Season 1, Episode 2

Synopsis

Roger Sterling and his wife Mona have dinner with Don and Betty. Don is reluctant to reveal much about his past. Betty goes to the ladies room where here hands go mysteriously numb as she struggles with her lipstick. Once home, Betty continues prodding Don about his past, and doesn’t get much further.

At Sterling Cooper, Peggy tells Joan she’s happy about her first paycheck. They pass through the ladies’ room to see one of the office girls crying.

There’s a meeting about the next campaign for Right Guard, a deodorant in a new, aerosol can. Ken get a navy-style hazing of the new product. Bertram Cooper informs Don that they may take on the Nixon election campaign against Kennedy.

Paul asks Peggy to lunch and is lightly rebuffed. Joan takes her out instead. They are intercepted by Ken and Harry so they go to lunch together. Pete is away on his honeymoon at Niagra Falls. At the diner, the office men are rather too inquisitive about Peggy’s social life.

Betty talks with another mother, Francine. She smokes a cigarette while pregnant. They gossip about the neighbor Helen, who has recently divorced. It’s quite a scandal.

Betty drives down the street with her kids Robert and Sally in the back seat. Her hands go numb and the car jumps the curb. Everyone is unharmed despite the fact nobody is wearing seat belts.

Don has yet another tryst with Midge, and comments unkindly on her new television. To get Don to shut up, she drops the television out her apartment window to the street below.

Over dinner of fish sticks and succotash, Betty wonders if she should see a psychiatrist about her numbness.

At a meeting to discuss Right Guard, Paul wants to link the aerosol can to the space race. Don thinks the future might be too scary, and considers targeting women.

Paul gives Peggy a tour of the office and an overview of the different departments, media, accounting, account management, and creative.

Don comes home with a present for Betty, thinking perhaps she just needs some cheering up. She is still insistent on seeing a psychiatrist.

The next day, Don shows up at Midge’s for yet another “session” while Betty is at the Dr. Arnold Wayne’s office for a session of her own.

Paul confronts Peggy in his office and kisses her. She says there’s someone else and rebuffs his advances. She asks Joan why the office men are so aggressive. She rushes off to the ladies room to cry and hears another woman sobbing from one of the stalls.

After his night with Midge, Don concludes women want “any excuse to get closer” – a good slogan for Right Guard. He takes Betty out to dinner on the town. After returning home, Don calls Dr. Arnold Wayne to find out what exactly Betty discussed during her therapy session.

Thoughts

Style

Lots of drinking, right from the get go. The attention to detail in the set design is quite staggering, down to the utensils in the restaurants, toys of the kids, and the outfits. We even get to see some classic cars.

Then And Now

• Racism: The restaurant bathroom attendants, and the sandwich cart salesman show us that minorities are there, but meant to be merely functional and largely invisible in this world.
• Dangerous toys: Francine smokes while pregnant. Sally has a plastic bag on her head. Sally and Robert are in the back seat without seat belts, and end up on the car floor after the accident. Well, our parents survived all this, somehow.
• Sexual harassment at the office continues, to where women are driven to tears.
• Right Guard comes in aerosol cans which were banned in 1978 after the gas within was found damaging to the ozone layer of the atmosphere.
• Psychiatry: No such thing as doctor / patient confidentiality, or at least, if you’re a man and your wife goes to see a shrink. Don is also skeptical of psychiatry whereas today, Betty would just go on Prozac / Paxil.

Advertising

The slogan Don comes up for Right Guard is the answer to “what women want”: “any excuse to get closer.” Implying that the product gets you in with babes makes perfect sense, seems to be the primary goal of all the men at Sterling Cooper.

Surprises

There’s a theme of women’s depression in this episode. Roger Sterling mentions psychiatry, which is the lead in to Betty’s plot thread, seeking therapy for her nerves. Paul also enters a meeting saying he’s late because of a suicide, and then there are the crying women Peggy sees throughout the office. Today, there are so many people on anti-depression medication (Prozac, Paxil) that Betty’s issues seem rather quaint. Don’s skepticism of psychiatry makes him look bad, but there might be a comment on our present day, over-medicated population – the depression seems to have a cause in society itself.

Sexual harassment is a likely cause for the crying women in the office. Both Ken and Harry hit on Peggy at lunch, and the more aggressive Paul pounds the point home. After that, we get a rather chilling montage from her point of view as random office men silently saunter by and “check her out.” It’s both funny and disgusting at th same time. This is the modus operandi of the office – every new girl gets the once-over by the office men.

The Cardigans song The Great Divide plays over the credits. Its lyrics are oddly appropriate, pointing out the reason for the womens’ depression:

There’s a monster growing in our heads
Raised up on the wicked things we’ve said
A great divide between us now
Something we should know

The divide referred to is that between the sexes. This world is a very stressful place for women in particular. Is it any wonder they come across as emotionally feeble (crying in the bathroom) and unstable (Betty)? In this man’s world, the men ask “what do women want?” and have no idea, because this society has been set up to answer the question: “what do men want?” The answer is on constant display through the details of the show – this world is created by men, for men, and the women are often reduced to mere sexual playthings or functional furniture – only one step above the minorities.

Lastly, the ever-present theme of deception continues. Not even Betty knows the details of Don’s past. Yet hypocritically, Don wants to know all of Betty’s secrets, as he goes behind her back and calls her psychiatrist. It’s a man’s world, baby.

Next Episode: Marriage Of Figaro
Previous Episode: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

TV Shows: Mad Men

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