Raw Data: To Have and to Hold

Updated 28 April.

These are the unprocessed thoughts and observations for Mad Men episode 3-04 "To Have and to Hold". Written by  Erin Levy of "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword".  Directed by Michael Uppendahl of "Six Months Leave".

• Unable to place the episode on the calendar.  The only clue I remember is hearing Bobby Kennedy mentioned on the radio (so before June, but that was obvious anyways), but it was too tough to hear on a first watch.  Maybe on the second.
• Pete is always a day late and a dollar short on "being Don Draper," his life's work.  He offers his bachelor pad for Don's use, but Don's already moved out and back into the city again.  Too slow, Pete.
• Two people Don has a lot in common with: Tony Soprano and Barack Obama. 
• Likely in the penultimate season of Mad Men, Don is becoming less sympathetic.  Not unlike Tony Soprano's arc from the start of Season 6: Part I to the finale. More coming on this...including Matt Weiner's role in Tony's end of series spiral
• Barack Obama is an introvert. Not a backslapper who prefers to surround himself and draw energy from people.  While they both can turn on the showmanship when it's needed (as introverts do for people/work they love), neither are super excited to spend time with other people
• Interesting Dawn points out how messed up the SCDP is.  For us not familiar with the era, we were taking their behavior as the standard, but it is apparently outside the norm.  And midway through the fourth hour of the season is the first mention of Lane?  These are decidedly unsentimental men, but still...
• "Project K"?  What a code.  The CIA will be knocking at your door to get more unbreakable ciphers out of you, Pete.
• Going behind Heinz Beans' back is only made worse by doing it in Pete's skeezy apartment and proposing they get a hotel room.
• Let's hear it for Stan's jacket with fringe.  Really,  let's just cheer for Stan every week.  And Scarlett's boots, which Don would not let his daughter wear last season.
• The show's Nixon man, Burt Cooper, is about to be a pig in slop.
• Was Joan married before Greg?
• Harry Crane had a rare good moment to help the company.  Then he squandered it by blowing it on something petty (his secretary) instead of using it as leverage for a partnership.  Great job to go about asking in the worst way possible, interrupting a partners meeting for an issue so trivial Joan would never have brought up in the first place.  Harry managed to impress Sterling (and Cooper) for the first time since he demanded a raise.  ($200. Say yes.)  But his moment to ask for a partnership came and went when Burt Cooper threatened to tie him up and lock him down in the building for the weekend when they were raiding clients from the old Sterling Cooper.    That was his maximum leverage, until he has another offer to play against SCDP.
• A second Sopranos tie in?  The last season was heavily focused on the Iraq War, and while this will no doubt focus on Vietnam, I wonder if it will have a similar approach.  They are selling Dow and Dow is selling the war, or at least profiting from it.  I don't have it yet, but there's something there...Don is against the war though.  Let's see him march.

Despite besting him head to head at the old Sterling Cooper in Season Three, Ken has never been Pete when it comes to landing accounts meaning he doesn't put it above everything else in his life.  Conversely, Pete has never been Ken either, considering that Ken has other pursuits like his writing.

Ken never would have encouraged Joan as Pete did at the end of season five.  He even went so far as to say he doesn't want to be a partner because he sees what in involves..  He was always hesitant to reach out to his father in law, of Dow Chemical, for business.  This while Pete not only asked his father-in-law for a gimme account with Clearasil, he had no qualms parlaying it into a larger deal at the expense of his relationship with Trudy's dad.

Given Ken's reservations and Pete's overly ambitious nature when it comes to landing accounts, it's no surprise Pete pushes for going behind Heinz Beans'  back while Ken is kept in the dark, all the way until he loses the account.  "Nothing like being known for your loyalty" makes it even more cutting.  For the same reason a pious person falls harder and farther than a regular person from their indiscretions, SCDP's liaison feels so much worse than if someone else had done it.  Why is it so much worse when a trustworthy person goes back on their word once, compared to an untrustworthy person goes back on it repeatedly?

There is a great interview with Aaron Staton, the actor who plays Ken, here.