space). The creatives with the two firms could also not be more different: Stan and Ginsberg represent the hip, smart, pot smoking creative team for SCDP versus the white shirt and tie, whispering to each other CGC team. The only two people who seem to enjoy the merger is Roger and Jim, who both act royal and imperialistic. During the commotion of the office, there is also an odd moment when movers bring in a "modern" chaise and it is carried up the stairs. We later see it in Roger's office when he fires Burt. Burt can't figure out how to sit on it and asks if it's a bed.**

Don is the primary focus in this episode and his world goes upside down. In fact, we are told this twice: once, when he says to Sylvia that he wants her to please him, she replies, "I can stand on my head and do that at any time". And again, in the plane while flying up to visit the Mohawk Airlines, Ted tells him, "you think you're right side up, but sometimes when you're flying you're upside down". The merger has caused Don's world to become unsteady. We see Don's jealousy of Ted when he gives up his chair for Moira and when Ted asks the secretary taking the meeting notes a question she makes "goo goo" eyes at him. Don doesn't like it. And on the plane trip, Don looks disgusted and says that it doesn't matter what he says to Mohawk, because "you just flew your own plane to see him". Don is not the alpha dog any more.

When the episode begins and the elevator door opens to Arnie"s and Sylvia's hallway, we see a suitcase and a hat in the middle of the floor. We hear Sylvia yelling, but we never hear Arnie. It's as if he's not there. The conversation is one sided and she says "you are not taking care of me, you are taking care of yourself". When she calls Don at work and wants to see him, he does the same thing to her, symbolically locking her up in the hotel room (when he takes the key) and effectively putting her into solitary confinement with no food or entertainment (before hotel rooms had TVs). This becomes apparent when he cruelly takes her book, The Last Picture Show***, away to read on the plane. Don has gone to a dark place. We have not seen him treat a woman like this before.

So where is Don during the merger? Absent without leave. As one of the key figures and partners, he doesn't care. He's more interested in playing mind and sex games with his mistress than running the agency. Sylvia finally tires of him when she imagines him dead.**** Only then, does Don feel anything. Sylvia's problem is that she confused sex with love. Don doesn't know the meaning of love, only the meaning of sex. The most important thing to happen to the firm and he is not there, mentally or physically. Don's secretary is also absent. Don repeatedly looks for her. When Peggy says that she spoke to Dawn on the telephone, Ted says "which one? Black or white?."

Other absentee players: Pete and Pete's father who is a ghost in his mother's memory. We learn from his mother, who appears to have Alzheimer's, that he, like Pete, was a womanizer and also had an apartment in the city. We realize how detached Pete is from family and not just with Trudy: he didn't offer his brother the chance to take SCDP public and lies to his mother repeatedly about dates and events. He has become her caretaker because he could not admit that he is separated from his wife due to adultery. He also lost his accounts due to adultery. He sees his position at the firm as tenuous and missed the Mohawk meeting because of his mother. Pete is caught in a hell of his own making.

The Man with a Plan, has many guises: Pete's swinging bachelor pad has become a small cramped apartment that he shares with his senile mother. The plan to go public fell apart and the partners will not become millionaires. Arnie's plan to become the first American heart transplant surgeon doesn't pan out and he wants to move to Minnesota. Don's plan for the company merger is realized, but Don didn't realize the affect it would have on him or others.

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*John Steinbeck, in 1937, named his book "Of Mice and Men" from this stanza. The book was about unfulfilled dreams and plans that go horribly wrong.

** The chaise longue is a LC4 Villa Church and designed in 1928. For years Le Corbusier claimed exclusive credit for it. However, Charlotte Perriand, who worked with Le Corbusier in his architectural practice was the actual designer. It has only been in the last few years that she is being given proper credit for many of his iconic pieces. This piece of furniture, like the women of the time and shown in the series, are mostly uncredited or invisible. For more information on her please visit:

http://designmuseum.org/design/charlotte-perriand

*** The book is about loveless sexual alliances in a small dying town.

****Don's death is also alluded to by the dying Gleason when he speaks to Ted from his hospital bed. He quotes Sun Tzu (The Art of War) "if I wait patiently by the river, the body of my enemy will float by". 

Season 6 Episode 6: For Immediate Release

"I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit."
- Anna Jarvis

The episode opens on a Saturday with Joan, Burt and Pete talking with a banker about the value of the company. If the stock of SCDP is offered on the stock exchange, the partners will become rich. The underwriter says to Joan, "your papers are spotless, my compliments to the chef." After he leaves and while sharing a drink together, Pete says to Joan, "everybody wants you" and hints that they should sleep together. She rebuffs him but says when she is leaving, "don't forget, it's Mother's Day tomorrow." 

The roots of Mother's day began as a pacifist movement and goes back to post Civil War. It was an effort to reunite families that had been divided by the warring sides. But it wasn't until 1914 that Congress made it a holiday due to the efforts of Anna Jarvis. Jarvis, however, when she died in 1948, regretted that it became a holiday due to it's crass commercialization. 

Except for Megan, there are no children shown in this episode. And all the women shown who are mothers, Joan, Trude, and Marie, are not seen as "mothers". The women want to be seen as professional (Joan) or as sexy and desirable (Daisy, Megan, Maire, Peggy, Trude). Marie tells us that she hates it when her grandchildren call her to wish her a happy Mother's Day. She also offers her the flowers that she received from Megan to Dr. Rosen as a gift to his wife. The only woman who played the traditional role of mother wasn't even shown: it was Hazel, the TV sitcom that Ted wanted to watch, but "couldn't get the reception." Motherhood had left the building.

Peaches' story about the dog who had a litter in an oil stain in their garage, where each puppy "had a nipple" had Don rejoin, "I love puppies". Motherhood is sexualized by the men. Roger tells Daisy that his mother died so she will have sex with him. Pete tells Trude, "we'll maintain every other aspect of our marriage, except what matters" when Trude denies Pete sex. Marie tells Roger to "forget my name" when he's a no show for the dinner with Herb and Peaches. She thinks it's because she's not attractive because she is a mother / grandmother. 

Fathers take it on the chin here: Don is oblivious; Dr. Rosen borrows wrapping paper from Megan as he is putting something together at the last minute; Dr. Rosen's son is going to take Sylvia for a walk in the park; worst of all Pete and Pete's father-in-law, Tom, meet at a brothel (party house). Tom becomes incensed with this (guilt?) and pulls his advertising business from SCDP. He tells Pete that Trude, "is his Princess" and Pete "is not fit to be a father". Tom is so wrapped up envisioning his daughter in the traditional mother role that he can't identify with the fact that he and Pete share a common interest in having sex with prostitutes. 

Relationships are juxtaposed and compared: Pete and Trude / Roger and Daisy. Don and Megan / Peggy and Abe. Peggy is back down in a windowless apartment building which she shares with a junkie who defecates in the hallway and street kids who hang out on the stoop throwing firecrackers. She fantasizes about Ted* when she kisses Abe. She wants out of there. She's told us in this episode that she doesn't like change and it is a shock to her when the two firms merge. Peggy and Pete's trajectory are going down while Don and Roger are seen going back up. The two advertising firms merged by necessity. It was a successful "Hail Mary" pass that worked at the last minute: they landed the XP 887 (Chevy Vega) account, a car that was later to be shown to have a history of design problems that resulted in numerous product recalls. 

* A literary joke: Ted is reading "Something" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It could have been called "Anything" as Emerson never wrote such a work.

Season 6 Episode 5: The Flood

"We must constantly build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear."

- From his sermon, "Antidotes for Fear" published in his book "Strength to Love" by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963

The flood is the metaphor in this episode for the unleashing of pent up racial tensions following the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968. Riots broke out in multiple cities with Washington, D.C., the worst. The National Guard was finally called in to quell the violence there.

It also about the "flood" of emotions for many of the characters, but primarily, the two major ones, Peggy and Don, who are contrasting mirrors. When Dr. King is killed, emotions spill out but not all these can be attributable to him. The emotions are complex, diverse and human. It can be summed up when Abe sits at his typewriter and says "its an emotional story."

The episode opens with Peggy looking out of a high rise apartment that she is considering to buy. She is coming "up" in the world and this is reflected by her now seeing sunshine and blue sky. When we see Don, he has come "down" to the lobby level with Megan and talks to Dr. Rosen and Sylvia about their upcoming train trip to Washington DC.

This contrast between Peggy and Don is further shown when Peggy finds out that Abe in interested in having children with her and has visualized their future together. She is happy in her relationship and in her job. Don, though, is losing his grip becoming more depressed, drinking and smoking more.

Bobby rips the wallpaper because it is not properly aligned, it doesn't quite fit together. The allusion is to the American social fabric: that it has been "papered over" hiding the cracks and imperfections that has buried prejudice and racism underneath.

The tearing of the paper can also be seen as Bobby peeling back the emotions in the household. Betty asks "why are you trying to destroy this house?" For Bobby, Henry is now the father figure. Betty, his mother, is not who she once was: the sexy blond model / mother figure. Now she can't fit into her old dress and she is not a blond. She's not even sure who she is. Her smile fades when Henry says that he's thinking of running for Congress and he wants people to meet "the real you". She is self conscious of her looks and figure. In addition, Betty's annoyance when Don "forgets" to pick up the kids for his weekend outing, shows her lack of maternal instinct and her sole concern with herself (she asks him to come get them even though is danger with looting and the potential for rioting).

When Don takes Bobby to the movie theater, they watch a movie twice, which is Planet of the Apes (1968). The movie was based on a story by the French writer, Pierre Boulle, and reset to take place in the United States. The story illustrates and reverses the roles in contemporary race relations by creating a future where white people are hunted and enslaved by talking apes. Boulle took the racist stereotypes of the portrayal of dark skinned peoples as monkeys (or gorillas, apes, and chimpanzees) and turned the stereotype on it's head by making the apes the dominant power and culture. In the film, white people had become animals.

Pete is rejected by Trudie when he volunteers to come home and protect her. He is angry. When he talks to her, he is trying to say that he cares for her and wants to come home, but the King assassination remains the surface topic of conversation, and he can not really tell her how he feels. At work, he takes the anger out on Harry and accuses him of being a racist because he is concerned with money. When we last see Pete, he has ordered Chinese take out food. He is alone in his dark and depressingly small apartment which he use to think hip. When he tries to talk to the delivery person, the man does not speak English. We realize that Pete is completely alone, isolated and cut off from the rest of the world.

The flood as creation myth, destroys life and then recreates it. Peggy loses her apartment, but finds out that Abe loves her. Pete's epiphany is that he can't go back to his previous life of domesticity. Ginsburg's arranged date with Beverly* is broken up but they may see each other again. The social turmoil has made Henry to think of accepting the vacant Republican seat in Congress that he has been offered. Betty, is adrift in suburbia. And like Pete and Don, Megan is emotionally separated: she is ignored by Don, by the award ceremony and by her father.

Don is aware of his failure as a husband and father. During the Washington, D.C. riots, Don wonders about Sylvia. He doesn't wonder about his children or wife. Don's misplaced emotions makes him feel guilty and he takes to the bottle and cries to Megan who shows sympathy. Don tells her that he really didn't love his children and wonders if he inherited this from his father. But when Bobby shows empathy with the African American theater employee, he finally feels something. He says to Megan, "you feel a feeling that you were pretending to have and it feels like your heart is going to explode." This is brought home to Don and closes the episode, when Bobby tells Don that he's scared because he's afraid someone will shoot Henry, his "new" father. Don tells him "he's not that important". When Bobby falls asleep, Don goes outside to smoke, alone in the dark city night. Bobby feels for Henry what Don feels for Bobby: strong familial commitment. In this case though, Don is not the recipient. 

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Misc notes:

Water references: the real estate agent: "you can smell the ocean", "I'll go flush the toilet"; Gingberg's father talking about the Genesis flood and lining up "two by two".

Animal references: Dr Rosen to Don: "you two going to the (race) track?". Pete calls Harry "a pig". Roger tells Randall to "go back to your cage". Randall later says that "all the animals are crying". In between the showing of the movie, Don reads "The Ape" newspaper with a headline that says, "Big Roundup of Human Beasts".**

* Is it a coincidence that she attends "Hunter" College and then we hear that Dr King is shot in the face?

** Was this a faux newspaper that they gave to the audience as part of the promotion for the film or a Mad Men prop?

Postscript: in a conversation with Gil Zeimer www.zeimer.com over the weekend, he mentioned something that I hadn't noticed before: all the ad campaigns that SCDP has done, does not have the name or logo of the products in them. As I thought about this later, I wondered if it had to do with getting approval from the company (like Heinz) to use their name and trademark. By not including the trademarked material, they could write the episode without prior permission and script approval thus avoiding losing creative control. It seems that they may have come up with a creative and elegant solution to a legal issue.

Season 6 Episode 4: To Have and To Hold

"…to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth" - Book of Common Prayer, 1549.

Relationships, friendships, partnerships and marriages are frayed and coming apart in this episode. War is in the background on a macro basis and creeping into social conversations (dinner with Mel and Arlene) as well as the advertising world (Dow Chemical, maker of Napalm, is protested against by Columbia students, resulting in Dow sponsoring Broadway Joe on television, a variety show with Joe Namath and friends). The glass ceiling for women and minorities is also touched on (Kate's inability to go any higher in Spokane and Dawn's not seeing any other African American faces except the shoe shine man. Joan's realization that she has no real power (firing Scarlett but she is over ruled by Harry).

Kate, from Spokane and a top earner for Mary Kay Cosmetics, is a friend of Joan's and visiting New York for a job interview with Avon. When we first see her she is applying rouge to Gail's cheeks. It is the color of "rust" (decay) and Kate is trying to cosmetically cover up the look of age. The Broadway Joe variety show is also a cosmetic gloss for Dow Chemical: to make them look good in the public eye and to forget that Dow makes a chemical warfare agent that is destructive to vegetation, animal and human life.

Women's roles in business is also looked at: when Joan tells Kate that after 15 years "they treat me like a secretary", Kate responds "I don't care how they make you feel, it's right there for you for the taking." When Joan gives Dawn the keys to the supply room and the time clock, Dawn says, "I don't care if everybody hates me here, as long as you don't." Joan has the respect of women, but not of men. 

There are also marriage references and the dependence on men: Timmy, from Heinz, when he is leaving Pete's apartment, removes his wedding ring and says, "I don't need much of an excuse to come (visit) at midnight". Pete offering his apartment to Don for extra martial affairs, a reference to the 1960 film "The Apartment". Gail, when Kate is applying the rouge, "I need all the help that I can get" implying that she needs a man in her life to be complete.  Don cheating on Megan; Sylvia cheating on Arnie. Dawn is also the Maid of Honor for Nikki, and is asked about bridal magazines or events each time they meet. Dawn also complains how she's not meeting any eligible men and when Nikki suggests going to church, Dawn says she doesn't want to compete against the "harlots" there. An indirect reference to Sylvia and her faith that ends the show?

Women's rise to power in the series has been mostly by marriage or by sex or by physical appearances: Betty, Joan (sleeping her way to the top), Megan (from secretary to Don's wife), Jane Sterling (also a secretary at Sterling Cooper to corporate wife), even Gail, when Kate shows here the diamond bracelet watch she received from Mary Kay, says, "what did you have to do to earn this?". The SCDP partnership is also under stress with Harry's demand to be partner saying that he "earned" it, implying that Joan didn't by sleeping with a client and saving the company. She sacrificed her dignity for the sake of financial gain.

Peggy has been the only one who has not advanced her career by her sexuality: it has been by brains and creativity. But it was a shock to Don to see her outside the hotel room door after Don and his team pitched Project K (k for ketchup). He hears her speak his own words "if you don't like what they say, change the conversation." Don and Stan's friendship with Peggy has now been changed from friend / mentor to ruthless competitor.

Mel and Arlene's open marriage (when he propositions Megan and Don, he calls it a "chemistry experiment") is a direct assault on the traditional concept of marriage by separating love and lust. It is echoed in the cab when Kate and Joan are asked by the manager of the novelty themed soda shop, to find out which is the best kisser. Joan says she doesn't want to play that game. 

The color, scarlet, has historically represented adultery. Harry's secretary is called Scarletl. Harry brings up Joan's rise to partner alluding to her sleeping with Raymond to land the Jaguar account. When Megan finishes her bedroom scene with the actor "Rod" (I don't have to point out the significance of this name, do I?) she drapes a scarlet colored robe and goes to her dressing room. She has now become the adulteress in Don's eyes. This scarlet symbol hearkens back in literature to Hawthorne's 1850 novel "The Scarlet Letter" and Betty Davis's dress in the 1938 film "Jezebel". Don accuses her of being a whore, asks her if she washes her mouth out after (kissing) and tells her to go sleep with Mel and Arlene.

The center of the episode, is all about Megan or references to her French background: when we see her at the TV studio, she is wearing a French maid costume and reading, Emmanuelle (1967), a soft core pornography novel about a sexually liberated young woman. Above her on the wall are etchings of French dancers by Toulouse-Lautrec; a French bottle of wine is on the table at the restaurant when they have dinner with Mel and Arlene; Harry tells Scarlet to get a bottle of champagne to celebrate the Broadway Joe sale; Scarlett buys a French scarf for Clara as a birthday present; the French language song "Bonnie and Clyde" by Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot is playing at the nightclub that Kate and Joan go to. The references are to remind us of Megan. Her simulated adultery is tame and artificial yet magnifies Don's actions when juxtaposed to his flagrant acts of adultery. His anger rings hollow because we know he is duplicitous. What's good for the gander is not good for the goose. He proposed to Megan on a whim when she was taking care of his children. But now that there are no children around, he doesn't know how to deal with her.

Sylvia has left a penny under the mat as a signal to Don that her husband is gone. Is he the "bad penny" that always turns up? A "bad penny" is a counterfeit coin, like Don. When he gives her the penny, there is a closeup of it changing hands, a visual reference for payment for sex.

Don tells Sylvia to take off her cross before sex. She says, "Why, does it mean something to you?" "No," he replies, "it means something to you." Don, the atheist with a broken moral compass is lost. Lost among the changing attitudes of the times and in his own spin of lies.

Season 6 Episode 3 The Collaborators

"No lover, if he be of good faith, and sincere, will deny he would prefer to see his mistress dead than unfaithful." - Marquis De Sade

The reference to Munich, is the key to this episode, aptly named, The Collaborators. When Pete asks, "what's Munich?" Roger explains that "we gave the Germans whatever they wanted, and they just wanted more." * The collaborators here are: Trudy, Sylvia, Joan, Peggy, and SCDP when the partners (save Don) pimped Joan to Raymond for the Jaguar account. Germany takes the human form of Don, Pete, Raymond, and Ted, Peggy's boss at her new firm. Each party needs the other in order to survive as it is a symbiotic relationship, however damaged. Sometimes the result is rebellion (Trudy ending the relationship with Pete); or self destructive silence (Joan entering Don's office and pouring a glass of Beefeater gin (a symbol for England / Jaguar) and only saying, "they're here"). For Peggy, it is an uneasy alliance, where she can economically benefit but possibly destroy her friendship with Stan by going after the Heinz account.

On a macro level, we have in the background, the taking of the USS Pueblo ** crew and ship by the North Koreans in International waters. Also the Tet Offensive, a military campaign by the North Vietnamese against the US and South Korea forces during a ceasefire that was agreed to by both sides. These two events at the time were important in US history (in hindsight) and both were seen as violations of trust between international parties. There is also a mention of Jim Garrison, the DA from Louisiana, on a tv clip with Johnny Carson. Garrison believed that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the sole shooter of President Kennedy and that there was a conspiracy to murder the President. This belief shook the faith in the US Government by many of the populace at the time. ***

When we find out that Trudy has only played the innocent and naive wife and that she was quite aware of Pete's infidelities, we are shocked. We thought that Pete was getting away with it. So did Pete. And we realize how the appearance of a happy marriage was more important to her that a real marriage when she says "there's no way for me to escape; to be an object of pity while you get to do whatever you feel like". She has lived with his indiscretions without complaint, but now she is forced to confront the truth. Pete, too, realizes the illusion when he speaks to Bob Benson "it's all about what it looks like." Pete has now "donned" the public mantle of a philanderer. He and Don are now the same sad figures in terms of their relationships with women.

We should have seen Pete's fall coming: at the start of the episode, Pete offers to give Brenda tickets to the play, Hair, and she says, "all my forays into Manhattan have been a disaster." After they sleep together in his apartment, she emerges from the bathroom and says, "you're out of toilet paper." Her statement become real: the "s**t hits the fan when she comes over to his house beaten by her husband and Trudy finds out about the affair. Pete asks Bob Benson to go buy him some toilet paper. Bob agrees and becomes his new collaborator, replacing Trudy.

Trudy has been indispensable for Pete's career. She is the one who talked her father in helping Pete by moving his control of advertising of his company to SCDP. It will be interesting to see if she will now be part of his or the firms' downfall.

When Megan is talking to the maid and Sylvia enters, it is in the laundry room. This is where Megan starts to "air her dirty laundry". When she later confides to Sylvia upstairs about the miscarriage, it is not because she is a woman (although that is part of it) but it is because they are both Catholic. Megan says, "I knew what I wanted to do. I was so relieved that I didn't have to do anything." Here Megan is talking about having an abortion, but Sylvia doesn't agree with her. This is why Megan does not join them for dinner and tells Don, "I'll be better by the time you come back".

The unseen blood of the miscarriage, Brenda's bloody nose , the blood soaked rag. Even Peggy's feminine hygiene product, given to her as a prank, reminds us of sex, motherhood and birth.

When Don gives Sylvia money, it is as though he is paying for sex, and she seems to enjoy it. When Don has flashbacks of his mother, it is when they move into the brothel where his aunt lives with Mack, his new "uncle". Don (or rather his true name, Dick) stands in the hallway with his mother who is pregnant with his soon to be brother. Don looks with interest at one of the prostitutes. Later, when his is watching his mother through the peephole with Mack, the prostitute calls him a dirty little spy and says "you get your own room, that's how things work around her." Don's mother becomes a prostitute because she has no other option available to her to take care of her family. She "collaborates" with Mack. Don, due to his young age, is helpless to help. He is also attracted as he grows into his sexual self and is conflicted with the role that his mother has taken on: as mother and whore. It is this blend of motherhood, sex and money that swirls around Don.

* the agreement by the Western Powers was the tacit approval for Hitler to invade Czechoslovakia. 

** the crew was released in December 1968. The ship is still held to this day by the North Koreans.

*** Garrison's writings influenced the 1991, film JFK, by Oliver Stone.

Postscript: when Peggy has a meeting with her copy writers it is about the Clearasil account. In real life, Elizabeth Moss, who plays Peggy, starred in a Clearasil television ad when she was a young girl. Clearasil re-released the ad due to the shows success. It is still on today. Having Peggy talk about the Clearasil account, becomes an in house joke.