Mad Men episode 4.07 -- running commentary

[yakalskovich]

• Did I just see 'Mark Moses' in the opening creds? Ew, Duck!
• Mrs. Blankenship just made the worst racist joke of the entire series so far!
• Duck, indeed. Sending Peggy gifts just when Don is treating her really unfairly again...
• But she's sensible enough to know that all his talk is hot air.
  
• I guess this call means Anna died. How odd of Don to admit that he wouldn't be good company. Nothing ever stopped him before from putting on his game face, even if everybody could see him crumbling behind it.
• Yay Joan telling those guys to clean up after themselves! The times, they are a-changing!
• Heh Joan is not going to replace the awful Blankenship, and Don knows and takes his punishment like a man.
• Yes that little guy was far too insipid for Peggy! Good riddance.
• Aha, so the Glo-Coat commercial was Peggy's idea originally, too.
• This Peggy - Don shouting match is so not a good idea. Bad bad bad bad baaaaad!!!
• Don always makes everything sound as if the other person (here: Peggy) is totally silly and immature for being of another opinion than he is. That's a very infuriating trait. It's annoying how he's belittling people.
  
• Who was that leaving the ladies' room as Peggy went in??
• What?? Mouse???
• Roger was seriously going to write that in his book? About the Blankenship, and poor Bert Cooper having no balls? And yes, I'm totally with Don in finding that funny.
  
• They already had those hand dryers back then. They still look exactly the same.
• Eurgh Don is making sacrifices to the porcelain gods. That is very bad! We've never seen him do that before. And he has been worse off for drink.
  
• So that figure was Duck!! How in blazes did he get in there?
  
• Now we get to see two drunk men fight. How low can you sink, Don Draper?
• So this is the time for all sorts of nasty secrets to come out? Don has been telling more of his past than he usually does, too.
• Do. Not. Sit. There. Peggy!!
• What a bizarrely bizarre situation. I wouldn't want a drunk boss going to sleep in my lap while I sit there with his next drink in my hand.
• Don seeing a translucent Anna with a suitcase in her hand as some drunken 4.30 am visitation is plausible, as he does expect her to die; but if they say she did die at that time (whatever it was, that night) would be a serious sort of shark-jump.
• They didn't. Good.
• Poor Don starts bawling with Peggy present. Well, he can probably trust her; he knows her deepest darkest secrets, too. Duck wasn't there yet when the baby would have been conceived, so Don won't think Duck was the father?
• Duck, by the way, still looks revoltingly like George W. Bush.
• Oh, finally some Simon & Garfunkel for the end credits! Music that is definitely 'sixties' in my mind. That was a long and interesting voyage through one night. Everybody else was relegated to supporting cast. Betty didn't turn up once, Joan only very briefly. I like it that there is nothing sexual between Don and Peggy, and never has been, despite all the office rumours (which will be getting even worse now, I guess). He might be able to actually trust her, finally. And take her seriously.