Anyone else bust up laughing when the Jaguar didn't start? I love how there was going to be so much symbolism in him killing himself in that car that would negatively impact the firm, but Jaguars are unreliable. Shit is going to hit the fan next week when it all comes out that Don knew. Also, is it safe to say that there definitely going to get Dow just because we have to see the look on Pete's face once Kenny's revenge kicks in? Throw back revenge move from 2 seasons ago when Pete fucked him on the Head of Accounts. Sally, Sally, Sally...I didn't need visual evidence. I'm sure a look down and a heavy surprised emote would have done the job. Thanks for that Matty. Glenn once again is weird, but the whole situation he played it cool. She's 11, and he looks at her like a little sister. Of all the creepiness that could have been, thank god it wasn't.
I'd be wouldn't be surprised if it didn't come out. Outside of Don no one knew anything at the office, Megan might realize it but she really isn't around the office anymore. Hell Pyrce's wife didn't even really know about their financial troubles. I don't see Bert putting the check together with it. Don might just keep it to himself and sort of suffer alone. It was done well though. Though Lane could have easily just asked Don or the company for a loan he didn't. Don was in a tough spot since outright lying and forgery is something you can't tolerate, but it truly was just a quick bridge loan until Lane got back on his feet. I wonder how much this will impact his new found optimism and fire for business. Quality stuff.
For the record I think Don did the right thing by firing Lane. You can't have someone around who would steal from the company like that. Don knows better than anyone else the repercussions for starting all over, and Lane was too much of a pussy to cope with what it would take to do it. That's not Don's fault, and Lane is lucky he didn't have cops waiting for him at home. He took the coward's way out, and now his family gets nothing, no life insurance, no income, and heaps full of shame and disappointment from their stiff upper lip community. What a little shit, makes him worse than Pete.
After Petes insurance chats earlier in the season (with his train buddy, he tells him he is covered for suicide, but the company gets it), I'm wondering if the firms will see a payout from Lane's suicide, and if that will play into things.
Didn't Lane mortgage (or some other financial term) the company for $50,000 to allow for the Christmas bonuses that he also took? I imagine Don's fire isn't going anywhere once he finds out that their firm isn't floating as well as they all think.
He extended the fuck out of their credit, which of course has an APR rolling up more and more. If push came to shove, Don, Roger, and Bert could toss in money to fix it. I doubt it'll be a huge deal. I'm pretty sure they didn't use most of that money, because he took it out so he could give the entire company bonuses, but only ended up giving himself one. The rest of that credit goes unused.
Right, he extended their credit line, rather than taking a loan. Like upping your credit card limit, not spending to it.
My heart wants to cut Lane some slack because I do believe he honestly thought this would be a simple short-term, Money Tree payday loan. However, it's also just as true that he dishonestly extended the firm's credit; Remember, he made it seem like he had "found" the surplus to pay bonuses when in fact he had simply borrowed the money to cover his own need (a lie that directly led to Joan's partnership, by the way). I'd have to rewatch his scene with Don, but I got the impression Don was putting a lot of things together in his own mind, i.e. the sudden appearance in their coffers of a sum equal to their credit limit and his strange insistence on paying out bonuses despite his history of being a big time penny-pincher. I hate to say it, but I think Don was right to fire Lane as well. He put the firm in a dangerous position with its clients and its bank. Of course, in retrospect it seems like the easiest thing to do would simply ask his friend Don for the cash for what appears to be a valid reason. Just look how easily Don offered to cover the $7K. Lane Pryce wouldn't be the first guy to let shame and embarrassment fuck up his life, though. It sucks that Don will probably end up silently swallowing the blame for this hanging, too.
I was thinking the same thing. At first I thought Don should've been more understanding but you could tell that it really weighed hard on Don to do what he did. Unfortunately, I do think it was the right thing to do considering the circumstances. Don wants the company to soar and he can't fulfill his mission if the person running the books is also cooking them. I also didn't understand why Lane didn't just come out and ask Don for the loan. Remember, Don paid Pete's share when the partners had to reinvest. I guess I just don't understand how his English pride overtook his whole life. That said, I am absolutely loving the interactions between Don and Sterling in this episode. The lines are all classics.* I mean, what balls! Don actually scolded Kenny's father-in-law IN HIS OWN OFFICE: "We aren't mentioning that letter again." Fuck yeah. It was nice to see Don being Don again and Sterling encouraging him all the way. *Except for one...every time I've said no to going out for the past week the response has continually been, "I remember when no used to get you hard." Ha!
And credit "Mad Men" for not making this suicide appear completely senseless, either. They did a great job of setting up the dominoes to fall as long ago as last season with the whole Chocolate Bunny/Daddy Issues episode, which showed us the kinds of issues Lane was dealing with. Faced with either killing himself or returning to England in disgrace to face his pop's whipping cane...well...I'm not going to say I fully understand, but I can see what Lane was thinking. It's funny, now that I think about it the two suicides really are bookends for Don's guilt and weird attitude towards money.* The $5K that pushed his brother Adam towards his noose could very well have saved Lane from his. Ultimately, the $7K really was a pretty insignificant amount for the firm (Lane said he could pay it back by Easter), and I'm willing to bet Sterling has lost twice that amount in his own sofa cushions. *Also reinforced here with Don's pitch to Dow, where he made it clear that money didn't mean as much as total market domination. This was the whole crux of Don's feud with Duck Phillips, and I'm glad to see the show has kept that theme alive.
No...Sterling lost that money down my shirt. Or at least he has in my dreams. *Swoon.* Anyway, I love that you reminded us of the caning Lane received from his father. I might be getting all symbolism-loving-English-teache-y, but I couldn't help but notice how Lane's glasses/sight are featured throughout the series. A few things I loved/noticed: When Lane was caned by his dad, there was a clear shot of the glasses flying off his hat and he was scrambling to see. Right before he tried to start the Jaguar's engine (haha), he cracked his glasses in half. Couple that with all the staring out of windows we've been seeing this past season and I think we've not only got a "time passing" theme but also a "what's your vision" theme. Last episode Don and Peggy had identical poses staring out the window and seeing the big picture. But this episode, Lane's view was a big, dark building with his Statue of Liberty figurine to the left and a huge black lamp to the right. Instead of turning his body one way or the other (toward New York or what I would think would be going back to England disgraced) he chose to stare into nothingness--his vision, his future totally gone. And later as they're cutting him down from the doorway, that damn black lamp is right there looming like a black cloud. Genius. Fuck fuck fuck I love this show! And I dig Glenn too. (But not in a pedo way--that's gross.) Speaking of pedos, here's a question for everyone: I read an article in the NY Post about all the stuff going on with Sally Draper. The author's contention was that the actress's parents should be appalled by the things their daughter has to do on the show. She felt that Sally was oversexualized and basically a pedophile wet dream. She cited Sally seeing the blowjob and of course the period thing as two of the more prominent "just for shock value" moments that did nothing to further the show's plot. What do you think? Was the whole period thing just for shock value? Is Sally's character inappropriately portrayed at this point? Here's a link to the article: http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainme...C1kRBCufb7TrjSI?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=TV
The A.V. Club write-up about why Lane (in relation to Don) killed himself is pretty solid. Here are the first 3 paragraphs, but you can read it here. Spoilered for length. Spoiler I was thinking about the exact same stuff Chirpy. But all I really think about is that her parents had to sit her down and just have a serious conversation about everything. We forget that children back in the day used to grow up much faster as the life expectancy wasn't that long. As time has gone on, we've began to treasure this childhood, want to extend it, keep it innocent and magical. Relatively speaking, this is a very, very new world view. I think if her parents along with Weiner, are sitting down and explaining to her the greater context of everything that is going on, then she'll be good to go. When it comes to information, I feel like way too much is heldback on children. Dumping depressing shit on your children that they can't fix is one thing, but educating them and talking to them about the big picture of life can't hurt as long as its healthily doled out by trusted people.
I don't know any point of Sally's growth that has been weird or out of place. She's Don's oldest child, and as a firstborn she is going to grow up a lot faster than other children. As well as that, she is the oldest daughter of a man who has clandestinely surrounded her with sex and a mother who has raised her on manipulation and the idea that she will only be worth something when she is a mature, beautiful woman. Is it no wonder that Sally is in a headlong dash to sexual maturity? Here is a girl that is trying to make sense of the world. I think the writers may have just been forced into a corner with her age, wanting to have an innocent daddy's girl for previous seasons and having no way of making Sally older than 11 or 12 now (I feel like her storylines might make more sense with a 13-year-old). But are they gratuitous? No way. They make perfect sense in the world she is being raised in.
Random sister's friend's cousin story...a classmate of mine in grad school shares an office with and is close friends with a guy who happens to be Sally's (Kiernan Shipka) uncle. He actually has been called because she is homeschooled and my classmate was a math major in college so he's been consulted to help out with stuff. Random, but anyways. From everything he says, and from what I've heard, she's a consummate professional and pretty poised (obviously as much as a 12 year old can be), and her family moved from Chicago to LA specifically to support her burgeoning career. So I image its not all that concerning. Its like she's some sheltered pre-teen.
I'd also be willing to bet they shoot around a lot of the "uncomfortable" scenes, i.e. she didn't actually have to witness simulated fellatio in order to act surprised. Can you confirm with Uncle Shipka? On another note...everyone who DIDN'T punch Pete Campbell in the face this season please raise your hand. We'll make sure you get a chance next year.
Why did I even feel bad for Pete in this last episode? I ended up yelling at my screen, "Yes, now treat your wife like she deserves, you fucking hypocrite!" But god damn, Alexis Bledel was so cute, and surprisingly good at acting after never having seen Gilmore Girls... Roger, of course, had the best line of the episode. "Don't be coy, you're already on the bed..." Marvelous imagery at the end, with the five partners evenly spaced over their new office viewpoint. Sweet fuck, I was happy to see Peggy, even incidentally. Good line from her, "I don't know, just knocking the cobwebs out. Someone told me that was a good idea." I hope for fucking real that she's not gone from the show next season. Shit, Joan had a good line too. After Roger asked her if she checked the new space she made some mention of, "Sorry, tried, but Harry Crane..." I'm gonna leave the symbolism and the final scene to you TV analysts out there. Good stuff, enjoyable.
I have to admit, when I saw the "brief nudity" notice, I did not expect it to be John Slattery's ass.
Preach. I was hoping it to be Alexis Bledel or Megan, since Jessica Pare already had a sex scene. Holy hell Mrs. Calvet is sexy as fuck. There is so much to get into. I'll loop back around into it after my second watching later in the week but, no mention of Dow. Feel like they could have done well with a 90 minute finale.
Don walking off the studio set of Megan's commercial might be one of my new favorite scenes in TV history. The music was perfect to begin the montage and it was the perfect stroll for the return of the old Don Draper, zero fucks given. For a second I thought he was going to break the 4th wall. I think the crux of the entire season is no matter how good he tries to be, he cant escape himself, so fuck it. I think Megan using him for getting the part made him lose respect for her. This might make him go back to viewing women as disposable, as this is how he was just treated by a woman he tried to be different with.