Okay, so my sister and I have started this blog, and we have approximately (november,december,january…) eight-ish months before the second season, so what all are we going to do? Watch ‘em again, of course. Chew apart the details.
So let me start with the most obvious question… What The Fuck?
Here’s the thing with Peggy being pregnant. I’m not happy about it. It feels like a TV trick. And so to keep it authentic, they will need to write her as kind of insane. Pretty damn insane, or something darn close to it. My concern is that they won’t. write it that way.
But I am reminding myself… these are excellent writers. And they have not let us down in this show. Not once. And it’s not like at the last minute they decided it would be fun to throw this wrench at our heads. They set it up in the first episode… she has sex the same day she gets her pill script.
I don’t know about the chemistry… could she have been bleeding this whole time because of the pill? What does being on the pill do to a fetus anyway?
Watching Peggy take control of her life has been the most applaudable show of feminist awareness in the season, but she certainly has an odd innocence about her. Still, I’m not buying that as enough of a reason to keep her from noticing a baby kicking its hungry legs against her… parts. (Christ, that poor kid took quite a ride with the Relaxi-bator!) And they were very clear that the kid was carried to term. They could have cast a smaller baby, but this one was already skipping rope.
October 22, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Here’s the thing with Peggy being pregnant. I’m not happy about it. It feels like a TV trick. And so to keep it authentic, they will need to write her as kind of insane. Pretty damn insane, or something darn close to it. My concern is that they won’t. write it that way.
It doesn’t feel like a TV trick to me because I lived that kind of denial. I knew I was pregnant but didn’t tell anyone and I denied I was pregnant when someone asked me about it. I had a part of my brain that believed it wasn’t real. Denial is incredibly powerful. I don’t think insanity or near insanity is necessary for this to be a realistic storyline.
I will be surprised if she doesn’t give the baby up for adoption, because I’m pretty sure that’s what unwed mothers did back then.
This storyline drives home to me the parallels between Peggy and Don. He made up a new life for himself, something I think Peggy is trying to do (not as successfully, if we look at the episode where she goes out on a date). He denies that he is Dick Whitman, like she denies that she is pregnant. And they both compartmentalize their relationships. Don has the picture of the ideal suburban life at at home, and part of him wants that, but then he has his love life in the city, and part of him – a more genuine part, IMO – wants that; Peggy has her job in the city and this vision of herself as a sophisticated Manhattanite that conflicts with the reality of a lonely existence in Brooklyn; they are both moving up the ladder at Sterling Cooper, but they both have secrets that cause them pain.
October 26, 2007 at 5:55 pm
My cousin totally was in denial about her pregnancy. Fortunately Sam is not the kind of kid you can deny. I loved that storyline. I figured she was pregnant back two episodes when her roommate yells at her for eating all the bologna, but then I totally forgot about it and gasped when the doctor told her she’s “with child”.
Goddamn, I love that show.
April 15, 2008 at 10:51 pm
[...] then a blog was born. Basket of Kisses beginnings coincided with the blowup that was Peggy’s giving birth. We were going to give that child a home. [...]
June 29, 2008 at 11:34 am
[...] The thing about Basket of Kisses, as you basketcases know, is that we started it after Season One had aired. Pretty much, right after. The first post was basically Peggy? WTF??? only with a better title. [...]
February 6, 2009 at 2:41 am
peggy seems to have come from the sticks;it’s 1960 & she is smart (getting birth control pills when they were just available) but not savvy. nobody ever told her about the facts of pregnancy. It was a time of shame – but only for the woman. The man is nowhere to be found. She has no one to confide in – and she remains in denial until she gives birth.
The sad thing is, that wasn’t so long ago.