During the day, Don hangs out at home watching TV. First we
hear him listen to a political ad for Richard Nixon that attempts to scare the
public about crime and promises a future of law and order, marking the start of
a conservative era in America. Next, Don watches Megan’s soap opera, and sees
Megan play a character who accuses her man of cheating on her. The character
confronts her man with: “I’m talking to you. Don’t you dare ignore me.” After Don
changes channels and turns off the TV, Betty calls Don to discuss Sally.
Thinking Sally may have told Betty about his affair with Sylvia, Don braces for
a confrontation, but Betty says Sally’s not coming this weekend, and she wants
to attend boarding school. Relieved, Don offers to pay for it. Don
half-heartedly tells Betty to tell Sally that Megan and he will miss her. After
hanging up the phone, Don exhales with a deep sigh.
Meanwhile at SC&P, Peggy and Ted work on the Ocean Spray
account with Michael and another creative guy. Peggy and Ted giggle and flirt
as they refer to a tour they just took of the Ocean Spray plant, and they
imitate their tour guide, a man who Ted dubbed “Rose Kennedy” for his accent.
Michael objects that “Cran-Prune” sounds like a diarrhea drink, but he’s
overruled, whereas everything Peggy suggests is considered golden, much to
Michael’s frustration.
When Megan arrives home that day, she tells Don he looks
better. The phone rings, and it’s Harry from California to talk to Don. Harry
delivers the news that even though he told Sunkist SC&P couldn’t work with
them, Sunkist now wants to work with the agency at 2-1/2 times the budget
(because it’s TV rather than print). Don tells Harry the agency can’t do it,
and treats Harry dismissively. Feeling sorry for Don because he had to take a
work-related call on his day off, Megan then suggests that they get out of the
apartment. They go to a movie, Rosemary’s
Baby. At the end of the movie, which they thought was disturbing and scary,
Megan spots Ted and Peggy walking up the theater aisle and says hello. They
talk awkwardly, Ted makes excuses for why he and Peggy were there together, and
Don looks at Ted and Peggy suspiciously. Ted returns the animosity with: “So, I
see you’re feeling better” since Don was supposedly taking a sick day. Megan
invites them out for a bite to eat, but they both decline. Megan later gossips to
Don about Ted and Peggy, but Don shrugs it off and excuses himself to make a
phone call, presumably to Harry in California. After he leaves the room, Megan
sighs and says, “Okay.”
At work the next day, Don and Roger meet with Ted and Jim.
Roger announces the $8M business opportunity with Sunkist per Harry, and Jim
says, “Great Caesar’s ghost!” Ted rants that, since they’ve been working with
Ocean Spray for about six weeks, it will be like a knife in their back, and the
agency’s other customers will worry about getting the same treatment. He
laments that “giving their word” doesn’t mean anything anymore, and points out
that the agency looks bad because “the right hand doesn’t know what the left
hand is doing.” Despite all of Ted’s observations, Jim realizes the greater
business opportunity with Sunkist, and Ocean Spray is dropped. They all agree
to improve their internal communications in the future, and Don apologizes for
his “surprises.” Ted then requests that Peggy should be on the Sunkist account,
since “she has juice experience,” and Don concurs.
Later, Don walks past the glass-enclosed board room and sees
Ted, Peggy, and Joan laughing and looking at head shots. He steps up to Moira
and asks what’s going on, and she gives a cynical look. Don enters the meeting
room and sees Ted and Peggy acting like they’re in love. Ted and Peggy direct
the others to act out the ad for St. Joseph’s Aspirin that Peggy has developed,
based on Rosemary’s Baby. The ad
involves several actors surrounding the baby, behaving like members of a coven
who offer remedies for the baby’s illness. “You need to feel the conspiracy”
Peggy explains. The final line of the ad is: “You don’t need anyone’s help but
St. Joseph’s.” Don’s initial feedback is supportive, but he also brings up the
issue of the number of people that will need to be hired. Joan advises Peggy
and Ted to rush over to casting, and Don and Joan then discuss the budget
overrun. Don learns that St. Joseph’s hasn’t even seen the budget yet, and he
walks out of the room with a stern look on his face.
A little later, Don and Ted see each other as they’re both
ready to leave work, and they stop to discuss the St. Joseph’s ad. Don had sent
the budget to St. Joseph’s while Ted and Peggy were at casting, and St.
Joseph’s had called Ted to stop production because the budget was exceeded. Ted
says he didn’t tell Peggy, since he knew Peggy wanted to get a Clio award for
it and has her heart set on it. Angrily, Ted tells Don: “Now I have to turn a no into a yes,” but Don replies, “You would have had to do that anyway.”
However, Don agrees to back Ted up with the client. Ted rushes off to review
the budget. Looking over his shoulder, Don watches Ted leave the room and looks
deeply sad.
That night we see Don again sitting in front of the living
room television, now looking depressed. The TV show features a dark topic, with
a man mentioning homicide, robbery, and murder. Megan steps out of their
bedroom in her robe and says, “You can do that in bed you know.” Don either
doesn’t hear her or chooses to ignore her, and she walks out again, unnoticed
and undoubtedly frustrated. This is interesting because it’s the opposite of
her television scene, where her character yells at the man, “Don’t you dare
ignore me!”
The next day at work, Don waits for the meeting with Byron
from St. Joseph’s. Peggy enters the room and Don explains that he’s there to
give the team more fire power, and that the problem involves residuals. Byron,
Ted, Joan, and Jim enter the room and the meeting begins. Ted explains that the
budget expanded from $15,000 as a result of expanding their ad concept, but
that the cost of the ad will be offset by the sales it will bring. Byron asks
for a reason, and Ted doesn’t seem to understand what he means. Byron says he
took a lot of abuse in his company and is entitled to a reason. Don chimes in
and claims the reason is very personal. Ted and Peggy begin to fear that their
relationship is about to be exposed, and Ted starts to look pale. After
prodding Ted to tell Byron the personal reason, Don says, “You don’t want to
say anything? Fine, I’ll tell them. It was Frank Gleason’s last idea.” Ted and Peggy are visibly relieved. Ted and
Jim see this as a good story to build on, and Byron accepts the story and
offers to increase the budget to $25,000 max. Ted agrees to it, and Jim, Byron,
and Joan leave the room. Ted, Peggy, and Don remain, and tension mounts as
Peggy says, “Don, was that necessary?” Ted tells Peggy, “Leave us alone,” and
Peggy leaves the room. Ted says to Don: “What was that?” and Don replies, “That
was the best I could do.” Don then confronts Ted about being in love with
Peggy, says everybody in the office can see it, and says that Ted isn’t
“thinking with his head.” Ted is stunned as Don sternly exits the room.
Soon thereafter, Peggy walks over to Ted’s office and Moira
tells her Ted’s gone home. Peggy asks when he left, and Moira says, “Right
after I told him you needed to see him.” Peggy immediately storms into Don’s
office to confront him with, “I know what you did, I just don’t know why you
did it.” Don says he saved both of them and that he’s just looking out for the
agency.” Peggy calls him a monster and walks out of his office. Don lies down
on the sofa and curls up in a fetal position, deep in thought.
Another thread of the story begins in the woods near Detroit,
with Ken and two executives from Chevy hunting for game birds. One executive
commands Ken to shoot his rifle, and suggests he pretend that a nearby tree is
Ralph Nader. Ken says, “Whatever you want,” but doesn’t shoot. The two Chevy men
lift their rifles to aim at a bird overhead and then turn as the bird flies by.
They shoot simultaneously in the direction of Ken and Ken falls to the ground.
As it turns out, he was shot in the right eye and has to wear a patch over it.
He returns to SC&P and talks to Pete about quitting the Chevy account. He
explains to Pete that he told the Chevy guys his wife Cynthia was pregnant and
they took him out hunting to celebrate. He then confides, “Chevy’s killing me…I
hate Detroit, I hate cars, I hate guns…I’m going to be a father soon…” and he
cries. Pete tells him to pull himself together and advises him not to give up
the account because he’ll be laughed out of advertising, but Ken is set on
transitioning out of Detroit. Pete then offers to take his place and asks Ken
to back him up. Pete leaves Ken and heads to his office. He takes out his
rifle, holding it up as if to shoot when his secretary enters the room and
asks, “What are you doing?” She informs him that his gun is only good for
squirrels and that Cooper wants to see him. Pete asks her, “Would you ever
leave New York, Annie Oakley?” She smiles and straightens his tie but doesn’t
take his question seriously.
In Cooper’s office, Bert, Roger, Jim, Pete, Ken and Bob meet
to discuss Ken’s withdrawal from the Chevy account. At first some of them try
to convince Ken not to let go of it. Ken says he’s not resigning Chevy because
he’ll stay on the business in New York. Pete accepts the new role of account
man on the ground in Detroit. Then Bert and Roger say that Bob will stay on the
account to provide continuity, and Jim agrees. Pete argues for starting with a
new team, but he’s overruled. Bob graciously offers to step out of the room to
allow them to discuss the problem, but when he leaves, Jim tells Pete there’s
nothing to discuss. They all like Bob so much that they’re willing to keep Bob
and dump Pete from the account, so Pete changes his tune and thanks all of them
for trusting him with it. After Pete exits Cooper’s office he encounters Bob,
who asks: “Is there a problem?” Pete accuses him of being sick, and Bob asks,
“Why would you say that?” Pete challenges him: “Did you not profess your love
to me?” Bob replies: “Only my admiration, which is waning quickly…This is not
about my own interests; I care about Chevy…You’d better watch what you say to
people.” Then Bob shakes Pete’s hand and
says loudly enough so that others can hear him, “Congratulations…Can you
believe this guy?” Pete walks away disgruntled and closes the door to his
office.
Pete calls up Duck and asks him to find a new position for
“a young account man whom we love but Draper doesn’t like…named Bob Benson.”
Duck agrees to do so for a fee. Later, Duck calls Pete back and informs him
that Bob Benson’s personal background record “might as well have been written
in steam.” Duck says that many of Bob’s claims aren’t true, but that the Brown
Brothers Harriman folks remember him as Bobby from West Virginia, whose parents
were brother and sister or something, and that he was a manservant to a Senior
Vice President who took him on a cruise to Europe on the Queen Elizabeth. Duck
tells Pete he’s never seen anything like this before, but Pete says, “I have,” clearly
in reference to Don, alias Dick Whitman.
Meanwhile, we see Bob in his office speaking Spanish on the
phone, apparently to Manolo. Bob describes Pete as an S-O-B. Then he listens to
Manolo and says, “I don’t care how nice she is. He’s a snotty bastard and he’s
screwing with my future.”
Later, Pete’s mother, Dorothy, shows up at his office to his
surprise and asks him for her passport. She says, “I’m planning a voyage and I
spoke to Manolo.” This sets Pete off, and he forbids her to see “that Spanish
fly” or to help her with her passport. Dorothy also tells Pete that Manolo is
upset about the way he treats Bob Benson. Pete’s response is more anger plus
threats to Dorothy’s new nurse, and he storms back into his office and shuts
the door.
The next day, Pete goes to Bob’s office and politely says, “Good
morning Bob,” before launching into his next invective. Pete confronts Bob with
his knowledge of Bob’s work as a manservant, and Bob asks, “What do you want?” Pete
says he wants Bob to stop smiling. Then Bob confronts Pete with, “You don’t
respond well to gratitude.” Pete spews more venom but then says, “Where you are
and who you are is not my concern…I surrender. I want you to graciously accept
my apologies. Work with me but not too closely…and please can you find a way to
get your friend out of my mother’s life?” Bob emphasizes that Manolo doesn’t
like women. Pete walks out the door and sighs deeply after exiting Bob’s
office.
A third thread of the tale begins when Betty drives Sally to
her interview at an exclusive boarding school. Betty is excited for Sally but
Sally doesn’t say much. When Betty tries to guess why Sally wants to attend
boarding school, Sally responds: “If I say yes
will you stop asking?” Sally comes back with the conversation-ending line: “I
want to be grown up but I know how important my education is.” Then she gazes
out the passenger window and sighs.
At the interview, Betty speaks of her own dilemma as the
mother of a young woman. The lady conducting the interview seems impressed with
Betty and tells her when to pick up Sally the following day. Sally is sent to
one of the students’ bedrooms to talk with a couple of girls, Mellicent and
Andi. The two girls greet Sally nicely but then create a hazing situation, in
which Sally is told she’s not allowed to speak, and that she’s there to look
after them: “You didn’t bring a bottle. Call your mother and tell her that
you’re useless.” Sally’s response is: “I can get you anything you want.”
Ultimately, Sally calls Glen, and Glen shows up with a pal named Rollo and some
drugs and alcohol. Glen flirts with Andi and they pair off and go to Andi’s
bedroom, leaving Sally alone with Rollo. Rollo moves in on Sally but Sally
doesn’t like it and moves away from him. Eventually Sally calls Glen, and Glen
fights Rollo off, saying that Sally is like a sister to him. Rollo says to
Glen: “Are you suicidal? I’m your ride home” and he walks out. Glen soon follows,
explaining that he doesn’t want to hitch. Andi then says to Sally: “You like
trouble, don’t you?” and Sally smiles slyly but looks a bit uncomfortable.
When Betty drives Sally home the following day, Sally is
again uncommunicative. Betty confronts her with, “So you’ve got what you wanted
and now you think you can be rude.” Then Betty says she’s not going to tell
Sally what the interview lady said when they were saying goodbye. Sally shows
interest, and Betty reveals that Sally got glowing reports from all concerned:
they thought Sally was curious and bright and they hoped she would choose their
school. Sally appears happy to hear this, and Betty rewards her by allowing her
to smoke one of her cigarettes. “You want one, don’t you?” she asks Sally. “Go
ahead. I’d rather have you do it in front of me than behind my back. I’m sure
your father’s given you a beer.” Sally responds, “My father’s never given me
anything.” Hearing this, Betty frowns, takes a long cigarette drag, and looks worried.
A pervasive theme of
this episode is the interplay of
helpfulness and abusiveness. This includes bad treatment under the
guise of being helpful and truly helpful behavior that garners abuse or lack of
appreciation in return – as well as helpfulness to those who are not nice,
despite their bad attitudes.
·
Megan’s helpful attitude towards Don, in her
advice and her actions, is met with a complete lack of emotional response.
·
Ted’s helpfulness and supportiveness to Peggy by
encouraging her work results in making them both look like fools to those in
the office, thus garnering abuse from others.
·
Michael’s helpful comments about the
“Cran-Prune” name are rejected rather than appreciated.
·
Harry calls Don to tell him about a huge, $8M
commitment from Sunkist and Don at first blows him off like he’s a pest.
·
Don tries to help Ted by complimenting Peggy’s
“coven” ad idea for St. Joseph’s, but also watching out for the budget. In
doing so, Don undermines Ted and Peggy’s enthusiasm and throws a wrench in the
process, which they fail to appreciate. Ultimately, Don “helps” Ted by
embarrassing him and Peggy in the process of coming up with a reason why they
went over budget for the ad, which feels to them like abuse. Finally, Don tries
to help Ted wake up and realize how foolish he and Peggy look to the rest of
the office, and to help him start thinking more clearly again. His advice to
Ted leaves Peggy feeling totally abused. When Don tells her he saved both of
them, she calls him a monster.
·
Don and Betty both help Sally get into a
boarding school. Don helps by promising to foot the bill, and Betty helps her
by taking her there, saying all the right things, and trying to relate to Sally
through conversation. Sally fails to appreciate that her father has ever helped
her with anything, and also doesn’t appreciate her mother’s efforts to
understand her and converse with her.
·
Sally tries to “help” the girls she meets at the
boarding school by giving them whatever they ask for, despite the girls’ mean
hazing treatment.
·
The mean girls give Sally a glowing report, thus
helping her gain acceptance at the school.
·
Rollo helps Glen by giving him a ride to the
girls’ boarding school, and in return, Glen beats him up, then seeks a ride
back with him.
·
The St. Joseph’s ad is an interesting mixture of
scary coven members offering weird remedies to help the baby, and one beautiful,
radiant mother offering the pills.
·
The Chevy executives try to be supportive to
Ken, only to shoot him by accident. Then on the way to the hospital, they
consider whether they should stop for lunch.
·
When Pete hears Ken start to cry after talking
about how much he hates Chevy, Pete tries to be helpful by yelling at him “Pull
yourself together” and by telling him not to quit the account because he’ll be
laughed at. Pete was trying to be helpful, but Ken may have felt abused by this
treatment.
·
Pete helps Ken by taking over the Chevy account,
and Ken appreciates it. However, when Pete hears that Bob will stay on the
account with him, Pete brings up so many objections that Bob has to know he’s
unwanted. Nevertheless, Bob remains excessively polite towards Pete. On the
other hand, Bob may be plotting behind the scenes to get even with Pete in a
most abusive and criminal way (see comments at the end of this essay).
·
When the SC&P executives tell Pete that
they’d rather have Bob on the Chevy account than him, Pete probably feels angry
and unappreciated, but he responds to them with extra politeness, thanking them
for their trust in him.
·
Dorothy asks Pete for help finding her passport,
and is met with verbal abuse. In return she is demanding as a mother but
attempts to remain polite.
·
Pete says “Good morning Bob” very politely
before confronting him, calling him sick, and then asking him to work with him
“but not too closely.”
·
Betty is mean to Sally when she accuses her, “So
you’ve got what you wanted and now you think you can be rude.” Then Betty
joyfully tells Sally the good news about being accepted to the school.
·
Don has paid for Sally’s life, and offers to pay
for her boarding school, and in return Sally tells Betty, “My father’s never
given me anything.”
The episode’s title, The Quality of Mercy, is a quote from a
Shakespearean play, The Merchant of Venice, in which the gentleness
of mercy is contrasted to the harshness of justice, by which none of us would
achieve salvation if it were applied to us. In this episode, justice-seeking
on the national front (as articulated in Nixon’s law-and-order, anti-crime ad
on TV) creates a high level of fear throughout society that is reflected in
this episode.
·
Almost every scene ends on a sour note or a
point of deep frustration or other negative feeling for one or more of the
characters.
·
The Chevy executives advise Ken to pretend a
tree is Ralph Nader, and to shoot at it. The implication is that they feel no
mercy towards Nader, the man who caused Detroit to spend money on things like
mandatory seatbelts and other safety measures that cost them money.
·
Megan appears to apply mercy to Don when she
goes out of her way to care for him, but it looks to me more like she’s
experiencing fear that something’s wrong and frustration that she can’t fix it,
rather than mercy.
·
Pete has no real mercy for Bob, just an
awareness that he can’t get rid of Bob because everyone else likes him better.
He experiences fear for his job plus anger and hostility on a daily basis.
·
Bob shows a thick veneer of politeness to Pete,
but it’s hard to tell whether he is secretly plotting against him, especially
when he seems to threaten Pete by telling to be careful about what he says to
others.
·
When Pete yells at Josephine, she looks
frightened for her job.
·
Don sees Ted acting as foolishly just as he
himself has done in the past, and he fears for the company because of Ted’s
impaired judgment.
·
Hearing Sally say that her Dad hasn’t ever
helped her, Betty fears that something is deeply wrong that she hasn’t been
aware of before.
·
Ted constantly fears that his relationship with
Peggy will turn into something it shouldn’t or that it will be discovered, and
yet he also fears losing his marriage and family life with Nan.
·
The fearfulness of the times is also reflected
in the scary, disturbing movie hit of the time, Rosemary’s Baby.
Finally, a subtle suggestion of intrigue
appears in the Bob Benson story.
First, Duck tells Pete about the Senior Vice President whom Bob served as a
companion during a cruise to Europe. Apparently Duck wasn't able to locate this man to interview him. Second, Bob’s conversation with Manolo
suggests that Bob is asking Manolo to take Dorothy on a cruise. Could he be
planning to get even with Pete by asking Manolo to harm or kill Dorothy? Why else would Manolo apparently protest,
“But she’s a nice lady”? We also hear Bob use a threatening tone with Pete when
he says, “You’d better watch what you say to people,” suggesting that Bob himself
may intend to provide some sort of negative consequence.
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