Panel

Lon Harris
Jaime Fox
Jacob Burch
Jason McIntyre

Cinematography

The panel agreed this was a particularly well-shot episode. They highlighted a few key moments:

- The opening shot of animated Draper blending in to real-life Draper on the telephone
- The farcical business meeting with Miss Blankenship’s body being carted away in the background
- The closing shot of the “beautiful girls” of SDCP gathering in the elevator

That Title…”Beautiful Girls”…

What was the meaning?

Closing shot was 3 women are being pursued in different ways:

- Peggy: Abe is chasing her, in his own peculiar way
- Faye: Don is chasing her, and also maybe setting her up to be a mother to his kids now?
- Joan: Roger is back in her life now.

These 3 women are also navigating difficult choices between being WOMEN (according to the 1965 standard) and being professionals in a man’s world. They are in every way the generation after Miss Blankenship, who could be present in the skyscraper but had to answer the phones. (It’s an either-or thing: Sadist or masochist, meaningless secretary or humorless bitch.)

At the same time, Sally was pursuing her own father, again bringing up her seeming “Electra Complex”?

RIP Ida Blankenship

Cause of death: Draper

Her death bothers Sterling, as it reminds him of his own impending mortality (and the fact that he could theoretically “die at his desk,” ALONE, a potent metaphor for these characters who are workaholics defining themselves by their trade.) Her death also clearly impacted Joan, who also now seems to fear the loss of her husband and “dying alone.”

Key quote: “She was born in 1898 in a barn. She died on the 37th floor of a skyscraper. She was an astronaut.” – Bert Cooper

One of the overall best bits of farcical comedy in the show’s history. Harry’s afghan used as death shroud, Don watching it unfold from the office, Peggy’s initial reaction and then warning to Sally to “stay in here!”

Peggy and Abe

Her attitudes on women are certainly forward-thinking, but this is selfishly motivated. She can’t move ahead until women as a group move ahead. Her attitudes on race seem rather progressive, but she never really bothered to look into the backgrounds of the companies she’s working for either way, so it’s not PASSIONATE She attempts to remove herself from the political sphere entirely, odd to hear from a character on a show that’s SO political. “Mad Men” seems to be making the point that trailblazing is motivated more by self-interest than ideology.

It’s also notable that both Abe and Peggy are “backwards” by modern standards – she’s not nearly as concerned about working for racist companies as most conservatives and liberals would be today, but he scoffs at the notion of “civil rights for women” because their issues are not as visual as black men being beaten by police. Abe’s so caught up violent revolutions in the streets, he’s blind to the real revolution happening in front of him.

Faye and Don and Sally

Faye called Don out early on: he was a divorced guy looking for a new family, he’d be married in a year. She now calls him immediately on making her a surrogate mother for Sally.

The panel praised Kiernan Shipka’s performance in this episode as Sally, who’s insightful enough to KNOW that Don and Faye are together. “She knew you had peanut butter.”

Emasculation and The Mugging

With the mugging of Joan and Roger, crime is starting to encroach on the show’s vision of NYC. Indications of the city’s economic downturn in the ’60s? The “real world” intruding on the fantasia of swanky Manhattan?

The panel noted that Roger was made to look meek and small during the mugging (though all agreed that this is the proper behavior for a person who’s being mugged at gunpoint.)

As well, the Fillmore Auto Parts sequence involved images of the “American male” being feminized. They can’t just appeal to mechanics because most guys now are suburban and soft, and don’t know how to fix things.

Dialogue

The episode was peppered with great dialogue. Some highlights:

“I’m taking everything interesting with me.” – Don Draper to Faye upon leaving his apartment
“Men never know what’s going on.” – Ida Blankenship
“You’re political whether you like it or not.” – Abe
“I would have my secretary do it, but she’s dead.” – Don Draper

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