Mad Men

I do not think Megan is crazy, I got a distinctly BDSM sort of vibe from that scene in her underwear and lest we forget, Don was into some of that stuff last season (didn't he hire a prostitute to hit him or something? - I really should've watched S4 again before starting this one!) Like maybe this is part of their thing?

I think you may be right. I don't think Megan is crazy so much as wanting to please her husband and play up to his kinks? The party was a sign that she doesn't really have a clear idea yet of how to do that.

Yeah I agree with you guys. I mean his entire relationship with Bobbie and the hooker? I think that you have the right idea.

I do think this marriage will probably crash and burn but it won't be Megan's fault.

BreezyK wrote:

gannetguts wrote:I like Megan too. I think she's pretty clear in what she wants and isn't willing to put up with bullshit. Plus, Sally likes her.

Oooh, I thought that opening scene indicated that Sally's feelings on Megan have changed now that she's no longer the carefree babysitter, but I'm sure we'll see how it plays out this year. Kiernan Shipka is now in the opening credits, I can't remember if she was last season.

According to Jacob over at TWOP, that scene showed Sally "becoming a little lesbian." I THINK he was trying to be funny but it failed.

Someone on ONTD said (and I agree) that the scene was about Sally seeing Megan as someone who gets Don's attention and she will try to imitate her throughout the season (not eating, acting out sexually, etc).

Jacob also mentioned more than once that Peggy and Megan were getting along swimmingly, which is either a bad joke or I watched an entirely different show than he did Sunday night.

BrightEyes wrote:Someone on ONTD said (and I agree) that the scene was about Sally seeing Megan as someone who gets Don's attention and she will try to imitate her throughout the season (not eating, acting out sexually, etc).

I totally agree. She's most certainly looking for a female role model (she doesn't want to be her mother, for sure!) and she wants to be close to Don so much, I expect to see her trying to emulate (and kind of compete) with Megan.

Morning Angel wrote:

BrightEyes wrote:Someone on ONTD said (and I agree) that the scene was about Sally seeing Megan as someone who gets Don's attention and she will try to imitate her throughout the season (not eating, acting out sexually, etc).

I totally agree. She's most certainly looking for a female role model (she doesn't want to be her mother, for sure!) and she wants to be close to Don so much, I expect to see her trying to emulate (and kind of compete) with Megan.

Ooo yes, I agree. She doesn't really have that many (female) role models in her life and she most certainly has made her feelings clear on Betty, so I think she may try and emulate Megan.

I don't think that Megan's crazy, I think she's one of the only ones on the show who isn't crazy. Don may make her crazy by the end of the season, but she's just trying to be a normal wife and throw a nice party, and then Don gets pissed and everyone is all snotty and her co-workers harass her.

I have to agree. I think her meltdown was more "why is everyone such an asshole?" Which, valid point Megan.

Yeah everyone was shitty to her and she has the lingering charge over her head that she's advanced in the company because of marrying the boss.

I also remember what an ass Don was to Peggy on her birthday.

The whole reaction to the song was just like Don freaking out at Betty over the prospect of her wearing a bikini.

Whatever the weirdness of that last scene and I guess that's as close as Don will come to an apology, I do get the impression the two of them are into eachother physically and that was her stated goal in planning the party and before Don sulked.

Honestly, I thought there was something off about her last season, so it wasn't just the party. But that may just stem from me wondering what sane person would saddle herself to Don, his jerky attitude, and his giant mess o'life after knowing him for a whopping 15 minutes.

Probably after knowing him for 15 minutes is the only time I WOULD saddle myself to him. That is still in the period where he seems extremely handsome, fascinating, etc. Its after that the crazy comes out.

mokey75 wrote:Honestly, I thought there was something off about her last season, so it wasn't just the party. But that may just stem from me wondering what sane person would saddle herself to Don, his jerky attitude, and his giant mess o'life after knowing him for a whopping 15 minutes.

Though he has been acting somewhat out of character ever since he met Megan. He seems to have lost his interest/drive in work (which I think Peggy comments on in this episode). Don and Megan probably had a honeymoon period, but I'm pretty sure we're picking up the story at a point where we're going to see the reemergence of the real Dick/Don in all his moodiness and insecurities. Throwing a surprise party for Don, she just has not to know the real him very well. (Although, I was actually expecting that someone who knew too much like Faye was going to show up and it was going to be awkward. It went for a slightly different thing.)

Throwing a surprise party for Don, she just has not to know the real him very well.

I am also really perplexed why she did it less than a week before his birthday, a surprise party isn't supposed to be a surprise to the guests! It seemed completely socially tone deaf. Add the flippant way she brought up Dick Whitman and I imagine things are going to quickly dissolve this season.

I also thought she was ridiculous with Peggy at the office after the party. It was a bitchy comment but it didn't ruin the party.

mokey75 wrote:Honestly, I thought there was something off about her last season, so it wasn't just the party. But that may just stem from me wondering what sane person would saddle herself to Don, his jerky attitude, and his giant mess o'life after knowing him for a whopping 15 minutes.

I think she's meant to be seen as young and still susceptible to the romance of being swept off her feet by a dashing older man. But I do think they are well suited -- she has the right kind of sexual attitude for him (the first time they slept together she actually handled it casually, vs. the other secretary who had an epic meltdown about it afterward). They do seem to be more equal than any other relationship he's had.

I think they're ultimately screwed -- here is my spoiler-free speculation, which I will spoilerize in case it actually happens and ruins it for someone:

Spoiler:

but Megan might be the one woman who exits a relationship with Don *not* all broken up inside. I could see her really pitying him on the way out the door.

I agree with your prediction. I have been waiting for that to happen since last season.

Kiran wrote:I agree with your prediction. I have been waiting for that to happen since last season.

Agreed. Me too.

Spoiler:

Megan might be the one woman who exits a relationship with Don *not* all broken up inside.

Faye was broken up inside? Or Bobbi? Or Rachel, who dumped him on his ass? Don was the one broken up inside after she left him. Again I think that emphasizes the problem with Don's relationships is...Don. Megan is challenging Don, the box he thought he bought, but that is why it won't work. Hot D/s sex may have smoothed over this particular conflict, but I doubt it will fix the bigger issues with them not really knowing each other very well. She's definitely challenging and interesting though, the most interesting person he's been with since Rachel.

Kiran wrote:Probably after knowing him for 15 minutes is the only time I WOULD saddle myself to him. That is still in the period where he seems extremely handsome, fascinating, etc. Its after that the crazy comes out.

This is how I see things, pretty much. Megan was pretty new to the company when she got engaged to Don. At this point in the show she's got the confidence of having been with him a few months (right?), the mistress of their new house, etc., and knowing his Dick Whitman secret, and she probably thinks she's got him pretty well figured out, and from that place of confidence she decides it's fine to tease him by throwing him a surprise party, and embarrassing him a bit, because they are at the level where they can do things like that with each other. But Don is a moody weirdo and is the opposite of good-natured about it. And everyone at the office, instead of being like "I know, what's up HIS butt, right?" sympathetically to her, basically treats her like she committed some gross social violation. Which she didn't! Normal people throw parties for their husbands (as she says) and even doing a little sexy dance at the party is daring and flirty but not outside the realm of normality. She probably thought it might ingratiate her with Don's (and now her, after her awkward promotion due to marrying the boss) colleagues, but instead they turned on her and now seem to see her as either a sex object (Harry) or unhinged. She put herself out there and it fell flat.

And to make matters worse, Don, instead of reacting like how she probably thinks a NORMAL slightly-reserved-but-terribly-handsome-and-dashing man would ("I can't believe you did that to me, honey, tsk tsk, now come here so I can spank you, har har") he goes into this depressive coma and is bitchy and distant. She probably thought he'd be like "This hot lady dancing in front of everyone is MY WIFE and she threw me this awesome party and I'm a lucky bastard, and I'm crazy about her even though I'm adorably bad at expressing my feelings" and instead he just hated the attention drawn to him/them and was angry and cold about it. And I felt like she was going, what the hell did I marry? She's maybe starting to realize that she DOESN'T know him as well/is not as adept at "handling" him as she thinks, because Dick Whitman is one layered, secret-filled, angst-ridden bastard.

I'm not totally sure what to make of the end part with the sex on the floor. When Don asks where Megan is and Peggy says she went home and he's like "OK I'm leaving" and she goes "I think she wants to be alone" and he goes "You don't know her" -- that's the part that I'm still trying to parse. I sort of thought that meant he was saying "oh, she's just being a drama queen, she wants me to go home and comfort her so I guess I have to," but he got home and she was angrily cleaning up and didn't seem to want to see him, but was that all a show? Was she just waiting for him to get home so she could flounce around and yell at him in her underpants and thereby reassert control over him with her sexuality? Did she KNOW he'd get sexily mad and throw her to the ground and ravish her/was she hoping for that? Did HE know that was how things were supposed to go? Or was she legit just cleaning in her underwear because she didn't want to get her clothes sweaty, and he got turned on and grabbed her, and was she glad about that? I'm not sure.

Anyway, I personally don't see her as crazy. I see her as (previously) pretty together and sure of herself (her self-deprecating remark about her teeth last season; a less confident woman would have had more insecurity about that), and I think she thinks she's tamed wild stallion Don, but she really has no idea what she's dealing with, and I suspect that will continue to drain her confidence this season and leave her a quivering mess. Though I hope not, because I like her.

blixie wrote:Faye was broken up inside? Or Bobbi? Or Rachel, who dumped him on his ass? Don was the one broken up inside after she left him. Again I think that emphasizes the problem with Don's relationships is...Don.

I'm not conveying this well -- it's something about Megan feeling more like his equal, with more actual intimacy between them, so perhaps she won't be as surprised when he pulls something -- versus Faye being surprised and devastated when he broke up with her. But Megan is also being portrayed as young and probably too trusting, which could go the other way.

I hope if the shit hits the fan, Megan storms out the door without a thought.

Can I just say that I'm SO HAPPY Mad Men is back? There is so much to think about and talk about with it and I'm truly enjoying the discussion here.

Instant Monkeys, I really believe that even if it isn't spelled out BDSM with rules and everything, both Megan and Don knew exactly what they were doing in that clean up scene. She takes off her robe as soon as he walks in the door, when presumably, she's been home for a while before him. She starts ordering him NOT to look at her and that he's not allowed to see her like this, and then he reclaims the "power" in the situation by "showing" her just what he thinks he's allowed to do and that he's NOT old.

I agree with you that Megan thinks that she knows all there is to about Don, but that this season is going to be somewhat about her learning how much she doesn't know.

I'm not totally sure what to make of the end part with the sex on the floor.

I saw that as Megan acting out to regain the "upper" hand in the relationship. The Megan/Don dynamic seems pretty mutually beneficial: he gets to validate his self-loathing by having sex with women who remind him how unworthy of them he is, and she gets to feel powerful in 1960s America by bossing around the man who is ostensibly the head of her household and her boss's boss at work.

Don is a classic case of not wanting to belong to any club that will have him, which is why he responds so eagerly to women who are either inaccessible or armored in self respect that has nothing to do with men. So long as Megan continues to try and put him in his place, he'll stay interested. Not faithful, but interested.

The thing I am most looking forward to this season is Don & Joan's inevitable affair. Both of them are aging out of their primes, both of them are off balance, and both of them are carrying around a hell of a lot of resentment at the world. That's going to create a false sense of intimacy, and with those two, there's only one place that can go.

BreezyK wrote:Can I just say that I'm SO HAPPY Mad Men is back? There is so much to think about and talk about with it and I'm truly enjoying the discussion here.

Instant Monkeys, I really believe that even if it isn't spelled out BDSM with rules and everything, both Megan and Don knew exactly what they were doing in that clean up scene. She takes off her robe as soon as he walks in the door, when presumably, she's been home for a while before him. She starts ordering him NOT to look at her and that he's not allowed to see her like this, and then he reclaims the "power" in the situation by "showing" her just what he thinks he's allowed to do and that he's NOT old.

I agree with you that Megan thinks that she knows all there is to about Don, but that this season is going to be somewhat about her learning how much she doesn't know.

I just listened to Matt Weiner's interview on Fresh Air on my way home from work. (It was Monday's episode, if people want to find that podcast). He said it was trying to show their way of fighting, and that Don did basically like being controlled sexually (as we've seen before) so that Megan was in control of that part of their life. So Megan is responding to his indifference/avoidance of the previous day's events by using the leverage that she has and withholding.