We’ve talked about it in here, and they talk about it more in the ‘best of’… how Pete really does have a nose for the future. He consistently either has or recognizes a great idea. Only no one knows it but him. And, well, us, because of how we know how it turns out.

In the pilot, he suggests the ‘death wish’ idea that Don had vehemently dismissed, and everyone is horrified. But really, what do we think the symbolism behind Marlboro Country is?

He pitches the very excellent Bethlehem Steel tagline, the Backbone of America.

During a discussion about how to angle Israel tourism, Pete says, “Maybe we should try and exploit the danger, instead of fighting it. Travel as adventure.” This idea, while not being actively shot down by Don, was skimmed over.

He was the only one who liked the Volkswagen ad, which pissed everyone off. He recognizes the hip factor of Kennedy, calling him Elvis. The way I saw that, he wasn’t comparing the people, but the potential (and eventual) phenomenon of Kennedy to that of Elvis.

SEASON 2 SPOILER ALERT FROM THE PROMOS below the fold

There is a shot of Peggy saying to Don, “Sex sells”, and Don saying, “Says who?” which is of course, unfathomable.

But it’s been said before that Peggy and Pete are paralleled in that they are the voice of youth, of the future.

And Don, he just has no interest in that listening to that voice.

Roberta said it first: Don loves Rachel.

Until my DVDs came, I had only seen Marriage of Figaro once—the only episode of Mad Men for which that was true. I didn’t start saving them right away, and around the time they were rebroadcast, I was in the midst of switching from Tivo (rocks) to Io DVR (sucks) and screwed up the recording. It’s an amazing and important episode, and I’d only seen it once. So I rewatched it right away, pausing only to write up everything and watch an extra feature.

Anyway.

In the early part of the season, I wondered if Don wasn’t seriously, even suicidally, depressed. And certainly his helpless sorrow in Marriage seemed to point in that direction. It seemed to be about the darkness of the American dream, the dissatisfaction of his supposedly perfect life, a cry of “is this all there is?” And that’s all true. But on re-viewing, I see how everything he sees in the darkness that descends upon his sunny Saturday has to do with the kiss he shared with Rachel Menken Friday night.

He wakes up to see the cufflinks. He looks in on a couple kissing, and the man lifts her chin, and she’s a brunette, and Don is lost. He goes out, lost. And comes home with a big dog. Not a puppy; a big dog like the ones on the roof. Because Rachel said that sometimes, that’s all a little girl needs.

Most of this Roberta already said; better than I. She understood that dog thing. When I was watching it, I actually had forgotten how much her post was about that dog.

But there was that one other thing; that kiss. At the birthday party, a married couple kiss. It explicitly echoes Don and Rachel on the roof. She is dark haired, they have a moment, he lifts her chin. And that captivates and devastates Don; he leaves soon after. So I saw that, and I wrote this post, and then I watched the episode again, this time with commentary on, and I was so pleased to learn that Matt Weiner made sure the second kiss echoed Don and Rachel’s kiss; that was on purpose. And that couple, they’re the only happily married couple we see, so that means more than just a visual echo; to Don, it’s his chance, and he blew it.

Where have we heard that before?

Nixon vs Kennedy. Rachel to Don, when he wants them to run away together. Don to Pete, when he attempts blackmail. You haven’t thought this through. You haven’t thought this through.

In the Wheel, Don learns that Adam has hung himself.

Don had determined that he wants nothing to do with Adam, ever. And gave him $5,000 and orders never to resurface.

Don hadn’t considered that he would ever want to have a relationship with Adam, but that changed.

Don hadn’t considered that giving Adam that money and sending him out of his life forever might wound him beyond repair, but it did.

He thought. We watched him. He thought and thought and thought.

But somehow he didn’t quite think it through.

(Or, A Blog is Born.)

Hi.

So, I’m a little uncomfortable with this, because it may be crossing over into narcissistic. But I was over in TV Squad. TV Squad’s Bob Sassone has been a fan of and written about Mad Men since the beginning, and I used to follow his write-ups and comment. The show finally has its own category on the site, and Bob is now a reader of ours as well. (And watch for an interview over there with Rich Sommer in a few weeks. We’ll let you know.)

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.

(Actually, pretty funny. I just glanced over at that first post so I could put in the hyperlink, and I absolutely ask the spelled out version of WTF. I am very freaking consistent.)

Okay so my point, and I will make one, and it in fact ties in with my being consistent… it turns out that looking at my profile page in TV Squad, I can (and now, so can you) view all my comments in one place. So, kind of mini-write-ups/reactions to S1 in progress.

Some of what I’d written are thoughts that I eventually turned into posts here, or talked about in our discussions, at least one is something I’ve still been meaning to write about, some are insights that got lost as more stimuli came into play, and some are predictions, right and wrong. It was interesting, for me at least, to have a look back at my discovery process of this splendid series. Oh and uh… at some point I refer to Don and Betsy. He does call her Bets from time to time, but still. I was so young then (sigh).

On Marriage of Figaro:

I wondered about the Dick Whitman, if it was a real secret past or metaphorical. Now that you guys have cleared that up, what is the meaning? That he feels so removed from his current life that he may as well have a secret identity? That he also feels so removed from his past that he may as well have been someone else? To me, Don’s biggest symptom of depression is an experience of disconnect; not just feeling different from other people, but I get a sense that there is a fog around him. And I think the scene on the train shows him succumbing to the fog… he doesn’t know this guy, but he can’t bring himself to address it. And if he had known the guy, he’d have reacted the same way. That was the purpose, I feel, of having the scene be deliberately confusing to the viewers.

Emphasis mine. “Now that you guys have cleared that up” sounds like commenters confirmed that there was NOT a secret identity, but I went and checked, and they actually confirmed that there WAS. So either I wrote the whole thing unclearly, or I misunderstood what I was reading back then. But the whole Don is depressed and in a fog thing… I was focused on that for weeks and weeks, and have since forgotten all about it.

Anyway, if you do check it out, keep in mind that these are comments, and as such, may be referring to other comments. And there’s one or two in there that are not from Mad Men (like my attack on Grey’s Anatomy’s crappy writing, and my disappointment with the Riches (a show I have since dropped), which is actually what got me over to TV Squad in the first place.

I… just noticed.

I could write something, but really, why?

Discuss.

I’ve been meaning to post this, and then hullabaloo goes and quotes it, so that was my cue.

This is the greatest advertising opportunity since the invention of cereal.

So I checked. On when cereal was invented. For real, it’s kind of cool:

Will Keith Kellogg was the founder of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, founded in 1906. In 1894, Kellogg was trying to improve the diet of hospital patients. He was searching for a digestible bread substitute using the process of boiling wheat. Kellogg accidentally left a pot of boiled wheat to stand and the wheat became tempered (soften). When Kellogg rolled the tempered or softened wheat and let it dry, each grain of wheat emerged as a large thin flake. The flakes turned out to be a tasty cereal. Kellogg had invented corn flakes.

Will Keith Kellogg founded the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1906.

Rice Krispies were introduced by Kellogg in 1929.

(‘It’s toasted‘, btw, was the Lucky Strike tagline since 1917. )

(And the song is really really fun to sing. I’ve taught it to many singers. I like being Pop.)

A weekend quotation, only longer.

From Bablyon. Sunday night, Mother’s Day, Don and Betty are being playful in bed.

Don: What about Advanced Reproduction? How are your studies progressing in that?

Betty: Mmm… Completed. I got an A, actually.

Don: You did?

Betty: Yup I did.

Don: I flunked the whole thing.

Betty: Well that’s because you got caught cheating.

One thing that knocks me out on this show is the class distinctions.

Top of the list and most obvious (set up in the very first scene of the series) is white/black. The only blacks ever seen in the series, to date, have been in service roles; the busboy, elevator operator, household help, etc.

And the Jews… that’s almost a whole different hierarchy.

The women. It’s right there within that first conversation in Smoke, between Don and the busboy… Ladies love their magazines. And they both laugh; white and black, at the silly ladies and their silly magazines.

But what fascinates me is the secretaries.

In New Amsterdam, Don and Peggy walk by, and Pete introduces Trudy to Don only. After a minute, which is clearly long enough for the opportunity to have been introduced has clearly come and gone, Peggy gives a little ‘nice to not quite meet you wave’ to Trudy as she walks away. Neither Don nor Pete (nor probably Trudy) (and really, nor probably Peggy) considered it. She probably would not have been impacted by it at all, had it not been for her affair with Pete.

In 5G, Betty meets Peggy. She greets her with, You must be Peggy and is actually quite cordial to her, (they’ve spoken on the phone) and Betty even introduces the children by name. (Children and their placement on the social totem pole is a whole other thing.) (Okay so then poor Peggy does her tap dance, praying Don will return to the office soon. Oh, the good times.) Once Don is back and the family leaves, Peggy says Nice to meet you, and Betty smiles but says nothing.

The whole thing freaks me out, to be honest.

So I posted about the naming of Don Draper. (Mr. Weiner has not called to confirm my theory, but he will, I’m sure. Call me, k?)

Well within an hour of this revelation, (I kid you not, within an hour!) I get an email from our very own wisefish (whose comments were always inexplicably visiting our spam-catcher first before being rescued but now it’s finally better), talking about the possible origins of Dick Whitman’s name.

From her email to me:

Have you heard of the folk tale of Dick Whittington and His Cat?

My husband just started reading From Here to Eternity and read a reference to someone being … “a sort of Dick Whittington with a bandanna tied to a stick but no cat.”

Not being familiar with the Dick Whittington reference, he Googled it and found the folk tale I linked to above.

I would dare say that Matthew Weiner is familiar with Dick Whittington and His Cat. He sounds a lot like Dick Whitman/Don Draper!

Okay, that pretty much was her email to me.

So I check out the folk tale. Orphan boy (with a bandanna tied to a stick; I love it) eventually gets rich. Works for me.

I know that Weiner also spoke about how he’d always planned for this sort of Huck Finn (or Tom Sawyer?) thing, in reference to Don’s bringing Dick’s body back on the train. (or, Dick bringing Don’s body back.) I never read either of them, but I know that the kids attend their own funeral in Tom Sawyer, and then reveal that they are alive, and in Huck Finn he fakes his own murder in order to escape from his abusive father, and that has him head down the Mississippi. My guess is that it is the Huck scenario that Weiner alludes to. Anyone who actually read it, please feel free to chime in and help me out here.

Deborah and I had a brainstorming session… we normally don’t work that way, (in fact, usually it’s more like this), but we wanted to make sure that Basket of Kisses is ready for Season Two. Like, all these thoughts about Season One that we keep meaning to capture; we know that we will continue to discuss Season One episodes, but Season Two will give new perspective, and there are certain things we want to accomplish while Season One is still pristine.

So we’d like, been discussing the show and pulling up clips for hours. And I’m in the kitchen (hers) and I wish I could remember the train of thought that led me to… Matthew Weiner wouldn’t just randomly name a character as important as Don Draper. What does it mean?

Draper. He is a draper. He drapes himself in his disguise.

And… Don?

Holy fuck. He dons his drapery.

Kind of I ran (ran!) upstairs to tell my sister ’cause it was actually important.

There will be a Part 2, but for now…

The end by rkl.