In Hobo Code she was still a party girl (witness The Twist, and also ‘we all work so hard’). By Nixon vs. Kennedy, not only was she a tight-ass, but she had a reputation as such.
Ken: Draper has plenty of booze.
They look towards Peggy, working at her desk despite the party around her.
Ken: (continues) We could ask her to join us. That might soften her up.
So what happened?
Okay. In Hobo Code she finally gets to have sex with Pete again. And I’m sorry folks, goodness knows I am not a fan of Mr. Campbell, but it was kind of beautiful. Evidenced by the tenderness between them afterwards… even from him.
Later that day her copy is sold and the old boys club pours her a drink. And this combination of events brings out the most confident woman in the world. She already had shown us she has balls (‘We have manners!’) but on this day, it’s all just perfect.
And then Pete cruelly rejects her.
Next episode, Shoot. She rips her skirt and borrows an outfit from Joan. The next day is the exquisite scene between the two of them in which Peggy exhibits, again, balls of steel. And does appear undaunted by the fact that she’s getting fat (and being observed as getting fat).
And also, she’s now aiming towards an actual career goal.
In Long Weekend, she tells the bitch where to go.
Pete: Peggy, dear, I think I understand what this is about, but you’re not being professional right now.
Peggy: I cannot believe I am in this conversation.
Pete: You think this is easy for me?
Peggy: I don’t know. I don’t know if you like me, or if you don’t like me. I’m just trying to get along here. And every time I walk by, I wonder if you’re going to be nice to me, or cruel.
Pete: Cruel? What am I supposed to say? I’m married.
Peggy: Yes, I know. And I heard all about how confusing that can be. Maybe you need me to lay on your couch to clear that up for you again.
Pete: That’s some imagination you’ve got. Good thing you’re a writer now. What do you need me for?
(Maybe she’s thinking he’s right. What with the Relax-a-Cizor and all.)
So, more focused on career, and those wide eyes are growing sharper and sharper.
Indian Summer
Let’s see. She is asked by the guys to test and write about the “PER: Passive Exercise Regime” weight-loss belt. This becomes both a professional and personal journey. Her marketing instincts are shrewd, asking right off the bat if she is allowed to change the name. That shows a real nose for the bigger picture. Testing this product, as we all know, led her to the discovery of self-pleasure. What is also quite significant is that Don would not let her back down. She went, in one episode, from a woman who hadn’t masturbated, to a woman who was presenting, to a roomful of men, a product that had this pleasure factor.
Later, she approaches Don for a raise. And gets it. And gets permission to break it to Joan, which is a scene I’d pay to see.
And in the same episode she goes on a blind date. This is harder to get at. Her confidence, most times disarming, crosses over into transparently pretentious (and so perhaps it was her lack of confidence?) with this guy. He gets rude, she gets up, he tries to apologize, she’s not having it.
(The confidence theme comes back in the Wheel.)
So, in different forms, we are seeing her get a sense of her own worth.
Now, we haven’t solidified timelines, but Indian Summer is, I believe, October, and of course NvK is early early November. So what we didn’t see was perhaps a month of Peggy as acting ensign copywriter. But Weiner clearly wanted to show us that this is who she has become.
June 24, 2008 at 10:40 am
Indian Summer is definitely October. I forget which of the many articles I’ve read said so, but there really was a heat wave in October of 1960 that is being referenced. And I did quote it: “Someone forgot to tell the sun it’s October.”
And great post, btw.
June 24, 2008 at 10:42 am
I also remember watching during October, and we were either in the midst of, or had just come through, our own heat wave.
Didn’t make me fuck a washing machine, though.
saying.
June 24, 2008 at 10:51 am
That’s a great timeline/episode track, Roberta.
I think the general arc is her trend toward the sophistication of Manhattan over the old neighborhood in Brooklyn. However the trend is not smooth, and for most of the transition, she’s out of place in both locations. She’s growing too big for her britches back home, yet still the newbie at work.
Transitions are tough, but as a smart chick she will eventually get where she wants to be. And her journey of course is the story that MW wants to tell.
The date with the truck driver was especially clever, I thought. It came right after she had that contentious phone call with her mother (which Joan overheard), and showed how, despite her success in the big city, she was still stuck in between the two worlds and trying to shed Brooklyn and all it represented. The script did a great job of portraying the date as a genuinely nice, hard-working guy (probably just as ambitious as Peggy), but more content with who he is.
June 24, 2008 at 12:25 pm
The contentious phone call with her mother was in fact, her mother coercing her into the date.
June 24, 2008 at 2:12 pm
The workplace can be a whole lot like high school. People want to fit in, and seek a home. Peggy was a smart girl with ambition, sure, but she drifted to the place where she found acceptance.
The first day she sought a place with the rest of the girls. She took Joan’s suggestions as gospel,. because her ambition to do well had more to do with being liked by her peers than breaking the glass ceiling.
She did what she could to make her peers like her and to be accepted by the men around her, but she couldn’t completely be what they wanted or needed, because she’d secretly slept with Pete.
So, the men started to think she was a little uptight, because there was no one to disabuse them of that notion, and it’s not easy to sleep with someone and form attachments, only to jump into bed with someone else.
Her peers are looking at her and wondering what gives, not knowing she’s already marked her man or he’s marked her.
I don’t think it’s too much to assume that at some point Peggy began to understand that perhaps having Joan as a mentor leads to dissatisfaction and loneliness.
Peggy can’t be with Pete and she can’t talk about Pete, and as she settles in, the mental stimulation that comes with any new job has long faded into routine.
And that’s when she realizes that there is more than one clique. She gets a taste of a different kind of acceptance. She, for good historical reasons, didn’t even know she’d had a choice when she was hired in at Sterling Coop.
She found a better fit and it made her realize better how she was trying to force herself to be something she was not. There was a sense from Peggy that she understood and accepted that she would be treated like she existed for the amusement of men, but there was never a sense that it suited her. Another new girl might have reveled in the sexual interest, Peggy merely took in on the yoke.
All the time spent speculating on whether Peggy was pregnant or just gaining weight missed the possibility that it was both .Peggy had a lot of reasons to be in denial, but one might be that it was nice to be able to move away from one set of expectations that made her uncomfortable.
When the girl who does the pageant circuit realizes that Math Cub suits her better, it probably feels pretty good to have that extra slice of pizza.
Not that it’s unconditional acceptance as I’ve never had someone say to to me in the workplace, “Home run, Ballerina.” Or out of the workplace, but that might be because I’m a klutz.
June 24, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Glass, great stuff. “Home run, ballerina” is one of my favorite lines. It’s patronizing, yet really respectful. He’s not sexualizing her, he’s acknowledging her success, and he’s not mocking her. It must have felt absolutely wonderful to hear that.
June 24, 2008 at 3:02 pm
One interesting thing in the pilot… it is not everyone who would say to their boss, the Creative Director, on their first day:
Joan would have never condoned that.
There was a sense from Peggy that she understood and accepted that she would be treated like she existed for the amusement of men, but there was never a sense that it suited her. Another new girl might have reveled in the sexual interest, Peggy merely took in on the yoke.
She was good at it, though. They do smell nice. always impressed me.
Unfortunately for Peggy, there is no clique for her. She isn’t fitting anywhere, which is rather isolating. What you have to love though, is that it makes her angry. At them. She’s not taking it on personally as What’s wrong with me?
And regarding Home run, Ballerina, I was just thinking about what a brilliant line that is the other night. Yes, I think about lines from the show all the time. What Deb said. But also, I love that he calls her Ballerina, and that in one sentence it’s combined with a baseball metaphor.
June 24, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Who actually said the Ballerina line? Was it Fred Rumsen? Ken Cosgrove?
‘Cause I always thought that Peggy and Ken had an interesting relationship. What we see of it anyway.
After one of her pitches Ken says to her something like “Nice job, Pegs.” Which was delivered in an older brother, feel-good way that seemed to confer real acceptance. And then the two voice-over scenes in Wheel also had the same vibe.
Ken is one of the most sexist of the group yet seems to connect with Peggy in this brother-sister way.
June 24, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Rumsen.
Yes, I love Ken and Peggy. He was just as piggy as everyone else in NvK, but was awesome with her in the Wheel. I believe he rustled her head. And had that line about, Too bad your voice is so annoying.
June 24, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I do want to say that I think Peggy chose to sleep with Pete aside from feeling it was expected of her. I have no proof of this, and it could have certainly been the result of feeling it was part of her new role, but I like to think Peggy has a very sensual nature underneath it all. The response to his *me — Tarzan, you — Jane* routine seems to back up that belief.
June 24, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Glass, Totally.
June 24, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Agree, Glass. The Pete/Peggy dynamic is very primal.
June 25, 2008 at 8:31 am
Glass Darkly, Didn’t Frank Zappa say, “Life is like high school with money”? So true.
Roberta, that scene on Peggy’s first day, where she doesn’t want to deal with Pete and tells Don as much, also speaks to Don’s fundamental decency, for all his flaws. That’s why I love it.
As for Peggy, hey, I am fond of her too, but for all her growth (figurative and literal) she didn’t twig that she was pregnant! Duh!!! I’m dying to see this explained in season two. Even my mom, who grew up in an extremely priggish, prudish home (if she wore lipstick my grandma called her a “harlot”), figured out she was pregnant *before* giving birth! (o:
June 25, 2008 at 8:36 am
Rondi, I really struggled with this. When I watched the the Wheel, my thought was that if they don’t write Peggy as a completely crazy person, then the show has lost some integrity for me.
But in hearing Weiner discuss it, he truly was going for the denial aspect. He said that during the filming of Season One, something like every two weeks there would be a story in the paper of a woman between the ages of 16 and 22 having a baby she didn’t know she was carrying.
And that’s like, now.
I don’t get it. Those things KICK.
Denial is one of the main themes of S1. I’ll give it to him.
June 27, 2008 at 11:18 pm
I can kind of see why Peggy went for Pete. Pete struck me as being younger than the others, and if he is not actually younger, then more immature. Peggy is the youngest secretary. To me, it’s all about age. Pete didn’t have to feel intimidated.