“Love Among the Ruins”
I realize that this season opened circa April-May 1963, some six months before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A couple more secrets were skillfully revealed in this episode: yes, Joan is married and pregnancy could soon be in the cards for her; Mona Sterling seems to have rejuvenated; and she and her daughter Margaret (who is about to be married) are looting and pillaging Roger Sterling’s coffers like ancient Vikings. And Roger is very tired of the bear-baiting and simply wants victory over Mona – at any price.
The episodes opens around another creative meeting where “Bye Bye Birdie” is screened and Ann-Margret’s playful sex kittenish character, Kim, sings to her pseudo-Elvis idol. There could be a parallel between her and Peggy; both could be close in age and Ann-Margret represents the duality of Peggy Olsen: she is sexually aware, yet stifles it in her workday persona.
The competition between Ken and Pete appears to be heating up and it appears that Ken is far more relaxed a competitor than Pete, who feels he has to use his mother’s family lineage to impress a potential nuclear client. I think Paul Kinsey is in for a rough go because he’s already managed to tick off the people from Madison Square Garden who are trying to build support for their razing the old and venerated Penn Station to be replaced by their sports arena. His ideas appear “communist” and very opposite to theirs and their dissatisfaction is soon made known to Price, Don and Roger.
In a way I think this episode is also Old World versus New World, i.e., England versus The States. The English are having a tougher time than they thought in subduing Sterling Cooper. They aren’t eager to get the big clients and feel that Madison Square Garden isn’t worth pursuing. Don paints the overall bigger picture of gain in new clients, leading to the World’s Fair and beyond, as well as more money for Price, but it’s no sale and he’s told to turn down the account.
The family ethic is strong and well within an unlikely adherent: Don Draper. I admire him because he puts into action things that Betty only says. She “wants to be a good daughter,” and “wants to care for her Dad,” yet she and her brother are so concerned over material things and money that they don’t realize what is best for their father. It is Don who insists that he and Betty will have Gene live with them. He puts Betty’s brother in his place neatly without accusation.
Don is a realist: he knows the score and that William and Judy would love to get into that house and grab everything they can – but he serves notice that the “ruins” of their family are to be venerated. Of everyone, he is the most respectful of his father-in-law, perhaps because he has no real family of his own. His half-brother is dead; he never knew his mother; and his father was a horror.
Betty seems to be close to delivery and cranky, and Don is concerned that she is not eating enough to keep her strength. Her visit to the office is difficult for her physically, and Joan shows a bit of baby-envy as well as a sentimental side (she uses the old wives’ method of swinging her wedding ring like a pendulum over Betty’s stomach to see what gender the baby will be). Betty is insistent that she is having a girl and it’s almost as though she does not want a male child. Maybe she feels that Bobby is enough and to have another “mini-Don” will be too much for her. She now also has to consider her father in their living arrangement. She accommodates Don by going to dinner with the Prices, and is eerily quiet at their obvious condescension to anything American.
When the agency loses Campbell Soup UK, Price is annoyed – and wants to know why the whole account went to a rival (larger) agency. He does not understand the American agency’s way of handling their clients. He doesn’t care about the personal aspect of client management and that could be the Brits’ undoing.
Peggy, Peggy, Peggy. She is working on the Patio diet cola campaign and I saw the immediate comparison of her to Ann-Margret – the client wants something Birdie-ish in the campaign. I was surprised that no one else noticed that Peggy with a push-up bra and fuller hair could well be another sex kitten in their midst.
She’s bristly about Joan’s sultriness and allure to men, yet fantasizes about being sexy and playful like Ann-Margaret when at home. When she sang the “Guess I’ll always care” line from the film, I thought she was referring to Peter Campbell.
Peggy goes one step further by going to a bar alone after a difficult conversation with Don in which he tells her not to be so obvious and that the focus is on awareness. She picks up a college senior and when things get hot and heavy, remembers to ask about birth control – when he has none, she intimates that “there are other things” they can do, almost purring at him. Peggy seems to me to be almost feverishly trying to be a sexy woman who’s also an executive. She controlled their sexual encounter and it’s indicative of the new Peggy we are seeing – she wants to be in total control. I think she’s a few years ahead of her time.
Chez Draper will really be redecorated now, but there will be noticeable changes anyway. Don could not envision Betty’s father being dumped into a nursing home but I wonder if he has taken Betty’s volatility into account. She is about to have a third child, cannot really handle their children, and now will have to deal with her father, who’s not well and also showing signs of dementia. I think that Don is truly trying to build a solid family, but it’s being built on a shaky foundation. Betty’s father is not stupid – he realizes what’s happening even though he has episodes of “not knowing.”
The episode’s end at the Maypole dance at Sally’s school sees Don eyeballing a young, nubile teacher as the dance unfolds. Is his touching the grass symbolic – is he looking for “greener grass” again in another woman? He is attracted to her spontaneous youth and freshness as opposed to his picture-perfect wife. Yet he also realizes at work that he has sustained a loss: Peggy and he are not really friends. It’s all business and cold seriousness with her as they sit down to talk about Pampers diapers. He sees the writing on the wall: he and Peggy are more similar than he believed possible which might make them adversarial. All in all, a terrific and thoughtful and thought-provoking episode. It’s a bit of a caesura after last week’s opener.
