[ SECRET POST #2099 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2099 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 085 secrets from Secret Submission Post #300.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - pretty much unreadable ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[mutantjules.livejournal.com]

except no, Megan wasn't getting ~more time~ than anyone, she was just ACTUALLY GETTING time this season. She wasn't The Entire Focus, just got shuffled into the group of characters that they focused on, but as she never used to be, people aren't used to it. Meanwhile, what were the writers gonna do, spend absolutely no screentime looking in on Don's home life? Is he no longer the star of this piece now that he's married to someone you don't like, or?

I had issues with season five (Lane Pryce goes from business as usual to ultimate despair in the space of THREE EPISODES??!!!! Especially when Pete's entire theme this season was an increasingly-deeper sense of dissatisfaction and emptiness inside arguably a part of his character since the beginning of the show, wtf.) but Megan actually joining the cast wasn't one.

[tabaqui]

This!

I really loved seeing Megan deal with Don, with her ambitions, her parents - everything. I really like her as a character. In fact, I'd be hard put to name somebody on the show i *don't* like.

[mutantjules.livejournal.com]

I didn't like her at first, but was really impressed with how they fleshed her out. That's the thing, people who don't like her are pissed that the writers bothered spending time to do it because OMG MOAR OF THE PEOPLE WE CARE ABOUT, but...why wouldn't they make her a character of her own? She's Don's wife, that makes her important to the story; but the fact that she very distinctly wants to be MORE is what made me like her. (I love Betty too, but the way Megan deals with Don is so very much better)

[tabaqui]

THIS.
I love that Megan and Betty are pretty much the exact opposite of each other. And yes - Megan deals with Don so much better than Betty did.

That scene where Betty comes into their house, and Megan is changing and Betty accidentally sees her in her bra, all young and slender and pretty, and Betty is having so *many* issues with her life and her body....

Heartbreaking, and so perfect.

[mutantjules.livejournal.com]

that WAS so sad. Omg Betty. And it wasn't just that either, Megan's with a reformed Don, too, who leaves cute little notes when he's going to the store. :(

[tabaqui]

Yes! It's like Betty is seeing a Don she didn't get to have, and while a lot of that is her fault, she feels cheated and jealous and sad and as angry as that character makes me sometimes, it's just so awful for her.

[sistermagpie]

In my head, I thought it was interesting that Lane was the one to commit suicide, but not really out of despair so much. It was more a practical thing, that he couldn't face the humiliation of being caught and this was his solution. If he hadn't gotten into that mess, or if he'd gotten the money to pay, he'd never have done it. He was really trying to save himself with the whole bonus thing, but getting caught was the same as death to him. Meanwhile Pete's actually depressed and has always seemed like he had that potential in him, but he's not the one to do it.

Totally just using this comment to talk about Mad Men rather than how much Megan sucks!

But basically yeah, she was a new character who was no in a pivotal spot. There were times where I really wanted less of her, but looking at the season I can see the storyline she was there for and why everything with her was there. It wasn't really about an obsession with Megan so much as Don trying out this new kind of relationship that was supposed to make him a different person (at least he thought so). Megan was most interesting to me after her parents showed up.

I think it's interesting people are lumping Megan and Sally together as the younger generation. Megan is the same age as Peggy. She's part of that age group. She's not really that young.

[mutantjules.livejournal.com]

.....ehhh see the thing is I really like a misdirect, but it just felt jarring - especially on this show, where everything builds in such a subtle but deliberate way. That's what most people who don't like it complain about, but it's what makes the characters feel real. Lane's little spiral just happened in so short a time that it seemed like they were trying to bust out some capital-d Drama with a character they didn't seem to know what else to do with

I truly thought all the suicide hints were pointing at Pete. (I would have actually put money on that rifle he got back in season 1 that we've never seen him use.) I guess it is more Mad Men to have him just continue to wither, losing his hair, sniping ineffectually at Roger, probably eventually lose Trudy. But anyway

exactly, a lot of the Megan we saw was through Don's eyes, as is understandable, he's in his first year of marriage. And the fact that she is so unlike Betty in that she is NOT willing to just be his picture-perfect wife and really shook him out of the patterns of behaviour he was in as Betty's husband, too. (What do you think about the ending? Think he had sex with that girl like Classic Don would have, or stuck to the new leaf he's trying to turn?) And yeah, she really got more interesting to me after we met her parents as well.

....that's true. I think it's cause Megan represents the future (well, of that time) in a more visible way than Peggy does, she wears the mini-dresses, she got Don the new Beatles record, she's got pot-smoking friends in bands, she's an ~artist, she shakes him out of his old ways. She is literally his future, if all goes well with them. It's partially cause she's so much younger THAN HIM specifically, the younger half of the relationship so it makes her seem even younger just by comparison.

[sistermagpie]

I think to me it didn't really play as a misdirect since while Pete has always had that black dog of depression following him (that gun!), he's also always had that stubborn pride about sticking around anyway. I loved that end realization that the problem was inside himself. I think the actor said it was like Pete lost a 12 round fight this season and now had to decide if he was going to be able to start living again someway. I'm a fan of the quasi-theory that end ending montage of Lady Lazarus is Significant in terms of the characters, so I'm totally pulling for him to find something...different.

But I think the Lane arc is it's own issue too, and I agree with what you're saying. Pete was obsessed with death whether or not he actually killed himself. But Lane's suicide was set up really fast, almost as if somebody had to die because of the imagery and so Lane got tapped. I think it would have played better if we'd been more privy to his issues from back when they started. We got hints about them--people have long felt like Lane was struggling with money for a while--but it was hard being suddenly thrown into the details so fast, with so few episodes to lead up to his way out.

I think MW said about Don's marriage that Don wants to see him and Megan as one person...and that person is Don. Betty had been well-taught to conform to that, but he can't do it with Megan. Not even always because Megan herself is so rebellious (though she could totally walk away from him and be by herself and be fine), I think, but because they're more different to start with. Like Don doesn't even get Megan in some ways to be able to undermine her. She really does represent a new way of thinking in ways that Peggy obviously doesn't-- she and Don are very alike and have similar drives. Peggy could understand Don's "My dream was indoor plumbing" in ways Megan can't. Megan does seem much younger than Peggy.

My feeling about the end was that Don probably didn't cheat with that girl, but that he had given up on the fantasy that was driving him all season so it was a possibility now. He'd told himself he solved his personal problems by finding the "right girl" who would be by his side and guide him to the straight and narrow. But I don't know if that means he'd just go right back to what he did before. Jane's psychiatrist has that line about how people find out the truth but then make the same mistakes anyway. So Pete having his realization about himself doesn't mean he'll transform and fix his problems. But he could have to try something different now. That's what I feel about Don, too. He could just slide back into the old pattern, or he could look for a whole new way, even if it includes some of the old mistakes.

To me a lot of GreatHusband!Don was kind of irritating (I think Megan took heat for that too) so I'd be glad to drop it, but I think people on this show are allowed to grow from experiences. So if Don starts sleeping around again it should be different. Just as his sleeping around after his divorce was different than it was during his marriage, and different than what it was like pre-marriage.

[(Anonymous)]

Oooh, no. Megan is 25. Peggy is 29. They are worlds apart in terms of how they approach social change. Please do not say they are the same age or even cohorts, because they're essentially of separate generations. Megan chooses to be a part of the younger set in how she dresses and feels entitled to pursue her dreams, whereas someone like Peggy recognizes that she has to work and fight to eke out something close to the existence she wants.

[sistermagpie]

No, Peggy is 27 and Megan is 26. Agewise they are the same generation. They're just, I agree, very different in their outlook and their lives so that Peggy seems much older or Megan seems much younger.

[(Anonymous)]

Nope. Wikipedia has her born in 1939. She was 21 at the start of the series.

[sistermagpie]

I thought she was 20--don't know where I got that. But definitely last season Peggy had her 26th birthday in The Suitcase, which took place on May 25, 1965. That was season 4. So this season by Memorial Day 1966 (start of the season) she was 27. The season ended around Easter 67, which makes her still 27, nearly 28.