Upon rewatching Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (DVR, Roberta, it’s awesome here in the 21st Century), I have the following observations:
- Don’s fear; his panic that he might get caught, his sense of improv in every crucial moment of life, is present in every scene. You cannot look at Don and not know he’s afraid. And that “Larry Tate” scene? It’s not the bad writing, the cheesy depiction of advertising, it has been so roundly criticized for; it’s a metaphor for who Don is. The tobacco “It’s Toasted” scene is Don Draper.
- Pete says to Peggy “I had to see you.” Then he says it again. But he never looks at her. He had to “see” her, but he looks past her.
- Don worships the idea of the family he has. He tells Rachel that love is a crock, then he holds his kids; holds his whole family in his hands, and he’s stunned and awestruck.
- When Don gets off the train, the sign says “Ossining.” It took me like ten episodes to figure out where Don lives, and it was there in the pilot!
- The signs in the train station; the red M and the text, look very modern to me. Somebody check me on this but I think it’s an anachronism.
- And, just for fun, Pete says to his bride-to-be that his friends will probably be taking him to see My Fair Lady for his bachelor party. The episode ends with a song from My Fair Lady.
Boy, were we ever right to start a blog about this show!
November 10, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Interesting stuff.
* I completely agree with Don being a man of fear and improv, all there in the first episode. He also, as a sales technique, uses his nasty side. That sarcastic ’sorry we’ve wasted your time, there’s the door’. He went way too far with Rachel, though; that was appalling, and I don’t think he ever really knows that.
* Very very interesting about Pete not looking at her. I have to say that, after a season of getting to know this bastard, I found that moment to be moving and genuine. Genuine what, I have no idea, but something about that girl certainly drew him to her. Specifically her. Maybe not so much from her angle; she really just, I think, was drawn to being drawn to. She has no idea at this stage what-all she wants or is supposed to want. Thus the inappropriate hitting on Don. I saw this as more of a ‘giving herself’ to Don (as opposed to trying to get something), because she thought (per Joan), it’s what she was supposed to do.
*When Don and Pete ‘make up’, and Pete pushes it a little too far, Don says something along the lines of ‘you’ll get pregnant tonight’. I can’t check. I loaned out my tape. My horse-and-buggy VHS tape.
* Robert Morse was whistling This Old Man. I had to check that… I had thought, as weird as it sounds, that Richie Valens wrote it… there was something in the credits of the movie La Bamba that made me think that, even though it sounded like crazy talk. I checked; he didn’t; the dates are fine.
* I believe, Deborah, that our very father saw My Fair Lady on the eve of his wedding day to our very mother. I remember him saying that he watched the guy getting drunk and singing I’m Gettin’ Married in the Morning instead of doing it himself. The dates check out for both. It ran from March 15th, 1956 to September 29th, 1962.
That is all.
November 10, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Pete puts out his hand and calls Don “Buddy.” Don says “Slow down, I don’t want to wake up pregnant.”
So, foreshadowing, anyone?
Robert Morse wasn’t in this episode.
November 10, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Oh, and I agree 100% about Peggy.
November 10, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Okay scratch that; repeat it when we get back to New Amsterdam.
January 21, 2008 at 9:43 am
[...] been less methodical, discussing episodes (and writing recaps) as we watch or re-watch them, not necessarily in order (although all that can [...]
February 8, 2008 at 3:02 pm
BTW – the Pete/Peggy thing mystified me for the first half of the season before I realized that both these kids represent the future within the context of the show.
Pete, despite his smarmy abrasiveness is usually prescient in his observations (Elvis/hat, Clearasil/Boomers, avoiding false claims, use of research, more that I can’t think of right now).
Peg-ster with her career focus, talent for writing copy, and generally bucking the system (not parallel, I know) – as has been noted elsewhere – is sort of a pre-feminist canary in the coal mine.
That’s why they pair up, and ostensibly belong together, creepy though that may seem. They share unrecognized talent and capabilities that are striving to be set free (cue the music).
Interesting to contrast this with Don (and Joan, for that matter). Don, charming as he is handsome, actually represents the past. He’s a dinosaur but doesn’t know it – rejection of research, wears a hat, eschews technology over nostalgia (Carosel pitch).
Don’s a human inflection point – slowing down as he approaches the top.
Joan too. Still considers sleeping with the boss as career insurance – a lot of good that’s doing her by end of S1, with Roger laid up. By decade’s end she’ll be in sorry shape, guaranteed.
September 13, 2008 at 4:40 pm
[...] been less methodical, discussing episodes (and writing recaps) as we watch or re-watch them, not necessarily in order (although all that can [...]