Just think, before people had e-mail to efficiently use their poor communication skills, they had to talk to each other and poorly communicate face to face.
The episode takes place around August 26-29, 1968, during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Post assassination, (anti-war) Kennedy support split between George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy giving (establishment) Hubert Humphrey the victory. Humphrey nearly stole a popular vote victory due to a strong third party bid by George Wallace. Richard Nixon still crushed Humphrey in the electoral college. Nixon was much aided by the split and chaos in the Democratic party, punctuated and underlined by the protest riots during the convention. Winning handily in 1964, the only majority popular vote the Democrats would get for the next 44 years would be Jimmy Carter in 1976 with 50.1 percent, running against a post-Watergate White House further weakened by a strong primary challenge.
SCDP-CGC having merged about three months ago, is still nameless and using the alphabet soup FDR would have been proud of as a placeholder.
Pete, who's been ahead of the agency on things like this in the past* is the only member of the old SCDP who seems to realize the CGC creep that is overtaking the agency. Not that he's without fault...
Clients, new and old, are passed around like a game of telephone and no one seems to know who to go to for what. Pete is made head of new business on the spot. An opportunity is apparently missed with Avon and old business is lost in Manischewitz. Don and Roger fail to connect with new clients, on the West Coast, and do not even broach the thought of opening a West Coast office. Roger manages to bring politics up and offend the client, when his job is the opposite. The only person who seems to be functioning like a professional is Ted. Ted brings in new business and is also the person everyone goes to for help with their problems (Cutler, Peggy, Pete). Don may have done himself in with his pronouncement of what exactly his job is going to entail a few episodes back. And if Pete wants to assert himself, he needs to become the person his colleagues seek out to solve their problems, rather than be someone who runs to a senior partners with his own.
* Targeted demographic marketing. Effective ad buys for cheap.
Don is a bit aimless here, and hallucinating people again. And not the first time he's hallucinated dead people** (Adam, Anna, his father. Also the woman in yellow though there's no evidence she was dead). Sailor Roger has to pull him out of a dead man's float in the pool*** which brings to mind the death imagery they painted in the season premiere. He doesn't have any of his patented great moments to sell the client on the greatness of SCDP-CGC. He looks as out of place as he's been since he was backstage at the Stones concert, coincidentally with Harry then as well.
** Anna, right around when she died. Adam, when he was dealing with the tooth. His father, before those kids knocked him out and robbed him. Also, though there's no evidence she was dead, the woman in yellow from last season.
*** Didn't Megan just say Don always feels better after a swim?
Harry on the other hand has some measure of competence. It reminds me of a reveal at the end of Generation Kill where a sergeant who has been hassling the Marines the entire time to simply bring them closer together, even in mutual hatred of him. A bit of a Herb Brooks*** coaching move. Harry, who dresses weirdly and is incredibly off putting and name drop-y in New York is at ease driving a convertible in Cali Cali amd we get a glimpse of why is acts so weird.
*** Link here from the above spoiler so the type is still not visible.
The backdrop of the convetion and the fracturing of the Democratic party isn't dissimilar to some of what's happening at the now Sterling Cooper & Associates. After the Dems ate their young that year the GOP ushered in a few decades of control with an intermission for Watergate. Ginsberg goes on the attack against Cutler, who in response runs to Ted about firing Ginsberg, and the whole lot of SCDP people. He rationalizes that it's acceptable because Don and Roger decided to go away for a few days. Ted again is the one trying to avoid an us versus them dynamic, but clearly SC & Assoc. is tearing itself apart from the inside. Like the Democratic party and the continuing and worsening presence of crime in the show this season.
- Something is going to happen with Bob Bensen and we're going to forget he was just some guy sitting around with coffee who Ken told to get to work
- Sylvia who?
Additional Edit: after reading this argument from Dustin Rowles, the episode feels very similar to The Sopranos' "Join the Club" and "Mayham"
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