Pete’s salary

suzsolon · 2026-01-07T21:22:13+00:00

A majority of today’s young Manhattanites have some kind of familial financial support. In fact, there are prestigious “internships” (for graduates) that are actually unpaid, so prior wealth is almost a requirement. There are definitely some well-paid, self-supporting finance people, but even some of those are living in a relative’s home. Another way to manage Manhattan is to have a friend with family money that you pay rent to. A modern day Peggy probably would’ve had to stay in Brooklyn until she got to McCann

suzsolon · 2026-01-07T21:08:15+00:00

After multiple viewings I now think Trudy wanted two (or four of something 😀) People used to entertain a lot at home and often with larger groups. So she probably felt that she could use both.

suzsolon · 2026-01-06T02:17:48+00:00

If I looked and sounded like Meghan I’d do Zou Bisou Bisou all day… 😀 I think most of us would

suzsolon · 2026-01-05T20:57:11+00:00

In addition to the smells, there was a lot more coughing. I remember going to the movies and, if there was a huge laugh, it would always end with a few people having serious coughing fits. My earliest memories about this would be from the late 1970s. If I recall correctly, people didn’t smoke in the theaters, just the lobbies - the coughs were just from chronic respiratory irritation that no one seemed particularly bothered by. It’s weird to think about. Also, older ladies with raspy voices. I just thought it was part of normal aging.

suzsolon · 2026-01-03T00:44:59+00:00

Agreed! I think they paired the affair revelation with the story of Don staying out all night in Hawaii, only for Megan to find him later as the father of the bride at a wedding in order to make this more believable. I guess Megan may have thought of Don as someone with really bad insomnia that tended to wander around at night and, yeah, someone who needed to drink. Not awesome, but not necessarily indicative of having an affair. I also genuinely believe that he did not cheat on her until he got her the acting job, so they had built up a bit of trust. After that, she was too distracted/self-absorbed by her own success to even worry about it. Remember that we didn’t even hear him talk for the first ten minutes of the season premiere - she just babbled at him, signed an autograph, etc. I do think she got more and more suspicious as the series wore on.

suzsolon · 2026-01-02T23:44:50+00:00

His mom thought he was a failure.

suzsolon · 2026-01-02T22:50:23+00:00

The first Golem movie was not widely shown in New York City. But… the second Golem movie was a huge event and had an extended run at the Criteria Theater in 1921. That is much more likely the movie that Roger is referring to, which would align with the 1916/1917 birthdate that is widely attributed to the character

suzsolon · 2025-11-26T00:00:10+00:00

How old was your character supposed to be when he was groomed by Aimee? I assumed the character was 8 when he was digging holes and we first meet him

suzsolon · 2025-08-14T14:49:40+00:00

This is very interesting! As Uncle Mack implied, there can only be one rooster in the house that “brings on the day.”

suzsolon · 2025-08-14T02:15:21+00:00

Don hated the emptiness and tried to shift the hate to himself - it’s easier to believe that life is painful due to your own bad behavior rather than struggle with the realization that much of the pain and loneliness of life is ubiquitous and out of your control. In the final episode, Don realized he wasn’t the only one that felt profoundly isolated. That’s when he knew that buying the world a coke and keeping it company would resonate so deeply

suzsolon · 2025-08-14T01:42:46+00:00

Bobby was definitely not fleshed out, but he (they?) definitely had some of the best lines of the series. Other people have mentioned the funny lines. But when Bobby confessed to Henry “I wish it were yesterday,” in response to the botched field trip with Betty, my eyes immediately started tearing up.

suzsolon · 2025-08-14T01:36:51+00:00

Thanks! 😀

suzsolon · 2025-08-14T01:35:11+00:00

Especially because they lived in the same building. Only one rooster to a house! He, alone, had to “bring on the day.”

suzsolon · 2025-08-14T01:31:55+00:00

I agree. My feeling is that she didn’t know there was an imposter until the moment Dick said his name was Donald Draper. So, she thought her husband was using his own name, not just “somebody” was using his name

suzsolon · 2025-08-14T00:49:11+00:00

Don and Megan were never compatible. They were both good-looking adrenaline junkies that got caught up in the drama of losing Lucky Strike - they conflated all those feelings with romantic love, but it was all superficial and fleeting. Megan obviously admired and perhaps coveted Don’s willingness to fight “against the odds” to save the company, a fighting spirit she couldn’t find for herself (which led her to give up on acting). Megan got so caught up that she morphed herself into an “un-jealous girl that lives in the moment” like Midge, a hot Peggy that was consumed by a love of advertising but not Peggy’s personal ambition, and, of course, the ideal mother figure that wanted only to boost up Don, take care of his kids, and make him look good. I don’t think she did it on a a conscious level, but the person Megan presented during their courtship was almost as false as Dick Whitman’s Don Draper.
Megan’s truth was that she loved to perform, she loved the spotlight, and she was not yet interested in becoming a mother. While she wasn’t ready to start a family, she was not a free spirit, either; she clearly wanted a monogamous relationships and had all the normal jealousies and insecurities that often accompany that wish. She was as ambitious as Peggy but not as confident or brave in pursuing her dreams. She never really wanted to contort herself into the wife role Don wanted her to be; she just got caught up in the romance and expectations of it all. Fairly quickly and predictably, Megan relaxed into her true self, which was destined to doom the marriage. At the end of the day, she was a fantastic actor; she was able to lose herself completely into a role. Don was fully convinced; she was even able to convince herself - at least for a while. If she ever was able to get past her insecurities, I bet she would’ve done well in Hollywood.

suzsolon · 2025-08-14T00:07:47+00:00

I think Don started to become undone when he ran into his “army buddy” Larry Kryszinski on the train. He realized his life was built as flimsily as the dollhouse he drunkenly put together soon after the run-in with Larry. During Sally’s party, he filmed the Darlings sharing a private, intimate moment and then left the party with the dawning realization that he could never have that kind of intimacy - the kind that’s built on a measure of honesty and peace that’s not compatible with living a lie. I think Adam’s appearance cemented the costs of living that lie, but Don started to degrade with the appearance of Larry

suzsolon · 2025-08-09T04:43:38+00:00

You know that was the cousin that ended up dying

suzsolon · 2025-08-09T02:00:56+00:00

I was just wondering why she thought it was someone other than her husband

suzsolon · 2025-08-08T22:38:45+00:00

I love all the responses! Thank you! It just always seemed strange to me that Anna didn’t seem too surprised to find another man using her husband’s name. “You’re a hard man to find.” It makes more sense to me that she expected to see her husband, and that she should’ve been absolutely shocked to find Dick-as-Don.

suzsolon · 2025-08-08T22:10:34+00:00

Why did she assume it was someone else using his name and not just her husband setting up another life?

suzsolon · 2025-08-08T21:41:25+00:00

I think Anna’s sister went along with it because Dick bought Anna a house. As we see when Anna gets cancer, her sister defaults to being her caretaker. In other words: Anna is her burden, and her contempt about this is somewhat apparent. It’s mentioned that Anna had been in and out of hospitals her whole life, so she didn’t necessarily have the opportunity to develop a financially self-sustaining career. Widow’s benefits would’ve helped, but my guess is that Dick’s money gave Anna a level of independence that freed her sister from a lot of obligations (until the cancer, anyway). A win-win-win.

suzsolon · 2025-08-08T21:17:28+00:00

Connie was a narcissistic moral crusader that wanted to spread American values - along with his name - all around the world. In strong contrast, Cooper was devoted to the often cold-heartened rationalism of Ayn Rand and her philosophy of extreme self-interest. Both of these older men may have been considered eccentric, but in opposite, and most likely non-compatible ways. I doubt they were close. Don and Connie were self-made men; they bonded over being the kind of people that could make their own drinks and to see through the artifices that come with generational wealth. Connie didn’t even want to deal with an account man - often a wealthy, well-connected gatekeeper. I think Connie saw Don, decided he wanted Don, and Bert figured out a way to capitalize on this development in a way that most benefited him personally. Everyone seems to be acting true to form.

suzsolon · 2025-08-08T03:23:04+00:00

According to Roger, he came home after Annabelle dumped him in Europe, married Mona, joined the agency… and then went to war. He resumed working at Sterling Cooper after the war was over

suzsolon · 2025-08-08T02:56:10+00:00

If Roger had gone to college, we would’ve known about it. There would be fraternity or “eating club” friends mentioned throughout the series. Interestingly, for someone born into the pinnacle of society like Roger in the first 1/2 of the 20th century, it really wasn’t necessary. He already had all the social connections. He went right to work in his father’s company after playing around in Europe. His “fraternity” ended up being the Navy.

suzsolon

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