EOnline’s Watch With Kristin has an interview and video up all about Mad Men (which I totally stole from Rich Sommer).
The video is a lot of fun joking around with Jon Hamm and Rich Sommer and everyone else, and the entire Matt Weiner segment is transcribed.
E: Second season—what can you tell me?
Matt Weiner: Nothing.E: Do you have it totally mapped out at this point?
MW: Pretty much mapped out, you know, we’re starting to write them. I have it pretty much mapped out. We have a plan that we try not to deviate from. Of course, things come up, and you hire an actor for a tiny part and they’re amazing, and you start developing them into it. Certainly Rich Sommer, and Aaron Staton, and Michael Gladis, they were like the Greek chorus, and then once I started working with them I’m like, “These guys, they have to be a big part of the show.” So things like that are an amazing experience. All I can tell you is that it will continue. Just from working on The Sopranos, I think the less people know the better. I love for people to come in and say, “I have no idea what’s going to happen.”
…
E: Do you know at this point when the second season might start?
MW: When it will go on the air? No, I don’t. I assume it’s going to be before the end of the summer. That’s what our plan is, but we don’t have a date. We don’t know those things. Whenever they want to put it on, I’m ready for it. We’re just going to start shooting very soon—we’ve been writing, and it’s been great to get back into it.
There’s also a poll asking people what they think will happen to Peggy’s baby. More than half think she’ll give it up for adoption, but I don’t think so.
March 14, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I think she’ll give it up for adoption. In the commentary to The Best of Everything, Rona Jaffe says that having a baby out of wedlock completely ruined a young woman. At this point in time, Peggy may not have an option.
March 14, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Now that I think about it, Peggy’s baby is another parallel to Don, an illegitimate motherless boy. Did we ever find out if Don’s mother died or if she abandoned him?
March 14, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I think Don’s mother died at childbirth.
Great observation, Eme.
March 14, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I’d be interested in hearing your theories about how Peggy handles the baby question.
March 14, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Don’s mother died in childbirth. Look at the clip that Roberta posted and watch Don’s eyes when Rachel says her mother died in childbirth.
A common solution in those days was for a woman to “disappear” and then her family would “adopt” a baby. Remember, this is how Jack Nicholson was raised—his “sister” turned out to really be his mother. My former mother-in-law was also “adopted” under such circumstances.
We have a little bit of evidence that Peggy’s family is super-controlling. I think they’ll take the baby.
March 14, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Maybe Peggy’s family will have her adopt her own child, which is what Loretta Young did with her out of wedlock daughter by Clark Gable….
Anything’s possible on Mad Men!
Just have to say that Peggy’s pregnancy plot was the only Mad Men story I really disliked out of a stellar season. It was just so…Jerry Springer/Maury “You Are Not the Father” Povich!
March 14, 2008 at 2:41 pm
I was one of those people saying Peggy wasn’t pregnant because it was too obvious and they would never go that way, and because the weight gain was mostly in her azz.
Go figure.
I hope she gave it up for adoption. Not that it won’t come back to haunt her. I just want to see the office politics and relationships more than see Peggy trying to raise a baby or even have her mother do it. Of course, since the show is all about pretense…
March 14, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Darkly, I was with you on the pregnancy speculation, which made me doubly shocked. I’m still not sure if i like it, but I accept what Weiner said about denial, about it being the ultimate denial, and hence an important expression of the show’s themes. He wasn’t just going for the Jerry Springer thing, but I wish he hadn’t done it.
She can have her family raise him and we don’t have to see it happening; we don’t see Harry and Jennifer at home, we hardly even see Trudy all that much.
I don’t think she’ll adopt it herself (although I thought of that); she’s not a movie star, it would be too weird for a young single woman to choose to adopt, and I don’t think she’d allow her family to force her to do it.
March 14, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I hope she gives it up as well. Having her parents raise her child would be another element pulling her toward Brooklyn and I see Peggy as being very single-minded in wanting OUT. I could totally see her reinventing herself in a similar fashion as Don without, of course, ditching her whole identity. But that scene where we see her on a date gave me a glimpse of that aspect of her personality.
Given the way the writers handled her pregnancy, I think we’re all wrong. Adoption or ditching the baby with her parents is too commonplace for this show. The writers are going to find a solution that is somewhat strange and yet totally within the realm of possibility. The thing about the pregnancy is that it is in keeping with Peggy’s psychology (girlfriend has a gift for denial) and also keeps the options open for the writers. If no one knows you’re pregnant, you sure have a lot of freedom once that baby arrives.